Existing comment:
Various signs:
The Decline of the Portage Railroad
While the Allegheny Portage Railroad may have opened to acclaim, as time went on, more and more emphasis was placed on its shortcomings. Critics claimed that the inclined planes were dangerous "nuisances" and the cost of operating them was too high. Profits were impossible as long as it required 54 employees, 12 stationary engines, 12 teams of horses, and nine locomotives to move one section-boat from Hollidaysburg to Johnstown. Maintenance was a constant concern. Pine ties and hemp ropes rotted, winter freezes disturbed the roadbed, and heavy rains washed it out until, as one superintendent reported, "the cars fell in between the tracks." Losses in 1836 alone totalled more than $22,000. Even a state lottery, organize to help cover costs, failed.
After only five years of operation, alternatives to the Portage Railroad were under consideration. In 1855, the New Portage Railroad was completed without the use of inclined planes. A year earlier, a new rail line was opened by the privately-owned Pennsylvania Railroad over the Allegheny Mountains with the completion of Horseshoe Curve. [The latter is large circular part of the railroad line which covers enough distance to reduce the inclines.]
Travelers on the Public Works
While providing immigrants and ordinary travelers access to the west, the boldness and vision of the Public Works caught the imaginations of engineers, authors, performers, and newspapermen as well. Politician and presidential candidate Henry Clay, Swedish soprano Jenny Lind, British author Charles Dickens, and missionaries Marcus and Narcissa Whitman all journeyed on the Public Works including the Allegheny Portage Railroad.
Sleeping quarters for women and children on canal boats were separated from the men by a curtain. Harriet Beecher Stowe, later the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," traveled the Main Line Canal in 1841. Stowe wrote of the disappointment some travelers felt upon first glancing a canal boat. In her writing, she captured the confusion and sleeplessness in a ladies' cabin overcrowded with women and children, luggage, and one busy chambermaid.
"Amusing is the look of dismay which each newcomer gives to the confined [ladies] quarters that present themselves. Those who were so ignorant of the power of compression as to suppose the boat scarce large enough to contain them and theirs, find, with dismay, a respectable colony of old ladies, babies, mothers, big baskets, and carpet bags already established. 'Mercy on us!' says one, after surveying the little room, about ten feet long and six high, 'Where are we all to sleep to-night?' " |