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27-835: The railroad was owned and operated by the Mellon family of banking fame. Freight included coal, coke , lumber, and quarry stone. The history of the railroad can be traced back to 1853, when the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed the “Act of Incorporation for the Latrobe and Ligonier Rail Road Company.” The name was changed to the Ligonier Valley Rail Road Company in May 1871. Grading and construction were very slow owing to financial problems, and in August 1877 Thomas Mellon ,

54-433: A 1941 timetable shows Ligonier as 10.5 miles (16.9 km) from Latrobe. Passenger service was quite frequent, considering the small populations of the communities along the line. The railroad-owned Idlewild Park was a substantial draw for passenger traffic, reflected in the fact that extra passenger trains were run on Sundays. In 1941, there were five trains per day in each direction between Latrobe and Ligonier. Four of

81-507: A Pittsburgh banking magnate, agreed to purchase the line. Service finally began on December 1, 1877. The railroad was originally 3 ft ( 914 mm ) narrow gauge , but was converted to 4 ft  8 + 1 ⁄ 2  in ( 1,435 mm ) standard gauge in 1882. Another segment of the railroad has its roots in a 1903 venture known as the Westmoreland Central Railroad . This company proposed to build

108-639: A farmer, he enrolled at the University of Pittsburgh , then known as the Western University of Pennsylvania, in October 1834, graduating in 1837. After graduation, he obtained work in a Pittsburgh law office, and became clerk for the Allegheny County prothonotary . He was himself admitted to the bar on December 15, 1838, and opened his own law firm, focusing on civil cases. On August 22, 1843, following

135-629: A long and frustrating courtship, he married Sarah Jane Negley, daughter of Jacob and Barbara and aunt of James S. Negley . Soon thereafter, he embarked on a long and successful legal career in Pittsburgh . In 1859, he was elected assistant judge of the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas and on December 1 began a ten-year judicial career. Mellon invested the proceeds from his legal work shrewdly, buying up large portions of downtown Pittsburgh real estate. In late 1869, he decided to retire from

162-541: A picnic park, Idlewild . Additional land in the Ligonier Valley which he once owned is now the Rolling Rock Club . On January 5, 1882, he retired from day-to-day management of the bank's affairs, handing it to his 26-year-old son, Andrew . Under A.W. and R.B. 's management, Mellon Bank was by the end of the century the largest banking institution in the country outside of New York. He divested himself of most of

189-623: A railroad connecting Ligonier to Bolivar , where it would connect with the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad . In 1904, the Ligonier Valley Railroad purchased the partly constructed line. In 1908, this was opened as the Ligonier-Wilpen-Fort Palmer branch and was 5.7 miles (9.2 km) in length. The segment that would have linked Bolivar was never constructed, leaving the coal mining community of Fort Palmer as

216-430: Is the world's largest securities servicing firm and one of the world's top ten asset managing firms. The new venture launched its brand identity on October 1, 2007. These two companies, along with State Street , followed essentially the same evolution. All were originally large diversified financial service providers, particularly in the corporate banking space in the regions they were located in. However, competition in

243-536: The Mellon family of Pittsburgh . Mellon was born to farmers Andrew Mellon and Rebecca Wauchob on February 3, 1813, at Camp Hill Cottage, Lower Castletown, parish of Omagh, County Tyrone , Ireland. The original family house now forms the centrepiece of the Ulster American Folk Park Museum. His family had come into Ireland from Scotland and Holland around the middle of the seventeenth century. In 1816, his grandfather, Archibald Mellon, emigrated to

270-535: The Dreyfus family of mutual funds , business banking , and shareholder and investor services. On December 4, 2006, it announced a merger agreement with Bank of New York , to form BNY . After regulatory and shareholder approval, the banks completed the merger on July 2, 2007. Mellon was opened in January 1870 by Thomas Mellon and his sons Andrew Mellon and Richard B. Mellon , as T. Mellon & Sons' Bank. In 1902,

297-474: The Irish question would be to sink the island." Thomas and Sarah Mellon had eight children, five of whom survived to adulthood: Mellon entrusted his sons with business ventures from very early ages. By the age of 21, his son Tom had raised, with his son Jim, some $ 100,000 operating a nursery, lumber yard and construction supply business, and Andrew was managing a theatre at the age of 17. Well-prepared for business,

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324-696: The Ligonier Valley occurred at 3:40 PM ( EST ) on July 5, 1912, 2 miles (3.2 km) from Ligonier, on the Wilpen branch near the Wilpen Fair Grounds. A locomotive pushing a single wooden coach, northbound, collided head-on with a southbound freight train locomotive on a curve. The passenger coach, crowded with revelers returning from a holiday celebration, absorbed the brunt of the impact. In total, 26 people died and 29 were injured, including many children. The railroad relied on verbal orders to train crews, without signals, written orders, or written rules. According to

351-558: The Mellon family ranked among the wealthiest and most prominent industrialists in the United States by the time of Judge Mellon's death in 1908. Mellon Financial Corporation Mellon Financial Corporation was an American investment firm which was once one of the world's largest money management firms. Based in Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania , it was in the business of institutional and high-net-worth individual asset management, including

378-598: The United States, settling in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania . Andrew and his family followed two years later. Mellon wrote in his autobiography that at the age of ten, he had been struck by "wealth and magnificence I had before no conception of" upon viewing the mansion of prominent landowners Jacob Negley and Barbara Ann Negley. At fourteen, he read The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and became inspired by Franklin's rags-to-riches tale. Deciding he would not be

