The World's Steepest Vehicular Funicular

Looking down into the City of Johnstown from the summit of the Johnstown Inclined Plane

I love funiculars. My sister lived in the City of Johnstown for a few years at the beginning of the millennium. I saw flood museums, so many flood museums. (Two, actually.) And, yet, on the occasions when I visited her there, I never rode the city's internationally renowned funicular.

The Johnstown Inclined Plane, as the funicular is officially named, is world famous (among funiculars and those who love them) as the world's steepest vehicular funicular. In other words, you can drive on it.

It can handle only one car at a time. And we were the car!

It was a very strange ride. The operator warned us of this and he was correct. See the horizon line? It does not move through most of the descent. You can feel the rickety car shake. If you look to you side, you will see the trees flying past. If you look in the car's rear view mirror (quarters are tight so you can't exit the vehicle once you drive on), you just see the tracks and slats behind you.

The hillside is steep, but not too long, so soon we reached the bottom.

Here is the look upward from the base.

Definitely ride this one top to bottom, if you get the chance. You are looking straight ahead if you drive in up top. If you drive in at the base, you will be staring at the steep inclined tracks.

My verdict? One of the best -- and strangest -- funicular rides I've yet taken.

And when you are the summit, you do want to visit Grandview Cemetery, if only to pay homage to the huge number of citizens of Johnstown who were buried in the large section of unmarked graves.

This is from the 1889 flood.

There is a large monument in the front of the "unknown section," dedicated to those buried there.

Definitely worth the detour.