In the shortline's heyday, trains of typically about four cars in length were hauled by one of the railroad's two 1940s era switch engines, operated by a two-man crew.

The railroad was in service until 2009, when flash flooding of Turtle Creek severely damaged the TCKR's tracks which ran adjacent to the stream.

At its westernmost point, the line began in East Pittsburgh where it dovetailed into Andrew Carnegie's Union Railroad and then ran eastward along the right bank of Turtle Creek to a junction near SZ tower.

The Lyons Run Branch was used to transport coal from the mines in Pleasant Valley; it was retired in 1950[9] and the Pennsylvania Turnpike was extended over part of its path the following year.

At its peak the Turtle Creek Branch extended from Westinghouse's facilities in Trafford all the way through Saltsburg, and its primary cargo was not gas but coal.

Passenger service to and from Pittsburgh and points west was also popular, first served by steam engine trains and later by a single car diesel vehicle known as the Doodlebug.

[14] At the time several businesses relied on it for shipments, including Dura-Bond, an Export-based protective coating company owned by the Norris family.

[15] They were faced with a choice: move their company to a new location served by rail, subsidize Conrail's existing operations, or purchase the railroad.

[17] Governor Dick Thornburgh, who traveled to Export for the newly acquired railroad's opening ceremony, justified the grant, remarking that the rail service would preserve more than 700 industrial jobs in Westmoreland County.

[17] The purchase price of the line would be $125,000,[18][19] but this relatively low number reflected something all of the parties in the deal knew: the track was in very poor condition.

[14] Since the trains were limited to a maximum of 10 miles per hour (16 km/h), these were not necessarily as dramatic as the word "derailment" can imply but were still disruptive enough for Dura-Bond to quickly hire a contractor to perform two months' worth of track repair on an expedited basis.

In addition to its general state of disrepair that came from decades of neglect, the track was also too steeply banked around its bends, causing the TCKR's relatively slow, heavy trains to exert too much pressure on the inner rail as they went through turns.

[15] A Norris family engineer summarized the company's key to its plan for turning the railroad to profitability, "Conrail needed a seven man crew to run the line.

Later that day a TCKR locomotive would pick up the loaded train that had been left by Conrail and take it to Murrysville and/or Export for distribution to customers.

Once deliveries had been made, the process would be reversed, as the short line's locomotive would gather and return empty cars to be towed back to Trafford where they would be picked up again by Conrail.

One noted that shipments which could be delayed over a week on the transfer track when Conrail owned and operated the line were arriving the same day under the new local ownership and management.

[14] Despite the positive reviews and the efforts to expand the railroad's customer base,[14] the number of shippers reported on the line was at its highest when it first began operations and would decline slowly over the next three decades.

When his company first purchased the railroad, Wayne Norris admitted nostalgia played "a small role" in his decision to buy and operate it.

The trains were a part of our lives..I'm proud to be running a piece of Turtle Creek Valley history... Coal gave this borough its name...

[26] In addition to damaging Dura-Bond's main facility, the water washed out five feet of the embankment that the Turtle Creek Industrial Railroad rested on.

These were a 300-horsepower 44-ton Whitcomb Co. switch engine that the company had owned prior to buying the railroad[14] and a comparable General Electric 50-ton switcher which later took over this 44-toner's duties.

model in an official filing with the Surface Transportation Board,[40] while the 5th edition of Edward Lewis' American Shortline Railway Guide listed the locomotive as a different 1000 h.p.

[7] When the Turtle Creek Industrial Railroad finally ceased operations, Engine 462's days of service did not end; before the tracks were removed this locomotive was relocated westward to Dura-Bond's Duquesne facility.

[19] Dura-Bond maintained the caboose in rail-worthy condition for the special occasions on which it would see use, such as transporting Santa Claus during Export's Christmas celebrations.