Pittsburgh’s century-old cliff railway still runs on the same wooden cars from 1877

It’s the world’s oldest cable car ride

Pittsburgh has a cliff problem. The city’s neighborhoods pile up on steep hillsides above three rivers, and for the people who lived up there in the 1870s, getting downtown meant a long, hard climb.

So they built a railway straight up the hill.

The Duquesne Incline has been making that climb ever since, in the same wooden cars it started with, and the view waiting at the top has turned it into one of the most talked-about spots in the country.

The cars making this trip are from the original 1877 fleet

When the Duquesne Incline opened on May 20, 1877, it ran two wooden cable cars up a 400-foot climb on an 800-foot track set at a 30-degree angle.

Those same two cars are still making the trip today, restored over the years but original at their core. J.G. Brill and Company of Philadelphia built them.

The track gauge runs five feet wide, which is out of the ordinary for the United States, and each car seats up to 18 passengers on benches that face outward so the view opens up in front of you the whole way up.

The engineer who built it also rigged the first Ferris Wheel

Hungarian-American engineer Samuel Diescher designed the Duquesne Incline for Kirk Bigham and Associates.

He went on to become the top builder of inclines in the country, but one of his other credits stands out: he designed the hoisting machinery for the original Ferris Wheel at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

The incline started out carrying cargo up what locals called Coal Hill.

It shifted to passenger service for working-class residents who needed a faster route to the city below.

Pittsburgh once ran 17 of these things up its hillsides

When the Duquesne Incline opened, it was one of four inclines already serving the summit of Coal Hill, later renamed Mount Washington.

Pittsburgh eventually had 17 passenger-carrying inclines scaling the ridges around it, all built to move people through a booming industrial city surrounded by terrain too steep for easy roads.

Then roads were built, cars became common, and one by one, the inclines shut down.

Two survive today: the Duquesne Incline and the Monongahela Incline, which dates to 1870 and holds the title of oldest continuously operating funicular in the country.

Gravity does most of the work on a funicular

The Duquesne runs on a simple principle: two counterbalanced cars sit on parallel tracks, connected by a single cable.

One goes up while the other comes down, and the weight of the descending car helps pull the ascending one. Gravity does most of the lifting.

The original power source was steam, and the incline was later converted to electric. The engineering is from the 19th century and it still works.

You can watch the whole mechanism operate from a viewing area at the upper station, where the cable drums and drive machinery are open to the public.

The incline closed in 1962 and the neighborhood refused to accept it

After 85 years, the original machinery had worn down to the point where the Duquesne Inclined Plane Company could no longer afford repairs. The incline closed in November 1962.

The neighborhood of Duquesne Heights had not seen that coming.

A small group of residents approached the owners with a proposal: give us a chance to raise the money, and you reopen the incline.

Boy Scouts went door to door to save it

The community needed $15,000. Local Boy Scouts fanned out through the neighborhood, handing out flyers.

Residents ran bake sales, organized card parties, and sold one-dollar souvenir tickets. The company sold shares of stock for $100 each.

The men of the neighborhood made whatever repairs they could themselves. Within six months, they had raised all the money.

The story of a neighborhood pulling together to save a piece of its own history didn’t end with the reopening. It became the whole reason the incline still exists.

A nonprofit runs it for one dollar a year

The Duquesne Incline reopened on July 1, 1963. The Port Authority of Allegheny County bought it in 1964, but since it couldn’t run as a profitable transit line, the authority leased it to the neighborhood group for one dollar a year.

Each year, the Port Authority returns that dollar as a donation. The nonprofit Society for the Preservation of the Duquesne Heights Incline has run it ever since.

It survives on ticket sales, donations, and the gift shop, not government funding.

The view from the top made a national top-10 list

From the observation deck at the upper station, you look out over Pittsburgh’s Golden Triangle, where the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio rivers come together.

USA Today Weekend Magazine put it on its list of the 10 most beautiful views in America. At night, the city lights spread out below you and reflect off the water.

The incline earned a spot on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, and in 1977, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers named both Pittsburgh inclines Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmarks.

The upper station is a working museum you can walk through

At the top, a museum covers incline history and Pittsburgh history through photos and displays.

The machinery room sits open to visitors, so you can stand and watch the cable drums and drive mechanisms that have been pulling these cars up the hill since 1877. A gift shop sells Pittsburgh souvenirs, maps, and photos.

It’s a short stop, but the machinery alone is worth a few minutes. There aren’t many places where you can watch 19th-century engineering do its job in real time.

Walk a mile along Grandview Avenue to catch the second incline

The Monongahela Incline sits about a mile east along Grandview Avenue, and the walk between them passes several observation platforms where the skyline shifts angle as you move.

Many visitors ride one incline up and walk to the other, using the two as bookends for an afternoon on the hill.

Near the Duquesne Incline’s upper station, you’ll pass the Point of View sculpture, which shows George Washington alongside Seneca leader Guyasuta, both looking out over the same confluence of rivers you’re looking at.

About 120 people still use this as their daily commute

The Duquesne Incline isn’t a relic. Around 120 Mount Washington residents ride it as regular transportation, and it runs as part of the Pittsburgh Regional Transit system, accepting transit passes.

It operates every five minutes, 365 days a year. The same wooden cars, the same cable, the same 400-foot climb.

The neighborhood almost lost it in 1962.

Instead, they saved it, and more than 60 years later, it’s still hauling people up the hill just like it did in 1877.

Ride the Duquesne Incline in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

You can board at the lower station at 1197 West Carson St. or ride down from the upper station at 1220 Grandview Ave. The incline runs 365 days a year, roughly every five minutes.

Admission is $2.50 per adult each way, with children under five riding free. Cash only, exact change required, but a change machine is available on site.

The upper station and observation deck are wheelchair accessible. Go earlier in the day on weekends to avoid the longest waits.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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