Coraopolis, PA: 1894 Restoring/P&LE and Tearing Down/Montour Depots

P&LE: (Satellite)

P&LE Depot

Street View, Jun 2022

Dave Kuntz posted four photos with the comment: "Unlike the Montour Depot I posted last week which is just down the street, the former PL&E station in Coraopolis PA is actively being restored into a community center and bike trail rest stop.  The platforms were razed a few years ago but it looks like the roof and exterior is getting a well-deserved rehab."

1

2

3

4

The hole in the roof is probably why they tore down the platform canopy.

Street View, Jun 2019

CoraopolisTranStationProject
"It is in the style called Richardson Romanesque."

CoraopolisTranStationProject

CoraopolisTranStationProject

.llll

Montour Depot

Street View, Sep 2022

Dave Kuntz posted four photos with the comment: "It's hard to believe that less than a month has passed since I posted  the mostly intact Montour Station in Coraopolis, PA.  Today I got to watch this 19th century station on the Ohio River get demolished in real time.  Normally in such a situation I'd opine about the importance of photographing important railroad sites before they are gone forever, however I have it on good authority that the extreme amount of local attention my last post got actually hastened the station's demise.  Whereas this group believed in saving it, the townsfolk saw it as a fire hazard.  Who knows what the lesson is here?"

1
[You can clearly see were the bay window was in the foundation.]

2

3

4

Tommy Emery commented on Dave's post
Here she is in her prime

This topo map allowed me to find the depot. I had never heard of the Montour Railroad before.

1953/55 Ambridge Quad @ 24,000

Latrobe, PA: Amtrak+Restaurant/Pennsy Depot

(Satellite)

Street View, Jul 2019

safe_image for Amtrak Begins Major Station Upgrades in Pennsylvania
The railroad route is now owned by NS.

The sign in this photo confirmed that this was a former Pennsy Station because of the keystone in the middle of the sign.

Stephan Grütering, Sep 2018

Stephan Grütering, Sep 2018

Did the roof really go that bad in just 3 years? In Stepnahn's 2018 photos the canopy looks OK, but in this 2021 photo it looks horrible. The article talks about new canopy bases. I hope it is getting a new canopy as well. In the Midwest, they "fix" canopies by removing them.

Kevin Quander, Dec 2021

July 22, 2025:

Anthony Boerio posted two photos with the comment: "Latrobe. It appears they have finally begun renovations! Three years after they said our station was going to be upgraded."

Anthony Boerio: Funding for station upgrades between Pittsburgh and Philly:

"...$140 million in passenger rail investments though the Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail grant program..."

NS also making upgrades in Johnstown and several other places along the main line.

1

2

Anthony Boerio posted two photos with the comment:

Latrobe, Pennsylvania. They have begun clearing the trees away from the parking lot and station down below the tracks. Our dilapidated station is a very very sad site. Back in the last century, it was a wonderful place.

Three years ago the government said it would be one of the stations upgraded on the mainline between Pittsburgh and Philly. Well, it’s the government, so who knows when it will be finished😕

James McKee Ridgway Jr.: Getting it all “spiffy” for new train coming between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh…

1

2

3

Greensburg, PA: Amtrak+Restaurants/Pennsy Depot

(Satellite)

Street View, Nov 2020

It is nice that the clock tower has been maintained along with the rest of the station.

Jenn Weir, Sep 2022

Mark Christy, Sep 2022

Amtrak plans to improve their part of the depot beginning in 2026. [railway.supply via Facebook post]

The railroad route is now owned by NS.

Hamilton, ON: Hamilton Museum of Steam and Technology/1859-1910 Water Pumping Station

(Satellite)

Street View, Sep 2022

The water pumps are three stories tall.

Facebook Reel

There are two pumps. Is it a double-expansion steam engine or are the smaller cylinders the pumps? The pumps would be 90 degrees out of phase to provide a more steady flow of water. The crossbeam is in the story above, and the flywheels are in the room in the background.

Andrew Sparkes, Jul 2023

I think the apparatus on the side of the cylinders are the valves. That would argue that we are looking at a double-expansion steam engine, and the pump cylinders are somewhere else in the building.

Azurea A, Sep 2021

robert fishman, Jun 2019

The museum has other steam-powered equipment.

Katzung Mak, Jul 2022

Oregon, OH: Walleye Power/Toledo Edison Bay Shore Power Plant

(Satellite)

Street View, Aug 2023

John Travers posted six photos with the comment: "Here are some photos of the Toledo Edison/ former FirstEnergy  Bayshore plant in Oregon Ohio near Toledo, from July 2011. One of my favorite plants with some of my favorite 345 kV towers.  I read that some company known as Walleye LLC now owns and operates one turbine at the plant, which mainly produces power for the nearby BP Husky refinery, which in turn produces petroleum coke that is used by the power plant as a coal substitute. I would appreciate any dates or info on the start up of all the turbo units as well as the plant itself."

Lee Pyzik: Original Unit 1-1955; Unit 2 - 1959; Unit 3 - 1963; Unit 4 - 1968

Unit 1 Boiler was replaced with a boiler that could burn pet coke in the late 90’s. [Actually, 2000]

Steve Stalter: Unit 1 was repowered with a CFB (Circulation Fluid Bed) boiler that burns petroleum coke from the refinery which is basically pure carbon that is leftover from refining process.

