The Pittsburgh Subdivision is an American

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

line that is owned and operated by

CSX Transportation CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad company operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Operating about 21,000 route miles () of track, it is the lead ...

in the

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Maryland to its south, West ...

Notable features

The line runs from

McKeesport McKeesport is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States. A suburb of Pittsburgh, it is situated at the confluence of the Monongahela River, Monongahela and Youghiogheny River, Youghiogheny rivers. The population was 17,727 as of the ...

(PLY 15.1) northwest through

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

to West Pittsburg (near New Castle) along a former

Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad The Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad (P&LE; ), also known as the "Little Giant", was formed on May 11, 1875. Company headquarters were located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The line connected Pittsburgh in the east with Youngstown, Ohio, in the ...

line. Its east end is at Sinns (PLY 16.9), across the

Youghiogheny River The Youghiogheny River ( ), or the Yough ( ) for short, is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed August 15, 2011 tributary of the Monongahela River in West Virginia, Maryla ...

from McKeesport at

Liberty Liberty is the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views. The concept of liberty can vary depending on perspective and context. In the Constitutional ...

, at the west end of the Keystone Subdivision. It junctions with the Mon Subdivision at McKeesport, and the P&W Subdivision in Rankin; at its west end it becomes the New Castle Terminal Subdivision.

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

's '' Capitol Limited'' uses the line southeast of Rankin.

History

The line northwest of Pittsburgh opened in 1879 as part of the

. The rest of the line, southeast from Pittsburgh, was opened in 1883 by the Pittsburgh, McKeesport and Youghiogheny Railroad. The latter company was leased by the P&LE. In 1934, the

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the oldest railroads in North America, oldest railroad in the United States and the first steam engine, steam-operated common carrier. Construction of the line began in 1828, and it operated as B&O from 1830 ...

began operating through trains via

trackage rights Railway companies can interact with and control others in many ways. These relationships can be complicated by bankruptcies. Operating Often, when a railroad first opens, it is only a short spur of a main line. The owner of the spur line may c ...

over the P&LE between McKeesport (slightly north of the current beginning of the Pittsburgh Subdivision until the bridge at Sinns opened in 1968) and New Castle, leaving the P&W Subdivision for local trains only. , August 2004 Edition Eventually the P&LE, which had been jointly owned by CSX and

Conrail Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do busine ...

, was merged into CSX.

References

{{Pittsburgh CSX Transportation lines Rail infrastructure in Pennsylvania Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad

Notable features

History

See also

References