The Gravity Railroad: Fueling the American Industrial Revolution 

where has this video been all my life? Even people who grow up in the Scranton area don't know how important the area was to the whole country's development. Now they just feel forgotten and discarded.

If you're wondering, the cable arrangement wasn't a windlass-type winch with a takeup reel spooling it on, because then you'd have no way to get the end of the cable back down for the next car. Rather, it was a loop, same as in a roller coaster, car wash, or escalator. Some gravity railroads on their lift portions used a dual track counterweighted system as was used on the inclined planes of the Morris Canal and on the San Francisco cable cars. What was holding up development of locomotive railroads was threefold. For one thing, there were places as shown where locomotives would not be an improvement because of the geography. Second, the technical problem of producing engines compact enough to fit onboard. Finally, people needed to get experience with traction. The whole concept of traction and driven wheels was new; even the bicycle didn't yet exist. For a long time it was not clear that something smooth like a rail could be used not just to reduce friction of passive wheels, but provide enough traction for drive wheels. So at first, the kinds of cogwheel, rack-and-pinion arrangements as used on inclined railways were used unnecessarily on flat ground or gentle slopes where we now know smooth wheels and rails would've worked. Models didn't scale linearly, so experience with full size equipment was needed.

Excellent video!

Wow ! So happy I came across this video! Our great grandfather started at a young age in the coal mine and then worked on the gravity railroad from Carbondale to Honesdale. I had no idea of the importance of the gravity railroad in the development of industry in our country!

Absolutely wonderful video. Very well produced and informative. Thank you!

This is amazing to learn about. My 4th Great Grandfather was Archibald Law, so getting to learn why he came to PA from Scotland is amazing.

Then there was the Ffestiniog narrow gauge railway in Wales.a 1' 11" gauge line used to transport slate from the slate mines originally horse drawn but later converted to steam traction. Utilising the Fairly patent articulated locos which hauled empty slate wagons up the hill to the numerous slate mines. Once loaded the wagons would be dispatched down to waiting ships in portmadoc ready to be exported. Now a tourist/ heritage railway demonstration gravity slate trains can be seen on gala festivals or the occasional train being slotted in during normal operational days.

I was always amazed at the 21 mile coast from above Drinker, PA to Avoca, Pa!

My 2nd great grandfather, John Gilroy, was a carbondalean locomotive engineer on the D&H railroad!

7:50 Shepherd's Crook. The uphill side cut still exists, but the downhill side embankment was mined away. When the railroad switched to a locomotive track, the center of the curve was punched through with a switchback track, so south of the curve there are three rights-of-way.

Rockport Massachusetts had a gravity railroad to bring granite from the quarries to the pier, where it was loaded on ships. This was used in buildings up & down the US east coast.

Wow, that was so interesting. I read about it in Jim Shaughnessy's History of the Delaware and Hudson but I didn't exactly understand how it worked till now. I'd been to the Roebling bridge many times ( I live in Sullivan county NY ) before I realized that was where the canal went over the Delaware river

thanks for putting this together the gravity railroad ran near my house, i read there was a gravity railroad for passengers too

I am from Honesdale and I wish the pictures were labeled with locations...

My grandfather was an anthracite miner in Carbondale.

uuuuhhhh.... 2:38 "in the 19th century those kinds of railroads hadn't been invented yet"... not sure how to tell you this but railroads ruled the 19th century. I understand that he is saying they were not commonplace in the US in the 1820s-30s but to say they had not been invented is a very silly exaggeration. He talks about the coal plants being opened in 1829 at which point the traditional steam locomotive had already been invented and existed in the U.S. for over a decade. The First "railroad" as we think of them today opened in 1830 and while it would take another decade or so for them to spread across North America, its kind of embarrassing for a Historian to say such a thing. (sorry for the dorky rant)