AUGUST 31, 1964
East coast cities with harbors were in a battle to be the go to destination for freight headed west (Ohio).
Erie Canal: Built from 1817 to 1825, this 363-mile waterway linked New York City and the Hudson River to the Great Lakes (Lake Erie at Buffalo), solidifying New York City’s commercial dominance.
Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Canal: Construction began in 1828 and finished in 1850; this 185-mile canal ran alongside the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., into the Cumberland Mountains to transport coal, lumber, and stone.
Our last park with portage in the name was Grand Portage.
Here is a link to the trip for reference.
Heading into this park I had no idea they were portaging canal boats over the Allegheny Mountains. What were they thinking? It was all about saving ship time, the faster you could ship people and product where they need to be the more your shipping would be used. Time is money.
Opened: March 18, 1834
- Before the railroad: Traveling across the Allegheny Mountains via Conestoga wagons and dirt roads took roughly 3 weeks.
- After the railroad opened in 1834: The complete 400-mile Main Line of Public Works (combining railroads and canals) shortened the trip to about 5 days.
Allegheny portage was originally built using Hemp rope.
- HEMP ROPE
- Size and Material: Roughly 3 to 9 inches thick, hand-braided or twisted from natural hemp fibers, with individual rope lengths measuring between 3,600 and 6,600 feet.
- Hemp ropes could haul heavy 7-ton loads up 1,600-foot inclined planes, but wore out quickly due to friction against guide rollers and rotting from weather.
- They lasted only 6 weeks to about a year, frequently snapping (sometimes causing fatal accidents), and cost the railroad tens of thousands of dollars annually in replacements and repairs.
- BRAIDED AND TWISTED WIRE ROPES
- John Augustus Roebling, who surveyed the mountains and developed twisted iron wire cables after witnessing a fatal hemp-rope break.
- Tested in 1842 on Incline 3 of the Allegheny Portage Railroad.
- Thinner than hemp, about three times stronger, and constructed by twisting iron wire strands together.
- Lasted up to a full year under continuous operation, slashed replacement costs by over 60%, and drastically reduced breakages and delays.
John Roebling was better known for designing the Brooklyn Bridge. The Bridge was made possible by his invention of twisted wire ropes.
This shows the braking system if a cable broke
The Allegheny Portage railroad operated from 1834–1854. It was rendered obsolete in 1854 by the completion of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Horseshoe Curve.
The Horseshoe Curve in Altoona, Pennsylvania was designed by Pennsylvania Railroad Chief Engineer John Edgar Thomson. The curve is a three-mile-long, 220-degree railroad curve that enabled steam locomotives to scale the steep Allegheny Front. The Horseshoe Curve (1854), reduced travel time to 15 hours.
PEOPLE ARE CLEVER, STEVE