Nostalgia & History > A Few More Pittsburgh Railways Interurban Photos

Photo #1: PCC Interurban 1618 is pulling into the Interurban Station (See sign Upper Left) which is a wye. PCC Interurban 1711 has just completed wyeing and is heading north toward Pittsburgh. Car 1711 was the last 'revenue' car to leave Washington to Pittsburgh and is now operating over its old tracks at County Home Siding as part of the museum. Also visible in the distance ahead of 1711, is a city car in local Washington service.

Photo #2: 1949: Brand New PCC Interurban 1713 IB from Roscoe // Charleroi at Monessen Jct where a long gone separate system shared tracks with PRCo for a distance.

Photo #3: Also 1949: End of the Charleroi line at Roscoe, the operator is performing house keeping duties; the box is to collect debris swept from the interior.

(Photos and text from James B. Holland collection.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/10/10 08:22 by norm1153.

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Photo #4: From 1952: On the streets in Monongahela, PA; 'small town' with big city service.

Photo #5: Also 1952: The first photo on the streets of Washington where the Interurban shared trackage with the Jefferson//Maiden local line, reportedly the smallest U.S.A. city to have TrolleyCar service at this time.


Photo #6: The Finleyville Trestle, 1952.

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Photo #7: PCC Interurban 1616 is facing southbound toward Charleroi at Riverview. He has just started backing onto the loop // wye as the pole is already past the sprung overhead frog. The photographer is on a northbound car (trolley rope at an angle across the right of the photo) as it pulls from the loop // siding onto the main just cleared by 1616. Also 1952.

Photo #8 PCC 1613. In very late December-1945 car 1613 was taken from Craft Ave Car House, had some extra weight added to her trucks, had a pilot installed in place of the removed lifeguard, an old style retriever, air horn and other items were installed and in mid-January 1945 made the initial trip to Washington on the Interurban. Car 1614 was so converted in May of 1946; both cars eventually received the experimental B3 trucks tested under various 1200s. They went thru a variety of modifications until configured almost as the production models to follow. Note the spare trolley pole mounted on the trolley cowl; all PCC Interurbans had this.

After the cutback in 1953 both 1613 and 1614 lost their experimental B3 trucks as they had unique parts. Motormen didn't like 1613 because she rode very hard. Ten sets of air-operated B3s, only air-B3s built, were order to convert 1615--1619 and 1645--1648 between 1946 and 1948. All-Electric 1700--1724 were ordered as interurbans with most of this equipment already installed.

Photo #9: 1614, mentioned above in 1953.

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Nice photos. It would be interesting to see what that neighborhood looked like now.

JDE

Orazk Mountain Railcar. Has PCC #1772 for sale.

Jerry Martin
Los Angeles, CA
Central Coast Railroad Festival

GP25 Wrote:
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> Orazk Mountain Railcar. Has PCC #1772 for sale.


Found the website. Wish I had a picture, alas. I've passed on the info. Thanks.

norm1153 Wrote:
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> GP25 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
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> > Orazk Mountain Railcar. Has PCC #1772 for sale.
>
>
> Found the website. Wish I had a picture, alas.
> I've passed on the info. Thanks.

From the pictures I have seen. That PCC sure looks good

Jerry Martin
Los Angeles, CA
Central Coast Railroad Festival

A couple of questions, if you please:

Having grown up in the Boston, MA area, I've ridden many an MBTA PCC trolley. Most had couplers that allowed them to be MU'ed in two and often, three car sets. Did the Pittsburgh area cars have this same capability?

What was the track gauge of the Pittsburgh area systems? It looks to be greater than 4ft, 8 1/2 in. I think that I've read somewhere, that most PA trolley systems used a "broad" gauge. Correct?

Bob Callahan
Monticello, IN

Yes, Pittsburgh is broad gauge even now. The PCC's didn't have MU capability. Cleveland (both CTS and Shaker Heights), Los Angeles (PE), St. Louis (IT) among others, did have MU-equipped PCC's.

Norm,

"Photo #5: Also 1952: The first photo on the streets of Washington where the Interurban shared trackage with the Jefferson//Maiden local line, reportedly the smallest U.S.A. city to have TrolleyCar service at this time."

The wife and I are both from Washington (I moved away, to Canton OH, in 1961, but she stayed until 1974.). Anyway, we're both pretty sure that photo was taken at the intersection of Jefferson Ave. and Hallam Ave., looking west down Jefferson, with Washington Junior/Senior High School just out of sight on the immediate right. Thanks a million for posting this, we really appreciate it!

John Tilton

Add to MU PCC's: Toronto. I visited there in July 1977, just a few months after they discontinued MU running. Boston considered modifying the Dallas cars for MU but never did. San Francisco's double ended PCC's (a.k.a. "Torpedoes") were reportedly designed to accommodate MU hardware, but were never modified for MU.
Question about Pittsburgh: I visited both Pittsburgh and Philadelphia in 1971, and as I recall, one (or both?) of those systems was still using trolley wheels instead of carbon-insert shoes. Was Pittsburgh still using wheels by then?

DNRY122: I asked my friend Jim your query, and here's his answer:

"Pittsburgh used wheels on TrolleyPoles until the same were replaced by pantographs. Pittsburgh was the last system using wheels in revenue service and the only system to use nothing but wheels.

Philly converted from wheel to shoe some time in the 1970s or later. It may have coincided with purchase (lease?) of PCCs from Toronto after the car house fire. The ex-TTC cars had shoes and were operated this way; then the conversion from wheel to shoe."


Norm

Thanks for the reply. One of the tasks I sometimes take care of at Orange Empire is shoe replacement on cars that are so equipped (we have a mix of wheels and shoes). I recall being surprised at seeing wheels still in regular service in Pittsburgh and Philly.

John,

Thanks for providing the location for the photo.

I am not 100% sure that is the correct spot.

If I understand your location correctly there would be a house beside the gas station and all the houses would be up on an embankment.

Also the truck looks to be on more of a flat surface.

Hallam Ave is a steep hill coming down from the school.

I am guessing this was taken on Jefferson in Tylerdale looking towards the Brownson House where Maple Ave intersects with Jefferson.

If this is the case then Clark School would be out of sight and off to the far right of the photo.

Thoughts?

Also, I posted a then and now photo of the Canonsburg sub station and some photos of the remaining power house ruins in Tylerdale.

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,2290270


Please post more! Especially the Jefferson Ave corridor it you have any more!

Thanks,

Rich,

You said: "If I understand your location correctly there would be a house beside the gas station and all the houses would be up on an embankment.

Also the truck looks to be on more of a flat surface.

Hallam Ave is a steep hill coming down from the school.

I am guessing this was taken on Jefferson in Tylerdale looking towards the Brownson House where Maple Ave intersects with Jefferson.

If this is the case then Clark School would be out of sight and off to the far right of the photo."

After I made my original post, I had the thought that I should have said something to the effect that if anyone had a better idea of this location, please feel free to say so. After all, I haven't lived in Washington for nearly fifty years now! Anyway, thanks for doing so (and I'm pretty sure you're right...).

John