By: WJAC Web Staff
ALTOONA, Pa. -- In the 1820s the site of Altoona was selected as the destination where the city would be built due to the location being near the Allegheny Mountains.
"That mountain or string of mountains was always a hindrance to transportation," curator at Railroaders Museum John Meise said. "They started out with inclined planes, and things like that and they realized, well, that was a good stopgap measure but to do something truly efficient and effective was to build the railroad through the mountains."
The Pennsylvania Railroad decided to purchase the field and laid out streets, built businesses and made it a company town.
One group of 450 men took on the construction job and was to build the Horseshoe Curve. The railroad took two years to complete and finished in 1854.
"The curve was one of the engineering marvels of the world," Meise said. "It's still rather dramatic, it's still -- you have to see it to appreciate it."
The curve was so important that during World War II the Nazis targeted it. A group of saboteurs was thwarted when they were captured in Long Island New York. They were found with plants to destroy almost a dozen sites in America.
"It was a major highway of commerce," he said. "If you would have wiped that out, going the alternative routes or making the adjustments would greatly delay the war effort and who knows what would have happened if the Americans didn't ramp up as fast as they did in the war."
The curve and railroad is part of what makes the city of Altoona special. People from all around the country visit the site to see the 70 trains that chug along the tracks daily.
"I can well remember hearing the old steam engines come and I lived close enough to the tracks that I could hop on my bicycle, and scoot down and watch the old steam engines go by," Pinkney, Michigan, resident Richard Knopf said. "I remember that and great, great memories."
20 авг 2014
