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| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
| Locale | Western Pennsylvania: |
| Dates of operation | 1907–1917 |
| Successor | Pittsburgh, Mars and Butler Railway |
| Technical | |
| Track gauge | Pennsylvania Trolley Gauge, 5 ft 2 1⁄2 in (1,588 mm) |
Pittsburgh, Mars and Butler | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Pittsburgh and Butler Street Railway, commonly called the Butler Short Line, was a broad gauge [1] interurban streetcar line connecting Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States to Butler via Mars.
The Pittsburgh and Butler Street Railway was opened in 1907 between Pittsburgh and Butler [2] traveling via Etna, Glenshaw, Allison Park, and Mars. In 1914 the railway converted from AC to 1200V DC which reduced power consumption by 15% and reduced the weight of each car by 6 tons. [1]
In 1917 the railway amalgamated with the Pittsburgh, Harmony, Butler and New Castle Railway , who operated the Harmony Line between Pittsburgh and New Castle, the new company being named the Pittsburgh, Mars and Butler Railway. [3]
In April 1931 the company went into receivership. The Butler Short Line was closed on April 22, 1931 [4] as it was in poor condition, services being absorbed into the existing PA 8 bus service. The stub of the Butler Short Line continued to be used by Pittsburgh Railways as the 2 Etna service until closure in 1952. [5]
Leaving Butler going south along South Chestnut Street the railway crossed the rails of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) and the Bessemer and Lake Erie Railroad (B&LE), before turning west down the valley of the Connoquenessing Creek through Bredinville. [6] Running parallel to the B&LE through Odell and then east into Thorn Creek past Renfrew Station, the line then headed south, climbing out of Thorn Creek valley alongside Three Degree Road, where the Butler Country Club had a stop of their own. When Butler County Airport was constructed Three Degree Road was diverted to use the old track bed, now forming the eastern perimeter road of the airport.
The line continued south, descending into the valley of Breakneck Creek and passing through Mars. [7] It continued south along the valley, through Downieville and Valencia to Etna, where it joined the local Pittsburgh Railways route to downtown.
Two cars collided on March 27, 1909 after one was delayed by a derailment on the grade crossing of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad near Mars. The crash occurred near Bryant Station and three people died at the scene, all employees of the railway. [8]
Butler is a city and the county seat of Butler County in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It is located 35 miles (56 km) north of Pittsburgh and part of the Greater Pittsburgh Region. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 13,757. Butler was named the 7th best small town in America by Smithsonian magazine in May 2012.
Mars is a borough in Butler County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 1,699 at the 2010 census.
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States, with its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from the city of Baltimore, which had benefitted to some extent from the construction of the National Road early in the century, wanted to continue to compete for trade with trans-Appalachian settlers with the newly constructed Erie Canal, another canal being proposed by Pennsylvania, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, and the James River Canal, which directed traffic toward Richmond and Norfolk, Virginia. At first the B&O was located entirely in the state of Maryland, its original line extending from the port of Baltimore west to Sandy Hook. There it connected with Harper's Ferry across the Potomac into Virginia, and also with the navigable Shenandoah River.
The Interurban is a type of electric railway, with streetcar-like electric self-propelled rail cars which run within and between cities or towns. They were very prevalent in North America between 1900 and 1925 and were used primarily for passenger travel between cities and their surrounding suburban and rural communities. Interurban as a term encompassed the companies, their infrastructure, their cars that ran on the rails, and their service. In the United States, the early 1900s interurban was a valuable economic institution. Most roads between towns and many town streets were unpaved. Transportation and haulage was by horse-drawn carriages and carts. The interurban provided reliable transportation, particularly in winter weather, between the town and countryside. In 1915, 15,500 miles (24,900 km) of interurban railways were operating in the United States and, for a few years, interurban railways, including the numerous manufacturers of cars and equipment, were the fifth-largest industry in the country. By 1930, most interurbans in North America were gone with a few surviving into the 1950s. Oliver Jensen, author of American Heritage History of Railroads in America, commented that "...the automobile doomed the interurban whose private tax paying tracks could never compete with the highways that a generous government provided for the motorist."
Union Station is a historic train station at Grant Street and Liberty Avenue, south of the Allegheny River, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It was one of several passenger rail stations that served Pittsburgh during the 20th century, and it is the only surviving station in active use.
The Buffalo and Pittsburgh Railroad is a Class II railroad operating in New York and Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania Route 28 is a major state highway which runs for 98 miles (158 km) from Anderson Street in Pittsburgh to U.S. Route 219 (US 219) in Brockway in Pennsylvania. From Pittsburgh to Kittanning it is a 44.5-mile-long (71.6 km) limited access expressway named the Alexander H. Lindsay Memorial Highway or the Allegheny Valley Expressway.
The Pittsburgh, Harmony, Butler and New Castle Railway, commonly called the Harmony Line, was a broad gauge interurban streetcar line connecting Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States to Butler and New Castle via Harmony and a split at Evans City. There was also an extension that was later added to the line from Ellwood City to Beaver Falls.
