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Old 02-04-2009, 12:05 PM
 
675 posts, read 2,090,622 times
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Pittsburgh has two beautiful incline railways, the Monongahela and the Duquesne, but at one time there were almost 20 incline railways in the city of Pittsburgh. When I moved here, my neighbor began telling me of the two that were located very close to my house, so I became intrigued. When looking for information on where all of these railways were, I found that it was somewhat difficult to determine where they went and what they looked like, so I decided to put together this map:

Map of Pittsburgh's Incline Railways, Past and Present

I've tried to include images and a breif description of each one. In addition, I researched many historic maps and tried as hard as possible to place the inclines in precise locations, exactly where they actually were. Who knows, if you live in the city, maybe an incline was located near your house. Some houses are even built on the platforms of old stations! Check out my map and if you have any information to add to any of these, please let me know!

Last edited by gallacus; 02-04-2009 at 01:23 PM..
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Old 02-04-2009, 12:35 PM
 
Location: somewhere near Pittsburgh, PA
1,437 posts, read 3,762,860 times
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Very interesting information, thanks!
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Old 02-04-2009, 12:36 PM
 
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Thank you for putting that together. That was very interesting. I saw pictures of a few of the old ones at the Engineering society downtown. They have a bunch of historic pictures of Pittsburgh civil projects on their walls. A few of them were curved as they went up the hill in the photos. I am going to take more time when I am at home to look over this map you made and study it more deeply when I have more time. Thanks again.
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Old 02-04-2009, 01:03 PM
 
Location: Hell with the lid off, baby!
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I just road on both of them yesterday
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Old 02-04-2009, 02:04 PM
 
Location: southwestern PA
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Thanks so much for sharing that!
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Old 02-04-2009, 03:03 PM
 
52 posts, read 206,330 times
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Nice effort; thanks.
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Old 02-04-2009, 03:23 PM
 
Location: About 10 miles north of Pittsburgh International
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Thanks for the interesting information.

In 1998 I installed a sewer main to serve the townhouses that were built on Bailey St. at the site of the top of the Castle Shannon Incline. In the process, I encountered one stone pier that had been part of the support for the incline. It's still there, as it was too big to remove, so we tunneled under it.

Strictly by coincidence, I later met the contractor who had torn down the station at the top of the Castle Shannon Incline in 1964. He told me he'd recovered enough scrap copper from the electrical components to make his payroll for the job from that alone.

Reference the Troy Hill Incline:

Quote:
...The abandoned Market Review Publishing Company building now sits on the site of the lower station, along Route 28....
If I'm not mistaken, they tore that building down within the last couple of weeks.
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Old 02-04-2009, 03:53 PM
 
Location: Hell with the lid off, baby!
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If I can remember correctly, my grandfather told me that when he was a kid that there was an incline in the Glassport area.
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Old 02-05-2009, 07:49 AM
 
675 posts, read 2,090,622 times
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Wow, thanks ditchdigger for that awesome information. I'm not really sure why, but I am so fascinated by these old inclines. I'll have to revise my statement about the Market Review Publishing Company building!

Also, if anyone has any pictures of these inclines, please share them! Especially if you have any of the inclines that I wasn't able to get a picture of!
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Old 02-05-2009, 09:01 AM
 
Location: Park Rapids
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Very neat work there. I consider myself one of those incline buffs. I used to walk around the hillside to inspect anything left behind from an era gone by. Thank goodneess someone had the sense to preserve the two remaining inclines.

Besides the one in Johnstown, I'm not aware of any other opreational inclined railways anywhere in the United States. We were at one time a hot-bed of them, without this type of research those that are gone would be forgotten.
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