[PRCo] Re: Stuff That's Gone- West Penn Railways

[Howard Andrews]

Hell is right here in Michigan.  No, I don't mean Detroit - there is a city
named Hell just to the west of Detroit.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell,_Michigan)

I think many of us from the 'burgh had interesting summer jobs.  

I was a hooker at the Homestead works for a summer.  That's the guy on the
floor who places the crane hooks to lift and move a load of steel - what do
you guy thing?  

My toughest job was laboring in a Gray Iron Foundry in Lawrenceville.  One
of the elevators for reclaiming the mold sand needed repair.  My job was to
stand in the elevator pit and shovel the sand that fell off back onto the
elevator belt.  Guess that was cheaper than doing the repairs....  and by
the end of the summer I had a great set of biceps!  


-----Original Message-----
From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
[mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org] On Behalf Of John
Swindler
Sent: Saturday, October 30, 2010 11:05 AM
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
Subject: [PRCo] Re: Stuff That's Gone- West Penn Railways


Very interesting Dennis

My father once commented that flying over the Allegheny Mtns. towards
Pittsburgh at night - my guess would be 1945 -  was like descending into
Hades. 

As for college - I was more fortunate - didn't spend two summers in 'hell'.
Instead spent summer of 1968 and 1969 as a full time temporary CTA bus
driver, and achieved similar results.  Suspect many are glad they went to
college then, instead of now.

Isn't Hell north of Georgetown in the Cayman Islands???

Cheers
John


> From: trombone at windstream.net
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Stuff That's Gone- West Penn Railways
> Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2010 09:24:49 -0400
> 
> Great stuff.  If you go the coke oven section and then select Shoaf, 
> you will see a short film featuring coke production.  This is very 
> similar (our coke pulling process was different) to where I worked at 
> Carpentertown Coal & Coke (Sharon Steel) facility on Scrubgrass Creek 
> in Armstrong County during the summers of 1973 & 74.  Yes, there were 
> still beehive ovens in production and my college friends who saw it 
> from the top of the hill at night referred to me working in "hell."  
> They could not believe such a place existed.
> 
> I made $6,000.00 in 2 summers.  My undergraduate degree cost me about 
> $10,000.00.  Other jobs provided the rest of the money and I graduated 
> debt free, a life style I still attempt to maintain.  (No wonder my 
> credit score is only 15 points from perfect.)
> 
>           Dennis F. Cramer
> http://home.windstream.net/dfc1
> 
> 
> 
>