A few CVRR pictures and some other related pictures....2

[Rufus T. Firefly]

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Still looking for an honest man..........

[healey36]

Full stop on the semaphore...I wonder if he's there because it's out of service?

[J. S. Bach]

The lantern he is holding is probably the light unit for the semaphore and is being refilled.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Full stop on the semaphore...I wonder if he's there because it's out of service?

Diogenes......

[healey36]

The lantern he is holding is probably the light unit for the semaphore and is being refilled.

The more I read about the railroads, I realize those early years were very much an exercise akin to the full-employment act. I seem to recall reading that in the late 19th century, the railroad industry was one of the largest, if not the largest, employer in the national economy.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

The lantern he is holding is probably the light unit for the semaphore and is being refilled.

The more I read about the railroads, I realize those early years were very much an exercise akin to the full-employment act. I seem to recall reading that in the late 19th century, the railroad industry was one of the largest, if not the largest, employer in the national economy.

I always thought of many of the railroads as attendant to the steel mills; at least, among the many huge mills in the entire Ohio River valley megapolis, including along the Allegheny, Youghiogheny, and Monongohela rivers. I was born and raised there and never experienced a single day in the 40's - 60''s era that didn't have the presence and sounds of trains serving the mills inside their precincts, moving product like steel pipe and rails, entering or leaving with product, or delivering passengers nearby. Their myriad noises were a standard part of life then.

In fact, as an example, four suburban housing blocks over from my childhood house, alongside the western edge of our neighborhood, stood a steep-sided V-shaped, long valley that served the mills and RRs as a place to park freight cars (no passenger cars) , such as empty box cars, hoppers , and cabooses. Several of us boys (never any girls) would climb down the overhead bridge's girder pylons to enter the RR yard and climb aboard, in and out, of the freight cars. We could do that until our glee and clatter attracted the RR employees who would yell at us to getthrhellout, which would compel us to scramble up the nearby hillside/bridge pylon to escape, laughing and joyful every minute of the adventure.

And when I was a part-time teenaged laborer in the U.S.Steel, National Tube Works, in McKeesport , PA, I never took a single step without looking left, right, to and fro, within the mill, without looking very seriously for oncoming RR traffic, which at times could be cars being pushed quietly and slowly down a siding or internal railway. If you got in the way of such a car or line of cars, you did not fair well, ever.

[rogruth]

Murph,
Same way around my home town just a little way down the Ohio River.
Unfortunately those days are gone.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Murph,
Same way around my home town just a little way down the Ohio River.
Unfortunately those days are gone.

Yes, Roger, they surely are, long-gone . Physically. Socially. Spiritually. Financially.

Did I leave anything out?
Murph

[rogruth]

Murph,
Have you been back to that area in the last several decades?
My Last trip to that area was @ 2003. What I noticed was
"there is no joy in Mudville". Even those people with a decent
job of some kind are not happy. I first noticed this in the
1970s when mines, mills and factories started feeling real
pressure from several sources. Local retail shops were closing.
That's enough,I'll get morose.

[chuck]

One in ten Americans worked directly for the rail roads. I don't know if there are any good numbers for indirect support (e.g. steel/iron workers, glass workers, food processors, RPO, etc.) The rail lines were the main way to effectively move stuff around. The rail roads were often some of their own best customers as they used massive amounts of resources and labor to perform their mission. They had to haul large amounts of fuel to move the trains and to provide material for their back shops. The later was where a lot of labor was unseen/unknown to the general public. A steam locomotive may only need two guys to get it running and moving it about but it took something like 60-100 men to keep it serviced and runnable. That's why the switch to diesel was so fast. You only need about 5%-10% of that labor force to service diesels. The back shop labor wasn't unskilled either. They were steam fitters, forge men, machinists, engineers (slide rule). You couldn't run down to the local NAPA to buy parts, you had to make them.

A railroad is in business to make money, NOT RUN TRAINS. It's SUPPOSED to make money by running trains. When it can't make money it ceases to exist as a business. When it closes down it takes its primary employees with it but also all those other folks that worked to support it even though they weren't direct employees.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

[healey36]

Another interesting photo. Somewhat reminiscent of the Forneys that ran on the New York El prior to electrification, or this narrow-gauge Brooks 0-4-4 from the 1880s:

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Another interesting photo. Somewhat reminiscent of the Forneys that ran on the New York El prior to electrification, or this narrow-gauge Brooks 0-4-4 from the 1880s

Forneys were used in logging in PA!

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Murph,
Have you been back to that area in the last several decades?....

Only for the 50th High school Class Reuion, and even then I was warned not to return, besides for the reunion itself which was far up on a hill outside Pittsburgh itself . Too dangerous .
The homies and hoodies had long been making careers of mugging, robbing, and carjacking, esp of Senior-citizens, particularly in cemeteries . So, I have stayed away.

Everything that was and meant "hometown" to me is dead and gone, including most of my relatives and friends . Only the rock-solid Pennsylvania-brick houses of my childhood suburb still stand, seemingly inviolate.