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Incline opens a view to a hill
Jim Presken, a contractor with MO Machine
Philip G. Pavely/Tribune-Review
He tried his best to solve the mystery by peeking into the 2-by-3-foot windows at the upper platform, where two small cable wheels spin.
"It would be interesting to see how it works," said Vande Visse, 17, of Mt. Washington.
For 127 years, the incline's twin red cars have glided effortlessly along the hillside, their inner workings largely hidden from view.
Not anymore.
Beginning at noon Thursday, visitors will have the chance to look into the heart of the incline -- a machine room embedded in the hillside. For the first time, spotlights will be trained on the cable drum and gears that have been humming since 1877. A new platform, accessible by stairs and an elevator, will offer a bird's-eye view of the 12-foot-tall drive gear.
Of course, the incline has an observation deck for those spectacular views of Downtown.
"We want them to know what makes the incline go. It's not mirrors," said David Miller, president of the Society for the Preservation of the Duquesne Heights Incline, which raised $500,000 for the renovations.
The nonprofit, founded by Miller and his wife, Ruth, has kept the incline going since July 1963. Six months earlier, the Duquesne Inclined Plane Co. decided that the incline was no longer an essential mode of transportation and shut it down.
The tools that make the wheels run are displayed on the walls. Some are artifacts of a bygone era, when the incline was powered by steam. The steam lever. The grindstone. The cracked blacksmith's forge.
Maintenance of the incline, then as now, takes a lot of hard work, said Miller, 83. Miller, a civil engineer, was hard-pressed to replace the wooden gear teeth that splintered every few years. Five years ago, he came up with the idea of molding plastic teeth.
"The experiment," as he calls it, has gone smoothly. The incline is quieter, and none of the plastic replacements have broken.
"After 127 years of wear and tear," Miller said, "the machine is still doing a good job."
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