How was US loading gauge possible?
David Forsyth
>From: s_...@ira.uka.de (Tobias Benjamin Koehler)
>Subject: How was US loading gauge possible?
>Date: 18 Jan 1995 15:24:19 GMT
>Hello all,
>one of the greatest advantages of US railroads are their wide
>loading gauge (I don't mean the track gauge but how high and
>wide the trains can be) which seems to be much larger than in
>Europe (or Britain, which is even smaller). How was this
>possible, historically? US railroads haven't developed much
>later, and, from what I can tell, were as small as everywhere
>else in the beginning. Once a system has a small loading gauge,
>it is very difficult and expensive to adjust it to a bigger one
>by changing every platform, tunnel, bridge, signal, double track
>section, catenary and so on - which is the reason why Britain
>still has its small loading gauge. When did US railroads start
>to build tracks for trains as big as they are now (for example
>double stack container trains)? How many tunnels from the early
>days of railroading had to be widened for this?
>toby
Hi Toby
Although I speak from SA where our standard is 3'6" let me put in my 2cents
plus tax.
From several books I have read, I get the impression that the UK loading
gauge is small because the engineers at the time of conception did not
believe that a wider train would stay on the rails. Some forwarned dire
consequences for building such narrow gauges as the Festiniog. Only later
they realized that the loading gauge could be bigger, especially if you put
suitable suspension on the trucks (like bogies for instance, most of the
early wagons were 2 rigid axles, IMDM). By the time RR where being built in
the USA, the engineers had come to some agreement that the loading could be
bigger, hence it was from the beginning and now even bigger with the double
stacking. At home I have the actual gauges written down, but from dim
memory ours is about 2 feet wider at (10'6" ??) and a foot or so higher than
UK, and USA is another foot or two on that (yes, we have one of the biggest
loading gauges on 3'6" track, look up at a class 16F or 25NC from the ground
one day and deny it (-: )
The reason for building 3'6" gauge here was to keep the cost of getting
through the mountains down. I'm not sure that this is valid since the
loading gauge is so wide they might as well have built 4'8.5" track.
However, it does allow some smaller radii curves in otherwise impassable
passes. Bearing in mind that the first rails here in the Cape were 4'8.5"
and they probably converted those carriages to 3'6" after that was decided,
they just kept that loading gauge.
Given that the early USA engineers were exUK, they would build to 4'8.5",
but given the freedom to build wider in the open spaces of the New World they
did.
Any comments/corrections
David Forsyth da...@iwr.ru.ac.za
Institute for Water Research Rhodes University South Africa
----------------------------------------------------------------------
These opinions come to you free. Since MY opinions (and those of my
employers) are not free, these are therefore not my or my
employers opinions.
Roland Bol
>Hello all,
>one of the greatest advantages of US railroads are their wide
>loading gauge (I don't mean the track gauge but how high and
>wide the trains can be) which seems to be much larger than in
>Europe (or Britain, which is even smaller). How was this
>possible, historically? US railroads haven't developed much
>later, and, from what I can tell, were as small as everywhere
>else in the beginning.
I once read in a book (I think I know which one, a Swedish one)
that train were designed after the main existing form of
transportation (sounds likely). In Europe, this was the
coach (carriage,diligence): a train was a number of coaches
coupled together. Hence lots of doors, and no aisle.
In the US, trains were designed after river boats:
Grossraumwagen. Perhaps this applied to their width too.
The inevitable question becomes then: why didn't they use
a wider track gauge?
Cheerio,
Roland Bol
o O O O O o o o o o o o o . . . . . . .
__________ ___ ___ __ _
/_______|--`--|_ _|--=-==---|_ _|--,_|__|_ |-+-------`____________,
| ||_| / - | / - \ | || ________ |R.N.Bol |
|_|___/------------|----__---------|------|||__|__|__| | rol...@docs.uu.se |
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/_(o)=(o) ( )( )( )( ) [__] ( )( )( )( ) [__]--(o) (o)(o)(o)-----(o)(o)(o)
Douglas W. Jones,201H MLH,3193350740,3193382879
by s_...@ira.uka.de (Tobias Benjamin Koehler):
> still has its small loading gauge. When did US railroads start
> to build tracks for trains as big as they are now (for example
> double stack container trains)? How many tunnels from the early
> days of railroading had to be widened for this?
Double stacks can't generally run on many rail lines in the eastern
US. The width of the basic loading gauge used on most US lines was
established by the Civil War (1865). The height may actually have
been a concession to the "cabbage stack" and "diamond stack" designs
of the spark arrestors on woodburning locomotives.
By the time rail lines were built west of the Mississippi after the
Civil War, the standard railroad right-of-way was 100 feet wide,
with reductions to 66 feet for single track lines in urban areas
(or other places where land was expensive). High platforms were not
used, there were few bridges and tunnels, and catenary wasn't an
issue until this century, and then, only in the eastern US. By that
time, the modern loading gauge was well established.
Even now, tunnels and other obstructions built to handle the old
eastern US standards are slowly being replaced to allow double stacks
to make the trip farther east. In some cases, it's simply a matter of
replacing double-track lines through tunnels with a single track right
in the center, plus modern signalling or dispatching systems to get
the traffic through on one track that used to require two. In other
cases, tunnels are actually being rebored (as under the Detroit River)
to handle the higher (western) loading gauge.
Doug Jones
jo...@cs.uiowa.edu
Douglas W. Jones,201H MLH,3193350740,3193382879
by da...@iwr.ru.ac.za (David Forsyth):
>
> At home I have the actual gauges written down, but from dim
> memory ours is about 2 feet wider at (10'6" ??) and a foot or
> so higher than UK, and USA is another foot or two on that
I believe it, but note that many 3' gauge lines in the US allowed haulage
of standard gauge rolling stock on 3' gauge trucks (bogies for those east
of the pond). This was true of the East Broad Top and the Burlington
and North Western, for example. On both, incoming standard gauge cars
were lifted, their trucks replaced, and then rolled out on the narrow
gauge track, just like some of the transborder traffic between Russia
and the rest of Europe (although this was done only on freight cars in
the US, as far as I know, and only on passenger cars in Europe, as far
as I know).
Photographs of narrow gauge trains with mixed narrow gauge and standard
gauge rolling stock are quite interesting. One photo of a train on the
Burlington and North Western shows a mixed train with a string of cattle
cars, most of which are small, but a few of which look immense.
The B&NW, by the way, was regauged to standard gauge in 1901, then merged
into the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy. A short stretch of track
it once shared with the Burlington Cedar Rapids and Northern is still in
use, in Burlington Iowa, but the rest has been abandoned, largely since
1970.
> Given that the early USA engineers were exUK, they would build to 4'8.5",
No, they built to every concevable gauge. Many southern lines were
originally built to 5 foot gauge, the Erie was built to some huge broad
gauge like 7 feet (perhaps under Brunell's influence?), and we had our
own 3 foot gauge lines, not only in the mountains, but some out in the
flatlands, the B&NW cited above being a fine example.
The latter half of the 19th century saw a rising recognition that
interchange traffic between railroads was very important, and with this,
various lines were regauged to the dominant 4'8.5" gauge. The lines that
weren't regauged were generally built in the mountains or carried too
little traffic to justify the expense.
