"Take The Yellow Car"

It was called "the route of a million souls" for the number of customers that were served from Beaver, PA, to Brilliant, OH, back in the early days of the 20th Century. It provided transportation for commuters to get to work at the many mills, brick yards & potteries that dotted the Ohio River Valley all up & down that stretch of river. It was also affordable transportation for folks to go shopping and visiting at points along that route and to get home again.

Wayne Cole, a retired teacher and Director & Curator of the Little Beaver Historical Society, presented the history of the many traction & light companies that in 1907 formed the Ohio Valley Scenic Route. Sponsored by the Wellsville Historical Society the program took place at the Riverside Museum Sunday afternoon, July 12. Mr. Cole is the author of ten books including a series called "Ghost Rails". The "Ghost Rail" series trace and record all types of rail history from street cars to trains that traveled through this region. It includes a vast collection of pictures that in some cases are all that remain of that long gone era. The name ghost rails is from tracing the tracks that use to carry the street cars & trains over their routes. Many of those routes still have the tracks, long buried under pavement, for streets that now follow those same routes.

Street cars date back to 1890 in this region. In the beginning they consisted of many different companies. There was the Steubenville East Liverpool & Beaver Valley Traction, the Youngstown & Ohio River Railroad, the Newell Bridge & Railway and the Chester & Rock Springs to name just a few. Before there was a Y & O Road there was the Youngstown & Ohio RR where that road way is today. It mainly carried coal from here to the steel mills up north. The Newell Bridge was built by the WV potteries for street cars to cross the river to transport workers to & from the Homer Laughlin China Co. Although street cars are long gone that bridge is still owned and operated today by HLC.

In 1907 all the various street car companies formed one company called the Ohio Valley Scenic Route. The Yellow Car line is the one that served Wellsville. It started in Beaver, PA, and ran to Steubenville. It was called the Yellow Car Line for the color painted on the eight street cars that served the route. Other routes had different colors. Some say Richmond, VA, was the first to have a street car company but Mr. Cole believes Steubenville was the first in the nation. Street cars ran on electricity that was self supplied by the owner companies. Those companies also supplied the towns along their routes with electricity until 1918. It was at that time Ohio Edison took over the "light" part of those Traction & Light companies. Because of government regulations they took over the power stations that supplied the electricity.

Mr. Cole tells me his tenth book is completed and is currently going through the editing stage. When published it will be entitled Ghost Rails VI. You can go to http://www.atlasbooks.com/ for more information on his books. You can also contact Mr. Cole by writing or e-mailing wacole@hotmail.com. His address is 243 Cordak Road, Darlington, PA 16115. I would venture to say Mr. Cole is the foremost expert on the history of rail travel through this region. Ghost Trails III gives the detailed account of the Yellow Car Line.

Thanks to the Wellsville Historical Society for sponsoring this opportunity to learn the history of this link in the transportation history between horse & buggy days and preceding the automotive days. If you lived in the valley back then it was shoe leather & rails that got a person from one point to another.

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