It's 1826 and you're a merchant in Philadelphia. The Eire Canal opened last year and has proven an enormous success, paying off its entire debt in its first year. Ships that previously came to Philadelphia are now going to New York instead. You have to do something.

You won't build a railroad because those are still in the future (1830 in Baltimore).

You want a canal! Like New York has! You want a link to Pittsburgh and the riches of the Ohio River Valley.

The problem is that Pittsburgh is on the other side of the Eastern Divide. To the west, rivers drain to the Ohio and the Gulf. To the east, into the Atlantic. Between them lie the Allegheny Mountains. Cresting at 2,700 feet, they are much too high for canal locks.

Your solution: the Allegheny Portage Railroad. Cargoes are loaded onto rail cars which are then hauled up the mountains by stationary steam engines. Between these "inclined planes", mules pull the cars along the flat bits.


Map credit: By Finetooth, Ruhrfisch, U.S. Census - Based on File:Pennsylvania Locator Map.png which is a modification by User:Ruhrfisch of a map from the U.S. Census site, further modified by User:Finetooth with reference to a map by William H. Shank in The Amazing Pennsylvania Canals, 150th Anniversary Edition, published by the American Canal and Transportation Center in 1986 at York, PA, ISBN 0-933788-37-1, andd a Pennsylvania Canal Society map. Public Domain, https://commons.widimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6258611