Regauging a line is an interesting proposition. First, if necessary, the
the loading gauge and bridge strengths are brought into conformance with
the standard. This is generally done as part of the normal maintenance
and replacement schedule, as much as possible. Crosstie replacement is
done with ties able to carry standard gauge track, lineside poles are
relocated as necessary, and so on.
Then, in the months leading up to the regauging, once all the
infrastructure is adjusted, necessary frogs and points are delivered to
every switch that will be regauged (typically not all of them). Also,
seats are cut in all the crossties by a powered dado saw mounted on a
flatcar, to provide a level bed for the one rail that will be moved,
then tieplates are set in the new location and spiked down on the outside
only.
In the days before regauging, inside spikes are pulled from many (but not
all) tieplates supporting the rail to be moved, and all old nonstandard
gauge rolling stock is pulled from the line.
On regauging day, crews descend on the line, pull the remaining inside
spikes from the rail to be moved, shift it to the new tieplates and begin
spiking it down. After only a fraction of the new spikes are in place,
trains can begin running (at reduced speed and reduced load). Track
switches pose a big problem. Typically, only a few mainline switches
are regauged on the big day, but by the end of the day, if all goes well,
train traffic can be resumed, on a limited basis but keeping the most
important customers happy.
Finally, the "mop up" operation of regauging sidings and secondary tracks
is completed. This may have been going on in parallel before the big day,
providing practice for the crews so they hit the mainline as experienced
regaugers, and it may be completed quite a bit later.
(The above description is inferred from what I've read about the great
regauging day on the B&NW in 1901.)
Doug Jones
jo...@cs.uiowa.edu
Scot Osterweil
Didelius) wrote:
> Tobias Benjamin Koehler <s_...@ira.uka.de> wrote:
> > Hello all,
>
> Hey there
>
> > one of the greatest advantages of US railroads are their wide
> > loading gauge (I don't mean the track gauge but how high and
> > wide the trains can be) which seems to be much larger than in
> > Europe (or Britain, which is even smaller). How was this
> > possible, historically? US railroads haven't developed much
> > later, and, from what I can tell, were as small as everywhere
> > else in the beginning
> As far as how it was possible, American railways had lotsof room to build, I
> don't know if European railways did, weren't the countries already
> "developed" before rail transportation? The western railways were built after
> the 1860's and I'm sure size expectations were greater then. The Erie Railway
> route was an exception for its size, because its original guage was six feet
> (a little under two meters of course). I would imagine the "density" of
> things also came into play later on, as in in Europe buildings and bridges
> probably hewed the railways in moreso than here.
>
> Paul Didelius
>
To further amplify Paul's point, the railroads in the more settled, older
northeast, have had to work a lot harder to keep up with increases in
loading gauge. For decades, double deck passenger equipment (and some
larger auto-carrying freight cars) just couldn't travel through large parts
of the northeast. Only with the explosion in double-stacking have roads
had the incentive to make extra room. The situation in the N.E. was
probably much more like that in Europe, and the result was a smaller
loading gauge.It appears to have been much less of a problem in the midwest
and west, and my guess it is a result of both lower density, and later
initial construction.
----------------------------------------------
"We have met the enemy, and he is us" -- Pogo 3:16
Scot Osterweil
Scot_Os...@TERC.edu
Somewhere in Massachusetts.
Pertti Tapola
> one of the greatest advantages of US railroads are their wide
> loading gauge (I don't mean the track gauge but how high and
> wide the trains can be) which seems to be much larger than in
> Europe (or Britain, which is even smaller). How was this
> possible, historically? US railroads haven't developed much
> later, and, from what I can tell, were as small as everywhere
> it is very difficult and expensive to adjust it to a bigger one
> by changing every platform, tunnel, bridge, signal, double track
> section, catenary and so on - which is the reason why Britain
I think the reasons (or more specifically, enabling factors)
for the large US loading gauge are quite similar to those in Finland.
In the beginning the Finnish loading gauge was quite similar to that
in Europe. However, the increasing transit traffic with Russia
made it necessary to increase the Finnish loading gauge by 1 meter
(from 4.5 meters to 5.5 meters high). The Russian loading
gauge is quite similar to that of the US normal one (i.e. not the
double-stack one).
The change was possible mainly because:
- no electrified tracks at that time
- only about a dozen tunnels in the country, many of which already included
reserve space for electrification
- not too many overbridges at that time (in 1950s and 60s)
and many of them already built with the necessary extra clearance
In fact this meant that in most lines the loading gauge could be
changed by putting another number in the documents.
However, there were many bridges with a limiting superstructure
and this either delayed extending the loading gauge (two different
gauges had to be used for quite long a time) or caused problems
with electrification.
Many tunnels have had to be extended because of the electrification
lately, however.
Because the US is as sparsely populated (on the average) as Finland,
many of the reasons have also applied there. And there are not many
places with overhead electricity there, either. Whereas in the
mainland of Europe and Britain, countries are very densely populated
(meaning a lot of overbridges, the electrification has been early
and there are a lot of tunnels because most countries are quite hilly.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pertti Tapola pertti...@ntc.nokia.com (in Finland, by the way)
Customer's problem = our opportunity.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven Bjork
Tobias Benjamin Koehler <s_...@ira.uka.de> wrote:
>Hello all,
>one of the greatest advantages of US railroads are their wide
>loading gauge (I don't mean the track gauge but how high and
>wide the trains can be) which seems to be much larger than in
>Europe (or Britain, which is even smaller). How was this
>possible, historically? US railroads haven't developed much
The development of heavy haul lines is continuing today.
There is much interest in western railroads towards increasing
the capacity of coal hauling lines. One stop gap measure has
been the introduction of aluminum cars, allowing a few more
tons of coal per car.
Combine aluminum coal cars with AC traction and significantly
more coal in longer trains is possible than with steel cars
hauled by DC traction.
But even this is not enough. The AAR (Association of American
Railroads) has been testing a new set of cars built for 286,000
pounds net weight on rails--and there are double stack cars
running with 125 ton trucks today.
>later, and, from what I can tell, were as small as everywhere
>else in the beginning. Once a system has a small loading gauge,
>it is very difficult and expensive to adjust it to a bigger one
This is very true. The East Coast of USA is still burdened with
many height restrictions that prevent double stack traffic
from being carried. The Western lines were constructed somewhat
later, and were built with much larger clearances in general than
those back east.
>by changing every platform, tunnel, bridge, signal, double track
One sad but famous incident was Abraham Lincoln's Funeral train.
A special passenger car was used to carry the coffin, but this car
was significantly larger than most cars of its time. It required
that many stations and platforms along the train's route be modified
to allow its passage.
>toby
I would guess that chauvinism is the most basic reason for western
lines having larger clearances. "Hey, we do things BIG in the west!"
Witness all the "wild west" legends...
../Steven
Orc
wrote:
I would guess that chauvinism is the most basic reason for western
> lines having larger clearances. "Hey, we do things BIG in the west!"
It's more likely that the clearances are bigger because the railroads
didn't need to fit into already built up areas. If you have to fit a
railroad (or, for that matter, a highway or most anything else large and
destructive) into an already existing city, you'll end up paying heavily
for the privilege.
