Ashley Planes was a historic freight
cable railroad
Cable may refer to:
Mechanical
* Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof
* Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...
situated along three separately powered inclined plane sections located between
Ashley, Pennsylvania
Ashley is a borough in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, one mile (2 km) from Wilkes Barre. The population was 2,588 at the 2020 census.
History
Ashley was first settled in 1830. Forty years later, in 1870, it was incorporated as a borough. It wa ...
at the foot, and via the Solomon cutting the yard in
Mountain Top over above and initially built between 1837-38 by
Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company
The Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company was a mining and transportation company headquartered in Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, now known as Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. The company operated from 1818 until its dissolution in 1964 and played an early and i ...
's subsidiary
Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad
The Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad is a defunct railroad that operated in eastern Pennsylvania during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The company was a subsidiary of the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company (LC&N), but for much of its lifetim ...
(L&S). One result of the 1837 updates of omnibus transportation bills called the
Main Line of Public Works
The Main Line of Public Works was a package of legislation passed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1826 to establish a means of transporting freight between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. It funded the construction of various long-proposed can ...
(1824), the legislation was undertaken with an eye to enhance and better connect eastern settlement's business interests with newer mid-western territories rapidly undergoing population explosions in the Pre-Civil War era. But those manufactories needed a source of heat, and the Northern Pennsylvania
Coal Region
The Coal Region is a region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. It is known for being home to the largest known deposits of anthracite, anthracite coal in the world with an estimated reserve of seven billion short tons.
The region is typically define ...
was barely connected to eastern markets except by pack mule, or only through long and arduous routes down the Susquehanna then overland to Philadelphia.
The Ashley Planes job was to join two railroad sections at either elevation and bridge over the
drainage divide
A drainage divide, water divide, ridgeline, watershed, water parting or height of land is elevated terrain that separates neighboring drainage basins. On rugged land, the divide lies along topographical ridges, and may be in the form of a singl ...
between the Susquehanna Valley and that of the Lehigh/Delaware valleys. It was purpose-built to join the freight capacity of two canals (The
Pennsylvania Canal System
The Pennsylvania Canal (or sometimes Pennsylvania Canal system) was a complex system of transportation infrastructure improvements including canals, dams, locks, tow paths, aqueducts, and viaducts. The Canal and Works were constructed and assemb ...
, locally the West Susquehanna Division at
Pittston
Pittston is a city in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is situated between Scranton and Wilkes-Barre in Northeastern Pennsylvania. The city gained prominence in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as an active anthracite coal ...
and the
Lehigh Canal
The Lehigh Canal, or the Lehigh Navigation Canal, is a navigable canal that begins at the mouth of Nesquehoning Creek on the Lehigh River in eastern Pennsylvania. It was built in two sections over a span of twenty years, beginning in 1818. The low ...
) and via the Susquehanna, connect to other transportation infrastructure between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh—in intent the Planes role in the legislation was specifically to connect the seaports of the Delaware River with the new interior settlements of the near-midwest along the tributary rivers of the vast Mississippi River drainage basin. More pragmatically, it was designed during the
mid-canal era as part of an overall strategic schema to lift heavy freight eastwards out of the
Susquehanna Valley
The Susquehanna Valley is a region of low-lying land that borders the Susquehanna River in the United States, U.S. states of New York (state), New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. The valley consists of areas that lie along the main branch o ...
in suburban
Wilkes-Barre
Wilkes-Barre ( or ) is a city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Luzerne County. Located at the center of the Wyoming Valley in Northeastern Pennsylvania, it had a population of 44,328 in the 2020 census. It is the secon ...
into the
eastside descents which gravity aided to the canal head and thence using cheap practical
water transport
Maritime transport (or ocean transport) and hydraulic effluvial transport, or more generally waterborne transport, is the transport of people (passengers) or goods (cargo) via waterways. Freight transport by sea has been widely used throu ...
ended feeding much needed coal into all the big coastal cities of the
Eastern United States
The Eastern United States, commonly referred to as the American East, Eastern America, or simply the East, is the region of the United States to the east of the Mississippi River. In some cases the term may refer to a smaller area or the East C ...
accessible via the Delaware Valley, and indeed to trans-oceanic destinations.
