It was a pleasure to return to the south end of this trail for a third and final time to close the "GAP" (pun intended!) on this trail which I began my rail-trail adventures on some four years ago. Yes, the third time was a charm. Fellow local historian friends tell me that the Mon River Bridge at the northern end of McKeesport WAS indeed originally a PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD structure, later taken over by the Union Railroad, originally built to serve the Pennsy's McKeesport Branch. The gutted roundhouse at the foot of the bridge ramp was built by the McKeesport Connecting Railway, which serviced the National Tube Works formerly surrounding it. (I did note a string of hopper cars marked with the that railroad's identification marks on the few remaining tracks adjacent to the trail near this structure) Next came the "official" route of the Great Allegheny Passage, south of McKeesport. This leg of "The Loop" carries the trail over the 15th Street Bridge, over to the west side of the Youghiogheny River, where the trail will remain for the duration of its run to the foot of Allegheny Mountain. Descending back to river level, you will meet the intact south end of the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad, the "Little Giant", as you will read on the plaque down at Boston. CP-17Y (Controlled Point - Milepost 17 from Station Square, downtown Pittsburgh's grand P&LE station - Youghiogeny Branch) is where the B&O's "McKeesport bypass" trackage use ends (as does the former P&LE Yough Branch which the B&O pirated here). At this point, the old B&O (now the Pittsburgh-Baltimore CSX main line), swings back over to the east side of the river on its "new" concrete viaduct, while the forlorn host railroad P&LE ends in the DuraBond steel pipe plant complex. The tar-paper "16.30" is of classic B&O milepole marking, while the "CP17Y" on the remote box is of classic P&LE design. The signals here are searchlight, with mechanical moving lenses, fast-disappearing, both as a signal design itself, and as a trademark of the P&LE, and of the railroad's New York Central Railroad family ownership heritage. To get around the pipe plant complex, the trail makes a steep, switchback attack on the adjacent riverbank, and descends back to railroad and river grade level at the south end of the plant. The rusty, 1945-era heavy Carnegie steel single track you level out at is the very southernmost stub of the intact trackage that was once part of the "transcontinental" "Alphabet Route" (from Toledo, via the Nickel Plate, Pittsburgh & West Virginia, P&LE, Western Maryland, and Reading Railroad's legendary through freight route from the Great Lakes to the East Coast). You will ride on the P&LE from here to Connellsville, and from there to Cumberland on the WM portion of this historic route. This is also where the asphalt from Pittsburgh ends here at GAP Milepost 129, and it's back to crushed limestone from here to Cumberland (The asphalt pavement sure was nice!) Look right behind you to see the first of many classic, "domed" P&LE mileposts (#16), so nice to see have been lovingly restored! The "skeleton" of the now-trackless P&LE stretches out in front of you, hard to believe what was a busy, Class-1, centralized traffic controlled industrial main line! At P&LE Milepost 15, you approach the town of Boston, and the Boston Bridge, with its beautiful little cluster of railroad artifacts and trail amenities. Adjacent to the passenger shelter-styled trail information station is a beautifully restored, green P&LE boxcar, and its previously mentioned railroad history plaque. You are now on the GAP's "Youghiogheny River Trail", and trail facilities are BEAUTIFUL and quite adequate from here to Connellsville! The Great Allegheny Passage is truly the region's "rail-trail gem!" As for me, this is where I crossed back over to the "Loop"s eastern "B&O" side, and returned northward to McKeesport on my previously covered trail report route. This "official" GAP leg of the trail is a slightly more challenging, but more scenic route (Don't be scared off by those trail signs!). If you prefer a totally flat route, with incredible old industrial ghost backdrops, choose the "unofficial" connector along the east side of the river. If you are limited on time, or for a neat afternoon ride, park up in Duquesne, ride south, and circle around BOTH legs of McKeesport's "Loop!" Nice work down there, guys!... Again, a fascinating trail experience! - Rich Ballash, 12-26-11.

I continued my survey of this trail southward, beginning at the (corrected) UNION Railroad's Riverton Bridge (which I thought was that of the PRR), on the south side of the Mon River at McKeesport. Descending the new ramp off the former railroad bridge dumps you into the now wide-open land, under redevelopment, once the middle of the massive United States Steel National Tube Works. closed in 1987. The trail wanders a right of way still partially occupied by what's left of the Union Railroad's steel mill yard here, then turns 90-degrees left into the downtown McKeesport main east-west street (PA-148). It's fun riding down the sidewalk for a few blocks westward, until the trail turns 90 degrees southward, at/under the former Pittsburgh & Lake Erie curved bridge. The trail runs along its east bank from the mouth of the Youghiogheny River for a few blocks, then joggles around a couple more 90-degree turns to access the old Baltimore & Ohio main line right-of-way to head south. (Read a WONDERFUL account of B&O's move out of downtown McKeesport in "McKeesport Union Station", under the "History" tab of tubecityonline.com) At a wye split at Trail Milepost 131.0, you choose either the "official" Great Allegheny Passage trail (left and up over the 15th Street Bridge and down the WEST side of the Youghiogheny River), or the flat, river-grade old B&O main line right of way (down to the river level right and along the Yough's EAST bank. Being the ferroquinologist (railroad historian) and industrial archaeologist that I am, I naturally chose the old B&O main route, and boy, was this a fascinating place! Spooky old abandoned steel mills under partial collapse, and old freight terminals once obviously served by the old B&O! At Trail MP129.3, you duck under the B&O's curved, plate girder McKeesport realignment bridge (crossing the river to the old P&LE's alignment), and emerge along the shiny CSX (former B&O's) main line. Riding on the river-edge access road serving several local heavy industries feels kind of strange, and you kind of feel like you're riding "on the wrong track", so to speak! At GAP Trail MP 128.7, you cross over the 3 shiny tracks of the CSX main. Stop at the grade crossing and observe the creme and tan structure in the southwest quadrant of the crossing. You are looking at what was one of the very last manned "railroad control towers" in the Pittsburgh megaplex, "MK" Tower, in the old Versailles B&O train station. Adjacent south observe the weeded platforms and parking lots of the farthest distant stop of Pittsburgh's very last commuter train, the PatTrain (Port Authority of Allegheny County), operated until mid-1990. (It is unbelievable that Pittsburgh once boasted a MASSIVE commuter train fleet, operating over both sides of all three rivers, with 666 PCC trolleys duplicating those services!) Your final stretch of the "alternate GAP" route parallels the CSX mains down to the Boston Bridge (MP128.0). At this point, you cross over to the west side of the Yough over the bridge, and rejoin the "official" GAP, the Youghiogheny River Trail, which was the old P&LE main, south to Connellsville, and beyond to Milepost 0, via the old Western Maryland Railway main, at Cumberland, Maryland. This is truly a marvelous ride through Mon Valley industrial history! Do read up on these towns before you take the trip, and you will find it to be an absolutely fascinating journey! Rich Ballash, 12-13-11.

