In its natural state, Pennsylvania’s petroleum was a nasty substance that needed to be deodorized and purified before anyone would choose it over whale oil to light their homes. Oil refineries sprang up in Titusville and also in Pittsburgh, where barrels of oil had been floated via the Allegheny River before the railroads laid their tracks. In 1862, John D. Rockefeller built his first refinery in Cleveland, which quickly became an important refining city, outstripping the Pennsylvania locations. His Standard Oil group eventually commanded a great deal of influence in setting railroad rates for all the nation’s trunk lines.
In northwestern Pennsylvania, the oil boom went bust when the number of oil wells and the quantity of oil they pumped drove prices down. In the years before the gasoline-powered automobile created a more lasting demand for petroleum products, better sources of oil were discovered in other states and foreign countries. Pennsylvania was left with ghost towns and abandoned tracks, artifacts reflecting the entrepreneurial spirit of those who had scrambled to harness a new source of wealth.
William Wright Travels
While New York Times reporter William Wright was en route to the Tennessee Valley to collect information on border states for the “guidance of those who might desire to migrate thither after the [Civil] war,” he decided to spend a few days in Pennsylvania’s oil region. This led to writing a book on the oil business titled The Oil Regions of Pennsylvania, published in 1865. The second to last chapter was titled “Ought I to Invest in Petroleum, and How?” Wright’s descriptions provide a glimpse of daily life in this part of Pennsylvania during the oil boom.
The oil region of Pennsylvania is entered at four principal points, which may be termed the natural gateways of the country. Two of these the Allegheny River affords, it being navigable on the South from Pittsburgh, and (occasionally) on the north from Irvine, on the line of the Philadelphia and Erie Railroad. Rafts and flat-bottomed boats, indeed, come down from much higher points during spring and autumn. While a considerable proportion of the imports come by way of Pittsburgh, and large quantities of petroleum, both crude and refined, are daily sent down to that city, the great volume of travel to and fro passes by railroad. The Atlantic and Great Western Railway proceeds in a direction nearly parallel with Oil Creek, and at the average distance of about thirty miles, to the westward. The points affording communication with this trunk-line are Corry and Meadville, about forty miles apart, the former also touching the Philadelphia and Erie, now operated, under a lease, by the Pennsylvania Central Company.
Taking the cars of the Oil Creek Railroad at Corry, the passenger is apt to find himself inconveniently packed by the way, and may not, indeed, be able to procure admission further than the platform, feeling only too happy that he is not among the disappointed company who have been left behind. After traversing an upward grade for a few miles and the table-land beyond, he finds the road entering a branch of the famous Oil Creek. Passing near Oil Lake and the village stations of Centreville and Hydetown, he at length reaches Titusville, distant twenty-eight miles, the two hours’ ride costing only one dollar. At the depot, he may bid adieu to cheap fares, good beds, clean sheets, and other characteristics of civilization “in the States.” …
At either Titusville or Oil City, the stranger finds himself in a new world, this impression being no way lessened by hearing others speak about the latest news from “the States,” or returning to them. This change addresses itself to every sense. The objects which he is too apt to touch, in spite of all precautions, have a greasy, clammy feel. His nostrils are assailed by gaseous odors, such as they probably never before inhaled in the open air. Into his ears is continually poured a stream of speech, in a dialect essentially different from that taught in Webster or Worcester: Such phrases as “surface indications,” “dry territory,” “developed territory,” “oil-smeller,” with the names of a dozen implements unknown to the outside world, all uttered with earnestness and volubility, at once set his half-bewildered wits at work in quest of their meaning….
As preliminary to all these novel spectacles, he has been treated to the filthy streets and wooden sidewalks of Corry, Titusville, and Oil City, the last bearing away the palm in point of disarray and disgust. He has also been made acquainted with the luxuries of hotel life, especially in regard to sleeping accommodations, with from four to ten straw beds in a single room, each tenanted by one, two, or three sufferers, according to the pressure exercised by the traveling public. On the parlor floors he has learned to become reconciled with an inch deep of mud or dust, while leathery beef-steaks are no longer regarded with contempt; for with its many disadvantages, Petrolia has the one transcendent merit of creating a vigorous appetite.
Local Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society
Operating as the Lake Shore Railway Historical Society, the Lake Shore Chapter sponsors regular public programs on various aspects of the railroad industry. It also operates the Lake Shore Railway Museum, which is open to the public for parts of the year. The chapter publishes the Lake Shore Timetable.
The Region’s Railroad Giants
Oris Paxton Van Sweringen (1879–1936) and Mantis James Van Sweringen (1881–1935)
Locally known as “the Vans,” Oris Paxton Van Sweringen and Mantis James Van Sweringen were bachelor brothers who spent their lives as business partners, first in real estate development, then in the railroad industry. Having grown up in Cleveland with little formal education, the Vans borrowed money to buy land that had been abandoned by a religious sect and developed one of America’s first planned suburban communities, which they named Shaker Heights. At the same time that the New York Central Railroad was looking for a friendly new owner for the Nickel Plate, the Vans needed public transportation to connect their suburb with downtown Cleveland. The brothers purchased the Nickel Plate and provided it with new management necessary to make it a profitable and efficient freight line.
