The year 1946 saw several changes to service. The Berkley Hills line was extended to Wildwood and a new route that went from Pittsburgh via McKnight Road to Brooks Lane (Brookview Lane) was added. Connections between the Berkley Hills route and the new Brooks Lane route was permitted by the PaPUC. A new loop to Gibsonia was also added at this time.
Horrell & Lorish
dissolved their partnership in March 8, 1950 with Roy Lorish going back into the school bus business and Samuel Horrell keeping the fixed route service and some of the school bus service. Horrell changed the name of the operation to Horrell Transportation Company. The reason for the split between Samuel Horrell and Roy Lorish is not known.
There apparently was some confusion with the new company name among some. Most references clarify that the Horrell Transportation Company was not part of the G. W. Horrell Transportation Company which was an intercity carrier that operated between Pittsburgh and Indiana, PA. It is not currently known if the Samuel W. Horrell and G. W. Horrell were related.
The first major changes to the new Horrell Transportation Company occurred on May 10, 1954 when Horrell purchased the Beaver Suburban Motor Coach Company that ran two routes in the North Hills area. Horrell immediately combined those two routes to form a single route known as the McKnight Road - Duncan Avenue route.
At this point, Horrell also combined and restructured the other routes along with the former Beaver Suburban routes and had 5 routes operating, McKnight Road - Duncan Avenue, East Street - McKnight Road, Mt. Troy Road to Ivory Ave./Gibsonia, Millvale - Laurel Gardens and Millvale - Shaler Crest. The later two routes were feeders and eventually became deviations of the existing through routes but it is unclear when this occurred..
In 1961, Harmony Short Lines went out of business and most of the Harmony routes were picked up by other operators. Two routes that weren't were the inner part of the Perry Highway route to Warrendale and New Castle as well as McKnight Road route to Cumberland Road and Perry Highway. Horrell applied for a new single replacement route via Perry Highway to Ingomar with a deviation via Cumberland and Guinevere Roads. This line was granted by the PaPUC in 1961.
Horrell operated much of its service in a rapidly developing area and had the highest income per passenger of any of the Independent Operators even though it carried far less people. This higher income was due mostly to higher fares charged. An example cited was an average of 50 cents per passenger revenue while Oriole Motor Coach averaged 22 cents per passenger. Horrell carried about 2,100 passengers a day and was about 1/5 of the daily passenger count of Oriole.
The equipment used by Horrell Transportation Company was well maintained. After the original company was dissolved, Horrell purchased and/or acquired several used buses of various makes. By 1957, Horrell was purchasing new GM coaches and a few second hand GM coaches. Horrell had 2 notable distinctions in the equipment area which were the purchase of the very first GM New Look coach in the Pittsburgh area in 1959 and the fact that they were one of three Independents that ran 40 foot coaches in the Pittsburgh area.
PAT acquired 26 coaches and 4 routes when it acquired Horrell Transportation Company on March 24, 1964. PAT also acquired 2 garages from Horrell, the main facility on Mt. Troy Road at Geyer Road and a secondary storage garage located near the Northway Mall which PAT did not utilize. Operations by PAT from Horrell's main garage lasted less than a year before the routes were transferred to the Manchester garage and the garages disposed of.