This trail indeed "has it all." Here is a history lesson alive... What WAS, and what IS. If you are a student of industry, industrial archaeology, a railfan, or, like myself, all of the above, this trail is a winner! We based our study at the Homestead Pump House, Great Allegheny Passage Trail Milepost 139.0, easiest place to park, right along 837 in Homestead. Across the river, the old Carey Furnace, a dead, but mostly intact blast furnace... And DO by all means grab any chance to TOUR the facility. It is FASCINATING! As one starts south, you quickly approach your first feature of interest... (MP138.2) -The hot metal bridge that carried the molten steel from the Carey complex over to the USS Homestead Works. Note the heavy construction of the "Y" bridge, its high sides to prevent molten steel oversplash, and the unusual heavy track construction. Fortunately, THIS hot metal bridge has not been modified for modern traffic like its nearby cousin. At MP137.7, you cross Norfolk Southern's (double stack and coal train route) ex-Pennsylvania Railroad Mon Branch, on a beautiful built-for-trail thru-truss bridge. This first bridge of two carries the trail onto a mild roller-coaster hillside grade following a gas pipeline. The view from up here is awesome! At MP136.8, you get a fine view of the still quite active USS Edgar Thompson Works on the north side of the river, and, in the background, the majestic, 1930 Art Deco Westinghouse Bridge, which carries US-30 over the Steel Valley. At MP136, the trail drops back down to railroad grade at the big "multi-wye" occupied by NS and the Steel Valley's Union Railroad (above). This is "CP (Controlled Point) PERRY" on NS. One of the PRR's once 463 classic manned interlocking towers, "PG", stood in the crotch of the ground-level wye, until not too many years ago. Now it's all controlled by computers at Greentree (NS), and at Duquesne (URR). And note those two "lollipop" signals governing southward and northward NS movements... Those are classic (1930's era) PRR position light signals, which duplicate the old semaphore signal aspects used from the 1850's through the 1930's. A dying breed! The little one at the south end of the complex is a position light "dwarf" signal... Even rarer now! MP135.8 brings you to cross back over to the east side of the NS railroad, on a twin thru-truss structure just like the one two miles behind you. Now comes the melancholy part of the trail. You are now passing through the once thriving US Steel Duquesne Works. Do Google up some internet photos before you get here to give you at least SOME idea of what was here until the mid-1980's! Around MP134.9, You pass INSIDE the long, decaying, concrete wall that guarded the plant complex. Sadly, they tore down the long, overhead walkway which was the main plant entrance from the opposite (west) side of 837, (It was standing until a few years ago) at the red light you approach. Tiny vestiges of a once-mighty complex... a few pieces of steel mill heavy machinery, marked for saving by Homestead's "Rivers of Steel" preservation group, and a few lonesome tracks wandering off from the interplant railway you are riding on or along, curving off into the recontoured grass now... But once to supply gargantuan blast furnaces like the historic "Dorothy 6", which they tried to save, but ultimately failed to do. As you exit the plant, you pass through a little tunnel designed to carry the trail under South Linden Street, at MP134.6. A short distance further, and you cross the abandoned, 30-years' rusted tracks of the southbound Union Railroad, which carried the supplies and products to and from the McKeesport mills to the south, now all gone, too. And finally, the gem of this trail, at MP133.7, the old Pennsylvania Railroad McKeesport Branch Bridge (once spurring off the Mon Line you have been following), an old, thru-truss bridge (1898) over the Mon River, truncated at its south end (No more steel mills here to go to now!), and you drop down into McKeesport. And if you HAPPEN to like trains (obviously most people could care less, or even do without them!), this trail is a real treat! I saw TWO, LONG NS hopper trains heading south at the south end here, TWO Union Railroad movements at "PERRY." And it won't take TOO much luck to see a few double-stack freights bypassing the low train sheds of the Pittsburgh Station, between the "PERRY" wye and Homestead! This "Rails-WITH-Trails" masterpiece is a REAL gem! Hey, and it's PEACEFUL, too! The secluded gas pipeline and the old concrete wall at Duquesne, effectively dampen out that dreadful traffic noise created by busy (and annoying) PA-837! Kudos to the people of the Steel Valley Trail for a job MORE than well-done! -Rich Ballash - 12/4/11.