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I was not sure whether to post this under this subject forum, or 3RS, or even 2RS.  I have often thought of how neat it would be to have a realistic operating model of an Inclined Railway such as Pittsburgh and Johnstown, Pennsylvania have.  I am partial to the Johnstown having visited there much of my youth.  The Johnstown ones handle automobiles as well as pedestrians.  Cincinnati, OH used to have many inclined railways and even one that handled steeetcars.

Here are some Johnstown Incline images I took in recent years.20140816_17030720140816_17023620140616_15433320140616_15043520140816_170532

Any interest?  Any ideas?  Should we suggest this to GGD / 3rd Rail?  

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Hello Incline lovers every where.   12" to the foot scale  my favorite is Angles  Flight in LA ...but in a smaller scale ..an Incline was cataloged in 1897 by Carlisle and Finch ( makers of 2" gauge trains ..1896-1915 ..still in business making searchlights today) . C& F was based in Cincinnati... unknown if there were any inclines there...or the next big market was Pittsburgh which had inclines to model after .   Unfortunately no known survivors of the original C&F incline have surfaced as of 2-25-2017  10:22pm ... however a very talent collector / craftsman did build two copies of the C&F Incline working from the one sole catalog illustration ....he did a marvelous job.  

The model does require a fair bit of layout real-estate..being 42" long ...and about 30" tall overall ...

Cheers Carey

 

 

1897 CF catalog  

 

alex full sidealex side frontalex station

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Carey,

 Very interesting pics and facts about the C&F Inclines.  Cincinnati had many inclines one of which carried a streetcar!  

 I had heard that Carnegie Science Center's layout was planning one but not sure if it happened yet.  

 Good idea of using a bump n go for this idea.  I suppose if these cars were counterweighted just like real ones a motor could pull a cable of some time to operate these. 

We rode the incline at Chattanooga , TN and at Pittsburg. There was also one at Jim Thorpe, PA but it is long gone. The on in Colorado at the Royal Gorge Park was destroyed in a fire three years ago.Such an incline in O gauge would be difficult to model. It would require specially made cars and a reciprocal motor powered cable system to make it work. Its doable but would require a complete custom build.

What about the freight inclines???  Ashley, Gordon and Mahanoy, among others.  My favorite is the Ashley Plane, film of which is glimpsed in the CNJ promo "The Big Little Railroad".  Here's a fellow hitching a ride on the "Barney Car" which was attached to the end of the cable and acted as a pusher to haul the cars up the incline:

 

Another view, this from the days of wooden cars and iron men:

With that advent of diesel power and better adhesion per horse power, planes became superfluous and trackage used for handling empties and passenger trains became the route for freight, too.  The Ashely Plane closed in 1949 but some of its remains are still visible when the leaves are off the trees.

colorado hirailer posted:

What is a list of these..How many exist to date?  There is one in Chattanooga?  Missed that, and the Royal Gorge one, although aware of it. Rode a Pittsburgh one, and one in Bergen, Norway. Have there been any models of rack railroads?  Rode the Pikes Peak and the Norwegian Flambann.

There is also a relatively small inclined plane at the Horseshoe Curve in Altoona.  Another rack-type railroad is the one at Mt. Washington, NH.

Bill

Last edited by WftTrains

I suppose I would kitbash Johnstown cars out of the sides of some heavyweight passenger cars, and a simple peaked roof. The ends are open with just some pantograph gates. For the Duquesne incline, I would use The sides of and "old time" wooden combine to get the large side doors, and the siding texture. No end doors.

The chassis would be made after determining the angle of the plane. Just 2 axles, and I would consider Std Guage 'guage' for o scale to represent the wide guage track.

Movement is simple as the cars counterbalance off of a single axle. This is easy to see if you visit the Pittsburgh or Johnstown inclines, as they have windows into the motor room.

I seem to recall seeing a picture of an incline on Jim DeSantis' amazing tinplate layout. Cars were cut down observation cars. https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/t...ard-gauge-collection

Krasnoyarsk ship transporter in Siberia is a massive inclined railway. It moves ships around the Krasnoyarsk Dam on the Yenisei River. Electric power rack drive with 9-foot rail gauge. It has a giant turntable at the top so the incline reverses to drop into the water at each end.

A3EA03808

https://www.youtube.com/6594459b-8211-4ca9-929a-49dcc462085c

Nice video with speeded up action. The turn table and incline show on Google Earth.

Krasnoyarsk Dam

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