Panhandle Railroad

Before the Civil War, Pittsburgh relied on packhorses, rivers, and the Pennsylvania Canal for transportation, but railroads provided inexpensive year-round service that could avoid the ice jams, floods, and costly repairs that often shut the canal for weeks. The Panhandle Railroad, named for the West Virginia Panhandle through which it ran, became part of the Pennsylvania Railroad system and in 1864 blasted a Great Tunnel under Pittsburgh near the old Pennsylvania Canal tunnel. Through this tunnel, trains passed beneath the Courthouse to Union Station on Liberty Avenue. The line extended more than a thousand miles into the American Midwest to Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis, and by the 1920s fifty freight trains moved daily through Pittsburgh on it. As locomotives grew larger and heavier, the railroad repeatedly strengthened its bridges and abutments, and in 1903 replaced the original bridge over the Monongahela River to meet new load requirements. Railroad traffic across downtown streets also caused many fatal accidents, leading to the elimination of dangerous grade crossings, and in 1911 the Panhandle Bridge was raised to pass above First and Second Avenues. The bridge remains an important entrance into the city and today carries the Port Authority's light-rail transit system from the South Hills.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania · United States