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Belmont Inclined Plane.
Credit: Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
In the east, the Main Line of Public Works began on Vine Street in the center of Philadelphia. After crossing the Schuylkill River on a 984-foot viaduct, the coaches had to be hauled 2,805 feet up the 187-foot high Belmont Plane, recoupled to horses, and later locomotives for the trip to the canal basin along the Susquehanna River at Columbia.