Logan Township, Blair County, Pennsylvania

Allegheny Township is a township in Blair County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 6,585 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Altoona, Pennsylvania Metropolitan Statistical Area.

The Horseshoe Curve is a three-track railroad curve on Norfolk Southern Railway's Pittsburgh Line in Blair County, Pennsylvania. The curve is roughly 2,375 feet (700 m) long and 1,300 feet (400 m) in diameter. Completed in 1854 by the Pennsylvania Railroad as a way to reduce the westbound grade to the summit of the Allegheny Mountains, it replaced the time-consuming Allegheny Portage Railroad, which was the only other route across the mountains for large vehicles. The curve was later owned and used by three Pennsylvania Railroad successors: Penn Central, Conrail and Norfolk Southern. The Horseshoe Curve was added to the National Register of Historic Places and designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1966. It became a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 2004. Horseshoe Curve has long been a tourist attraction. A trackside observation park was completed in 1879. The park was renovated and a visitor center built in the early 1990s. The Railroaders Memorial Museum in Altoona manages the center, which has exhibits pertaining to the curve.

Ashville is a borough in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is part of the Johnstown, Pennsylvania Metropolitan Statistical Area. However, it is much closer to Altoona and is often considered a suburb of the latter. The population was 213 at the 2020 census.

Tunnelhill is a borough that is located in Cambria and Blair counties in Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 363 at the 2010 census. Of these, 245 were in Cambria County, and 118 were in Blair County. It is part of the Altoona, PA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Tunnelhill is named after the many railroad tunnels of the Pennsylvania Railroad near here known as the Gallitzin Tunnels.

Coupon is an unincorporated community in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, United States.

Gallitzin Township is a township in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, United States. The township nearly surrounds, but is a separate entity from, Gallitzin borough. As of the 2010 census, the township population was 1,324. It is part of the Johnstown, Pennsylvania Metropolitan Statistical Area.

The Gallitzin Tunnels in Gallitzin, Pennsylvania, are a set of three adjacent tunnels through the Allegheny Mountains in western Pennsylvania. They were completed in 1854, 1855, and 1902 by the Pennsylvania Railroad as part of the cross-state route that includes the nearby Horseshoe Curve to the east. Their ownership has since passed to Penn Central Transportation Company, then to Conrail, and most recently to the Norfolk Southern Railway. The tunnels are currently used by Norfolk Southern freight trains and Amtrak Pennsylvanian passenger trains.

Gallitzin is a borough in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is bordered by Gallitzin Township and Tunnelhill, all of which sit astride the Eastern continental divide. Tunnel Hill and Gallitzin both are pierced by railroad tunnels shortening the necessary ascent for rails crossing the Allegheny Front onto the Allegheny Plateau which encompasses the towns' terrains. Topping the gaps of the Allegheny, the area is one of only five major breaks in the Appalachians allowing east–west transportation corridors before the advent of 20th century technologies.

Kittanning Gap, one of the gaps of the Allegheny, is a now a relatively unimportant wooded ravine (water gap) along the ascent (at the foot) of the Allegheny Ridge (also called the 'Allegheny Front' or 'Allegheny escarpment') in central Pennsylvania in the United States. The gap was one of several optional paths of the Kittanning Path Amerindian trail turned into an emigrant route over the Alleghenies in the day of animal powered technology. The option up the gap was likely the 'better choice' of an ascending route for ox cart and wagon (such as those made downstream in Conestoga, Pennsylvania) encumbered white settlers pouring west across the Alleghenies escarpment. The 1780s–1830s saw an increasing flood of emigrants into the Ohio Country and territories beyond after (and well before) the end of the American Revolution. It is located in Logan Township, Blair County, Pennsylvania just west of Altoona, PA, overlooking the former Pennsylvania Railroad trackage beginning to climb up alongside Glen White Run to the hard hairpin turn that begins at the confluence with the Kittanning Run before its famous traverse bends around in the famous Horseshoe Curve approximately 5 mi (8 km) west of Altoona. The USGS does not use the Kittanning Run stream for an eponymous gap name since it follows local naming conventions and traditions. The Kittanning Gap is formed from the erosion valley of a seasonal freshet, so is lightly eroded compared to other gaps of the Allegheny which have larger flow volumes resulting in narrower, deeper valleys with steeper, harder to traverse walls. However, topographical analysis shows the climb up from the Altoona Plateau up to the Allegheny Plateau through Kittanning Gap would bend first northerly then curve gradually climbing along several diverse hill sides as to path hooked back to resume a westward heading in the valley of Clearfield Creek coming out in the vicinity of Ashville, Pennsylvania but about a half-mile distant and on the opposite side of the summit that sources the Kittanning Run. In short, climbing more quickly and directly up the escarpment via either the valleys of Kittanning Run or Glen White Run was likely the route of choice (when footing was good) for foot traffic and mule trains, whilst the longer more round about but easier climb up the Kittanning Gap gave animal drawn wagon and carts the better easier path. Any one of these variations were collectively parts of the Kittanning Path as it became known.

The Kittanning Run is one of the several streams draining the Allegheny Plateau, each one cutting an abrupt valley, one of the gaps of the Allegheny— one of several climbing valleys used for centuries by the Amerindian native peoples to pass East-to-West through the Allegheny Front escarpment, a barrier ridge separating the flat highlands plateau, the Appalachian Plateau—from the many barrier ridges making up the local Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians in the Central Pennsylvania heartland. The stream was very likely followed by the Kittanning Path connecting the Indian communities west of the Alleghenies, especially Kittanning Village with the large Indian settlements in the Susquehanna Valley and points east though the naming of the divergent run up through the Kittanning Gap suggests settlers may have bent the trail up to the plateau along a wider shallower grade, perhaps more suitable to settlers carts and Conestoga wagons migrating west. Unlike the Pennsylvania Canal System which built the Allegheny Portage Railroad for the 1845 railroad line chartered (ordered, in effect) to cross the Allegheny Mountains. The challenge of constructing a railroad through the ridge led to the construction of the unique Horseshoe Curve in 1854, once trumpeted as the world's busiest railway, and now designated as a National Historic Landmark.

Wopsononock is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Blair County, Pennsylvania, United States. It was first listed as a CDP prior to the 2020 census.The CDP is in western Blair County, in the northern part of Logan Township. It sits at an elevation of 2,500 feet (760 m) on the crest of the Allegheny Front, 1,000 feet (300 m) above Juniata Gap to the southeast. Juniata Gap Road leads 5 miles (8 km) southeast from Wopsononock to Altoona and leads north and west as Wopsy Road 6 miles (10 km) to Dean in the valley of Clearfield Creek.

Red Hill is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Blair County, Pennsylvania, United States. It was first listed as a CDP prior to the 2020 census.The CDP is in western Blair County, in the center of Logan Township. It is along Pennsylvania Route 36, which leads southeast 2 miles (3 km) to Altoona and northwest up the Allegheny Front 7 miles (11 km) to Ashville.