Can you tell me what these mean???

[doanster]

Hello!

I just want to some definitions/explanations/differences with these terms that I am not familiar with:

-trunk line, belt line, branch line

-local and through freights

-head end power

-DC/AC traction

Also, I also read in a older book about some BNSF/CN merger to form North American Railways Inc. It is intresting but probably outdated info [|)]. Can I get more info?

Yes I know its a lot to ask in one post... but hey... I am sure there are a lot of knowledgeable railroaders here who wouldn't mind sharing wisdom with someone new to the hobby!

Thanks!

[twhite]

Good questions, Doanster--I'll try and help you with a few of them.
A trunk line is a mainline connecting two or more important cities. For instance, the New York Central's mainline between New York and Chicago, or the Pennsy's mainline between New York and Philadelphia (the term was used mainly back in the 19th and early 20th Centuries).
A 'belt' line is usually a switching line in a big city used to transfer cars from one connecting railroad to another (the Chicago Belt Line, for instance, connects traffic from UP and BNSF through Chicago to CSX and NS).
A 'branch' line is a secondary line connecting the main line with a town or an industry that is out of reach of the main traffic pattern. For instance, out here in California, the UP (ex SP) has a line that takes off from it's main Coast Line in San Jose, and travels north along the Pacific Coast serving small industries in towns like Aptos and Santa Cruz, which are not on the main line between San Jose and Los Angeles.
A 'through' freight is non-stop, dispatched specifically from one locale to another (Chicago-Los angeles, for instance), while a 'local' freight serves towns or industries all along its route.
Hope that helps at least part-way. BTW, if you're new to the forum--[#welcome]
Tom[:D][:D]

[doanster]

Tom:

Thanks for starting the reply!

Since you live in California (I live in Canada and it's still snowing [:(] ) I am assuming u know the SP pretty well. I need some prototype info on the SP as I am interested in the SP's former Pacific Fruit Express operations. Can you also give me some info on the Cotton Belt? (can I assume that the 'Belt' in Cotton Belt has some relevance to the definition of belt line that u mentioned?)

[ericsp]

QUOTE: Originally posted by doanster

Tom:

Thanks for starting the reply!

Since you live in California (I live in Canada and it's still snowing [:(] ) I am assuming u know the SP pretty well. I need some prototype info on the SP as I am interested in the SP's former Pacific Fruit Express operations. Can you also give me some info on the Cotton Belt? (can I assume that the 'Belt' in Cotton Belt has some relevance to the definition of belt line that u mentioned?)

If you want to know about PFE, I recommend this book, http://www.signaturepress.com/pfe2.html .

Cotton Belt (real name is Saint Louis and Southwestern) is named after the region of the country it originated in, the cotton belt.

[IRONROOSTER]

Traction generally refers to streetcars, trollys and interurbans. It can also refer to the electric motors used in streetcars, interurbans, diesels, and electric locomotives. AC and DC are the current types.
Enjoy
Paul

[AntonioFP45]

Head End Power:

Up unitl the 1970s, most passenger trains heaters in the winter time were powered by a boiler in the locomotive, steam or diesel. Hoses were connected from the locomotive to each car. In many photos you will see wisps of steam rising from the hose connections.

In the 1970s, long distance passenger trains gradually switched to "Head End Power" or HEP. Instead of boilers, locomotives supplied electricity to operate heating along with A/C and other accessories.

Some companies, like Massachusetts Bay Tranist Authority supplied a separate, smaller diesel unit on their locomotives for this. Their locomotives were special ordered with longer frames to accommodate the extra power plant.

Amtrak instead used the power directly from the main diesel in their locomotives, mainly the standard F40PH model.

If you wi***o become more familiar with prototype locomotives go to

http://www.railpictures.net

Very easy to use. You can see what the F40ph and dozens of other diesel locomotives look like. You can search by railroad or locomotive model. I would suggest searching by locomotive so you can see what they look like in various paint schemes.

Hope this helps! Ask questions anytime.

Cheers!

[BentnoseWillie]

QUOTE: -head end power

Electricity provided to railway cars by the locomotive. Abbreviated as HEP or "Hotel Power", this generally refers to passenger cars.

QUOTE: -DC/AC traction

The type of electric motor (traction motor) installed in a diesel-electric locomotive - Alternating-Current or Direct Current. Up until the 1990's DC motors were the rule, but AC motors have been increasingly used since the early 1990's, thanks to the same developments in frequency-drive motor control systems that caused the decline of DC motors in speed-controlled industrial applications in favour of AC. AC motors have fewer moving parts and are generally more robust and efficient, making frequency-based speed control something bordering on revolutionary.

QUOTE: Also, I also read in a older book about some BNSF/CN merger to form North American Railways Inc. It is intresting but probably outdated info . Can I get more info?

