Source:Fleming-old-time-service
George T. Fleming. "Old time service on railroads was crude: Great difficulties overcome in building and obtaining terminals in Pittsburgh: The era of busses." Pittsburgh Gazette Times, Dec. 10, 1916, sec. 6, p. 4. Newspapers.com 85514697.
THE story of the Pennsylvania Railroad and its building and entrance into Pittsburgh told in part in last Sunday's Gazette Times is continued today.
It did not occur that Pittsburgh long has had a Railroad street extending from Twentieth street to Thirty-third street. Old maps of Pittsburgh show this street designated Butler street, and described in directories as extending from Carson street, now Twentieth, to Lawrenceville.
The borough of Lawrenceville was annexed with other Eastern environs in 1868. The name Railroad applied to the street seems to have been due previous to the annexation and on account of the Allegheny Valley Railroad following the street to its first terminal at Pike and Eleventh streets.
The name Railroad applied to the street does not occur in the directories of the Civil War period. The Allegheny Valley Railroad is now the Buffalo and Allegheny Valley division of the Pennsylvania Railroad, so that the history of the street can come under the head of the history of Pennsylvania Railroad in Pittsburgh. However, there is nothing of any moment to relate. The district through which Railroad street extends is altogether a manufacturing one. Many of Pittsburgh's largest factories and mills are contiguous to, or upon, its line; their sites most valuable and convenient on account of the trackage and switching facilities.
H. E. Juergens of Mt. Lebanon writes:
"You have written a story of Liberty and Eleventh streets that appeals to me, and I appreciate the memories awakened by it, having tramped over the territory described as long ago as 1870, with memories also of the canal on the Northside at the old aqueduct and at Mechanic street bridge, now the Sixteenth street bridge.
"When I think of the old days I am inclined to exclaim, 'what wonderful progress in the past half century!' also to ask, 'what has the future in store for us?'"
The changes that the ordinary citizen has witnessed in the vicinity of the Pennsylvania station are numerous enough to justify this exclamation and the query.
It will have been noted that the Pennsylvania Railroad was five years in getting a through line from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, and then only by the Portage Railroad over the mountains, and that the Portage Railroad over the mountains, and that the Portage trains continued for nearly two years later, or until February, 1854, when the tunnel at the summit, we knew since as the Gallitzin tunnel, was put in use, though not completed until a year later.
The building of this tunnel was the main cause of the delay in the completion of the all-rail through line. From the treacherous character of the material in the tunnel, frequent falls occurred before the roof could be supported with a proper degree of safety. Then there were difficulties with the enormous amount of water encountered, from 120 to 175 gallons per minute from the middle shafts to be disposed of at the mouth of the shaft.
The tunnel was put into use without arching, the roof being supported by heavy timbers until February, 1855. Naturally the passage of trains through the tunnel while work was in progress was attended with many interruptions and also delayed the completion of the work.
There were subsequent troubles. Pittsburgh had a long, laborious and expensive experience in the building of its first railroad route to the East. The whole of this mountain tunnel was not arched. Eight hundred feet of sandstone was considered good, with the exception of about 200 feet, which was considered doubtful and was supported by heavy timbers.
In March, 1856, this timebring [sic] gave way under severe freezing and that part of the roof fell in and was then secured by arching. It was not until 1869 that the remainder of the sandstone roof, 600 feet, was arched.
Freezing in the tunnel in excessively cold weather caused heavy expense in the removal of ice and snow and much delay of trains. To overcome this, in 1857, the west end of the tunnel was closed with doors that only opened for the passage of trains.
Viewing the present station at Liberty and Eleventh streets, traveling in the palatial and most substantial trains of today, hauled by mammoth locomotives, examining closely the heavy steel rails and the perfection of roadbed and the scientific system of safety signals, few, indeed, even in their admiration, will revert in memory to the days when John Edgar Thomson, William Barclay Foster, Jr., Thomas A. Scott, George B. Roberts and others were sorely tried in their efforts to build the railroad over the mountains and keep it in operation.
Few, indeed, consider too that one can pass any day on the streets many people who readily recall the days when Pittsburgh had no railroad to any point. All of our Civil war veterans, born previous to 1845, can remember the coming of the first trains and the completion of the Ohio and Pennsylvania Railroad from the West and the Pennsylvania Central from the East.
Even those people born in 1845, and perhaps some years later, can have memories of the coming of the Pennsylvania and the first through trains in 1852, and first trains via the all-rail route in 1854. Railroads in Pittsburgh, therefore, are wholly within the memory of men still here. In 1851 Neville B. Craig wrote in his history of possible roads and roads building.
