George W. Hilton's monumental "The Cable Car in America" lists these systems in St. Louis:
St. Louis Cable & Western (side grip) 1887-1891
St.L.C.&W. had a steam dummy operation on (most likely) 3 foot gauge that extended west from the cable line's end.
Citizen's Railway (bottom grip) 1887-1894
Missouri Railroad (side grip) 1888-1901
Peoples Railway (side grip) 1890-1901
St. Louis Railroad (bottom grip) 1890-1900
All but the last were east-west systems. St. Louis had a lot of cable mileage, maybe fourth behind San Francisco, Chicago and Kansas City.
The sixth system, the Western Cable Railway was a finite cable system used from 1891 to 1921 belonging to Lemp's Western Brewery, which crossed the St. Louis Railroad. Technically a common carrier railroad, it was used to move boxcars from a St. Louis Iron Mountain & Southern connection, not for passengers. It was the only St. Louis cable railway NOT built to 4'10" gauge.
Frankly I had no idea there were SIX cable systems in St. Louis, and I only know that much via a throwaway line in the Wikipedia article. Can you give some details on these?
Also mentioned was the first 'steam' traction service that had a gauge different from everybody else's at the time. There has to be a story behind that.
Someone needs to write about the ongoing follies with United Railways and the burglary and theft of the reform petition...
Correct. Like many streetcar systems with odd gauges, St. Louis stuck with its non-standard untile the end of rail operations in 1966. Some of the PCCs went to San Francisco's Muni, first by lease, then later sale. At least one of those has been preserved.Fortunately for Muni, PCC trucks are relatively easy to re-gauge.
Ohio gauge as I remember it was 4'10", not 4'9". The 'compromise wheels' had wider treads with the flanges at 4'8.5" spacing, similar to how the Russian Decapods were converted, but the centering action on Ohio-gauge track could be insufficient. See the description of the Angola Horror for one example.
Cincinnati was Penn gauge 5' 2 1/2". Hometown Cincinnati Car had dual-gauge track to accomodate.
As far as I can figure the gauge used came from a pre-civil war midwest railroad ("Ohio Gauge") and was carried over first with horsecars, then cable cars, and finally electrics. Mainline use of the gauge pretty much ended after a famous wreck attributed to "compromise wheels" in 1867. There was also a hometown car builder in this city.
Cincinnati, 4'-9"
Louisville was the "normal" wide gauge - 5' 2 1/2", perhaps best known as Pennsylvania gauge, though also used in West Virginia, Ohio, Louisiana and probably elsewhere. The system I'm looking for shared its city with one of the largest interurbans, though of course they didn't share any track. It was around long enough to get PCCs, some of which went on to serve in other cities.
Another odd thing in the system - on the PCCs the pedal usage was backwards, with power on the left and brake on the right.
The track gauge used was close enough to standard to be the cause of a famous 19th century train wreck.
Louisville, KY, but Toronto's wide-gauge is, I believe, closer to standard than Louisville's was. But maybe you meant USA
The largest interurban serving the city was the Indiana Railroad, and its predicessor the Interstate, The Louisville & New Albany was an interurban with the Louisville track gauge, The Daisy Line.
This city, at one time home to several cable car companies, kept its slightly larger than standard track gauge to the end of streetcar operation in the 1960s. There were other systems with wider track, but this one was closest to standard gauge. Some interurbans operating in the area initially built to the wide gauge, but converted to standard very early in their elecric operation. The biggest interurban serving the city never operated on the streetcar system's track.
I'll give it to rcdrye since he got the location correct.
They worked in the Port Huron-Sarnia tunnel electrification, often MUed with boxcabs purpose built for the tunnel. "When the Steam Railroads Electrified" by Wm. Middleton has several photos of them in service.
I can "answer" this, but not conclusively enough to count.
Canadian National... where they apparently got at least one renunbering, ending up as 175-176.
But I can find no pictures of them in CN service, or where they were worked, so it doesn't count.
I'm flattered. Sorry about the delay but here goes. South Shore's first two freight motors (505-506) were sold off when South Shore re-electrified in 1926-1927. Who bought them?
CSS has better and more interesting questions.
OM and CSS combined for the correct answer(s). And yes, the conversation about the G&W was the impetus for this question. Who ever wants to ask the next one...be my guest! ETA--the C&I was owned by Bethlehem Steel.
CSSHEGEWISCHThe third would be Colver and Revloc on the Cambria & Indiana, a Pennsylvania coal-hauler.
Incidentally, historical references to 'Dotsero' as a place name (including its crater) considerably predate the cutoff...
The third would be Colver and Revloc on the Cambria & Indiana, a Pennsylvania coal-hauler.
Dotsero and Orestod, and Foster and Retsof, are the ones that spring to mind quickly.
(The latter related to the 'salt' discussion we were having...)
Here's a question, just to keep things moving. I can think of three railroads (there may be more) who have two stations where the second one is the first one's name, spelled in reverse. I'm thinking of one Class One and two mineral hauling shortlines. Two are in the northeast and one in the mountain west.
rcdryeJust make sure whatever you find doesn't come from the Classic Trains Forum...
