The 1940 time table shows 50 mph for passenger trains, 35 mph for freight trains.
In 1940 the line was still listed as a "main line." There was a daily passenger train, listed as a passenger "motor" which is one of the gas electric cars. There was a daily except Sunday second class freight train. These trains ran through Estherville, the freight trains to/from at least Silvis, the passenger trains at least to/from Cedar Rapids.
There was also a daily except Sunday local that worked into Sioux Falls, Mon, Wed, Fri and worked out of SF Tue, Thurs and Sat.
Here's an on-line copy of the last ETT to show the line intact to Sioux Falls. 1972-01-01CRIP_DesMoines1-Moore.pdf (wx4.org) It still shows 35 mph for all trains, although by that date I would bet there were a lot of temporary speed restrictions. Trains weren't scheduled and passenger service was a memory.
It also shows in the subdivision special instructions all trains to run 10 mph within the city limits of Sioux Falls. The 1940 ETT may show the same, probably does, but the 1940 one has the subdivision special instructions in another section of the time table.
Jeff
timz You're talking about the path that runs north from https://goo.gl/maps/R6u5ED82JzbyAfgr5 ? That path isn't on the Rock roadbed -- it's less than 70 feet from the MILW track, and the Rock wasn't that close. No railroad that aspired to run more than 2 mph would climb 13.5 feet in 750 feet, then level for 500 ft, then descend 11 ft in 500 ft. I don't know the Rock Island well enough to find its speed limit to Sioux Falls, but wx4.org likely has an employee timetable from the good old days. https://wx4.org/to/foam/maps/and_timetables.html (Actually, a quick look there wasn't enough to find the right timetable. Anyone got one?)
You're talking about the path that runs north from
https://goo.gl/maps/R6u5ED82JzbyAfgr5 ?
That path isn't on the Rock roadbed -- it's less than 70 feet from the MILW track, and the Rock wasn't that close.
No railroad that aspired to run more than 2 mph would climb 13.5 feet in 750 feet, then level for 500 ft, then descend 11 ft in 500 ft.
I don't know the Rock Island well enough to find its speed limit to Sioux Falls, but wx4.org likely has an employee timetable from the good old days.
https://wx4.org/to/foam/maps/and_timetables.html
(Actually, a quick look there wasn't enough to find the right timetable. Anyone got one?)
I have a couple from the 1940s and the last one that still showed the line to Sioux Falls, Jan 1 1972. I won't be home until sometime Friday.
In the mean time, here's a pdf of a train dispatcher's sheet with the Sioux Falls line on it from 1913. (I have one from June of 1912.) You can get a feel for the running times on the line. CRI&P Dakota Division 3-28-1913 (wordpress.com)
Historicaerials has topo maps of the area from 1964 and 1972, plus some later. Might prove useful.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
I wouldn't think it would be that hard to find a map of the area in question from about 1970 to see how it actually was. You might find something online, or at a local historical society.
Old maps of Sioux Falls (oldmapsonline.org)
The new highway has a cut
https://goo.gl/maps/BEmDQE3aD7b1GJWV6
The highway is wider than the RR so needed to enlarge the cut -- maybe raising the highway made the cut cheaper.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Murphy Siding Overmod Tad over 1.8% grade. Now I'm intrigued. I did some ballparking and I figure a spot on the line looks like this: up for about 750 feet @ 1.8%,then flat for about 500 feet, followed by back down about 500 feet @2.2%. Let's say a Rock Island train was headed down this track around 1970. It would have probably been a mixed local with a variety of cars, but not too long. Power would have been a jeep or two and it would have had a caboose. How would the engineer have handled this portion of track? Plodding along, losing speed up the hill and picking up speed going down? Giving it the gas approaching the hill so as not to lose speed? Or maybe doing nothing special because it's not much of a hill? Was slack action much different in 1970 than today?
Overmod Tad over 1.8% grade.
Tad over 1.8% grade.