405-500: The bank. U.S. Steel (the world's first billion-dollar corporation), Heinz , General Motors , Koppers and ExxonMobil (as Rockefeller's Standard Oil) were born and nurtured by Mellon. In 2006, Mellon announced its plans to merge with Bank of New York. Talks began when Tom Renyi approached Robert Kelly about a possible amalgamation between the Bank of New York and Mellon Financial Corporation. The $ 16.5 billion deal ($ 24.9 billion today)

432-587: The bench, and rather than return to the legal profession, "concluded to open a banking house." On January 2, 1870, he opened the T. Mellon & Sons' Bank with his sons Andrew W. and Richard B. Above the cast iron door of the original bank building at 145 Smithfield Street was placed a near life-sized statue of his inspiration, Benjamin Franklin. He nearly lost his estate in the Panic of 1873 , an economic depression in which half of Pittsburgh's ninety organized banks and twelve private banks failed —but prevailed and

459-541: The corporate loans and retail banking businesses saw them jettison these operations in favor of what were believed to be more stable, fee based business: asset management (i.e. investment management in the form of mutual funds and other separately managed accounts ) and asset servicing (i.e. corporate trust , stock transfer services and depository receipts ). Mellon is a large provider of what are known as controlled disbursement accounts. These are checking accounts in specialized locations which are given early warning by

486-713: The five stopped at all stations, while one train per day served only Latrobe, Kingston, Darlington, and Ligonier. In addition, three extra trains ran Sunday only, and yet another train ran daily except Saturday. The 1941 timetable shows no passenger service on the Wilpen branch. However, the June 1916 edition of the Official Guide of the Railways and Steam Navigation Lines of the United States shows two trains per day in each direction serving (in order from south to north) Ligonier, North Ligonier, Hannah's Run, and Wilpen. The worst disaster on

513-525: The institution became Mellon National Bank. Mellon Bank was an important force in the mass production revolution in the United States, especially in the Midwest . The Mellon family using the bank as a proxy had direct involvement with founding the modern aluminium, oil, consumer electronics and financial industries. Alcoa , Gulf Oil (now Chevron-Texaco), Westinghouse (now CBS Corporation and Siemens ) and Rockwell , all were directly founded and managed by

540-482: The northernmost extent of the Ligonier Valley Railroad. A new headquarters building including station facilities was built 1909-1910 in Ligonier and is still standing. Passenger service was available between Latrobe and Ligonier up to the cessation of service in 1952. Stations in order from west to east were as follows. Distances shown are measured from Latrobe: Some sources show slightly different mileages. For example,

567-517: The park and function as park buildings. The Darlington station is also located on park property and was given to the Ligonier Valley Rail Road Association by the park, has been restored, and is home to the association's museum. Thomas Mellon Thomas Mellon (February 3, 1813 – February 3, 1908) was a Scots-Irish American businessman, judge, and lawyer who was best known as the founder of Mellon Bank and patriarch of

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594-524: The rest of his property on February 3, 1890, leaving it in the hands of his sons. Mellon died on his 95th birthday, February 3, 1908, at his home in East Liberty . He was survived by his wife, who lived for about a year after his death, and three children. Thomas Mellon and his wife Sarah are buried in Pittsburgh's Allegheny Cemetery . Mellon was Presbyterian by faith. Though not devoutly religious, he

621-522: The resulting investigation by the Interstate Commerce Commission , the dispatcher and passenger train conductor disputed whether a verbal order had been issued to wait for the passage of the freight train. Investigators were shocked that the railroad had been relying solely on oral instructions to avoid collisions. Both freight and passenger service ended on August 31, 1952, except for the 3.5-mile (5.6 km) Latrobe-Kingston segment which

648-622: Was a member and supporter of the East Liberty Presbyterian Church, the land for which had been originally contributed by the Negley family. He maintained a "country house" at 401 North Negley Avenue in East Liberty, where he indulged a passion for horticulture, raising fruit trees and other crops. He also took an interest in the poetry of Robert Burns and in the history of Ireland. He was said to have remarked "the only way to settle

675-502: Was announced in December 2006 and finalized on July 1, 2007, with Kelly as the chief executive officer (CEO) of the new company, and Renyi as executive chairman. Per the deal, the new Board of Directors is composed of ten directors appointed by the Bank of New York, and eight by Mellon. The merger was completed July 1, 2007, as The Bank of New York Mellon . Headquartered in New York, it

702-467: Was operated by the Pennsylvania Railroad as an industrial spur . It has since been abandoned. Much of the railroad's right-of-way is occupied by the westbound lanes of U.S. Route 30 , parallel to Loyalhanna Creek . Some of the stations are still standing, including those at Oakville and Ligonier. Both Idlewild stations (the original 1878 building and the replacement 1931 structure) stand within

729-510: Was well placed to prosper when the economy again began to expand. Shrewd investments included real estate holdings in downtown Pittsburgh, coal fields, and a $ 10,000 loan to Henry Clay Frick in 1871, which would provide the coke for Andrew Carnegie 's steel mills. In 1877, Mellon was approached to finance the Ligonier Valley Railroad . In 1878 he acquired land around the railroad just west of Ligonier, Pennsylvania , where he began

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