A View toward Aiken

A View toward Aiken. . , The Solution , Engineers of the Charleston to Hamburg railroad built an Inclined Plane just like this to overcome the steep slope down to Hamburg., What Exactly Is an Inclined Plane? , An inclined plane is a simple machine that connects a lower elevation to a higher elevation with a sloping surface - in other words it's a ramp!, Inclined planes or ramps help us to move objects from one elevation to another., A Natural Bottle Neck , The Inclined Plane created a bottle neck on the Charleston to Hamburg railroad. Often passengers had to wait for hours or even overnight for their turn to ride down to Hamburg. At that time, there was no Town of Aiken, just a small crossroads. Soon taverns and inns began to spring up to provide services to folks stuck in waiting.,

"There is always a scuffle amongst these landlords for the patronage of the passengers. when the Cars arrived there was a fellow present bowing and inviting the passengers, 'Gentlemen will you walk to Major Marshe's? It was the first time I had ever seen strangers invited to a tavern in that manner." , - James Davidson, an earlier traveler to Aiken

, Did You Know? , Inclined Planes were used on the Baltimore and Ohio, Mauch Chunk, Philadelphia and Columbai, and the Allegheny Portage railroads, but the one at Aiken was one of the earliest and most advanced for its time., [Captions:] , The trade-off is the object must travel a longer distance than if it was picked straight up. The more gradual the slope, the less effort is needed., The sloping surface , the tracks , supports the weight of the object , the train. This reduces the amount of force it takes to move up hill., A typical trip from Charleston to Aiken in 1837 was $6.75., The Belmont Inclined Plane on the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad near Philadelphia, PA.