Now I'm intrigued. I did some ballparking and I figure a spot on the line looks like this: up for about 750 feet @ 1.8%,then flat for about 500 feet, followed by back down about 500 feet @2.2%.
Let's say a Rock Island train was headed down this track around 1970. It would have probably been a mixed local with a variety of cars, but not too long. Power would have been a jeep or two and it would have had a caboose. How would the engineer have handled this portion of track? Plodding along, losing speed up the hill and picking up speed going down? Giving it the gas approaching the hill so as not to lose speed? Or maybe doing nothing special because it's not much of a hill?
Was slack action much different in 1970 than today?
Slack action is always a consideration in train handling, no matter how long the train is - ESPECIALLY if there is a Caboose that is occupied. Slack action CAN cause employees on the Caboose to be thrown around within the car and in some cases thrown off the caboose.
Not being a Engineer by trade, I won't comment on the 'tricks of the trade' that a Engineer uses to get their train over such territory SAFELY. The tricks of the trade will be centered upon controlling the slack in the train.
Bad engineers can easily throw a man riding the side of a car off the car with slack action.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Overmod Unless I've forgotten, 12' in ½ mile is less than a 0.5% grade. The ex-Southern line from Memphis to Chattanooga, which sees many heavy trains a day, has grades of this magnitude. The ex-Erie mainline had stretches of 'sawtooth' 1% on the Western end. On the other hand, I'd expect that much of the early B&O would likely be built on the same principle as the contemporary British railroads, carefully avoiding grade changes but using potentially sharp curves in the process.
Unless I've forgotten, 12' in ½ mile is less than a 0.5% grade. The ex-Southern line from Memphis to Chattanooga, which sees many heavy trains a day, has grades of this magnitude. The ex-Erie mainline had stretches of 'sawtooth' 1% on the Western end.
On the other hand, I'd expect that much of the early B&O would likely be built on the same principle as the contemporary British railroads, carefully avoiding grade changes but using potentially sharp curves in the process.
Most of the railroads, at least in much of the midwest and wesrern US were built toward the cheap and quick side. The main routes were upgraded, including total line changes in the 20th century, and improvements continue to this day. PSR permitting.
All the major trunk lines that crossed Iowa were no exceptions. The ex-CNW (UP) has at least 5 locations where, if you know where to look, where the alignment was leveled off and straightened out when the line was double tracked in the early 1900s.
Had Sioux Falls developed into a major point on the RI, either has a terminal or intermediate point, the line probably would've been improved. Since it didn't , the improvements never came.
wjstix Murphy Siding For example, in a half mile stretch the Rock Island ROW rises and then drops 12 feet. The fact that those dips are there now in the bike path doesn't necessarily mean they were there when it was a railroad line.
Murphy Siding For example, in a half mile stretch the Rock Island ROW rises and then drops 12 feet.
The fact that those dips are there now in the bike path doesn't necessarily mean they were there when it was a railroad line.
wjstix... Murphy Siding For example, in a half mile stretch the Rock Island ROW rises and then drops 12 feet. The fact that those dips are there now in the bike path doesn't necessarily mean they were there when it was a railroad line.
Carriers, without a proper financial footing and capitalization, tended to build their tracks on the lay of the land, rolling through hills and valleys. It costs money to do grading and put trackage on a steady footing - making a cut through a hillock and filling the dale.
Growing up around the B&O, I notice early on that trackage was construted on a steady line. When I got down to Jacksonville and viewed how the CSX tracks around the city took the lay of the land over hill and dale. Such construction was indicative of Southern railroading eminating from the Civil War era where the North was a industrial area that was investing heavily into railroads and manufacturing. The South by contrast was agrarian in nature and was continually searching for someone to invest in their plantations and railroads.
Wood - particularly if it's been creosoted - that's completely buried in the ground is going to be around for a long, long time...like hundreds of years long. It's wood exposed to the elements that's going to rot. That's why you paint your house, to protect it from sun, rain, heat, cold, wind. A lot of what destroys exposed wood is temperature shifts - water seeps into the wood from rain then freezes when it gets cold, cracking the wood and allowing more moisture and air inside. Wood that's underground is in an environment with a very stable temperature and humidity, and little access to air. It can almost be like it's sealed in.
