PITTSBURGH’S LAST COMMUTER It’s PAT! BY OTTO M. VONDRAK/PHOTO BY ALEX MAYES


AS A HAVEN FOR COMMUTER TRAINS, the Steel City does not immediately come to mind. While operating in the shadow of leviathans like New York, Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia, Pittsburgh once had a vast number of secondary routes serving the region. Even as rid- ership began to decline in the 1930s, passenger totals for the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Baltimore & Ohio, and the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie lines topped 30,000 daily.


In the postwar era, the Pennsylvania Railroad continued to operate six dif- ferent commuter routes into Pitts- burgh. Stiff competition from increased automobile usage as well as mounting financial losses forced the Pennsy to re- duce service and then discontinue it al- together by 1964. That same year, the newly created Port Authority of Al- legheny County took over the privately- owned Pittsburgh Railways trolley and bus system. Created to help fund and coordinate transit services for public benefit, the Port Authority asked the Pennsy for a 90-day extension while they investigated alternatives. In the end, the costs of preserving the service was determined to outweigh the bene- fits, but the seed was sown for future involvement.


The Pittsburgh & Lake Erie had a far less extensive service than the Pennsy, but it remained constant into the 1960s. The longest commuter route was the 65-mile trip to Youngstown,


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Ohio, which was complemented by a shorter 31-mile run to College, Penn. By 1968, only the run to College re- mained, and by the 1970s the P&LE was struggling to emerge from the Penn Central disaster as an independ- ent line. Despite these events, the rail- road replaced its hand-me-down former New York Central heavyweight coach- es with newer streamlined coaches ac- quired second-hand from the Louisville & Nashville and the Chesapeake & Ohio. The state helped subsidize an ad- ditional mid-day train in 1979, but the ridership never lived up to expecta- tions. A general downturn in the econo- my and the subsequent a loss of pas- sengers in the 1980s led the P&LE to seek discontinuance. With less than 100 people a day riding in 1984 and ex- penses spiraling out of control, permis- sion was granted for the last trains to roll on July 12, 1985.


While not nearly as busy as the Pennsy, the Baltimore & Ohio ran a re- spectable number of commuter trains out of its Grant Street Station from Pittsburgh to Versailles, an 18-mile route that served the steel mill towns of the Monongahela Valley. A fleet of new Budd Rail Diesel Cars (RDC’s) was as- signed to this service, which was aug- mented by a single locomotive-hauled train that made a round-trip to Con- nellsville. The Connellsville service was cancelled in 1965, but the com- muter trains to Versailles lived on.


By the mid-1970s, the B&O (now un- der the Chessie System umbrella) was considering eliminating its Pittsburgh commuter service. Seeking to preserve and expand the route to complement their existing bus service in the valley, the Port Authority came forward with financial assistance to keep the trains running. Starting on February 1, 1975, the B&O began operating the trains under a service contract with the Port Authority.


The newly branded PATrain service consisted of ten trips daily (except Sun- day), of which six ran all the way to Versailles while the rest turned at McKeesport. As explained in the timetable, 100-series trains were RDC’s while 200-series trains were lo- comotive-hauled streamlined coaches acquired from the C&O.


The Port Authority did all it could to promote the train service, and rider- ship increased to nearly 1400 daily by


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