Allegheny Portage Railroad
Encyclopedia
Rail transport
Rail transport is a means of conveyance of passengers and goods by way of wheeled vehicles running on rail tracks. In contrast to road transport, where vehicles merely run on a prepared surface, rail vehicles are also directionally guided by the tracks they run on...
constructed through the Allegheny Mountains
Allegheny Mountains
The Allegheny Mountain Range , also spelled Alleghany, Allegany and, informally, the Alleghenies, is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range of the eastern United States and Canada...
in central Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It was a series of 10 inclines, approximately 36 miles (58 km) long, and operated from 1834 to 1854. It connected two canal divisions of the Main Line of Public Works
Main Line of Public Works
The Main Line of Public Works was a railroad and canal system built by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the 19th century. It ran from Philadelphia west through Harrisburg and across the state to Pittsburgh and connected with other divisions of the Pennsylvania Canal...
of the Pennsylvania Canal
Pennsylvania Canal
Pennsylvania Canal refers generally to a complex system of canals, dams, locks, tow paths, aqueducts, and other infrastructure including, in some cases, railroads in Pennsylvania...
from Johnstown
Johnstown, Pennsylvania
Johnstown is a city in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, United States, west-southwest of Altoona, Pennsylvania and east of Pittsburgh. The population was 20,978 at the 2010 census. It is the principal city of the Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes Cambria County...
on the west to Hollidaysburg
Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania
Hollidaysburg is a borough in Blair County, Pennsylvania, on the Juniata River, south of Altoona. It is the county seat of Blair County. It is part of the Altoona, Pennsylvania, Metropolitan Statistical Area and is one of the communities that comprises the Altoona Urban Area...
on the east, thus allowing continuous barge
Barge
A barge is a flat-bottomed boat, built mainly for river and canal transport of heavy goods. Some barges are not self-propelled and need to be towed by tugboats or pushed by towboats...
traffic between the Ohio
Ohio River
The Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. At the confluence, the Ohio is even bigger than the Mississippi and, thus, is hydrologically the main stream of the whole river system, including the Allegheny River further upstream...
and the Susquehanna
Susquehanna River
The Susquehanna River is a river located in the northeastern United States. At long, it is the longest river on the American east coast that drains into the Atlantic Ocean, and with its watershed it is the 16th largest river in the United States, and the longest river in the continental United...
rivers. Considered a technological marvel in its day, it played a critical role in opening the interior of the United States beyond the Appalachian Mountains
Appalachian Mountains
The Appalachian Mountains #Whether the stressed vowel is or ,#Whether the "ch" is pronounced as a fricative or an affricate , and#Whether the final vowel is the monophthong or the diphthong .), often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern North America. The Appalachians...
to settlement and commerce. It included the first railroad tunnel
Oldest railroads in North America
- Early experimental railroads :*1720: A railroad is reportedly used in the construction of the French fortress at Louisburg, Nova Scotia.*1764: Between 1762 and 1764 a gravity railroad is built by British military engineers at the Niagara Portage in Lewiston, New York.*1795: A wooden railway on...
in the United States, the Staple Bend Tunnel
Staple Bend Tunnel
The Staple Bend Tunnel, about east of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in a town called Mineral Point, was constructed between 1831 and 1834 for the Allegheny Portage Railroad. Construction began on April 12, 1831. This tunnel, at in length, was the first railway tunnel constructed in the United States...
, and its inauguration was marked with great fanfare.
Today, the remains of the railroad are preserved within the Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site
National Historical Park
National Historic Sites are protected areas of national historic significance in the United States. A National Historic Site usually contains a single historical feature directly associated with its subject...
operated by the National Park Service
National Park Service
The National Park Service is the U.S. federal agency that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations...
. The site was established on 1296 acres (524.5 ha) in 1964 and is about 12 miles (19.3 km) west of Altoona
Altoona, Pennsylvania
-History:A major railroad town, Altoona was founded by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1849 as the site for a shop complex. Altoona was incorporated as a borough on February 6, 1854, and as a city under legislation approved on April 3, 1867, and February 8, 1868...
, in Blair and Cambria counties.
The Lemon House, a tavern
Tavern
A tavern is a place of business where people gather to drink alcoholic beverages and be served food, and in some cases, where travelers receive lodging....
located alongside the railroad near Cresson
Cresson, Pennsylvania
Cresson is a borough in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, east of Pittsburgh. Cresson is an elevated place known for its beauty. Mineral springs add to its attractions. It is above 2,000 feet in elevation. Lumber, coal, and coke yards were industries that had supported the population which numbered...
that was a popular stop for railroad passengers, has been converted into a historical museum by the National Park Service. The park service also operates a visitor center
Visitor center
A visitor center or centre , visitor information center, tourist information center, is a physical location that provides tourist information to the visitors who tour the place or area locally...
with interpretive exhibits near the Lemon House.