In the early 1920s, they merged two other railroads into the Nickel Plate system. Other acquisitions followed, making the Vans owners of what may have been the world’s largest railroad group and advocates of a movement to consolidate America’s railroads. However, later that same decade, the prospective Van Sweringen railroad empire fell victim to objections from the Interstate Commerce Commission, which opposed too much integration of separate railroads. The Depression brought on the bankruptcy of one of their acquisitions, and their properties were sold at auction shortly before the death of the younger brother.
Charles Barstow Wright (1822–98)
Charles Barstow Wright is well known in the Pacific Northwest as the director and president who successfully reorganized the Northern Pacific Railroad in the 1870s. However, Wright was born in Pennsylvania and achieved his first business success in Erie, where he established a business and the area’s first bank.
Wright became a director of the Sunbury & Erie Railroad (later the Philadelphia & Erie Railroad) and devoted himself to its completion. Wright was also among the entrepreneurs who sought to furnish Pennsylvania’s oil region with rail service. In 1863, he formed a syndicate to build a railroad from Warren to Oil City, which later merged with the Oil Creek Railroad to form the Oil Creek & Allegheny River Railway. The railroad was very profitable for a time.
Sampling the Region’s Railroad Scene
Erie
If you need a beer after a long drive through the farm country surrounding the city of Erie, a good place to start would be the brewpub currently located at Erie’s Union Station. Called the Brewerie at Union Station, its dining room occupies the station’s hexagonal former waiting room, which retains what appear to be original architectural features and signage indicating the ticket windows, baggage check, and the way to the trains. The restaurant serves an extensive menu of pub grub and locally brewed beers, including an ale named for the building’s resident ghost.
The Art Deco station, which opened in 1927, was designed by architects Alfred T. Fellheimer and Steward Wagner. It served New York Ce
ntral system trains heading west to Chicago and St. Louis or east to Buffalo, New York, and Boston, as well as Pennsy trains heading south to Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Besides the waiting room, it had a concourse with a number of concessions. The building replaced an earlier train station constructed in 1865 at the same location, which served trains heading south for Philadelphia or Pittsburgh or east and west to Cleveland or Buffalo on earlier railroads that were precursors to the Pennsy and the New York Central. Erie once had two other passenger stations, serving the Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad and the Nickel Plate, but both were demolished in the twentieth century.
The Union Station in Erie has been renovated and now houses a business and a restaurant, not to mention Amtrak’s passenger waiting area.
Passenger service to Erie gradually declined from the mid to late twentieth century and was discontinued entirely for a few years before being resumed in 1975 with a single train daily: the Lake Shore Limited. In 2003, an Erie firm called Logistics Plus purchased the then vacant building and began renovations. Its headquarters now occupies part of the building, which it shares with tenants including the Brewerie. There’s also a small Amtrak waiting room for the single train in each direction that pulls in after midnight (westbound) or early in the morning (eastbound).
Once Erie had a coal port; today it has a developing bayfront district that is described in promotional literature as a “bustling recreational playground.” The area is anchored by a 187-foot tower built to commemorate Erie’s two hundredth birthday. The waterfront’s major attraction is the U.S. Brig Niagara, a replica of the warship with which Oliver Hazard Perry won the battle of Lake Erie; it is routinely anchored outside a maritime museum that interprets its story. The waterfront also has a conference center with attached hotel opened in 2008, whose water-view restaurant is one of four dining options in the bayfront area, not counting the hot dogs for sale at the visitors center in the Bicentennial Tower. As of 2011, a water taxi took passengers to a landing in Presque Isle State Park. The bayfront has also offered tours on a boat called the Victorian Princess, which was undergoing repairs in 2011 following a fire. Just down the Bayfront Highway, special events are held throughout the summer at Liberty Park.
Among the plans for Erie’s bayfront area over the next decade are better connections to the developing downtown. It is a long walk from the Bicentennial Tower to the museums of the Erie County Historical Society and Erie Art Museum on State Street. This may be an unintended consequence of Erie’s railroad history, when the Pennsy deliberately built tracks that blocked the port from other railroads serving the city. There are also plans to develop Erie’s deep-water shipping pier.
When the Nickel Plate opened for business in 1882, its tracks ran through Erie at grade level along Nineteenth Street. This may have been a nuisance for people who lived along this residential street, but it was popular with rail fans until 2003, when the Nickel Plate’s successor, Norfolk Southern, built tracks along a new easement. When we visited in 2011, we checked out various intersections along Nineteenth Street but found no remains of, or memorials to, the Nickel Plate line.
