Pittsburgh Railroads and Union Station: A History

Introduction: The Steel City on the Rails

Pittsburgh’s rise as an industrial giant was impossible without its railroads. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, railroads fueled the city’s steel empire, moved millions of passengers and connected Pittsburgh to the rest of the country. At the heart of it all stood Pittsburgh’s Union Station, a Beaux-Arts masterpiece and a symbol of the city’s golden age of rail.

This is the story of Pittsburgh’s railroads and Union Station, a journey through iron rails, grand architecture and the city’s industrial might. Along the way it corrects a few common mix-ups, including why a station called “Union” never served more than one railroad, and which trains still stop there today.

Before the Railroads: Canals and the Portage

In the early 1800s, Pittsburgh’s growing industries, including iron, coal and glass, faced a major challenge: transportation. Riverboats served the region (see our history of Pittsburgh’s riverboats and the shipping industry), but they were limited by seasonal water levels. Getting goods over the Allegheny Mountains to Philadelphia was harder still, and Pennsylvania’s answer was the state-owned Main Line of Public Works, a mix of canals and the inclined-plane Allegheny Portage Railroad.

The Pennsylvania Railroad, chartered in 1846, was built to replace that system. A Pennsylvania Railroad train reached Pittsburgh from Philadelphia in December 1852, though the route still depended on the Portage Railroad’s inclined planes to cross the mountains. The railroad completed its own continuous all-rail route, including the Horseshoe Curve near Altoona, on February 15, 1854, cutting the trip between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh to about 15 hours.

Key Early Rail Lines

Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR): Chartered in 1846 with J. Edgar Thomson as chief engineer, it connected Pittsburgh directly with Philadelphia and, through leased and affiliated lines, with Chicago and St. Louis. Thomson is the man for whom Carnegie later named the Edgar Thomson Steel Works; see the rise and fall of Pittsburgh’s steel industry.
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O): The B&O wanted access to Pittsburgh and the coal fields of western Pennsylvania but was denied a Pennsylvania charter. It finally entered the city in 1871 through the Pittsburgh and Connellsville Railroad, gaining a southern route toward Baltimore and Washington.
Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad (P&LE): Formed in 1875 by Pittsburgh businessman William McCreery, the P&LE opened its line between Youngstown, Ohio and the South Side in 1879 and later became part of the New York Central system. Known as the “Little Giant,” it carried coke, coal and other freight and served Pittsburgh’s industrial riverfronts.

By the late 1800s Pittsburgh was a rail hub, with lines radiating in every direction, hauling coal, coke and iron ore in and finished steel out. Coke from Connellsville, in particular, was a major source of P&LE traffic. A smaller line, the Pittsburgh and Castle Shannon Railroad, began carrying passengers in 1874 to open suburban development south of Mount Washington; see Pittsburgh’s inclines.

The Railroad Strike of 1877 and the Station That Burned

The Pennsylvania Railroad’s monopoly in Pittsburgh bred resentment, and in 1877, during a nationwide depression and a round of wage cuts, a strike turned violent. Militia fired on strikers, more than 20 people died, and a mob looted and burned the railroad’s Pittsburgh yards, destroying more than 1,200 freight cars, roughly 100 locomotives, dozens of buildings and the original Union Station. A hastily built replacement depot was described in the press as looking “like a country barn or a fourth-class livery stable.” Our article on the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 tells the full story.

Union Station (Penn Station): A Beaux-Arts Masterpiece

The railroad hired Chicago architect Daniel Burnham, famed for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition and the Flatiron Building, to design a new station. Pittsburgh’s Union Station was built between 1898 and 1904, and passenger service began on October 12, 1901. Burnham went on to design several other Pittsburgh buildings, and his sketches for Pittsburgh’s station are said to have informed his Union Station in Washington, D.C.

Despite the name, it was never truly a union station. It served only the Pennsylvania Railroad and its subsidiaries, and in 1912 it was renamed Pennsylvania Station to match the railroad’s other terminals. Pittsburgh’s other passenger stations, including the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie station at Station Square (built 1898), the B&O station and the Wabash Pittsburgh Terminal, served other railroads.

