. From trail to railway through the Appalachians . s out of thecar window that the land is found to be rugged andmountainous. All the greater valleys and ridges of the mountain beltof Pennsylvania run northeast and southwest. The last ofthese to be crossed on our journey is Bald Eagle valley,from which the Allegheny Front rises to the northwest. In this valley, near the place where the Portage Rail-way began to scale the heights, and a little more than a THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD 8l hundred miles fromPittsburg, the Penn-sylvania RailroadCompany in 1850founded a town andcalled it t
. From trail to railway through the Appalachians . s out of thecar window that the land is found to be rugged andmountainous. All the greater valleys and ridges of the mountain beltof Pennsylvania run northeast and southwest. The last ofthese to be crossed on our journey is Bald Eagle valley,from which the Allegheny Front rises to the northwest. In this valley, near the place where the Portage Rail-way began to scale the heights, and a little more than a THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD 8l hundred miles fromPittsburg, the Penn-sylvania RailroadCompany in 1850founded a town andcalled it they startedshops, which havenow grown to notableimportance. Thetown became a cityeighteen years afterit was begun, and hasto-day about fortythousand inhabit-ants. In the rail-way shops alone maybe found nine thou-sand men repairingand building locomo-tives, passengercoaches, and freightcars. The Pennsyl-vania Railroad Com-pany is now found-ing a great school inAltoona, whereyoung men may betaught to becomeskillful and efficientin railway 82 FROM TRAIL TO RAILWAY Altoona looks new, and with its endless freight yards,its noisy shops, and its sooty cover of smoke from burn-ing soft coal, it is very different from quiet Lancaster,which was old when forests covered the site of Altoona. On our way to Pittsburg we are soon pulling upthe Allegheny Front by a great loop, or bend, whichenables the tracks to reach the summit more than athousand feet above Altoona. Nestling within the greatbend is a reservoir of water to supply the houses andshops of the city lying below. Passing the highest point,we find ourselves descending the valley of the Cone-maugh river to Johnstown, and surrounded by the highlands of the Allegheny plateau. Johnstown is much older than Altoona, for it wassettled in 1791, but it has not grown so fast, and hasonly about as many inhabitants as the city of railroadshops. Most people know of Johnstown because of theflood which ruined the place in 1889. Several
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