____
david parsons \bi/ o...@pell.com
\/
Jan-Martin
>... many 3' gauge lines in the US allowed haulage
>of standard gauge rolling stock on 3' gauge trucks ...
and
>... incoming standard gauge cars
>were lifted, their trucks replaced, and then rolled out on the narrow
>gauge track, just like some of the transborder traffic between Russia
At the beginning of our century, on the former 750 mm gauge branch line
Klotzsche - Koenigsbrueck near Dresden in Saxonia a similar technology
was applied. There were some factories producing pottery, and in order
to avoid any damage, the railway more or less pre-invented modern
container traffic. Several boxes were built which fitted to the chassis
of standard gauge cars as well as narrow gauge cars, the size of these
boxes being (I assume) somewhere between the one of standard gauge
and narrow gauge boxcars. Because this test was only restricted to this
special location, it was terminated soon. Later, this line was regauged
to standard gauge due to increased traffic and prolongated to Strass-
graebchen-Bernsdorf, the technology which was applied was similar to the
one described by Douglas W. Jones, the narrow gauge trains were running
until the night before the opening of the standard gauge traffic.
Another technology which is still in use on German narrow gauge lines
is "piggyback traffic". Standard gauge cars (four-wheelers only) are put
either on special bogies (usually on 1000 mm gauge) where they are held
by a sort of forks at their axles, or on special low cars with pieces
of rails on them (usually on 750 mm gauge) equipped with clamps and
brakeshoes. (Sorry, I don't know the English translation for "Rollbock"
and "Rollwagen"). In the first case, the standard gauge cars were
coupled together with their own couplers, in the second, the coupling
was made between the narrow gauge cars with long iron rods.
In both cases, the loading gauge of the narrow gauge line has to be even
higher than the one of the standard gauge because of the extra heigth
of the narrow gauge bogie or car, and because of the narrower curves on
narrow gauge, I assume it has to be wider, too. Nevertheless, on the
1000 mm lines in the Harz mountains these trains even go through
tunnels.
A mixed train composed of normal narrow gauge equipment and some
standard gauge cars carried "piggyback" looks quite funny, especially
on a Saxon 750 mm line with an ex IV K locomotive which looks quite flat
and a standard gauge boxcar behind. Sort of dachshund pulling his hut.
For reading on these subjects I recommend "Schmalspurbahn-Archiv" by
Erich Preuss (I think) and others, Transpress-Verlag Berlin (in German).
Jan-Martin Hertzsch
William Cordes
Pres. Abraham Lincoln's funeral train. (There was a quick platform, signal, and
what-have-you trimming to get the special through. Once trimmed, of course. the
widened clearance remained.)
.
. WmC
.
Paul Didelius
> There is much interest in western railroads towards increasing
> the capacity of coal hauling lines. One stop gap measure has
> been the introduction of aluminum cars, allowing a few more
> tons of coal per car.
>
> Combine aluminum coal cars with AC traction and significantly
> more coal in longer trains is possible than with steel cars
> hauled by DC traction.
>
> But even this is not enough. The AAR (Association of American
> Railroads) has been testing a new set of cars built for 286,000
> pounds net weight on rails--and there are double stack cars
> running with 125 ton trucks today.
Neat. Seems they've about pushed the fuel efficiency envelope about as far as
it can go though - sooner or later they'll have to widen the gauge if they
want more... I think Jim Hill wanted a wider gauge... We know Erie had one...
All too bad, really ought to be wider, less derailments, etc.
Does anyone know how close railroads (and perhaps other modes?), considering
their method of propulsion are to their theoretical efficiency? Thanx
Now wide gauge - you'd have some nice auto-trains then!
Paul Didelius
--.-
SERFan
Western, were built as six foot gauge lines to haul anthracite coal out of
northeastern Pennsylvania. In addition to the wide track gauge, the Erie
in particular could boast of a wide loading gauge and did so in
advertisements well into the 1950's. In T. Tabor's book "The DL&W in the
Nineteenth Century", there is a drawing of a canal boat riding on wide
gauge carriages, presumably as part of an inclined plane system. Such
railways were fairly common in the early 19th century, and the Erie and
DL&W both have canal transport in their early histories. The engineers
probably were accustomed to the wide gauge and simply kept using it.
Of the two, the Erie had the largest loading gauge, but the DL&W built to
six foot gauge so that they could interchange with the Erie. (from Tabor)
Evan L. Werkema
In a previous article, pta...@tnds05.tele.nokia.fi (Pertti Tapola) says:
>
>I think the reasons (or more specifically, enabling factors)
>for the large US loading gauge are quite similar to those in Finland.
>
>In the beginning the Finnish loading gauge was quite similar to that
>in Europe. However, the increasing transit traffic with Russia
>made it necessary to increase the Finnish loading gauge by 1 meter
>(from 4.5 meters to 5.5 meters high). The Russian loading
>gauge is quite similar to that of the US normal one (i.e. not the
>double-stack one).
I seem to recall hearing of a similar situation in the US once. Back in
the 1800's, the mighty Pennsylvania decided to increase its loading gauge,
and flatly refused to interchange with any railroad that did not do likewise.
They were a big enough piece of the pie at that time that their neighbors
more or less had to comply. That's how I remember it anyway...somebody
correct me if I have it garbled.
--
o_II_-__-__-----____________ ---------------- /====================\
I_________I__I I 870 I I I I I I I I oooooo II
/-o--0-0-0-0~~~~~o=o~==~o=o~~~o==o~~~~~~o==o~~~o=o=o~~~~~~~~~~o=o=o~~
--Evan Werkem...@po.cwru.edu---"Ship and Travel Santa Fe...All the Way!"--
Charles Coldwell
: Hello all,
: one of the greatest advantages of US railroads are their wide
: loading gauge (I don't mean the track gauge but how high and
: wide the trains can be) which seems to be much larger than in
: Europe (or Britain, which is even smaller). How was this
: possible, historically? US railroads haven't developed much
: later, and, from what I can tell, were as small as everywhere
: else in the beginning.
An interesting and related point which was brought up by John H. White
in his book, _The_American_Railroad_Freight_Car_, is that the American
railroads adopted eight-wheel cars long before the Europeans. For
some reason, four-wheel cabeese remained popular long after all
other freight cars had gone to eight.
Possibly this all has something to do with the larger scale of
distances?
Tobias Benjamin Koehler
: One sad but famous incident was Abraham Lincoln's Funeral train.
: A special passenger car was used to carry the coffin, but this car
: was significantly larger than most cars of its time. It required
: that many stations and platforms along the train's route be modified
: to allow its passage.
I have read that story too .. the coach was the Pioneer, built
by George Pullman, and the funeral train made him famous and
successful ..
