Railroad Magazine, Volume XXIII, No. 1 December, 1937
Oldest Railway Is Sold For Scrap
By Donald W. Kern
The auctioneer pounded his gavel and looked around at a small audience in the old dusty courthouse at Mauch Chunk, Pa., on September 2nd, 1937. It was something new for Homer S. Kern, the treasurer of Carbon County, to sell a railway for non-payment of a bank loan. He hated to do it, too, knowing that whoever bought the famous old pike would almost certainly rip her up as scrap.
Mr. Kern had a warm spot in his heart for the Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway. He was familiar with her unique history. Ever since boyhood in the long ago he had heard her little cars clattering down the inclines, and—gosh darn it! the Switch back seemed to be part of his very life.
True, she had been standing idle for years, pointed out to visitors as a curiosity, but she was still the oldest existing railway on the American continent. Mr. Kern knew there had been a day when the Mauch Chunk line was the largest and most important iron road in the country. And now she was being sold as junk.
He looked from one face to another. The audience inspired no hope for the realization of his unspoken wish that, in spite of everything, someone might at the last minute buy the old Switchback and start her running once more. Maybe a way could still be found to make her pay. But no! The auctioneer was positively sure that the gentleman who’d just made that last bid had no romantic notions about putting a worn-out pike on its feet again.
“Going! Going!” cried Mr. Kern. “Gone —to Mr. Isaac Weiner, of Pottsville, for the sum of eighteen thousand and one hundred dollars!”
This price included the right of way, eighteen miles of track, eleven passenger cars, land, buildings, fixtures and machinery.
Sic transit gloria mundi! A road “with a past” was being thrown onto the junk pile. Mr. Kern laid down his gavel wearily and turned to make out the necessary papers completing the transaction.
The Switchback which he had just sold was an example of a rather rare type of transportation system, being run almost entirely by force of gravity. Laid out a hundred and nineteen years ago, it began operation as a coal-carrying line in 1827. At length, in 1870, this method of hauling fuel had become obsolete; but the Switchback continued to do business as a scenic road for tourists.
In recent years, however, the road made very little profit. Fact is, it began piling up a deficit—a deficit so large that in 1933 the pike had to be abandoned. Since then it had stood silent and forlorn, undergoing much damage from the elements and from vandals.
At length the Mauch Chunk National Bank, which had tided over its last days of operation with a substantial loan, despaired of ever getting the money back through any other method except a public sale. And that is how Isaac Weiner, of Pottsville, Pa., came to possess title to the Switchback which he is probably ripping up now as this magazine goes to press.
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The need for such a railway dated back to 1791, when coal was discovered by Philip Ginter, a German hunter, near what is now Mauch Chunk. A year later the Lehigh Coal Mining Co. was formed to exploit this discovery; and by 1818 the anthracite trade to Philadelphia, ninety miles away, and New York, about a hundred and twenty miles, had grown to such proportions that a canal was dug to haul some of it. Thereupon, with better facilities for transporting the coal from Mauch Chunk to the larger cities, the Lehigh Company decided to improve their methods of hauling it from the mines to the boats.
Accordingly, in 1818-1819 a road was surveyed and graded between Mauch Chunk and Summit Hill - it is said that this was the first time a surveyor’s level was ever used - the idea being to lay rails on this road as soon as business warranted. By 1827 coal traffic had grown so much that the rails were laid. Construction of the iron highway on this roadbed was begun January 8th, 1827, and work proceeded at such a pace that the nine-mile stretch was opened for traffic May 2nd, 1827.
As Mauch Chunk lies 975 feet below Summit Hill, an ingenious system was set up. Coal was placed in small cars, each holding about two tons. Fourteen of these cars made a train. This train, in charge of one man, was allowed to drift by the force of gravity from Summit Hill to Mauch Chunk, the pitch being almost 100 feet to the mile most of the way. The empty cars were then returned to Summit Hill by mule power. Mules were carried in their own cars back to town with the loaded train. This transportation system became known later as Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway.
The rails were of wood, twenty feet long, four inches by five, faced with iron strap.
They rested upon stone sleepers, some of which may be seen today. Total length of the road, including branches, was almost thirteen miles. Built at a cost of $3,050 per mile, it was said to have saved about sixty-five cents on each ton of coal hauled on the nine-mile trip.