The absence of proper passenger stations was the chief drawback. Then there was the necessity of employing omnibuses in transferring passengers between the old frame depot on Liberty street at Grant street, to the Ohio and Pennsylvania station, later the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago station, on Federal street, no bridge then carrying that road across the Allegheny river.
The bridge came in 1856 and to this end the Pennsylvania Railroad Company subscribed for stock of the Ohio and Pennsylvania Railroad Company, an amount sufficient for the construction of the bridge to connect the two roads.
Then there were additional troubles later; especially with Pittsburgh councils. The Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad, the successor of the Ohio and Pennsylvania, succeeded in obtaining a Pittsburgh terminal in 1857. Allegheny, remember, until 1907, was another municipality. Pittsburgh municipal authorities would not grant a passage across Penn avenue for more than a year after. All obstacles were overcome in March, 1858, from which time trains from the West arrived and departed from the temporary Union Station in Pittsburgh, the old sheds on Liberty street. The Pennsylvania Railroad Company earnestly desired to bring the Eastern and Western roads into one station. Ample grounds were provided for this purpose. The Union Station did not come until 1865, to last only 12 years, going up in smoke and flame July 21, 1877.
Previous to 1865, Liberty street, now avenue, east of the railroad crossing at Eleventh street, was quite narrow. The railroad company determined to purchase a right of way upon the south side of the street, but to this end legislation was necessary. When that was secured the last obstacle to a location suitable for the proposed Union Station was secured. That location was somewhat west of the present Pennsylvania station, and was decided upon in 1863.
Grading was commenced in May of that year, first for the new roadbed along the south side of Liberty street, and then excavating and grading necessary for the station foundations. Much masonry was necessary along Liberty street in the way of retaining walls, which were low at the station and gradually increased in height towards the outer depot at Twenty-sixth street, where the street and roadbed were on the same level.
New tracks connecting the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad were completed in 1864. The second passenger station, long known as the Union Depot, with temporary sheds was partly in use, January 1, 1865. The building was of brick, four stories in height and was esteemed a magnificent structure. September 10, 1865, it was put into full use and from that time all passenger trains of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the road's Western connections used it. In 1866 the tracks on Liberty street east of the Western connection were removed. The upper stories of the station were used for the Union Depot Hotel.
The picture of the second station, or Union Depot, was shown in last Sunday's Gazette Times. There were wide spaces in front of the building. Washington street came down to Liberty at a slight grade crossing the Panhandle tracks with a bridge. Grant street, along its original lines, ran through to Liberty, coming out at the foot of Washington street. It was not until after the riots of 1877 that "New Grant street," as it was known, was put through as now, and the old part beyond Seventh avenue vacated for its present use by the railroad.
The new Grant street ground was once the railroad property known as the metal yards from the unloading and storage thereon of much pig iron. On the Seventh avenue front there were some three-story brick dwellings as late as 1867.
Along the original Grant street line, beyond Seventh avenue there extended the frame, one-story shed-like buildings of the Adams Express Company and towards the main tracks the freight-sheds of the Panhandle road, officially then the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and St. Louis Railroad. These sheds were larger and longer than the Adams Express Company's. The general offices of the Panhandle road were on Seventh avenue at the tunnel, the buildings partly above and partly below the street grade. All these buildings were destroyed in riot fires.
At the foot of Washington street at Grant street, with its southern side to the Panhandle tracks and its eastern side towards the Union station there stood the mammoth elevator of the Pittsburgh Grain Elevator Company; on Liberty street at Grant street there was a one-story brick structure used by the Pittsburgh and Birmingham street car line, now the Carson street line, originally terminating at Fifth avenue and Smithfield street, but extended to the Union depot in 1874 via Seventh avenue and Grant sreet [sic]. The elevator and street car station went also. Indeed there was a clean sweep of everything from Seventh avenue to Thirty-third street.
Back of the elevator steps led from Washington street and a long board platform or board walk, enclosed with a railing on each side, extended from the foot of these steps to the front of the depot. A high chimney of the elevator boiler rooms stood between the board walk and the elevator. It was quite dark along the walk and also in the shadow of the immense building along the Washington street side. The locality was a popular place for "hold-ups." Many a poor traveler lost his watch and money here and suffered a sore head when slugged by the footpads. Many residents of the Hill district would not travel this route at night, preferring the longer route by way of Webster avenue, Seventh avenue and Grant or Liberty streets, these being better lighted and more traveled.
The riot fires necessitated many changes and the ground about the Union depot was never the same again. The third passenger station, originally designed for temporary use, stood for 23 years, 1877–1900, giving way to the present station.
Freight terminals in Pittsburgh at first were more adequate than passenger. The first Duquesne station was a pretentious structure. The subscript in the original picture shown today reads "on the site of Fort Duquesne." This is an erroneous statement. The Duquesne station was at the foot of Liberty avenue as now; its upper end at or near Marbury street, later Third street, now Barbeau.