The Sacramento Northern Railway was a 183-mile (295 km) electric interurban railway that connected Chico in northern California with Oakland via the California capital, Sacramento. In its operation it ran directly on the streets of Oakland, Sacramento, Yuba City, Chico, and Woodland and ran interurban passenger service until 1941 and freight service into the 1960s.
Pittsburgh Railways was one of the predecessors of the Port Authority of Allegheny County. It had 666 PCC cars, the third largest fleet in North America. It had 68 streetcar routes, of which only three are used by the Port Authority as light rail routes. With the Port Authority's Transit Development Plan, many route names will be changed to its original, such as the 41D Brookline becoming the 39 Brookline. Many of the streetcar routes have been remembered in the route names of many Port Authority buses.
Pittsburgh, surrounded by rivers and hills, has a unique transportation infrastructure that includes roads, tunnels, bridges, railroads, inclines, bike paths, and stairways.
Pennsylvania Route 68 is a 90.036-mile-long (144.899 km) east–west state highway located in western Pennsylvania in the United States. The western terminus of the route is at the Ohio state line west of Glasgow, where PA 68 continues into Ohio as State Route 39. The eastern terminus is at U.S. Route 322 in Clarion. The route runs southwest-northeast across Beaver, Butler, Armstrong, and Clarion counties. PA 68 follows the Ohio River between the Ohio border and Beaver, where it crosses the Beaver River into Rochester and heads northeast away from the Ohio River. The route runs through rural areas to Butler County, where it intersects Interstate 79 (I-79) in Zelienople before serving Evans City and Butler. PA 68 passes through a section of Armstrong County before crossing the Allegheny River into Clarion County. Here, the route passes through Rimersburg and Sligo before it has an interchange with I-80 and continues to its terminus in Clarion.
The P&W Subdivision is a railroad line owned and operated by CSX Transportation, the Allegheny Valley Railroad (AVR), and the Buffalo and Pittsburgh Railroad (BPRR) in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. The line runs from Rankin north through Pittsburgh to West Pittsburg along a former Baltimore and Ohio Railroad line, once the Pittsburgh and Western Railroad.
Streetcars and interurbans operated in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., between 1890 and 1962. Lines in Maryland were established as separate legal entities, but eventually they were all owned or leased by DC Transit. Unlike the Virginia lines, the Washington and Maryland lines were scheduled as a single system. Most of the streetcars were built with grand plans in mind, but none succeeded financially. A combination of the rise of the automobile, various economic downturns and bustitution eventually spelled the end of streetcars in southern Maryland.
The Lehigh Valley Transit Company (LVT) was a regional transport company, headquartered in Allentown, Pennsylvania, that began operations in 1901 as an urban trolley and interurban rail transport company. It operated successfully into the 1930s, struggled financially during the Depression, and was saved from abandonment by a dramatic ridership increase due to the Second World War. In 1951, the LVT, once again financially struggling, ended its 36-mile (58 km) interurban rail service from Allentown to Philadelphia. In 1952, it ended its Allentown area local trolley service. It operated local bus service in the Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton, Pennsylvania, areas until going out of business in 1972.
Eidenau is an unincorporated community in Jackson Township, Butler County, Pennsylvania, United States.
The Pittsburgh, Virginia and Charleston Railway was a predecessor of the Pennsylvania Railroad in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. By 1905, when it was merged into the Pennsylvania, it owned a main line along the left (west) side of the Monongahela River, to Pittsburgh's South Side from West Brownsville. Branches connected to the South-West Pennsylvania Railway in Uniontown via Redstone Creek and to numerous coal mines.
The Buffalo and Susquehanna Railroad was a railroad company that formerly operated in western and north central Pennsylvania and western New York. It was created in 1893 by the merger and consolidation of several smaller logging railroads. It operated independently until 1929, when a majority of its capital stock was purchased by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. At the same time, the B&O also purchased control of the neighboring Buffalo, Rochester, and Pittsburgh Railway. The Baltimore and Ohio officially took over operations of both roads in 1932.
The Washington, Baltimore and Annapolis Electric Railway (WB&A) was an American railroad of central Maryland and Washington, D.C., built in the 19th and 20th century. The WB&A absorbed two older railroads, the Annapolis and Elk Ridge Railroad and the Baltimore & Annapolis Short Line, and added its own electric streetcar line between Baltimore and Washington. It was built by a group of Cleveland, Ohio, electric railway entrepreneurs to serve as a high-speed, showpiece line using the most advanced technology of the time. It served Washington, Baltimore, and Annapolis, Maryland, for 27 years before the "Great Depression" and the rise of the automobile forced an end to passenger service during the economic pressures of the 1930s "Depression" southwest to Washington from Baltimore & west from Annapolis in 1935. Only the Baltimore & Annapolis portion between the state's largest city and its state capital continued to operate electric rail cars for another two decades, replaced by a bus service during the late 1950s into 1968. Today, parts of the right-of-way are used for the light rail line, rail trail for hiking - biking trails, and roads through Anne Arundel County.
