"Built in 1850, the (inclined) planes were 1,200 feet long and 430 feet high. As a loaded car descended on one plane. it would draw an empty car up the other plane."
John Koehler, Railroad Historian, Weatherly
You are standing on the site of a once busy railroad intersection.
Three railroads, the Hazleton, the Penn Haven and White Haven, and the Beaver Meadow, converged here at Penn Haven.
Tons of anthracite coal was brought down out of the surrounding mountains and transferred to boats on the Lehigh Canal. The boats were sent down river to factories and cities.
To move coal cars up and down the mountains that surround you, these railroads needed special technology. Cables attached to steam engines pulled the cars up the slopes of the inclined planes.
The original hemp rope cables often broke, occasionally causing spectacular wrecks. Eventually, wire rope replaced hemp, saving equipment from destruction and crew members from injury and even death.
Only a few foundations of this important junction remain, reminders of the crowded railroad station and bustling little town that existed here.
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