[PRCo] Plummer Street Car House

[Fred Schneider]

Jim, 

The W in Fred W. Schneider stands for Windy.   :<)   

You are bringing back memories …. very fond memories Jim.   The week beginning March 28 and ending around April 6th, 1953 was my spring break from 8th grade.   Monday I rode the interurban to Washington and Tuesday I rode the Charleroi line.   That was back in the days when teenagers knew what the limits were and could even go into stores unattended without being evicted.   Don't know about your neighborhood, but I know of some malls today (South Hills Village for example) that will not let kids under 18 in without a parent or guardian.   

OK, come Saturday … that would be April 4th, I had documents from Pittsburgh Railways to let my father and me into both Plummer Street and Tunnel car houses to take pictures.   My father, being a model builder and an engineer, was more interested than I was.   The shop foeman at Plummer Street was telling him all about the maintenance practices and he was enthralled.   Me, I was doubled over in pain.  

Pain you say?   Well, by four o'clock that afternoon I was in the O. R. in Bellevue Hospital (it no longer exists) having my appendix removed, and on Sunday, my father, who had come to pick us up at the end of the vacation, drove back home with an empty car.   He had to come back the next week and claim me.   

What does an 8th grader think of an appendectomy.   Hey, two weeks more vacation from school!!!!   And today they would do it with a laparoscopic procedure and you would be out of the hospital the next day.

But why would anyone have picked Plummer Street to visit?   Simple.   In the 1940s we lived in Crescent Hills, a development off Frankstown Road in Penn Township, now the municipality of Penn Hills.   That was before suburban shopping malls so one shopped either in East Liberty or Dawntawn.   And while Deere Brothers bus went in through s'Liberty, the fastest way to drive to Dawntawn was to cut down to Nadine and then go in Butler Street.   In the late 1940s, dad worked for Armstrong Cork (24th Street in the strip district), so if a problem called him in on a Saturday or Sunday, that also meant a trip in Butler Street.   So guys, I was quite familiar with the 94-95 car line on Butler Street (and the neon signs every block announcing Iron City Beer or Duquesne Pilsner) and the loop at 62nd Street and the car house that was hidden back on Plummer St.     



On Sep 3, 2014, at 1:58 PM, Holland, James B. wrote:

> The Car House is in the lower center of this photo with Butler running 
> at angle to the right.  Across the river is East Ohio Trolleys, 2-Etna 
> and 3-Millvale.  Just A Little Bit of the PRR as well!
> 
> 45th-52ndOnButler-&-Plummer_1946_050.jpg
> 
> -- 
> *Jim*
> 
> 
> 
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