5. A trip across the portage
The levels and inclines were numbered sequentially, with level 1 at Johnstown and level 11 at the Hollidaysburg Canal Basin. From Johnstown, a traveler first traversed level 1, a distance of just over 4 miles, before arriving at the base of incline 1. Incline 1 carried the traveler just under one-third of a mile at a 9% grade, rising 150 feet. It required a rope of over 3,600 feet. A thirteen-mile level followed, then another incline, and so on to the top. Upon reaching incline 6 the descent to Hollidaysburg began. The inclines on the Hollidaysburg side of the mountain were steeper and longer, the longest of which, incline 6, required 5,858 feet of seven-inch rope, itself an immense weight for the 35 horsepower steam engine to lift.
The engines drove eight-foot vertical cast iron wheels, which operated horizontal sheaves. The sheaves, also of cast iron, were nine feet by seven inches. The machinery to pull the cars was housed in the engine sheds, beneath the rails. They sat above a well, used to accommodate counterweights and connecting chains. Regrettably, none of the original design drawings and specifications for the support facilities survived. Historians have reverse-engineered some of the original equipment to determine how much of the railroad operated during its heyday in the 1840s.