"Pittsburgh & Western" at Ellwood City PA?

What I know of the P&W route through Ellwood City between Pittsburgh and New Castle is this:

1880. The "Pittsburgh, New Castle & Lake Erie" goes bust, having built through North Sewickley and Wurtemberg to (I think) Duck Creek on its way to Youngstown. This was reorganized as the P&W.

1883. P&W line completed from Pittsburgh to New Castle Junction.

1888. The "Ellwood Short Line" was opened. This left the original line at North Sewickley, ran through Ellwood Tunnel and the center of the city to Rocky Point, saving three miles on the original route.

My question is -where was the original route between 1883 and 1888? I guess it followed the river via Wurtemberg and Hazeldell north of Ellwoood City, but on which bank? Also, where was the junction around Rocky Point?

This is a tricky one to answer; the map of the narrow-gauge portions only in Hilton's "American Narrow Gauges" conflicts with Taber's in "Railroads of Pennsylvania". It appears that the original line was routed via Frisco-Wurtemberg-Hazeldell-Rock Point-Chewton; when the Ellwood Short Line was completed in 1891, the line was abandoned from Rock Point east only to the mouth of Duck Run. By this time, a line existed up Duck Run to the mining town of Crowthers. (See for instance http://www.railsandtrails.com/ohiorailw ... /1870.html.) This branch was not lifted until about 1912. This would account for Frisco becoming known as "Duck Run Jct.". See the 1895 PA Dept. of Internal Affairs map (online, Library of Congress collection) for this mining branch.

That said, I haven't been able to locate a sufficiently detailed map from that period for an unambiguous location of the old line from Duck Run to Rock Point. The relevant Penn Pilot image suggests to me a grade running south of and close to the road from Rock Point into Hazeldell, crossing the road and continuing to run nearly parallel where the road takes a sharp bend to cross a little stream just west of Hazeldell, but that may be merely imagination.