This is a portion of the Sanborn map of Bridgeville, PA as it was in 1913. It clearly shows where the Bridgeville & McDonald branch diverged. You can see where the Chartiers branch crossed the Chartiers creek twice in just this snippet alone. The creek ran further north on the left, then circled back around to the bottom half of what is shown in the map.
This topographical USGC map done in 1979 shows the Chartiers branch, labeled with "CONRAIL", crossing the Chartiers creek twice. The B&M branch still exists.
The next photo is of the bridge crossing the Chartiers creek on the north side of town. Given that the creek flows to the northwest and that the flow of the water (which appears to be quite high; maybe taken after a recent storm?), I suspect the photo was taken from the southwest corner of where the creek and the track intersects.
This photo, taken July 1976, shows the bridge over McLaughlin Run. The other track was on the left of the skinnier bridge walkway. Bower Hill Road was re-graded when that track was removed. The street parallel to the tracks is Railroad Street. The parking lot along side the road was where the station siding was (removed in the late-1960s). The station is the dark building at the end of the parking area (now the public library), and the B&O caboose to its left is the children's section of the library (the PRR N6b they were slated to get was burned by vandals). The switch in the foreground was where eastbound trains off the B&M branch would have switched onto the eastbound track. About even with the first utility pole at the edge of the parking area, you can see the switch to the B&M Branch. The white building across from the end of Railroad Street (on Station Street) was the site of the three-story Norwood Hotel in 1950. There was a board sidewalk and stairs which led to the area where that white building is now. The hotel was destroyed in a fire in 1963.
Kevin took this photo in 1998 standing where the Washington elementary school was, opposite of the hotel, across the tracks. In this photo he is facing the location from which he took the above photo. The school burned down in 1962. It was a large, two-story, wooden building with 16 classrooms (looked like a scaled up version of Bachmann's "Plasticville School". It faced away form the tracks, toward Washington Avenue, which is one block behind the camera. The train is heading timetable west. To the right of the shot, the largely open area would have been the freight track at Bridgeville station, just out of shot to the right.
Also taken in 1998, this shows the view of the passenger station, with the Chartiers branch being behind the station. The B&O caboose is clearly visible.
The map below is also by Sanborn as it was in 1913, which helps to visualize what the above photos covered and described. In the first photo above, Kevin would have been standing to the right of the bridge that goes across the McLaughlin Run. The bottom two tracks are the double-tracked Chartiers branch, while the single track above that is the start of the B&M branch.
This next photo shows the view from the B&M branch toward the Bridgeville passenger station. You can clearly see the water tower in the photo that is marked in the map above. The freight cars in the background must be parked on the station track. The small watchman station appears to be across Foster Avenue. The spur coming off of the B&M branch is clearly visible in the foreground. It appears to have a PRR gondola parked on it, loaded with some sort of fine material (sand?). There is a telltale across the tracks in the foreground, as well as a two-bladed semaphore.
A view of the company's building.
This company was served by the P&WV, and produced latex rubber and resins.
The General Electric glass plant as photographed in March, 1977. The view is from the tracks, looking geographically west at the side of the plant closest to Chartiers Creek. The siding from the P&WV is visible just in front of the storage tanks. The PRR siding is on the other side of the tanks, next to the building. The pile closest to the camera is glass pellets. Behind that is silica sand. This plant made the glass for the elements of nearly all GE incandescent lamps made in the U.S. In the 1950, GE had its own fleet of covered hoppers, and ILDX 320, 321 and 322 were assigned to the Bridgeville Glass Plant. They regularly traversed the Chartiers Branch and the P&WV.
In 1904, Mr. Joseph Flannery organized the company and built his factory to manufacture staybolts for locomotive boilers ("Station K3" on the siding list). Later, Flannery opened the American Vanadium Company at the same location. Around 1909, Mr. Flannery was an organizer and first president of the Standard Chemical Company, which purchased the old Simpson Stove & Manufacturing site along the south bank of Chartiers Creek at Station K13 in 1907.