[PRCo] Re: PRC 3761 Southbound at Allenport Siding, July 27, 1952

Sat Dec 10 21:21:10 EST 2011

Amazing....
Thanks Ed.  

My post suggesting the building hit Derrick's list at 2:38 PM yesterday.   That happened after I spent hours looking at every inch of the line in Bing maps.  Then I got ready to dash to Washington to put on a show for the Tractioneers.    Then your lunch jour research hit the list 48 minutes later and confirmed my on-line research that it was looking north and where the Allenport siding was.     The house you posted was 1852 Main Street and that is the northeast corner of Main and Washington.     To get everything in one place ... my original post is copied below between the lines.   

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

If ......

the car line came out through where a large brick factory or warehouse building now stands at the far north end of Allenport south of Main and Washington Streets .... and if that is where Allenport Siding was .... it is pretty difficult stretching an imaginary string 11,807 feet long on my computer monitor from where I think Elco loop was and it too was obliterated over time, then there is a brick house on the north side of Main and Washington Streets that comes close to matching the one in the photos.   Of course the motorman had to turn his sign to PITTSBURGH after he left Charleroi going south rather than wait until he got to Elco Loop but that isn't unusual.   The sun on the front of the car also suggests its going south .... usually doesn't happen to northbound cars.   And Allenport is the only Y siding with Nachods facing north other than New Switch and it doesn't fit at all.

So I think Allenport probably fits.   

Wouldn't it be nice to have a perfect scale map?    

Fred
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Now if you want a link to that Bing maps page....

http://www.bing.com/maps/explore/#5003/0.6002=q:1852+Main+St.,+Allenport+pa:nelat:40.1020864294344:nelong:-79.8347289115191:swlat:40.092040604435:swlong:-79.8541481047869:nosp:0:adj:0/5872/style=auto&lat=qpgjsm&lon=8bcp0c&alt=202.606354&z=19&h=3.63035&pid=5874

If the link fails to work, go to 

http://www.bing.com/maps/

and then type in 1852 Main St., Allenport on their search window and click on the orange circle and you will be taken to that intersection.   

The plus sign will zoom in.   Click on the globe and it will give you the option of aerial or birds-eye photos.   Birds-eye is nice because you can view it from low elevation from north, east, south or west. 

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

On the subject of Mapleview or New Switch ... I made a error in one of my posts.   I did not see the bridge in the picture of the PCC northbound taken by John Stern that we published in one of the PCC books.  I thought I did.   What I was seeing was the signal relay case.  The bridge was north of the siding.   By not being able to get to ground level in either Google or Bing maps, my brain was messed up by the curvature of the Pennsylvania Railroad in Stern's photo versus the aerial photos.   It took the picture of 3761 to make sense.

     http://lists.dementix.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/3761-1952.jpg

The  large "four-square" house from the 1920s that appears in the picture is probably the southern most of three of them that are still there today.   It reminds me very much of my grandmother's house on Pittsburgh's Norside except that her's was made of concrete blocks and stucco and these three appear to be wood.   Again, if you go to Bing Maps, put Charleroi in the curser, and go drag it to the south end of McKean Avenue, you should find these.   Since then, some more modern 1950s or 1960s homes now flank the older homes.  

I wonder how you could model those weed and the nice lawn between the rails in O or HO gauge?  Perhaps buy a bunch of paint cheap paint brushes, dye them green, press them into glue between the rails and then shave them off at the right height?????  Come back at me Dietrich.     

On Dec 9, 2011, at 3:29 PM, Edward H. Lybarger wrote:

> Content-Type: text/plain;
> 	charset="us-ascii"
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
> A couple days ago I said that I been troubled for several years that
> something obvious was being overlooked in trying to positively identify this
> photo location.  It's a nice day in suburban Pittsburgh, so I put my
> distractions aside and spent my lunch hour visiting Allenport.  En route I
> stopped at the PTM Library to recover my ledger book full of interurban
> track sketches that I had copied years ago.
> 
> 
> 
> Last evening I had assembled two basic documents on the subject:  1) Tom
> Phillips's drawing of Allenport, showing a long passing siding in the middle
> of Main Street and the track on an old highway alignment, labeled "circa
> 1940," and 2) a PRC abandonment route map that showed the alignment through
> Allenport as being solely on Main Street.  Needless to say, these were in
> conflict with one another, and neither one supported my argument for the
> location.
> 
> 
> 
> I believe that Tom's map has been circulated to the group.  The PRC map is
> unwieldy and shows nothing I didn't describe.
> 
> 
> 
> The track sketches, however were most revealing, and I immediately
> understood what was being overlooked.  It also reminded me that I had failed
> to observe Rule #1:  Test Everything.  The passing siding shown on Tom's map
> "circa 1940" had been removed in 1934.  To compound the problem, we have all
> been thinking that the siding was at the north end of town.  Once sketch
> 34-029 disabused me of that notion, I drove directly to the spot that today
> allows the same long view as the 1952 photo.  The PCC photo that Phil posted
> was helpful...it gave an indication of something other than weeds on a
> hillside at the left.  That in fact is PA 88; the road dead ahead is the
> entrance to the Wheeling-Pittsburgh steel mill, from whence I took today's
> pictures.
> 
> 
> 
> The following attachments clearly identify the location:
> 
> 
> 
> "Track Sketch 25-084" shows the siding in the center of Main Street.
> 
> 
> 
> "Track Sketch 34-029" shows the revision made in 1934, with the siding
> clearly at the SOUTH end of town.
> 
> 
> 
> Photo "South Main Street, Allenport" shows the same view, including a brick
> house with a double window at the roof peak
> 
> 
> 
> Photo "1852 Main Street, Allenport" shows that house and that window.  It's
> at the southeast corner of Main and Washington Streets.
> 
> 
> 
> Case closed.
> 
> 
> 
> Ed
> 
> 
> 
> P.S.  Tom's map shows the car line on the old highway alignment; PRC's map
> doesn't.  Tom was right about this...the grade is still very evident.
> 
> 
> 
> P.P.S.  The fifth attachment is the view north at Mapleview, clearly
> demonstrating why it couldn't be the location.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- Attached file removed by Ecartis and put at URL below --
> -- Type: image/jpeg
> -- Size: 295k (302390 bytes)
> -- URL : http://lists.dementix.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/Track%20Sketch%2025-084.jpg
> 
> 
> -- Attached file removed by Ecartis and put at URL below --
> -- Type: image/jpeg
> -- Size: 421k (431844 bytes)
> -- URL : http://lists.dementix.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/Track%20Sketch%2034-029.jpg
> 
> 
> -- Attached file removed by Ecartis and put at URL below --
> -- Type: image/jpeg
> -- Size: 471k (483069 bytes)
> -- URL : http://lists.dementix.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/S%20Main%20St%20Allenport%2012-9-11.jpg
> 
> 
> -- Attached file removed by Ecartis and put at URL below --
> -- Type: image/jpeg
> -- Size: 386k (395983 bytes)
> -- URL : http://lists.dementix.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/1852%20Main%20St%20Allenport%2012-9-11.jpg
> 
> 
> -- Attached file removed by Ecartis and put at URL below --
> -- Type: image/jpeg
> -- Size: 498k (510063 bytes)
> -- URL : http://lists.dementix.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/View%20N%20Mapleview%2012-9-11.jpg
> 
> 
> 