4 Track Main lines...NYC and Pennsy.

[Anonymous]

I was told that the NYC and Pennsy had 4 track mainlines running from NY to Chicago...Two tracks in the middle for fast freight and Passenger and the Outside two tracks for local freights. Further More NYC had 3 parrel routes cross NY state,The West Shore from Bergen NJ to Buffalo,The Peanut Line and the Niagara Line from Lockport NY..Yet today with Centralised trafic Control
and 2 track main lines and paired down RR system is it no wonder that CSX and NS say they have no more room for Amtrak and more trains. Oh and I forgot to mention that the Nickle Plate Line from Buffalo to Chicago was doulble tracked..

[Overmod]

And your question is... ???

One of the very important things Al Perlman did at NYC was to get rid of a lot of the four-track main, replacing it with efficient 2-track CTC. The West Shore (one of the lines you mention) was 4-track to Dumont (where the commuter district ended) then two tracks above that; by the time I started watching it in the 1970s it was essentially single-tracked (an extended 'siding' below Dumont made it technically double-track there, but one of the two tracks was much less maintained than the other). They still ran plenty of traffic on fast schedules.

Oh, yes: part of the electrified PRR main was six-track, not four-track. And they needed all six a lot of the time...


If you read the Trains Magazine article a couple of years ago about signaling, you can appreciate some of the fine points regarding how many 'tracks' you need on a modern railroad to give quality service. In most cases, you'd only need a four-track main for the kind of situation Pennsy found itself in: lots of fast passenger trains running at high speed, in both directions all the time, and lots of freight trains limited to 50mph also in both directions all the time. Even if you can separate the fast movements from slow movements in time, you can quite easily reduce the 'number of tracks' required for effective service. That was an early and effective point about CTC, including how you can effectively dispatch fast trains around slower ones in both directions with some care.

After Conrail's inception, lots of 'redundant' main lines were shucked or sent into 'secondary' retirement. In some cases, it's worthwhile keeping separate mainlines from merger partners and running traffic only one way on each -- ask politely and someone can probably give you a definitive list of places this has happened, with the specific reasons for each. Often, it's a matter of ruling grades.

Note that the savings both in track capital cost and in track maintenance resulting from reduction of 4 tracks to 2 can be substantial... IIRC, one of the most substantial seen by NYC was the reduction of local property tax on the narrower in-use ROW. The trade-off then becomes whether it's cheaper to increase speed (or speed uniformity) of traffic on route segments, or to increase the physical number of tracks. Only in special situations (as in Shreveport in the mid-90s) does it actually pay to put in more tracks. Things were different a hundred or more years ago...

[Junctionfan]

NYC and Pennsylvania railroads operated a mainline that ran from Buffalo into Canada and along Lake Erie all the way to Windsor and than went under the St.Clair River into Detroit. They abandoned it though after Conrail was split up and what a mistake it is. Would have been shorter for CSX intermodal to use that way than the Cleveland Subdivision.

[MP57313]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Junctionfan

Would have been shorter for CSX intermodal to use that way than the Cleveland Subdivision.

Was it because the tunnel under the St. Clair River was too small to handle double-stack trains? Or was the tunnel enlarged?

[Overmod]

Tunnel has been enlarged (by cutting away the floor) to give clearance for stack trains.

I think part of the "problem" is the part of the run that goes through Canada -- certainly no tax advantages for that portion of the ROW from the USA, and (Canadian politics being what it is) little change of a US company getting anything from Canada. That may have changed, perhaps dramatically, with CN and CP getting strongly involved in US railroading...

[Junctionfan]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Overmod

Tunnel has been enlarged (by cutting away the floor) to give clearance for stack trains.

I think part of the "problem" is the part of the run that goes through Canada -- certainly no tax advantages for that portion of the ROW from the USA, and (Canadian politics being what it is) little change of a US company getting anything from Canada. That may have changed, perhaps dramatically, with CN and CP getting strongly involved in US railroading...

