page_title: Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway
section_title: 1846-1871
hierarchical_section_title: Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway / History / 1846-1871
caption_attribution_description: English: Mount Pisgah with the Mauch Chunk and Summit Hill Switchback Railroad.
context_page_description: 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 US railway of any substantial length to carry paying passengers.
  A private line which moved coal for the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company on 3 ft 6 in gauge track, it was not a common carrier which linked with other railroads. The rail line was laid on top of the company's earlier 9 miles-constant-descent-graded wagon road. The railroad operated for over a hundred years until the middle of the Great Depression.
  Pennsylvania's first railroad and first anthracite carrier opened on Saturday, May 5th, 1827, when seven cars of coal passed from the Summit Hill mines of the L.C.&N. Company to their canal at Mauch Chunk, descending 936 feet in the nine-mile trip.
  — Earl J. Heydinger
context_section_description: By 1845 the increasing demand for coal and the poor logistics of a single-track route meant the company needed to improve its railroad. In 1846, they built a new uphill line using two steam-powered, Josiah White engineered 120 horsepower (89 kW) funicular systems to replace move cars uphill. These inclines used two telescoping wheeled Barney pusher cars attached to the cables by steel tow-bands running between two large diameter winch wheels located in the Barney tunnels. When a car was ready to ascend, it was drifted down the slight incline from above and behind the Barney tunnel to wait at a latch. The barneys came up and coupled behind to push the cars uphill. One of the inclines rose 664 feet (202 m) up Mount Pisgah, and the other crossed Mount Jefferson.  The downhill trip continued to be powered by gravity.  The up track was equipped with a ratchet which would prevent a car that detached from the cable from running away down hill.  This invention later evolved into the anti-rollback device used on roller coasters. The railroad changed its name to the Mauch Chunk, Summit Hill and Switchback Railroad.  The modernization of the railroad reduced a passenger round-trip from 4.5 hours to just 80 minutes.
caption: The 'Up Route' cable Railway addition of 1846-47
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