Guide to the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad Company Records, 1860-1999 AIS.1982.23

Arrangement

Repository
ULS Archives & Special Collections
Title
Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad Company Records
Creator
Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad Company
Collection Number
AIS.1982.23
Extent
924 Linear Feet (688 records boxes, 14 manuscript boxes, 5 tubes, 1 flat file folder, 16 oversized items, 28 oversized map folders, 31 map rolls and 18 filing cabinet drawers)
Date
1860-1999
Abstract
The Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad Company Records document the many facets of the management and operation of the railroad company throughout its long history, mainly from the 1860s through 1999. Digital reproductions of selected photographic images are available online.
Language
English .
Author
Emily Hikes.
Publisher
ULS Archives & Special Collections
Address
University of Pittsburgh Library System
Archives & Special Collections
Website: library.pitt.edu/archives-special-collections
Contact Us: www.library.pitt.edu/ask-archivist
URL: http://library.pitt.edu/archives-special-collections

History

The Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad (P&LE) began operation in 1879 after the 1878 consolidation with the Youngstown & Pittsburgh Railroad Company. Headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pa., the P&LE line began as a single track railroad connecting Pittsburgh to Youngstown, Ohio. The railroad began its affiliation with the New York Central System in 1883 and, by 1890, was one of the principle rail routes in the eastern United States. Financed in part by the Harmony Society, a communal religious sect located just north of Pittsburgh in Economy, Pa., and in part by William Henry Vanderbilt's Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway, the P&LE had extended south to Connellsville, Pa., and handled six times the amount of freight it had in 1880, earning its nickname, the "Little Giant."

The P&LE continued to progress into the twentieth century thanks, in part, to the advances in railroad technology. The development of all-steel cars made it possible to carry a load of up to 50-tons. Additionally, advancements made in train brakes through the Westinghouse air brake system and automatic couplers, allowed P&LE trains to run safely at faster speeds and carry heavier coal loads.

The P&LE also operated as a passenger line. Beginning with its first passenger train in February 1879, the railroad became a heavily used line by travelers and commuters. Although passenger trips were relatively small, the average trip was around 20 miles. Until 1941, the passenger trains accounted for one-half the miles of the freight trains. However, the rise of popularity of motor trucks, private cars, and buses led to the eventual decline of train travel. By the mid-1970s, only one commuter train remained on the P&LE line.

While the early 1970s brought a decline in passenger travel, the freight lines continued to grow. In 1976, following the 1970 bankruptcy of the Penn Central System, the railroad obtained trackage rights over former Penn Central lines to Ashtabula Harbor, Oh., located on Lake Erie and through Sharon to Shenango, Pa. The railroad was purchased by CSX Transportation in 1993.

Arrangement

The collection was inventoried by several graduate students in the fall of 2010 which produced a box-level inventory. An intellectual arrangement was then created based on each individual railroad line that comprised the P&LE. The corresponding box information is included, but note that the material is loosely arranged in the boxes and in no significant order. The physical arrangement is imprecise and uncontrolled because up to this point, no processing has been done to any part of this collection other than the photographs. Considering that a number of people worked to create this box inventory and the scale of this collection is so large, the contents may not be exactly what the finding aid claims them to be.

Each series represents the various railroad lines found within the overall company records of the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad, followed by non-manuscript materials. Five subseries exist within the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad series, giving a rough outline of the large amount of materials generated by the operation of the railroad.

Series I. Lake Erie & Eastern Railroad, 1908-1980s

Series II. Mahoning State Line Railroad, 1895-1980

Series III. Monongahela Connecting Railroad, 1864-1989

Series IV. Montour Railroad, 1900-1956

Series V. New York Central System, 1905-1965

Series VI. Pittsburgh, Chartiers & Youghiogheny Railroad, 1898-1995

Series VII. Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad, 1860-1994

Subseries 1. Engineering, 1850-1944

Subseries 2. Financial, 1850-1994

Subseries 3. General Operations, 1883-1982

Subseries 4. Labor, 1850-1994

Subseries 5. Legal, 1850-1994

Series VIII. Pittsburgh, Lisbon & Western Railroad, 1925-1945

Series IX. Pittsburgh, McKeesport & Youghiogheny Railroad, 1870-1960

Series X. Youngstown & Southern Railroad, 1900-1956

Series XI. Training Material, 1970s-1980s

Series XII. Audio-Visual Materials

Series XIII. Oversize, 1913-1981

Series XIV. Maps, Drawings and Plans, 1872-1990

Scope and Content Notes

The Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad Company Records document the management and operation of the company throughout its long history, from around 1850 to 1999. These materials contain information about Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad (P&LE), as well as the various branch lines that, along with P&LE, were controlled by the New York Central Railroad System from 1883 until 1968, and later by Penn Central from 1968 until 1970. Regardless of the large number of materials, this is not a complete record of P&LE history, or of its subsidiaries.

The manuscript material includes a large number of bound ledgers of meeting minutes, statistics, operational logs, and reports. Many ledgers contain letter or telegraph correspondence between personnel, external companies, subsidiaries, and employees. Employee records comprise card indexes, files, and folders of terminated, retired, furloughed, and deceased employees as well as applications, recommendations, rates of pay, sick and vacation time, and union agreements. Legal documents consist of claims and grievances against P&LE by employees, companies, cities, and citizens; articles of agreement concerning the lease of equipment, land, and tracks; and contracts between P&LE, its subsidiaries and associate companies. Publications scattered throughout the collection include federal regulations (many of the Interstate Commerce Commission), company safety policy and handbooks, national railroad magazines, and multi-railroad agreements. Bulletins and notices were distributed within the company and sometimes are referred to as 'pink sheets.' There is also a substantial presence of blueprints of buildings and tracks and schematics for equipment and machinery.

