The Troy Hill Incline, also known as the Mount Troy Incline, was a

funicular 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 ...

railway located in old Allegheny,

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, which is now the North Side of the city of

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

History and notable features

Built by

Gustav Lindenthal Gustav Lindenthal (May 21, 1850 – July 31, 1935) was a civil engineer who designed the Queensboro and Hell Gate bridges in New York City, among other bridges. Lindenthal's work was greatly affected by his pursuit for perfection and his lov ...

Samuel Diescher Samuel Diescher (June 25, 1839 – December 24, 1915) was a prominent Hungarian-American civil and mechanical engineer who had his career in the United States. After being educated at universities in Karlsruhe and Zurich in Europe, he immigrated ...

, the incline was one of only a few funiculars constructed on the north side of Pittsburgh. It began construction in August 1887, and after considerable delay, opened on September 20, 1888. The incline ascended from Ohio Street near the end of the second

30th Street Bridge The 30th Street Bridge, is a girder bridge that carries vehicular traffic across the Allegheny River between the Pittsburgh neighborhoods of Troy Hill and Herrs Island (known by the moniker of Washington's Landing). This is the fourth bridge ...

to Lowrie Street on the crest of Troy Hill. Never very profitable, it shut down in fall 1898 and was razed a decade later. A building now standing at 1733 Lowrie Street was long thought to have been the summit station, but later research found that the building did not appear on maps until well after the incline closed. The incline's length measured , with a forty-seven percent (47 %)

gradient In vector calculus, the gradient of a scalar-valued differentiable function of several variables is the vector field (or vector-valued function) \nabla f whose value at a point p is the "direction and rate of fastest increase". If the gradi ...

. The cost of construction was about $94,047.

References

Sources

*''A Century of Inclines'', The Society for the Preservation of the Duquesne Incline. Defunct funicular railways in the United States Railway inclines in Pittsburgh Railway lines opened in 1888 Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation Historic Landmarks Troy Hill (Pittsburgh) 1888 establishments in Pennsylvania 1898 disestablishments in Pennsylvania {{coord, 40.4642, -79.9812, display=title

History and notable features

See also

References

Sources