This connecting road was an important link that connected Pittsburgh, the Ohio River and the midwest to the eastern coastal cities via the Pennsylvania Canal System and later, other railroads, the shortest path at the time. In the late 1830s, the current mobile steam locomotives were still in the early stages of development and relatively weak and underpowered compared to those available in the 1850s. As a result of this lack of viable rail transport, political planners and businessmen regarded canals and
water transport
Maritime transport (or ocean transport) and hydraulic effluvial transport, or more generally waterborne transport, is the transport of people (passengers) or goods (cargo) via waterways. Freight transport by sea has been widely used throu ...
via barges over natural
water features
In landscape architecture and garden design, a water feature is one or more items from a range of fountains, jeux d'eau, pools, ponds, rills, artificial waterfalls, and streams. Before the 18th century they were usually powered by gravity, ...
as the only pragmatic means of shipping bulk goods.
The Planes were built in 1837–1838 by the
Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company
The Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company was a mining and transportation company headquartered in Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, now known as Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. The company operated from 1818 until its dissolution in 1964 and played an early and i ...
(LC&N) in
Luzerne County, Pennsylvania
Luzerne County is a county in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and is water. It is Northeastern Pennsylvania's second-largest county by total area. As of ...
. They were built concurrently with rail lines and an extension of the
Lehigh Canal
The Lehigh Canal, or the Lehigh Navigation Canal, is a navigable canal that begins at the mouth of Nesquehoning Creek on the Lehigh River in eastern Pennsylvania. It was built in two sections over a span of twenty years, beginning in 1818. The low ...
. The Planes were connected by rail to the
Pennsylvania Canal sending goods and passengers west and via Mountain Top by rail to White Haven. The Mountain Top to White Haven route also sent Northern Coal Region anthracite down the newly extended
Lehigh Canal
The Lehigh Canal, or the Lehigh Navigation Canal, is a navigable canal that begins at the mouth of Nesquehoning Creek on the Lehigh River in eastern Pennsylvania. It was built in two sections over a span of twenty years, beginning in 1818. The low ...
. The incline railroads were located at
Fairview Township and
Hanover Township. Before and after loading,
coal hoppers would be staged from the
Central Railroad of New Jersey
The Central Railroad of New Jersey, also known as the Jersey Central or Jersey Central Lines , was a Class I railroad with origins in the 1830s. It was absorbed into Conrail in April 1976 along with several other prominent bankrupt railroads of ...
's (CNJ)
Mountain Top Yard
Mountain Top yard or Penobscot yard is a rail yard in Mountain Top, Pennsylvania. It was built by the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company (LC&N) in response to an 1837 bill authorizing a right of way and was established by 1840, at least as a cons ...
(leased from LH&S from the 1870s) in nearby
Mountain Top, Pennsylvania
Mountain Top is an unincorporated area and census-designated place (CDP) in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2010 census, the CDP population was 10,982.
The Mountain Top CDP is located along Pennsylvania Route 309 (south of ...
. The three railroads were built in 1837, the 1860s, and 1909, and feature a stationary power source using cable winding and winching and cars traveling down as a counterweight to a car being lifted on parallel tracks.
It was added to the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
in 1980.
Operations
The thousand foot lift of the cable railway was not continuous. The initial two and later three sections of the Ashley Planes railroad was capable of operation as a
funicular railroad
A funicular (, , ) is a type of cable railway system that connects points along a railway track laid on a steep slope. The system is characterized by two counterbalanced carriages (also called cars or trains) permanently attached to opposite en ...
or a
cable railroad
Cable may refer to:
Mechanical
* Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof
* Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...
, for its hoist houses all used a pusher cart called a 'barney' hooked into a continuous cable in the same way as a modern
ski lift
A ski lift is a mechanism for transporting skiers up a hill. Ski lifts are typically a paid service at ski resorts. The first ski lift was built in 1908 by German Robert Winterhalder in Schollach/Eisenbach, Hochschwarzwald.
Types
* Aerial l ...
uses a continuous cable.
