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Ghost Rails II is an elaborate history almost mile by mile from New Castle, Pennsylvania, Lawrence County, to Queen Junction, Butler County, and finally to Kaylor and Brady’s Bend, Armstrong County. To the north, the railroad history covers coal and iron ore movements from Ashtabula, Ohio, to Queen Junction, Butler, and North Bessemer and Pittsburgh. In essence, it is far more than a Western Allegheny Railroad story, Ghost Rails II gives an accurate account of Bessemer and Lake Erie involvement from beginning to end and of Pennsylvania Railroad ownership from 1927 to 1967. In order to fully comprehend the Western Allegheny Railroad history, the reader must understand, the Buffalo Rochester and Pittsburgh Railroad (later part of the B&O and now the Buffalo and Pittsburgh Railroad) connection and a little junction called AWWA in New Castle, plus the NYC and Pittsburgh and Lake Erie connection to Ellwood City. It is a complete history. The Western Allegheny Railroad, having used the once common 2-8-0 H10s locomotives, is known for being the last steam operated short line in Pennsylvania and for owning the last H10s in existence in 1957. However, by 1992, history would repeat itself in the diesel age: the Western Allegheny Railroad used a trio of old Bessemer and Lake Erie 1500 Hp F units; these F units were known as the last units in revenue freight usage in America. A complete history of Western Allegheny Railroad power is documented for first time with astonishing photos both in BW and in the 16 page color insert.
From Queen Junction, to Hooker, to Kaylor, and Brady’s Bend, a fascinating coal and limestone history is told. The photos series cover most all mines along the 23 mile route, their history, connection, personalities, and railroad connections. The United States Steel limestone mines that once shipped 100 cars of limestone a day to United States Steel in Pittsburgh in Kaylor are shown with spectacular photos from the beginning, to the end, and to the ghost remains of today. Western Allegheny Railroad Ghost Rails II is the second in a series of 5 books along the Western Pa. and Eastern Ohio state line. The book is a must for the historian and the railroad buff! From company homes of Green Row in New Castle to Blue Row in Brady’s Bend and from Rose Point to Roseville an amazing history is validated. From Emmet Queen, the first WA President, to Andrew Carnegie, and Bessemer and Lake Erie President E.H. Utley, to sectionmen and the last Western Allegheny engineer an enthralling history is documented and revealed in hundreds of photographs and maps. And, the history is revealed in a fashion for the reader to expand and explore what remains behind. I am a graduate of Geneva College, and a retired English teacher from Blackhawk High School. For twenty years I rode freight trains as a hobo across North America. In the summer of 1971, I rode a freight from Ellwood City, Pa. to Seattle, Washington, in 70 hours. Caught a 747 to Japan and rode trains. Then I boated to Siberia and spent 45 days riding trains in Russia. I ended up in Turkey. Five years later in Essex, Montana, riding the “Billy Goat,” I encountered railroad author Karl Zimmerman who was doing a story. Years, trains, jobs, adventures, dangers, fun, interchanges, it all passed. It was an education and a great blessing from God. Part of me still wants to roll nowhere one more time. My first book Rails of Dreams, taking over three years, was my longest journey; it took me back to the ghost railroads of my youth that I knew so well the Pittsburgh Harmony Butler and New Castle Railway and the Pittsburgh Lisbon and Western. The Beaver Valley Railroad Company came next, and both books sold out. The Greersburg Academy and the Station House, a history of one of Americas oldest Academic buildings, 1802, that became a train station from 1883 to 1972, was my third. The fifty page paper back is available for $15, simply note and add to the cost of an order. By the time I arrived at my fourth book, I arrived at my title Ghost Rails; I was searching and writing about that which was gone---much like riding a freight train and looking out and searching and finding myself gone again. Allegheny Railroad Ghost Rails Volume II involved winter hikes, continual discoveries, and new friends. I did not want the research to end. Ghost Rails III includes three electric lines Youngtown and Ohio River, Beaver Valley East Liverpool and Steubenville, and Glasgow Railroad. Plus, the BR&P Big Run Branch in New Castle, and possibly an update on the Smiths Ferry Coal Railroad. Ghost Rails IV will cover industrial ghost railroads as Carbon Limestone, Winfield Railroad, Aliquippa and Southern, Bessemer Limestone, and the Mercer Valley RR. Ghost Rails V constitutes Meadville, Conneaut and Limestone, Jackson Coal RR, Koppel Car Company, Wampum Furnace, and the Sharon Railway. I am very privileged to have my grandson Adair Gwilliam make these trip with me in all types of inclement weather; he is now sixteen and has been exploring since he could walk. Adair lives with my wife Eileen and me in a log home I constructed in South Beaver Township. All three of us attend the Chippewa Evangelical Free Church, a solid cornerstone in our lives. Copyright 2006 Wayne A. Cole
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Perhaps more enchanting of the Western Allegheny story are the paper ghost connection to the Ohio state line, Enon Valley, and Homewood, Pennsylvania, and to 50 miles east across the Allegheny River to East Brady, Red Bank, and Reidsburg. In its finality under Pennsylvania Railroad ownership, the Western Allegheny was slated as part of the “Low Grade” route to reduce traffic on the Horseshoe Curve and the congestion in Pittsburgh.
Of special Western Allegheny Railroad interest is the absorbing 27 mile section from Queen Junction to New Castle. The New Castle section near Portersville was buried beneath Lake Arthur and Moraine State Park in 1968. Along with the railroad, coal ghost towns like Barber, Mayne, and Isle were also inundated. The Western Allegheny story, as well, covers the history of the coal mines and town lost in the Lake Arthur.
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