Steel City Railroading on The Union Railroad

My pal Dan and I recently made our way to the western part of Pennsylvania for a long weekend of buffing and good times for my birthday. Basing ourselves at our hotel in the Green Tree neighborhood of Pittsburgh, we were able to experience a few of the area's different awesome shortline railroads in a city rich in railroad and steel history. This video features a railroad that employees both, the Union Railroad, which we visited on the second day of the trip, July 11th. The Union has been around since 1896, and is owned by Transtar, a subsidiary of US Steel, and serves the Mon Valley Work's three plants, Edgar Thomas Works, Irvin Works and Clairton Works, interchanging cars with CSX, Norfolk Southern and the Wheeling & Lake Erie. The railroad has been around since 1896 and currently rosters an entire fleet of end cab switchers, nine SW1500s and 23 MP15DCs... Transtar is reportedly soon to be taken in by Fortress Transportation, which will assume operation of the Union, as well as the other US Steel owned railroads...

Starting out the day by the Edgar Thomson Works in East Pittsburgh, PA, where the basic steel making takes place, we met up with my friend Matt, who lives in the area and knows the railroad very very well, and made out day possible, orchestrating the day's pursuit without a hitch. We see the first train of the morning, the hot slab train, operated by Union's 76 crew. The slab train is shoved up the low grade track from ET works with MP15DC trio 14, 26 and 12 working hard, before we skip to the other side of the Monongahela River for our second shot of 76, seen as they emerge from the 1919 built Dravosburg Tunnel in Dravosburg, PA, not far from the train's destination of Irvin Works in West Mifflin, where the hot slabs are rolled up for various uses.. Feeling the heat given off by these metal slabs is no joke, and what an awesome looking train too, with a caboose on the end of the train as with all the other Union trains...

After 76, we skip down to Clairton, PA, where the Clairton Works is located, for the next train, URR 66 Crew. Located along the river, Clairton produces Coke for the various plants, and loads Coke for CSX in addition to coke for use at ET Works. The 66 crew uses MP15DC trio 15, 29 and 18 with coke loads for ET. We see the train leaving Clairton and exiting the north portal of Dravosburg tunnel after just barely beating them here... After that, we swung by Duquesne to see the railroad's class yard, where another crew was working, we happened to catch them tying up for lunch. 9 Crew, based in DQ does miscellaneous work and interchanges with CSX and NS around, and was using MP15DC trio 11, 27 and 17. After a little bit, we head over to the Grant Ave Extension crossing, known as Bull Run Crossing, to catch the return trip of 66 crew, bringing empty coke cars back to Clairton from Dexter Yard, located by ET Works. After the coke, 76 made their way back up the main line to ET with a loaded scrap gon and empty slab cars from Irvin Works, led by the same trio..

Some time later, the weather changed and it began to downpour in time for the next train, and one of the coolest things we saw the whole trip. URR 10 crew pulls empty Bessemer & Lake Erie ore hoppers from Duquesne to North Bessemer Yard in Penn Hills with a five pack of MP15DCs, 31, 28, 30, 24 and 33, on the point. We see the train storming upgrade into Gascola, PA with the empties, and catch them again heading south with 114 ore loads led by yellow and red painted 33, beating them again to East Pittsburgh, where the train is seen descending onto the Dexter Lead with their train. With that, a great day on the Union Railroad came to an end...

Thank you to Matt for hooking us up so well on the Union, and thank you for watching!