A railroad sold Castle Shannon with a zoo and free rides. Its food still sits by the tracks.

Between 2,000 and 3,000 people turned out in May 1876 for the grand opening of a zoo in the farm country south of Pittsburgh. The Zoological Gardens at Arch Street and Poplar Avenue had more than 100 kinds of birds and animals and a museum of curiosities¹. It also had a job to do: sell house lots in Castle Shannon¹.

The Pittsburgh and Castle Shannon Railroad built the zoo, along with picnic groves and a camp meeting ground, because its new subdivision was not selling¹. The railroad is long gone, but its right of way is now part of the T, and Castle Shannon still eats at the old stops³. Our directory lists 43 places to eat in the borough, and 36 of them sit on three streets the trains shaped: Library Road, Willow Avenue and Mt. Lebanon Boulevard⁴.

Free rides and a 45 minute trip

Castle Shannon got its name from a farm. David Strawbridge named his land Castle Shanahan, after Castleshanaghan, a townland in County Donegal, and over time Shanahan became Shannon².

The railroad was finished in 1872². It was an odd little line: a narrow gauge track that used an old coal mine as its tunnel through Mt. Washington and carried passengers by day and coal by night³. In 1873 it started selling lots in Castle Shannon, advertising parcels four to five times the size of a city lot and a 45 minute trip to town¹. To sweeten it, anyone building a home got two years of free transportation and free hauling for their lumber². Buyers still did not come in the numbers the company wanted, which is how a South Hills farm town ended up with a zoo¹.

The Castle Shannon Railroad War

In 1878 the railroad fought itself. Its president, Milton Hays, also ran a second line south toward Washington, Pennsylvania, and his own board turned on him. In May they stopped honoring his tickets, and freight from Washington sat idle at Arlington Station, the end of the line in Castle Shannon¹.

Hays quietly leased another coal line and built a connector. The day his crews drove the last spike was a Sunday, with the courts closed. Railroad men spiked a switch, tore up track and derailed a locomotive in his path. Hays, riding his own engine, pushed it off the rails and down an embankment. The master mechanic threw a hammer that knocked him out cold, the crews brawled until weapons came out, and Hays won the day. He resigned as president the next day¹.

The fight did the railroad no favors. It went into receivership from 1879 to 1880 and lost the zoo, the picnic groves, the camp grounds and its unsold Castle Shannon lots¹. One name from that push survives: Linden Grove was built in those years, and our directory still lists a Linden Grove on Grove Road¹⁴.

Willow Avenue, where the station was

The railroad's Castle Shannon station stood on Willow Avenue, and its service yard, locomotive shop and car barn were at Willow and Castle Shannon Boulevard¹. Today all 8 Willow Avenue listings are within about 800 feet of the Willow T station in a straight line. The closest is a restaurant called Willow Station, about 110 feet from the platform⁴⁵.

Willow also has one of the newest names in town. The Velvet Board got its county permit at 3776 Willow Avenue in March 2026 and had its preoperational inspection on March 25⁶. That is the same address as Shannon Sweet Stop, an older listing with no current permit on file, so we now mark the sweet shop as likely closed⁴⁶.

Mt. Lebanon Boulevard, the end of the line

Arlington Station, the last stop, sat near the shops on today's Mt. Lebanon Boulevard, and the trains looped around the yard there for the trip back to Pittsburgh¹. The T still stops at Arlington. Mt. Lebanon Boulevard has 12 listings, 10 of them within about 620 feet of the platform, and one address, 300 Mt. Lebanon Boulevard, holds five⁴⁵.

The latest arrival is at 325. Krunchy Bird, a Korean fried chicken spot, opened there in March 2026 in the former Oya Sushi space⁷. Its first county permit is dated February 2026⁶.

Library Road, the old mine road

On the way into town, the tracks followed Saw Mill Run and turned west at Library Road, where more mine entrances lined the route¹. By 1904, eight mines were operating in Castle Shannon². Library Road is now the busiest food street in the borough, with 16 listings from the 3100 block to the 4100 block. Fittingly, one of them is a bar called The Coal Mine⁴.

The 4100 block has five listings, all within about 650 feet of the St. Anne's T stop⁴⁵. One of them, Pour Johnny's, had its preoperational inspection on September 10, 2025⁶.

Riding it today

The old right of way was rebuilt for modern light rail and returned to service in 2004¹. All 15 transit stops in the borough are on the T, with 9,174 scheduled trips a week. The Red Line stops at Castle Shannon, Arlington and Overbrook Junction. Blue and Silver stop at Willow, Memorial Hall and Killarney. Smith Road and St. Anne's get all three lines and tie as the busiest stops, at 960 scheduled trips a week at each platform⁵. The county lists park and ride lots at Castle Shannon, Memorial Hall and St. Anne's¹².

The railroad once reached the city by an incline that climbed Mt. Washington to Bailey Avenue. It ran until June 21, 1964⁸.

The zoo lasted only a few years. The tracks it was meant to fill are still here, and so is the town they sold. Get off at Willow, Arlington or St. Anne's and lunch is a short walk away. For every listing, street by street, see the Castle Shannon town guide.