Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad
The Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad (P&LE, PLE) was an American railroad company in the states of Pennsylvania and Ohio . The company was based in Pittsburgh . The railway was nicknamed "Little Giant" because of its profitability despite the small rail network.
Route network, data
The 650 km long route network extended from Pittsburgh via McKeesport to Brownsville Junction and Connellsville in the south and via Youngstown to Shenango and Ashtabula in the north. The heart of the line to Youngstown was the bridge over the Ohio River north of Pittsburgh. In 1991 the company had a locomotive fleet of 39 locomotives and 3,174 freight cars.
history
The company was founded in 1875 and four years later the route from Pittsburgh to Youngstown opened. In competition with the Pennsylvania Railroad for transportation for the steel industry in Pittsburgh, Cornelius Vanderbilt , owner of the rival New York Central Railroad (NYC), acquired 15% of the company's shares.
In 1881, the Pittsburgh, McKeesport & Youghiogheny Railroad (PMcK & Y, PMY) was jointly founded for the construction of a route to the south for the development of coal mines by the P&LE and NYC . The company gradually built an approximately 93 km long route from Pittsburgh east along the Monongahela River to McKeesport and from there in the Youghiogheny River valley south to Connellsville. A second, approximately 87 km long stretch was built from McKeesport along the Monongahela River south to Brownsville. PMcK & Y was operated as part of P&LE from the start. In 1965, P&LE finally acquired NYC's 50% stake in PMcK & Y and merged the company into P&LE.
The P&LE itself was under the complete control of the NYC from 1889 and was fully integrated into their system. It was mainly used for transportation between Pittsburgh and the Great Lakes .
Together with the Pennsylvania Railroad , the Monongahela Railroad was founded in 1900 to build a railway line south of Brownsville along the Monongahela River . Since January 1, 1927, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) was involved in the 1915 Monongahela Railroad renamed company. P&LE sold its shares in 1989 to Conrail . In 1946, P&LE and PRR acquired the Montour Railroad on an equal footing , which operated a 135 km network of branch lines in western Pennsylvania connected to the P&LE main line.
When NYC successor Penn Central went bankrupt in 1970, it owned 92.6% of the shares in P&LE and owed it $ 15 million. In the following years, P&LE was gradually disentangled from the Penn Central Group, for example by gradually dispensing with the hitherto customary filling of management positions by people who were also employed by the parent company. In 1975 P&LE acquired the shares in Montour Railroad that had come from the PRR to Penn Central and thus became its sole owner. As part of the Penn Central bankruptcy proceedings, P&LE finally became an independent company again from February 27, 1979. The company was later awarded the right to use the route between Youngstown and Ashtabula via Conrail tracks.
In addition to the extensive freight traffic, P&LE also operated passenger trains, which were mainly used for suburban traffic. In 1964, a weekly train pair between Youngstown and Pittsburgh and another 1.5 train pairs were offered on the section south of College Hill in Beaver Falls . By 1968 at the latest, the services were limited to a weekday pair of trips between College Hill , Beaver Falls, Aliquippa and the P&LE station Pittsburgh Terminal . In 1978 the P&LE tried to stop the last remaining weekday train pair, but encountered resistance from local politics. With financial support from the state, P&LE continued operations. After a significant decrease in the number of passengers, P&LE passenger traffic was finally given up on the last journey on July 12, 1985. The PATrain commuter trains used part of the P&LE infrastructure east of Pittsburgh until 1989.
If after 1979 it looked like a good start and a successful company, the crisis in the Pittsburgh steel industry in the early 1980s and the strong competition from Conrail soon ruined all plans. After the coal mines on the P&LE line to Connellsville and along the tracks of the subsidiary Montour Railroad had to be closed, the company was forced to close down the line. Soon the entire railway company was up for sale. There were various interested parties, but since the unions insisted on protecting workers' incomes, no agreement was reached on the sale.
In May 1990, the Railroad Development Corporation , as a potential buyer of P&LE, finally reached an agreement with the trade unions about the severance pay. On June 6, 1990, the RDC acquired it. However, the management of P&LE sabotaged this takeover and the Railroad Development Corporation got out of business again.
In July 1991, CSX Transportation finally acquired the approximately 100 km long main line from McKeesport via Pittsburgh to New Castle , over which it had had route usage rights since the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad times . However, the downfall of society could no longer be stopped.
The last day of operation was on September 11, 1992. The routes and route usage rights were acquired by the CSX subsidiary Three Rivers Railway . After a blocking period, the company was merged into the entire group on September 17, 1993.
Subsidiaries of the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad
- The Montour Railroad (MTR) was jointly owned by Penn Central , previously the Pennsylvania Railroad , until 1975 and mainly served coal mines west of Pittsburgh . In the years 1983 to 1986 the company was completely stopped.
- A daughter of the Montour Railroad was the Youngstown and Southern Railway which operated a route south of Youngstown. The line was rehabilitated in the 1990s with funds from Columbiana County and leased to the Central Columbiana and Pennsylvania Railroad . After its bankruptcy on June 14, 2004 , the line has been operated by the Ohio and Pennsylvania Railroad since December 17, 2004 .
- The Pittsburgh, Chartiers and Youghiogheny Railway was a 19 km long branch line between McKees Rocks and Carnegie, Pennsylvania . It went to the Conrail after the end of the P&LE . The route was later operated by the Pittsburgh Industrial Railroad , a subsidiary of RailTex (later RailAmerica ), and after their sale by the Ohio Central Railroad .
- The Lake Erie and Eastern Railroad was a shunting company in Youngstown that was jointly owned with the Mahoning Coal Railroad .
Trivia
The PLE's Mc Kees Rocks depot was used as a model for the conversion of the Altona depot of the then Prussian State Railways around 1910 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c The Historical Guide to North American Railroads . Kalmbach Media, 2014, ISBN 978-0-89024-970-3 , pp. 248 (English).
- ^ The Historical Guide to North American Railroads . Kalmbach Media, 2014, ISBN 978-0-89024-970-3 , pp. 196 (English).
- ^ P&LE Passenger Service Timetable, effective October 24, 1964. Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, October 24, 1964, accessed May 1, 2020 .
- ↑ P&LE Passenger Service Timetable, effective October 27, 1968. Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, October 27, 1968, accessed May 1, 2020 .
- ↑ Jeffrey Snedden: Histories & Mysteries: The Legacy of The Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad . In: The Beaver County Times . Beaver Falls April 24, 2018 (English, full text ).
- ^ Brian Solomon: North American Railroads: The Illustrated Encyclopedia . Voyageur Press, 2018, ISBN 978-1-62788-557-7 , pp. 243 : “P&LE operated a single roundtrip commuter train between State College (Beaver Falls) and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, until July 1985”
Web links
- PLE Historical Society (English)
- P&LE route network 1960 (English)