Trolleyology: A Ride to Washington, PA
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 ก.ค. 2024
- It's the program we've all been waiting for! The Pennsylvania Trolley Museum lies along the route of the former Pittsburgh to Washington interurban - follow along on a virtual photo ride with George Gula as we meander our way from the city through the South Hills and Canonsburg to Washington, PA. The local streetcar lines in Washington will also be covered.
This video is part of the Trolleyology series originally shared via Zoom. To help us continue these programs, please consider making a donation at pa-trolley.org/support. Thanks for watching!
Trolleyology: A Ride to Washington, PA
Presented by George Gula
00:00 Intro
04:19 Ride the Washington Interurban Line
01:56:46 Question and Answer discussion - ยานยนต์และพาหนะ
I was a member back in 1961 and helped lay quite a few lengths of rails and ties. We had our early morning coffee and doughnuts in a refurbished caboose around an old pot belly stove.
My sincere thanks to PTM, Kristen and George for this AMAZING presentation! It has been a long time coming and I can honestly say that it has pretty much completed a lifelong puzzle for me. I grew up near the Drake Loop and caught the trolley there many times to travel into PGH. Unthinkable as it is, as a kid, it wasn't uncommon for a few of us 11-yr-olds to ride into town to kick around at Point State Park and have lunch with one of our parents knowing full well that we had to be home by 3PM! Later, as an adult, it was a terrific way to get into town without having to deal with traffic or parking!
My first time stumbling onto the Interurban's history was while I attended Johnston Elementary School in Upper St. Clair (now a private school). As a 9-yr-old kid, I noticed this interesting ravine just behind the baseball field. I remember you could walk behind the batting cage and on down a short path and you were in this cut that kind of had a trail of its OWN! I remember thinking that it was 'something' before. Perhaps I spotted a couple of the abandoned power poles there? I'm not sure. But, it was an interesting. Anyway, I recall someone telling me that a trolley used to run through there. Well, if this kid's head could have exploded, it was close to doing just that. THAT's when this new world of transit archeology suddenly opened up to me. SO, myself and a friend walked the trail within the ravine as far as we could before it opened up from the brush and into someone's backyard! I was like, "How could this BE?!" Suddenly, I wanted to see more. So, over the years, I gradually ventured around and pieced the RoW together by walking through the neighborhoods and along roadways. Each time, I found another leg of the RoW in the thick brush - or - I could see a raised bed running behind a row of houses. One day, I saw the huge concrete abutments that supported the Drake Trestle! Back then, both were in clear sight as the growth around it hadn't enveloped them. So, you always saw them when traveling up or down Bethel Church Road.
THEN, while riding the Drake Trolley back from town, I was looking out the left window and I saw the rails of the 'Y' at the top of the hill. Because the motorman had to slow the trolley down quite a bit to make its tight turn down the hill to the Drake Loop, I was able to get a good look. My eyes must've grown to the size of golf balls as I saw the rails vanish into the weeds! I quickly determined that those rails were heading toward the concrete abutment on the Bethel Church side pf the Loop. My head was spinning again as this was another 'missing link'! THAT's when it became clear to me that the little Drake line that I was riding on was ONCE W-A-Y bigger than anything imaginable. I started piecing what I saw out near the school and probably started asking my parents about it all and they were like, "Yeah, there used to be a trestle there and there WAS this Trolley that used to run all the way out to WASHINGTON, PA." Ka-BOOOM!! (I think my head did explode.) Suddenly, it was something that I needed to learn more about!
As I got older, I was able to ride my bike with other kids in the neighborhood out to Boyce Middle school. We would peddle along the shoulderless gravel of Johnston Road and ride out to Boyce Road. It was during these years I was able to see the RoW cut across Johnston Rd. and shoot up across the clearing behind another development of homes and then it would run into the trees along Old Washington Rd. Aside from seeing small sections of the original RoW along stretches of Route 19 behind the car dealerships or Krebbs Plaza strip mall, all remnants of the line were no longer traceable.
