Oyler: A trip down memory lane with the Waynesburg & Washington Railroad
My recent column on Mike Carrozza's collection of railroad memorabilia related to the Chartiers Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad, “60 Miles to Waynesburg,” focused on the first 32 miles, from the Union Station in Pittsburgh to Washington.
The remaining 28 miles from Washington to Waynesburg warrant a column of their own.
The Waynesburg and Washington Railroad (W & W) was chartered in 1875, built in 1877, acquired by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1885, and operated into the early 1970s. It was constructed as a narrow gauge line, with a gauge of 36 inches. In the 1800s, there was no advantage for an independent railroad dedicated to linking two cities to build the more expensive standard gauge line; narrow gauge railroads were quite common.
The route was filled with zigzags and sharp curves; sarcastic riders claimed its original surveyor must have been a snake. A witty 19th century poet described the W & W as follows:
“It wriggles in and it wriggles out And leaves the traveler still in doubt Whether the snake who made the track Was going south or coming back.”
Its low point was at Waynesburg (900 feet above sea level) with a summit of about 1,400 feet, four miles south of Washington, requiring a grade of 2 percent in several areas. The curves were so sharp that locomotives with eight drive wheels could not be used.
The main yard for the W & W was at Waynesburg. It included a round house, a turntable, a freight house and the stockyard. The station had a waiting room, ticket office, freight room, and the offices for the railroad. Waynesburg's two hotels — the Downey House and the Walton House — competed for customers by meeting every train with porters.
The Washington station was an impressive brick building that is still in existence, currently being used by a building supplies company for storage.
It was a full-service passenger station with a massive waiting room, a baggage room, restrooms, and a newsstand. Associated with it was a small yard, which included sidings and a turntable.
Despite terminating passenger service 15 years earlier, in 1944 The Pennsy converted the W & W to standard gauge. A few years later the only traffic on the line was a gasoline-powered truck equipped with flanged steel wheels delivering small freight shipments. This service ended in 1974. When Conrail acquired the assets of the bankrupt Penn Central Railroad, it elected to abandon the W & W. I have been unable to determine who ended up owning the right-of-way. It certainly would be a worthy candidate for a “rails-to-trails” project.
An old timetable shows four passenger trains each way on weekdays. The first train south left Washington at 6:18 p.m. after picking up passengers from Pittsburgh who had left Union Station at 5:10 p.m. It had six flag stops before arriving in Waynesburg at 7:38 p.m.
The other southbound trips left Washington at 8:45 a.m., 12:15 a.m. and 3:06 p.m. These runs had an additional 14 flag stops. Northbound trips left Waynesburg at 6:20 a.m., 11 a.m., 2:45 p.m., and 7:55 p.m. Most of the flag stops on the W & W had three-sided sheds to protect the customers from the weather, rather than conventional stations.
According to one source all the passengers knew all the members of each train crew, and the personal service was so good that it was not uncommon to see a train being held for “a farm woman to hustle across a field to catch a train into town.”
Today the W & W is a memory, just another case in which I wish we could turn back the calendar a century for an imaginary trip to Waynesburg. Let's catch the 7:45 am flyer to Washington, arriving there at 8:38, leaving us plenty of time to transfer to W & W number 503, scheduled to leave at 8:45. No need to worry about making the connection — they will hold her till we arrive. Then a delightful ride through the Washington and Greene County farmland, with flag stops at Chambers Mill, Luellen and Iams.
Promptly at 10:10, we arrive in Waynesburg, do a little sight-seeing in the county seat, enjoy a home-style lunch, and board number 562 at 2:45 for another bucolic adventure, punctuated by stops in Sycamore, Deer Lick and Condits Crossing. Into Washington at 4:10, onto the northbound 4:20 and back in Bridgeville by 5 p.m. What a wonderful nostalgic trip that would be!
John Oyler is a columnist for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-343-1652 or joylerpa@icloud.com.
