Leesa Shady must have had me in mind when she established the schedule for the 2025/2026 Bridgeville Area Historical Society program season; the very first one was a talk on the Waynesburg and Washington Railroad (W&W)! Speaker Jim Weinschencker is a classic railroad buff who has been fascinated by the W&W for thirty years and has spent much of that time researching it and preserving its legacy.
My interest in the W&W is at least that long, although my personal involvement in commemorating it has been minimal. The railroad was chartered in 1875 to link the county seats of Washington and Greene Counties. It functioned independently until 1888, when the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) acquired ownership. It operated as the W&W until 1920, when the PRR re-organization re-labelled all the rolling stock with their logos and numbers. Brisk passenger service was maintained until 1929, making it possible for Waynesburgers to travel into Pittsburgh via a transfer to the PRR’s Chartiers Branch. In its prime the W & W had major train stations in Waynesburg and Washington, seven smaller stations along the route, and several dozen flag-stops. In 1933 operation of steam locomotives was terminated and minor freight service continued using modified Ford trucks and Fairmont speeders. In 1978 that service was terminated and most of the track and ties removed.
The W&W required twenty-eight miles of narrow gauge (thirty-six inches) track to traverse the eighteen “as the crow flies” miles between the two cities. The original rails were extremely light (thirty pounds per yard) and the ties only six feet long. The route included 178 curves, including the very sharp (164 feet radius) “Horseshoe Curve” at West Union. Primary workhorses on the W&W were 2-6-0 Alco/Cooke Mogul locomotives. The last surviving W&W Mogul, “Number 4”, (manufactured in 1916) is on display at the Greene County Historical Museum.
The speaker recounted an interesting incident that occurred during the original right-of-way acquisition process. Owners of the land through which the right-of-way passed were offered liberal financial rewards for this permission. One of them, Judge Chambers, initially objected. He eventually conceded and agreed to permit the railroad to be built through his property in return for a lifetime W&W pass and the establishment of a flag-stop shelter near his residence. He enjoyed custom service to and from his court in Washington the rest of his life.
Its zig-zag route and Toonerville Trolley feel prompted riders to suggest that it had initially been surveyed by a snake. An anonymous nineteenth century poet described this event thusly:
It wriggles in and it wriggles out And leaves the traveler still in doubt Whether the snake who made the track Was going south or coming back.
Change in elevation on the route was significant. The lowest point was about 920 feet above sea level in Waynesburg; the highest, nearly 1400 feet at the summit near Braddock, about five miles south of Washington. The grade from Washington to the summit was a challenging 2.88%. To negotiate this, south-bound freight trains were split into two halves. Two locomotives would haul half of the string up to the summit, leave it on a siding, and then return to Washington to pick up the other half.
The format for Mr. Weinschencker’s talk was an imaginary trip from Washington south to Waynesburg, with frequent photographs to illustrate it. He reported that many of the photographs were made by a Pittsburgh & Lake Erie (P&LE) photographer in the 1920s when that railroad was considering acquiring the W&W. He also made a profound statement regarding old photographs – don’t restrict your attention to the principal subject; the background often contains valuable information. This advice was exemplified by several mundane photographs of family groups, that had major railroad structures in the background.
His trip began in Washington, where Park Avenue in at MP8tersects South Main Street, the location of the terminal that served the Chartiers Branch of the PRR as well as the W & W. This handsome brick building is still in existence, occupied by Judson Wiley & Sons, a prominent ready-mix concrete supplier. The route negotiated a long curve to the southeast, crossing three wooden trestles (Elm Street, Rural Avenue, and the Paul Farm), all now buried under fill, before reaching a flag stop at Braddock. About a mile south of Braddock, at Mile Post (MP) 5 is the summit of Mount Wheeler and the aforementioned siding. Its location is obvious on a Google satellite map. After Judge Chambers’ flag stop, we reach the Van Kirk station (MP6) and then the Chambers Mill station (MP8), which served a popular resort, the Chambers Dam Lake.
The line ran south from there to McCracken (MP9), Baker Station (MP10), West Amity (MP12), Hackney Station (MP13), Dunn Station (MP16), the ‘Horseshoe Curve’, and across the county line into Greene County at West Union (MP17). Here it encountered the only water tower between the two termini, a welcome place to stop and be refilled. The next station was Deer Lick (MP19), followed by Iams (MP20), Swarts (MP21), Sycamore (MP23), Rees’ Mill (MP25), Buchannon (MP27), and finally Waynesburg (MP28). Waynesburg was the home base of the line, sporting a six-stall roundhouse, an Armstrong turntable so well balanced that it could be moved manually, a repair shop, and stockyards, in addition to a very adequate passenger station.
The station at Sycamore was actually Jake Weaver’s General Store; it is nostalgic to imagine a house-wife buying a ticket there in 1912, boarding the two-car passenger train, and riding into Waynesburg to shop in a millinery store. Certainly has the feel of “Petticoat Junction”.
Our thanks to Mr. Weinschencker for an interesting presentation and for his dedication to this iconic railroad. The next presentation in this series will be at 7:30 pm on October 28, 2025, in the Chartiers Room at the Bridgeville Volunteer Fire Department. Jack Puglisi will discuss “The Life of Theodore Roosevelt”.