The Duquesne Incline is a funicular located near Pittsburgh’s South Side neighborhood and scaling Mt. Washington in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Designed by Hungarian-American engineer Samuel Diescher, the incline was completed in 1877. The lower station is in the Second Empire style. Together with the incline, which rises 400 feet (122 m) in height at a 30-degree angle, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. The incline is unusual for having a track gauge standard used only in Finland, Russia, and Mongolia. Together with the Monongahela Incline, it is one of two passenger inclines still operating on Pittsburgh’s South Side. By 1977, the two had become tourist attractions and served more than one million commuters and tourists annually. That year both inclines were designated as Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmarks by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).
History
Originally steam-powered, the Duquesne Incline was designed by Samuel Diescher, a Hungarian-American civil engineer based in Pittsburgh, and completed in 1877. The incline is 800 feet (244 m) long, 400 feet (122 m) in height, and is inclined at a 30-degree angle. Its track gauge is 5 ft (1,524 mm), which is unusual for the United States (but standard for Finland, Russia, and Mongolia.
Diescher is known for having designed the majority of inclines in the United States, including several in Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania, in addition to numerous other industrial and highway projects. The incline was intended to carry cargo up and down Mt. Washington in the late 19th century. It later carried passengers, particularly Mt. Washington residents who were tired of walking up the steep footpaths to the top of the bluff. Inclines were being built all over Mt. Washington to serve working-class people forced out of the low-lying riverfront by industrial development.
But as more roads were built in the twentieth century on “Coal Hill,” as it was known, and automobile use increased, most of the other inclines were closed. By the end of the 1960s, only the Monongahela Incline and the Duquesne Incline remained in operation. Bed Bug Exterminator Pittsburgh
In 1962, the Duquesne Incline was closed, apparently for good. Major repairs were needed, and the incline’s private owners did little with so few patrons. But local Duquesne Heights residents launched a fund-raiser to help restore the incline. It was a huge success, and on July 1, 1963, the incline reopened under the auspices of a non-profit organization dedicated to its preservation.
Address: 1197 W Carson St, Pittsburgh, PA
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