Jack Polaritz, Suzanne Hudson & John Hudson 322 pages hardcover
This is the first of 2 books on the Pittsburgh Lake Erie Railroad in Allegheny County. The city of Pittsburgh had the potential to be a major industrial center but for the freight discrimination imposed
by the Pennsylvania Railroad. Every new rail outlet built to offer an alternative to
the Pennsy was eventually taken over by that company. The only route left was a narrow corridor along the Monongahela River threading through steel mills.
lead works, glass factories, and other
industries. Pittsburgh yearned for independent rail service but was unable
to secure it until William McCreery, John
Dravo, James Bennett, Jacob Henrici
and the Harmony Society, and others
banded together to found and construct
the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie. Building
on four miles of trestle work through
South Side—at times into the Monongahela River—to get to McKees Rocks, the P&LE eventually reached Youngstown, OH where connections were made
with the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern (New York Central) and the Atlantic &
Great Western (Erie), 68 miles from the Steel City.
Growing to over 200 miles of mainline, the P&LE hauled so much tonnage in
iron ore, steel, bituminous coal, coke. oil, and limestone that it became the largest
revenue per ton mile railroad that ever operated in America.
This book opens with the story of the pivotal meeting that formed
the P&LE when the founders and industrialists went to war with each other. The
result was a railroad independent of the Pennsy and answerable only to the needs
of Pittsburgh. It is no wonder that the line acquired the nickname “The Little Giant.”
373 black & white photographs, maps, engravings, and other ephemera form
the nexus of this story. Years of research into the history of the P&LE and the local
industries and environs served to elicit a wonderful story about the line and its
association with the region. Images of P&LE, motive power, rolling stock, facilities,
the South Side complex, steel mills and other industries, the “company” villages
that housed the mill workers and their families, and steamboats on the Monongahela and Ohio rivers bring the story to life.
