Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 13).djvu/210

 he said, "they would meet us half way." What a splendid comment it is on Washington's wisdom and foresight to record that these engines on the Allegheny Portage Railway, which hauled the first load of freight over the Alleghenies which ever crossed them by artificial means were made in the young West—in Pittsburg! Washington, at least, did not misjudge in the least the spirit of those Virginians and Pennsylvanians who in his day were pushing ahead over Indian trails into the lands beyond the mountains.

The second track of the railway was put under contract at Hollidaysburg May 31, 1834. In the same year three locomotives for the levels were ordered, one from Boston, and two from Newcastle, Delaware. One of these was sent on to Pittsburg by canal to serve as model of others to be built there. "The road as completed," writes Mr. Wilson, "showed a width of track between rails of 4 feet and 9 inches, and a distance between tracks, including width of inner rail of each track, of 5 feet. The railway between the planes was laid to correspond vertically with the grade