The collection contains over two thousand feet of 16mm motion picture film depicting railroad work crews in the 1930s, various construction projects, a parade of boats on the Monongahela River, and safety and training procedures. Audio cassettes relate to personal safety of employees and the operation of certain railroad equipment. Slides depict safety training exercises and methods, hazardous materials, and other standard safety practices. The film, cassettes, and slides are noted in the Training Materials series. Only the Photographs series in this collection has been processed. The remaining materials have been housed in records boxes, manuscript boxes, filing cabinets, or paper wrappings and still comprise their original folders or none at all. All materials are available for on-site review.

Copyright

The University of Pittsburgh holds the property rights to the material in this collection, but the copyright may still be held by the original creator/author. Researchers are therefore advised to follow the regulations set forth in the U.S. Copyright Code when publishing, quoting, or reproducing material from this collection without the consent of the creator/author or that go beyond what is allowed by fair use.

Acquisition Information

The first accession was a gift of Martha E. Ecton in 1982; the second accession was a gift of Jack Polaritz in 1998.

Processing Information

This collection was box-inventoried by University of Pittsburgh graduate students Emily Hikes, Jennifer Needham, and Bryan Moll in Fall 2010; previously, Matthew Elder, an undergraduate History intern, began the inventory in Fall 2009. Emily was responsible for arranging the contents of the inventory to use in this finding aid. The initial collection of photographs and materials form the New York Central System were processed by Frank J. Kurtik in 1982. In Spring 2010, an updated finding aid was written and published by Miriam Meislik and Renee Ziemann. It is now subsumed into this finding aid. Series XIV. Maps, Drawings and Plans was processed by Debbie Rougeux in Spring 2014. Items in this series were sorted into categories based on the other series in the collection. In addition to the information in the finding aid, additonal data on each item was entered into a spreadsheet.

Previous Citation

Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad Company Records, 1850-1999, AIS.1982.23, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh

Preferred Citation

Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad Company Records, 1850-1999, AIS.1982.23, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System

Access Restrictions

Due to some records that contain private information (e.g., employee cards), access to portions of the collection requires a signed confidentiality agreement. Please contact the Archives Service Center for more information.

Related Material

Jack Polaritz Collection of the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad, AIS.1998.41, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System

Jack Polaritz Railroad Collection, AIS.1998.42, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System

Jack Polartiz Collection of Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad Photographs, AIS.1998.54, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System

Existence and Location of Originals

Digital reproductions of portions of the photographic images are available electronically at http://historicpittsburgh.org/collection/pittsburgh-lake-erie-railroad-company-records.

Separated Material

Boxes containing photographs are located in the Media Storage Room at the Archives Service Center. A number of employee and train indexes are housed in filing cabinets in the West Wing of the Archives Service Center.

Subjects

    Corporate Names

    • Youngstown & Southern Railway
    • Pittsburgh Lisbon & Western Railroad
    • Aliquippa & Southern Railroad Company.
    • Lake Erie & Eastern Railroad Company.
    • Mahoning State Line Railroad Company
    • Montour Railroad Company
    • New York Central Railroad Company
    • Pittsburgh, Chartiers and Youghiogheny Railway Company
    • Penn Central Transportation Company
    • Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation
    • Monongahela Connecting Railroad Company
    • Pennsylvania Railroad
    • ConRail
    • Mahoning, Beaver and Ellwood Railroad Company
    • Waynesburg Southern Railroad
    • Little Kanawha Syndicate
    • United States. Interstate Commerce Commission

    Personal Names

    • MCCune, Frank

    Geographic Names

    • McKeesport (Pa.)
    • Pittsburgh (Pa.)
    • Ashtabula (Ohio)
    • Gateway Yard (Youngstown, Ohio)
    • McKees Rocks (Pa.)
    • Neville Island (Pa.)
    • Youngstown (Ohio)

    Genres

    • Photographs
    • Accident reports
    • Ledgers (Account books)

    Other Subjects

    • Engineering drawings -- Pennsylvania -- Allegheny County.
    • Collective labor agreements -- Transport workers -- United States
    • Business and Industry
    • Coke industry -- Pennsylvania
    • Labor
    • Railroads -- Employees -- Labor unions -- United States
    • Railroad equipment industry -- Pennsylvania -- Pittsburgh
    • Railroad engineering
    • Railroad companies -- Pennsylvania -- Pittsburgh -- Records and correspondence
    • Railroad accidents -- Investigation -- Pennsylvania -- Pittsburgh
    • Lake Erie and Ohio River Canal (Ohio and Pa. : Proposed)
    • Transportation
    • Legal documents -- Pennsylvania -- Pittsburgh.
    • Locomotive industry -- Pennsylvania -- Pittsburgh -- History
    • Coal mines and mining -- Pennsylvania
    • Coal trade -- Pennsylvania
    • Transportation -- Pennsylvania -- Pittsburgh -- History

Container List