Government is draging their feet a bit but they seem to want to get more rail line re-opened and protected. The old Canada Southern /Wabash Line is a great alternative because it is more direct for intermodal and for that matter for Buffalo/Detroit auto trains.

The Windsor tunnel last I heard was capable of carrying doublestacks as long as the containers are those small height ones. I have noticed that some container have a different height that the other. CP right now is the most active user of the tunnel and runs most of their intermodals single stack and cannot run their automax train down it. I heard that the government however is considering using the Windsor tunnel to connect the 401 highway to it.

[CShaveRR]

Pennsy had nothing to do with the Canada Southern line across Ontario, nor did it have any trackage in Canada (unless you count its interest in the Wabash, which did). And, If I remember correctly, Conrail sold off the CASO before the split.

Pere Marquette (later C&O) used the CASO east of St. Thomas to get across to Buffalo; it had its own lines between St. Thomas and the shores opposite Michigan, via both Windsor and Sarnia.

[locomutt]

Shades of the C&O Historical society[?]
Carl, I think you remember correctly,but wouldn't
that have been PC,not Conrail[?][:)]

[CShaveRR]

No, it was Conrail; this sale happened well after 1976, but before 1999.

[oltmannd]

The NYC and PRR arranged their 4 track mains differently (they rarely did anything the same!) The NYC had the tracks:

Passenger eastbound
Passenger westbound
Freight westbound
Freight eastbound

This arrangement kept passenger trains from high closing speeds with freights, which the NYC thought was safer. You can see the remenants of this track arrgt in places like Rome NY where the pass sta is on the main tracks. (I may have my east and westbound designations backward) It also led to some goofy things like the fly over between Selkirk and CP-169 that seems to serve no purpose today.

The PRR had'em like this:

Pass westbound
Frt westbound
Frt eastbound
Pass eastbound

They liked this arrangement because you didn't need to wided the ROW to fit a passenger station in - just put platforms along outside tracks.

[rrnut282]

QUOTE: Originally posted by trainfinder22


Oh and I forgot to mention that the Nickle Plate Line from Buffalo to Chicago was doulble tracked..

It was?[?] I'd like to know where. The only place I see double track on the old NKP is in Fort Wayne for about 10 miles. I thought that was part of the charm of the NKP, a fast single-track railroad out-hustling its multi-tracked competitors.

[Anonymous]

NKP-Buffalo to West Side of Cleveland....Anyway Railroads in many cases still own the right of way some times as much as 100 yards on each side of the tracks which leaves room for the goverment to build high speed Passenger only tracks. The QUESTION that I was leading too is that
why did railroads have no trouble acomidating there own fast and freiqunt passeger trains on 90 MPH schedules in the 1940s,But cant acomidate the one lone amtrak in the middle of the night...Answer is 4 track main lines!

[TH&B]

CSX did try to use the CASO for intermodal, a logical idea, they had running rights on Conrail's CASO. When double stacks became the norm the tight clearances in the tunnels at Dtroit ended that. CSX did not own the line and Conrail was not improving the clearances at the time. Now the CASO is closed as a through route wich is a major shame because it was very direct and what traffic now that could have used the CASO on the Canadian side runs mostly CN or CP whose lines go down the Niagra escartmant then up again. The CASO was relatively flat. Both CN and CP were interested in making sure that the CASO line would never fall in the hands of some compeditor hence they made a joint purchase and joint effort to close the middle section of the line for good. Also the line was well built but poorly maintained by Penn Central and Conrail especialy the large bridges.
I understand the CASO was once a signaled ABS double track 100mph steam railroad.

[Anonymous]

WHAT AM I TRYING TO GET AT[^] ? is that railroads have shed all there excess capasity over the past 32 years to the point were they have no room for high speed passenger and even there own high prority intermodal.
They used to have it were passenger and freight got along just fine but now they female dog everytime Amtrak or some commuter agency wants to add trains[?]

