[PRCo] Re: 1724 interior photos

[Bob Rathke]

Roger,

Here's my description of the tunnel photo from its appearance on the
Fallen Flags website:

     This is a photo of a rare and never to be seen again construction in

     downtown Pittsburgh. On 2/11/68 I took this photo from Grant St.,
looking south toward the old Bigelow
     Apartments. The rubble in the foreground is the beginning of the
excavation for the foundation of the U.S.
     Steel Bldg.

     What's unusual about this scene is the appearance of ONE of the
tunnels visible along the back wall. The
     tunnel to the right is the old PRR railroad tunnel that is now used
by the PAT subway. The tunnel to the
     left, above the yellow power shovel, is an older canal tunnel that
was UNDER the railroad tunnel. For a
     very short time in 1968, the canal tunnel was daylighted and
visible.

     The canal and its tunnel are shown on a copy of an 1830 map of
downtown Pittsburgh that I have. In 1830,
     a full 24 years before the PRR railroad was completed between
Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, a water canal
     connected the two cities. The canal boats from Philadelphia were
hauled over the Allegheny Mountains on
     incline railways, and then traveled by water to Pittsburgh. However,
the boats didn't enter the city by river -
     they were floated on an elevated canal that paralleled the north
shore of the Allegheny River (near the
     present Canal St.). The elevated canal crossed the Allegheny River
on a BRIDGE near the present 11th
     Street, and near the site of the current Federal Bldg. it went into
a tunnel under Grants Hill. The tunnel
     was not straight, but had an "S" shape, and emerged near Ross Street
and the Monongahela River.
     However...at that point the canal was still some height above river
level (remember that the canal crossed
     the Allegheny River on a bridge), so there were a series of locks
near Ross St. that allowed the boats to
     descend to the level of the Monongahela River.

     It's hard to believe that this canal and tunnel were constructed by
hand and operated for several decades in
     the early 19th Century!

     By the way, part of the canal's incline railway over the Allegheny
Mountains has been reconstructed, and is
     operated by the National Parks Service along Rt. 22 near Altoona. -
{Bob Rathke Photo & comments}


About 4,000 of my railroad photos are on the Fallen Flags website
(www.dnaco.net/~gelwood).  Included are many W. Pa. structures such as
the PRR, P&LE and B&O stations in Pittsburgh, but if you're not
interested in railroads, you might want to go directly to the "Light Rail
Systems" page where there's a sampling of about 30 of my trolley photos,
with text descriptions - see
<http://www.dnaco.net/~gelwood/other/lightrail.html>.

And...a little while ago a few more of my trolley scans were uploaded to
the "brathke" page of the "dementia" website, so you might want to hit
the "refresh" button to get the latest directory of photos.

In case you were wondering, the 2nd Ave. and Carson St. trolley photos on
the "brathike" page were taken in the Fall of 1966 when the Smithfield
St. Bridge was closed for repairs and the tunnel car routes had to detour
2nd Ave./10th St. Bridge/Carson St.  Carson and 10th was an especially
busy place.

Bob 5/28/01




ROGER Jenkins wrote:

> What were the two tunnels un-earthed by the mechanical shovel in that
> one pix ??