The Westinghouse Electric Corp. East Pittsburgh Works extends about two miles along Turtle Creek, north of the Westinghouse bridge. George Westinghouse achieved the first practical application of alternating current for electric power transmission in 1886 with a demonstration wire between the Golden Triangle and Lawrenceville. Realizing what an immense demand his system would create for generators and electric machinery, Westinghouse purchased 500 acres of land in the Turtle Creek Valley in 1887 as the site for a giant factory complex, but fierce opposition from Edison and the partisans of direct current electricity forced him to stay his hand for six years. In 1893 Westinghouse scored two decisive triumphs over Edison by supplying AC electricity to the Chicago Fair and exploiting the water power of Niagara Falls: the next year the East Pittsburgh works opened to national and international acclaim. The plant employed 20,000 workers at its peak, many of whom lived in the small homes that were built for them by the Westinghouse land company in the nearby valleys and mesa tops of East Pittsburgh, Turtle Creek, Trafford, and Wilmerding. An impressive group of these wooden homes and boardinghouses stands north of the plant on Brown Avenue (Route 130 North), toward Churchill. From the plant came the world's first electric locomotive, first regular radio broadcast (on Pittsburgh's KDKA), and first electronic television camera. Much of the old complex was clad in a metal skin in 1957 (one manufacturing aisle was seven stories high and three football fields in length), but Thomas Rodd's French Renaissance administration building, where Westinghouse worked, is still intact.

It is two miles from Westinghouse Electric to the Westinghouse Air-Brake Works in Wilmerding (reached via Route 130 South on the Yellow Belt). Frederick Osterling designed and Westinghouse himself supervised the building of these handsome brick foundries and machine shops in 1890. Around the factories Westinghouse laid out the model industrial town of Wilmerding (the name recalls Johanna Wilmerding Negley, whose family had farmed this valley for generations). Atop a little rise in the center of town was a library and community center with a swimming pool and baths, evidently inspired by Carnegie's prototype at Braddock. When the library burned in 1896, Westinghouse directed Osterling to rebuild it in grander style, without the public facilities, as the Westinghouse Air-Brake General Office Building. Janssen & Cocken added the wing on the left in French Renaissance style in 1927. Superannuated in 1984, it is now destined to be a conference center for the non-profit American Production and Inventory Control Society.