Hike #1325; Saltsburg to Pittsburg

Hike #1325; Saltsburg to Pittsburgh

5/15-5/18/20 Saltsburg to Pittsburgh with Jillane Becker

Pittsburgh had long been a goal. We had been hiking across the state in this series for quite a long time, and had talked about reaching this city for years.

Saltsburg railroad bed and canal

Jillane and I had nearly walked across the entire state of Pennsylvania together. From the Lehigh Canal, which we had both walked at this point, we did one backpacking trip between Ashland and Lehighton. We did two day hikes, from Ashland to Shamokin, and from Shamokin to Shamokin Dam and Sunbury. We had done a backpacking trip from there to State College. We did another trip from where we left off there down to Everett PA.
Last year, we did a trip from the Mid State Trail in Williamsburg PA over the Allegheny front to finish in Saltsburg. I figured it would be about three days walking to reach Pittsburgh.

Saltsburg boat outline

For this trip, we planned to do exactly that.
On Thursday night, we left work, and I made the long drive all the way to Pittsburgh. I got us a room at the Eliza Hotel, which occupies the former site of the Eliza Furnace directly on the Great Allegheny Passage, the awesome trail that leads from Pittsburgh to Cumberland where it connects with the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.

Saltsburg

The route we had followed previously is the Trans-Allegheny Trails, a not yet connected series that included the Lower Trail, Six to Ten Trail, Ghost Town Trail, Hoodlebug Trail, and West Penn Trail. Where we had finished in Saltsburg, the Westmoreland Heritage Trail began and turned away from the West Penn Trail to the southwest.
On that last trip, we had hoped to reach Pittsburgh, but we just ran out of time. We planned to eventually come back for a long weekend and do that.
Unlike most years, we did not do a Fall backpack in 2019. We never got around to finishing the Pittsburgh trip then.

Saltsburg

Everything was still going crazy with the COVID19 stuff, and I’d been quietly doing the group hikes as well as some extra week day ones here and there because my work was only having us come in two days per week.
As such, I was scheduled to be in on Thursdays and Fridays. Since the weather was not looking good for Friday, I was able to work earlier in the week to get some mowing done, and that put me off on Friday, so we could leave Thursday night.
I knew I wanted to get us to near the confluence of the three rivers in Pittsburgh; the Monongahela River meets the Allegheny River, and they become the Ohio River in the middle of the city at the former site of Fort Duquesne.
As I looked for a good hotel, I found the Hotel Indigo at Pittsburgh Technology Center.
The hotel had a sort of retro steel industry theme, but was only a couple of years old. The interior decor had all sorts of stuff taken directly from former steel mills of the area, and exposed framework beams throughout the hotel gave it the industrial but clean feel.
The hotel is built on the site of the Eliza works, a steel mill that was torn down in the 1980s.
I knew that this was a good one to go for. It was located in the right place, and I would be able to park there for several days while I was doing the trail. It’s also located right on the Great Allegheny Passage, where the Trans Allegheny route will, when completed, eventually join it. This made it the perfect jump off point for doing the Great Allegheny Passage in the future.

Trail signage

We arrived at the hotel late Thursday night, and it was immediately more relaxed than it was in New Jersey. They didn’t force us to wear masks, and they had their computer open for use in their business center.
We had a really nice room that overlooked the Great Allegheny Passage to the north. A porch area on the other side of the hall on the sixth floor overlooked the Monongahela River and the Hot Metal Bridge that now carries the trail and a road connection over the river.

DAY 1

When I got up in the morning, no one in the hotel was wearing a mask. It felt like normal again, and I was rather happy about it.
When Jillane got up, I put on the Uber app and started looking for our ride to the start in Saltsburg.
I was really anxious to get out and move. An Uber driver answered the call within a couple of seconds of my requesting the ride.
It was only about a ten minute wait for him to show up, and we waited in front of the hotel for him to arrive.
I forget the guy’s name, but he was sort of old school, using a GPS, but made a wrong turn still while taking us out there.
It was a long ride, much on back roads, and much not along the way we would be walking, so it was nice to have a different view than we would have going through.

The old mill

We arrived in Saltsburg, and had him drop us off at the Shop N Save grocery store so that we could get some stuff for on the way.
The store was pretty nice, and had some really cheap sandwiches. I had to get two of them because it was such a good deal.
We headed out, and then made our way a few blocks to the west, to the West Penn Trail.

Conemaugh

This was only a short distance from where we had left off the last time. We had hiked West Penn Trail to town, but didn’t really get to the town. Our stopping point was at the intersection of the West Penn Trail and Westmoreland Heritage Trail. This was just up the West Penn Trail.
The route here was originally the Pennsylvania Canal Western Division, completed through here about 1832. The West Penn Railroad came in and built along the edge of the canal originally, but then was taken over by the Pennsylvania Railroad in the 1850s, and they rebuilt mostly on top of the canal through here.
The park was really nice, with the outline of the canal delineated, and the towpath and rail bed area next to it for the trail. At one point, they even had the outline of a boat in it.

Old 21 mile marker

The town takes its name from salt wells in the area that was discovered in the last years of the 1700s by a Mrs. Deemer who demonstrated the salt by simply evaporating the water from the Conemaugh River.
The Conemaugh and the Loyalhanna Creek come together in Saltsburg to form the Kiskiminatas River, or the “Kiski” for short.
The town had some nice historic markers, including a then and now compilation board, which is one of the things I love. I set up one of an historic building along the trail pretty quickly from the start.
We passed an old wooden mill built in 1912, known as the Altman Mill. It was built on the same site of an earlier mill that sat along the railroad and canal.

A piece of tracks

We headed to the east from the main part of town along the canal and rail bed, and soon reached the bridge that carries Westmoreland Heritage Trail over the Conemaugh River.
The majority of our hike would be on the former Pennsylvania Railroad branch that broke off of the Conemaugh Line at this point, where we had finished our hike the previous Spring.
I went over directly to that spot where we left off and got a few photos.
I understand this branch we were following was known as the Turtle Creek Branch, and it didn’t quite connect this far up until later on.
The Turtle Creek Branch started out as the Turtle Creek Valley Railroad in the mid 1800s, and went to Murrysville. It was then extended to Export around 1892, and then beyond that to Slicksville a year later. It might not have been extended to connect to Saltsburg until 1916 to 1918 from what I’ve read, but I find it hard to believe that such a connection would not have happened sooner.
We crossed the through girder bridge over the Conemaugh, There was still a little piece of rail left in place at the approach to the bridge.
This first section of the line I believe was out of service by the late 1960s, I think by 1966. It was probably no longer needed when the Conemaugh Lake was built to the east, and the former Pennsylvania Railroad main line was moved to a higher elevation.

