Pennsylvania currently has 4 inclines in working condition, but the Johnstown Inclined Plane is unique for a lot of different reasons. First, it is listed in the Guinness
book of World records as the “The steepest vehicular inclined plane in the
world”. What this means is that out of all the inclines that can carry
vehicles, this is the steepest in the world. It has a slope of 35 degrees with
a grade of 70.9 percent.
Watch the video above or read on
The fascinating part about the Johnstown incline is you that
you can take your vehicle on it. The video above includes my dash cam video and you can see how
the operator is directing me to drive into the incline. Now after I stop my
engine, I can sit in the car or come out and you can see how my car is now
chocked with these concrete blocks. This is absolutely necessary. Why? Because
we are on the steepest vehicular incline and my car will start rolling downhill
without these blocks.
Johnstown incline is also the largest incline in the world. The
cars are currently about 34 feet long, 15 feet wide and 15 feet tall but the cars were
originally double-deckers. So before they changed the design into a single-decker
in 1921, the incline was much bigger and was two storied. The upper deck was reserved for horses and
wagons and the lower deck was used by passengers. They removed the upper deck
because a few horses got spooked and jumped from the car onto the tracks below.
So, even after removing the upper deck, the Johnstown incline is still the
world’s largest funicular.
Johnstown Incline holds a Guinness record for being the The steepest vehicular inclined plane in the world
There is a fascinating story behind its construction. Unlike
other funiculars like the Duquesne Incline, the Johnstown incline was not created for transporting people
up and down for everyday purposes. What happened was, in 1889 a huge flood
nearly destroyed the entire town and killed over 2200 people. The residents
realized that if they could build an incline that leads up to the hill, they
could escape to higher ground in case of a flood. So this is the primary reason
why this incline was built in 1891.
Inside the control room of Johnstown Inclined Plane
We have to give a lot of credit to the people who came up
with this idea, because the incline saved more than 4,000 lives when another
flood hit Johnstown in 1936. This incline operated continuously day and night
during that time carrying a lot people to the mountain.Today it is recommended
that only 60 people can ride this incline at one time, but during the flood,
more than 150 people would ride it.
Johnstown incline even saved horses and other animals. There was also
another flood in 1977 and the incline was instrumental in transporting people
and equipment up the hill.
Johnstown funicular saved more than 4000 lives during 1936 floods
So you can see that this incline is not just a historic
landmark, but also served the valuable purpose of saving lives. At one point,
Pennsylvania had 18 working inclines or funiculars. But now, there are just 4
inclines that are still working, so they are all historic landmarks. But none
of the others are large enough to carry vehicles and this one can carry 6
motorcycles, a dump truck, a snowplow and even a bus.
If you are a nerd, you might like this :)
Once upon a time, they
even had a bus service that covered both the town below and the town on the
hill. For example, the bus would basically carry passengers and then drive into
this incline. The incline would take the bus above and the bus would drive through
the streets on the hill. At its prime
time, Johnston incline had more than a million passengers every year. Nowadays,
about 100,000 people use it, and they are all mostly tourists.
A pretty view of the entire city of Johnstown from the top
This is what you see from the observation deck on the hill,
a beautiful view of the city of Johnstown. The view of Pittsburgh from Duquesne Incline is much better though. The Forbes Magazine actually
described Johnstown as the most affordable city in the United States.You can
also see the incline cars going up and down from here. One weird thing about
Johnstown Incline is that it is closed through the entire month of January.
There were steps between the tracks, and poor people used them instead of taking the incline
There used to be a stairway between these two tracks with
about 1000 steps, but these were removed in 1963. They were constructed
primarily for maintenance but people who didn’t have the money to pay the fare
simply walked up and down using the stairway. Can you guess the price of a one way ticket
when it was first built? It was just 5 cents and now it costs 4 dollars. If you think that is depressing, read the story of Charlie NO FACE!
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