Source:Central-railroad-and-city
"The Central Railroad and the city." Daily Morning Post (Pittsburgh), July 13, 1853, [p. 2]. Newspapers.com 86645430.
The Pennsylvania Railroad Company purchased twenty acres of ground, in the Ninth Ward of the city, for an outer depot. This ground is hardly sufficient for the purpose. The Company has erected on it machine shops, car, and locomotive houses, and other improvements, at great expense. And they are about laying down several tracks for the accommodation of the vast number of locomotives, and freight, passenger and coal cars. Some idea may be formed of the extent of the accommodations required at this end of the road from the fact, as stated to us, that all the locomotives and cars, of all descriptions, to be employed in the business of this great highway, would form a line forty-eight miles in length. From one-fourth to one-third of the whole number may possibly be occasionally at Pittsburgh together. A large number will always be here, and must be accommodated on tracks and turnouts in the immediate vicinity of the city.
It is evident, then, that the twenty acres owned by the Company will afford but a limited space for all the buildings, and numerous tracks and turnouts, required by the vast business, present and prospective, of this Road. The Company will need the unobstructed possession of all their ground. But it seems that, by the plan of the extension of the City, several streets were laid out which cross this ground from Liberty to Ferguson streets. They have never been opened upon the ground, and are found only on the map of the city.
Ferguson street runs along just at the foot of the bluff, which is so steep, as all know, as to be utterly impracticable for streets, or any kind of city improvements. The Company owns all the ground between Ferguson and Liberty streets for a considerable distance. It will be seen then, that it will be utterly useless ever to open these streets across the Company's ground, from Liberty to Ferguson street. They are Rush, Morris, Baldwin, Wilkins and Carroll streets. They are opened and in use from Liberty street to the bank of the Allegheny river. That is the only part of them that is, or ever can be, of use to the public.
The Railroad Company now asks the City Councils to vacate that part of the streets above named, across their ground. This is the matter that was before the Councils on Monday evening, and upon which Mr. Stokes, the Company's Solicitor, was heard, as mentioned in our paper of yesterday. It seems to us a clear case, not only of justice, but of good policy, that this portion of these streets should be abandoned. A refusal by the Councils must sop the very expensive improvements commenced on this ground. And to persist in opening this part of these streets across the Company's ground, would prove so disastrous an obstruction to the operations of the Road, that a depot would have to be sought elsewhere.
We hope the Company will not be driven to any such necessity. The depot there and its expensive works, gives employment to some thousands of hands, in the works, and in the trade of the road, and we are not surprised that petitions signed by a large majority of the citizens of that Ward and vicinity ask the Councils to grant the request of the Company.
Such is our information in regard to this matter, and we state it that the citizens generally may understand the case and form a correct opinion. It is a matter of much importance to the Railroad Company, and may prove of equal importance to the city.