Like a ski lift, the railway was operated from a standing engine by an operator in control of a winch, clutch and brake. A helper spotted cars below a short local drop to an area upslope of the 'barney house', where the cable and pusher cart would drop into on one end (heading down) and rise out of on the other to engage the freight cars and push them upwards. The axle on the barneys telescoped so that at the barney house entrance the barney's wheels slide inside and dropped under the plane of the standard width railroad tracks so the barney could slide away and let gravity take the consist onto the
marshaling yard
A classification yard (American and Canadian English ( Canadian National Railway use)), marshalling yard (British, Hong Kong, Indian, Australian, and Canadian English ( Canadian Pacific Railway use)) or shunting yard (Central Europe) is a railway ...
. When using funicular action, as it did sending returns down during its early years the rails split connecting two pairs of tracks bulging out in a vase-like shape in a passing area, so the railway could ship freight downhill east to west as well as the heavy operations west to east which predominated until its closing. In the earliest years of operation, there was no back track to return cars to the bottom for refilling, and they had to be returned on the Planes, thus slowing and complicating the lift operations. When stopping cars from rolling free, the barneys had to be positioned below the cars, and since the upsides are uphills from the barney house opening, that meant a latch (brake system) had to hold a string of empties above the barney before it emerged from hiding its little tunnel. It also means the barney was moving down hill and away from the latched cars which would then accelerate and bang into the small barneys with considerable force, part of which was transmitted via the cables to everything in the system. It was actually easier to lift cars waiting at a latch for a barney than it was to drop cars down safely onto a moving barney. In the 1860s, the LH&S completed tracks along the right bank of the Lehigh through the Lehigh Gorge to
Mauch Chunk
Jim Thorpe is a borough and the county seat of Carbon County in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It is part of Northeastern Pennsylvania. It is historically known as the burial site of Native American sports legend Jim Thorpe.
Jim Thorpe is ...
(now Jim Thorpe, PA) and its trackage to the Delaware Valley, especially the
Delaware Canal
The Delaware Division of the Pennsylvania Canal, more commonly called the Delaware Canal, runs for parallel to the right bank of the Delaware River from the entry locks near the mouth of the Lehigh River and terminal end of the Lehigh Canal at E ...
to Philadelphia markets and rail connections at
Easton via the industrial centers of
Allentown Allentown may refer to several places in the United States and topics related to them:
* Allentown, California, now called Toadtown, California
* Allentown, Georgia, a town in Wilkinson County
* Allentown, Illinois, an unincorporated community in T ...
and
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Bethlehem is a city in Northampton and Lehigh Counties in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 census, Bethlehem had a total population of 75,781. Of this, 55,639 were in Northampton County and 19, ...
.
These
inclined plane
An inclined plane, also known as a ramp, is a flat supporting surface tilted at an angle from the vertical direction, with one end higher than the other, used as an aid for raising or lowering a load. The inclined plane is one of the six clas ...
railbeds were used for the transportation of
anthracite
Anthracite, also known as hard coal, and black coal, is a hard, compact variety of coal that has a submetallic luster. It has the highest carbon content, the fewest impurities, and the highest energy density of all types of coal and is the hig ...
coal. The railroads were in use until 1948.
[ ''Note:'' This includes ]
See also
Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company Recordsin
Beyond Steel: An Archive of Lehigh Valley Industry and Culture
Early Mining Pictures– Anthracite Mining pictorial: Mines & Structures operated by the L.C.& N., Summit Hill, Lansford and Coaldale, Pennsylvania—the heartland of the company that designed, built and ran the Planes until the 1930s.
Switch-Back Gravity Railroad Proprietary photos touring the LC&N built
Summit Hill & Mauch Chunk Railroad
The Mauch Chunk and Summit Railroad was a coal-hauling railroad in the mountains of Pennsylvania that operated between 1828 and 1932. It was the first operational railway, in the United States, of any substantial length to carry paying passenger ...
, the 2nd railway in North America—and the cable railroad which antedated the completion of the Ashley Planes with very nearly the same design and technologies. Due to its many years as a tourist attraction, the photo history of the older railway is far more complete.
*
List of funicular railways
This is a list of funicular railways, organised by place within country and continent. The funiculars range from short urban lines to significant multi-section mountain railways.
A funicular railway is distinguished from the similar incline eleva ...
Notes
References
{{National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania
Industrial buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania
Transportation buildings and structures in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania
National Register of Historic Places in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania