[PRCo] Re: Question about 69 Squirrel Hill Route

[Herb Brannon]

The June, 1937 PRCo Trolley & Bus Guide indicates to reach Kennywood Park
customers should take Route 60 from East Liberty or Route 68, and any other
route with a "Kennywood Park" destination sign, from downtown Pgh. This
hints that several different routes were used to get people to the park.
The photo of 1600 and 1609 shows a Route 55 car sitting behind 1600 with a
55 Destination Sign and a cardboard "Kennywood" sign on the dash. Thus,
another route which ran Kennywood direct service.
Also, It would be nice to know the date of the 1600/1609 photo. The Car
Assignment List from 1/1/1952 shows both 1600 and 1609 housed at Craft
Avenue CH.







On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 16:09, Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net>wrote:

> My transcription of the route cards, Phil,  does not include any reference
> to route 69 being extended on down Murray and out to Kennywood.   But two
> cars side-by-side at Kennywood with that sign up suggests it was done on
> peak days.   It would be very logical on Sundays or those days when schools
> were having their picnics at the park.
>
> Sixty-nine was essentially the same route except from the 1918 until 1958
> except for changes in the downtown loop and the fact that it was rush hour
> only before Oct. 28, 1927.   The Diamond, Ferry, Ross, Diamond loop was
> used was used from 1937 until the end.
>
> Why was it rush hour only until 1927?   Probably because there was simply
> no demand until then.   For one thing, Squirrel Hill has long been a
> heavily Orthodox Jewish neighborhood, so that there would limited lower
> demand for through riding on route 69 than in other neighborhoods on the
> Sabbath.   Why not just let the folks transfer from route 60 to the trunk
> lines?   Second point ... Oakland, Shadyside and Squirrel Hill were low
> density neighborhoods ... homes of the rich ... mansions.   The students
> who later filled the cars were not there until the teens and later.   Frick
> Park, which is off base but it gives some idea, was part of Henry Clay
> Frick's own back yard, until 1919.   It was private land.   Carnegie Tech
> was founded in 1900 and construction was going on in 1905 in an empty field
> in Oakland; it was probably about 1909 that the first class graduated and
> it only had about 100 students.   University of Pittsburgh adopted its new
> name in 1908 and began relocating to!
>  Oakland in 1909; the monstrous Cathedral of Learning was a vision of
> chancellor John Bowman in 1920 which he wanted to build on empty land in
> Oakland ... part of the Schenley Farm.   It was finished sometime early in
> 1930s ... I have a picture of my mother standing on the unfinished roof
> slab of that building in 1930.   Several sources say Squirrel Hill began to
> mushroom because of construction of the Boulevard of the Allies which was
> completed in 1923 to Oakland.
>
> Both those pictures have that certain smell like Charlie Dengler's hand
> was on the camera.?   One of the clues is that CD never spent any money on
> panchromatic film as long as there was cheaper orthochromatic film around.
>   Verichrome was good enough even if the reds were rendered as black and
> the blue skies washed out to white.
>
> That 1600 certainly exemplifies how one-off or one-of-a-kind cars lead
> orphan lives.  It was all over the system, from barn to barn, only lasting
> ten years until the fire.  We have pictures of it working out of Craft,
> Tunnel, Homewood, Herron Hill, Highland Park.  And yet it differs very
> little from the Johnstown and Philadelphia (2100s and 2700s) and Boston
> all-electrics.   But in Pittsburgh, the accelerator, the master controller,
> the line breaker, the window sash and many other parts were different from
> other cars.  Anything goes wrong, you wait for a part.
>
>
> On Apr 30, 2012, at 3:17 PM, Edward H. Lybarger wrote:
>
> > Route 60 cars went to Kennywood at times.  Not sure about 69.
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementix.org
> > [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementix.org] On Behalf Of
> Barry,
> > Matthew R
> > Sent: Monday, April 30, 2012 2:59 PM
> > To: pittsburgh-railways at dementix.org
> > Subject: [PRCo] Question about 69 Squirrel Hill Route
> >
> > A few weeks back, there was a photo being offered on eBay of 58
> Greenfield
> > on Loretta Street between Murray and Greenfield Avenue, with a date of
> June
> > 1958.   The abandonment dates of routes 68 and 69 were in Sept. 1958.  I
> > noted in this photo, that the wiring that would've taken route 69 on its
> > loop from Greenfield Avenue back to Murray Avenue, had been removed.
> If
> > the date of the photo was accurate, I wondered if in the latter years of
> > service, route 69 cars travelled further, perhaps to Munhall Loop or to
> > Kennywood Park.
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>


-- 
Herb Brannon
In Cuyahoga Valley National Park