Once I learned to drive, well... that opened up more surveying as I would turn into various businesses and slowly navigate behind them to find more evidence of this magical Interurban line. I remember my mom being a bit freaked out when I spotted the old Power House along Route 19 and I had to turn the car around to drive back to get pictures of it! We pulled in behind one of the businesses (it was an open lot), parked the car and we both got out to see the Power House. I then walked down toward Valleybrook Road and spotted both of the concrete abutments for that trestle. She actually enjoyed the adventure and loved my enthusiasm for it all. In our talking about it, I think she wished that she knew more about the PGH - WA Interurban line and perhaps experienced it so she could share some stories of it all with me.
With the exception of once seeing a raised RoW bed out by Canonsburg Lake Dam, I never saw any other traces of the line until I first visited the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum in Arden back in the 1990s. That visit helped me grasp a lot more of the line's amazing history. Anyway, thanks to all who provided and compiled all the information for this wonderful presentation.
** Just one sidenote that I'll add here. The two photos of the Cremona Stop in Upper St. Clair show the top of a beautiful old 3-story farmhouse. I'm happy to say that this farmhouse is still there in all its glory and living well on its large lot. You can see it in Google Earth images. The house sits on a large lot between Cramden Rd. and Berkshire Dr. Its driveway runs out to Eton Rd. and I believe the drive either paralleled the Interurban RoW - or - it now uses the RoW as the driveway. A standard Google Streets map shows its large lot surrounded by the much smaller lots for the development that went in once the property was sold off. It even shows the property panhandle going out to Eton Road for the driveway.
On the days that I rode the schoolbus to school, I vividly recall the bus making its turn off Cramden Rd, onto Eton Dr. and (back then) you could still the the remnants of the RoW on both sides of Eton Dr. I remember seeing the farmhouse then and thinking how cool it must've been to have the trolley go right by their home. Could the farm have been owned by a family named Cremona? I am just throwing this out there for thought. Anyway, Google Earth still shows the farmhouse there. Thanks again!!
It was great to see this talk on the Washington Line. It was interesting to see where the streetcar line ran in the area near South Hills Village. I watched the Charleroi talk twice since /i grew up in the Mon Valley and was but was too young to remember what the line was like. I had to ask my aunt, who is now 92. I do enjoy these talks and I look forward to seeing them. It was a shame Pittsburgh Railways never ran a spur line to South Park as they did at Arden Downs. My grandparents lived near the former Leonard Stop on the Library Line. I think it used to cost 55 cents to cone into Downtown and took about an hour to go into town from Library,
South Park was designed to be an automobile park only. Horses were kept, but most people drove to South Park even in the 1920s when it was opened.
Pittsburgh Railway were to operate a bus service to South Park starting in the 1920s, but the only newspaper I read about that service was it was not open yet (and may never have opened). Buses did run to the Fairgrounds during the County Fairs, but to my knowledge that was the only public bus service to South Park.
I'm currently a student at W&J, though I am also a local from the Wolfdale neighborhood, and I had never known that there were tracks on Beau Street. Frankly it's a disaster that so many of those lines got torn up. Going to a city like New Orleans and seeing how handy the streetcars are is eye opening, and having ridden both trollies/light rail and buses, I will forever support the former over the latter. Not just because if the novelty of them either. Time and time again, from the publications I've read, trollies are both more efficient and make for easier commutes, often with less transfer required due to the way the routes were built and serviced.
This is a great presentation. I'm a history prof in eastern PA, major RR & trolley fan, former council member of PA Historical Assn, and this type of program is the sort of thorough coverage that's so great.
Excellent! Thank you.
The portion of the interurban that became the museum surprised me. Was that the best portion of the line they could get? Couldn't Pittsburgh Railways have given them a longer stretch, preferably with a carbarn?
Hi George,
How did they transport 3756 from the Trolley museum to the opening day celebration in May, 1987?
Wonderful presentation. I've been wanting to know more about the Washington Interurban and will watch this often to absorb all the information within. The most striking thing I've learned from this was that may memory banks recalled my family riding a PCC from Beau St to Washington Co. Fair. I was not quite 3 years old at the time but being the date was Aug 1953 implies that I may have rode on the last interurban car on its way to Pittsburgh. Does any one know what the car number may have been?
What kinds of problems did privately-owned bus companies have? Other than being non-union...
Your wrong about the Coca Cola Clock background of the Smithfield Street Bridge. The clock was bought by Duquesne Brewery and hung on their building in 1961. Still there today just has an unpainted face. A South Side landmark located .21St Street old Duquesne Brewery building. Went out of business in 1972.