Bridge's piers a reminder of its disasterous fall

Tucked between the Parkway East and the north bank of the Monongahela River, the remains of the Wabash Bridge sit like a blank memorial to its owners' folly and the 10 men killed during its construction.

Built to carry the Wabash-Pittsburgh Terminal Railroad across the Mon to an elevated railyard and terminal Downtown, the bridge suffered a disastrous partial collapse during construction on Oct. 19, 1903. The massive piers by Station Square and the parkway are the sole reminder of what once was the longest cantilevered steel bridge in the world.

Ropes carrying several heavy beams snapped and fell onto an incomplete section of the bridge, sending it crashing onto barges loaded with steel.

"They were probably going along too quick, trying to meet deadline," said Howard V. Worley Jr., 72, a freelance writer and railroad historian who has written several books on the Wabash railroad and its successors.

Seven ironworkers fell to their deaths, and three men died when the tumbling wreckage capsized the barges.

The Wabash-Pittsburgh Terminal Railroad began when George J. Gould took over for his father, railroad baron Jay Gould. A line through Pittsburgh would get Gould a slice of the city's immense freight business, connect his rails from San Francisco to Baltimore, and fulfill his father's dreams of transcontinental railroad network.

Despite political pressure by the existing railroads to keep Gould out, he pressed forward with digging beneath Mt. Washington, creating the Wabash Tunnel that today is a high occupancy vehicle route. Despite the bridge collapse, the railroad was completed in 1904. The first trains left the ornate, 11-story train station at the intersection of Liberty Avenue and Stanwix Street (then called Ferry Street) in June.

The Wabash was bankrupt four years later, strangled by competition from the Pennsylvania Railroad, freight contracts that never materialized and Gould's reluctance to build across the Allegheny River to connect to Baltimore.

The Wabash eventually became property of the Pittsburgh & West Virginia Railroad. The passenger station, converted into offices in the 1930s, was destroyed by fire in March of 1946, paving the way for development of the Golden Triangle.

Additional Information:

Pitt fact

Which was NOT a proposed use of the 3,333-foot Wabash Tunnel after the bridge was torn down?

A. A giant cocktail lounge called 'The Cave'

B. Tunnel for an electrified, automated 'skybus' service to the South Hills

C. Bowling alley for the Guinness Book of World Records' 'longest strike'

D. Wine cellar for all of Western Pennsylvania's state stores

Answer: D.

Source: South Pittsburgh Development Corp.