One obscure spot that comes to mind is Cable Point on the old Michigan-California logging road, which ran out of Camino, California. (About fifteen miles east of Placerville.) It was not practical for the railroad to build down into the American River Canyon, build a bridge, and climb back out. So, they built a cable tramway about a mile long. Empty cars went north, loaded cars went south. Locomotives (Shays) were taken across in pieces.
Read all about it in Professor Steve Polkinghorn's book "Pino Grande". Incidentally, Steve normally attends the Narrow Gauge Convention. In Saint Louis, he got me to buy him a nice dinner at the 74th Aero Squadron. (We first met at Camino, working on Hal Wilmunder's Camino, Cable, & Northern.)
Bob Keller