[espeefoamer]

Railroads have cut multiple track lines,and more than one line between the same two points,especially back in the 80s,that they cant handle traffic at current levels.This is the cause of much of UPs meltdowns.

[Anonymous]

Preserve as a welfare service? Railroads are unique corprate creature were in many cases were funded and created by granting state charters and land grants as much as 100 miles on either side of the tracks. If railroads were built today they would be built by state "Authoritys" Who would have bonding authrity.
It is a mistake to have national infrastucture like railroads in "Private hands"
Norfolk Southern has repeatly said in press releases that they dont want passnger trains on the same tracks as there freight trains.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by trainfinder22
Norfolk Southern has repeatly said in press releases that they dont want passnger trains on the same tracks as there freight trains.

Don't know were you heard that, around here for instance NS is looking into having Septa operate on its track from Philly to Reading which sees 10-20 trains a day.

[Junctionfan]

I agree with M.W Hemphill in that most areas do not need quadruple tracks other than the North East Corridor and CN Oakville Subdivision between Toronto and Oakville. I would wonder though why railroads don't at least make sure they have the land to so they at least have the option of double, triple or quadruple the track. In some areas you can't help that. You get what you get-technically you could attempt to ask the government to expropriate the land for you if it benifits the government. Of course what is the likely hood of that? I know first hand that the CASO is not being used between Attercliff and St.Thomas. It could be redone except for the some of the property that would need to be bought. They could get running rights on the CP Hamilton Subdivision at Welland since it joins up. CP has a double track tunnel underneath the Welland Canal that can take automax clearances. CP does not use the old CASO line between Port Colborne and Fort Erie because they decided that it would be better to junction on to CN at that point so they share the line toward Buffalo. The old line is currently a storage siding for old 86 foot autoboxes. Welland tunnel is being worked on by CP and the government is considering using it for the boarder to join up directly with Highway 401. There is legislation in effect provincially that protects lines from becoming bicycle paths and other stupid uses. The federal government also has something in place that makes it that if you are not using it but the service is in demand you either must sell it or use it. It has something to do with the Competition Act. Basically if CSX wanted it badly enough, the government would be forced to make CN and CP sell if they aren't going to use it. NS would likely want to use it as well. Amtrak would likely want to use it and Via, well you never know. Basically the CASO is out and the CN used to be NS Cayuga Subdivision is trackless in most spots so all it is is land not being used but CP and CN still pay taxes on.

[kenneo]

QUOTE: Originally posted by M.W. Hemphill

I'm sorry, neither abandonment of multiple-track main lines nor the abandonment of more than one line between the same two points has had any significant influence on UP's current service difficulties. Other things, yes, but not that.

Mark

Not completely true. A large "straw that broke the camels back" in Texas just after the merger was taking much of SP's SIT trackage that duplicated the MP's SIT tracks out of service forcing storage to take place on "operating" tracks rather than SIT trackage. The railroad constipated in part because of this act.

Also, the current traffic flow constipation problem they have along the I-5 Corridor is the closing and then dismanteling of the Eugene Hump Yard. This worked OK with Roseville and Albina doing what Eugene had done until traffic levels crept up past Albina's and Rosevill's capacity. UP has delayed the Cascades and Starlight as long as five hours just getting the 10 miles between Canby and Brooklyn. The State of Oregon has helped some in completing the double track (the signals needed to be done) and upgrading it to CTC between the Steel Bridge and Willsburg Jct, but last I heard was that the two sidings south (Clackamas and Coalca) were either taken out of service or shortened.

To be sure, this is not the sole reason, nor the biggest reason, even, for UP's problems, but when the traffic can not move through or bypass Roseville and Albina effeciently for whatever reason, this whole neck of UP's system gets a noose put around it, and then the problem quickly spreads to the Bay Area, Los Angeles and Seattle (Argo) because they can't dispatch trains through Roseville or Albina and then they start clogging up.