--
tobias benjamin koehler___________...@ira.uka.de
<>__<> <>__<> ______ ____ ____
.---|I I|---..---|I I|---.[__[]__]------(____)(____)__________
" """ """ " " """ """ " " " " " " " " " "" ""
Robert Coe
>Another technology which is still in use on German narrow gauge lines
>is "piggyback traffic". Standard gauge cars (four-wheelers only) are put
>either on special bogies (usually on 1000 mm gauge) where they are held
>by a sort of forks at their axles, or on special low cars with pieces
>of rails on them (usually on 750 mm gauge) equipped with clamps and
>brakeshoes. (Sorry, I don't know the English translation for "Rollbock"
>and "Rollwagen"). In the first case, the standard gauge cars were
>coupled together with their own couplers, in the second, the coupling
>was made between the narrow gauge cars with long iron rods.
I doubt that there's an acceptable English translation of either of those
words, but the first sounds like a distant cousin of U.S. "roadrailer"
technology, in which specially reinforced truck trailers are fitted with
railroad bogies and coupled together into unit trains.
--
___ _ - Bob
/__) _ / / ) _ _
(_/__) (_)_(_) (___(_)_(/_____________________________________ b...@1776.COM
Robert K. Coe * 14 Churchill St, Sudbury, Massachusetts 01776 * 508-443-3265
Robert Coe
>One sad but famous incident was Abraham Lincoln's Funeral train.
>A special passenger car was used to carry the coffin, but this car
>was significantly larger than most cars of its time. It required
>that many stations and platforms along the train's route be modified
>to allow its passage.
The funeral train followed an extremely circuitous route. I had always
assumed that it was merely to give the public the greatest opportunity
to see it (an opportunity apparently ignored by my great-grandmother,
who lived very close to the route, but that's another story). However,
this puts it in a different light: I wonder how much of the route was
actually dictated by obstacles in the way of a more direct path.
Evan Werkema
>Early on, US railways suffered from poor track and very light rail. This caused
>the introduction of the bogie and the eight wheel car. These cars tracked
>much better, as only one axel would drop into a pot hole at a time.
Interesting to note that for a long time, steel mills took the opposite
philosophy. They used rigid frame, four axle locomotives because they
believed that trucked locomotives wouldn't stay on their rough, curve-
infested track.
--
,_,,___......____...____..------ ______________ _--____________--_
_I ```` I[|]I I SANTA FE~~~~~~~~~, I @ I I I
~/---~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~\~~~~~\---'_I 2903 I IATSF I\/I I
/~o==o-( )-( )-( )-( )~~o==o~~~~~~o=o=o=o~~=====~~o=o=o=o~~~o==o~~~~~~~~o==o~
--Evan Werkem...@po.cwru.edu--"Ship and Travel Santa Fe...All the Way!"--
Michael Powell
world at the moment? I would think probably the former Soviet Railways,
running on 5' gauge and possibly the Chinese system on the 4' 8.5".
Secondly, the UK should have had the biggest loading gauge in the world -
Brunels 7' gauge. As is always the case in this country, engineering
conservatism won the day and we now have a pathetic weeny railway.
(what's left of it)
Imagine what could be running today if Brunels system had gained
acceptance - I know that the height wasn't much different from
conventional LG, but what potential!
Michael Powell
m...@dmu.ac.uk
ae...@cerfnet.com
>one of the greatest advantages of US railroads are their wide
>loading gauge (I don't mean the track gauge but how high and
>wide the trains can be) which seems to be much larger than in
>Europe (or Britain, which is even smaller). How was this
>possible, historically? US railroads haven't developed much
Early on, US railways suffered from poor track and very light rail. This caused
the introduction of the bogie and the eight wheel car. These cars tracked
much better, as only one axel would drop into a pot hole at a time. A side
benefit was that the 8 wheel car could also carry much more, so it grew to
be much longer and heavier than the European 4 wheel car.
Tony Burzio
AETC
San Diego, CA
Tobias Benjamin Koehler
: Early on, US railways suffered from poor track and very light rail. This caused
: the introduction of the bogie and the eight wheel car. These cars tracked
: much better, as only one axel would drop into a pot hole at a time. A side
: benefit was that the 8 wheel car could also carry much more, so it grew to
: be much longer and heavier than the European 4 wheel car.
Interestingly, before 1867, the K.W.St.E. (Königlich Württem-
bergische Staats-Eisenbahn, Royal Württembergian State Railway)
(if you don't know where Württemberg is: roughly the region
around Stuttgart and Ulm down to the Bodensee) used the
"American System": passenger and freight cars with bogies and
American couplers. The passenger cars did not have closed
compartments (as they were used elsewhere in Germany at that
time) but one large room with seats on both sides of a central
aisle, arranged so that they face each other in groups. Entrance
was via open end platforms with passage to the next coach. Then
in 1867 the technical direction of the K.W.St.E. was taken over
by a north german technician, which was a large step back to 2
axle compartment cars.
toby
--
tobias benjamin köhler ,-/o"O`--.._ _/(_
_,-o'.|o 0 'O o O`o--'. e\
s_...@ira.uka.de (`o-..___..--''o:,-' )o /._" O "o 0 o : ._>
, , ``--o___o..o.'' :'.O\_ ```--.\o .' `--
<<la propriete, `-`.,) \`.o`._
c'est le vol>> - p j proudhon pic: felix lee `-`-.,)
Tobias Benjamin Koehler
: A couple of points - Firstly, what's the largest loading gauge in the
: world at the moment? I would think probably the former Soviet Railways,
: running on 5' gauge and possibly the Chinese system on the 4' 8.5".
Chinese is huge indeed. I don't have numbers, but I remember that
when a Chinese steam locomotive was shipped to the Verkehrshaus
in Luzern (most important Swiss transports museum), it could not
be transported via rail. The locomotive class Qian Jin, 1'E1',
150 tons, came with a boat up the Rhine to Basel and was then
transported via road, laying on its side on extra-wide special
vehicles. The Swiss received the locomotive for free, but had to
pay for its transportation. SER 6/94 wrote it is 3.4 m wide and
4.8 m high.
: Imagine what could be running today if Brunels system had gained
: acceptance - I know that the height wasn't much different from
: conventional LG, but what potential!
Of course the wider gauge could also have allowed higher speeds,
more spacious cars.. would certainly have been great :-)
Andrew J. L. Cary
Alternatively many railroads 'third' railed their narrow gauge with standard
gauge track to allow mixed consists. This was particularly common in mountain
railroads of the American West such as the SPC and NPC railroads.
As one of those truth is stranger then fiction stories, the Southern Pacific
scheduled the conversion of the South Pacific Coast's Shoreline Division on
Saturday and Sunday April 17th &18th , 1906.
The 'clean-up' train had just removed all narrow gauge stock from the line
between Alameda and Newark (with the exception of a passenger train loading at
the Alameda Mole) and had just finished watering at Newark when the San
Andreas Fault moved. The brand new steel water tower collapsed across the
tracks narrowly missing the engines. The engineers described the track
rippling like waves in the sea as tremor continues. Damage to the railroad's
bridges, trestles and grade was extensive.
This was the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.
Talk about bad timing....
Steven Bjork
Tobias Benjamin Koehler <s_...@ira.uka.de> wrote:
>Of course the wider gauge could also have allowed higher speeds,
>more spacious cars.. would certainly have been great :-)
>toby
One significant item is military gear being transported by rail.
There was a requirement of European bound arms that they be
able to be transported by rail, thus significantly limiting
the size/weight of the items.
Some rail lines feeding military bases in USA are kept active
with modest subsidy.