Loyalhanna Bridge

On the opposite side of the bridge, the trail went immediately through a culver under Rt 981, which was adorned with lots of art, with the trail name, about the history of Saltsburg, and flowers, native Americans, and a train.
On the opposite side, I caught up with Jillane, who had gone ahead while I took photos. The rail bed went immediately across another bridge, this time a deck girder structure, over the Loyahanna Creek. It was really pretty in this area, and the first day would be the most secluded of this trip.
On this trail, there were mile markers at least every half mile, which seemed to be overkill, but I suppose it helped us determine how far we were going.
There were quite a few people using this trail at the start of the day, but it tapered off a lot as we moved on.
We probably saw more snakes on this trip than any other. It seemed like there was always a snake just barely off the trail, basking or just moving about. It was getting to be pretty warm fast.
Jillane noticed what appeared to be a knotted black snake to the right side of the trail, but then realized it was actually two snakes. They were either mating, or more likely the one snake was killing the other one. They appeared to have slightly different patterns.

Intertwined snakes

It looked as though one of them might have been a Black Rat Snake, and the other one might have been a similar Black Racer, which is slightly darker and doesn’t have the discernible pattern like the Black Rat Snake has. Either way, it was cool to see.

Another snake

We continued on, through a cut, and then more closely beside the Loyalhanna Creek. As the creek moved off to the left, where there was a marker about a 1936 flood, I soon saw two former rail spurs, one of the north and one to the south, that were for coal strip mines. They would have been easy to miss if I hadn’t been looking for them.

Meadows

At a little stream bridge, probably head waters of the Getty Run, there was another black snake basking on one of the hand rails, which was pretty cool looking.
We moved from a wooded area to some pretty open fields. It was getting hotter, so I would pause every time I got to the smallest bit of shade. I spotted one old metal mile marker hiding behind a bridge railing, with a 21 on it. I figure that means it was 21 miles from the terminus of this branch down in Trafford. It would definitely seem like a lot longer than that as we continued.
The open fields were pretty, just warm. Even when we did get back to the shade, the upper leaves in the trees had not popped enough yet, so we were still in the sunlight quite a lot.
We continued along the rail bed on a shelf with high slopes to our left. Soon, we crossed Getty Run again and then came out to County Road where the rail bed seemed to disappear.
The trail went left on a dirt road called Maple Lodge Road, and then turned to the right on a utility easement or something. The railroad itself continued closer to County Road, and used to cross the Getty Run. I did not see any remnants of any bridge here. The trail rejoined the rail bed and we continued on.
It was getting really war, and Jillane decided to take a break at the next good bench we came across. They seemed to be often, but this was a long stretch with nothing.
I decided to get out a special drink I purchased for the occasion of this hike: a Scotch style ale brewed with candy sugar and coriander known as 11 Pipers Piping. It was quite delicious.

Mine loading thingy

Ahead of this point, there was some sort of tipple or ruin of sorts on the hillside to the left. This was apparently the area of the Louise Mines, which was a bituminous “gas coal” that was distilled to fuel for running street lamps. There was an interesting series of inclined rails and chutes for transport in this area, and the ruins must have been part of it. Ahead, we came to the little “coal patch” town of Patton, named for the owner of the mines, former railroad supervisor J. Howard Patton.
We continued out across Sportsman Drive where there was an abandoned house up hill to the left. We took a break at the next bench, and I met a cyclist who was going by. The large backpacks took most people by surprise, and I chatted with this guy for a while about what we were doing and where we were going.

Washed out track bed

The Getty Run came close to the trail after a while ahead as we approached Slicksville. Ties were still in place, but partly washed out by the creek to the right of us. Large coal refuse piles skirted the left side of the trail. We took a break at a bench and kiosk with a roof, and I headed up to Slicksville Deli and Groceries just above to get us some sort of snacks and drinks. I forget what I got, but I know it was good. We ate here, where we could use a trash can, and then moved ahead down the trail to the west.

Slicksville sign

Just ahead, there was a big Hollywood style sign up on a coal slope pile to the left that read “Slicksville”.
This coal patch town was a bit more modern than the ones I’m used to exploring. It was founded in 1916-17 and named for Edwin E. Slick, one of the senior executives of the Cambria Steel Company, which laid out the town. Coal mined at the five underground mines was carried by rail to Johnstown and the Cambria Steel mills there. The mines remained in service here until 1942.

Slicksville

We crossed over Rt 819 next to a church, and passed through an open area with a park pavilion and checkers boards on the tables beneath. To the right, there was an old brick power house for the town, with the date of its construction, 1918, written on its outside.
We passed by Depot Street, so the station would have been somewhere in this area. It was a pretty sloppy spot beyond in a cut, where much fill had been used to bring the rail bed above the wet level.
We passed through more cuts as we moved ahead, and I figured we were coming around to the highest elevation we would reach on the entire hike, at the divide between the Conemaugh River and the Monongahela River. Both are in the Mississippi watershed, but flow around in different directions. There was evidence of old coal strip mining to the right as we walked by, before crossing Story Road.
The road once had a bridge over it, but the trail now went off at an angle with an up and down. On the other side, there were more ruins on the left, sort of like the previous stuff we saw with inclines from old coal lands on the hill.
The next spot was one of my favorites of the trip: Beaver Run Reservoir.

Along the Beaver Run Reservoir

The reservoir was constructed as a drinking water supply in 1952, and prior to World War II, was site of the Beaver Run CCC camp. Several paths led down around fences from the rail bed to the water edge.
I suppose we are not supposed to go near there, but I climbed down the left slope and took a refreshing swim in the reservoir. Jillane continued ahead from there, but I felt well refreshed having gone in. This was my first real swim of the year I think.
The rail bed went over a high causeway over the reservoir, and then through a cut to pass by the small settlement of Trees Mills. This is named for a family named Trees that operated a mill on the Beaver Run in the early 1800s. It became another mining town later on when Delmont Gas and Coal Company purchased the land. The mine at Trees Mills lasted until 1928.
After crossing Trees Mills Road, we passed through another cut and turned away from the valley of the Beaver Run. We went through an open, wide area, and then reached Athena Drive where the trail officially ended.

Old bridge site

There is two and some odd miles missing of the trail from here to Export, and the way I planned it, we would have to take a side trip to get to the nearest hotel in Delmont anyway.
The trail ended at Athena Drive, and we turned left to follow it. The rail bed was on private land just above us on the left, and then used to cross the road. There were still concrete abutments left from the road crossing here. I climbed up to the rail bed on the right side and walked some of the non trail section. I wanted to try to determine whether or not we would return to this exact spot in the morning, or if we would go a little bit further.

Memorial Park

The rail bed was pretty badly overgrown, so we just walked Athena Drive to the south. We could see the rail bed, cleared at the power line crossing just to the south of here. It made more sense to go to the next road over in the morning. There were some nice pastoral views to the right of the road through here.
We continued down Athena Drive to the John de la Salle Church where we cut away from Athena Drive. We then turned right and crossed an access road to pass through a giant cemetery, the Twin Valley Memorial Park. There were a lot of flags and such on the burials, probably gearing up for Memorial Day.
We continued out of the cemetery on the other side, at Church Street, and then headed south into the little town of Delmont.

Little library

First settled in 1785, it was named New Salem by founder William Wilson. After incorporation of the post office in 1812, it became Salem Crossroads, and finally Delmont in 1871. Both names were more widely used until 1967, and some signage still references the original name.
We continued through town, and came probably the oldest section, where we took a break at the Rose Wigfield Parklet, which was an old street it seemed, closed off and used as a mini library and sidewalk with a well.
Jillane stopped and went through the mini library for books she might want to read, and also some sort of a donation bin. This looked like trail magic to use, and so she grabbed a couple of things out of there. We were definitely short on stuff, and not finding a lot of places to replenish if any.
Next to the park, there was an old brick building built in 1827, in nice shape.
There was Ianni’s Pizzeria, as well as Mama P’s in the town, but none of them sold pizza by the slice, so I didn’t bother getting anything. We passed an old school house, now a sort of municipal offices, also made of brick and completed in 1898.

Forbidden!

From here, we passed a playground that was all fenced off from the covid stuff, and then headed along Crest Drive, which was the older main road heading north and south in town. There was a very old log cabin on the right side of the road that appeared somewhat modernized.
We continued on this road out to where there was a cut over down to Rt 66. We headed down that, and then walked 66 south below Rt 22/William Penn Highway. We dashed across traffic when the time was right, and then over to Sheffield Drive where we reached the Super 8 motel.
The place was pretty nice; when we’re doing something like this, we don’t usually expect it to be that great because it’s the only option. This time, we were pretty happy with where we ended up.
Usually, there’s something to eat in the area, or at least we get a continental breakfast, but none of that is going on with the crazy covid stuff, so I ended up basically not eating anything this time.

DAY 2

We had a long way to walk back up to the railroad bed, a bit over two miles, which was a bit of a drag, but it was nice to get a hot shower so I felt like it was worth it.

Delmont PA

We headed directly up Rt 66 this time, which was Sheridan Road, rather than go up to Crest Drive. It wasn’t that much a difference in distance to downtown Delmont going that way. It just had no shade at all.
We headed through the town through Freeport Street the way we had come the day before, and then went to the left back out toward Sheridan.
While walking through the town section, we saw a very nice looking, healthy possum walking around and sniffing around for food. We watched it for a bit as it skirted the sides of buildings and came out to the corner of a parking lot.

Morosoni Farms Road culvert

We continued walking through town, and then out to Rt 66 again where we turned right. Just ahead, after the intersection with Ringertown Road, the railroad bed went through the property of Salem Millwork. It was not recognizable on the right, and it looked as though a cut must have been filled in. On the left, or west side of the road, it was also not recognizable really. I could kind of tell where it was, and I considered going down to follow it, but with our large packs, this probably would not have been at all fun. We decided instead to walk the closely parallel Ringertown Road, which had some old stone foundation in an open area near the rail bed site. Across, there was an abandoned barn on a wooded piece of property.
We continued ahead on the road and soon reached the settlement of Dunningtown, To the right, at the first intersection, I could see beyond the homes to the slope where the railroad bed ran. We weren’t going to get up on it there.

Morosoni Farms Road

We continued ahead to Morosoni Farms Road. I turned right there where I could see the concrete railroad overpass was still in place. I bet that we could probably follow it from there if I could get on it. The road leads to what is now a preserve on the former Morosoni Farms. I would have loved to go out and follow that further, but there is just too much to see and not enough time.
I got up on the culvert, and the rail bed was completely clear in both directions, with original cinder base and some grass. There were some kids riding bikes that seemed very interested in the guy with the giant pack heading toward the culvert. I said hello to them, and Jillane walked by them next. I motioned to her from the culvert when I saw her to come that way.
She climbed up to the bridge and we walked a very nice section of right of way to the west. She noticed a sink hole that might have been some sort of mine at one time in here.

