Re: PC: St. Louis Line (PRR)

[Jerry Jordak <jer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

EJ Caylor wrote:
 
> Can anyone tell me some of the train numbers/names that ran on the PRR
> St. Louis Main from indianapolis to St. Louis.  Were all trains that were
> routed from Pittsburgh to St. L. to travel over the PRR line, & the
> Cleveland to St. L.  travel over the NYC line?  I know this is a little
> broad, but I was just wanting to get an idea of some of the
> trains/operations of this line.

According to my PC Southern Region ETT, the Pittsburgh-St. Louis (PRR)
main was called the Greencastle Branch between Indianapolis and Terre
Haute. The two lines joined in downtown Indianapolis near Indianapolis
Union Station and IU Tower, so it would have been easy to route trains
coming from Columbus and Pittsburgh on the PRR via the NYC to Terre
Haute.

At Terre Haute, the PC knitted together the former PRR and NYC
main lines between Haley Tower and the bridge over the Wabash River.
It seems that PC used the former PRR west of Terre Haute and the former
NYC/Big Four east of Terre Haute as their Indy-St. Louis main line,
which is still the case with CSX today.

The west end of the Greencastle Branch (PRR) was operated by the
Terre Haute, Brazil and Eastern for a while, but I believe that is
gone too--I was in Terre Haute a couple years ago, and the old PRR
looked mostly abandoned. The former NYC main west of Terre Haute is
mostly gone today also, AFAIK.

My friend Mark Bej has a map on his PRR web site for a track chart
with the Terre Haute track changes, but the link is broken right now.
When I get a new URL from him, I will post it here.

>From my 1969 Penn Central Through Freight Schedules book, the following
trains originated or terminated in E. St. Louis:

BF-2 to Cleveland, OH
ES-2 to Indianapolis
SV-6 to DeWitt (Syracuse, NY)
SW-6 and SW-8 to Enola (Harrisburg, PA)
SW-10 to Conway, PA
TT-4 to Meadows (Kearny, NJ)
NY-6 and NY-8 to Selkirk, NY
SLD-2 to Toledo, OH

The schedule for BF-2 is inconclusive. ES-2 appears to have run via
"Brooklyn", which is a yard on the joint PC(NYC)-GM&O trackage around
St. Louis, so that train may have run NYC. The schedule for SV-6 is
inconclusive. SW-6, SW-10, SLD-2, TT-4, and NY-8 ran via Rose Lake, a
station on the PRR main, while SW-8 departed Davis Yard on the A&S via
Worchester, a location on the NYC main.

However, NY-6 departed Davis Yard but ran via Rose Lake, so I would
think that one ran via PRR, but since I am not familiar with St. Louis
area railroad geography, I don't know if a train passing an NYC
location in St. Louis could get back to the PRR or vice-versa, so I'm
just making guesses on some of these.

So that gives us an idea for operations west of Terre Haute. Looking
at operations east of Terre Haute, like I said, I think the majority
of the trains went via the NYC, but from the schedules, it can be told
which route they took, whether they went through Avon Yard on the NYC
or locations on the PRR, like Davis Interlocking on the west side of
Indianapolis, where the I&F Branch came off of the PRR St. Louis Main.

Trains that went via Avon Yard (NYC): BF-2, ES-2, SV-6, SW-6, SW-10,
NY-6, NY-8, SLD-2

Trains that went via Greencastle Branch (PRR): SW-8, TT-4

Don't know if that will answer all your questions, but hopefully it's
a good start.

Later,
-Jer

-- 
Jerry W. Jordak               Time has little to do with infinity
mailto:jer@smellycat.com      and jelly doughnuts.
http://prozac.cwru.edu/jer/                      -- Thomas Magnum
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