The ENTIRE interstate hiway system was built for the military.
../Steven
Ernest FREIGHT TRAINS Robl
>mar...@schadow.agnld.uni-potsdam.de (Jan-Martin) writes:
>>Another technology which is still in use on German narrow gauge lines
>>is "piggyback traffic". Standard gauge cars (four-wheelers only) are put
>>either on special bogies (usually on 1000 mm gauge) where they are held
>>by a sort of forks at their axles, or on special low cars with pieces
>>of rails on them (usually on 750 mm gauge) equipped with clamps and
>>brakeshoes. (Sorry, I don't know the English translation for "Rollbock"
>>and "Rollwagen"). In the first case, the standard gauge cars were
>>coupled together with their own couplers, in the second, the coupling
>>was made between the narrow gauge cars with long iron rods.
>
>I doubt that there's an acceptable English translation of either of those
>words, but the first sounds like a distant cousin of U.S. "roadrailer"
>technology, in which specially reinforced truck trailers are fitted with
>railroad bogies and coupled together into unit trains.
No, I've seen all of these in action, and the European Rollbock and
Rollwagen are not even remotely related to RoadRailer units, though
these are now also being used in Europe.
The Rollbock and Rollwagen units are used on NARROW GAUGE lines to
carry standard gauge railroad cars -- which retain their own wheels.
The Rollbock units can only be used for two-axle cars while the
Rollwagen can carry any type of standard gauge car -- up to the weight
limits of the narrow gauge line.
I know it's difficult to visualize how these things work. I did a story
on these a number of years ago. Trains magazine bought the story --
but then never ran it.
-- Ernest
Ernest H. Robl, User Documentation, ENCOMPASS ro...@encmail.encompass.com
Cary, NC, USA Work phone: +1 (919) 460-3247 "I'd rather be on the train."
What? Me speak for ENCOMPASS? Of course not. Especially not on internet.
Home: Durham, NC, USA +1 (919) 286-3845; fax 286-1696 er...@mcimail.com
ENCOMPASS and the ENCOMPASS logo are registered trademarks of ENCOMPASS.
Robert Coe
>world - Brunels 7' gauge. As is always the case in this country,
>engineering conservatism won the day and we now have a pathetic weeny
>railway. (what's left of it)
>
>Imagine what could be running today if Brunels system had gained
>acceptance - I know that the height wasn't much different from
>conventional LG, but what potential!
>
>Michael Powell
>m...@dmu.ac.uk
How did the loading gauge of Brunel's 7-foot system compare with the
loading gauge of the car-carrying Chunnel trains?
Colin R. Leech
In a previous posting, Paul Didelius (ps...@po.cwru.edu) writes:
> Haven't heard of any tunnels *widened*.
I recall hearing that the old TH&B tunnel under a downtown Hamilton Ont.
city street was going to have to be widened to allow GO trains access to
the old TH&B station. I don't recall if it's just single track now - I
thought it was a narrow double track unsuitable for modern clearances.
(Can any other locals confirm?)
--
Colin R. Leech |-> Civil Engineer by training,
ag...@freenet.carleton.ca |-> Transportation Planner by choice,
h:613-224-2301 w:613-741-6440 |-> Trombonist by hobby.
My opinions are my own, not my employer's. You may consider them shareware.
Colin R. Leech
In a previous posting, David Forsyth (da...@iwr.ru.ac.za) writes:
> From several books I have read, I get the impression that the UK loading
> gauge is small because the engineers at the time of conception did not
> believe that a wider train would stay on the rails.
Amazing. I would have been more concerned about a tall narrow train
falling over on its side.
Jeremy Featherstone.
>From: m...@dmu.ac.uk (Michael Powell)
>Subject: Re: How was US loading gauge possible?
>Date: 24 Jan 1995 17:26:28 GMT
>Michael Powell
>m...@dmu.ac.uk
###I fully agree, about the only thing which appeals to me about the Great
Western is the broad gauge, once they converted they became just another
railway. As a railway modeller, I have never been tempted to build anything
Great Western if it is 4'8.5" gauge but a model of the Iron Duke in 7mm=
1foot scale would be very impressive...###
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+This message was from Jeremy Featherstone +
+Team manager of Great Central Racers Pedal car team+
+If you would like to know more about pedal car +
+racing, mail me on this address during term time +
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
RICH DEAN
-> Subject: Re: How was US loading gauge possible?
-> Date: 20 Jan 1995 18:40:09 -0500
-> Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364)
-> Message-ID: <3fphkp$5...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>
-> At least two eastern roads, the Erie and the Delaware, Lackawanna,
-> and Western, were built as six foot gauge lines to haul anthracite
-> coal out of northeastern Pennsylvania. In addition to the wide track
-> gauge, the Erie
I've heard that also, about the Erie, but not sure on the DL&W.
But one thing is certain. When doublestacks started being hauled in the
early 80's one of the first routes in the country to host them was the
ex-Erie main line between Jersey City and Buffalo which is now the
Conrail Southern Tier. I was always told that it was because of the
Erie's high and wide clearances.
William Cordes
.
. There are well-known photographs of the building of the St.
Paul,Minneapolis & Manitoba (GN predecessor) on the prairies of No. Dak. with
**ENORMOUS** campcars that greatly exceeded even Plate J (and we're only at
Plate H now)! The lack of adjacent structures allowed it.
.
. WmC
.
William Cordes
17 ft high over locked pantographs.
. The MILW suffered from many of the same problems as beset EL--a totally
impossible economic and regulatory milieu that they were unable to survive.
.
. WmC
.
Tobias Benjamin Koehler
: ###I fully agree, about the only thing which appeals to me about the Great
: Western is the broad gauge, once they converted they became just another
: railway. As a railway modeller, I have never been tempted to build anything
: Great Western if it is 4'8.5" gauge but a model of the Iron Duke in 7mm=
: 1foot scale would be very impressive...###
Where do you get 24.5 mm track along with the appropriate
locomotives? Do you build it all by yourself?
Would be a good subject for those who want to model something
entirely new.. I still sigh at the lack of models from era zero
(before 1870). (When was GWR changed?)
Does the GWR line still have a larger loading gauge today?
Christopher A. Lee
>Jeremy Featherstone. (evy...@evn1.nott.ac.uk) wrote:
>
>: ###I fully agree, about the only thing which appeals to me about the Great
>: Western is the broad gauge, once they converted they became just another
>: railway. As a railway modeller, I have never been tempted to build anything
>: Great Western if it is 4'8.5" gauge but a model of the Iron Duke in 7mm=
>: 1foot scale would be very impressive...###
There is a small but thriving group of O-gauge broad gaugers in the UK.
One of the current layouts on the exhibition circle was featured in
the Railway Modeller last year. In fact that Magazine's editor
has exhibited a couple of smaller scale layouts.
I agree about Iron Duke in O-gauge. Cyril Harper's Great Great Western
layout had Bulkeley (a similar 4-2-2 by Dean to Gooch's design) and it
was impressive. I saw this layout at shows in Blackburn and Cheltenham
and I believe it toured with the GW150 exhibition train in 1985.
>Where do you get 24.5 mm track along with the appropriate
>locomotives? Do you build it all by yourself?