The rail bed

We skirted the back of someone’s back yard in Dunningtown, and we were able to continue clearly for a while before it got more overgrown on the right of way. The route ATVs had been taking went down slope from the rail bed a bit and paralleled. We tried to follow the rail bed more closely at first, but the weeds got to be too much and we headed down to the ATV path. Even that got very muddy in the next section, so it was slow going.
We continued out of the woods behind some evergreens planted on the entrance to an apartment development called Spring View Court and Valley Stream Apartments. The rail bed was a private driveway on the other side, so we went left out to Old William Penn Highway.
The mucky area we had passed through had been the head waters of the Turtle Creek, which we would follow all the way from here to East Pittburgh.
We turned right on Old William Penn Highway west, which had the railroad bed immediately parallel. White Valley Public Park was on the left just ahead, and it was cool to see that the playground was not fenced off in any way. Signs from a distance might have said not to use it, but they didn’t go crazy with orange mesh fencing and such like we do in New Jersey.
We passed Wilson Road and the Turtle Creek flowed under the rail bed by way of a concrete arch, which we had a good view of from the road. There was some industrial stuff to the north which the railroad bed skirted, but we had to remain on the public road because it was overgrown.
Soon, the rail bed went into the back yards of homes in the little settlement of White Valley, so it was visible. There was a kid on a bike with a head set leaving his yard, looking at us funny as we walked by. He would pass us just up ahead, still on his headset phone, saying that there were people with giant packs on going by.
We could see the rail bed in one slightly mowed area through industrial land below William Penn Highway as we climbed a hill above it. We then went steeply down hill where the kid on the bike blew by us, and at the bottom we could see where the tracks used to cross the road.
To the east of here, the tracks have been abandoned a long time, but to the west, into the town of Export, the tracks were only abandoned in 2009.

PAL

There was a flood back then which damaged the railroad pretty badly, and so they gave up the service on it, which I think was about two trains per day. There are still tracks in the Durabond Industries property just ahead, and they appear to be kept clear, so they might still use them in there to move stuff around. The one engine they had to run the Turtle Valley Railroad is now landlocked in there with no tracks to get back to the international railroad system.
In aerial images up until somewhat recently, there were rail cars parked on the south side of William Penn Highway here. The rails were now gone save for one sticking out from at the highway crossing, and the ties are out in the lawn.
We could not really follow the tracks from here because they went off into weeds, so we continued on William Penn Highway into the town of Export.
Export was so named because it was the first place in the area coal was exported from starting around 1912.
We headed through town, and I could see down into the Dura Bond facility with the rails in place. The road then soon came to the edge of the Turtle Creek, which looked really gross in this area, and the rail bed was on the other side, now trail.

Crossing approaching Export

We couldn’t get across to the trail at this point, but a foot bridge led over not too far ahead.
I noticed a sign reading not to come into contact with the water after heavy rains and such due to direct sewer discharge into the creek from here during these times. I figured that’s why it looked so gross.
This area was nothing but runoff from industrial areas and such, so it was not a healthy stream section at all.
We crossed the foot bridge and began following the rail bed. It was obvious where the rails had once gone through some pavement and was filled in. The tracks had only been gone eleven years, and so it was obvious by all of the ballast rock and such how much it had changed.
There was a giant old glass plate negative photo of a steam locomotive in Export, on a wall next to a piece of track. It was really a pretty cool little town.
Where the trail left the parking lot, there was a bench and a little shady area where we sat down. I walked up into town to Jigger’s Pub, where there were a bunch of bikers sitting outside at benches, laughing and carrying on. Others were sitting in another outdoor area. No one was wearing any masks or staying apart. The inside of the bar was not open for seating, but there was a bartender in there taking orders and serving.
I ordered mushroom and swiss burgers for both Jillane and I, as well as a mac and cheese appetizer and a fried mushroom appetizer. We were both terribly hungry because we didn’t have much of anything the night before, so we totally pigged out here. Jillane ate appetizers but saved most of the burger for later.
I also had two cans of Southern Tier double IPA, which was cold and tasty to have with lunch.

Export PA

Once done, we continued on the trail past an old caboose that was on display. I think this was the caboose that operated on the line, and it was donated by Dura Bond. This was all the section that had been used by Dura Bond until 09. The company had purchased the line outright in 1982.
For a while, they tried running excursion trains on it as well. The word is they tried to turn it into a trail and get Dura Bond to give up the line many times until the flood finally came.
While I’m usually more for keeping rail lines in place over turning them into trails that get minimal use, I have to say that this trail was used by A LOT of people. There must have been over one thousand people we passed along the route for the rest of the way. Every couple of seconds we passed someone.
We were pretty close to the highway, on the south side of the creek which separated it until we came to West Export, and we crossed over Turtle Creek again. It was still pretty gross in this area.
I spotted an old school house up slope from us to the left as we walked on through.
We crossed Hills Church Road and continued along the backs of some businesses.
We soon passed beneath Rt 22 in a nice shaded area, then crossed Turtle Creek and Haymaker Farm Road.
We crossed Turtle Creek again as we entered the next little settlement, known as Newlonsburg. At this point, the trail turns to the left away from the railroad bed, which passes through an industrial site.
There was a Sheetz up hill from here, and I asked Jillane if she wanted anything. I figured it would be good to have something for dinner or breakfast or something, so I went to buy some stuff.
I got two Fiesta Wraps, as well as some other snacks and such, and several drinks for Jillane. I then headed back down to the trail which skirted School Road before turning west along the north side of Turtle Creek.

Funny sign

Duff Park was right across the creek, and we really could have walked through there in better shade. Probably should have. This park has a hill where it is believed George Washington camped when he was a Colonel under General John Forbes. Along the way, they cut new road enroute to Fort Duquesne, present site of Pittsburgh Point at the three rivers.
The trail joined the rail bed again at the end of the industry, and we continued along to the west.
There were some nice history markers as well as a couple of old railroad mile markers. We saw marker 7 when we got to the other side of the industry.

Along Turtle Creek

Many of the buildings through this next stretch were once rail served, which makes it more surprising that this was abandoned. It might have used more than two trains per day I would think. Still, this section was very busy, and far more people than trains were using this one.
We were coming into Murrysville, and the railroad sort of follows along the south side of town. We didn’t really see so much of this settlement, even though it was the original eastern terminus of the line until it was extended.
It was in this area that we came upon the original gas well that changed the shape of this area.
This site, the Haymaker Gas Well, was the start of the natural gas industry in the Pittsburg Area.
In 1877, brothers Michael and Obediah Haymaker prospected for oil here, and at a depth of 1,400 ft blew into a natural gas reservoir.

Haymaker Gas Well

The cacophony was so loud that church services had to be canceled as the minister's voice could not be heard, and windows rattled constantly.
In 1881, an onlooker with a lantern got too close and set the plume ablaze. The initial explosion could be seen as far as Pittsburg, but settled to a consistent 100 feet high. The fire plume burned for eighteen months and brought many tourists including President Grover Cleveland, who considered it a "superb spectacle".
Obediah Haymaker was murdered in a skirmish over the well in 1883.
The gas well caught the attention of inventor and businessman George Westinghouse, who started drilling for gas coal in his own back yard. He invested in the gas industry and created the Equitable Gas Company. He also was responsible for the initial charter for the railroad along the Turtle Creek.
This little spot we came across quite literally shaped the entire region.

