LOWER STATION - "BELLEVUE INCLINE" of BELLEVUE, PENNSYLVANIA located and preserved by Bryant Schmude

From 1887 until 1892, the newly developing community of Bellevue, Pennsylvania located on the high bluffs along the Ohio River, was linked by a crude battery powered tram "T" known as the Bellevue & Davis Island Incline Railway or just the Bellevue Incline for short.

This image from the archives of Bryant Schmude was taken from the far side of the Davis Island Dam looking toward the bluff of Bellevue, PA. The small white "bird-house" looking structure was the lower end waiting room of this short lived "T" railway. If you look closely, you'll see that this station sits atop a steel column which contained a vertical elevator. This primitive electrical elevator connected the West Bellevue Station of the Pennsylvania Railroad with the white incline waiting room. Just to left of the small station was the hillside platform and track of the Bellevue Incline.

Here you boarded the small tram car which used a Fisher Storage Battery for power. The trackway went along a cliffside right of way to a point where today's Suburban Hospital is located----then via what is present day West Street and the up grade of South Jackson Street. The rails ended just before Lincoln Avenue in the new community of Bellevue, PA. A passenger loading area was near the top of South Jackson Street.

This crude railway was plagued by mechanical and management problems. It's actual intent was to link the growing town with the West Bellevue Station of the Pennsylvania RR----the link to Pittsburgh and elsewhere. In 1892, electric light rail trolley service began via a new trestle from Brighton Heights over the Jack's Run Hollow. Modern "T" links extended onto Emsworth/Dixmont and to West View.

The Bellevue Incline was formally abandon in 1892.