There’s a little mystery in Old Allegheny City—why did the Pennsylvania Railroad build parallel bridges, only a block apart, over their mainline and why are both on Ridge Avenue? Allegheny City was annexed by the City of Pittsburgh in 1907, so the answer is lost to history. These twin bridges mark the eastern end of what is known locally as “The Trench.”
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Often close scrutiny of an old building can provide a researcher with clues to its past, like an archeologist sifting through the ruins of an ancient locale. My previous article in “The Trackside Photographer” (http://thetracksidephotographer.com/2019/09/05/station-on-the-move/) detailed my history with the small Cumberland Valley Railroad station that served Quincy, Pennsylvania, and what I knew of its past to date. I have continued this research into its history, particularly to uncover clues as to when it was originally built.
In examining the building over the years, both inside and out, I recognized that it was built in the Victorian “Stick Style” of architecture; but using the centuries-old timber frame style of construction, rather than the more modern (for the 19th century) “balloon” stud-frame method. This method of construction of the station used large 4” x 4” vertical corner posts with interconnecting horizontal beams (lintels) to form a box-frame structural skeleton of the building, including creating the openings for doors and windows. This frame is a visible feature of the exterior of the structure, with stud framing clad with horizontal boards inside and out creating wall panels added in-between the posts and beams. As with the earlier English Elizabethan half-timbered construction the Victorian style emulated, 2” x 3” visible diagonal wood framing elements helped reinforce the joints of the structure as well as providing a decorative feature.
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The exact date is lost, but one warm summer afternoon in 1980 I headed over to Washington Union Station from my office at the American Railroads building for an overnight ride to Chicago. A meeting of the Research Committee was scheduled for the 9:00 a.m. the next day and my attendance was mandatory. I was a little worried about taking the train knowing that it could well be late, but the Assistant Vice President of the department was a former Pennsy man and he assured me that it would be okay. Even so, the rest of the staff flew.
My train was Amtrak’s version of the famous Broadway Limited. The original Pennsylvania Railroad Broadway Limited ran from New York City to Chicago via Philadelphia. In 1980 however, there were two trains that combined at Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station. The Washington section passengers rode forwards while the New York riders rode backwards across New Jersey.
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Back in an earlier era of railroading, it was not uncommon to move station buildings from one location to another. It may have been a short procedure necessitated by work on a new track alignment. Or, if a new, larger station was being built in a town, the smaller existing structure might be loaded on a flat car and transported by rail to a new town. Temporary stations were sometimes built specifically to be moved from site to site as needed during construction. Even to this day, it is not uncommon to see depots vacated by the railroads moved from the right-of-way to new sites for historical preservation as museums, or for other commercial uses.
The small Victorian station originally located in Quincy, Pennsylvania may be a contender for the record number of moves, but this time all in the interest of historical rail preservation.
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Built by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1915, ALTO (JK) tower, in Altoona, Pennsylvania, remained in service for the next ninety-seven years, closing in 2012. Over that time it worked under the auspices of four different railroads, the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), Penn Central, Conrail and Norfolk Southern and each railroad, in turn, brought something new to the table. It is easy to think of railroad history over the last century to be one of subtraction; infrastructure being removed as a transportation monopoly yielded to competition from air travel and highways. However, for at least its ninety-seven years in service, ALTO’s story was one of adaptation to the ever changing times.
I have a fondness for steam radiators. That gentle heat soaks right down to the bone and although the houses I grew up in didn’t have them, the Pennsylvania depot did.
From the time I was five or six years old my dad and I made a pilgrimage to watch trains at the Pennsylvania Railroad depot in Richmond, Indiana every Sunday morning. The waiting room was our refuge from the cold and I was never very far from one of those big radiators.
The main objects of our quest were two westbound passenger trains that were still on the Pennsy’s schedule in the 1960s. My memory is faulty where the early train is concerned, though a check of a 1960 timetable suggests it might have been No. 71 or the Cincinnati Limited. Read more