ABOUT RAILROAD CITY, ALTOONA

Altoona—known as Railroad City to some—was established in the year 1849. The canals of western Pennsylvania were quickly becoming antiquated modes of transportation. The short-lived combination of artificial waterways and inclined planes was coming to an end. Meanwhile, the far-seeing founders of the Pennsylvania Railroad, chartered in 1846, were laying track into the rugged Allegheny Mountains. By 1850, the PRR completed its westward terminal at Altoona to enhance its growing enterprise. Early Altoona was a town in the making. Dotted with clapboard buildings, laundry lines, picket fences, towering brick churches, and telegraph poles—the railroad had a presence everywhere. The PRR was responsible for the city's infrastructure and constructed or sponsored most of the community's civic pillars: schools, libraries, and hotels. It was the essence of a company town and remained so for over a century.

 

Tried by the fires of progress, the struggles of labor, and the tests of world wars, the railroad shops at Altoona were celebrated as the "Standard of the World." Such prestige diminished following the dramatic economic and industrial changes of post-World War II America—hurling railroaders into a constant ebb of uncertainty. Following the disappearance of the Pennsylvania Railroad, subsequent chapters of industrial history were made in the city by Penn Central, Conrail, Norfolk Southern, and Amtrak.