A Ghost Train In Penn Hills Some people claim to have seen the old Plum Creek Railroad late at night still running .

The Penn Hills ,Plum, Oakmont and Verona are has had a long relationship with trains  and various spurs which go thru the area including the former Pennsylvania railroad now the Allegheny Valley Railroad AVR  Union Railroad UR and Bessemer &Lake Erie Railroad B&LE which runs on the hill side behind where the one time Plum Creek railroad a subsidiary of the Pennsylvania Railroad once ran . A small couple hundred foot track thats still remains of it in Verona is used by daily's juice plant.  A small spur which went several miles out to plum boro and picked up coal from  Renton Coal Mine which has a sad history of an explosion that killed 9

http://patheoldminer.rootsweb.ancestry.com/allrenton.html

 The plumcreek railroad

closed and was abandoned and tracks ripped out in 1972
By time we moved here in 81 the  tracks where all gone .

https://coalandcoke.blogspot.com/2013/12/plum-creek-branch-of-pennsylvania.html

  However I have heard more than one story from people of them seeing this abandoned plum line still operating. I think it is more people are confusing it with a working line  after getting lost in Plum or Penn hills which is really easy to do at night and it can be very scary lost in the wooded areas out here  and not realizing where they really are yet one story in particular a friend of mine came to visit one night late coming in from Erie and claims to have seen a train operating at the bottom of hunter road which is impossible the tracks where torn out many years ago. Yet she claims she saw an older single engine pulling a couple coal cars and caboose.

Thinking she saw the AVR operating down at dailys I took her down in day lite and she swears she saw it going across hunter.
Is there anything to it. from all that I researched there was no major accident  involving the railroad at that crossing  how ever there have been many horrendous car accidents along the road and in that area with its sharp curve .Which when ghost trains are seen they often are where train accidents happened I did however find there was a murder nearby

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1129&dat=19661108&id=Y9haAAAAIBAJ&sjid=dmwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7350,1335910

Now behind  where these tracks are located is known as dark hollow due to all the thick woods and it can be spooky at timesas well

Railroad went thru where car is parked

So is it peoples imaginations running wild at night after getting lost or is there something more to it?

Shame it was not kept for use as a tourist railroad. 

Killer Clowns Terrorizing People in W.Pa. is nothing new its been going on for years some times a prank gone bad many times nothing more than urban legend. like in Oakmont.

Yes even where I live in the community next to  mine Oakmont Pa. there is an urban legend of a Killer Clown living in the woods of Dark Hollow who will chase and kill you and your remains will never be found.
Of course with a name like Dark hollow do you want to explore the area in the first place.The name possibly comes  from Indian tribes who resided in the area and noted the thick heavy woods and dark areas which see little daylite . However its also a beutiful place to explore with several marked trails.

Nothing more than an urban legend like the wood chopper killer in Pnn hills it probably started by a father to scare his kids so they would not go exploring in the dark hollow  area.By them selves which is never a good idea anyways . The whole Killer Clown thing of late thou  has gotten out of hand. the latest children being chased by individuals dressed in clown masks

http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2017/03/04/armed-men-dressed-as-clowns-scare-children-in-west-mifflin/

In most cases it is just teenagers fooling around trying to scare friends and neighbors and ocassional storys pop up in the news around here over the years .
However criminals have been known to put on clown masks or even dress as clowns to deliberately terrorize individuals or when committing crimes so no one knows who they are .

Of course one of the scariest cases of a real serial killer clown was that of John Wayne Gacy who dressed as a clown for children's party's and is responsible for over a dozen young mens deaths.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wayne_Gacy

Either way its not funny when your the recipient of some ones prank and some ones liable to get killed by some one they scare who is a legal permit holder . So have fun but do so wisely.
http://www.seattletimes.com/life/whats-up-with-these-creepy-clowns/

A little known park inside a J&L Steel Mill built by Steel Workers on Pittsburghs Southside Now lost to History

My dad was one of the lucky  ones being able to retire from J&L which Became LTV steel before it totally closed down in Pittsburgh

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jones_and_Laughlin_Steel_Company

But when it was still running full steam in the 1970's some steel workers on there lunch breaks built a beautiful little park they could eat there lunch at in the south side works somewhere near the old No1# mill. shown in photo below

I have been trying to find pictures of it as it was shown in an article which was published in J&L Steel Workers magazine .But have not been able to find copy's of the magazine or the article and I do not know if anything was ever published about the little park outside of that magazine

Unfortunately those who built it  would know about it would be well into there 80's and 90's if they are still alive.

It took up an area about 100 by 100feet and contained a small walking trail benches and a wishing well made from a sewer pipe and even had a small pond with gold fish

It only lasted a summer or two till vandals got into the mill after operations in that area ceased and destroyed it.

If I find anything on it I will update you on it. 

 

Update : It appears some of the old park was brought over to the 2nd ave Coke Works  but it too fell into disrepair after it closed