The Staple Bend Tunnel is preserved in a separate unit of the historic site 4 miles (6.4 km) east of Johnstown
Johnstown, Pennsylvania
Johnstown is a city in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, United States, west-southwest of Altoona, Pennsylvania and east of Pittsburgh. The population was 20,978 at the 2010 census. It is the principal city of the Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes Cambria County...
.
A skew arch
Skew arch
A skew arch is a method of construction that enables an arch bridge to span an obstacle at some angle other than a right angle. This results in the faces of the arch not being perpendicular to its abutments and its plan view being a parallelogram, rather than the rectangle that is the plan view of...
bridge, a masterwork of cut stone construction, is another feature of the site.
History
Construction of the railroad began in 1831 and took three years to complete. The project was financed by the State of Pennsylvania as a means to compete with the Erie CanalErie Canal
The Erie Canal is a waterway in New York that runs about from Albany, New York, on the Hudson River to Buffalo, New York, at Lake Erie, completing a navigable water route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. The canal contains 36 locks and encompasses a total elevation differential of...
in New York and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal
The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, abbreviated as the C&O Canal, and occasionally referred to as the "Grand Old Ditch," operated from 1831 until 1924 parallel to the Potomac River in Maryland from Cumberland, Maryland to Washington, D.C. The total length of the canal is about . The elevation change of...
and Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was one of the oldest railroads in the United States and the first common carrier railroad. It came into being mostly because the city of Baltimore wanted to compete with the newly constructed Erie Canal and another canal being proposed by Pennsylvania, which...
in Maryland. The work was done largely through private contractors. The railroad used ten inclined plane
Canal inclined plane
An inclined plane is a system used on some canals for raising boats between different water levels. Boats may be conveyed afloat, in caissons, or may be carried in cradles or slings. It can be considered as a specialised type of cable railway....
s, five on either side of the summit of the Allegheny Ridge
Allegheny Mountains
The Allegheny Mountain Range , also spelled Alleghany, Allegany and, informally, the Alleghenies, is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range of the eastern United States and Canada...
. The vertical ascent from Johnstown was 1172 feet (357 m). The vertical ascent from Hollidaysburg was 1399 feet (426 m). The barges were drawn by horses along level sections, which included a tunnel 900 feet (274 m) long as well as a viaduct
Viaduct
A viaduct is a bridge composed of several small spans. The term viaduct is derived from the Latin via for road and ducere to lead something. However, the Ancient Romans did not use that term per se; it is a modern derivation from an analogy with aqueduct. Like the Roman aqueducts, many early...
over the Little Conemaugh River
Little Conemaugh River
The Little Conemaugh River is a tributary of the Conemaugh River, approximately 30 mi long, in western Pennsylvania in the United States....
upstream from Johnstown. A typical voyage took between six and seven hours. The entire Main Line system connecting Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
and Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
was 400 miles (644 km) long. A contemporary account of travel on the railroad was written by Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
.
In 1854 the portage railroad
Portage railway
A portage railway is a short and possibly isolated section of railway used to bypass a section of unnavigable river or between two water bodies which are not directly connected...
was rendered obsolete by construction of a locomotive
Locomotive
A locomotive is a railway vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. The word originates from the Latin loco – "from a place", ablative of locus, "place" + Medieval Latin motivus, "causing motion", and is a shortened form of the term locomotive engine, first used in the early 19th...
railroad over the Alleghenies by the Pennsylvania Railroad
Pennsylvania Railroad
The Pennsylvania Railroad was an American Class I railroad, founded in 1846. Commonly referred to as the "Pennsy", the PRR was headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....
, a private company. Despite this, construction on the New Portage Railroad, a $2.14 million realignment to bypass the inclines, continued, opening in 1856. On July 31, 1857, the Pennsylvania Railroad bought the portage railroad from the state, abandoning most and using the rest as local branches. In 1904, the part east of the Gallitzin Tunnel
Gallitzin Tunnel
The Gallitzin Tunnels in Gallitzin, Pennsylvania, formed the Pennsylvania Railroad's passage through the Allegheny Mountains in western Pennsylvania. Ownership of the tunnels has been successively transferred from the Pennsylvania Railroad to Penn Central Transportation Company, then to Conrail...
s was reopened as a freight bypass line. However, in 1981, CONRAIL abandoned this line to Hollidaysburg, PA, and removed the rails.