Allegheny Portage Railroad: Boats Over the Mountains

In the eighteen thirties Pennsylvania wanted a canal system connecting Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, but the Allegheny Mountains stood in the way. The solution was audacious: a thirty-six-mile inclined-plane railroad that physically lifted canal boats over the summit. From eighteen thirty-four to eighteen fifty-four, the Allegheny Portage Railroad connected Hollidaysburg in the east to Johnstown in the west.

Canal boats were floated onto flatcars, pulled up a series of numbered inclined planes by stationary steam engines and cables, lowered down the other side, and returned to the water. The first trains used horses and mules on the flatter sections, supplemented later by steam locomotives. Plane Number Two, near here, was one of ten inclined planes on the line.

The whole system was a marvel of its era, a reminder that engineers of the eighteen thirties were willing to move mountains when commerce demanded it.