| Main Line of Public Works | |
|---|---|
 Map of historic Pennsylvania canals and connecting railroads | |
| Specifications | |
| Locks | 168 (The Eastern Division Canal had 14 locks, the Juniata Division 86, and the Western Division 68) |
| Maximum height above sea level | 2,322 ft (708 m) (Summit of the Allegheny Portage Railroad through Blair Gap) |
| Status | Canals abandoned except for historic and recreational segments. Many railroad segments survive as part of the Keystone Corridor. |
| History | |
| Original owner | Commonwealth of Pennsylvania |
| Date of act | 1826 |
| Construction began | 1828 |
| Date completed | 1834 |
| Date closed | Sold to Pennsylvania Railroad in 1857 with the last canal segment near Harrisburg closing in 1901 |
| Geography | |
| Start point | Philadelphia |
| End point | Pittsburgh |
| Branch(es) | Wiconisco Canal, Kittanning Feeder, Allegheny Outlet |
| Branch of | Pennsylvania Canal |
| Connects to | Delaware River, Schuylkill Canal, Conestoga Navigation, Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal, Codorus Navigation, Union Canal, Susquehanna Division, Allegheny River, Monongahela River, Ohio River, Ashley Planes, Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad, Lehigh Canal, and Delaware Canal |
The Main Line of Public Works was a package of legislation passed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1826[a] to establish a means of transporting freight[b] between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. It funded the construction of various long-proposed canal and road projects, mostly in southern Pennsylvania, that became a canal system and later added railroads. Built between 1826 and 1834, it established the Pennsylvania Canal System and the Allegheny Portage Railroad.
Later amendments substituted a new technology, railroads, in place of the planned but costly 82-mile (132 km) canal connecting the Delaware River in Philadelphia to the Susquehanna River.[c] The route from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh remained a patchwork of canals and railroads until the Pennsylvania Railroad was built in the 1850s.
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- ^ Alfred Mathews; Ausin N. Hungerford (1884). The History of the Counties of Lehigh & Carbon, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Ancestry.com, Transcribed from the original in April 2004 by Shirley Kuntz.
The task which Josiah White and Erskine Hazard undertook, that of making the Lehigh a navigable stream, was one which had before been several times attempted, and as often abandoned as too expensive and difficult to be successfully carried out. The Legislature was early aware of the importance of the navigation of this stream, and in 1771 passed a law for its improvement. Subsequent laws for the same object were enacted in 1791, 1794, 1798, 1810, 1814, and 1816, and a company had been formed under one of them which expended upwards of thirty thousand dollars in clearing out channels, one of which they attempted to make through the ledges of slate about seven miles above Allentown, though they soon relinquished the work.