Johnstown Inclined Plane work still on schedule for 2023 reopening

JOHNSTOWN — The Johnstown Inclined Plane, which has been closed and under rehabilitation since early this year, is still on schedule to be running by next summer, CamTran officials said Friday.

Almost all the ties have been replaced. Vegetation has been put into place and water redirected to help with hillside stability. The sheave — or pulley — wheels will soon be removed and repaired.

Those are among the dozens of steps being taken as part of a comprehensive $15 million rehabilitation of the Inclined Plane, which first opened in 1891.

CamTran, the Inclined Plane’s owner, is carrying out the project using funding from multiple sources, including PennDOT and the U.S. Department of Transportation.

“It’s going to be phenomenal to have that stability. … You know everything has been fixed mechanically, electrically — all those things that have been on and off over the years, causing us trouble,” CamTran Executive Director Rose Lucey-Noll said. “We’ve been putting Band-Aids on them. That was because we were trying to get to that funding.”

Lucey-Noll provided the CamTran board an update about the project during its regular monthly meeting on Friday morning. She expects the actual work to be completed in late spring of 2023.

“Once the project is done, the challenge is we have to have operators to operate the Inclined Plane,” Lucey-Noll said. “That’s an 80-hour program. It isn’t just two weeks. It takes two months to get them up and going because you have to practice. You have to pass tests.”