Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway

Mauch Chunk Railroad Summit Hill & Mauch Chunk Railroad Mauch Chunk and Summit Hill Switchback Railroad
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Pennsylvania state historical marker
An aerial view of the Lehigh Canal in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, c. 1870
Show map of Pennsylvania Show map of the United States
Location	Between Ludlow St. in Summit Hill and F.A.P. 209 in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Coordinates	40°52′10″N 75°44′59″W / 40.86944°N 75.74972°W / 40.86944; -75.74972
Area	47 acres (19 ha)
Built	1827
Built by	Lehigh Coal & Navigation Co. (LC&N)
Architect	Josiah White
NRHP reference No.	76001616[1]
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	June 3, 1976
Designated PHMC	May 25, 1971[2]

The Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway, also known as the Mauch Chunk and Summit Railroad and occasionally shortened to Mauch Chunk Railway, was a coal-hauling railroad in the mountains of Pennsylvania that was built in 1827 and operated until 1932. It was the second gravity railway constructed in the United States, which was used by the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company to transport coal from Summit Hill downhill to the Lehigh canal.

The railway operated on 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) gauge track, and it was not utilized as a common carrier that linked with other railroads. The rail line was laid on top of the company's earlier 9-mile (14 km)-constant-descent-graded wagon road. The railway operated for more than half a century as a tourist attraction after it ceased day-to-day operations as a freight railroad in 1872. The onset of the Great Depression resulted in its eventual closure.

Pennsylvania's first railroad and first anthracite carrier opened on Saturday, May 5th, 1827, when seven cars of coal passed from the Summit Hill mines of the L.C.&N. Company to their canal at Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, descending 936 feet (285 m) in the nine-mile (14 km) trip.^[3]

— Earl J. Heydinger