. Philadelphia and its environs, and the railroad scenery of Pennsylvania . LOWER GORDON PLANE. naces and forges of Palo Alto ; and just as it gets cleverly under way comes another junctionand another choice of routes. Let us take the shorter first. This is the left-hand track. Ittakes us through two flourishing towns, Port Carbon and St. Clair, past mountains of coal-dirt THE RAILROAD SCENERY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 25 and miles of coal cars, and at the latter place is performed one of those curious manoeuvres to which the traveler in this mountain-land must become accustomed. The engine leaves its
. Philadelphia and its environs, and the railroad scenery of Pennsylvania . LOWER GORDON PLANE. naces and forges of Palo Alto ; and just as it gets cleverly under way comes another junctionand another choice of routes. Let us take the shorter first. This is the left-hand track. Ittakes us through two flourishing towns, Port Carbon and St. Clair, past mountains of coal-dirt THE RAILROAD SCENERY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 25 and miles of coal cars, and at the latter place is performed one of those curious manoeuvres to which the traveler in this mountain-land must become accustomed. The engine leaves its position at the head of the train and falls to the rear, where it comes against the cars head foremost, and proceeds to push them along. It is a singular procedure and ^ *i\-^ one not suggestive of rapid traveling, to say ^?^ nothing of collisions, cars on the track, andsimilar dangers agamst which the engineeris supposed to provide , but there is a goodreason for greatestdanger here isone unknown on -. most roads The grade is so heavy (179 feet to the mile) that if the trim were diawn up in the ordinary \\a\, the weight of the cars would be thiown on the couplings and \ei) prob- ibl> snap them in which case the detached portion would go to sure and swift destruction. It is the steepest continuous grade in the world traversed by an ordinary locomotive, and is a triumph of engineering skill. From the car windows the traveler willnotice another |oad, a series of levels andinclined planes, now used as a wagon is the old Girard Railway, a tramwayby which Stephen Girard sought to convey the coal from his mine in the Mahanoy Valleyover the mountain to the Schuylkill and so to market. His death put a stop to the workbefore it was entirely finished, and the introduction of locomotive-engines prevented its everbeing completed. Puffing to the top of this steep ascent, we find ourselves again on the top of Broad Mountain,and our engine trundles us gently into Frackvill
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