[PRCo] Re: Incline abandonment dates

[Fred Schneider]

Here is what I wrote and he comes up correctly when I opened the file:
Pittsburgh Press, July 17, 1951, page 3

 

MT OLIVER INCLINE CHUGS ITS LAST

 

City’s First Cable Car Victim of ‘Shorts’

 

     The Mount Oliver incline, which had managed for 79 years to avoid traffic jams, succumbed last night to a severe case of the shorts.

 

     Just after 7 p.m., the up-bound car chugged sturdily from Freyburg St. to Warrington Ave. on its final run.   Midway it met its sister vehicle whose final performance had turned into a downhill pull. 

 

First Cable Car

 

     Even as the two passed on the steep grade, their owner, the Pittsburgh Railways System, was seeking bids to scrap and haul away the historic railway.

 

    The Mt. Oliver Incline, then steam-powered, made its first trip in 1972, linking the south Hills and Downtown Pittsburgh.  It was the city’s first cable driven incline car.

 

     Since then it has been bypassed by many other transportation facilities such as the Liberty Tubes and the McArdle Roadway which, unlike the old incline, sometimes jam up with traffic.

 

Passengers Dwindled

 

     But traffic on the incline dwindled to where it was averaging two passengers a run.   It fell victim to what the occupational disease of horse bettors and indigent public conveyances – the “shorts.” 

 

    The few employes of the incline are being absorbed elsewhere in the trolley system.  

 

    

 

 




On Mar 21, 2012, at 3:27 PM, Edward H. Lybarger wrote:

> Some gremlins crept into this translation...July 17?...1972?... but it does
> verify the date if one looks in the right place...!
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementix.org
> [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementix.org] On Behalf Of Fred
> Schneider
> Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 2:20 PM
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementix.org
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Incline abandonment dates
> 
> Date for Mount Oliver Incline is correct.   Here is word copy of Pittsburgh
> Press story the following day.   
> 
> 
> -- Attached file removed by Ecartis and put at URL below --
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> http://lists.dementix.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/Mt.%20Oliver%20Incline%2
> 0Closes.doc
> 
> 
> -- Attached file removed by Ecartis and put at URL below --
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> -- URL : http://lists.dementix.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/ecartTZqUNj
> 
> 
> 
>