Most of the layouts are 4mm scale, ie 28 mm gauge. The Broad Gauge Society
supplies a lot of parts (I used to be a member before I let it lapse when
I moved to the US). Although I was more interested in 7mm scale (I had a
Severn Tunnel brake van converted from a Peco/Webster's permanent way
brake van - they were built to the same diagram, and a couple of open
wagons built from kits by ABS models, on a short length of test track
using aluminium bridge-rail section supplied by the society, epoxy glued
to wooden longitudinal sleepers.
>Would be a good subject for those who want to model something
>entirely new.. I still sigh at the lack of models from era zero
>(before 1870). (When was GWR changed?)
Mike Sharman had some 4mm scale Broad Gauge engine kits from the 1840s, a
2-2-2 and an 0-6-0 which are still available (but not from him). K's do the
later version of the famous 4-2-2 which is like Iron Duke with a Dean cab
and chimney. I have seen it retrofitted back to the early version. The
Broad Gauge society does a variety of kits for freight and passenger cars.
>Does the GWR line still have a larger loading gauge today?
Yes and no. Before nationalisation they had a wider and higher loading
gauge which prevented their largest stock being used elsewhere: for
example the Centenary stock for the Cornish Reviera express was 9ft 6in
wide and was route restricted basically to the ex broad-gauge main line
and branches.
Last year there was an incident when a preserved King class engine
knocked its safety valves off when it fouled a bridge outside Paddington.
Over the years the track had been raised as it was reballasted and
would only allow the lower British Rail loading gauge.
Chris
Urban Fredriksson
>In a previous posting, David Forsyth (da...@iwr.ru.ac.za) writes:
>> From several books I have read, I get the impression that the UK loading
>> gauge is small because the engineers at the time of conception did not
>> believe that a wider train would stay on the rails.
>Amazing. I would have been more concerned about a tall narrow train
>falling over on its side.
I do not know how the early UK engineers reasoned, but they
likely thought only of what we would call very slow trains.
Perhaps they were also used to wagons beeing so light in
themselves that having all passengers stand on one side, or
beeing loaded unevenly, that the width relative to the
wheels could have mattered.
--
Urban Fredriksson u...@icl.se Knowledge is power: Read!
Johannes Stille
Steven Bjork <bj...@rahul.net> wrote:
>In article <3g56bm$g...@nz12.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de>,
>Tobias Benjamin Koehler <s_...@ira.uka.de> wrote:
>
>>Of course the wider gauge could also have allowed higher speeds,
>>more spacious cars.. would certainly have been great :-)
>
>>toby
>
>One significant item is military gear being transported by rail.
>There was a requirement of European bound arms that they be
>able to be transported by rail, thus significantly limiting
>the size/weight of the items.
Then it probably is no surprise that it was Hitler who wanted to have a
3 meter wide gauge railway built east-west across his empire. The
project had quite a high priority (it was his personal order, not from
somewhere in the administration) and planning continued until near the
very end.
Nothing was ever built, but recently a railfan magazine over here
published some drawings. The cars would have been very impressive,
about twice as wide, high, and long as common railway cars.
Johannes
Bill Ranck
:>>The ENTIRE interstate hiway system was built for the military.
:>>
:>>../Steven
:>A myth.
Not entirely myth. President Eisenhour (sp?) was at least partially thinking
of the military implications when he approved the Interstate Highway system.
It obviously couldn't have been built with *only* military justification.
But remember, the liner United States, which set a trans-atlantinc crossing
record, was partially designed as a troop carrier, even though it never saw
use as one.
--
* Bill Ranck +33.1.69.41.24.26 ra...@earn.net *
* Technical Staff, European Academic & Research Network (EARN) Orsay, France *
Tobias Benjamin Koehler
Johannes Stille (joha...@titan.westfalen.de) wrote:
: Then it probably is no surprise that it was Hitler who wanted to have a
: 3 meter wide gauge railway built east-west across his empire. The
: project had quite a high priority (it was his personal order, not from
: somewhere in the administration) and planning continued until near the
: very end.
Hmm.. somewhere else I have read that Hitler was no friend of
the railways, that's why he built the highway system.. anyway,
this wide gauge system was a plan for after the 2nd world war
would be won, the reality was different: during the war, most
high-tech projects (there were a lot: on the steam side, bigger
and faster conventional and turbine locomotives - class 05, 06
and 19 1001 - on the other side, fast articulated DMUs and the
high speed electric class E 19) were on hold, and the locomotive
industry was tangled up with building huge amounts of the
simplified war locomotives 42 and 52. It was impossible for
normal people to take trains as all material was assigned for
transporting soldiers and military supplies to the front and
victims to the concentration camps :-(
toby
--
tobias benjamin koehler ,-/o"O`--.._ _/(_
cho...@vms.ocom.okstate.edu
> Jeremy Featherstone. (evy...@evn1.nott.ac.uk) wrote:
>
> : 1foot scale would be very impressive...###
>
> Where do you get 24.5 mm track along with the appropriate
> locomotives? Do you build it all by yourself?
There used to be proprietary kits of 7" 0.25" in 4mm which of course woulc
give 28 (plus a weee bit) mm gauge (silly Tobias, thinking that a true Brit
would model anything but 4mm;-))
of course, modelling in O gauge would bring you perilously close to 45mm of
G and 1 OBG?????
> Would be a good subject for those who want to model something
> entirely new.. I still sigh at the lack of models from era zero
> (before 1870). (When was GWR changed?)
circa 1890... it was one of the last things achieved by Sir Daniel Gooch
> Does the GWR line still have a larger loading gauge today?
The Centenary Stock was too wide to run elsewhere and the LMS built 3-
cylinder Lord Nelsons with piddly little chimneys and called them "Royal
Scots" because the Castle was too wide.... So then they had to import
Stanier from Swindon to fix things....
but, oh if only G.W.R. had kept 7'.025"we would bee seeing London to
Birmingham or Bristol at 225m.p.h
Box tunnel is big.
For those of you who don't know, you can gopher to bham.ac.uk and read uk
usenet news there.
regards, David Chorley
Disclaimers on Stun
Robert Coe
>:>>The ENTIRE interstate hiway system was built for the military.
>:>>
>:>>../Steven
>
>:>A myth.
>>>Not entirely myth. President Eisenhour (sp?) was at least
partially thinking of the military implications when he approved the
Interstate Highway system. It obviously couldn't have been built with
*only* military justification. But remember, the liner United States,
which set a trans-atlantinc crossing record, was partially designed as
a troop carrier, even though it never saw use as one.
Bill Ranck<<<
I don't claim that the Eisenhower administration didn't have the
military value of the Interstate system in the back of its mind or
that it wasn't part of the justification for building it. But it was
an extremely minor consideration. You have to remember the situation.
The old two-lane highway system was becoming hopelessly overcrowded;
high-speed jet air travel was in its infancy; and passenger train
service had already deteriorated badly (especially east of Chicago),
since the RRs were unwilling to invest enough to make up for wartime
neglect. In that context there was extremely strong support for
construction of the Interstates. It could be argued in retrospect
that we should have made a public investment in railroad
infrastructure instead, but that wasn't one of the options presented.
