I Love this P l a ce
I
’m standing on the berm of a road that once bridged a train track at the edge of the Greene County line. Jim Weinshenker is in the forest below me, gesturing to the flat land around him, choked with underbrush and trees. “The train tracks ran right through here and the water tower was back there.” He points behind him where the houses of West Union form a village. “See that white marker? That’s the county line. The tracks went along there into Washington County and down to Dunns Station.” It’s a sunny Saturday morning and Jim is on his way to the Greene County Historical Society Museum to work on its awesome artifacts from the glory days of the Waynesburg and Washington Railroad. The old passenger car is being readied for restoration and engine number 4 – Old Waynie – is about to be cleaned and repainted. Jim took the back roads from his home in Washington today to help me explore the WW Railroad, a country road that runs from Sycamore north to West Union. Narrow gauge tracks three feet apart once ran alongside it, from 1877 until workers removed them in 1978. Jim has written two books about this bit of steam-powered history and knows where every whistle stop, vanished trestle and abandoned station once stood. I’ve read his books and looked at every old photo. Now, staring into the forest, I imagine the image of that wooden water tank superimposed over the
greenery and say “Wow!” Jim says “Wow!” too when I show him the old rails that I found the first time I drove from Sycamore, through Swarts - where I rightly guessed which old building was once a train station - up to the Presbyterian Church that sits on this side road that is West Union. “I didn’t know they were here!” he says, pushing the weeds aside to get a better look. “The station sat right here – look you can still see the rail bed. I’m going to have to find who owns them – it would be great to have these at the museum!” Those rails are old, but not as old as the rail bed they now lay beside. Over the years rails and ties were upgraded and replaced, trestles went from wood to steel and some stations became elaborate affairs where passengers waited to ride from these stops in Greene County to the wide world outside. It was a dream come true for John Day of Carmichaels who left home to become a self-made man of the post-Civil War era. His fascination with the trains that were transforming America led him to write a letter to friends at home in 1874 challenging them to think beyond the muddy roads that isolated their goods and services from the outside world. Why not build a railroad to Washington, where lines lead to Pittsburgh and beyond? He volunteered to do it himself if the $150,000 bond could be raised.
Somewhere along the line of the Waynesburg and Washington Railroad in the late 19th century.
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FOLLOWING THE WW RAILROAD
by Colleen Nelson It was an idea whose time had come. Larry Koehler and Morgan Gayvert’s 2002 book Three Feet on the Panhandle captures some of the hustle and frenzy of the next three years as investors haggled, bonds were sold, right of ways were dickered over and residents lobbied to get the route to go through their back yards – or not. Surveyors and engineers were brought in to suss out the land with its winding valleys that lead to the watershed that separates the counties. Arguments arose over which villages between Washington and Waynesburg would win the right of way. The West Union Presbyterian Church became the half way place for meeting with bondholders and businessmen who were tallying the railroad stock that needed to be sold or spoken for to allow the state to grant permission to draw up the corporate charter. Meetings became heated as investors negotiated and voted on the direction the line would take. The farmers and businessmen of Nineveh and Prosperity, having lost their bid to have the route go their way through Old Concord, left in a huff to build a track of their own. But like many paper railroads of its day, it never left the drawing board. The WW Railroad charter of incorporation was signed with great fanfare on May 18, 1875 and by July, 150 men were hard at work grading the land with mule drawn drags. By October, tie timbers were selling for 21 cents a tie with many being cut on the spot by farm-
Jim Weinshenker’s book, Narrow Gauge in Southwestern Pennsylvania, sits atop old rails hidden in the weeds, beside x the West Union Church. GreeneScene Magazine •
JULY
2019