Would leaving Eugene alone have helped this situation? To the extent that Los Angeles and the Bay Area built trains to bypass Roseville to be humped at Eugene for points north, and Spokane, Hinkle and Argo built trains to be humped at Eugene for the Bay Area and Los Angeles, yes, it would. We had a 3,000 car per day capacity at Eugene that would have really helped in building trains to bypass Roseville and Albina. This would have releaved stress on them, which in turn would have kept things more fluid.

Of course, you have to have crews and locomotives which UP does not have enough of, but if you follow the dominoes back far enough, it was not hiring "excess" T&E about 5 years in advance of their need (training and experience time) that appears to be at the root of all of these problems. When things stop moving for any reason, what may not have mattered yesterday shuts you down today.

[kenneo]

QUOTE: Originally posted by M.W. Hemphill

Eric:
Now, where did you mention multiple-track main lines and alternate routes in your message? (I just have to pull your leg on this one.)

I didn't include yards, SIT tracks, and sidings because I knew better.

SP had already started this, by ripping out house tracks, which as you know ends up with the CTC siding blocked by any bad-order setout.

MWH

[#offtopic][#offtopic]
Mark

I had that (the hard time) figured out early on! [wow] I remember saying something in a different thread when you said we were off topic (we were) and I said something like "stuff it". What goes around comes around - which is the definition of a balloon track.

Yes, "The Friendly" was doing that. House tracks and set-out spurs. But I didn't think they were doing that to yards and SIT tracks. I can remember working at Brooklyn (the interlocking, now gone into the double track), and because of the way the radio receptions worked, I could talk with trains between Hito and Brooklyn, but as soon as a train started down the hill from Canby to New Era, the dispatcher lost reliable communication. Thus, for all practical purposes, I was a partner with the dispatcher in working that railroad.

And I can remember, in one short morning, blocking Clackamas, the Oregon City siding, Coalca, Canby siding and Hito with one car each for the RIPS to go rescue. Even though Oregon City and Canby were Train Order sidings and not signaled for CTC, we could still use them if need be. Until they got fixed, we had 35 miles without a siding. [#oops] Not a good way to run the railroad. When I hired out in 1964, we had setout spurs at each end of a siding.[banghead]

[Overmod]

Much of the resistance to Amtrak/commuter trains operating over freight railroads involves 'unfunded mandate' concerns relating mostly to service delays IIRC.

Amtrak trains, operating considerably faster in some cases than freight service on the same line and trying to keep to a schedule, can cause significant delays to other trains, in both directions, even on double-track lines. Commuter trains can pose the same difficulty, and even if they accelerate quickly, the relatively large number of stops can produce a route-clogging overall slow timing. Much of the infrastructure improvement for better or faster running of Amtrak's 'semi-fast' passenger service (bowing to Mark's definition of 'high-speed passenger') involves significantly higher expense, and higher maintenance as well; CSX is probably in the process of discovering an additional disincentive to running Amtrak service after the Point of Rocks incident, as the tort lawyers have a field day. A very quick and effective way to avoid passenger injuries is to avoid passengers...

I spent some time in Cobb County a couple of years ago, often watching trains on the NS Birmingham line in Douglasville. It was not unusual to see no trains for hours before Amtrak came through westbound, followed by a string of 5 or 6 freights on very short headway. There would be a bunch of eastbounds tied up east or north of Austell waiting to go after the logjam of westbound traffic following Amtrak had gotten by. The disturbance a single faster train causes on an otherwise slower railroad was quite well described in Trains a while back (in the article on Santa Fe signaling).

You'd really need a three- or higher track mainline to get around this problem, which isn't particularly cost-effective to maintain just for Amtrak. But listen to the screams of indignant customers and politicians when Amtrakers get stuck 'in the hole' to let freights go by, which I remember happened a lot in the '70s and may still happen in many places today...

[Overmod]

Why is it that I remember (at least on the electrified mainlines) that PRR put the fast passenger trains on the center tracks, leaving the outside for freight (including peddler switching) and commuter trains? That's one reason that 'high iron' was called that; the inside tracks were on a higher grade for overall drainage...

