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So the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad was purchased by CSX in the early 1990's, the P&LE had lost almost all of its online customers with the collapse of the steel industry in the late 1970s and into the early and mid 1980's.

CSX in acquiring the P&LE used its mainline between Swissvale and New Castle as its mainline rather than use what I call the "nose bleed," mainline of the B&O which headed straight north out of Pittsburgh towards Ellwood City before turning west of New Castle.

So my question is, to what extent was CSX already using the P&LE for most of their trains in the area, the question also applies to the Chessie System and to a lesser extent the B&O.

 

P.S. I have always thought that the P&LE would have been taken over by the Chessie System or CSX for a mainline, even if the Steel Industry and Manufacturing in the area had not collapsed.

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BessemerSam posted

So, in 1934 the B&O started using trackage rights on the P&LE between McKeesport and New Castle. Also, in 1992, when CSX first took over the P&LE, they renamed it the "Three Rivers Railway," as a subsidiary, CSX had been using the line more than the P&LE did.

I want to hear from people who were actually there or remember.

I remember standing on the east (south) side of the Smithfield Street bridge around 10-11PM on a night in April, 1955, watching a plume of smoke winding around the Yough as it headed west. As I stood above the tracks a B&O S-1 pulled a mixed freight westbound. I was waiting to take the eastbound Columbian to Baltimore.

At that time B&O through passenger trains used the P&LE station as did some through freights.

Two of my great uncles worked for the P&LE but they are long gone. As I recall the last P&LE power I saw running through the P&LE station  was around 1990 give or take. Seems like through freights had 4 GP something units and the transfer run had  what I guess was an SW something. I don't know much about diesels from the 1970's and later.

I estimate that in the 1990 or so time frame there were at least 10 CSX powered freights to each P&LE one.

 

 

I worked with a friend who had a neighbor that was an executive with P&LE. They were going down the tubes at the time and I was not in to trains too deep so I didn't ask questions. My friend said that his neighbor was coming in to a lot of money and spending it at a time his employer was going broke.  There was talk about a bunch of P&LE cars and equipment being sold off before bankruptcy.  Just didn't seem too kosher at the time.

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