Saunders Station road then...

We moved on along the trail to the east, and there were lots more historic markers to read.
We crossed the Trafford Road and the Turtle Creek again heading out of town. There was a humorous sign at a crossing reading not to be a jackass, and that a car equals 4,500 lbs, while a person on a bike is about about 200 lbs, and then that “you will lose this collision”. I thought it was rather funny.

Saunders Station Road now...

We passed buildings that used to be associated with mine safety appliances, and then headed into woodlands along the edge of the Turtle Creek. It got really nice from here.
There was a side path to the right to the much nicer looking creek in a land trust property. We went down to stand by the river, and I stood in it. Other people were coming by, looking like they wanted to use the same spot, but then turned away when they saw it occupied. There were less people in this section than in the town sections, but that was still a lot.

Lyons Creek Branch

We were heading into a deeper gorge than anything we had seen yet on this trip. It was really quite pretty. As we passed Valley Park, there was a pretty old stone building in view.
We weaved around a corner with a high cliff, crossed over the Turtle Creek on a curved bridge, and then passed beneath the PA Turnpike which was on a high bridge.
Just a little past this, there was a rather obvious junction point to the left. Just from reading the historic markers along the way, as well as a bit on Wikipedia and such, I already knew that this was the Lyons Creek Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad, which was first developed as part of the Turtle Creek line to serve some mines further up the creek in 1893. This spur remained in service I think until 1940 when it was abandoned. Some of the PA turnpike is built on top of the right of way, and I’d forgotten about it until we got to this point.

Trafford brick works historic view

Jillane continued ahead, but I decided I was going to walk some of the right of way and see how far it went.

Brick works view now

It was clear and quite nice. I got out to where it used to cross over the Turtle Creek, and could see that some of the old masonry abutment pieces were still there, and in their step form together. Beyond, the PA Turnpike obviously wrecked it. It was right beside the bridge site, and someone had spray painted “NARNIA” on the underside of it.

Abandoned

I took some photos and turned back toward the main line. I family was at the junction site and ready to check it out. Someone said something about not knowing what it was, so I shared with them the history, for which they were very appreciative.
I headed back onto the main trail ahead, and soon reached the parking area at Saunders Station Road.
This was a hugely over packed trailhead. I would not have thought it would have been this busy.
Saunders Station no longer exists, but was once one of six busy passenger stations on the line.
I hurried ahead from here, with the creek on my left. There were some very pretty meadows along this stretch, and I was expecting to see Jillane along the way resting at one of many nice spots, but there was no sign of her. After a while, I figured I’d better put my phone service on to find her, but I asked a couple of hikers going the opposite way to see if they happened to notice her. A couple said yes, and then another group said no, they had not seen her. One guy in the group said “Wait! Did she have things in her ears?”, referring to her earphones. She usually did, and I said yes. He said she was just up ahead.

NARNIA

There were some really nice side trails off to the left in an area that would have been nice to camp, but there were just too many people around. I crossed Turtle Creek again on another bridge, where there were high rocky cliffs on the right, and continued along. Jillane was just up ahead, and we continued on to a point where there was a former spur and bridge sit to the right.
Around the turn of the twentieth century, E. J. Sweeney purchased land that contained a stone quarry on the opposite side of the Turtle Creek to make bricks. By 1910, it was sold as the Wynn and Starr Company, and they produced a popular brick known as Trafford Reds.

Abandoned

The site remained in service until the 1960s when it was destroyed by fire. Some ruins of the buildings remain on the other side, and we could see the stack of one of the old buildings.
This was one of the places I was considering for camping. There were no hotels in this area, and so I figured we would have to camp for at least one night. I had considered one of two places, and we weren’t going to make it all that much farther this time.
We passed the brick works site by just a bit, and then found a good spot for wading across. There appeared to be a path going right up the other side, so it was perfect.
We got across, and there was immediately a couple of old buildings near a small stream flowing to the Turtle Creek from the slopes to the north. There was a picturesque waterfall here as well, which I climbed out to for a better photo.

Crossing Turtle Creek

We continued through the buildings, which had some large machinery inside. A third building was almost completely collapsed and rotted away. We then walked up a terra cotta lane to a larger building foundation with a large brick stack. This looked to be the best spot because we could be set up behind some weeds, but still off of the main ATV path that was back through there.
Jillane and I walked around for a while longer to see if we could find any kind of better spot, but didn’t see anything. We then continued back to the original spot and started to set up camp.
It was a good thing we were setting up a bit early, because my tent poles were not working properly and would not cram together. Jillane helped me and we managed to get the thing up pretty quickly.
It was warm out, and we weren’t going to use the tent fly, but it did make it more camouflage, so I put it on.

Camping site

Once everything was set up, we headed down to the creek to take a dip and clean the sweat off of ourselves. It was quite refreshing and there was a pretty good, deep enough spot to clean off. It felt so refreshing, and made sleeping so much easier. I slept very well that night and ate one of the fiesta wraps I’d bought for dinner, while Jillane finished her mushroom burger from earlier.

DAY 3

I awoke and went exploring a bit through the ruins. Up and down stream, just to see what else I could find. I had a closer look at some of the kilns built into the Cliffside, which was cool, and then looked more closely at the bridge abutments that carried the rail spur over. The side close to the trail still had stone work in place, but the abutment on the brick works side was almost completely washed away.

Former rail bridge site

Jillane got up and we soon headed out, back across the stream, and toward Trafford.
The two mile marker from railroad days was still in place close to here, but we had quite a ways further to get to the Indigo Hotel in Pittsburgh.

Turtle Creek

Down along the Turtle Creek on the opposite side from the trail were several abandoned and mostly collapsing houses that we didn’t quite get to walking before.
It didn’t take long before we crossed Forbes Road. There were a couple of businesses with food, but we didn’t bother to stop there. We continued on the trail across, and soon were skirting the pond in B-Y Park.
Just ahead, the trail came to an abrupt end in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. A path continued ahead on the right of way, very narrow, but all of the crushed stone surface trail was done.
I was surprised to see the rails were still in place as we followed the line through a very deep cut. I would hope this section of rails remains in place because it really adds to the character of all of it. It would be rather boring passing through there without the tracks in place.

