Building the Allegheny Valley Railroad

This video is about the building the 142 mile railroad up the Allegheny River Valley from Pittsburgh to Emlenton, Oil City and later on to Buffalo, NY in the mid 1800s. The 1859 oil Strike in at the Drake Well in Titusville provided the impetus for the railroad to expand north and capitalize on the explosive growth of the Pennsylvania Oil Industry. The terrain along the river was rocky, forested with steep cliffs towering over it the river. The curves would be long, for the river meandered serpent like through the region. In some areas along the grade, like at Rockland and Kennerdell, the river literally made horseshoe bends. Besides passenger service, the Railroad facilitated and supported the growth of new industries that sprung up all along the rail line including timbering, coal mining, and glass manufacturing, and oil refineries as well as jobs associated with the railroad.
The Allegheny River Railroad truly became the lifeblood of Allegheny River Valley.

[@jimfesta8981]

My immigrant grandfather who lived in Bradford, PA was a section hand on the Buffalo, Rochester, and Pittsburgh Railway better known as the BR & P railway. The railway had a roundhouse & turntable in Bradford where my grandfather worked. As a boy in the 1960s I remember seeing the remnants of that turntable.

[@JeffBishop_KB3QMT]

Hi, I'm writing from the mountains of western Maine where we now live. As teenagers we used to travel up to the Rockland furnace from our hometown, New Castle, PA and explore the furnace and surrounding area. Since then we also traveled by boat and canoe from Warren down to Emlenton. There's a lot of history surrounding Emlenton, Bob Hope's wife being from there being one interesting aspects of the town. We lived in Philadelphia for about 10 years across the street from the Chew Estate (where Chewton, PA gets its name), and just up from the Emlen estate where Emlenton derives its name. I picked up a short book of the History of Emlenton some years ago where it stated that the first steamship, or it might have been the first steam passenger ship, I'm not sure, was named the "New Castle." Being from New Castle, this stuck with me.
Thank you for posting these videos, I appreciate it, and am sure others do as well.

[@williamscholze1875]

Good stuff.
The AVRR is a lifeblood for our factory in Verona PA. We receive the vast majority of our bulk ingredients by ABRR railcar to make our nationally well known Daily’s Juice Products. So the next time your sipping a Margarita or Strawberry Daiquiri or see the kids sipping on a Little Hug or Sunny D you can give a quiet nod to the AVRR.

[@larrycurran8036]

Great video. Thank you. 🐱

[@tedfisher19]

Thank you for the video, Rick. Well done and very interesting. I'm from the coal country of Western PA, went to college in Pittsburgh, and love everything about the region. Always great to learn more history of the area. Ted

[@MrRubybare]

Thank you for the fascinating history of the railroad. I enjoyed it immensely.

[@bentech8887]

great video sir, much love from Leechburg pa

[@1915esther]

Rick, Wow, really enjoyed your videos, can't imagine the work you put in. Thanks for the memories!

[@michaelriley6324]

Love the history! Would love to sit hear about more history, I grew up in Fairview. I love hearing history about the little towns around! If you ever read this get back to me!

[@Mr.XJ.96]

Fascinating wow.....Hello from Petrolia. Spent a few weeks hauling stone to the Philipston Tunnel Project for Armstong rail trail Saras furnace to The tunnel and Philipston are being paved. They have redone the entire tunnel refined it and installing solar led lights. Rockland Dootwrs eddy are great places to explore and hike. I've always wanted to know what rail road went through Chicora Petrolia Bruin Parker and over the River across the old Foxburgh Bridge. I've always wanted to do a Oil City to Apollo or Pittsburgh trip on the rail trail. I took a little trip to Reesedale walked across the Shaw something rail road Bridge the other day. Local History Fascinating to me and I'm always wanting to learn more. Thanks for the great content.

[@billconserva1461]

Curious, Kittanning to Oil City is around 60 miles, so 132 miles as you state, they must of done a lot of a zig zag route to get there.

[@imdoctorsan]

Being Evelyn Nesbit's first cousin, three times removed, I also enjoy the history of western Pennsylvania.

[@korawichbikedashcam6293]

8:28 that hat and clothing look very Vietnamese, but can see it looks Chinese too

[@edwardgray154]

such a shame as when conrail took over most of that line was abandoned.