Pennsylvania Canal System

Pennsylvania Canal
Map of historic Pennsylvania canals and connecting railroads
Specifications
Status	Abandoned except for historic and recreational segments and navigable rivers
History
Original owner	Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Construction began	1826
Date completed	~1840
Date closed	~1900

Pennsylvania Canal (or sometimes Pennsylvania Canal system) refers generally to a complex system of transportation infrastructure improvements including canals, dams, locks, tow paths, aqueducts, and viaducts. The Canal and Works were constructed and assembled over several decades beginning in 1824, the year of the first enabling act and budget items. It should be understood the first use of any railway in North America was the year 1826, so the newspapers and the Pennsylvania Assembly of 1824 applied the term then to the proposed Right of ways mainly for the canals of the Main Line of Public Works to be built across the southern part of Pennsylvania. Enacted before Railroads gestated during their infancy, the focus of the act was to create through building a canal system, the capability to ship heavy or bulk goods and connect Philadelphia to Pittsburgh—and more importantly—and beyond to the new growth markets in the developing territories reached by the Ohio River now called the midwest. Later, when updated in 1837 to reflect the experience of twelve years of toddler-railways, the term was also applied to railroads and new canals to be added to the state transportation system. As a crowning achievement, the Main Line of Public Works and the Pennsylvania Canal system topped 2,100 feet (640 m) in elevation by erecting the Allegheny Portage Railroad, which used five inclined plains on each side of the Eastern Continental Divide at Cresson Pass in Cambria County to actually haul wheeled barges up and over the Allegheny Front and connect Pittsburgh to the Susquehanna. When finished in 1834 the trip from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh could be made in 3–5 days, weather conditions depending.