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The western half of the Westmoreland Heritage Trail runs about nine and a half miles of crushed limestone from Lincoln Avenue in Export, past the Old William Penn Trail Access and Duff Park, through the Murrysville business district at the Roberts Trail Access, and on past Saunders Station in Monroeville to B-Y Park in Trafford. It follows Turtle Creek downhill the whole way on a barely noticeable grade, with the wooded creek valley closing in below Saunders Station. Road crossings are frequent through Murrysville, and the municipality cites cyclists who roll through stop signs. The eastern segment resumes at the Delmont lot beyond Export; the gap between them is the next section to be built.
Westmoreland Heritage Trail: West
Your comfort. Prognosticated.
-Cory
In a typical year the Westmoreland Heritage Trail: West has about 109 to 149 days of excellent weather for popular activities such as hiking, dog walking, e-biking, birding, running, biking, and walking, with April, May, and October the best months.
Hourly comfort scores for the next 15 days of weather, tuned to your activity and your own thresholds.
Plan your visit to this trail. Get the best windows for a comfortable outing.
Enjoy the Westmoreland Heritage Trail: West!
In half of past years, color along the Westmoreland Heritage Trail: West peaks October 18 to 27, typically around October 22. The trail has 45% deciduous coverage, with the majority being black cherry, red maple, sugar maple, white ash, and northern red oak.
George Westinghouse chartered the Turtle Creek Valley Railroad in 1886 to reach the natural gas fields around Murrysville. Trains reached Murrysville in 1891 and Export in 1892. The Pennsylvania Railroad ran the line from 1891 and bought it outright in 1903. As the Turtle Creek Branch it eventually ran from Trafford to Saltsburg, a town that grew up on salt wells and the Main Line Canal. Gas was the reason for the charter, but coal became the cargo. Passenger trains ran too, later as a single diesel car called the Doodlebug, until 1936. Trains last ran through Slickville in the late 1950s, and the Pennsylvania Railroad folded into Penn Central in 1968. The Trafford end lived on as the Turtle Creek Industrial Railroad, bought from Conrail by Dura-Bond in 1982, until a flash flood in June 2009 washed out its embankment. Westmoreland County then bought most of the corridor, and volunteers of the Westmoreland Heritage Trail Chapter of the Regional Trail Corporation helped build the trail in stages. Saltsburg to Slickville opened in the fall of 2007. The extension toward Delmont opened in 2013, Trafford to Monroeville in 2017, and Murrysville to Export in 2019. The Delmont to Export gap is next. This western segment holds the Turtle Creek valley end: Export, where the short line kept its headquarters, the Murrysville business district, Saunders Station in Monroeville, and the B-Y Park lot in Trafford.
Funk Bikeway
