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Station Square Station
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Freight Office for the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie
David Wilson from Oak Park, Illinois, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Back in 1968, the streetcar fan David Wilson from Oak Park, Illinois, USA, took this picture of a PCC car in front of the freight office for the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad. Except for looking cleaner, the building hasn’t changed much. Streetcars no longer pass in front of it, but they stop diagonally across the street at the Station Square station.
Kodak EasyShare Z1285. -
Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Station
The Pittsburgh & Lake Erie could not quite get a foothold downtown, but it had the next best thing: a station right on the Smithfield Street Bridge, so that it was only a short walk from downtown to the P&LE trains—or a short trolley ride, since the streetcars ran on the bridge.
Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G. The entrance to the station was right at bridge level, with a grand staircase down into the grand concourse.
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Stairs into the Grand Concourse
The stairway from the Smithfield Street Bridge down into the Grand Concourse of the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie railroad station.
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Station Square Station
The Station Square subway station was built in the 1980s, when the streetcars were diverted from the Smithfield Street Bridge to the Panhandle Bridge and into the subway downtown.
Even though it’s clearly above the ground, this is the end of the section of combined trolley lines that Pittsburghers call the “subway.” From here the outbound streetcars go underground into the Mount Washington tunnel, but that’s not a subway. That’s just trolleys running underground. You need to be a Pittsburgh native to follow the logic.
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Reliefs on the P&LE Terminal
We seldom look up as we pass the station on the Smithfield Street Bridge, but at the top of the building, directly over the main entrance, is this lively locomotive relief.
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Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad Terminal
This station (architect William George Burns) was made as splendid as possible to show that the P&LE was serious competition to the big railroads. Its front entrance opened directly on the Smithfield Street Bridge to be as convenient as possible to downtown without actually being downtown.
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Station Square from Across the River
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Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Station
The old Pittsburgh and Lake Erie station, now the centerpiece of the Station Square entertainment district, with the Monongahela Incline in the background.
Although the angle is distorted here by a telephoto lens, the building is not rectangular. A satellite view reveals the odd shape.
A view of the interior, now a restaurant called the Grand Concourse, is here.
