In 1849, the Pennsylvania Railroad purchased 35 acres of the 220-acre Robeson farm. This tract of land became the core of the town of Altoona, roughly including the city blocks running from 11th to 16th Streets and from 4th to 14th Avenues. The PRR bisected Robeson's former farm with the railroad tracks, which ran through the middle of town, and the streets ran parallel to the tracks. In the center of the town lay the 12th Street Shops, the first of Altoona's railroad shops, opened in 1852. The mammoth complex allowed the PRR to become the first railroad in the industry to be self-sufficient in manufacturing, repair, and service for its fleet of locomotives, freight, and passenger rail cars. With a population of 200, Altoona became a borough in 1854. On the strength of the rail industry, Altoona's population sky-rocketed to 8,000 by 1868, and Altoona officially became a city.

Working in Altoona, railroad engineers patterned a standardized car design in 1859 that utilized interchangeable parts. This development allowed for the production of modern factory-made parts. In 1888 the Altoona Shops set an industry record by erecting a complete locomotive in just under 17 hours. It was also in Altoona that coal, first used experimentally, gradually came to replace charcoal as the fuel for steam locomotives. Eventually, nearly all locomotives would use coal. By 1920, the Pennsylvania Railroad measured 11,000 miles of track and employed 17,000 people in Altoona.

In 1925, the PRR's last major expansion created the Altoona Works, the nation's largest concentration of rail shops, employing 16,500 people (at a time when Blair County's entire population was approximately 140,000). This new 50-stall erecting and machine shop in Juniata replaced the old 12th Street Shop Complex. By 1930, the PRR claimed to handle more traffic over the Allegheny Mountains in one day than the Portage Railroad had in one year at the height of its usefulness. The rail shops and the Horseshoe Curve became so critical to the national economy that they ranked high on the list of sites to be bombed or sabotaged by Nazi Germany during World War II. But the nation's future path clearly led away from the rail lines that ran through the city's center.

Automobiles and trucks began to compete seriously with rails for passengers and freight after World War II. By 1950, the railroads began an exodus that made Altoona's population plummet and its economy fluctuate. Today, Norfolk Southern maintains an engine rebuilding plant at the site of the Juniata rail works. While Altoona was planned entirely around its rail yard, this spine that still runs through the center of the City, connects us to a bygone era. The prominence that the railroad transportation revolution brought to this region speaks of the blood, sweat, and tears that turned 35 acres of one man's land into a booming city.