Tracks in the cut

A switch was right near the end of the cut as we approached the Rt 130 underpass. This was the site of the former North Trafford Station, which stood on the left. I was able to set up a then and now of this one as well while we took a break under the bridge.

Historic view of Trafford Station

There were two options on ways to go from here. One was to follow the active tracks along the other side of the Turtle Creek until we found another way over, and the other was to follow the road, the Rt 130 bridge for a bit to the west until the next section.

North Trafford station site today

I figured as much as I wanted to see the way over the bridges, it was probably much smarter to try to follow the road for a bit. We had a long way to go, and we didn’t need a lot more holding us up.
We climbed up to the bridge and walked over, and when it crossed the Turtle Creek, we could see two abandoned rail bridges across below. This would have been the original Turtle Creek route toward Pitcairn, Turtle Creek, and East Pittsburgh. It didn’t really look like a good walk from above, so I suppose it was a good thing we went the way we did.

Some exposed ties nearing Pitcairn

There were several old brick buildings in this area, former workers houses. We passed those, and then passed some sort of abandoned open area where there were lights on posts but no building.
Just a little past this there was a shopping center on the left. I asked Jillane if she wanted anything, and she didn’t. I decided to head down and look for something myself. There was a sign that read “adult slushies”, which sounded amazing, so I got myself one. I found it funny that this liquor store just gave me one with a straw to walk out with. It must be some sort of strange open container issue, but somehow they get around it.
I also managed to find some of Weyerbacher’s Blithering Idiot, which was quite a happy find.
I packed it away, and continued back to the end of the lot to Jillane.
We continued up the highway to the intersection with Mosside Blvd, and on the other side turned off of the road to the left. I figured we could get back on the railroad bed beside the Turtle Creek down in there.
We followed the side stream to the Turtle Creek, and passed some concrete ruins on the way. Once at the creek edge, we were on the very obvious former railroad bed. There were even some ties still in place.
We turned right and continued walking along the creek, and I checked out another path to the side, which led to a homeless encampment. Again, I was glad to have slept where we did instead of down in this area.
We emerged on the rail bed in Pitcairn Park, and skirted a ball field. There was no sign of the rail bed through here.
We took a break at the end of the park and sat down in the shade. I went around to the store and saw one of the gas pumps had been rammed into the ground, and the pay phone was missing. It was pretty run down looking, but at the same time interesting.

Sign saying to remove face coverings...

When we moved on, the pharmacy right on the main street had a sign saying to remove all face coverings before coming in, rather than put them on like they say in NJ.
On the other side, there was still no sign of the railroad from what I could see, but the active tracks were still on the opposite side of the Turtle Creek. There was an abandoned road bridge where Wall Avenue used to continue across the creek and tracks to the south side. The bridge is still there but has been blocked off for a very long time.

Wall Ave abandoned bridge

We walked along Broadway Blvd to the west for a bit, and there were some lovely old brick buildings.
We went around an industrial area by going slightly uphill and back down, and then at an Irish Club property, we headed down an access lane that reached the railroad bed again. We then started following it along the creek once more. It was somewhat overgrown, but still pretty cool.
Soon, we came across giant cylinder shaped base ruins of some sort that just looked amazing. I climbed up on them for an incredible view of the Turtle Creek, which around this time became a sluice of lined concrete, similar to the popular movies that use the LA River.

Cylinder things for tanks

I have since been told that these cylinder bases were likely the site of storage tanks, probably for diesel fuel, for the Pennsylvania Railroad engine facilities at Pitcairn. For this purpose, water was piped in a thirty-six inch main from a reservoir built near Champion, PA, near Seven Springs. The local waters were not suitable for the engine boilers because they were fouled by acid mine runoff.
We stopped for another break just ahead at the abandoned Bridge Street bridge. Jillane sat in the shade, and I carefully climbed down the slant toward the Turtle Creek to walk a flat area that extends up and downstream from that area. I walked the length of all of it.

Along Turtle Creek

We could see fish fighting to get upstream through the current in the area, which was really cool. A locomotive went by on the former Pennsylvania Railroad tracks directly on the other side while we waited also. I walked up the middle of the creek, which was not very deep through the area, and pretty refreshing.
We moved on from here, and the right of way just became more clear as it reached Wilmerding. We reached Avenue U, passed around a building, and then turned let on Airbrake Ave, which continued along Turtle Creek.

Along Airbrake Trail

The side of it went from being lined with concrete to stone work. I spotted both a church that had been converted to an industry, and an old industrial mill that had had a church steeple placed on top.
Every other house in the rows of them appeared to be completely abandoned and boarded up.
Pretty soon, Airbrake Park was on the left, and a paved trail was following the creek again. Jillane remained on the road while I walked the trail.
There was a bridge over the creek ahead which used to be for rails, but now was for motor vehicles, and some rail could be seen going to it. More rails could be seen along Turtle Creek heading into private land ahead, and we walked out to Airbrake Ave again to walk parallel with it.
Once on the other side, we turned left and came back to some tracks that looked to be in some pretty good shape. We followed them into a section of brush, and under Greensburg Ave bridge. I think maybe this section of rails might have been rebuilt during highway bridge replacement out of necessity, even though the tracks have probably been out of service a long while.
Jillane walked out to follow the Penn Avenue Extension to Braddock Avenue around buildings, but I stayed in the woods and made my way across a bridge over Thompson Run.

Old rail bridges

There were four abandoned rail bridges over the run, side by side, and I crossed the easiest one. I soon realized this was a facility I was not supposed to be in.
It turns out, this was all part of the East Pittsburgh plant of George Westinghouse. A lot of it is redeveloped, but much of it is still industrial. I walked back and forth thinking maybe I should just turn around and go out the way Jillane went, but then went back again. After some zig zags, I decided to just go for it and walked through the facility. There were abandoned rails going off to many different overhead doors, which I tried to take all in as I walked on through. Eventually, I found an exit without a gate I could walk out and get on Braddock Avenue.
I caught up with Jillane in this area, and the edge of the building was lined with a narrow gauge rail that was pretty cool. It had little junction spots where cars would have gone into different rooms of the plant, and much of this little line was covered over with stuff.
At one point, at another entrance, there was one old building and one new one, which was a stark contrast. The new one lacked the beauty and character of the older one.

