Just something that turned up on my Facebook page. Location is at the foot of 11th Street in Wheeling, W.Va., at the Pennsylvania Railroad station, looking north.

The photographer is standing on a boat on a rather higher than normal water level.

Part of this station, in a form of preserved ruin, survives today, all that remains from a fire in the 1960s. This line had Pullman service on it until passenger service quit in the late 1950s (passenger service would continue into the early 1960s in Wheeling on the B&O). The line itself is now a trail, as is almost all other rail mileage in Wheeling.

https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-x ... e=5561BCAA

Do you have a picture of the current ruin? I have overlooked this on my past excursions through Wheeling.


Rob

I don't have anything, but the location is at the junction of 11th Street and Water Street in Wheeling, W.Va. There isn't that much to see, other than the foundation walls for a rather tall looking basement.

This street junction is visible in the photograph, where the street makes a right angle turn, then descends into the water, with the iron railing along one side (Water Street). Junction of 11th Street is, if my memory is right, the second left south of the Capitol Music Hall on Main. The first left would have been the approach to the former Steel Bridge over the main channel of the Ohio that had carried trolley cars, and was replaced by the Fort Henry Bridge around 1957. This steel bridge was blown down around 1960.

The station location as shown on Bing maps, with rotatable bird's eye views; it's fairly visible this way, a bit of a surprise to me when I looked at it:

http://www.bing.com/maps/#Y3A9MzkuNDA4N ... N0cmVldA==

If you look at Google Earth, there's the Heritage Port amphitheater and the bike trail along the river. Just north of the amphitheater is the playground. Directly across the trail from that is what's left of the station.
There have been some efforts to rebuild and use it for permanent bathrooms, etc. but that's hung up in flood plain arguments and such.

When I see photos like this, I always ask "how did THAT happen?"

As with most all large floods, in this case the Ohio River, the water rises rather slowly......i.e. it is not a "flash flood".

With that in mind, why is a train at the station? I can only assume that RR officials knew the flood danger, and would attempt to move their trainset to a safe place (if available).

Looking at Bing and the notes here, I am having trouble envisioning the location of the station. I can't seem to find any good photos of it online.

Referring to Big, there is a really neat ruin of a wall across from the playground. At first, I thought that must of have been the foundation of the station.

But then looking at the flood image, it appears the station was tucked right in the "elbow" of 11th and Water St which today is an empty lot directly across from the north end of the ampitheater. Bing shows what seems to be the "furniture" building from the flood photo still standing, with the lot for the depot in front of it.

Where there two PRR depots? One after the flood pic?

Rob

As far as I know, there was only one PRR station. That wall you see, with its curved section, is indeed neat, but I'm not sure if it was part of the station at all; certainly wasn't part of the foundation.

What is part of the station is a large vault, open on the river side, nestled into that "elbow." It's just south and adjacent to the neat curved wall, and shows up best if the photo is rotated so you are looking east, with north to the left, as if you were looking at this from the river side. It's just a deep square hole, not much to see, but that's it.

Just posting things as I find them, starting with this postcard view:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/34878756@N04/4084011383/

Hmmm, another photo of the flood, same location, too:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ohiocounty ... otostream/

Just so you can look later, a couple of general image search results. Not all of this is Wheeling, but some is, and some of the other locations are fascinating, too:

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=whe ... ORM=HDRSC2

There is also this photo stream from the Ohio County Public Library that looks worthwhile:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ohiocountypubliclibrary

There is also this map of the Wheeling area:

http://historical.mytopo.com/getImage.a ... g&state=WV

B&O station in another flood, supposedly 1936:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ohiocount ... 139067025/

Photo from hill above downtown; B&O station visible at left center, along with Wheeling Terminal(PRR)/W&LE team tracks, freight station, and passenger station, the latter in front of the elevated tracks of the B&O station. The tall smokestack visible to the right of the station is from its powerhouse; this is the current location of the Ohio County Public Library.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ohiocount ... 885466090/

Very cool, thanks for all the links and info. Wheeling intrigues me, but every time I have been there it has been on the way to see something else (mostly Weirton). I did spend half a day in Wheeling years ago after a sleepless night in a Bellaire, OH motel but that's another story...

The B&O is an attention grabber in Wheeling with the size of its infrastructure, but I think I need to pay attention to the PRR side of things next time I am there.

Thanks again!

Rob

The PRR station is quite visible in this postcard view, and it looks like that neat curved wall was a part of it somehow--a baggage facility, perhaps?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ohiocount ... 990761652/