[daveklepper]

Note that the old New Haven main line is still 4-track from Woodlawn, the junction with the ld NYC Harlem Division, to Bridgeport, and then 3-track, one track removed, to New Haven. The LIRR main line from Harold Tower to Jamaica and a bit beyond is also 4-track. Regarding Pennsy practice, I rode corridor trains running express on both inner and outer tracks in both directions and even experienced left-hand running on occasion. On the New Haven over the engineer's shoulder I saw 110 mh on the UA Turbotrain running westbound on the eastbound inner track from Portchester to New Rochelle. This was after the Turbo was switched from GCT to Penn. We will probably see more 4-track areas in the future. But they will be two two-track railroads. One pair for the commuter authority or high speed rail and one for the freight railroad that is the landlord. Note the 3-tracking of the ex-SP Penninsular Line, SF-San Jose, Metro North's Harlem Division above Mt. Vernon (already 4-track below to GCT) and some Chicago commuter lines as well!

[kenneo]

Mark

Again, a bit off topic ...............[#offtopic][#oops] (but focused on multiple track routes)

Describe how the Santa Fe's spurs are located/built. If they are like I think they are, they wiill be trailing point for right-hand current of traffic at the trailing point end of the siding. That would make sense for B/O setouts. Best arrangement would be a trailing point spur at each end for bi-directional operation, but a CTC switch, installed, costs well over $100,000 a pop plus $2,000,000 a mile for the roadbed and track and trim, so don't think the most/best arrangement will have been used.

Back on topic (OK, closer to the topic)............... the UP (old SP) is getting bits and pieces of double track in the Willamette Valley (East Portland - Willsburg Jct now in place and operational) with a second main in the works between Irving and Natron (through Eugene). I think that it's a couple of years or more out.

Where they really need it is the hill above Oakridge -- between Oakridge and Cascade Summit at the least, but between Hampton and Crescent Lake would be better. I can remember as many as 64 movements in one trick (8 hour shift) above Oakridge. And that, on a single track CTC main is a lot of movements with 1/3 uphill and 2/3 down. (For those who don't see the reason, remember you have to get the helpers back - that counts as one move, but going up in the trains they don't count as a move. So you have 21 up (with 21 helpers) and 42 down.) You don't have a speed differential here except for freights loaded to the [censored], but the passengers go first, then the pigs, and then the manifests and lastly the drags.

The Sunset used to be double tracked most of the way from El Paso to Yuma. ---- Oh yes it was. The line through Phoenix acted like a very long directional siding and the passenger main, and the EPSW (El Paso Southwestern, originally built and owned by Phelps-Dodge between El Paso and Douglas was called the South Main and normally carried the passengers and eastward freights while the North (present) Main handled freight trains in both directions. Only the track between Phoenix and Eloy and Tucson and the Mexican boarder remains and the latter now is a short line.

[Junctionfan]

Is it true that the River Line of CSX between Albany and New York is single tracked. If so why is it single tracked?

[Overmod]

Do you mean the ex-West Shore (as I think you do) or the old NYC&HR trackage on the east side of the Hudson?

The former has been single-track above Dumont since at least the early '70s, although originally graded and built for double track (this was the PRR's answer to the South Penn Railroad in the early 1880s). CTC allows it to handle a perfectly reasonable amount of traffic, certainly as much as can be handled through the yards and facilities at the south end. Even the tunnels through the Palisades to Weehawken are no longer used for freight service (converted to bus and light rail use now)

The latter was 4-track, converted to double-track CTC in the Perlman years, above Harmon, and AFAIK is still double-tracked in that section. Below Harmon it is four track... and all four tracks are often used, believe me! For sheer amusement, take a northbound train from 125th Street, and try to guess what track your train will show up on (you get about 30 seconds warning, and that is NOT enough to get from one platform down to street level (intermediate stairs closed) and then back up...