New and old at Westinghouse

Braddock Avenue started heading uphill onto a large bridge, while we remained lower on another road that occasionally had some rails showing through it, probably an old trolley line.
It looked as though some of the plant to the left of us could still have some rail service, and these tracks went right onto the drivable road we were heading onto.
Soon, we were passing beneath the George Westinghouse Bridge, a giant concrete arched viaduct of 1,598 feet long. It opened in 1932, and was so named because Westinghouse owned the facility right there.

Westinghouse Bridge and flood gate

The bridge was really something to see, and seemed even larger as we approached it.
We made our way down and beneath the stone arch culvert of the former Pennsylvania Railroad, probably built around the turn of the century because it looked like many of the skewed arch bridges I had seen on the line along the Allegheny Passage.

PRR underpass

Just beyond this was the Westinghouse Floodgate. This impressive giant gate would go across both the road and the creek in the event that a flood came to the Monongahela River, which the Turtle Creek joins just ahead.
The Monongahela and other rivers in the area have come to blow my mind. It turns out they are all canalized, and can carry large vessels all the way up from the Gulf of Mexico. I never realized that there were locks in place all along the way that went that far, and that they remain in service. It’s possible to take the locked river system all the way south into West Virginia from Pittsburg, as well as up the Allegheny River further north.
These rivers must be terribly unhealthy, but the fact that they remain industrialized in the way they were one hundred years ago is amazing.

US Steel Edgar Thomson works

Ahead, we reached a gate in the road, and so I went looking for another way around.
I climbed a steep slope up to the active railroad tracks, which afforded me an amazing view of the steel mills The Edgar Thomson Works, named for the former President of the Pennsylvania Railroad, was established by Andrew Carnegie in 1873 on Braddocks Field, the site of the Battle of Monongahela during the French and Indian War where British General Edward Braddock was mortally wounded.

US Steel guy

The Edgar Thomson works survived the collapse of the steel industry in the 1980s, and still has two blast furnaces in operation. About 900 are employed there, some third generation steel workers.
It was really cool to look out on the site.
Jillane chose to go around the gate and down through the edge of the works for an easier way around where I was going. I found an access road further above, but not as far as Braddock Ave.
We pushed ahead on the access road which took us out on Boundary Street to Main Street. We walked uphill on this to the intersection of Bessemer Avenue. This was named because the Bessemer process for steelmaking was first implemented in this area. There was a giant mural of the Westinghouse Bridge on a building and a Pittsburgh cityscape.
Bessemer Ave ended abruptly, and we followed a path down to the right. I managed to make my way down the slope, but dropped my phone along the way, directly under the Bell Avenue Bridge, a cantilevered deck truss bridge over O’Connell Blvd. I managed to climb on back through and found it.
Jillane came down a utility clearing slope a bit to the south.
We then walked under an active railroad culvert and out to Braddock Avenue, which we followed along the edge of the Edgar Thomson Works. There was a giant statue of a man bending steel out front, wearing a US Steel medallion. There was also a memorial saying last slab was rolled 10/31/92, some abandoned rails in the pavement, a memorial and some historic markers that were barely legible if at all.

Artsy building

We walked along Braddock Ave into town, and there were uplifting signs just about everywhere reading “Turn that frown upside down”, “Choose Love”, “write more love letters”, “you shine bright”, “you can do it”, “more hugs needed”, “so glad you are here”, and “Peace for all”.
Buildings were either totally run down or artistically pretty with odd paint schemes to them. We continued along Braddock Avenue to a church, and then went uphill to a pedestrian path that paralleled it.
We walked to the west along this pathway, which was nice with some more uplifting signs.
Soon, we passed by the historic Carnegie Library building.
The library was designed by William Halsey Wood in eclectic medieval style, and dedicated in 1889. A Richardson Romanesque addition was put on in 1893.
Unlike other libraries, it contained a swimming pool, gymnasium, and duckpin alley!
The library closed in the 1970s, but was reopened, though limited from its original grandeur. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear to be used too often these days.

Carnegie Library

Maple Way continued where the path didn’t, but it might as well have been a path. There was really nothing on it but mostly abandoned houses. Some of them were really badly wrecked. One I could step into had its entire second floor collapsing into the first. A playground, also no effort to close it off like others we had seen, was overgrown next to one of the buildings. We followed Maple Way back down a bit to the main drag and headed through town.
There were not many places for food in Braddock. We pushed on through, and I tried to figure out where the trail section was we were to get on approaching the Carrie Furnace ahead.
Carrie Furnaces, on the Monongahela River, which operated from 1884 to 1982, are just a little ahead of the Braddock area. Today, only furnaces 6 and 7 remain. They operated from 1907 until 1978.

Braddock

The site is designated a National Historic Landmark, and part of it is planned for economic redevelopment, but they are currently closed for tours. Google maps showed that a trail went along the east side of it, so I hoped to get on that.

Trolley rails

There were old trolley sheds along the way, I recall, that still had some tracks going to them.
As we reached the end of Braddock, there was really no way to get over to it. The road went up onto a bridge, and the Rankin Bridge crossed the Monongahela. I didn’t know what to do, so I looked at the maps.
I figured we’d better walk back a block and try to go around. A cop car was following us at this point, and went around the blocks twice to pass us. Having backpacks in this area must have looked pretty suspect.

Carrie Furnace

From Talbot Ave, I figured we would just get on the tracks briefly, and then come out to Braddocksfield Ave, where we could get on what was shown as the trail. We passed under the Rankin Bridge, completed in 1952, and what was showing as the trail was a gravel road going between two active railroads. To the right I believe was the former Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and to the left was the former Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad.
The road we were walking also had tracks set in them. This was the route of the old trolley line.
We followed this for a while, and there was an underpass toward Carrie Furnace to the left. There was also a pedestrian route to the right that looked really cool.
We soon reached the point where the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad turned and crossed the Mononghahela River, and the Baltimore and Ohio remained. We went and had a good view of the Carrie Furnaces, as well as across the bridge.