Since the early twentieth century, General Electric has been building locomotives in Erie on land the company purchased in 1907 to build what was long known as the Erie Works. Now called GE Transportation and still headquartered in Erie, this division also operates a plant in Grove City, which manufactures engines for locomotives and other applications and celebrated forty years in continuous operation in 2011. GE Transportation is Erie County’s largest employer and employs about eight thousand people worldwide. It is the world’s largest manufacturer of diesel electric locomotives, which are used by freight railroads, passenger lines, and urban transport systems, as well as related products such as signaling equipment. Its twenty-first century products include fuel-efficient, environmentally friendly locomotives called the Evolution Series. Engineers are working on a hybrid diesel-electric locomotive designed to capture energy dissipated during braking. In 2011, GE Transportation announced that it was recalling workers laid off during the recent recession and hiring new ones.
In the 1980s, GE retirees and other interested people began to collect materials of historical interest and plan for a museum. The Museum of Erie GE History opened in 1995 in the company’s community center. Besides the products and instruments on display, the museum housed artwork and photographs, plus an HO-gauge model railroad reproducing in miniature some of the plant’s buildings and locomotives. In July 2011, after a fire in this building, all undamaged materials were moved into storage while the company deliberated over whether to restore the museum in its former building or relocate it elsewhere on plant property. Consult GE Transportation’s website for information about reopening.
The tracks off Wesley Avenue behind GE Transportation.
Equipment on display at the Conneaut Railroad Museum.
The train tracks just south of the GE Transportation complex were recommended to us as a good train-spotting location where we could watch locomotives being tested. We drove around this area on a Monday afternoon but were unable to spot any locomotives or even find a good place to park our car. We did discover the Franklin overpass, just down Franklin Avenue from the GE Transportation main entrance, a vantage point overlooking a panorama of today’s main lines through Erie. The nearby streets had places to park, and the overpass had sidewalks on both sides.
One of the best places we found in Erie to experience the town’s railroad heritage was at the Erie County Historical Society’s History Center on State Street, which has on display the last remaining portion of rail from the tracks that once ran down Nineteenth Street. The city of Erie donated this artifact to the society in 2003. The History Center also has a number of interesting maps, including one from 1910 that shows the Pennsy tracks swinging through the city and sealing off the waterfront. Mounted pages from a 1900 atlas show railroad routes through town and the location of the first Union Station. Additional displays focus on other Erie transportation systems, including trolleys and the earlier canal. Needless to say, the History Center has a great deal on Erie’s shipping industry, its tourist vessels, and Lake Erie’s more spectacular shipwrecks.
Besides the Lake Shore Railway Museum in North East, rail fans will find a railroad museum in nearby Conneaut, just over the Ohio state line. Located in a former New York Central depot, this museum was dedicated in 1966 to the people of Conneaut who worked on local railroads, including the Bessemer & Lake Erie, the New York Central, and the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad, or Nickel Plate. Some equipment is on display behind the museum, including a Nickel Plate locomotive. A CSX maintenance worker inspecting the tracks just behind this museum informed us that the best train-spotting time was from early morning up until 11 a.m.
Farther north in Conneaut, off Ford Avenue, we found the headquarters of the Canadian National Pittsburgh & Conneaut Dock Company. No one seemed to mind that we parked in the company’s lot and looked down at dock operations. There were no barges at the dock that day, but we saw a long line of empty railcars waiting for business.
Lake Shore Railway Museum
Founded in 1956, the Lake Shore Railway Historical Society has been operating the Lake Shore Railway Museum in the town of North East for more than forty years. It occupies the old passenger depot built by the New York Central. The museum displays railroad photographs, documents, and memorabilia. Its extensive outdoor collection of rolling stock includes examples made or used locally, such as GE Transportation products, a large collection of Pullman and other passenger cars, and freight cars dating from 1907 to 1961. The museum holds periodic programs that are open to the public. Its location next to the current CSX main line makes it a great train-spotting location. When we visited in 2011, a program on the history of Amtrak was scheduled, and a sign indicated that speeder car rides were available.
The outdoor exhibits at the Lakeshore Railway Historical Society’s museum complex.
Greenville Railroad Par
k and Museum
Another railroad park and museum can be found in Greenville, where volunteers established the Greenville Railroad Park in 1985 to preserve the town’s railroad history. Volunteers also constructed the museum building, gift shop, and maintenance structures. The park’s premier exhibit is Engine 604, built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works of Philadelphia in 1936; this engine was once active on the Union Railroad. The museum promotes it as the “last of its kind,” as it is the single remaining steam switch engine, and it was one of the largest ever built. Other cars on display include an iron-ore car and two cabooses. A recently donated railroad flatcar now has a roof and picnic tables, and it can be rented, along with a restored caboose, for private parties.
Corry Area Historical Society
The town of Corry has a museum that grew out of a search for a special locomotive: a Climax engine built in Corry. In 1960, the interested parties purchased such an engine, and five years later, they formed the Corry Area Historical Society. The Climax was the brainchild of Charles Darwin Scott, a lumberman who operated a logging tram road. Climax engines were constructed by the Climax Manufacturing Company from 1888 until 1930. They were made for the cheap, uneven roadbeds and steep grades of logging railroads and were also used for mining and many other industrial purposes.
The Climax engine on display at the Corry Area Historical Society’s museum.
Railroads of Pennsylvania Page 35