Historians will have to correct and elaborate. PRR electrification was completed to its final configuration during the depths of the depression. Some how federal funds provided the impetus for the completion. PRR then planned the extension to Pittsburg but the oncoming and entry into WW-2 put all those plans on hold.
After WW-2 PRR had to rebuild war weary track and buy new rolling stock equiipment. Then after the Korean war a recession seemed to kill project for good.
In hind sight it is probably good that Pittsburg electrification did not occurr. PRR did not determine if 25 Hz or 60 Hz would apply and 25 Kv was in the distant future. Dual frequency motors then might have been very expensive to build.
More important the CAT would have become Obsolete during the PC / CR era. Double stacks would not have cleared especially in tunnels, under highway bridges ( even today 2017 still would be a problem ) and signal bridges. CAT design would have been erected with limited or no ability to raise to DS clearances. The new CAT on the NEC replacements is constructed to raise it where it is not now DS clear. As well the Gallizon tunnels would have to have been lowere even more than they were for DSs.
It depends on what you mean by considered. It was a single-track line occupied by at most ten passenger trains and four freight trains a day, with all through freight going via "the Port Road" with its minimal grades and eventual electrication, and this was the rout Amtrak picked. I doubt any real planing was done, as was done for west from Harrisburg.
The southern portion of the line is electrified, 750V DC, for Baltimore Light Rail how much of the rest remains is a question.
All:
Was the PRR line from Baltimore to Harrisburg, via York, considered for electrification?
Also, I read that the PRR planned to electrify from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh. That would have been quite a sight to see the electric motors in the mountains and around Horseshoe Curve.
Ed Burns
Happily retired NP-BN-BNSF from Minneapolis.
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