The Khon Island Portage Railway The railway was built by the French between 1893 and 1920. When it first opened the line ran just 4km across the island of Don Khôn, in Laos. Its primary function was to transport specially-prefabricated steamships which could be dismantled on one side of a waterfalls, and reassembled on the other, thereby linking Saigon and Phnom Penh with Pakse, Vientiane and Luang Prabang. Human labor was used to move the ships. In 1911 human labor was replaced by two Orenstein & Koppel 0-4-0T steam locomotives, with a modest range of wagons and flat trucks. Thereafter larger river vessels could be transported across the island without the need for disassembly. An exhibition at Ban Khon village incorporates the remains of one of the locomotives named ‘Eloïse'”
"Railroad Portage -- Loon Lake to Lac la Croix" ..Lake Superior National Forest, Minnesota, 1932 National Archives 378024
The Interoceanic Ship Railway In 1880, American engineer James B. Eads, reacting to the 1879 proposal from Paris for a Panama Canal, proposed a giant railroad to portage ships across the Isthmus of Panama. The plan included a floating turntable.
It's amazing how hard these people worked. I'm not sure they could get labor like that out of people today.
There is a Portage, Maine too. I think most, if not all, of the places carrying that name were places where people had to carry their canoes or boats.
"Henry Withee and Horace Bailey with their canoe, wheels used to transport the canoe and gear on portages, and their gear at Mud Pond. The two were paddling the Allagash." 1911
Portage on the Missouri River Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail Interpretive Center, Great Falls, Montana
@Nancy Hart This article might interest you. http://columbiariverimages.com/Regions/Places/portage_roads.html
Thanks Faye. Right off the bat this great picture, from your link, jumped out at me. So now I will try to figure out why they weren't just using the river. Caption reads: "Looking downstream on the wooden tracks of the portage railroad on the Washington side of the Columbia Cascades. Originally opened in 1851, the north bank portage railroad was the first railroad of any kind built in the Columbia Gorge. It initially consisted of one wagon pulled by a single mule."
The Cascades Rapids were an area of rapids along North America's Columbia River. Through a stretch approximately 150 yards wide, the river dropped about 40 feet in 2 miles. At certain times of the year it was navigable (barely). Other times, not at all. Sternwheeler Hassalo running the Cascades of the Columbia, May 26, 1888 In 1896 the Cascade Locks and Canal were constructed to bypass the rapids. In the late 1930s, the construction of the Bonneville Dam led to the submerging of the rapids and most of the 1896 structures.
@Nancy Hart Lots of photos online of the Indians fishing below the rapids, before the dams were built.. In my younger days, I worked and lived many places along the Columbia. I could only imagine how it was before the dams. On one job, I camped near Celilo that is still there by where the old falls was. I learned so much history from such wonderful people. https://www.critfc.org/salmon-culture/tribal-salmon-culture/celilo-falls/