DUQUESNE, Pa. — Pittsburgh’s Union Railroad is buying 13 acres of the former U.S. Steel Duquesne Works to develop a transload facility, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.
The railroad purchased the land from the Regional Industrial Development Corp. for $400,000 to develop a facility for truck-to-rail and rail-to-truck transloading, according to the development agency’s president, Don Smith, who said the railroad aims to have the facility operational in one to two years.
The railroad, which already serves the former steel mill site, told the newspaper in a statement that it will “create a 20-acre transload site that will provide optionality for existing and new rail customers.”
The Union Railroad operates 128 miles of track within a 10-mile radius of Pittsburgh. It is one of the six former U.S. Steel railroads owned by Transtar, which was sold by U.S. Steel to a subsidiary of Fortress Transportation in 2021 [see “U.S. Steel to sell rail subsidiary …,” Trains News Wire, June 9, 2021].
The Duquesne Works, which began production in 1889, at one time employed more than 8,000 people on a 250-acre property. The facility was closed in 1984 and demolished in 1988.
