Pittsburgh Commuters and PATrain

Here's a gallery of images I put together from slides in my collection featuring PATrain, PLE, and Conrail:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ottomatic7 ... 201980613/

Where can I learn more about the history of PATrain? It seems PAT and B&O formed some sort of partnership where PAT provided funding and equipment, and B&O provided crews. When were the RDC's replaced by the F-units and coaches? When did this train service come off? When was Grant Street Station torn down?

Any help is appreciated.

Otto, I live in Pittsburgh and take the PAT T train daily. I will try and find this info out for ya.

i know the "new" pat t train runs from station square above ground and once we cross the river and head to downtown, Pittsburgh it is then underground and has stops at " steel plaza, grant street. It used to go to Penn Station but that route stopped years ago due to flooding I believe.

You can still see the tracks and station though, as their are freight tracks right next to the station.

That's great, but I think you misunderstood. If you'll see from the photos I posted, I am talking about the discontinued PATrain commuter train, NOT the light rail system. Thanks!

Otto, I don't know how much help this will be but here are 2 links that may be of interest:

A brief mention of the PAT Train stating that it ran from the early 1970's through April of 1989 (Includes some nice photos of the operation in HO scale) as well as a scan of the timetable:

http://members.trainorders.com/chessie7 ... Train.html

And this fairly detailed writeup of a history of commuter operations in the Pittsburgh area. (My main interest in this is that one, if not two, of the F-units used in this operation came from the Wellsville, Addison and Galeton IIRC):

http://andrewcarnegie2.tripod.com/trans ... story.html

To save you from having to wade through all the text, the article states that the PATrain ran from Feb. 1, 1975 through April 28, 1989.

Nice to see PATrain in HO scale! Here is more of Ken Miller's HO scale model work:

http://railroad.net/articles/modelrailroading/chessie/

Both articles were very helpful, thanks!

Otto Vondrak wrote:When was Grant Street Station torn down?

Grant St. was still standing in early '92. I was in Pittsburgh on business, and walked by it--all closed up. I took a couple snaps, but lost inside the closet somewhere. My recollection is that the station was torn down later in the '90's, but I haven't been able to find anything with the actual date. EDIT: According to this site (a listing of all PA stations), Grant St. was demolished in 1998: http://www.west2k.com/pastations/allegheny.shtml

Otto:

Remember this topic thread from the Commuter Rail section?

http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopi ... 51&t=28652

You may want to combine these...

MACTRAXX

Here's a PAT timetable from 1983 that i just picked up off eBay..

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ottomatic77/5222173146/

Otto Vondrak wrote:Here's a PAT timetable from 1983 that i just picked up off eBay..

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ottomatic77/5222173146/

If the McKeesport stop is the station that CL stopped at when I rode in '91, that was a grim-looking place to catch a train. Actually that was true of the whole valley. Can't imagine the PAT trains were too heavily patronised.

Station Aficionado wrote:Can't imagine the PAT trains were too heavily patronised.

Once the steel industry collapsed, there went most of your patrons. Also, planned service enhancements were not approved by the PA board, who was looking to dump the train once its primary advocate had retired.

-otto-

Here's a P&LE schedule from 1964...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ottomatic77/5246952038/