When you think of American cities with truly historic transit woven deeply into the fabric of the town, you think of San Francisco of course, for its cable cars and the F-line, and New Orleans with its St. Charles streetcar line. But there’s another example, often overlooked: Pittsburgh, with its pair of ‘inclined planes’.

That’s the local description for two funiculars that have served the Steel City since the 1870s. Both connect the south shore of the Monongahela River with the residential neighborhoods and restaurants of Mount Washington above, providing a commanding view of downtown Pittsburgh and the headwaters of the Ohio River, formed by the confluence of the Monongahela and the Allegheny. These two inclines demonstrate different approaches to preservation worth studying...and riding.

Cable cars and funiculars
First, a quick comparison. Both cable cars and funiculars depend on a cable to move the cars. Cable cars can attach to or detach from the cable independently by means of a human-operated grip mechanism. Funiculars are permanently attached to cables in pairs. There are varying ways the cars can be powered and driven, but the rule is that the car moving downhill counterbalances the one moving uphill. The two cars thus pass each other at the midpoint of the route.

Read the sidebar article: PCC Past-time

Funiculars can run in streets (as do the surviving funiculars in Lisbon mentioned here, and the Telegraph Hill Railroad, which operated on Greenwich Street from 1884-1886), but usually operate on their own right-of-way, for the simple reason that the grades they climb are generally too steep for other vehicles, or even pedestrians. There were many funiculars at one time in hilly American cities. The most famous in the West is Los Angeles’ Angel’s Flight on Bunker Hill, which was disassembled during redevelopment, reinstalled with many modifications in 1996, and closed after a fatal accident involving a runaway car in 2001. (It may reopen next year.) A unique hybrid of sorts was San Francisco’s Fillmore Hill counterbalance between Broadway and Green Streets from 1895 to 1941, where electric streetcars were connected to cables running beneath the steepest part of Fillmore Street. The arrangement acted as a funicular.

Pittsburgh’s pair
Back to Pittsburgh. At one time, the city boasted seventeen funiculars, all privately owned. The Monongahela (locally known as ‘the Mon’) was opened in 1870, with a 78% grade, now the steepest funicular in the country. (By comparison, the steepest block on a San Francisco street is 31.5%—Filbert between Hyde and Leavenworth.) A mile west and seven years later, the Duquesne Incline was completed, with a grade of 58%. Pittsburgh’s other inclines gradually went out of business, including a giant-sized one next to the Mon, designed for wagons, of which the foundations survive. In 1962, the Duquesne Incline looked doomed as well. After 85 years, it was closed for repairs, but the private owners decided they couldn’t afford them. Neighbors on Mount Washington, who cherished the line, chipped in, and the line was able to reopen the following year. In 1964, the Port Authority of Allegheny County, which was taking over Pittsburgh’s transit system (including its then-extensive network of streetcar lines operated by PCCs), also took over the Mon, which was a few steps from the end of the Mount Washington streetcar tunnel, a major transit artery. But the Authority wasn’t interested in operating the more isolated Duquesne Incline.

Today, the effect of the different operators is clear in the systems. The Duquesne is operated by a nonprofit group as a labor of love. Its operator goes to great lengths to preserve the original look and feel of the operation. Since 1932, the system has been powered by the same Westinghouse 75-horsepower motor. The winding machinery, recently opened to public view as part of a tidy museum, is antique but scrupulously maintained. It includes one wheel with 120 teeth of rock maple. Replacement teeth, when needed, are handcrafted. While the cars are apparently not the 1877 originals, they are still more than a century old, built by the famous streetcar maker, J.G. Brill of Philadelphia. The cars are carefully maintained in their as-built condition in the Eastlake style, including oak benches and birds-eye maple panels. The stations at the top and bottom of the line are likewise original, and festooned with touches like homemade signs, such as the one inviting riders to “keep an eye out for wild turkeys” on the hillside. “Everybody here really cares about it. It’s more than just a job,” says Chuck Wise, a ten-year employee, as he operated the car at twilight one July day. “My grandfather told me, ‘If you find something you love, you’ll never have a job.’ He was right. I love this.”

Wise goes out of his way to show a visitor the bell signaling system, similar in concept to what cable car crews use to communicate. When the upper car is loaded, the operator, who works from a booth at the top of the trackway, signals one bell. The ticket-seller at the lower station responds with two bells when the lower car is loaded. The operator at the top signals three bells when the cable is about to move. This system is still in use on the Duquesne Incline even though it was long ago supplemented by a closed-circuit telephone, and more recently by closed-circuit television in the interests of safety. (Speaking of which, beside the cables attached to the cars that run through the winding sheave, which itself is equipped with an air brake, there is an additional safety cable attached to each car as a backup.)

The Mon is a bit different. It has been rebuilt more often than the Duquesne, and while quite efficient, displays less character. The cars were replaced about 25 years ago. The current three-level compartments have rubber flip seats like bus shelters, a world apart from the antique single-level cabins of the Duquesne cars. The trackway was replaced when the cars were, with a new steel structure on concrete piers replacing the wooden originals. The propulsion system was replaced in 1994, and is now AC instead of the traditional DC used at Duquesne. (Both funiculars, though, operate at about the same speed: 6 to 6 1/2 miles per hour, about two miles per hour slower than a cable car uphill.) The stations on the Mon retain their antique exterior look, but the interiors lack the authentic feel of the Duquesne. And, because the Mon is operated by the transit system, it uses the system’s standard fare boxes and standardized signage.

Despite the differences, the two Pittsburgh funiculars share something critical: both are still providing meaningful transit service after well more than a century. While an estimated one-half of riders on each are visitors, residents regularly ride both as well (the Duquesne accepts Port Authority tickets and passes and is reimbursed by the Authority for them). And both are important to nearby businesses. The Duquesne is essential to the success of Pittsburgh’s ‘Restaurant Row’ adjoining its upper terminal, and the Mon helps draw people to an adjacent retail and restaurant area at its base known as Station Square, which also depends on the light rail station at the nearby end of the Mount Washington Tunnel.

In this increasingly homogenized world, cities benefit from the attractions that make them different. Pittsburgh gave up part of that differentiation when they junked their final remaining PCC streetcars in 1999, having switched to standardized LRVs. But the Steel City has honored history—and practicality—by preserving their remaining funiculars, increasingly seen by many as potent and enduring symbols of the city.