PC: Youngstown, E&A Branch, and P&LE

[Jerry Jordak <jer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Time to put on the thinking caps and turn on your wayback machines...

I was doing some research last night through my copy of my 1969 PC Through 
Freight Schedules book. Specifically, I was looking for all train traffic 
that would have used the ex-PRR E&A Branch between Rochester, PA, and 
Youngstown, OH. (Today this trackage is part of Norfolk Southern's 
Youngstown Line.)

In checking the origin/destination listings, I found a number of trains 
which showed as originating and terminating in Youngstown. However, to my 
surprise, most of them used Gateway Yard, which was on the Pittsburgh & 
Lake Erie, as opposed to Hazelton Yard, which was the main PRR yard in 
Youngstown.

Specificially, the only train I could find that originated at Hazelton was 
YA-1, which worked the ex-PRR PY&A Branch from Youngstown and Niles to 
Ashtabula. The following trains, which ran over the E&A Branch, worked at 
Hazelton enroute:

SC-3 New Castle-Canton
SC-4 Canton-New Castle
PY-3 Conway-Ashtabula
PY-4 Ashtabula-Conway
CNC-1 New Castle-Cleveland
CNC-2 Cleveland-New Castle

On the other hand, the following trains originated or terminated at Gateway 
Yard:

BP-1 Benson Mines-Youngstown
CDB-4 Elkhart-Youngstown
GP-3 Youngstown-Newell
PW-4 Newell-Youngstown
WM-4 Cleveland-Youngstown
WM-6 Youngstown-Dickerson Run

And these stopped at Gateway enroute:
PC-1 Dickerson Run-Elkhart
PS-10 Pittsburgh-Buffalo
GP-1 Buffalo-Becks Run
GC-3 Pittsburgh-Cleveland

Now while the Pennsy Ft. Wayne line was obviously the primary mover of 
traffic from Pittsburgh to points west, it seems that the P&LE, which was 
controlled by Penn Central still at this point, was probably the secondary 
main line out of Pittsburgh to the west. (I'm not including the Panhandle 
towards Columbus in this discussion, but rather focusing on points 
northwest, like Youngstown, Cleveland, Toledo, Chicago, Detroit, etc.) Is 
this a valid conclusion? It seems like Penn Central was treating the P&LE 
as just another route on its system, especially with having trains running 
from P&LE points to far-off locations like Elkhart and Benson Mines. (I 
believe Benson Mines is in far upstate New York, where they mined iron ore 
for steel mills, as the schedule book mentions blocks of ore in the train' 
makeup.)

In addition, I'm trying to figure out is if any other traffic used the E&A 
Branch between New Castle and Youngstown. Besides the three pairs of trains 
mentioned above, would there have been any other movements on that line? 
Perhaps coal or iron ore trains? Possibly ore trains from the Bessemer & 
Lake Erie? I seem to remember hearing that ore from the B&LE was 
interchanged with the PRR E&P Branch at Shenango (near Greenville) and 
moved south to New Castle and then west over the E&A to Youngstown. Was 
this actually done?

What I thought was interesting too was the schedule pages for trains PY-3 
and PY-4 mention TTX (piggyback) cars operating between Conway and 
Hazelton, and so there was probably a piggyback ramp at Hazelton. I thought 
that was kind of neat, as it meant there was piggyback cars running over 
the E&A Branch.

Apologies if you have no idea what part of Penn Central system I'm talking 
about, but I figured that since the list has been a little quiet that this 
might start some good discussion. And, it will help me with planning 
prototypical operations for my under-construction model railroad. :-)

Thanks,
-JWJ