318th New Thing - Mt Washington at Monongahela Incline

I was on travelling for a wedding so I didn't have time to post the last few nights, therefore I'm posting this late as this occurred 2 days ago (Sun 9/2/12).

We were in the northeast in the Pittsburgh Pennsylvania area for a few days for my DU classmate's wedding on Saturday. The day after the wedding we did some exploring in Pittsburgh. We wanted a good city skyline view so we decided to go up Mt Washington in the southwest of downtown across the Monongahela River to view it. One of Pittsburgh's distinctive features is its cable-powered inclines designed for transportation between the river valleys and the communities on top of the overlooking bluffs. At one time Pittsburgh had about 15 inclines; 2 of them remain. One provides service to the Mount Washington for a historic voyage of views of the city's panoramic skylines. The cars are not self-powered, instead, they are pulled up and down the inclined track by a single cable driven by an engine in the upper station, where the operator works. One goes uphill and the other downhill simultaneously to counterbalance each other. The Monongahela Incline, built in 1870, is located near the Smithfield Street bridge. It has a length of 635 feet, a height of 367.4 feet, and a grade of 78%. We didn't want to pay the $5 to ride the Monongahela Incline, so we drove up and parked right by Monongahela Incline at Upper Station to check it out. The view was pretty awesome (not my picture below but similar to what we saw).
The view from the top, upper station on right of picture

The view from the top, upper station on right of picture

What did you do today?

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