I remember someone commenting on making a considerable 'income' from sending jokes to Playboy Magazine... having gotten them from old back issues of Playboy and but lightly updating them if needed. There is no reason to suspect anyone here of such behavior.
Just make sure whatever you find doesn't come from the Classic Trains Forum...
I keep finding fun questions, like who ran steel double-unit diners, only to find there are scores of answers all over the first page of a Google search. Even assuming everyone doesn't know about them already...
Overmod, we are waiting!
Great job in providing all this information, and do please ask the next question, thanks.
Norfolk Southern (probably the epitome of the light eight-coupled in the United States, built for maximum horsepower on 25T axle load). Baldwin 1940.
23.5x32, 63", 250#, 49,300TE, 335,400 engine weight.
ATSF 4101 class. Built 1927, toward the end of the 'drag era' tendency for 2-8-4 design. Described as "basically good 1922 engines with a 1927 wheel arrangement"; they might be thought of as the same logical extension of a Mike as the original 3751 class was as a 'Heavy Mountain' or the original conception of a 2-10-4 from a Santa Fe type. Interestingly, these never received the 'beauty treatment' locomotives like T&P 610 got in the Thirties, nor were extensively rebuilt like the 3751 class.
27x32, 63", 220#, 69,200 TE, 396,500 engine weight.
The boilers were designed for 250#, and one example (4115) was 'optimized' for this pressure: 78,685TE -- these were 15" piston valves with 9.5" travel!
Illinois Central 7000 class (Lima 1926)
28x30, 63", 240# 76,160TE, 388,000 engine weight.
As you would expect these were track-wreckers even at 40mph, with a nasty habit of suddenly going into full gear at high mass flow. Apparently engineers could get broken arms from this...
The IC's original 'beauty treatment' for this class was to rebuild them into freight-only Hudsons -- some of the existing diagrams note all the engines so converted (with 'new' driver diameter 73.5", likely the largest size that would 'fit" the existing dimensions. This plan was stillborn for a number of reasons, and likely the Depression restricted rebuilding of the 2-8-4s in kind until the very late Thirties. What they were given was a pressure increase to 265#, a change from type E to type A superheater (with a reduction in heat-transfer surface!), a 1" reduction in piston diameter (from 28x30 to 27x30) and some experimentation with different arrangements of circulators and syphons. The result was a slight increase in nominal TE to 78,194# but with engine weight ballooning to nearly match ATSF at 393,500#.
These engines worked until the end of steam on the IC, but they sure went fast when they went, perhaps the only other thing they did 'fast' aside from winding out the gear...
International Great Northern and then Missouri Pacific (BK-63, 1928 and 1930).
28x30, 63", 240#, 76,160TE, 404,000 (1928) 412000 (1930) engine weight.
These were some of the late 'original' type, and were probably among the best-looking of them. Notable was that the grate area dropped dramatically (100.30 to 87.90), and the firebox direct heating surface shrank from 415' to 357' (383' by 1936 per diagram), yet the engine weight ballooned by several tons, and the combined heating surface went from 7239' to 7744' only about 300' of which reflected longer tubes and none of which involved a combustion chamber.
MoPac sensibly rebuilt these into 4-8-4s (with 75" drivers) in the early war years. These had cast engine beds with roller bearings, and "practically complete new boilers", and of course corresponding modern driver centers and rods. These produced better than 2 and a half times the road mileage per month of the original type.
C&NW J-4 (1927)
28x30, 63", 240#, 76,160TE, 397,000 engine weight
I think these were one of the 'inspirations' for the MoPac engines (which were also by Alco) -- in turn, these were supposedly inspired by the later B&M 'sports model' engines. Here again are the 14" valves with limited cutoff that are part of the 'SuperPower' formula. As far as I know, they ran primarily coal trains during their slow lifetimes, and weren't heavily modified. We don't need to look far at C&NW power to understand why this was so: the answer is a simple letter. H. The money put into either of the extensive rebuildings the 4-8-4s were given easily outweighs anything short of full rebuilding that the 2-8-4s could provide -- the 1948 rebuilding in particular may rate as the best-evolved of all the big full dual-service 4-8-4 designs.
Erie S-4 70" 28.5x32 250# 468,800#
THANKS I suspect the Erie's had the most change, first-to-lsst, and the data for the last would be very important.
Here's the data that I could glean from Farrell's Berkshire And Texas Types. If there are multiple orders, I just am giving it for the original order. It will be in class/cylinders/driver/boiler pressure/engine weight order.
B&A A-1a 28x30 63" 240# 389,000#
Erie S-1 28.5x32 70" 225# 443,000#
B&M T-1a 28x30 63" 240# 393,000#
NKP S 25x34 69" 245# 428,900#
PM N 26x34 69" 245# 436,500#
L&N M-1 25x32 69" 265# 447,200#
C&O K-4 26x34 69" 245# 460,000#
P&LE A-2a 26x32 63" 230# 426,000#
DT&I n/a 25x30 63" 260# 411,500#
If you want any more railroads, just let me know.
Still hoping some reader will post the 2-8-4s data. At least the B&A's.B&M's and AMC (Nickle Plater, C&O, PM), but adding tyhe P&LE and Erie if possible, and also the L&N.
Maybe I'll have better luck asking for the on the TRAINS Steam & Preservation Forum?
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