[kenneo]

QUOTE: Originally posted by M.W. Hemphill

Eric: That's correct .

More than a few people have prosposed reopening the Phoenix Line (it's still in place) to increase capacity on the Sunset Route, but I am dubious that this makes sense. The track structure is poor. SP apparently quit spending money on it about 30 years ago and ...... the real problems on the Sunset are its inability to accept and process trains in the terminals, especially West Colton.

Now you're making me go find the profiles on the EP&SW between Benson and El Paso to see its characteristics of grades, curves, etc. Thanks a lot! :)

I blanch at the cost of extending sidings on the hill between Oakridge and Cascade Summit. I can think of a few that could be done on one end, but the tunnels and bridges -- yikes. Hampton to Oakridge could be done in most areas.

Try this link for the EPSW ... http://www.railserve.com/jump/jump.cgi?ID=4396

Double tracking the hill would indeed be huge in $$$, but between the Salt Creek Trestle and Oakridge and West Fir and Hampton there is one long bridge and two short tunnels, and that accounts for about 1/3 of the 2.2%. Above Salt Creek to Fields you have the middle rung of Oregon's version of the Giant's Ladder (still 2.2%) and one horseshoe tunnel. Above that, of course, its high trestles, tunnels, snow sheds and rock sheds all the way to the top. But then, you know that.

The point is, part of the route can be double tracked without a bill looking like the national debt. Also, part of the point is that all three of the north south routs in Oregon have real serious bottlenecks that need help.

Even though, as you say, that the real problem is no/too small yards, the Cascade, Sacramento Canyon and Tehatchapi (spelling is wrong) all need very serious help in the capacity area. The pulling up of the second main over Donner was really stupid. Really really stupid. Those three lines put such a severe bottleneck on fluidity -- one oops --- I remember the Memphis section of the PSSE put ONE WHEEL on the ground above Fields and it took 18 hours to get it back on the track and trains moving again.

Absolutely unreal. The helpers got the rear end back to Fields, but the road power was trapped by a non fitter out of Cruzette that couldn't back up the hill and so a lite set had to be called out of Klamath Falls to pull the non-fitter back to Cascade Summit and the M-PSSE had to double to Odell and then go back and frog the offending [censored][banghead][banghead][banghead] wheel back on. It is really amazing what can happen when a very tiny amount of [censored] hits the fan even when the fan has a blown fuse.

[oltmannd]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Junctionfan

Is it true that the River Line of CSX between Albany and New York is single tracked. If so why is it single tracked?

It was downgraded due to the PC merger. PC figured they no longer needed a strong frt route to North Jersey from the west since they had the PRR mainline (now the NEC). They ripped up the second track and put in "poor man's" CTC - nonsignalled sidings.

With the advent of Conrail and the NEC going to Amtrak, plus the growth of intermodal, everything changed. The River Line became the weak link in Conrail's primary route between NY and Chicago. Signalling was upgraded and some of the double track was restored. CSX has since restored some more double track. It is unlikely that the whole like could be doubled tracked again since the tunnels were undercut to allow double stacks and undercutting some more to allow for two tracks would place them below river level.

[Junctionfan]

Thank you all for the information. I was concerned for CSX and how they were dealing with the New York bound trains particularly the intermodals and how they managed.

[daveklepper]

At 125th Street one squints to the south to try to guess which of the trains approaching is the one you want and soon as it is recongnized, etiher stay in place or zip to the other platform. Of course decent signage and good public address announcements may have have solved the problem by now. Generally a northbound train one what would normally be the southbound local track is a Hudson Division train. If its is an mu electric it is probably a local for Croton Harmon, if diesel pulled an express for Pughkeepsie. Similarly on the two northbound tracks on the east platform one looks to see if the ekectruc cars have pantographs and an orange stripe, meaning New Haven equipment for Stamford or New Haven, or blue without pans for Hudson and Harlem, and so forth. I'd assumed dencet PA and electric signes or TV screens had solved the problem by now.