... and other stuff that is still there and interesting...............................518 Main Street Irwin PA 15642

 

Allison PA

West Penn Railways

 

 

This is the Glencoe Viaduct of the West Penn Railways south of Allison being tested in 1908. The use of concrete was new to the builders, as they usually used wooden timbers. They loaded up with heavy rails to see what would happen.

Here is the viaduct in 2008.

 

Here is a view today across the top of the bridge looking south.

Below is a 1933 USGS map showing the location of Allison. Also note the West Penn Railways track as "West Penn Electric" and U.S. Route 40 -- the National Pike. The red arrows denotes where we took our modern photos of the viaducts. The yellow track is the West Penn Railways streetcar. The orange marks are the coke ovens.

Below is the 1979 USGS map which still shows the West Penn right-of-way ( noted as "Old RR Grade" )and the Monongahela RR, but more importantly,  it shows that the stream running from Merrittstown was re-routed ?!?!?!? That makes my lower red arrow incorrect ? See the aerial photo below !

The USGS 1993 Aerial photo shows the two still-standing concrete viaducts of West Penn and the remains of the eastern Allison ovens.

Either the creek was moved or the old USGS 1936 map is incorrect.

If anyone knows about the re-routing of the creek, please let us know. One problem is, if the viaduct was built in 1908 and the creek ran under it, then the 1936 map has to be wrong. I guess they couldn't get good cartographic help during the Depression.

We were alerted to the pages below from the Engineering News January 1910 digitized by Google Books. Apparently the construction technology of the Allison bridges ( called Bridges B and C ) was a big deal back then.