[PRCo] Re: Pittsburgh Railways Interurban

[Schneider Fred]

For what it's worth ... my mother's brother, now deceased along with  
his wife and my parents,  grew up on Pittsburgh's north side.   When  
he returned from the Coast Guard in 1945 with a newly acquired wife,  
my grandparents renovated their home on Delaware Avenue off  
Perrysville Avenue creating a second floor apartment.   Remember,  
after the war there were a lot of servicemen coming home and needing  
places to live and a lot of kids born ... the baby boom generation.    
There were a lot of people who even lived in old streetcar bodies.    
I remember four of them lined up next to the Ohio River Bridge in  
Marietta Ohio as temporary housing from 1947 until 1960ish.

Well, my aunt and uncle lived on the Norside (north side?) from 1945  
until the 1950.   They moved out the day of the Thanksgiving weekend  
snow in 1950 ... the moving van never made it back to Pittsburgh from  
Cheswick (between Aspinwall and New Kensington) the same day.

Now the rest of the tale ... since the story started with the other  
Boggs and Buhl venture, the trolley line to Evans City, Butler and  
New Castle.   Let me explain that in 1958 my uncle took his two kids  
(then about 7 and 11 ... the youngest died of cancer a couple of  
years ago) to Boggs and Buhl for back to school clothes and other  
supplies.   The store was having a clearance sale.   A final  
clearance sale.   A going out of business sale.   Freddy told me he  
put it on his Boggs and Buhl charge card.   The bill never came.   By  
the time he realized it never came, there was no one answering the  
phones to ask where is my bill?

http://buhlplanetarium2.tripod.com/bio/boggsbuhl.htm

The article in the link above claims that most of shoppers at the new  
North Hills shopping center off McKnight Road had been former Boggs  
and Buhl customers.   Well, in 1959 Freddy directed my dad how to get  
there.   He was one of those former customers whose loyalty was now  
in the burbs.

By the way ... if any one cares, I'm working at PTM next weekend.

On Oct 11, 2009, at 5:24 PM, Phillip Clark Campbell wrote:

> From: "Barry, Matthew R" <mrb190 at pitt.edu>
>
> This is interesting that Wikipedia lists a diagram for the  
> Pittsburgh Railways interurban routes:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Pittsburgh_Railways_Interurban
> ________________________________
> ________________________________
>
> From: Phillip Clark Campbell <pcc_sr at yahoo.com>
>
> Mr.Barry;
>
> The Butler interurban is similarly shown with a map:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 
> Pittsburgh,_Harmony,_Butler_and_New_Castle_Railway
> ________________________________
> ________________________________
>
> Mr.Barry;
>
> Thank you for sharing this map;  I look forward to your posts.
>
> While not a map in the true sense of the word, the enclosed
> does show many - most - all station stops on the Butler
> Interurbans.  I am sure most here have heard the following
> haven't they:  "Believe only 50% of what is read;  nothing of
> what is heard."  We are aware of these problems in an
> imperfect world without preachers for the same aren't we.
> Maybe that percentage needs downward adjustment in
> light of the internet.  (My apologies;  I don't know the source
> of this map - somewhere from the internet.)
>
>
> Phil
> Without a 'coast' but not a 'cause.'
>
>
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> -- URL : http://lists.dementia.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/ 
> Butler.jpg
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