mudchicken For the record, dates where things are today for clearances: 1958 - Uniform Model Law for Railroad Clearances (22'-6" OH) 1984 - Uniform Design Vertical Clearance for Freight Rail Catenary (24'-6" OH) 1988 - advent of the 9"-6" sea containers on double stacks (19'-4") 1994 - FRA push for 20-25' track centers depending on main track/side track/switching ladder tracks to protect railroad employees on the ground (before that the rules were solely aimed at a person on the side or top of a railcar) Balt is correct on the give and take process and the railroads slowly getting pinched into less and less elbow room. (Clearances tend to be worse in the east because of the older lines - All the proof you need is the effort required to open up eastern ports to stack trains during the past decade)
For the record, dates where things are today for clearances:
1958 - Uniform Model Law for Railroad Clearances (22'-6" OH)
1984 - Uniform Design Vertical Clearance for Freight Rail Catenary (24'-6" OH)
1988 - advent of the 9"-6" sea containers on double stacks (19'-4")
1994 - FRA push for 20-25' track centers depending on main track/side track/switching ladder tracks to protect railroad employees on the ground (before that the rules were solely aimed at a person on the side or top of a railcar)
Balt is correct on the give and take process and the railroads slowly getting pinched into less and less elbow room.
(Clearances tend to be worse in the east because of the older lines - All the proof you need is the effort required to open up eastern ports to stack trains during the past decade)
CSX's Howard Street Tunnel in Baltimore (the ultimate urban ditch for grade crossing avoidence) was construted in 1895 as a double track tunnel and performed for both passenger and freight for a number of years in that configuration. At sometime (I don't know when) a gauntlet track was put in place for freight operations - the gauntlet track followed the center of the tunnel to give freights the highest possible verticle clearance.
When passenger service from Baltimore to New York was ended in 1958 the tunnel was single tracked. Shortly thereafter, with the creation of the automobile import traffic from Dundalk Marine Terminal as well as increasing Trailer on Flat Car business the tunnel was undercut to permit the operation of 17' 5" open multilevel auto carriers at 10 MPH (17' 3" multilevels and TOFC could operate at the 25 MPH track speed).
The next change was a more serious undercutting (one that has the top of the rail at or below the water level of Baltimore's Inner Harbor) that permitted the operation of 19' 2" multilevels and stacks. However, this clearance plate will not permit the operation of 20' 2" multilevels and stacks - thus creating a marketing problem for CSX and the Port of Baltimore (there are additional clearence issues between Baltimore and Philadelphia that would have to be solved to permit 20' 2" operation to Philadelphia.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
diningcar Trenches, when appropriately planned for drainage and verticle clearance, are preferred. See Reno, NV and Littleton, CO for examples.
Trenches, when appropriately planned for drainage and verticle clearance, are preferred. See Reno, NV and Littleton, CO for examples.
The inevitible whining and bawling by local officials and non-railroad engineers (muggle-gineers?) about clearances usually is aimed at the costs associated with keeping the openings for future use laterally followed by the vertical clearance. Not helping is the bad guesses by civil engineers (The DelDOT and Cedar Rapids library fiascos come to mind) and ignorance by the general public promoted by the rubber tired bubbas (political and technical). Rubber tired vehicles can handle a much lesser runoff in grade than the steel wheeled vehicles when adjusting for height. I just got an eyefull of how bad the issue is in NYC earlier this week while the same knuckleheads ignore their own regulations regarding trucks in the city.
It amazes me how ignorant highway engineers, architects and politicians are of statutes regarding clearances and other railroad regulation for the sake of convenient political gain. They can't get it right on at grade crossings either - many times being told by the railroad commission/ PUC/DOT railroad section of their sins. Iowa tried to drop clearance regulations out of it's statutes and now has decided that that 20+ year ommission wasn't a good idea.
diningcarTrenches, when appropriately planned for drainage and verticle clearance, are preferred. See Reno, NV and Littleton, CO for examples. Usually RR's have had a variety of experience because of their diversity in so many locations and can negotiate so that a "one time fix' solves the problem. Sometimes the RR's can trade no longer needed extra width ROW in exchange for public participation in the overall cost. Developing good relations with those in public employment over the years can mitigate the sometimes hostile attitude of 'temporary' political elected officials.
Usually RR's have had a variety of experience because of their diversity in so many locations and can negotiate so that a "one time fix' solves the problem. Sometimes the RR's can trade no longer needed extra width ROW in exchange for public participation in the overall cost. Developing good relations with those in public employment over the years can mitigate the sometimes hostile attitude of 'temporary' political elected officials.
Will what is acceptably high in 2019 still be acceptable in 2069? 2119?
What was acceptably high in 1969 is not acceptable in 2019. What was acceptably high in 1919 was not acceptable in 1969.
Where railroads have been put into a 'trench' as the world of railroading has changed the bridges over the railroad in the trench have had to have been modified or replaced has the vertical height of rail cars has increased over the years. Such changes generally end up in a political fight over the cost of the the changes.
Similar improvements ("vertical relocations") were peformed in almost every major city and many smaller towns, often in the form of elevating the tracks on "Chinese walls".
Note that most of these involved a sharing of the costs between the railroads and the towns - an early version of what's now popular ("old is new again") of "3Ps" = "Public-Private Partnerships".
From an engineering perspective, raising the tracks was often preferred to lowering them. The tracks needed a higher overhead clearance - often in the range of 20 to 22 ft. to the bottom of the road bridges over them - than the roads, which typically ranged from 10 to 12 feet to the bottom of the railroad's bridge. Also, a track in a trench could be tough to drain water from, and would be a maintenance headache.
- PDN.
In the past, Americans were capable of infrastructure improvements deemed necessary or useful. In Aurora, IL, the CB&Q and the city raised and relocated the RoW in the 1920s. In Winnetka, IL "ON THIS DAY (May 10) in 1939, the old train station at Elm Street was demolished. The Winnetka stop was originally built at grade level when it served the Chicago and North Western Railway. As an increasing amount of railroad traffic came through Winnetka, the railroad crossings became unsafe, and 29 people had been killed at railroad crossings by 1937 despite safety efforts by the city and the railroad. After the deaths of two prominent Winnetka women at the Pine Street crossing on October 20, 1937 (hit by a train going backwards without its lights on at night), Winnetkans demanded that the grade crossings be removed. The city elected to put the tracks in a below-grade trench to avoid dividing the city with an elevated railroad. With the help of funding from the Public Works Administration, the tracks were lowered into a trench by 1943."
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