Ghost Rails Vol. VI: Harmony Route - Cole

GHOST RAILS VOLUME VI, HARMONY ROUTE: Pittsburgh, Harmony, Butler, & New Castle Railway. 2009 by Wayne A. Cole. If you have traveled in western Pennsylvania, you have crossed the Harmony Route dozens of times. Ghost Rails VI is a first time, long-awaited western Pennsylvania history that covers the massive local streetcar system that ran from Pittsburgh to Butler, New Castle, and Beaver Falls. For those who live in Allegheny, Beaver, Butler, Lawrence, or in the surrounding counties, the Harmony Route has long been a magnetic history. The name Harmony itself is compelling, rooted in the Harmonist's village and history of 1815: Eidenau, a place of Eden, along the Connoquenessing Creek and what would be a future right of way, powerhouse and car barn. For those of us who grew up along the Harmony Route, we share a common history of stories, streetcar lore, electric cement posts, and bridge piers that were left behind. (For readers of the abandoned railroads and streetcar lines of the Ohio and Pa. line, one should note this is the counterpart of Ghost Rails Volume III: Electrics Upper Ohio Valley; the two books give the "big picture" of traction along "the line.") Ghost Rails VI is an incredible history, much of which was supplied by Harmony historian John Makar. Seventy miles of right of way, two-and-a-half miles of massive steel bridges, are covered almost mile by mile. Maps, drawings, early sketches by those who visualized or saw the last of the line, and loads of then-and-now photos tell the Harmony Route story. The hardback book traverses: the Harmony Route in the city of Pittsburgh, North Side and Boggs and Buhl, Pittsburgh Evans City Division, the Butler Division, Ellwood City New Castle Division, and the Beaver Falls Extension. In addition, separate sections feature: the golden years of Harmony service, the builders, the construction of the line, roster, Harmony Freight service, coal mines and dams, car barn and powerhouse sections. Finally, Ghost Rails VI details the history of Beaver Valley Traction that interchanged with the Harmony Route thru Ohio Valley towns to Sewickley, the home of Russell Boggs, who owned the Harmony Route. To complete the picture, sandwiched in-between the Harmony pages is the ghost connection to the Slippery Rock and Grove City Railway, a planned railway partially built and caught up in the Harmony building craze of 1908. 272 pages with 16 pages of color, 8.5 x 11 hardcover ISBN 0-9727397-5-0