[PRCo] Fwd: Greensburg

[Schneider Fred]

West Penn tracks uncovered in Greesburg.   I pasted in both the URL  
and a copy of the text.
Begin forwarded message:

>
> http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/westmoreland/ 
> s_628090.html

Greensburg water line project uncovers streetcar tracks, brick streets




Mary Weyant just had to look.

When she saw a section of West Otterman Street being dug up for a new  
water line, Weyant had to peer in the excavation and see what  
Greensburg looked like more than a century ago.

She said she saw layers of different types of road surfaces, as  
workers for the Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County cut open a  
section of the street to replace a 100-year-old line near the county  
courthouse.

And there were the wooden ties that once anchored steel rails that  
formed a transportation network connecting Greensburg with other  
towns in western Pennsylvania.

"You could see some of the wood. ... It was rotted. It was about like  
mulch," Weyant, a Penn Borough resident formerly from Greensburg,  
said of the ties.

Weyant, a history buff, also spied the streetcar rails.

For about a five-decade period, starting in the 1890s, streetcars  
were a common form of transportation through Greensburg and western  
Pennsylvania, said Lou DeRose, chairman of the county historical  
society and a local historian.

The trips by rail from Greensburg included southbound to Uniontown  
and westward to Pittsburgh.

"It was an extensive way of travel," DeRose said.

Streetcars began being used in Greensburg about 1890, with  
approximately four companies competing for customers, DeRose  
explained. Eventually, before 1900, West Penn Railway Co., the  
predecessor of West Penn Power and later Allegheny Power, took  
control of the lines, he said.

"I'd say its heyday was about 1898 to World War II. And then, after  
that, it couldn't compete anymore," said DeRose, a lawyer. "The boom  
after World War II made it so everybody had a car, and the bus had  
more mobility."

West Penn officials supplied electricity to run their streetcars,  
then discovered there were more uses and profit in supplying  
electricity to others, he said.

The last run of the streetcars in Greensburg was on Aug. 9, 1952,  
with the cars traveling from Greensburg to Uniontown and back.

Mark Shaffer, who oversees maintenance of authority water lines, said  
about 1,000 feet of line is being installed under West Otterman near  
the courthouse.

Installation of the new line is expected to be finished by next week,  
Shaffer said, with other work, such as paving, to follow.

Part of a track tie was removed for historical preservation,  
authority officials said. The rail lines could not be easily removed  
and are under about 18 inches of concrete and asphalt, they said.

Unknown utility connections were discovered during the work,  
sometimes prompting calls for emergency responders after they were  
found by surprise. Shaffer said few records date to when those  
utilities were installed.

"Back then, they probably didn't keep any maps," Shaffer said. "It  
was probably in somebody's head that has long since passed away."

The authority is planning other projects in Greensburg. Starting in  
late summer or early fall, officials expect to install about 1,000  
feet of water line on West Pittsburgh Street near the courthouse.  
Another 1,300 feet of line is planned for Seminary Avenue, beginning  
in the summer, Shaffer said.

Weyant said the road layers she saw included, in order from the  
bottom up: brick, concrete and then asphalt. Many of the side streets  
in Greensburg were brick until the last few decades.

"The bricks were in good condition," Weyant said. "They were fine."

DeRose said it was once common to just pave over what was there for a  
new road.

"They just threw asphalt over the rails," he said.