Between the Rails - Madison Indiana Incline 

Thank you

I never heard of this. INteresting.

My great-great Grandfather, Alexander "Aleck" McDonald, was a "trusted switchman at the foot of the plane" according to his obituary. Died 1898 at 84 years old. Thank you for this great video of the actual incline, Fascinating. I read elsewhere that St Michaels Catholic Church was built with the rocks dug out of the mountain when they built the incline. Thank you again for this great video. I want to come to Madison someday and walk it myself.

Great job. I hiked this line years ago. Amazing fossils in some of the cuts.

Most of the rail we saw on the incline several weeks ago was "Carnegie (steel) 1905"

Time for a new visit. Lots of new track and ballast. Looks very different---good---now!

The path the kids came off of indeed goes up to the hospital. I imagine workers from the lower town walked up to jobs up there. There was a spur to the station of course. The bottom of the hill along the river was the industrial area and the main track went there.

This is such a cool place. I haven't been there in person before but I've been trying to find as much about it since much of my family is from Madison

That was a little crazy to drive a tamdom dump truck up and back down!

joiner says 1965 for year. you remind me of the guy I met there today. talked about firefighter stuff.

The switch at the storage facility that you wondered where it went, was to the stone and brick building erected in 1884 by R Johnson and Son. Approximate address is 200 Cragmont St. Sign on it says Tower Manufacturing Corporation but that is a later date sign. My guess is that it was a feed supply store or some such back then or other manufacturing business..

They repaired the track to the state hospital and now are using it for car storage

Because the identifying marks extend over the distance of the angle bars. all of the pertinent information is not available and corrosion and bolts hide some. If you would look at several bars you could piece together all of the markings. Here is my translation--- __CE SS - 85 -- American Society of Civil Engineers for 85 lb rail ; ILLINOIS __S 1937 - 3 rolled at Illinois Steel Co (not sure of the mill) March 1937 ; 8540 (this is the rail pattern 85 lb per yard & 40 identifies ASCE design); MRS c -- possibly the company ordering the bars. If you will look on the side of the web of the rail you will see similar markings on one side and impressed numbers on the other. The raised markings give the rolling company, mill, year and month(count vertical marks), pattern weight and number, if there is a CC it means CONTROLLED COOLED to help prevent hydrogen cracks. The impressed numbers is the Heat Number of the steel--the melt number. Does that help. I walked down the incline in 1976 during an inspection of the track. The track was in service then and the area under the hospital bridge had been lowered to allow the passage of a high-wide load going to the power plant.

Hospital spur likely used to receive coal.

last time i saw the incline was 1986 and it wasnt used much if at all then.

At 3:17 you will see some of our properties. Please take a walk down the tracks today. It has been cleared.Where you seen the kids come down from the old State Hospital steps there is the old water reservoir for the town of Madison. A lot of it (Stones) are still there. Watch out for Copper Heads(Snakes). Be careful and enjoy...take plenty of water.

Good Video my friend. I can hear the excitement and aw in your commentary,reminds me of my own. Its all those small details that are very captivating,stuff most people would dismiss but very interesting to you. We can almost put ourselves in that time and place. I really liked how you were able to post the then and now pics. Thanks again,maybe next time I'm down that way,I'll check it out,I'm about an hour and 15 minutes north,in Bedford!

it was moss...

Great video Christopher! I've been wanting to walk that track for several years now. Obviously it needs to be done before all of the vegetation begins in the Spring. So when is Madison suppose to reopen the tracks and what will it be used for....tourism, industry???

Kids ruin everything. Jesus. So obnoxious