Architectural Highlights

A grand Beaux-Arts rotunda with corner pavilions. At street level it sheltered carriages and cabs; above it was a spectacular waiting room. The rotunda’s decoration uses the old “Pittsburg” spelling from the city’s brief years without the final “h.”
Construction in grayish-brown terra cotta and brick that was meant to look like brownstone.
A huge glass-walled passenger train shed once stood behind the station.
In 1978 New Yorker critic Brendan Gill called it “one of the great pieces of Beaux-Arts architecture in America.”

Union Station welcomed thousands of passengers: immigrants, businessmen, steel barons and soldiers heading to war. For many, it was their first glimpse of Pittsburgh’s skyline and smoking steel mills. Into the early 1970s it remained a stop for the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Broadway Limited and Manhattan Limited to New York and the Penn Texas and Spirit of St. Louis.

The Railroads’ Role in Pittsburgh’s Growth

Industrial power: Rails brought coal, coke, iron ore and limestone into the city for steel production and carried finished products out.
Corporate power: The Pennsylvania Railroad’s dominance, and the resentment it created, shaped labor history from 1877 through the Homestead strike.
Passenger travel: Pittsburgh was served by several railroads and several major stations in the early 20th century.

The Decline of Rail and the Transformation of Union Station

The mid-20th century saw the decline of passenger rail as automobiles, buses and planes took over. In 1954 the Pennsylvania Railroad announced a $3.6 million expansion and renovation of the complex, but by the 1960s the grand station was serving only a fraction of its peak traffic.

1966: The railroad announced plans to demolish the station for an urban renewal project. Opposition from the newly formed Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation stalled the plan and saved the building.
1968: The Pennsylvania Railroad merged with the New York Central to form Penn Central, which failed barely two years later in what was then the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.
1971: Amtrak took over most U.S. intercity passenger service, reducing routes and services.
1973 and 1976: The rotunda and then the entire building were added to the National Register of Historic Places.
1986–1988: A $20 million restoration converted the office tower into apartments called The Pennsylvanian, which opened to residents on May 23, 1988. Amtrak moved into an annex on the Liberty Avenue side.

While much of Pittsburgh’s railroad glory faded, the city remained a vital freight hub, with CSX, Norfolk Southern and others still moving cargo through the region.

Union Station Today: A Living Landmark

Today Pittsburgh’s station still serves Amtrak passengers through its annex. It is the western end of the Pennsylvanian, which runs to New York. Since November 10, 2024 it has also been served by the Floridian, which runs between Chicago and Miami via Washington, D.C. and replaced the Capitol Limited, which operated between Chicago and Washington until it was combined with the Silver Star. The Three Rivers, which once ran to Chicago, ended in 2005.

The rotunda and dome remain architectural treasures, and the luxurious waiting room is now used as an event space. The station is the only one of Pittsburgh’s historic passenger stations still in active use for trains.

Pittsburgh Railroad Timeline

1846: The Pennsylvania Railroad is chartered.
1854: The PRR completes its all-rail route over the Alleghenies.
1871: The B&O enters Pittsburgh.
1877: The railroad riots destroy the original Union Station.
1879: The Pittsburgh & Lake Erie opens its main line.
1901: Burnham’s Union Station opens.
1968–1971: Penn Central forms and fails; Amtrak begins.
1988: The Pennsylvanian apartments open.
2024: The Floridian begins serving Pittsburgh.

Conclusion: Tracks That Built a City

Pittsburgh’s rise from a frontier town to an industrial powerhouse was paved in steel, but it was the railroads that carried that steel to the world. Union Station stood as the city’s proud front door, welcoming millions and fueling an era of unprecedented growth. Today Pittsburgh’s railroad legacy lives on in its architecture, its freight lines and the very neighborhoods that grew along the tracks.

Keep Reading

Sources: Pittsburgh Magazine, “The Violent Beginning of Union Station” (2018); the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission and National Park Service on the Horseshoe Curve and Allegheny Portage Railroad; and the Wikipedia articles on Pittsburgh Union Station, the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, Penn Central and the Floridian.