[PRCo] South Fork - Portage Railway

[Stephen Titchenal]

Interesting thread that I just started reading.  I checked the PRR valuation
maps from June 1918 and found one location showing the Penn Central Railway.
It shows the electric line following the old portage railway right of way
east of Summerhill rather than crossing the Conemaugh and go up the hill.
The section on the map corresponds to attachment 3 tracing the line on the
penn pilot aerials.  Whether the highway department kept the line from being
used is not clear.

The line heading east out of South Fork along Maple Street seems to go up a
rather steep grade if it followed the right of way traced on the penn pilot
aerial.  Perhaps it cut over to railroad street (RT 53) at some point? Or
could it have used A Ct. to come into South Fork?

Where is the reference to the stationing referred to? 72+85 and 79+15?
7285' and 7915'  so the starting station was about 1.4 miles away - which is
about the distance from the center of South Fork especially when taking the
more circuitous routes.

Next time I get back to the PRRT&HS Archive I will see what else I can find.


Stephen Titchenal
Stephen at Titchenal.com
railsandtrails.com



-----Original Message-----
From: Pittsburgh-railways
[mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounces at mailman.dementix.org] On Behalf Of Daria
Phoebe Brashear via Pittsburgh-railways
Sent: Friday, November 24, 2017 11:28 AM
To: Western PA Trolley discussion <pittsburgh-railways at mailman.dementix.org>
Subject: Re: [PRCo] South Fork - Portage Railway

On Fri, Nov 24, 2017 at 11:12 AM, Daria Phoebe Brashear <shadow at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> We know the route crossed the "curving road up to the cemetery, but 
> whether that is the pink line up on the hill in image 2, or the red 
> line closer to the road, I can't say. LIDAR doesn't help: route 219 
> reshaped the area. (The red line is supposed to continue west since we 
> have no idea if the line stayed along the road once it came down from 
> Maple St.
>

ok, on rereading, I gather
"He was willing that
we build the line through the St.James
cemetery. as the tracks are beside the
township road, on a strip separated
from the cemetery proper by a fence."

means what became route 53, because
"The body
was placed close to the winding road-
way that leads from the township
highway up through the cemetery."

combined with the mapping, shows that road leading up from route 53.

So the blue or red alignments on image 2, not the pink alignment.


> Interesting questions are where the two crossings of route 276 
> (predecessor of 53) in Summerhill and Croyle would have been. I 
> suppose I should figure out how to decode stations so I can guess the 
> distance between those crossings!
>
>
100 feet apart by station, 72+85 and 79+15, so the crossings were 630 feet
apart, one in Summerhill.
No obvious point for that stationing to begin tho.


--
Daria Phoebe Brashear
AuriStor, Inc
dariaphoebe.com



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