This proposed merger was stalled by a moratorium on railway mergers ordered by the US government's Surface Transportation Board in 1999. By the end of the moratorium CN and BNSF had mutually decided to pursue other avenues of growth, so the merger was stillborn.

[leighant]

I understand THROUGH FREIGHT a little differently than twhite. I understand there are quite a few end-to-end run-throughs these days but even these are not "non-stop".

In the period I model, 1950s, I think of through freights usually running from division point to division point (100 to 200 miles) without stopping to switch along the way. Of course, they would stop for opposing traffic and stop at division points to change crews and refuel. A lot of railroading is stopping.
Let's say a through freight is running on the Santa Fe from Kansas City to Los Angeles. It might be made up at Argentine Yard (Kansas City, Kansas) and run to a yard at Newton or Emporia where a cut of cars that diverged there would be taken off, and another cut put on. Perhaps at Amarillo, Texas, the train would be yarded again and at Belen, New Mexico, and at Barstow, California. I am not sure, I am away from my employee timetable books so these are just a for-instance.

From division point yards, local trains go out to deliver and pick up cars generally between that yard and the next division point, short distances under 100 miles or so. Let us take a car going from at factory in a suburb of Chicago to a consignee at say Florence, Kansas, a point on the mainline but NOT at a division point. It might be picked up by a Santa Fe local in Chicago or more likely a belt switching railroad and transferred to the Santa Fe. It would eventually go probably to Corwith, the big Santa Fe yard in Chicago. From there, it would go on a through train to Argentine, Santa Fe's Kansas City area yard. From Argentine, it would go into a local train that stops at each little town where there is business to handle between Argentine and the next yard.

On the Santa Fe, local trains in many areas were on a 6 days a week basis every other day. One day they would run in one direction, alternating days the other and one day a week off. (On a model railroad, you might choose to let how many operators you have available determine whether your operating session is on a regular weekday or the off day, when one or two fewer trains will run.) The alternating runs on different districts or subdivisions did not usually alternate as all running eastbound one day or westbound the next, but rather all locals outbound from one division on one day (and inbound that same day at the next division point). That way, if a car routed from 10 miles west of division point to a town 10 miles east of the division could be picked up by the first eastbound local through the originating town (on Day 1), and sent on from the division point to the destination town on the next day's local (Day 2), without having to wait at the division point until Day 3. The idea is to move freight as efficiently as possible with the fewest number of trains.
Where local traffic is heavier, there might be locals in both directions the same day, or "turns" that would go from a yard and return on the same run.



At the town of Johnson on my East Texas District of the Santa Vaca and Santa Fe, my layouts "main line" continuous loop represents a secondary mainline of the Santa Fe, a branch that cuts off the main trunk somewhere north of Houston and runs about 150 miles tthrough the Piney Woods country to the Louisiana border where there is a petrochemical port (Beaumont/Lost River).
There is one through freight train daily in each direction between Rio Viejo and Los River. The trains simply run through the visible scene at Johnston without stopping except to wait on an opposing train.
A doodlebug passenger runs eastbound in the morning towards Lost River with a Johnston station stop in town and westbound in the afternoon with a station stop. It would be called a local passenger train. If the Texas Chief came through here, it would probably not stop.
A local freight runs eastbound (counterclockwise on the layout) one day and westbound (clockwise) the next, and the main action on the layout is the switching it does at Johnston. If there is a car of pulpwood at Johnston scheduled to travel east to the paper mill near Lost River, the westbound local will usually leave it for the next day's local which will be going east.
The Big Piney mill is served by its own logging railroad which makes two runs a day out of Big Piney and back. (These moves are called "turns".) One run takes loads of lumber and woodchips to interchange with the SV&SF at Johnston, and picks up empty boxcars and empty woodchip gons, and loads of fuel oil at Johnston to go back to Big Piney. A run like this primarily handling cars to be interchanged is often called a "transfer", so this run would be the logging railroad's "Johnston transfer turn". The SV&SF locals handle the cars over the Santa Fe secondary mainline from Johnston, lumber west to lumberyards (unmodeled) in the Houston area and woodchips east to the chipboard mill (unmodeled) on the Louisiana border.
The logging railroad also runs a log train from Big Piney to Johnston and then by trackage rights over the Santa Fe to a reload spur. The log train (a "turn") carries empty log cars from the Big Piney mill, exchanges them with loaded log cars and takes the log cars back to the mill where they onto the log dump track.
There is also a through iron ore train that runs eastbound one day empty and westbound altnerate days loaded. (I alternate directions with the local train to use limited staging tracks.)

So on any one day, the layout would run 2 through general freight (1 each direction), 1 through ore train, 2 passenger "trains" (the same doodlebug going by once in ech direction), 1 SV&SF local train, 1 logging railroad transfer turn and 1 logging railroad log turn.

