The Montour Trail claims to be the nation’s longest suburban rail-trail. That is a matter of definition, of course: the trail connects to the Great Allegheny Passage, a rail-trail that goes through suburbs of at least three major cities—Pittsburgh, Cumberland, and Washington. But the Montour Trail is entirely within the Pittsburgh suburbs. It follows the path of the old Montour Railroad, which carried mostly coal until it finally gave up the ghost in the 1980s.
There are many short bridges along the trail, because it follows Montour Run for much of its length, and trains cannot afford to be as whimsical in their curves as small rivers often are.
This bridge is prominently dated in the concrete.
