HORSESHOE CURVE
Altoona

You've ridden to the top of a steep slope on a cable-drawn incline car — or perhaps you felt energetic and walked the 192 stairs to the top. It's quiet as you look out into the spectacular foliage of the beautiful mountain valley.

Gradually, you hear a faint sound from the valley below. And then you spot it — a train, chugging its way through the seemingly-impossible Horseshoe Curve below. But don't be surprised. This scenario plays itself out over 500 times a week on one of Pennsylvania's busiest sections of railroad track.

Visitors today still marvel at the grace at which trains wind through the curve, although constructing the curve (which was completed in 1854) was anything but graceful. Several hundred Irish laborers used nothing more than their own hands, gunpowder, and pack animals to carve out the track's bed on the slopes of the Allegheny Mountains. The results were historic — the previously impenetrable Alleghenys had been conquered and America had its gateway to the west.

Very few — if any — railroads let you get this close to an operating mainline, let alone one of such beauty and historical significance. Bring a picnic and your camera! And don't forget to visit the Horseshoe Curve Exhibit Center and the Altoona Railroaders Memorial Museum, where the stories of the building of the curve and the lives of railroad workers come to life through exhibits, archives, memorabilia, and much more.

 

Learn more in the Guide to Pennsylvania's Tourist Railroads by Bill Simpson.