rcdrye Nevada County Narrow Gauge
Nevada County Narrow Gauge
That's one of them, Rob. The Nevada County Narrow Gauge RR ran for 21 miles from its connection with the SP at Colfax, CA to Nevada City, CA. The other road I'm looking for also connected with the SP.
Mark
Nevada-California-Oregon
rcdrye Nevada-California-Oregon
No cigar yet, Rob. The other road operated solely in Nevada.
Nevada Central between Austin and Battle Mountain (junction with SP). Source of Ward Kimball's Emma Nevada.
rcdrye Nevada Central between Austin and Battle Mountain (junction with SP). Source of Ward Kimball's Emma Nevada.
Bingo! That's the other one. Looking forward to your next question.
This interurban, famous for certain types of freight operations, operated joint services from 1922 to 1946 with a connecting carrier that were considerably less famous. Some of the features of the joint service included painting box motors in the other carier's colors, and the other carrier equipping its box motors to deal with different electrical pickup requirements.
The carrier famous for freight operations painted five of its box motors, better known under another name, dark green to match the partner. The partner in turn, narrowed the ends of five of ITS box motors (resulting in "Windsplitters") for a specific clearance problem while adding third rail shoes for power pickup.
Possibly Central California Traction and Sacramento Northern. SN had the 3rd rail, so CCT added the shoes.
SN had third rail as well. One of the two carriers I'm looking for did not have third rail on (or within 50 miles of) its own lines, though it merged into another line that got a little closer. Maybe it will help if I mention that one of the services was locally known as the "bathtub train".
The Fox Valley interurban and the CA&E? Or the Milwaukee Northern, then merged into the The Milwaukee Electric, and the North Shore?
daveklepperOr the Milwaukee Northern, then merged into the The Milwaukee Electric, and the North Shore?
Bingo. Several CNS&M Merchandise Despatch cars were painted dark green to operate north to Sheboygan, site of Kohler, then as now a major plumbing manufacturer. MN, later TMER&L cars M-25 thru M-29 were equipped to operate on the North Shore, including service to CRT's 63rd street lower yard on the South Side via the Loop, where CNS&M had a freight house. Through service via Milwaukee streets was discontinued in 1934, when the former MN's 6th street line was abandoned in favor of TMER&L's 3rd street line. MN was owned by TM during this entire period, though only fully merged into TMER&L in 1928. CNS&M MD cars continued to make semi-regular appearances on TM trackage until 1946, occasionally operating on other TMER&L/TMER&T lines.
CNS&M passenger equipment was also used for special runs to St. John's Military Academy in Delafield until the late 1930s, at least.
The Fox Valley interurban shared city track with CA&E in Aurora, Geneva, St Charles and Elgin. Rockford and Interurban did have third rail equipped box motors that operated on the CA&E, but the R&I connected with the Elgin and Bevidere less than 20 miles from Elgin, where CA&E's third rail began.
New York Railways, known in the City as"Green Lines," since their cars were painted green instead of the yellow-cream and bright red of the Third Avenue system cars, is thought of as an all-conduit system, without trolley poles on cars and without any overhead wire. But for a short time it owned three trolley-pole equipped cars, and actually these cars were also considered as part of their overall system long before this short time even though under other ownership. Why were these cars equipped with trolley poles and where did they operate? Who owned them before New York Railways? (And for most of this time, New York Railways, itself, was owned by General Motors.)
Did they run on Roosevelt Island?
Nope. But you have a basic idea. Think about the route of the NY and Harlem horsecars, after they were no longer combined with steam north of 42nd street, with steam staying on Park Avenue and the horse cars running on the new Madison Avenue. What was the northern terminal of the horsecar line?
Here's where my soft knowledge of New York fails me. There was a Fourth avenue car from Grand Central to the Brooklyn end of the Williamsburgh Bridge. I haven't found an NY Railways map with sufficient detail to get the north end.
That may have existed under Metropolitan St. Railway days, but as far as I know, all streetcar service over the Williamsburg Bride terminated in the underground streetcar terminal opened in 1903 along with what is now the present Essex Street subway station, which was the Manhattan terminal for the Broadway elevated's extension over the bridge to Manhattan. They may have been two additional tracks on the bridge, and these would be for the line you are referring to, and may even have been equipped with conduit.
