| West Penn Railways | |
|---|---|
| Locale | Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia |
| Dates of operation | 1904–1952 |
| Predecessor | Brownsville Street Railway Co., Greensburg and Southern Electric Street Railway Co, Latrobe Street Railway Co., and others |
| Successor | None (Exception: Co-operative Transit Company was the successor of Wheeling area lines.) |
| Track gauge | 5 ft 2 1⁄2 in (1,588 mm) (Exception: Kittanning area lines were 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm).) |
| Length | 339 miles (546 km) |
| Headquarters | Connellsville, Pennsylvania |
West Penn Railways, one part of the West Penn System, was an interurban electric railway headquartered in Connellsville, Pennsylvania. It was part of the region's power generation utility.
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West Penn Railways consisted of 339 miles (546 km) of railway at its peak. Some of its predecessor companies had operated as early as 1889 in the Greensburg area and 1863 in the Wheeling area. West Penn Railways Company, as a distinct corporate entity, was chartered on February 18, 1904. It operated until August 9, 1952, when its last car ran from Uniontown to Greensburg. Because much of its business was to take residents of outlying areas into the nearby towns for shopping and entertainment, its business declined with the construction of better roads and increased car ownership and use. There was evening business after the mines let out with residents going to town to attend movies. An unsubstantiated story holds that once television reached this part of Pennsylvania that West Penn's management, facing increasing loss of riders, decided to abandon railway operations. At one point, the well maintained big orange cars carried signs reading, "To keep the 5c fare we need more riders".
Like most interurbans, West Penn's traction equipment was powered by overhead electric lines. The cars themselves were larger and heavier than typical city streetcars, and were painted bright orange. West Penn's broad gauge single track was laid in streets in towns, but out in the countryside the track often ran on a right-of-way separate from roads. At some points, the West Penn's single track would reenter a road in order to use a road bridge and run not in the center but on one side, and motorists had the unusual problem of having to face a trolley approaching them head on in their lane. In the country there were passing sidings at various points and a crude but effective block signal system. West Penn had some very substantial bridges crossing ravines and valleys. Also, as was typical for interurbans, stops were more frequent than for a conventional railroad, curves were tighter, and gradients (slopes) were steeper. Although interurbans such as West Penn Railways were a short-lived phenomenon, they played a key role in rural passenger transportation in the pre-automobile poor road era.
The depot building in Greensburg (constructed in 1927) still stands at 416 South Main Street and is now used as the Greensburg City Hall. The freight station in Greensburg, slightly to the west of City Hall, is being used as the Greensburg Volunteer Fire Department Museum. In Connellsville, the former West Penn depot is a three story structure now used as a bank at 125 South Arch Street. In Uniontown, the former depot (11 East Penn Street), built in 1932, is used as a business school.
The bulk of West Penn Railways' trackage formed a network in Allegheny, Westmoreland, and Fayette counties of Pennsylvania, comprising 158 miles (254 km) in 1917, with headquarters in Connellsville. The main line ran from Greensburg, through Hecla (now known as Southwest), Mount Pleasant, Scottdale, Connellsville, and Uniontown, a distance of 31 miles (50 km). This trip took 2 hours 25 minutes, with service provided every half hour.[1] The speed averaged approximately 13 miles per hour (21 km/h), including stops. The ridership was almost entirely local in nature; most passengers rode only a few miles (mainly from their homes to the nearest town for shopping, or to go to work). Service ended on August 9, 1952.
The phrase "Coke Region" is based on the area's fame for producing coke (fuel) from coal. The coke industry suffered a major blow in the 1920s after byproduct ovens were built near the Pittsburgh steel mills, rendering the "beehive" facilities that dotted West Penn's territory nearly obsolete. As a result the trolleys had fewer passengers to take to work, and the decline began in earnest.
Branches and minor lines were as follows.[2] (Date of last rail service is in parentheses.)
There were five other components of West Penn Railways which did not connect to each other or to the main network of "Coke Region" tracks: