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All the United States Tennessee Lookout Mountain Lookout Mountain Incline Railway

Lookout Mountain Incline Railway

This funicular railway rumbles along for a mile up the nearly vertical face of Chattanooga’s Lookout Mountain.

Lookout Mountain, Tennessee

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arc459
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Climbing the Lookout Mountain Incline.   Patrick Chan on Flickr
One of the funicular cars.   arc459
Where the cars can pass each other.   arc459
View from the top.   arc459
Coming down the 72.7% incline.   Duane Tate on Flickr
Vintage postcard from the Detroit Photographic Company.   jasonwoodhead23 on Flickr
Inside the railway operator’s station.   seniorhawk / Atlas Obscura User
Looking down the Incline Railway track from Brow Road.   seniorhawk / Atlas Obscura User
Street View   Phantoms Secret / Atlas Obscura User
Machine Room   Phantoms Secret / Atlas Obscura User
New Rail Cars   Phantoms Secret / Atlas Obscura User
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About

A long, high ridge straddling the border of Tennessee and Georgia, Lookout Mountain set the historic stage for the Civil War's "Battle Above the Clouds," and today a little railway will take you there.

Before there was a railway up and down the side of the mountain, the steepness of the grade meant a series of cumbersome switchbacks along rutted old paths. But with the help of the Otis Elevator Company in 1895, a funicular pulley system was laid out to take visitors up and down the steep mountainside.

The Railway is just about a mile from bottom to top and has varying degrees of incline. At its steepest, the incline hits 72.7 percent.So ingenious is the design and function of the railway that in 1991 — almost a hundred years after it was built — it was declared a Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark. 

Still rumbling along today, the Lookout Mountain Incline serves Chattanoogans, tourists and Civil War historians alike, a little railway above the clouds.

Related Tags

Railroads Transportation Funicular Us Civil War

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Not far from I-24, and just a couple of miles north of the Georgia border.

Community Contributors

Added By

arc459

Edited By

Blindcolour, seniorhawk, Phantoms Secret

  • Blindcolour
  • seniorhawk
  • Phantoms Secret

Published

February 29, 2016

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  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lookout_Mountain_Incline_Railway
Lookout Mountain Incline Railway
827 E Brow Road at the top
3917 St. Elmo Avenue at the bottom
Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, 37350
United States
35.006044, -85.342866
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