P&LE Shoenville (Pittsburgh area) Yard

[daveklepper]

B&O Passenger train passing by.  Identify?   Correction, identified as through P&LE train with through cars fron NYCental and possibly Erie and with NYCentral System power.

Track hidden in the cut behind the string of gondolers, is the isolated track of Pittsburgh's Shoenville Shuttle, which was the real reason for the visit here.  See the Pittsburgh Railways thread.  But the chance to photograph steam was not to be passed up.

1949, age 17.

 

 

 

[mvlandsw]

It looks to me like the passenger train is a morning P&LE westbound. I don't have any listings that might identify it though.

I took pictures from the same pedestrian bridge about 20 to 30 years after you were there. The trolley tracks were long gone and the bridge was closed for a long time before being removed.

The yard tracks are all gone. CSX built an intermodal yard on the site while promising lots of future business for the area but it is now relegated to car storage. 

Mark Vinski

[daveklepper]

Did the P&LE have air-conditioned coaches?

It appeared more like a B&O train to me, but maybe it is too short, and you may be right.

But note the baggage car.  Did the P&LE have anything likr that?

[rcdrye]

The P&LE ran trains from Pittsburgh to Buffalo with NYC, to Cleveland jointly with the Erie, plus Pttsburgh to Youngstown trains and College PA locals.  The cars could be from the New York Central system or the Erie as well as P&LE.  Locomotive definitely NYC-system.  Baggage car is from NYC series 9100-9199 built by ACF in 1947.  Looks like that series was equipped with end doors for theater scenery loading.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/barrigerlibrary/35034545282 

1948 OG shows trains carrying through cars leaving Pittsburgh at 8:15 (Cleveland), 10:30 (Buffalo)  and 12:15 (Cleveland).  

[daveklepper]

You came up with facts. and I certainly womn't contradict you.

But

Also in late June 1949?

Thanks

[Overmod]

Certainly B&O trains ran over the P&LE (that being instrumental in killing off the Liberty Limited) but I think that was not until 1956.

drye will have full particulars.

That is some grade-A cab sag on that locomotive... makes me wonder if some of those ex-B&A J2s that Staufer wrote about in Thoroughbreds found their way west... 

[rcdrye]

B&O got trackage rights on the P&LE in 1934.  B&O retained its own stub station on the downtown side of the Monongahela, which was used to the end of PATrain service in the 1980s.  P&LE locals lasted until 1985, the last few years under PAT subsidy.

The Liberty Limited lost enough traffic to justify handling its cars on the General after 1957, lasting as long as most of PRR's own top-end trains.  I'm not sure when it lost its all-Pullman status, but I'm guessing around the end of WWII. 

[rcdrye]

If the locomotive on the passenger train is lettered (or sublettered) P&LE it's most likely a K5 or K6 Pacific.  P&LE had 10 of their own plus another 10 that came from the B&A.