The exact page text, read by your browser's voice.
.jpg){kind=link}
Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad shops · Pennsylvania Railroad
On the record
Founded: 1857. The National Register nomination states: "In 1857, shortly after the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne, and Chicago Railroad was formed, the directors of the railroad (with encouragement from Samuel Hanna) chose Fort Wayne as the site for the line’s all-important repair and construction shops." Cityscapes gives the transaction and month: in September 1857 the shops were sold to the railroad by Jones, Bass & Co. Two framings of Hanna’s role are flagged, not merged: a History Center account says Hanna donated a parcel of land east of Clinton in 1852; the nomination says only "encouragement" and that the railroad bought the Bass operation already on the site.
Founders: the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad (consolidated 1856; leased by and incorporated into the Pennsylvania Railroad system in 1869), acting on Samuel Hanna’s encouragement; on the ground, the predecessor operation was John and Charles Cooper’s 1853 blacksmith shop, bought and built up by Sion S. Bass.
What it did: the line’s construction and repair shops: designed, built, tested, repaired and overhauled locomotives and railroad cars on a complex that once stretched along the Pennsylvania tracks for nearly three miles. Signature products included the "Fort Wayne Silver Palace Cars" (seven built 1867–1869 at $18,000 each). The site marker totals 300 locomotives and 12,000 cars designed and built here.
Course: major buildings were completed in 1863; the Pennsylvania Railroad expanded them in 1882, 1903 and 1918. Employment: "over one thousand men employed at one time" (nomination) vs 3,950 workers by 1913 (Quest Club) — both carried, not averaged. Fort Wayne was "even briefly labeled as the ‘Altoona of the West’" as a period label. The end of locomotive work is conflicted and flagged: production ceased after World War I with repair continuing until 1933 (nomination / ACGSI) vs engine construction halted near the turn of the century (Cityscapes).
Fate: after locomotive rebuilding ended in 1933, passenger-car work declined sharply after World War II. "In 1953 the last of the railroad operations closed, and by 1966 all the property had been abandoned; the roundhouse, the last vestige of the Pennsy Shops, was razed in 1984" (History Center account; nomination agrees). Any claim that the Pennsy Shops operated under Penn Central or Conrail is not established — the shops closed before the 1968 merger.
Find them on this page
- § 05 — business
Sources: National Register nomination, Pennsylvania Railroad Station, §8 — https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/f2117a9e-7ba2-4da7-9d02-57eff891e1ca ; ACGSI, Railroad History of Fort Wayne — https://www.acgsi.org/genweb/fort-wayne/railroad-history-fort-wayne-allen-county-indiana.html ; Leininger, News-Sentinel Cityscapes (1981) — http://egen.fortwayne.com/ns/projects/history/scapes37.php ; Steiner, Quest Club paper — https://www.barrettlaw.com/history-trends-in-industry-allen-county . Sources as cited in the profile.