ABCs of Centre County

Kato (Snow Shoe) – Little evidence remains of the once-thriving coal mining center of Kato. Two New York Central Railroad passenger trains traveled each way daily through this little community, but no one has lived there for more than sixty years. In its heyday, a double-tracked inclined railroad took coal down off the mountain. Coal cars on each of the parallel tracks were linked together with a cable passing over a pulley at the mountaintop. When one car was loaded at the top and run down the incline, its weight pulled the other one up. The railroad operated without any other power source.