Last Stop This Town by David H. Steinberg

In the early morning hours of December 13, 1896, a fire in the boiler room in the upper station raged through the building and spread to the nearby incline where the one car bedded there for the night was soon engulfed in flames. As it was destined to be, their existence and use would be terminated in just over a year. These initial nine-ton cars were quite simple in design and looked like nothing more than simple boxcars with seats on wheels. Roebling's Sons Company of Trenton, New Jersey, which had supplied the cables that to this day hold up the famous Brooklyn Bridge in New York City. Only the cables to hoist the incline cars had come from the famous John A. Crass and the cars themselves had been built by the local Chattanooga Car & Foundry Company. Local contractors, Armstrong & Phelps, built the buildings, track laying was supervised by local contractor John T. The hoisting machinery was supplied by the Wheland Machine Works, the steam boilers and stack had been built by the local firm of Walsh & Wiedner, the cable sheaves and casting by the Ross-Meehan Company and the safety brakes and similar appliances had been supplied by the Chattanooga Machinery Company. Interesting is the fact that virtually everything used in the construction of the first incline railway was made locally in Chattanooga. It was November 16, 1895, that the Lookout Mountain & Lula Lake Railway incline, then informally referred to as 'Incline Number 2' because it was the second one to operate on Lookout Mountain and today simply known as 'The Incline,' was placed into operation. With the recent announcement by the Chattanooga Area Regional Transit Authority, that in March of 2020 new cars will replace the current ones in operation on Chattanooga's famous Lookout Mountain Railway, it might be of interest to know the history of the other equipment that has been used from the line's inception.

Last Stop This Town by David H. Steinberg