Montour Railroad
Turns
100
By J.R. Brower
2014 will be the year to look to the future
when the Montour Trail eventually hooks up
to the Great Allegheny Passage
M
ontour Trail volunteers are making sure trail users
are aware that the year 2014 commemorates the
100th anniversary of the construction of the
Montour Railroad through Peters Township, Bethel
Park and South Park Township. Two special signs
on the Bethel Park trail spur near Logan Road and Clifton Road,
put in place by the Montour Railroad Historical Society, mark the
occasion with descriptions and photos of the coal trains, upon
whose beds the Montour Trail was created.
Most of the mines along the 46-mile railroad that ran
through the West and South Hills, from the Ohio River to the
Monongahela, closed in the 1970s, and right-of-ways were
transferred to both municipalities and the Montour Trail Council,
which officially began its work to lay down the recreational “railsto-trails” in 1989.
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Local railroad historians tell us how important the Montour
Railroad was to the local economy. Not only did the trains haul
coal, but they also serviced lumber yards, quarries and stores
along its routes.
In 1913, the Montour Railroad only reached as far as Imperial
from its starting point in Coraopolis. Since at least six mines were
producing a lot of coal in McDonald, Cecil, Hendersonville, Hill
Station (Peters), Coverdale (Bethel) and Library (Snowden, now
South Park), work began in the year 1914 to build the railroad all
the way to Clairton on the Monongahela River.
The Montour Railroad also hooked up to other railroad
companies like the Union Railroad, Pittsburgh-Wheeling and
Norfolk & Southern that took coal and goods out of state to
other cities.