Bridge by Carrie Furnace

At the slope of the active railroad, Jillane found a perfect Thomas Edison battery oil bottle like the one I had found a while back, a very cool find.
We turned to the right to follow an abandoned road and rail bed toward the active tracks. It was still shown in white as a trail on Google maps. We followed this close to the active line, but then it remained off in the woods much of the time to make for a nice pleasant walk on cinder surface.
There were only a couple of other people out walking this entire stretch. It was quite pleasant.
Eventually, we came to where the path sort of ended, and we had to climb down to Duck Hollow Trail access along the Monongahela. We crossed a stream known as Nine Mile Run on Second Avenue, right next to the B&O bridge over the same creek, and entered a large parking area with a great view of the Homestead Grays bridge built in 1936.
We hung out here for a few moments to enjoy the view. There were a lot of people around.

Washed out trail

We then got on the Duck Hollow Trail, which is a paved trail along the Monongahela following what would have once been an extension of Second Avenue from here to the Hazelwood section of Pittsburgh.
As we walked, we came to a trail closed sign soon after passing beneath the Homestead Grays Bridge. We kept going, and found it was for an enormous washout due to a water main break. The paved trail was busted up pretty bad, but walking by it was very easy. People obviously do it a lot.
We continued on the trail past another closed sign, and then came to another bridge underpass.
This was the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Wheeling division Bridge, also known as the Wheeling Bridge, built in 1884 and upgraded in 1915. The three span Pratt through Truss is still active.
We continued just past here to find the end of the trail and chain link fence. We had to go back uner the rail bridge, and then climb up to cross the tracks. There was a camera trained over the opening in the fence where we had to come out, but we had no problems.

B&O bridge

We reached the former extension of Second Ave, where there was still an abandoned old railroad tower in view, and passed beneath the Glenwood Bridge over the Monongahela River.
We remained in the middle of town as it was getting dark, and soon went by a Pittsburgh Railways Company building. This was associated with the trolley as well.
We pushed ahead, and a church had a banana and fruit and such donation thing out and we ate some bananas. No one was touching the stuff and it was certainly going to go bad, so they wouldn’t miss a banana, and we had no food. We were hungry, but nothing was open.
We passed by one pizza place, and Jillane didn’t want it, so we just pushed onward.

A slice missing...

Like some of the other towns we passed through, this area looked all blown out as well. Every other home at times were completely abandoned. Some looked like they were really wrecked. One, where an entire large section was missing, looked like someone cut away a piece of a pie.
We simply remained on the road in the dark from here. When we got by the historic Mill #19, a trail starts that would have taken us directly back to the hotel, but we opted to keep following the road because it was easier. Blair River Road has a trail beside it, and the Three Rivers Heritage Trail started where we turned from Irvine Street which became Second Avenue again after a railroad underpass. I suppose it was just as well we followed the road and just went a little bit quicker.
Soon, we saw the Hot Metal Bridge with the hotel just beyond it.

church

Two parallel spans run side by side here. The 1887 upstream side was built for the Monongahela Connecting Railroad, or MonCon, a conventional standard gauge railroad, and now carries a road between north and south sides. The downstream span was the Hot Metal Bridge built in 1900. It connected parts of the J&L Steel mill for the use of ladle transfer cars full of molten iron, which were carried across the Mon River to be converted to steel. This bridge carries the trail today.
Upon passing beneath the Hot Metal Bridge, I had officially connected to the Great Allegheny Passage. It is about 150 miles from here to Cumberland Maryland where we had left off on a previous backpacking trip. Much of the route is now part of the 911 National Memorial Trail, so it fits into the series I’ve been working on. I’m looking forward to doing it.

Indigo Hotel

The hotel occupies the site of the Eliza Works, which was established in 1859 and upgraded in 1901, part of the Jones and Laughlin Steel Company.
We made our way through the dark parking lot and to the front of the hotel where we checked in for the night.

Hot Metal Bridge

Thankfully, the guy at the desk was really friendly, gave us complimentary drinks, and waived the parking fees for me (they charge $20 a night for parking, and I had it worked out to pay $5 a day when not there, which was great).
We got a great room on the fifth floor overlooking the Hot Metal Bridge and the Mon River as its’s called for short.

Birmingham Bridge

It was great to relax, knowing we had finally connected to Pittsburgh. It was now only about 44 miles to finish walking across the entire state of Pennsylvania together.

DAY 4

We woke up late and relaxed a bit, then decided to do just a bit more walking before driving off.
We headed out of the hotel, without packs, along a trail that goes around the front of the hotel, then up along the edge of the Hot Metal Bridge. We climbed up onto the bridge, and crossed over the Mon River.
The views were excellent, and the Birmingham Bridge, a bowstring arch bridge over the Monongahela River completed in 1976 for an ill fated highway beltway system, was to the west.
We got across the bridge where the Great Allegheny Passage continues to the east, but we turned to the right on the Three Rivers Heritage Trail, which is in part just a river front greenway, and in part a rail trail. It’s beautifully done up, but doesn’t have a ton of shade.
There were tons of historic markers along the way including one with a giant slag pot left over from the Duquesne Slag Metal Company, a subsidiary of the J&L business.

Slag pot

We followed the upper level of the greenway, which has one closer to the river, one above, west to the south side of the Birmingham Bridge. We had originally considered walking to the intersection of the Monongahela, Allegheny, and Ohio Rivers, but then decided against it when it was too hot.

Three Rivers Greenway

We opted to turn back from the Birmingham Bridge and head back toward the hotel using the lower route. We paused and took a couple of breaks where there were nice river views.
We went back across the Hot Metal Bridge and to the hotel and my van.
We drove around a bit for the rest of the day, got some food, and visited a few little spots around town before taking the long drive back home.
I was really happy with this trip, and hope we can do the remaining 44 miles in Pennsylvania to get across the state pretty soon. It’ll be a hot, blustery trip probably, but one I want to take.
There is still so much else to see on all of these connecting routes, more than a lifetime worth, and I want to do as many of them as possible.

HAM