1884+1921 Allegheny Valley Railroad/B&O 33rd Street Bridge over Allegheny River and Schenley Tunnel in Pittsburgh, PA

Bridge: (no Bridge Hunter or Historic Bridges; pghbridges; Satellite)

38th Street Yard: (Satellite, the triangle between 36th and 40th used to be 38th Street Yard. [pghbridges])

Schenley Tunnel: (Satellite, South Portal)

CSX now uses the former-P&LE route to get through Pittsburgh. The B&O trackage is now used by a shortline.

Street View, Apr 2023

The bridge is relatively short compared to other Allegheny River bridges because Herrs Island narrows the channel.

wikiwand
B&O built this bridge in 1921. The predecessor bridge was built in 1884.

Joseph Flickr, License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA)

33rd Street Railroad Bridge

The 33rd Street Railroad Bridge carries the Allegheny Valley Railroad (former B&O line) over the Allegheny River between Pittsburgh's Lawrenceville neighborhood and just to the south of the municipality of Millvale. It is too bad that the Allegheny Valley Railroad does not seem to be too active, as this would be one of the neatest Pittsburgh bridges to catch a train on.

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38th Street Yard

This map shows the 38th Street Railyard. B&O had industrial spurs downstream on both sides of the river. In fact, some of that industrial trackage still exists. The railroad south of the B&O was the Pennsy.

1951 Pittsburgh East Quad @ 24,000

The 38th Street Yard that we see on the topo map is now industrial buildings, but the trestle that carried the connection from the mainline still exists as do some industrial spurs. In fact, the street views show that the trestle was rebuilt from wood to steel in 2016. How could a shortline afford to do this? (The bridge is peeking through the trees on the right.)

Street View, Jun 2016

Back when the bridge had both of its tracks, and it was used by a Class I railroad. That is the FY Tower at the junction of the mainline and the industrial spur. See the tower notes for more information about B&O's mainline route across the Pittsburgh peninsula.

Darren Reynolds posted

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B&O Mainline across Pittsburgh's peninsula and Schenley Tunnel

This 33rd Street Bridge is in the upper-left corner and the Laughlin (GN) Tower is at the bottom of this excerpt.

1951 Pittsburgh East Quad @ 24,000

The mainline curved north at the Laughlin Tower and followed a deep river valley until it entered the Schenley Tunnel north of Forbes Avenue.

Street View, Sep 2022

It left the tunnel a little north of Centre Ave and followed another deep river valley until it went on a trestle over 33rd Street to the bridge.

Street View, Aug 2021

Dave Kuntz posted four photos with the comment: "More 33rd Street Bridge in Pittsburgh.  We the second track has been removed, a mystery door below (who knows where it goes?), and yet another abandoned spur attached to an active branch line under it."

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Bill Rettberg Jr. posted
shoving a drag westbound out of Glenwood yard, and now crossing the Allegheny River.

Patrick Rieger: The bridge in the foreground goes over Liberty Ave, with the photographer on the Herron Ave bridge. AAA Scrap Iron & Metal is on Penn Ave next to the RR bridge.