The Alleghney Portage Railroad used 10 inclined planes to lift the canal boats up and over the mountains that divided the eastern section of the Pennsylvania Main Line Canal from the western section. Today you can visit Plane 6, which was at the summit or highest level of railroad, at the Allegheny Portage RR National Historic Site.
In the Earl Giles collection there are slides showing excavation work on the engine house in 1968 and ’69. The NPS website only says that; “… and even the National Park Service excavations of the 1970s were done before an interest in evaluating the grounds was voiced.” So it is curious as to what is happening here and who was in charge. These images are dated July 1968. They show the first excavations of the engine house.
The sad thing is that even though we have these images, we don’t have names of the people.
Today the engine house excavation and display are covered with this large building.
The track sleeper stones were also uncovered in 1968.
And here is what it looks like when we visited the site in the fall of 2021.
We will see more of Plane 6 in the next post.