The three cars I am referring to were owned by the New York and Harlem and passed to NY Ry ownership when that two line system, Madison and 4th, the main line, and 86th St Crosstown, were sold by the NYCentral to NYRy. They had been operated as part if the overall "Green Lines" system previously, with transfers to and from intersecting NYRy lines.
Hints: Part of the original "bypass" (Madison Ave) horsecar line was electrified with trolley wire before conduit electrification was established for most of the line (but not all received, conduit, otherwise, why the three pole-equipped cars?). There was a very good physical reason why the entire original line could not get conduit. The short stretch of track that had both conduit and wire was part of the next-to-last streetcar operation of any type in Manhattan, with only the Queensbridge line into the 2nd Avenue underground terminal lasting longer. During and after WWII, until abandonment after WWII, the unused conduit remained entirely visible. The streetcar line using the line used poles and was not ever considered a Manhattan line. I usually rode this line regularly as a teenager when coming home from certain trolley excursions, since it was at the time the closest streetcar line to my West 85th Street home, using a bus or subway for the final link.
Again, there was a very good reason why conduit could not be extended over the total extant of the horsecar line. The artifact of the reason outlasted the last streetcars that used it, and if replaced, was replaced only recently.
daveklepperThat may have existed under Metropolitan St. Railway days, but as far as I know, all streetcar service over the Williamsburg Bride terminated in the underground streetcar terminal opened in 1903 along with what is now the present Essex Street subway station, which was the Manhattan terminal for the Broadway elevated's extension over the bridge to Manhattan. They may have been two additional tracks on the bridge, and these would be for the line you are referring to, and may even have been equipped with conduit.
There were two conduit equipped tracks over the Williamsburg Bridge.
http://www.shorpy.com/node/9164?size=_original#caption
http://www.shorpy.com/node/7391?size=_original#caption
Murray Hill Tunnel?
The Murrey Hill Tunnel is still in use by Metro North. It was and is on Park Avenue. Additional tunnels were added when the line was four-tracked.
The horsecars and conduit electric cars did use a tunnel between 41st and 33rd Streets, now the Park Avenue Vehicular Tunnel, and it even had two stations in it, the remains of which you can see when driving though the tunnel. The Mnhattan, Williamsburg, and Qeensboro bridges all had at one time or another couduit streetcar track in addition to overhead wire. (On the Queensboro, the same tracks.) The Brooklyn had trolley wire only for streetcars.
What kind of bridge could not have conduit but could have trolley wire?
From one of the maps it looks one of the lines crossed into the Bronx on what was almost certainly a swing bridge, at the north end of Manhattan. It would have been possible to set up either a swing or bascule bridge with conduit, but hard to maintain tolerances for reliable operation.
You are on the right track. One last hint. North of 125th Street there was a station that nearly all NYC&HR trains stopped at that no longer exists. Possibly some NYNH&YH trains stopped there but possibly not. It did exist into the Metro North era. It had a street name like several of the stations between 125th Street and Mt. Vernon West. But in horsecar days and into the 20th Century it had a name: The _____. It was a large, well-patronized station, with a carriage/auto drive-way dropoff point and even was pictured in postcards. And it has completely disappeared.
So where did you suppose the northern end of the 4th and Madison Avenue horsecar line terminated?
138th St. "The Concourse"? I don't know that end of Manhattan well, but I do know it was upscale at the turn of the last century.
138th St. is correct, and an early Metro North timetable should show it. Up to sometime in the 20's it was "The Bronx." It was the north terminal of the New York and Harlem's horsecar line.
So where was the overhead wire?
Sorry, I got interrupted in my last post. When the 138th Street Crosstown line was constructed from way east Bronx at Southern Boulevard, to 135th Street and 8th Avenue (where one could use the 8th Ave. - Central Park West steetcar or the 9th Avenue Elevated, on 8th north of 110th Street) it used the horsecar tracks west of the station, across the swing bridge, and down Madison to 135th, with the stretch from to 138 with both conduit and wire, when Madison - 4th was finally electrified.
