The Johnstown Incline

206 Johns Street (lower station) Johnstown, PA

711 Edgehill Drive 

Upper Station (Westmont, PA)

Residents of Westmont can reach downtown Johnstown without the Johnstown Incline Plane.  The incline was built primarily to provide a fast, direct route, but it is not the only way to access the Westmont borough.  The incline transports automobiles, trucks and motorcycles in addition to pedestrians.  

On May 31, 1889 a devastating flood ripped through Johnstown in Cambria County.  After 50 to 60 foot waves claimed over 2200 innocent lives, Johnstown was left in ruins and in fear of another tragic event.  One year later a solution came to answer the city's biggest problem.  The Cambria Iron Company began building what would become the World's Steepest Vehicular Inclined Plane. 

Samuel Diescher designed the Inclined Plane in 1890.  The Incline stands 896 feet long and 503 feet tall.  The structure is considered a funicular (two cars attached by cables on railroad tracks simultaneously move in opposite directions to counterbalance each other's weight).  In other words, when one car is traveling down the slope the other car is moving up at the same speed and the cars pass each other exactly at the midpoint. 

 

Back in the early 1900s, the Inclined Plane was run by a steam engine. Today, with advances in technology, the cars are driven by a 400-horsepower electric motor. 

 It opened in June 1891, the Inclined Plane prove to be able to boost Johnstown's dreary economy.  After suffering $17 million in damages from the flood, the city needed an economic boom. The Inclined Plane allowed residents and workers to reach the top of Yoder Hill and to settle in one of the first suburban communities in America at the time, Westmont. Positiond at a mighty 70.9-degree slope, the Incline proved its worth many times throughout history.  

Today, the Incline is owned by the Cambria County Transit Authority which spent $3.5 million to rebuild the historic site in 1983.

The Johnstown Incline was added to the National Register of Historic Places June 18, 1973.