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.