| By: | Thomas C. Ayers |
| Dates: | 2/2/1960 - 12/31/1965 |
| Album Info: | Here are 26 original photos that I took at the Pennsylvania Railroad's "Wye Switches" in Duncansville, Pennsylvania, between 1960 and 1965.
Local folk call this place the "Wye Switches" because it features an actual railroad wye with three switches ~ but there is a lot of local history here, too. From 1834 until 1854, this was the right-of-way for the Allegheny Portage Railroad between Hollidaysburg and Johnstown. And from 1850 until 1854, this location was known as "New Portage Junction" since it was the eastern junction of the Allegheny Portage Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad's mainline from Altoona. After the Horseshoe Curve was completed and the present main line was opened in 1854, the PRR bought the Pennsylvania Main Line Canal-New Portage Railroad package from the State ~ but abandoned both of them in 1857.
In the first five years of the 20th Century, the Pennsylvania Railroad engaged in a massive construction project designed to relieve rail traffic congestion both up and down the eastern slope of the Allegheny Mountains. They built the double-tracked Petersburg-Frankstown Secondary Track, which basically followed the path of the old Pennsylvania Main Line Canal. In Hollidaysburg, they constructed both west- and eastbound classification yards, as well as a roundhouse and supporting shops. From Duncansville to Gallitzin, they reopened and double-tracked the New Portage Branch Line. And in Gallitzin, they dug the Allegheny Tunnel, which opened in 1904. A century later, though, almost all of it has vanished. |
