Hello all,
I was looking at a map of the PRR greenwich yard in south philadelphia today, and I noticed that there was a narrow gauge track in the middle of the yard!
http://broadway.pennsyrr.com/Rail/Prr/Maps/Itlk/stadium.gif
It runs between the ore tracks in the loop in the middle of the map. Can anyone tell me what the purpose of the track was? Also, what gauge would it have been?
Thanks,
sfb
The narrow gauge track was used by "car pushers" also called "side arm pushers" to move cuts of cars on the ore loops. The Ore Yard crew would spot empties at the west end of the south side of the loops and the pushers would shove cuts (maybe 5 or 6 at a time) under the tipple to be loaded and then shove them around to the north side of the loops where the crew could take away the loaded cars to be made into a train. The pushers had a hinged arm that could be dropped down to contact the corner of a car right at the poling pocket.
To see a photo of PC Dock Pusher #4 at South Philly go to the NE Railfan website:
www.northeast.railfan.net
Go to "industrial" then to "Atlas" #4 should be down a ways on the right side of the page.
The South Philly pushers were diesel, but some pushers were electric. I never paid much attention to the track gauge, but would guess it was around 36" or 42"