The Incline Railway
Tuesday, January 19th, was Suzie’s birthday. The sun was shining and sky was clear. We decided to venture out for our first outing in our new city of Chattanooga. The unpacking of boxes would have to wait.
We headed to Lookout Mountain on the southwest side of the city to ride The Incline Railway. The picture to the left is of the train that carried to the top and a little later back to the bottom of the mountain. If you go, be sure to purchase your tickets on-line. It is cheaper. We paid $1 to park, traded in our ticket for a boarding pass and boarded on the front seat for a great view.
Since 1895, this train has hauled passengers to a great view of the mountains and the valley in which Chattanooga sits. The railway has been designated as a National Historic Site and a National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark. It is the steepest passenger railway in the world with a grade of 72.7 degrees. Near the top, we were looking almost straight down out of the front of the train. This other picture provides a view from inside the train near the top.
Our view near the top
The ride was enjoyable. Since it was a Tuesday in the off season, we had the train all to ourselves except for the driver. We had a stunning view of the topography below. Chattanooga sprawled below us and we could see Chickamauga Lake in the distance. Our new apartment sits on the north side of the lake.
We passed on the tasty looking fudge in the gift shop at the top of the mountain. Mountain homes dotted the sides of the track all the way up. They say that on a clear day you can see the Great Smoky Mountains over 100 miles away. I’m not sure where those began, but did see mountains all around us.
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