(Let's face it: the trucking industry undoubtedly helped set the
agenda, although we weren't much aware of it at the time.) As an
alternative to doing nothing, the Interstates had very strong public
support.
Placating the military wasn't one of Eisenhower's main priorities
anyway; he was rather suspicious of the self-serving motives of what
he called "the military-industrial complex".
mar...@jaguar.uofs.edu
> -> and Western, were built as six foot gauge lines to haul anthracite
> -> coal out of northeastern Pennsylvania. In addition to the wide track
> -> gauge, the Erie
> I've heard that also, about the Erie, but not sure on the DL&W.
The DL&W was originally built to connect with the Erie to ship coal out
of NE PA and had to use the Erie's six foot gauge. Later the DL&W
expanded to compete with the Erie. It triple tracked railroads (such as
the Central of NJ) that it connected with. On March 15, 1876, the
company called a twenty-four hour halt to its operations and changed
gauge. The cost was $1,250,000. ("The Lackawanna Story," by Casey and
Douglas, 1951)
Dennis Martin
Clark Martin
> >The ENTIRE interstate hiway system was built for the military.
> >
> >../Steven
>
> A myth.
US 40 I think was built to be used as a military road and there were others.
--
Clark Martin
Redwood City, CA, USA
cma...@rahul.net
Just another designated driver on the Information Super Highway.
Andrew J. L. Cary
>From: cma...@rahul.net (Clark Martin)
>Subject: Re: Military, was Re: How was US loading gauge possible?
>Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 12:10:43 -0800
<Sigh>
The interstate highway system was originally signed into law as the National
Defense Highway Act (or similar name). The system was original intended to
allow military movements around urban areas.
It of course was really a sneaky way to fund highways all over the country/
BTW Hawaii has an interstate highway on Oahu. (H1?) Connecting Pearl Harbor to
Honolulu...
AJL Cary
Bill Bedford
In article <0f2a...@1776.COM>, Robert Coe writes:
>
> >Robert Coe (b...@1776.COM) wrote:
> >:>>The ENTIRE interstate hiway system was built for the military.
> >:>>
> >:>>../Steven
> >
> >:>A myth.
>
> >>>Not entirely myth. President Eisenhour (sp?) was at least
> partially thinking of the military implications when he approved the
>
> Bill Ranck<<<
>
> I don't claim that the Eisenhower administration didn't have the
> military value of the Interstate system in the back of its mind or
> that it wasn't part of the justification for building it. But it was
.........
> (Let's face it: the trucking industry undoubtedly helped set the
> agenda, although we weren't much aware of it at the time.) As an
> alternative to doing nothing, the Interstates had very strong public
> support.
>
> Placating the military wasn't one of Eisenhower's main priorities
> anyway; he was rather suspicious of the self-serving motives of what
> he called "the military-industrial complex".
But don't forget that in 1919? Eisenhower led an expidition that took 3
months to cross the US by road. So he would be incline to approove of the
idea of the Interstate system.
Another case of Old men being able to solve the problems of their youth.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Bedford Designer of Photo-Etches
bi...@mousa.demon.co.uk
+44 9505 327
Living on a island gives the world a different perspective
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Coe
out of NE PA and had to use the Erie's six foot gauge. Later the DL&W
expanded to compete with the Erie. It triple tracked railroads (such
as the Central of NJ) that it connected with. On March 15, 1876, the
company called a twenty-four hour halt to its operations and changed
>gauge. The cost was $1,250,000. ("The Lackawanna Story," by Casey
and Douglas, 1951)<<<
When you say that the Lackawanna "triple tracked" the RRs with which
it connected, do you mean that they paid for an additional (6-foot
gauge) track or merely for an additional rail to provide a mixed-gauge
track so that cars could be interchanged? If the latter, how did they
deal with the fact that the couplers of the 6-foot and standard gauge
cars would be offset with respect to each other?
Kevin Standlee
> BTW Hawaii has an interstate highway on Oahu. (H1?) Connecting Pearl Harbor t
> Honolulu...
Actually, there are three "interstate" highways on Oahu, numbered H1, H2,
and H3. They are, to my knowledge, three of the four roads in the
Interstate Highway System that do not follow the numbering rules for the
rest of the system. (The other is "Interstate 238", a chunk of state
route 238 in the San Francisco Bay Area connecting I-580 to I-880; the
segment has been brought up to Interstate standards and they replaced the
green-and-white California state route markers with the
red-white-and-blue Interstate shields. If I-238 actually followed the
numbering scheme, it would have had to be I-180, as all of the other x80
combinations are already in use except 480, which was the highway number
of the now-demolished Embarcadero freeway.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just a thought from Kevin Standlee -> (stan...@LunaCity.com)
LunaCity BBS - Mountain View, CA - 415 968 8140
A R Hook
: In article <3gb59o$j...@nz12.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de> s_...@ira.uka.de (Tobias Benjamin Koehler) writes:
: >Jeremy Featherstone. (evy...@evn1.nott.ac.uk) wrote:
: >
Brunel's original 7ft and a quarter inch track was narrowed in several
large areas between 1870 and 1892. However a display of this unique system
can be seen at Didcot Railway Centre in Oxfordshire. Also under
construction at the Centre is a replica Fire Fly loco. (In 1986 the
National Railway Museum's Iron Duke ran on the display complete with its
replica coaches.) Alongside, and connected to the pointwork, is the Frome
Mineral Junction Signal Cabin which we like to think is old enough to have
had broad guage trains running past it when it was new. (It was probably
brought into use when the guage was converted, but would have been built
before that date.)
The late Cyril Harper's model layout is in the Museum at Didcot.
Andrew R Hook
Chairman, Bristol Group, Great Western Society.
Scot Osterweil
> : A couple of points - Firstly, what's the largest loading gauge in the
> : world at the moment? I would think probably the former Soviet Railways,
> : running on 5' gauge and possibly the Chinese system on the 4' 8.5".
>
Although Britain failed to foresee the future in building it's own
railroads, the Viceroy of India at the time (I believe 1853) was determined
to do it "right," compatibility be damned.
----------------------------------------------
"We have met the enemy, and he is us" -- Pogo 3:16
Scot Osterweil
Scot_Os...@TERC.edu
Somewhere in Massachusetts.
dave pierson
>I don't claim that the Eisenhower administration didn't have the
>military value of the Interstate system in the back of its mind or
>that it wasn't part of the justification for building it. But it was
>an extremely minor consideration.
Ummmmmm. It ws originally called/sold/funded as the
Interstate DEFENSE Highway System.
I wonder how minor...
Has anyone (i keep asking 'coz the net keeps growing...)
got olde data on how much of the cost came oput of WHOSE budget?
(OK. It all came out of the taxpayer's pocket....8)>>)
>You have to remember the situation.
I do. I was there. Tho a smideg young for intellectual discussion.
And i recall big signs at the end of each section, as it was under
construction, listing where the money was comign from, in attemp to
get people thinking that (somehow) it was not coming from _their_
pockets. What i never did (being somewhat young at the time) was look
and see how the breakdown worked. Was some/much/none of the money from
DoD?
