From Greater Pittsburgh, 22 December 1928.
Larger and more modern main passenger, freight and
produce terminals for Pittsburgh are on the Pennsylvania Railroad's
current construction schedule.
Terminal facilities are being entirely rebuilt on a rectangular area of
more than 50 acres, the western end of which lies long Grant and Eleventh
streets, the base line of the Golden Triangle.
Immediately adjoining the Pennsylvania's main terminal tract will be the
new post office and several other large, new commercial structures.
Assuming that the city will carry through its plan to widen Penn avenue
and extend the intersection of Grant street and Liberty avenue so that
they will be merged into Penn avenue at Eleventh street, downtown traffic
will be able to flow into the city's main railroad terminal area along
three major thoroughfares.
The new produce terminal, the first unit in the improvement scheme, will
be completed early the coming spring. An auction and delivery building
front on Twenty-first street is to be finished within sixty days and
immediately thereafter the remainder of the produce yard will be
constructed. The produce building is 1,200 feet long by 100 feet wide, as
modern as engineering science can devise. It will house two fruit
auctions and provide temporary storage and display space for 196 cars of
produce. The produce storage yards and team tracks adjacent to the
building, extending from Thirteenth street to Twenty-third street, will be
of 582 cars capacity.
The completion of the produce terminal project is to be immediately
followed by the construction of a new freight terminal, including separate
inbound and outbound freight houses and adequate supporting yards. The
freight houses will corner on Pike and Eleventh streets, close to the
Allegheny river.
These two units of the improvement plan are estimated to cost in excess
of $20,000,000 and the engineers hope both can be completed by the end of
the new year.
If plans for widening Penn avenue to 120 feet meet with no serious
obstacle, there is possibility that some construction work can be done
toward the new passenger terminal in 1929.
The Pennsylvania is endeavoring, in its current improvement program, to
carry out its engineering estimate of what Pittsburgh will require in
terminal facilities for many years to come.
Mr. R. B. Mellon and Mr. Howard Heinz, Pittsburghers who are members of
the Pennsylvania board of directors, are actively interested in the
road's improvement program, particularly as it affects Greater
Pittsburgh.