Originally, a crossover just south of 138th, with both wire and conduit, was used by the pole-equipped NY&Harlem shuttle cars (2 in service, 1 spare) and the conduit cars from Park Row - City Hall. But they got in the way of Third Avenue's 138th Street Crosstown. Cars from downtown then used a crossover south of 135th on Madison, and the shuttles to the station began using 3rd Avenue's crossover on 135th just west of Madison. I think NY&Harlem continued to run one or two downtown conduit cars to 138th each day for franchise reasons.
4th and Madison was the first "Green Lines" streetcar line to be converted to buses, in December 1935. But the shuttle to the station may have been discontinued without bus replacement a year earlier, a few months after the NYRy (GM) purchase. The 138th Street Crosstown ran until Spring 1948 and was the last Bronx streetcar line to enter Manhattan. Four other Bronx streetcar lines lasted until August 1948, Westchester lines other than Yonkers entering the Bronx (241 & White Pl. Rd./Av.) ran to sometime in 1950, and the Yonkers lines entering the Bronx (242 & B'way) in 1952.
Your question
Although Budd positioned the RDC as a car that could be towed as part of a train and then separated for branch line work, only two customers bought RDCs intending to use them in locomotive hauled trains.
Name the two railroads, and which one of the two had factory-installed steam lines in at least some of the RDCs it bought.
The New York Central regularly ran RDC's regularly in diesel-hauled trains and at the rear of electric mu-car trains, and was the only railroad that did both. For a while I believe there was one RDC that made a Cleveland - Cincinnati trip one way in a train and one-way self-propelled. The practice of running a RDC Poughkeepsie - Harmon and then hauling to GCT at the rear of an mu train of "AC mu's) 1000 and 1100 - series cars, was continued into PC days. Regular practice was to keep one of the two diesels on idle to handle lights and heat-or-air-conditioning.
For a while, WP ran its Zepherette behind a train between Oakland and Sacramento and then as a single car between Sacramento and Salt Lake City.
Both the B&M and the NYNH&H used RDC's in such a variety of ways, that I am sure there must have been some scheduled operation in regular trains on both. Ditto CN, but not CP.
Buying the car with steam lines seems like the WP or possibly the CN or CP. But you say some that it bought, and only the NYC, B&M, NYNH&H, CN, CP, Reading, and PRSL bought in quantity. Others, like the NP, C&O, CRI&P, had a few or as little as two or one. The PRSL also used them in trains, running single cars in the off season and trains during the summer, so it may have been the one with steam lines. The others usually ran their RDC's at the rear of the train.
But if I had to guess just one, I'd pick the CN.
New York Central was the railroad that had some RDCs with steam lines. The railroad I'm looking for used the car as an extension, (not a replacement) of one the company's trademark trains, carrying it idling along in a locomotive-hauled train for about half of its run.
The Reading could have done that with a locomotive-hauled train from Philly to Reading, with the RDC continuing on to Pottsville or Shamokin or Harrisburg.
I had also forgotten that the B&O owned quite a few Budd RDC's, and one of the name trains from the midwest to Washington could have carried a Budd car reversing and running to Baltimore after the Jersey City (New York via bus) service was eliminated. But that is not half the distance.
The New Haven could have operated its Cape Cod Flyer with a locomotive-hauled train Boston to Hyannis and the Budd car continuing on to Provincetown. I am sure this happened on occasion if not a daily event.
I think the C&NW had a few Budd cars, but not many. One may have regularly been in a Chicago - MIlwaukee loco-hauled train and then continued north up the Pininsula.
But on further consideration, I think the train you want is the RI's Choktow (Sp?) Rocket, from Memphis to Tucumcari. This was just an RDC when I saw it around 1960 or 1962 during the stop of the Kansas City - Florida Special in Memphis, but I understand is was a loco-hauled train part way earlier.
Login, or register today to interact in our online community, comment on articles, receive our newsletter, manage your account online and more!
Get the Classic Trains twice-monthly newsletter