Canal and rail tunnels under U.S. Steel Bldg.

[Bob Rathke]

Thanks for the additional information, Don.  There's lots to see today in
that area.

By the way, my great granfather, John Rathke, was a firefighter who helped
clean up after the 1889 flood.  One of my prized possessions is an 8X10"
photo of him posing by a horse-drawn fire engine, with the rubble of
Johnstown in the background.

Bob 12/19

------------------------------------------

Donald Galt wrote:

> On 17 Dec 00, at 20:36, Bob Rathke wrote:
>
> >
> > The 1830's canal system required 10 inclined plane railways
> > to get over the Allegheny Mountains in the middle of
> > Pennsylvania. At the base of each mountain, the canal boats
> > were transfered to wheeled bogies running on rails, and a
> > cable hauled the boats up - and then down - each mountain.
>
> Lest there be some confusion:
>
> Going westward, the Main Line canal ended at Hollidaysburg and
> recommenced at Johnstown. Between those points was the
> Allegheny Portage Railroad, onto which the boats were loaded as
> Bob describes and drawn, first by mule and later by steam
> locomotive. The inclined planes - five on each side of the summit
> and numbered from west to east - overcame the problem of
> crossing the mountains. Some of them can still be seen easily
> from the highway, like Plane 4 climbing east from Lilly and Plane
> 10, at the top of which is situated the National Historical Site. Near
> the bottom of that incline, on Old Highway 22 four miles or so west
> of Hollidaysburg, is the hamlet named "Foot of Ten."
>
> In the 1850s was built the New Portage Railroad, which avoided the
> inclines, in part by taking a much more circuitous route and by
> tunnelling at Gallitzen. This portion survived until recent years as
> the PRR branch from Hollidaysburg to Gallitzin, incorporating the
> "Muleshoe Curve."
>
> But the Mainline Canal was doomed before the New Portage was
> completed, thanks to the building of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
> Two years later, in 1857, the entire Main Line was sold at a huge
> loss to the PRR, an immense boondoggle that affected state
> finances for years.
>
> A tour of the canal and Portage Railway would have to include the
> Johnstown Flood Historical Monument sites. The dam that broke in
> 1889 had originally been constructed to provide water for that
> portion of the canal, though it had long since been taken over as
> the South Fork Hunting and Fishing Club, private preserve of the
> Fricks, Mellons, Carnegies and other Pittsburgh movers and
> shakers.
>
> Don