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A gravity railroad (American English) or gravity railway (British English) is a railroad on a slope that allows cars carrying minerals or passengers to coast down the slope by the force of gravity alone. The speed of the cars is controlled by a braking mechanism on one or more cars on the train. The cars are then hauled back up the slope using animal power, a locomotive or a stationary engine and a cable, a chain or one or more wide, flat iron bands. A much later example in California used Steam locomotive to pull gravity cars back to the summit of Mt. Tamalpais.
The typical amusement park roller coaster is designed from gravity railroad technology based on the looping track incorporated into the second railroad of the United States, the Mauch Chunk and Summit Hill Railroad, which remained in operation for decades as a tourist ride after it was withdrawn from freight service hauling coal.
A variation is the railway gravity yard or hump yard. This is a goods yard incorporating a "hump" gradient: it allows a single goods train to be taken slowly over the hump, with the wagons sequentially detached and allowed to roll downhill into an array of different sidings: timely operation of the railway points chooses which siding each wagon ends up in. This allows a single train to be speedily disassembled and the wagons sorted into new goods trains, without the need of a shunting engine.
In a further variation, a slip car or slip coach was a section of coaches at the end of a train that had a different destination to the main train: these rear carriages could be uncoupled at speed, diverted onto a different set of tracks by operating the railway's points, and would then proceed to their separate destination, using a combination of gravity and momentum, without a locomotive, and controlled by the brakes operated by the guard in the rear guards van.
The original implementation of this type of system is credited to the Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway, which hauled coal and passengers from 1827 until 1933. This was very popular with tourists, and contributed to the development of the roller coaster.
At the Manx Electric Railway's Ramsey railway station, which is a terminus on a slight downward incline, the run-around of the driving motor car around the trailer car is regularly done with the assistance of gravity. However, no passengers are carried during this operation.
Due to the success and advancement of the gravity railroads, a second gravity operation at Hawley and Pittston was created in 1850. This route from Port Griffith (Pittston) to Paupack Eddy (Hawley) allowed Pennsylvania Coal Company to directly ship anthracite from its Northern Coal Field mines in the Wyoming Valley to Delaware and Hudson Canal and ultimately to the New York markets.
The Ontario and San Antonio Heights Railroad Company was a railway in Ontario, California which operated with a unique Gravity Mule Car. provided the propulsion on the uphill segment, and a pull-out trailer allowed the mules to ride along for the gravity-powered downhill return. Mule cars operated from 1887 to 1895 when the line was electrified.
From 1896 through 1929, steam trains carried passengers up Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, California. In 1902,Runner (2009), at 34. gravity cars began carrying passengers from the mountain's summit down the twisting single-track railway to the city of Mill Valley and starting in 1907, the first tourists into Muir Woods.Runner (2009), at 107. Gravity service supplemented the steam train service. The powerful Shay locomotive and Heisler geared steam engines of the Mount Tamalpais and Muir Woods Railway then towed the gravity cars back to the summit for the next scheduled run. "Gravities" were kept to a strict speed limit of .
On May 3, 2009, the Gravity Car Barn Museum opened at the east peak of Mount Tamalpais to display this novel form of transportation. There, a recreated gravity car rolls on of track.
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