At this time the Mauch Chunk was the longest and most important railway in America. The only other ones existing then were a small line extending into a quarry in Delaware County, Pa., and the Quincy stone quarry pike in Massachusetts. In the first years of its operation the Mauch Chunk road conveyed 32,074 tons of coal. By 1859 the total had reached 450,000 tons per year.
Meanwhile, in 1844, the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Co., successor to the Lehigh Coal Mine Co., realized that this method was too slow because of the length of time needed to return the empty cars to the mine; so they started construction of the back-track and completed it a year later.
This back-track, which is regarded as somewhat of an engineering feat even today, consisted of a return track from Mauch Chunk to Summit Hill, utilizing two planes. The track was built up Mt. Pisgah, on the outskirts of Mauch Chunk, a distance of 2,322 feet with a rise of 664 feet. And it continued down the side of Mauch Chunk Mountain to the foot of Mt. Jefferson, on the outskirts of Summit Hill, where it ascended this mountain 462 feet in a distance of 2,070 feet.
Both Mt. Pisgah and Mt. Jefferson were equipped at the summit with powerful stationery engines which pulled the cars to the top of the incline, allowing the cars to then drift to the foot of the next plane where they were again raised. This back-track—or switchback—connected with the old mule-track at Mauch Chunk and Summit Hill, thus forming a rough figure eight.
The back-track was laid with light iron rail imported from England, the rail being laid in four-foot segments. The hoisting devices at Mt. Pisgah and Mt. Jefferson consisted of stationery engines operating steel drums twenty-eight feet in diameter. On each of these drums were wrapped two heavy steel bands which drew the cars up the slope.
Both planes were double-tracked. As .cars ascended one track pushed by a “barney” (a small truck), the other barney descended from the top and was used in hoisting the next cars. A safety device consisting of an arm fitting into a ratchet track between the rails was attached to the barney to prevent the cars from running backward down the plane in case anything should go wrong with the hoisting machinery.
In 1870 the Switchback stopped hauling coal and began hauling passengers only. This scenic road, along with Glen Onoko and Flagstaff Park, as old-timers remember, made Mauch Chunk a tourist resort. The Switchback was taken over by the Central Railroad of New Jersey, which ran the line until they sold it to a group of citizens in 1929.
Both the Jersey Central and the Lehigh Valley used to run big excursions into Mauch Chunk, bringing as many as 8,000 tourists on a Sunday or holiday. They advertised Mauch Chunk as “The Switzerland of America.” This “quaint and lovely town,” as the folders described it, was named from the Indian Machk Tschunk (Bear Mountain). It lies at the eastern end of the southern anthracite coal fields, nestled in the valleys of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which rise almost perpendicularly around it, to a height of seven hundred and fifty feet. The Lehigh River at this point is one succession of rapids, falls and dams, as it cuts its way through the gorges dividing the town.
As a tourist attraction the Switchback was very popular. For a while it vied with Niagara Falls as a favorite haunt of bridal couples. The eighteen-mile trip on this line was made in one hour, with a liberal stop-over at Summit Hill to allow passengers to visit the widely advertised burning mine nearby. This route was through rugged and picturesque country surrounded by mountains and ravines. Along the home stretch the tracks followed the beautiful Mauch Chunk Creek for several miles. Pines and gigantic rhododendrons towered along its banks. It was a ride you never forgot. On the return trip to town the
cars sometimes attained speeds in excess of fifty miles an hour.
And now as the years roll by, from early summer, when the honeysuckle, wildflowers, dogwood and rhododendrons are in bloom, until autumn when the whole countryside is a riot of color, the Jersey Central and the Lehigh Valley may continue to run their Sunday excursion trains to Mauch Chunk—but not to the Switchback. Natives will point out the abandoned site and tell the visitors a little of her history; and that is all you will find of the old gravity road—just a memory.
The recent sale, at which County Treasurer Kern officiated, dashed the hopes of many persons who wanted to see the Switchback restored to service. An ironical touch is seen in the fact that this pike, which operated for well over a century without a fatal accident, was finally sold for scrap to make instruments of war.
