[PRCo] Smithfield Street Bridge

[Schneider Fred]

Subject: Pittsburgh Tunnels and Bridges
Smithfield Street Bridge
YEAR ERECTED / ENGINEER:
1881-83; Gustav Lindenthal, engineer
upstream side added 1889; widened to match downstream span 1911



Hi Bruce

The above entry is copied from your page on the Smithfield Street  
Bridge.

I am not sure where you got the piece about the upstream side added  
in 1889 and widened in 1911.

We do know that the upstream side was an addition; the question is  
when was it added.   If it was widened, is the addition merely a  
sidewalk?  We also know for certain that trolleys used the road side  
originally.  And I know for certain that the space between the  
portals is still narrower on the east side than on the west.

The Pittsburgh Railways route cards for routes 38, 39, 42, 43, 44, 48  
and perhaps others that I didn't waste time looking for show that  
cars were shifted from the "public roadway side of the Smithfield  
Street bridge" to the private railway side on December 4, 1905.  This  
is a rather large conflict with the date 1889.  Now I'm going to  
level with you.   The historian in me will not allow me to do  
otherwise.   The route cards purport to show everything that happened  
from 1902 onward (when Consolidated St. Ry. and United  were merged  
to form Pittsburgh Railways) but it is obvious to me from the  
uniformity of penmanship and other clues in the earliest postings  
that some of them were done retroactively.   But generally by 1905  
the scribes had caught up and were posting the cards on a daily or at  
least weekly basis.   So I would suspect that the Dec. 4, 1905 date  
is authentic.

Furthermore, the east or upstream side of the bridge never was  
widened to match the other side.   Look at it today and you will  
discover that there is only one lane on the inbound (upstream) span  
and two lanes on the outbound (downstream) spans which are wider.    
It was determined that two would not fit on the upper side. Same  
logic as the Wabash tunnel ... just because two rail cars can pass,  
two sleeping motorists cannot.

When were there horse cars first using the bridge?   I haven't a  
clue.  I do know that Pittsburgh and Birmingham's charter dates to  
1859 but when they first ran a car isn't in my brain housing group.   
The first electric cars on the south side would be the line that  
crawled up onto Mount Oliver from South 13th St. in 1886.  But most  
of the trolley lines on the South Side do not begin operation until  
1891 or later.   The first service behind the mountain was on West  
Liberty Avenue and dates to the 1897 and later but it got there by  
using what is now Arlington (Brownsville Road) and Warrington  
(Washington Road) over the top until the trolley tunnel opened  
December 1, 1904.   But by the early years of the 20th century there  
were numerous electric trolley routes running on the roadway side of  
the Smithfield Street Bridge and that prevailed through the first  
eleven months of 1905.

So, I think you need to try to revalidate that 1911 date and remove  
the statement that both decks are the same with.

Something you might find amusing.  I remember in the 1960s or 1970s  
that the city was attempting to strength the Smithfield Street  
Bridge.   I commented on it to my father who remarked, "They were  
doing the same thing when I came to Pittsburgh to go to college."    
That was 1928.   Is it the longest antique bridge still standing in  
Allegheny County?

We go crazy, don't we, trying to get things correct!

And, as promised, when I can get time to make up a matrix of dates  
for the Three Sisters Bridges, I'll send that to you.

Fred Schneider