Union Railroad (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)

Infobox SG rail
railroad_name=Union Railroad
logo_filename=Union_Railroad_%28Pittsburgh%29_Logo.gif
logo_size=
old_gauge=
marks=URR
locale=North Bessemer, Munhall, Homestead, McKeesport, West Mifflin, Clairton, Bessemer, Riverton
start_year=1896
end_year=present
hq_city= 1200 Penn Avenue, Suite 300 Pittsburgh, PA 15222

The Union Railroad reporting mark|URR is a Class III railroad located in Allegheny County in Western Pennsylvania. The company is owned by Transtar Inc. which is itself a subsidiary of USS Corp, more popularly known as United States Steel. The railroad's primary customers are the three plants of the USS Mon Valley Works, the USS Edgar Thomson Works (blast furnaces, basic oxygen steelmaking, and continuous slab casting), the USS Irvin Works (hot and cold rolling mills and finishing lines) and the USS Clairton Works (producer of coke for blast furnace ironmaking).

History

The Union was created 1896 as an consolidation of the various in-house roads serving the three primary Carnegie Steels plants in the the Monongahela River valley. When Carnegie Steel was merged into United States Steel in 1901, the Union was expanded to include the several other mills in the Mon Valley Region. The Union was responsible for the various switching task within each mill, for delivering raw to each mill (which would arrive on the Union via interchange with the Bessemer & Lake Erie, another US Steel owned and operated railroad) and for delivering the finished products to interchange with the major railroads in the area (most notable the Pennsylvania, the Baltimore & Ohio and the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie).

At its peak, the Union served seven separate mills (USS Homestead, USS Rakin, USS Edgar Thompson, USS Duquesne-National, USS National Tube & Pipe, USS Clariton and the relatively new USS Irvin), used four bridges crossing the Monongahela River and was one of the busy railroads by tonnage hauled in the Nation. Unlike the rest of the steel industry, the Union was relatively accepting of modernization as demonstrated by construction of a then state of the art yard and dispatching center in Duquesne, PA in the early 1950s. With the collapse of the steel industry in the United States, the Union's operations were greatly scaled back.

Interchanges

*North Bessemer, Pennsylvania
**Bessemer and Lake Erie Railroad
*Bessemer, Pennsylvania
**CSX
*Riverton, Pennsylvania
**CSX
*McKeesport, Pennsylvania
**CSX
*Duquesne, Pennsylvania
**Norfolk Southern
*Munhall, Pennsylvania
**Norfolk Southern
*West Mifflin, Pennsylvania
**Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway

Roster

The Union has operated a number of locomotives over the years. In steam days, the railroad was the only operator of 0-10-2 locomotives. The current roster is made up completely of second generation EMD Switcher Units. All but two units are painted union blue, the two remaining are painted green.

Notes

The 0-10-2 wheel arrangement was named "Union" after the Union Railroad, the only railroad to purchase such locomotives.

References

* [http://www.tstarinc.com/union/ Offical Union Railroad Site]
* [http://www.lundsten.dk/railfan_pa/urr/index.html Union Railroad]