Tag Archives: portage rail road

Carved Stone!

06 Thursday Oct 2016

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This might not look like much.  It might look extremely boring.  But it’s am important stone.

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It’s one of the stone from the portage rail road that has been left behind.  In a future post, I’ll walk you through the process that workers did in order to make the stone just right.  Keep in mind, this would have been carved by hand with hand tools.  Think about that for a minute and let it sink in – that’s hard work for very little wage.

These stones served as the foundation on which the rail lines sat and were attached to.

Up next: Militia!

The Lemon House

05 Wednesday Oct 2016

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The Lemon House was owned by, hold your breath and wait for it…Mr. and Mrs. Lemon.  Shocking, I know.

At any rate, here is there lovely house.

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It sits right along the rail road, just past the incline.

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The house became a rest stop along the rail road, where travelers could get a bite to eat, freshen up a bit, socialize, and generally just get out of the heat of the canal boats.

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There are several rooms in the house.  There was a room for the men, which housed what can only be called a bar.

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Unfortunately, I wasn’t served.  I must not have been respectable enough.

At any rate, the ladies could retreat to the ladies parlor if they wished.

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Also at the house, they have a variety of toys that children in the era would have played with.  Our kids gave a shot at them too.  They did pretty well and enjoyed playing with some different toys that didn’t require electricity.

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I even got in on the action too, testing my abilities with a dancing toy.  Fun, fun!

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Up next:  Carved stones!

Incline #6

04 Tuesday Oct 2016

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We headed out of the museum and down to the actual site of the portage rail road.  Everything had to be recreated, especially after the rail road went out of service soon after it started.  The advent of powerful steam engines, made the portage railroad ineffective and costly.

We made our way down to Incline #6.

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It’s called Incline #6 because it is the sixth of ten inclines.  These are the powerhouses of the entire rail line.  Inside of the incline were engines that pulled canal boats up the side of the hill/mountain.

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We walked to the incline and took a peek inside.  The national park service has a great job of recreating what the incline would have looked like at the time of operation.

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The canal boats would have been pulled up inside of the incline using the ropes shown.  At least initially.  Eventually, the ropes would have been replaced with more durable material.  A few accidents caused people to figure out that sturdier material was needed.

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Up next: The Lemon House

A New Adventure: The Portage RR

03 Monday Oct 2016

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Time to return stateside for some new adventures.  We’ll begin with a trip to the Allegheny Portage Rail Road.  It is located in Cresson, PA.  Here’s the short summary version of what the portage rail road was – it was a rail line that connected two canals back in around 1830.  Not just any rail line, but a system of pulleys that were able to take canal boats up and over mountains.  Yeah, I told it is interesting.  So let’s begin our adventure.

From August 2015 to August 2016, we lived around the Hollidaysburg, PA area as I did my internship year for seminary.  We wanted to make the most of it and we visited several sites in the area, one of them being the portage rail road.  It’s a part of the national park system and it a great museum and grounds to explore, especially with children.

We started our adventure inside the museum where we talked with a park ranger and explored the exhibits.

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We learned about the mechanics of how the rail road worked in conjunction with the canal system.  It was all quite interesting.

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Stay tuned tomorrow as we head outside to the actual site of the rail road.