Allegheny and South Side Railway
| Reporting mark | AYSS |
|---|---|
| Locale | Pennsylvania |
| Dates of operation | 1892–1959 |
| Successor | Pennsylvania Railroad, Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge |
| Headquarters | Pittsburgh, PA |
The Allegheny and South Side Railway (reporting mark AYSS) is an historic railroad that operated in Pennsylvania.
It was incorporated on September 20, 1892, to build from the city of Allegheny to the South Side of Pittsburgh, with a stated distance of 12 miles; A branch of 7 miles from Allegheny to 39th St. in Pittsburgh's Lawrenceville section was also included. As Oliver had at the time recently purchased a portion of the Pittsburg Steel Casting Company at 36th St. and Smallman, and already owned a mill in the Woods Run section of what was then Allegheny, the line was clearly intended to connect all these. The Street Railway Journal described it as a private street railway chartered by Oliver and Roberts Wire, an Oliver Iron and Steel Company predecessor, and a submission to Poor's Manual of the railroads of the United States in 1894 reported completion of trackage between South 4th and South 22nd Sts., Pittsburgh as well as between Woods Run and the Point Bridge in what was then Allegheny. Its initial board of directors was composed of David, Henry, George and James Oliver, Charles Black and Henry Lupton. The officers were David Oliver, President, James Oliver, Vice President, Henry Lupton, Secretary-Auditor, James Oliver, Treasurer and D. S. Kamerer, General Superintendent. It was controlled through stock ownership by the Oliver Iron and Steel Company and for most of its existence had the purpose of performing a terminal switching service in the South Side section of Pittsburgh. (71 I.C.C. 90, 1922) By 1903, John Oliver had become President of the railroad. The railway maintained connections with the Pennsylvania Railroad's Monongahela Branch (technically with the Whitehall Branch, a branch from the Monongahela Branch), and with the main line of the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad.
While the original line paralleling the P&LE had been constructed under the guise of Oliver as the Pittsburgh & Whitehall Railroad, that road was subsequently sold to the PRR; Ultimately, only the portion paralleling the P&LE was leased back, to be operated in conjunction with trackage inside Oliver Iron and adjacent factories. The initial locomotive, A&SS 9, was a 0-6-0 constructed by the Pittsburgh Locomotive and Car Works in 1896 on contract number 1605, was later sold to the Pittsburgh, Chartiers & Youghiogheny Railway, where it retained its number. Number 11, also a Pittsburgh-built 0-6-0, arrived in 1898, built under contract 1862.
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