Pallets in Allegheny County

Land and water

The township includes the island and a portion of the surrounding river, with a back channel and a main channel. The Neville Island Bridge carries Interstate 79 and the Yellow Belt over the island, and the Coraopolis-Neville Island Bridge, the Fleming Park Bridge and the PC&Y rail bridge also reach it.

Industry, past and present

The island has housed a coke works, chemical and petroleum terminals and a carbon plant. The Shenango coke works ran at the northeast end until it stopped production, and its stacks were taken down in 2018; the roughly 50-acre site has river and rail access and has been discussed for redevelopment. Calgon Carbon's plant on the southeast corner makes and reactivates activated carbon. An Army Corps of Engineers terminal chart lists older river terminals here, so check current operators before relying on it.

Pallets for a river island

River air is damp, and pallets stored near the water absorb it. The moisture guide covers storage.

Tenants

Air Products and Almatis are park tenants, and the old steel fabrication site is now a solar tracker plant, so the borough makes gases, aluminium oxide materials and steel-and-electronic tracker assemblies.

Pallet needs

River, rail and the Port of BeeMac

The industrial park stands on former brownfield land on the Ohio's north bank. The Port of BeeMac, at Ohio River milepost 14.5, is listed by the Port of Pittsburgh as the only port within the park, with Norfolk Southern rail service and barge loading and offloading.

Rail and barge change the pallet question. A load that arrives by barge or rail is often unloaded onto pallets at the terminal, and what leaves by truck is a mix of terminal pallets and the shipper's own.

The Bottoms and the borough

The Pittsburgh, Allegheny and McKees Rocks Railroad ran through the river-side flats known as the Bottoms, and the Pittsburgh and Ohio Central Railroad is in the same area. Chartiers Creek separates the borough from the Pittsburgh neighbourhoods of Windgap and Esplen. The McKees Rocks Bridge, at 7,293 feet, is the longest bridge in Allegheny County.

Today's pallets

• Metal fabricators ship bundled parts: 48 x 45 and reinforced 48 x 40, block build, rated for the weight.
• Small manufacturers want clean grade A or B in a single size.
• Rail-side buildings collect broken stock; broken pallet removal covers it.

The intermodal terminal

CSX chose McKees Rocks and Stowe Township for its Pittsburgh Intermodal Rail Terminal, a project of more than $60 million, according to trade press, with construction beginning in 2015. An intermodal terminal moves containers between train and truck, so it brings container drayage and warehousing to the area around it.

Containers arriving there often hold palletised freight, and the pallets used inside them follow the exporting or importing country's wood packaging rule.

A township in pieces

Its five non-contiguous areas are separated by Sharpsburg, Aspinwall and Fox Chapel. Neighbours include Shaler Township on the west, Harmar Township, Oakmont and Verona on the east, and Sharpsburg, Aspinwall and Blawnox on the south. Sixmile Island is part of the township.

RIDC Park, the first of its kind

RIDC Park, opened in 1967, was the first planned industrial park the Regional Industrial Development Corporation built in Pennsylvania. Life sciences and medical technology firms are prominent among its tenants, and the park is described as the largest industrial park in the northeastern Pittsburgh submarket.

A township zoning change in November 2025 opened the park to residential and retail uses as well. For pallets, the effect is that a park built around laboratories and light manufacturing is shifting toward mixed use, and its freight stays small: instruments, supplies and consumer-sized orders.

Highways and rail

I-376, the Penn-Lincoln Parkway, runs through Monroeville, and in the east it runs concurrently with US 22. The Turnpike (I-76) has Exit 57, formerly Exit 6, here, interchanging with I-376. US 22 Business, PA 48 and PA 286 serve the municipality. Norfolk Southern's Pitcairn Intermodal Terminal straddles the Monroeville and North Versailles border in the Turtle Creek Valley, and many freight trains reach it on the same track as Amtrak's Pittsburgh Line. U.S. Steel's Union Railroad runs its own track through the Thompson Run Valley.

Retail and offices

The Monroeville Mall and several office parks are the borough's economic anchors, and US 22 is its main business district.

Pallets

• Intermodal-bound loads: container shipments need sound pallets and HT if overseas.
• Retail receiving: 48 x 40, many mixed.
• Office parks: very few.

Business park and crossroads

Monroeville Business Park, on Seco Road, is an industrial and flex site about a quarter mile from I-376 and the same distance from I-76.

The town is better known for retail and healthcare than for plants. Its pallet piles tend to come from stores, hotels, medical suppliers and small warehouses in the business park, mostly in 48 x 40.

Hotels and healthcare

One economic summary counts 15 hotels and motels in the Monroeville business district and lists healthcare, retail and technology as the main employers. A hotel's linen, food and supply deliveries and a hospital's stores both arrive on pallets, and neither usually needs more than a small, tidy pickup.