Just wondering if any other railroads used PRR tracks around Pittsburgh and east toward Altoona. I am researching/planning something for this region circa late 30’s to early 50’s, and it would be interesting to display equipment from other roads in addition to PRR. I know I can freelance anything, but it would be nice to be reasonably accurate. Thanks
Utley,
I don’t know for sure if they shared trackage rights with the PRR but the NYC went through Pittsburgh on its way from Cleveland. The NYC also had a subsidiary line - the PL&E - that extended from Pittsburgh to Youngstown(?).
I would guess the B&O, C&O, and Erie might have had some presence in and around Pittsburgh. Are you going to try and model Horseshoe Curve?
Tom
If you want the definitive answer sign up for the PRR-fax group on Yahoo and ask your question. I suspect the answer is no but they would know for certain.
Are you asking about main line and branch line track or something like industrial leads or transfer lines?
Some steel mills used several rail roads for shipping and receiving. As for track rights I do not think so. But transfer runs from one rail road to another and sharing private industrial lines and also union terminals yes.
Sometimes a rail line would be damaged or taken out for maintenance and the rail lines would borrow or use under agreement another way to get to customers. I don’t think this could be called track rights but it did happen.
I am not sure about other rail lines in the area but the PRR leased and borrowed locomotives from other rail roads. The Reading and Santa Fe are just 2. There was also the N&W and the C&O. Also locomotives were brought from around the country to be tested on Altoonas test plant.
Pete
The closest I know that could be considered sharing is that the PRR shared the stock yards in Pittsburgh with the B&O?, but entered and exited it on their own lines. Driving on old RT 28 one could look down and see a wide and long yard. From the Allegheny River North was a railyard, PRR, and secondary mainline of the PRR, Conemough Div. That was double track and headed East to where it connected to the mainline. The next, I belive double tracks, beling to the C&O that went up to Butler and maybe beyond. I have no knowledge of railroads sharing track.
The Conemaugh went up the north shore of the Allegheny and the B&O came across the 33rd Street Bridge specifically to the stock yards. Then the B&O paralleled the Conemaugh tracks to Etna, where they pealed off north to Butler and points beyond. My own layout is concerned with the south end of the 33rd Street Bridge and the area around what is now CP Bloom.
I’ve never seen anywhere in Pittsburgh that anyone shared trackage, and what strikes it home to me is that Pittsburgh didn’t have a union station. B&O had a large station on Grant Street and NYC/P&LE had their enormous facility on the south shore of the Mon.
The C&O in Pittsburg?
The station for the PRR was clasified as a Union Station. There were four railroads that went there all belonged to the PRR. I would name them but the book is from the PRR H & T Society names them.
You are probably right about the B&O serving the stock yards but I do know they shared the stock yards with the PRR. As for the line going North through Etna, it was the one with the pussy cat icon.
The P&LE had a grand station on the south shore of the Mongehala (sp?) River which I think is a night spot today. I believe that the P&LE was owned by NYC and they may have shared track.
Interesting note. When the railroads decided time zones, Eastern and Central time zones met at the towers in Pgh. One could leave the station at EST, cross the street and be in CST.
The Wabash also came to Pgh. and had a station.
C&O had the cat logo, but it was the B&O that served Pittsburgh. From the big yard in Glenwood, the B&O headed west. Southwest of Schenley Park, it split in two. One headed west along the Mon downtown to the B&O station on Grant St. The other headed north through Oakland, the Schenley Tunnel, across 33rd Street Bridge and Herr’s Island (the stock yards), then north to Etna, Glenshaw, and on to Butler. It was the old Pittsburgh and Western, which was leased and eventually merged into the B&O. It stayed with the B&O/Chessie/CSX until just a few years ago when the Buffalo and Pittsburgh took it over, and now large sections of that line are in Allegheny Valley hands.
However, the C&O/Chessie cat logo would have graced those B&O tracks for the better part of the last 40 years. When I was very young, I remember seeing Conrail, Chessie, and Bessemer power all at once at the three way junction in Butler, my home town.