Over the Alleghenies: Early Canals and Railroads of Pennsylvania by Robert J. Kapsch (review)

In Over the Alleghenies, Robert Kapcsh provides a detailed and insightful description of the politics, engineering, and financing that enabled the construction of Pennsylvania's nineteenth-century state-owned transportation network. The first chapter, "Early America and the Coming of the Transportation Revolution," provides a historical context within which the development of state-sponsored public transportation systems can be understood. With the political stabilization of Europe that followed the Napoleonic Wars (1815), Pennsylvania and other states began accessing European funds, via bonds, to construct state-sponsored transportation networks. The primary goal of these networks was to convey goods, primarily flour, to the ports of New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore for export to European and Caribbean markets. Because overland roads were tortuous and navigation on rivers and streams was treacherous, it was concluded that networks of still-water canals would be the most efficient way to transport goods across long distances. In 1825 the first state-sponsored public canal system, New York's 368-mile Erie Canal, was completed, establishing a direct link between Lake Erie at Buffalo and the Hudson River at Albany. Incentivized by New York's accomplishment, Pennsylvania and Maryland began working in earnest on their own state-funded trade networks. Maryland opened the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (C&O) along the Potomac River from the Chesapeake Bay to the National Road at Cumberland in 1831, followed by the Pennsylvania Main Line from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh in 1834, and by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) from Baltimore to the National Road at Cumberland in 1841.

In chapter 2 Kapsch describes the inception and actualization of Pennsylvania's state-sponsored transportation network. The text presents details about the individual engineers, board members, and commissioners who participated in the project, and describes the steps, and missteps, that were taken en route to achieving this engineering feat. The primary goal of the Pennsylvania Main Line from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh was to divert products to the ports of Philadelphia and away from Baltimore. Prior to its completion, virtually all the goods from central Pennsylvania were floated down the Susquehanna River to the Chesapeake Bay and the ports of Baltimore, while exports from the eastern part of the state were transported to Cumberland, Maryland, via the federally sponsored National Road, and thence to Baltimore via the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay. This goal was achieved with the completion of the Main Line in 1834, and the creation of a network of interconnected ancillary canals that radiated throughout the state by 1837. When combined, Pennsylvania's transportation network extended approximately 1,120 miles.

The five subdivisions of the Pennsylvania Main Line are described individually in chapters 3 to 7. The three segments of water-based transport, the Eastern, Western, and Juniata divisions, are described in chapters 3–5, while the two overland segments, the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad (P&CR) and the Allegheny Portage Railroad, are detailed in chapters 6 and 7. Each chapter not only presents the history of a particular segment, but also provides detailed descriptions of many of the individual structures (locks, aqueducts, viaducts, rail lines, and dams) associated with the section at hand. An important innovation of the Main Line as a whole was the design and use of multipart canal boats that could be disassembled to facilitate their transport by rail. The two rail lines, the P&CR and the Allegheny Portage Railroad, were similar in that each utilized one-of-a-kind steam locomotives to pull cars along level sections of track, and stationary steam engines to hoist cars up and down the inclined planes. Completion of the Allegheny Portage Railroad stands apart from the P&CR by its use of ten (compared to two) inclined planes by the excavation of the 870-foot Staple Bend Tunnel, the first railroad tunnel built in the United States. Changes in track design from straps to T-rails and the transition from stone...