By the way, here is a term for which you do not ask for a definition because it seems so obvious, but in fact it isn't. Do you understand my use of the term "TRAIN". We may think of "train" as meaning a locomotive coupled with a string of cars. But in operating terms, "train" means a locomotive with or without cars making a run out over the line outside yard limits. The same set of equipment may make a scheduled (or extra) run east under one train number, and will be a different "train" when it comes back westbound. In order words, the term "train" refers more to the run than to the set of equipment. On the other hand, a set of equipment being shuffled in the yard is NOT a "train". It is not in the process of making a run and is not being operated according to running rules.

[doanster]

Wow, all this info. These forums are amazing! Thanks!

leighant: your prototype expertise has given me a new perspective on operations, as well as ur definition of 'train' lol. I owe you one!

[cwclark]

QUOTE: Originally posted by doanster

Tom:

Thanks for starting the reply!

Since you live in California (I live in Canada and it's still snowing [:(] ) I am assuming u know the SP pretty well. I need some prototype info on the SP as I am interested in the SP's former Pacific Fruit Express operations. Can you also give me some info on the Cotton Belt? (can I assume that the 'Belt' in Cotton Belt has some relevance to the definition of belt line that u mentioned?)

SP covered a wide area of the western U.S...the SP railhead starts in California going north to Oregon and west through the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Missouri with branch lines too numerous to mentiontraveling North and as far south as Mexico..There was another railhead that traveled north from Houston to Chicago also... The Cotton Belt or SSW (ST.Louis and Southwestern) was a subsidary railroad of the SP..their railhead started in Houston, Texas, went on to New Orleans, Louisiana, and then North to St. Louis, Missouri...It was not uncommon to see SP and SSW locomotives and rolling stock occupying the rails of both SPand SSW trackage, especially in the south... Chuck

[grayfox1119]

I'm glad you asked those ?'s, I learned a lot too.

[trainfan1221]

I guess leighant spoke for me. I was also going to point out that "through train" doesn`t mean that switching isn`t done along the way. It simply means a long distance train, sometimes not even that far, that officially terminates at a different terminal. Some of these trains exist to be nothing more than overgrown switch jobs, depending on route and circumstances.

[Dbcxyz123]

branch line = a Branch of a railroad[:P][:P][:P]

[ericsp]

QUOTE: Originally posted by cwclark

QUOTE: Originally posted by doanster

Tom:

Thanks for starting the reply!

Since you live in California (I live in Canada and it's still snowing [:(] ) I am assuming u know the SP pretty well. I need some prototype info on the SP as I am interested in the SP's former Pacific Fruit Express operations. Can you also give me some info on the Cotton Belt? (can I assume that the 'Belt' in Cotton Belt has some relevance to the definition of belt line that u mentioned?)

SP covered a wide area of the western U.S...the SP railhead starts in California going north to Oregon and west through the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Missouri with branch lines too numerous to mentiontraveling North and as far south as Mexico..There was another railhead that traveled north from Houston to Chicago also... The Cotton Belt or SSW (ST.Louis and Southwestern) was a subsidary railroad of the SP..their railhead started in Houston, Texas, went on to New Orleans, Louisiana, and then North to St. Louis, Missouri...It was not uncommon to see SP and SSW locomotives and rolling stock occupying the rails of both SPand SSW trackage, especially in the south... Chuck

There was also the line to Ogden, UT. Also, SSW bought the old Rock Island tracks from Tucumcari, NM to Herringtion, KS (it seems like they were able to get traffic rights to Kansas City). Rio Grande Industries bought SP in 1988. Extending the line from Ogden, UT to Denver and Pueblo, CO (it seems like DRGW got trackage rights on UP tracks from Pueblo to Kansas City as part of the UP-WP-MP merger).

[doanster]

Great!

Are the tracks to Ogden also known as the "Overland Route"? I recall seeing that term somewhere before :s

[philnrunt]

I have nothing to add to this posts answers, but this is the best example of why this is such a great forum.
A newbie asks questions, and gets not just basic answers, but really well thought out and in depth ones.
Makes me proud to be a small part of it, and Welcome to the best MR forum Doanster!

[ericsp]

QUOTE: Originally posted by doanster

Great!

Are the tracks to Ogden also known as the "Overland Route"? I recall seeing that term somewhere before :s

Yes. Central Pacific (bought SP and took on its name if I remember correctly) started at Sacramento, CA. UP started at Omaha, NE (if I remember correctly). They met at Promontory Point, UT, which was bypassed with the Lucin Cutoff (fill and bridge over the Great Salt Lake). Actually, they were building pass a meeting point for a while, then it was decided to join that tracks at Promontory Point, UT.

