Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-07-03
BOOMS THAT BROKE.
Out of Their Wrecks Something Tan
gible May Yet Be Evolved
A DEMAND FOR RAPID TRANSIT.
Neville Islanders Working Hard to Get
an Electric Railway.
TIRED OF THEIR PRESENT FACILITIES

A lot of cleaners are at work gathering ur
| the skeletons of the various railway booms
that have agitated Neville Island for the
past ten years. 1t appears that something
tangible may be fabricated out of the
wrecks. Since rapid transit has given
population an impetus eastward
the Neville Islanders have suddenly re-
allied that they are not in it, and now the
idea of an electric railway grows hotter day
by day. They have never been able to
agree on what they want, as whole, and
it was supposed that after getting
a bridge that would enable them to over.
come wind, tide and ice they would rest con-
tent and never again be heard from. But most
of the gardeners on the island have
more ground than they can work
with profit, and as electric and
cable railways, and especially S-cent fare,
have set every lover of suburban comfort in
an eastward direction toward a section pos
sessing fewer natural advantages than the
westerly suburbs offer, the west realizes that
it must get up and hustle if it expects to
collar any of the advantages of the future.
Anxiety for an Electric Road.
During some weeks past quiet canvass
has been made of public sentiment on the
island, and it is found that some
people there are SO far gone on the
project that they would take some
stock in an electric railway. They realize,
as J. W. Brown puts it, that with the Ohio
dry one-half the year. below the dam, and
frozen the other half, it is an unreliable
highway for people who 1oo want TO thse use
all the garden stuff on the island might be
hauled on electric freight cars during the
night, and be put in the Diamond market
house at any hour needed before daybreak;
further, they know that if bridge connected
the island at the lower end with the main
land it would get much passenger traffic
from there and from Mckee's, Rocks, unless
the Pittsburg and Lake Erie Railway Com
pany got on its mettle and put on more
trains, and to force this consummat1on would
be worth considerable sacrifice. There
is much complaint from patrons that the
business of the road has again SO increased
that workmen living along the line cannot
make connections with certainty either
morning or evening: meo9aniGI III, who foo
life, bought one of the prettiest sites in
Ivanhoe last season and expended a
considerable sum of money in beautffying
his purchase. His work is at night and of
late he finds that unless he comes to the city
some time during the afternoon, hours be-
fore going on duty, he cannot hold his posi-
tion, as the evening train that should reach
here about $50 o'clock is frequently from 30
minutes to an hour late. He is now trying
to sell the place, and his family are nearly
heart-broken over the prospect of
coming back to the city to live after having
surroundings.
Life Too Short for Horse Cars.
Even from McKee's Rocks a person cannot
get to the city between and O'Clock P. NJ,
except by horse carand payment of two fares,
and through this method of conveyance,
though thought a great thing % years age, it is
more exasperating now than an OK omnibus
could have been to our fathers. Life is too
short now to spend riding in horse cars. The
star of empire doesn't take its way west
ward now unless in the line of rapid transit
and the East End profits on account of the
old fogyism of the West End.
The men who are agitating the building of
an electric road down Neville Island
are going about it very quietly
so as not to excite opposition, as the eggs of
all such enterprises have hitherto been
added before those who would be benefited
can settle down to incubation, and it is
feared that unless the proposition be sprung
full armed before tho mossbacks get reused
to opposition, that it will, as others
were, be frayed like a politicians
record before being put on exhibition SO
that it can attract capital. An argument
used in its favor is that not rod of grading
would be necessary on the entire line, and
that Mansfield people would be interested,
as well as the CHARTERS valley generally, in
helping it along, as property in that direc-
tion is also under priced for lack of better
facilities to reach it.