Ashley Planes

Ashley Planes
Location Off Pennsylvania Route 309, Fairview Township and Hanover Township, Pennsylvania
Coordinates 41°11′26″N 75°54′37″W / 41.19056°N 75.91028°WCoordinates: 41°11′26″N 75°54′37″W / 41.19056°N 75.91028°W
Area 160.3 acres (64.9 ha)
Built 1837, 1860s, 1909
Built by Douglas, Edwin A.; LC&N.
Governing body Local
NRHP Reference # 80003562[1]
Added to NRHP January 25, 1980

Ashley Planes were historic freight cable railroads or inclined plane railways located in Ashley, Pennsylvania founded with an eye to enhance and better connect eastern settlements with new western territories in the Pre-Civil War era. Initially built between 1837-38 by LC&N's subsidiary Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad (LH&S) to join two railroad sections purpose-built to join the freight capacity of two canals and other transportation infrastructure between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh—it was designed specifically to connect the seaports of the Delaware River with the new interior settlements of the near-midwest along the tributary rivers of the vast Mississippi River drainage basin. It was designed during the mid-Canal era as part of an overall strategic schema to lift heavy freight eastwards out of the Susquehanna Valley in suburban Southeastern Wilkes-Barre into the eastside descents which ended in the big coastal cities of the Eastern United States accessible via the Delaware Valley. This connecting road was seen by design as a key important link that connected by the shortest path Pittsburgh, the Ohio River and the midwest to the eastern coastal cities via the Pennsylvania Canal System and later, other railroads (that newfangled but rapidly advancing technology).

The Planes railroad was capable of operation as a funicular railroad or a cable railroad using a continuous cable in the same way as a modern ski lift and two tracks in a passing area, so could ship freight downhill east to west as well as the heavy operations west to east which predominated until its closing.

Built by the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company (LC&N) and connected by rail to the Pennsylvania Canal in 1837 and a few years later, to the Lehigh Canal as well. The incline railroads were located at Fairview Township and Hanover Township, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. Before and after loading, coal hoppers would be staged from the Central Railroad of New Jersey's (CNJ) Mountain Top Yard (leased from LH&S from the 1870s) in nearby Mountain Top, Pennsylvania. The three railroads were built in 1837, the 1860s, and 1909, and feature a stationary power source using cable winding and winching and cars traveling down as a counterweight to a car being lifted on parallel tracks. In the 1860s, the LH&S completed tracks along the right bank of the Lehigh through the Lehigh Gorge to Mauch Chunk (now Jim Thorpe, PA) and its trackage to the Delaware Valley, especially the Delaware Canal to Philadelphia markets and rail connections at Easton via the industrial centers of Allentown and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

These inclined plane railbeds were used for the transportation of anthracite coal. The railroads were in use until 1948.[2]

It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.[1]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2010-07-09.
  2. ↑ "National Historic Landmarks & National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania" (Searchable database). CRGIS: Cultural Resources Geographic Information System. Note: This includes Annie Bohlin (May 1979). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form: Ashley Planes" (PDF). Retrieved 2012-03-15.