[sparkingbolt]

http://espee.railfan.net/espee.html

This website is the subject of another posted topic lately. It is a great source of info for S.P. and it's subsidiary lines (Cotton Belt, etc) Tons of locomotive pictures, and stations, cabooses, lots of stuff. Great site. Dan

[Jetrock]

The route of the Central Pacific from Sacramento to Promontory Summit, UT (NOT Promontory Point--that was about ten miles south, at the end of the peninsula into the Great Salt Lake.) became the "Overland Route" after CP acquired the SP. The SP route from Los Angeles through to New Orleans became known as the "Sunset Route." The route to Ogden came a few years later.

Central Pacific acquired SP for several reasons: first and foremost, to maintain their monopoly on interstate rail shipping in California, second, to provide an all-weather transcontinental route, since the Overland Route over the Sierras still got snowed in when bad weather hit, despite snowplows and snowsheds, and third, because the government got 5% of the CP's revenue over the Overland Route, and by routing most freight south they didn't have to pay as much money back to the government.

Cotton Belt engines generally didn't make it out to the west coast much, but since UP took over SP they tend to juggle engines a lot--in the past week I have seen one D&RGW Geep and a Cotton Belt SD in bloody-nose colors working around downtown Sacramento alongside UP-painted engines!

[Jetrock]

It should also be mentioned that many folks unfamiliar with American geography are surprised to learn that the Southern Pacific doesn't really pass through what Americans think of as the South (namely the old Southeastern states), but rather the southwest and west coast (the "Pacific" part, 19th century equivalent of ".com").

Kind of like the folks who don't understand why a railroad called the "Frisco" didn't run anywhere near San Francisco...

[jacon12]

Antonio,
I appreciate this:
"If you wi***o become more familiar with prototype locomotives go to

http://www.railpictures.net "
That is a great help to beginners!
Jarrell

[BentnoseWillie]

QUOTE: Kind of like the folks who don't understand why a railroad called the "Frisco" didn't run anywhere near San Francisco...

Or why a railroad from Omaha to Sacramento was celebrated as "transcontinental". [:P]

[Jetrock]

QUOTE: Originally posted by BentnoseWillie

QUOTE: Kind of like the folks who don't understand why a railroad called the "Frisco" didn't run anywhere near San Francisco...

Or why a railroad from Omaha to Sacramento was celebrated as "transcontinental". [:P]

Because there were already rails reaching from the east coast to Omaha, and there were already shipping lanes from Sacramento to San Francisco. Besides, it wasn't called the "Transcontinental Railroad" until after its completion--it was generally called the Pacific Railroad.

Also, the folks who built the Central Pacific all lived in Sacramento, and by defining Sacramento as the western terminus of the Pacific Railroad they didn't have to build an extra 150 or more miles of track down around the south end of San Francisco Bay and up to San Francisco (the technology to build the Bay Bridge wasn't around yet.)

As I recall there were similar decisions about the siting of the eastern terminus in Omaha that had to do with not wanting to build extra bridges and such, and due to the influence of General Dodge, UP's chief engineer, but I'm not as much up on UP history as CP.

And besides, as a Sacramentan, I recoil in horror when people assume the western end of the Transcontinental was San Francisco--almost as hard as San Franciscans do when someone says "Frisco" in their presence.

[BentnoseWillie]

We kept it simple and built our transcontinental from eastern tidewater to western tidewater. One railroad, one port at each end.

[;)]

[Jetrock]

Sixteen years after we did, without a civil war going on during the first half of construction. And, as mentioned above, we didn't NEED to build an eastern connection because there was already a railroad to run one to the East Coast.

[BentnoseWillie]

True, but we did have a rebellion or two during the construction effort, two big ranges of mountains between the pairies and western tidewater, and "two hundred miles of engineering impossibilities" that still bedevils operations along Lake Superior. Last but not least, we'd been a nation (as opposed to a collection of loosely colonies and uncontrolled territories) for less than a decade. It's hard to come away from any study of railway development in Canada unimpressed that we managed to build any railway, much less a transcontinental. Given the state of the fledgeling nation at the time and the physical, political and geographical obstacles that stood in the way, that shouldn't have happened for at least another fifteen years.

It's intriguing that even with the megamergers of the last fifteen years, there still isn't an all-US single-link transcontinental. I had expected UP to make it happen years ago. Even the abortive CN-BNSF merger, while creating an all-USA route, would have accessed eastern tidewater via Mobile - less than ideal routing when compared to the access that would be created by, say UP-CSX or UP-NS.

[Jetrock]

As I have mentioned before, there is no single-link transcontinental because there is no need for one. Shipping things from one end of the country to the other has been possible for 135 years. American laws about monopolies are another major reason why no one company had a transcontinental span to themselves--we don't like putting all our eggs in one basket, or at least didn't at the time, and thankfully those anti-monopoly laws are still in effect...hopefully to be used against Wal-Mart soon!