Gravity railroad

The cars are then hauled back up the slope using animal power, a locomotive or a stationary engine and a cable, a chain or one or more wide, flat iron bands.

A much later example in California used 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge steam engines to pull gravity cars back to the summit of Mt.

The original implementation of this type of system is credited to the Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway, which hauled coal and passengers from 1827 until 1933.

[2] The Ffestiniog Railway in Gwynedd, northwest Wales, was built in 1832 to carry slate from quarries high in the hills to the sea at Porthmadog.

In 1902,[5] gravity cars began carrying passengers from the mountain's summit down the 8-mile (13 km) twisting single-track railway to the city of Mill Valley and starting in 1907, the first tourists into Muir Woods.

The powerful Shay and Heisler geared steam engines of the Mount Tamalpais and Muir Woods Railway then towed the gravity cars back to the summit for the next scheduled run.

On May 3, 2009, the Gravity Car Barn Museum opened at the east peak of Mount Tamalpais to display this novel form of transportation.