The Allegheny and South Side Railway (reporting mark AYSS) is an historic railroad that operated in Pennsylvania.
As Oliver had at the time recently purchased a portion of the Pittsburg Steel Casting Company at 36th St. and Smallman, and already owned a mill in the Woods Run section of what was then Allegheny, the line was clearly intended to connect all these.
The Street Railway Journal described it as a private street railway chartered by Oliver and Roberts Wire, an Oliver Iron and Steel Company predecessor,[1] and a submission to Poor's Manual of the railroads of the United States in 1894 reported completion of trackage between South 4th and South 22nd Sts., Pittsburgh as well as between Woods Run and the Point Bridge in what was then Allegheny.
[2] It was controlled through stock ownership by the Oliver Iron and Steel Company and for most of its existence had the purpose of performing a terminal switching service in the South Side section of Pittsburgh.
While the original line paralleling the P&LE had been constructed under the guise of Oliver as the Pittsburgh & Whitehall Railroad, that road was subsequently sold to the PRR; Ultimately, only the portion paralleling the P&LE was leased back, to be operated in conjunction with trackage inside Oliver Iron and adjacent factories.
Under the new contracts, both trunk line railroads paid the actual cost of switching industries except A&SS owner Oliver Iron.
In 1923, the Schnabel Company, builders of coach bodies, became a tenant in the A&SS building at South 10th and Muriel Streets.
It was soon followed by an EMD SW1 purchased new, with money loaned by the PRR and P&LE and repaid over time according to former officer Kenneth Haberman; That unit, serial number 14058, became A&SS 101.
The contract provided that the A&SS would operate switching services for the trunk line railroads at tariff, on tracks between South 3rd and South 21st Streets owned by the PRR as their Whitehall Branch, and on side tracks of the P&LE between those same streets, including intra-mill switching services.
The exception was that tariffs would not be paid to the A&SS for switching the mills of its parent, the Oliver Iron and Steel Company.
's 1950 decision, the Association solicited the A&SS for membership; Some time later, George B. Moser was appointed president, a position which he already held with the P&OV.
[8][page needed] Kenneth J. Haberman, initially Chief Clerk, and then Secretary-Treasurer, recounted some details of operations.
The files of the American Short Line Railroad Association suggest that a new Buda diesel prime mover had been purchased to remotor the railroad's Whitcomb, but the Whitcomb itself had been resold to the nearby Jones and Laughlin Steel Company plant leaving the orphaned Buda to sell.