[PRCo] the WABCO PAT-Metro study

[Fred Schneider]

Thank for sharing Ms. Brashear.

I love the proposal on page 18 for a light rail station in Wilkinsburg.   I had to print it and file it because it reminded me of the past.   It's got me on a roll.

You know, the first 101 months of my life were spent in Penn Hills …. watching it turn from farms into suburbs … observing things like the Bessemer and Lake Erie's passenger train to Greenville, those monstrous 0-10-2 switchers on the Union, the Pennsy's yard full of idle smoking engines over the weekend, and the Hulton Road shuttle car in Wilkinsburg.     

I was even a bad boy once who the police brought home!    I got caught driving my pedal car on Frankstown Road in front of the township police station.      I can only vaguely recall looking down the road and then being taken home.   We don't remember much at age four or five.   But there was no way I would get hurt doing it.     It was World World II.   Remember gas rationing?    I had the only vehicle on the road.   Looking back, I am amazed that I got it 1/2 mile from home.   Today they would arrest the parents.   Then the cops just smiled.   

I remember when Wilkinsburg was vibrant.   It was where you went for Saturday night dinner in a restaurant when Mom didn't want to cook.   Yes, it had stores and restaurants.   The train station was also a great place to kill time with my father while mother was in the doctor's office in Swissvale with the baby sister.   But the last time I drove through Wilkinsburg, it had boarded up buildings and parking lots.   Wikipedia tells us they celebrated my birthday this year in Wilkinsburg by killing five people at a cookout.   OMG.   What used to be a nice working class town of maybe 32,000 right after World War II is now home to fewer than 16,000.    

But then the WABCO proposal was written, it was still healthy … still had stores and restaurants and perhaps 28,000 people.   

I also remember when East Liberty (or s'liberty) was where you went to the zoo  (never did get to see those prairie dogs), to see a movie, to shop at Sears Roebuck, to the supermarket on Highland Ave., and to church on Sunday morning.   Baum Boulevard was where you went to buy a new car after the war.   Ah yes, there was also a great model store in East Liberty back in the 1940s that introduced me to Strombecker wooden models.   If you have not figured it out, I am remembering the east end before suburban stores … when you went into Wilkinsburg or East Liberty to shop.    Monroeville was where you went to get milk from a farmer on Sunday if you ran out …. there was no Miracle Mile Shopping Center.    But  I do not remember the MU trains of 5000s or 5200s … last person alive who saw them was Chick Seibert who died last year.  Chick was also the last guy I knew who rode the PHB&NC interurban cars.    I only remember new 1000s, 1100s and 1200s and yellow cars in the rush hour and West Penn 700s passing over the Turnpike (twice that happened).   

For what it's worth, remember the story that East Liberty Presbyterian was called Richard Beatty Mellon's fire escape (or his stairway to heaven)?   Well, for a few years starting in 1935, my father was working for Gulf Oil.   His mentor, who had enough brains to later become a vice president in the company, took my dad aside one day and asked him "Who owns Gulf Oil?" and then "Who built East Liberty Presbyterian?" and finally, "Now where do you think you should be seen on Sunday mornings if you expect to get a promotion in this company?"   I think that explains why I got to know Hazel Mae Ressler as a Sunday School teacher in that church in s'liberty more than 70 years ago.   I think the minister's name was Skinner.   

But I am remember these areas when they were vibrant.   When you had no fear walking down the streets after dark.


On Mar 28, 2016, at 1:39 AM, Daria Phoebe Brashear via Pittsburgh-railways wrote:

> Well. The summary. I haven't found the full details, but I was able to
> procure this by interlibrary loan:
> 
> https://www.dariaphoebe.com/documents/scans/WABCO-Pittsburgh_s-PAT-Metro.pdf
> 
> 
> -- 
> Daria Phoebe Brashear
> AuriStor, Inc
> dariaphoebe.com
> 
> 
> 
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