Burkart Dave: For many years the Bay Shore units ranked right up there nationally in reliability, heat rates, etc. There was a great deal of pride in the employees who worked to maintain and operate the 4 units.

Mark Reichert: You are correct. Bay Shore Unit 1 supplies now Cenovus. [Some comments indicate that Cenovus took ownership in 2022, and it is owned by China. So China doesn't have to bomb our infrastructure, they can just turn it off.]

Ron Simons: Mark Reichert They supply process steam to the refinery and Mw to the grid.

It's about a 150Mw generator, a little less to the grid.

Brandon Du: CFB, Unit 1 COD was 2001. Walleye Power is not the actual owner, but rather the owner’s name for the plant.

1

2

3

4

5

6

In the street view at the top of these notes, a power line tower obscures the left-most smokestack. I got a better view of it because it has been modified. I presume that is Unit #1 that got converted to petcoke.

Street View, Aug 2023

gem
"Since 2000, Bay Shore Unit 1’s boiler was operating exclusively off petroleum coke produced at the nearby BP-Husky refinery. FirstEnergy in 2016 said it would shut down or sell Bay Shore Unit 1 by October 2020, when its agreement with the BP-Husky refinery expired.[2] However, the plant was sold to Walleye Power, LLC in 2018 and continued to operate[3] and report emissions to the EPA.[4] The plant provided steam to the adjacent refinery and typically operates around the clock except during turnaround periods."

I added the label "energyOil" because this boiler plant now burns crude oil residue rather than coal.

Onamia, MN: 1908,2009 Library/SOO Depot and Roundhouse

Depot: (Satellite)

Roundhouse: (Satellite, the land has been reused.)

Street View, Sep 2023

Street View, Aug 2014

They also have an outside-braced wood boxcar on display.

Street View, Aug 2014

Martha Decker posted two photos with the comment:

Onamia, Minnesota Soo Line (Mpls, St. Paul & Sault Ste. Marie) Depot, built in 1908 at the southwest end of Lake Mille Lacs. It was on the Soo Brooten Line, which was a major freight route from west central Minnesota to the harbor at Duluth.

According to Steve Glischinski in his book,"Minnesota Railroads", all Soo Line passenger service ended in 1967. The last freight train passed through Onamia in 1990. The depot was in a sad state of disrepair by that time. The tracks here are long gone, having been removed in the mid-1990s.

​Groups of locals eventually had the depot restored, and in 2009 it was opened as the Onamia Depot Library.

Image sources:

1. Onamia Depot, May 30, 2009

© Copyright 2009, Martha Decker

2. Railroad Roundhouse at Onamia ca 1910

MN Historical Society, Gale Family Library

Locator Number: MM6.9 ON r24

There is a little more info on my web page at:

https://woodshed74.wixsite.com/shed/depots-onamia

1

2

The oldest topo map I could find was 1968, and it doesn't show the roundhouse.

We can see the depot in the right background of the above roundhouse photo, so we know it was southeast of the depot on the south side of  the tracks. I also noticed that the roundhouse is evidently not round! The distance between the turntable and the stalls is variable. It looks like the turntable was removed by 1966, but the building was still standing.

May 25, 1966 @ 19,000; AR1VBHW00040066

Harrisburg, PA: Museum/Pennsy HARRIS (HG) Tower

(Satellite)

Smokestacks are becoming as rare as railroad towers.

Street View, Sep 2011

This tower handled trains at the Harrisburg Pennsy Depot. The Rockville Bridge is just a little (timecard) west from here.

Harrisburg Chapter NRHS posted two photos with the comment:

SOON! Harris Tower opens for normal Summer hours starting on Saturday, May 31st at 9 AM. Then open every Saturday (9 to 3) thru the end of October. 

Be sure to visit our PRR position light (PL) that you can control from your 'smart phone' device.

As a reminder, the Power Director's Office is still a work in progress, and only available for pre-arranged tours or events.

Jim Kelling shared with the comment: "HARRIS tower museum in Harrisburg Pennsylvania is open this summer."

1

2

Eric Victor, Jun 2024

Harrisburg Chapter NRHS posted
Jim Kelling shared
HARRIS tower (PRR) in Harrisburg Pennsylvania

Eric Victor, Jun 2024

I think this is the interlocking machine.

Nikki Salov, Sep 2023

John Purbrick posted three photos with the comment: "A couple of weeks ago I completed a bucket-list item: I went to Harris Tower in Harrisburg. It's open every Saturday in summer, and the National Railroad Historical Society guys will show you around and let you pull the levers yourself. I only did that very experimentally, because I had to find each lever's corresponding number on the board! Of course an experienced leverman would know all of that. The guide will point out how there is a worn-down strip in the floor in front of the machine, but not right at the center. That's because the two levermen walked back and forth in front of the left and right halves of the machine, but usually didn't walk the whole way. Apart from the levermen, there would be a train director calling out the orders to them, a tower operator in contact with the dispatcher, and an assistant to the director who was obviously the office gofer (but usually responsible for keeping the lists of equipment in passenger trains, so that the director could form a plan for changes in train makeup as needed)."

Jim Kelling: Also visit the power director’s room in the station (usually open when the tower is open, or check with tower staff) for an excellent interpretation of how it operated. I posted some photos of it last March.

1

2

3