Bryant Schmude

Taken out in Brooklyn, NY---we see Bryant on a visit to The Big Apple and to a NYCTransit Authority money collection car.

These subway//rapid transit cars never carried passengers. Instead they traveled the vast web of NYC's subway//elevated rail system after hours stopping. They paused at stations to haul in the vast amounts of money and tokens collected at the fare booths.

The Hays Coal operations were located along the Monongahela River in what is Hays, Pennsylvania between the South Side and Homestead. The operation of extensive coal mines included this steam railroad and an incline "up//down" to the mine entry.

This was a non passenger incline not ridden by the general public. There were many such coal inclines in SW Pennsylvania in addition to the many passenger inclines. This view was found by Bryant Schmude's efforts and is shared with all of you. This spot is somewhere along the Streets Run Valley in a long ago time. ENJOY!!!

Taken in front of Pittsburgh's ROSS DIVISION BUS GARAGE in the North Hills, we see PAT ((now PRT)) NEOPLAN coach #3512 awaiting its next run as route 11D-PERRYSVILLE. This image was made by a young Bryant Schmude in 1982.

This facility, known by most as ROSS GARAGE began life as a major North Hills trolley yard known as Keating Carhouse. Until the mid-1960's, it was the home base of many of Pittsburgh's North Hills//North Side "T" lines.

PAT Bus 11D was originally an electric light-rail line dating back to 1888 as a very early electric "T" line. As a Pittsburgh "T" line it was most known as the #8-PERRYSVILLE streetcar until that "T" became PAT ((now PRT)) #11D. The 11D, shown here in this historic Schmude picture, was later renumbered into its old "T" number as PRT bus #8.

Taken in World War 2 Pittsburgh in 1943, this shows Clara Verna Schmude who was born September 26th, 1941 at Allegheny General Hospital.

Clara was a descendant of the Schmude's who immigrated to Pittsburgh's Woods Run in 1894 and the child of Theodore & Verna Schmude. As a child she lived in Chalfant Boro and Pitcairn and in later years in New York City and North Braddock, PA.

After the 1980's, it is said that she traveled to the midwesren US and all contact was thereafter lost.

In hallways so long ago, lots of pretty girls you know.

Riding The Light-Rail Rails with Bryant Schmude in a long ago image on a Pittsburgh PCC-streamliner trolley car.

This rare Pittsburgh timetable from the early decade of the PAT ((now Pittsburgh Regional Transit)) transit system--from the archives of Bryant Schmude--includes the long abandon bus route #19A. The #19A operated over a grid system throughout Bellevue and Avalon, Pennsylvania. It dated back to the 1940's era as a Pittsburgh Railways bus shuttle to feed riders to the local light-rail trolleys on runs #13-EMSWORTH, #14-AVALON ONLY and #15-BELLEVUE WEST VIEW.

In 1966, all remaining "T" lines from Avalon Loop and those of Pittsburgh North Side were abandon by the "new" PAT system. Bus route #19A continued to operate until it was cut due to low ridership in 1969.

This folder also include the run #19B MANCHESTER--EVERGREEN and the #24B McKEES ROCKS BRIDGE.....This later route linked Brighton Heights with West Park over in McKees Rocks.

An unidentified lady is shown here with Bryant Schmude many years ago in a sweet little moment.

This still from an actual silent movie from the pre-WW1 era, shows a high-speed interurban trolley of the fabled PITTSBURGH, HARMONY, BUTLER & NEW CASTLE RAILWAY as it came boiling down the tracks, hissed to quick stop to discharge riders ((including the man in the white hat)) and in a flash, was gone again. Off on its run between New Castle and Pittsburgh, PA.

This was filmed at WEXFORD "T" STATION.

As a child decades later, yours truly often visited Aunt Dorothy & Uncle John's farm along Hope Lutheran Road in what is now Cranberry Township. Snaking along their farm property was the long abandon scar of this "T" systems right of way.

These big interurban "T" cars included plush seat, a restroom and one of the cars was set up to show movies. They would snake down into Pittsburgh's North Side in the valley which now carries highway I-79 North, then into Pittsburgh proper over the rails of the Pittsburgh Railways---now PRT.

Operations carried on until August of 1931. At many spots, scars of this long ago light-railway can be noted through the Pittsburgh North Hills.

Here with "MR CONDUCTOR", a young family from Pittsburgh's East Side recalls the tracks to Squirrel Hill's Forbes & Murray Avenue.

Long ago in happier times as "MR CONDUCTOR" gave a little girl a taste of the cab seat of a subway//surface light-rail trolley. It was a long ago era.....

On Sundays and Holidays, you could once board a Pittsburgh Railways ((later PAT and then PRT)) streetcar or bus, drop 65-cents into the farebox and ride allover the vast bus and "T" system. This is a rare example of once of these passes. It dates to the 1950's.

This from the collection of Bryant Schmude

Olivia smiles with "MR CONDUCTOR" in the operators cab of "THE YULETIDE SHUTTLE", a long ago light-rail "T" link to The South Pole.

A young man gets to try out the operator's seat of a Pittsburgh Railways PCC type streetcar w/"MR CONDUCTOR" on a day long, long ago.