When teaching Railroad Engineering at PSU (a few students still around in high places ) I gave one class the project to analyze capacity on the curve vs. train movements we got from CR to see if 4 tracks were necessary . We took a field trip down to the curve to have a look. No one noticed that spikes/ rail anchors etc were already removed from one track!
OldViking Years ago I bought small booklet at the gift shop at Horseshoe Curve. The booklet has since been lost, or it was lent to someone and never returned. One of the pages, providing statistics, listed the all-time record of train and helper movements over the curve in one 24 hour period. I do remember that the record occurred on a day in 1943 during World War II. Considering the technology of that period, the numbers were jaw dropping. Does anyone have that information or know of a site where I could find it? I have searched the net without any luck.
Years ago I bought small booklet at the gift shop at Horseshoe Curve. The booklet has since been lost, or it was lent to someone and never returned.
One of the pages, providing statistics, listed the all-time record of train and helper movements over the curve in one 24 hour period. I do remember that the record occurred on a day in 1943 during World War II. Considering the technology of that period, the numbers were jaw dropping.
Does anyone have that information or know of a site where I could find it? I have searched the net without any luck.
Charles R. Robert's book "Triumph I Altoona to Pitcairn 1846-1996" includes a report (pages 330-334) that PRR did on traffic and delays between Pitcairn (Pittsburg) and Altoona on April 6, 1945, roughy a month before Germany surrendered. My summary of this report will concentrate on the helper territory between Conemaugh and Altoona.
While the original question was about Horseshoe Curve, it was and is on the west slope that the heaviest tonnages were/are lifted. This segment of the PRR was designed, and planned to handle its heaviest tonnage eastward and a much lighter tonnage westward. For much of the line's history eastward tonnage was 3 to 4 times that of westward. Ruling grade eastward was/is 1% while westward it is 1.75%, generally not compensated for curves, call it 1.8%.
The original report speaks in terms of blocks between towers. AR is at the top of the montain, Slope is at Altoona, and AO is at Conemaugh. Helpers were added to westward trains at Altoona and to eastward trains at AO. Helpers were cut out at AR and returned to their respective starting points.
Traffic was as follows:
AO-AR AR-SLOPE
East West East West
Passenger 50 51 50 51
Freight 69 62 67 36
Light Helpers 2 111 89 2
Local/work 3 3 1 2
TOTAL 124 227 207 91
The report does not explain the low number of westward freight trains between SLOPE and AR. I suspect that most of the difference is that they used the Muleshoe Curve line. In addition, a mostly coal branch joined the main just west of AR. If this coal moved largely west, toward Pittsburg, that could account for some of the difference.
While this was not THE peak day it is probably representative of a typical day during World War II.
Mac McCulloch
alphas By the way, this gentleman was one of only 2 survivors in the last car of a Long Island railroad train that was telescoped by a following LI train about 1950. He would go on to be the last Treasurer of the private LIRR, quiting it and coming to PSU when Mayor Lindsey took it over.
By the way, this gentleman was one of only 2 survivors in the last car of a Long Island railroad train that was telescoped by a following LI train about 1950. He would go on to be the last Treasurer of the private LIRR, quiting it and coming to PSU when Mayor Lindsey took it over.
I knew him as well, he was treasurer of PSU as I recall. He used to talk about PRR board meetings held on a business car running between NYC and DC. They would open and close the board meetings of the various subsidiarys of the PRR taking almost the whole trip to get them all covered. Nice memory, thanks.
I had both the opportunity & pleasure of working for a SR VP at Penn State that had started his career working on the Pennsy in the later 30's. He was a Trainmaster for awhile during WWII working the 3rd trick from Pittsburgh to Altoona. Based on what he told me, he had some tricks where about 200 trains were moving on that division. Its been awhile but I remember that he told me they would start the freights as little as 5 minutes apart using controlled speeds. They sometimes carried 2 rear brakemen so that if something happened to back traffic up, the rear brakeman who went back to flag could be picked up by the trailing train so as to not delay the flow any more than necessary. They also had maned spare engines stationed at strategic points so if an engine threw a rod or staled out, they could get one to help out ASAP. The passenger trains ran in multiple sections except for the more "local" ones. I'm suspicious based on what he told me that the 50 daily passenger trains figure mentioned in Wickapedia does not take those multiple sections into account. And it was a very rare night when they weren't running unscheduled troop trains over the curve. But it wasn't just Horeshoe curve that was involved. The Muleshoe curve was used to its capacity and the old main line via Holidaysburg and Alexandria was also heavily used to avoid the bottleneck of the Tyrone to Petersburg area which included the Spruce Creek Tunnels.
One site always worth searching is the global library catalog Worldcat http://www.worldcat.org/ . No guarantees that all library titles are listed, but I can find many of the obscure titles listed on this forum.
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Hi, Try this link https://www.hscnrhs.org/ This will connect you with the Horseshoe Curve Chapter of the NRHS. They might have the info you are looking for in their archives.
I ran on on-line search, but I could not find the information that you are looking for.
According to Wikipedia, the curve saw as many as 50 passenger trains per day during the 1940s, plus numerous military and freight trains.
If you live in a large city with a full service library, you might ask the reference libriarian to run a search for you. Also, you might contact the Railroads Memorial Museum in Altoona, the Association of American Railroads Library, and the Pennsylvania State Library to see if they can help you find the information.
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