>The old two-lane highway system was becoming hopelessly overcrowded;
>high-speed jet air travel was in its infancy; and passenger train
>service had already deteriorated badly (especially east of Chicago),
>since the RRs were unwilling to invest enough to make up for wartime
>neglect.
Ahhhhh. The RRs were under GOVERMENT ORDERS during WWII. They spent
what they were allowed to, as they were allowed to.
>In that context there was extremely strong support for
>construction of the Interstates.
Supported by lies and funny math by the trucking/highway lobbys.
>It could be argued in retrospect
>that we should have made a public investment in railroad
>infrastructure instead, but that wasn't one of the options presented.
Agreed...
>Placating the military wasn't one of Eisenhower's main priorities
>anyway; he was rather suspicious of the self-serving motives of what
>he called "the military-industrial complex".
Not placating, no. But recall that _Col_ Eisenhower had commanded an
experimental highway borne movement of a division(?) across the US in
the 1930s. Took al summer. And had first hand experience of the
difficulty of knocking down and out the Autobahn system in Germany as
CINCEUR.
thanks
dave pierson |the facts, as accurately as i can manage,
Digital Equipment Corporation |the opinions, my own.
200 Forest St |I am the NRA.
Marlboro, Mass 01751 |pie...@msd26.enet.dec.com
"He has read everything, and, to his credit, written nothing." A J Raffles
thanks
dave pierson |the facts, as accurately as i can manage,
Digital Equipment Corporation |the opinions, my own.
200 Forest St |I am the NRA.
Marlboro, Mass 01751 |pie...@msd26.enet.dec.com
"He has read everything, and, to his credit, written nothing." A J Raffles
Andrew Waugh
>In article <0f2a...@1776.COM>, b...@1776.COM (Robert Coe) writes...
>>I don't claim that the Eisenhower administration didn't have the
>>military value of the Interstate system in the back of its mind or
>>that it wasn't part of the justification for building it. But it was
>>an extremely minor consideration.
> Ummmmmm. It ws originally called/sold/funded as the
> Interstate DEFENSE Highway System.
Some quotes from 'Ways of the World' by M.G. Lay on the US interstate
system. Lay is (or was) a road engineer and wrote one of the definitive
textbooks on road technology. He is certainly not a railway enthusiast!
'Ways of the World' is a very readable account of the development of
the world road network.
In 1954 President Eisenhower appointed a committee under
General Lucuis Clay to study American highway needs. Clay was
an ex-military engineer and hero of the Berlin airlift during
the cold war, and then a board member of General Motors.
Eisenhower's secretary of defense, Charles Wilson, was also
from the GM stable. Eisenhower had appointed a personal
confident, Francis du Pont, to succeed MacDonald as head of the
Bureau of Public Roads. Du Pont just happened to be a member of
the family that owned GM. In retrospect, the influence of
ex-military technocrats was possibly stronger than that of the
auto industry, although the two groups had been intimately
linked in the United States since World War I. (page 317-8)
In another part of the book, Lay states:
The military role in the twentieth-century American road network
formally began in 1922 when the army produced the Pershing Map
showing those road considered to be of prime military
importance. By the mid-1930s the War Department and the Bureau
of Public Roads (BPR) had identified some 45 Mm of strategic
highways. From 1935, all U.S. Army equipment was designed to
stay within the American Association of State Highway Officials
(AASHO) loading limits for civilian bridges. In 1941, a defense
act was passed tha provided specific funds for the construction
of roads of defense relevance, including some lengths of
freeway. In 1944 a presidential committee recommended that the
United States establish the National System of Interstate and
Defense Highways.
In the early years of World War II a number of American urban
freeways were justified partly on the grounds that they would
facilitate evacuation in the event of air raids, a concept
formalised in the 1945 "rural interstate evacuation highway
system" (Schelereth 1985). Dwight D. Eisenhower's personal
involvement in an evacuation exercise was to influence his later
support for the creation of the interstate system.
Consequently, the interstate was initially justified to postwar
American Congresses as a national defense system for the
movement of military vehicles and the evacuation of civilians.
President Eisenhower's Clay Committee told Congress in 1955,
a year before the system was approved, that it was "necessary
to national defense... In the case of atomic attack on our key
cities, the road net must permit quick evacuation of target
areas, mobilization of defense forces, and maintenance of every
essential economic function... [The system would permit] a
considerable amount of evacuation ... at least several million
people." This justification brought with it the requirement
that the interstate system's geometry and structures should be
able to accommodate and aid the movement of large pieces of
military equipment. Indeed, the formal name of the system was
the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. The
proposal to build the interstate also received strong support
as a ready-made mechanism for postwar reconstruction spending.
(p98-99)
> I wonder how minor...
> Has anyone (i keep asking 'coz the net keeps growing...)
> got olde data on how much of the cost came oput of WHOSE budget?
> (OK. It all came out of the taxpayer's pocket....8)>>)
Lay again:
The system was initiated by two acts, a new Federal Aid Highway
Act and a Highway Revenue Act, both passed in 1956 and signed
into law by President Eisenhower on 29 June of that year. The
acts required the system to be designed for traffic projected
for 1975 and, in an exceptional move, the initial funding was
authorized for twelve years, from 1957 to 1969. The federal
government was to meet at least 90 percent of the cost from a
trust fund maintained by motor vehicle taxes, predominantly a
gasoline tax, and based on an existing California model.
[Lay also noted that this method of funding was the result of
considerable debate, mainly between loans and the 'pay-as-you-go'
petrol taxes. Apparently for reasons of 'states' rights', the
petrol tax method won out.]
A new act in 1968 added 2.5 Mm to the proposed network. Although
initially scheduled for completion in 1972, the 70Mm system
was, though very close to completion, still under construction
in 1990. It was by far the world's largest public works program.
(p318)
andrew waugh
Keith Ranker
and to a lesser extent, Erie and EL, did try to invest in and
upgrade rail passenger service. Even LV tried. However, one
railfan who lived through the era tells me that every time they
improved a facility, the local county of city whacked them with
a big tax hike, especially in New York and New Jersey. Ever
wonder why so many railroads in NY and NJ went bankrupt?
Passenger traffic wasn't paying for itself, even with mail and
priority freight cars attached. Then US Postal Service took the
mail off trains. (It's back on trains, now!). On top of that,
the ICC ordered several big labor pay raises without allowing
railroads to raise rates to cover labor costs. Of course,
Northeast railroads also lost traffic as clean burning anthrcite
coal gave way to gas, oil, and softer bitumious coal.
AND, on top of this Pennsylvania RR and Erie RR may have been
carrying too much debt from speculative ventures their ranking
officers should have stayed away from.
- Just what I've heard and read.
--- RoboBOARD/FX 1.04
*
J.R. Stoner
; : A couple of points - Firstly, what's the largest loading gauge in the
; : world at the moment? I would think probably the former Soviet Railways,
; : running on 5' gauge and possibly the Chinese system on the 4' 8.5".
You do not qualify your question as to whether you mean largest gauge for
_interchange_ service, su I will have to recommend the Bethlehem Steel
ore haulers, self-propelled superhoppers which run on (I think) 11' gauge.
--
.J.R. Stoner, Ferroequinologist - asg...@tfs.com - asg...@netcom.com