Fort Duquesne, a much smaller work than Fort Pitt, occupied the ground at the approaches to the new Point Bridge at the upper end of the Exposition buildings. Fort Pitt, the second structure built by Gen. Stanwix, was south of this site. One can readily see how far from the upper end of the Exposition building Bouquet's block house is. Yet this building was between the outer and inner walls of Fort Pitt and across the ditch that was filled with water from the Allegheny River to protect the fort on that side.
From the line of the outer walls of Fort Duquesne to the northernmost point of the five-sided blockhouse the distance is 150 feet. Penn avenue as laid out originally went through the middle of the second Fort Pitt. By the scale of the maps of the fort the blockhouse is 300 feet from the center of the avenue. Fort Pitt crossed Liberty avenue line and extended to West street. The Duquesne station occupied the ground of the south ditch, the south barracks and the magazine of Fort Pitt.
The error in this constant referring to Fort Duquesne when Fort Pitt is meant arises from the presumption that the forts were one fort with a change of name only, forgetful or in ignorance of the fact that when Gen. John Forbes reached here November 25, 1758, he found only the smoking ruins of the French fort and the abandoned munitions of the French garrison.
The Duquesne Station, as pictured today, was burned July 30, 1861. It was a disastrous fire, the loss being $150,000.
It is only within late years that the right of way of the Pennsylvania Railroad on Liberty street was surrendered to the city on account of the grade made more desirable by the raising of the tracks at the Pennsylvania Station, the second tracks on the Allegheny bridge, the overhead crossings at Liberty, Penn, Anderson, Sandusky and Federal streets. The elevated tracks along Duquesne way, from Eleventh street to Third street (or Barbeau), are the logical sequence of this elevated system. There was a trade between the city and railroad.
All these crossings were death traps with weekly fatalities and oftener. The files of the Pittsburgh papers contain the oft-recurring headline, "Killed at the Crossing." Even street cars were hit occasionally with tragic consequences. The record as it stands is a ghastly one. No wonder the cry "The grade crossing must go!" is being heard, and in consequence many have gone: Try street, Thirty-third and Liberty, the Wilkinsburg and other crossings.
Then, too, the Liberty street tracks were the place of more than one fatality. A nuisance is defined as that which worketh injury to a person. Surely the Liberty street tracks were long a nuisance.
He is not old who can recall the long freight trains that backed down Liberty street three or more times a day—slowly to be sure, the old flagman running ahead with his red flag, stopping a moment at Ninth, Seventh and Sixth streets and running on again; the conductor or brakeman ringing the bell on top of the first car; the occasional sudden stoppage, when an appalling collision seemed imminent; the throngs of wayfarers held up at the main crossings, especially at Sixth street, now Federal; the old engineers, long in the service of the railroad, long in this duty; Frank Neumont, in charge of the switcher at Duquesne Station, and "Billy" Colbert, in charge of the engine of the Liberty street train. When one thinks of the old days he can look with pleasure on the elevated tracks on Duquesne way and exclaim: "A great boon to Pittsburgh!"
Speaking of busses and bus transfers, they are still in vogue. It is but a decade ago that the writer landed at the old Union Station in the growing and important city of Cleveland. The night was cold and the train away off its schedule. Passengers for Pittsburgh were hustled into the old-time bus to transfer to the Erie Station for Pittsburgh. The bus was packed full; several women passengers. The busman would not start until he had collected 75 cents from each passenger. Women unable to extract money from their money receptacles; busman immovable; chorus of male cuss words; numerous offers to pay fares; 10 minutes to make Pittsburgh train; handy man with cash pays women's fares; bus tears out of station, drives rapidly, crosses Erie track ahead of Pittsburgh train just starting, causing engineer to stop to avoid a crash; train made; women refund; joy.
Busses: Back numbers.
Perhaps some of our old-timers can tell similar stories of bus transfers in Pittsburgh in the olden days.
Even Cleveland progresses. Several trips have been made since without bus incidents. Pittsburgh, however, still has bus service, but it is reasonably good, but not longer the only means of transfer between stations.
The picture of the ruins of the outer depot at Liberty and Twenty-sixth streets shows the building at left that was occupied as an office by Thomas A. Scott, Andrew Carnegie and Robert Pitcairn, when each was superintendent. The building was originally of two stories, with the front toward the tracks. The division telegraph offices and dispatchers' offices were also in this building. It was a historic structure.
Picture No. 1 today is from a sketch by A. R. Waud, the noted war artist of the sixties. The drawing was made in 1875 from the old reservoir site on Bedford avenue at Elm street. The long Panhandle freight houses and Adams Express depot are shown in the right-hand corner. The reservoir lots are now Washington Park.