Murphy SidingI find this a little bit troubling, as I'd always heard that the Rock Island line was a mighty good road.
That line from the old song has more to do with the Rock Island being one of the few railroads that would hire railroaders fired from other railroads for participating in the Pullman Strike of 1894. It wasn't an accurate reporting of the quality of the railroad, which was often struggling financially due to it's tendency to be the last railroad to reach a city, usually by the most roundabout route possible.
Murphy SidingFor example, in a half mile stretch the Rock Island ROW rises and then drops 12 feet.
With respect to filling in wood trestles, the following data on shrinkage in fills was taken from the 1924 Edition of the Electric Railway Handbook. The two scenarios are "raising under traffic" and "trestle filling".
Soil type Raising Trestle
Black dirt 5% 15%Clay 5% 10%Sand 5% 6%
With respect to wood rotting when buried in soil - I've seen telephone poles stand for decodes, albeit they are treated with creosote. The same handbook mention above stated that placing concrete against a wood pole at the ground line does measurably extend the life of the pole. Note that this was when untreated wood was still commonly used for electric railway work.
Of course when the fill is pressing down on itself it helps if there is a solid base pushing back up. Also its not helpful when the fill is waterlogged making the vertical component of force go horizontal.
MidlandMike One thing I don't think I've seen mentioned is that the weight of fill will compact the fill below it depending on the density of the fill material.
One thing I don't think I've seen mentioned is that the weight of fill will compact the fill below it depending on the density of the fill material.
The generation of field engineers and soils engineers prior to Peltier and I in Diningcar's early years did yeoman work in re-writing our understanding of soils under railroad loading.
Building structures and fills on reed or wooden mats was common in the 18 and early 1900's. It would remain stable as long as you kept the mats from being exposed to air or fresh running water (air entrainment)... There are major bridges and piers/bents in multiple places crossing rivers that are still very structurally sound.
As soil mechanics and loads changed, the method has gone away.
It was also common in large civil projects to build temporary track or build temporary very narrow gauge railroad to move fill material and stone on worksites. Very rickety, but still got the job done.
I'll tell ya what I've REALLY taken away from this conversation. When I originally put in those raised flowerbeds using stairstepped surplus crossties, and all my "well meaning" critics pointed out that the ties were sure to rot, I should have just countered with "and by that time my son will be big enough to replace them"...and just left it at that.
OvermodThere seems to be an idea in some posters' minds that wood surrounded by fill will rot and disappear in a few years, just as it would if exposed on the surface, and consequently there would be piling-sized voids into which the fill would collapse.
Personally, I suspect the rot would be random, uneven, and nonpredictable.
And, much like Neil Young's rust...eternal.
I'm not a civil engineer, so fact-check anything I say.
There seems to be an idea in some posters' minds that wood surrounded by fill will rot and disappear in a few years, just as it would if exposed on the surface, and consequently there would be piling-sized voids into which the fill would collapse. I'd suggest that considerable mass would remain, and that it would have some compressive strength against the fill even if it ceased bearing the load of the track.
A very common approach I see to 'new' fills in general construction is to build them up substantially above finish grade, then leave enough time for natural compaction to develop. Interestingly, although I have seen use of sheepsfoot rollers (like those on excavators in landfills) in road subgrade compaction, I have not seen them used on top of these oversized fills, which may add some emphasis to Euclid's opinion about overcompaction of the upper part of a fill.
EuclidI had assumed that the image you showed was the completed project. Apparently that is not the case. So, is this an illustration that you have composed showing the work in progress before it was finished? From your last comment above, I assume that the image does not show the finished work, since you say the entire space below the top of the timbers was filled.
I'm sorry that I was not more clear about that. My sketch was just intended to show the basic style of the trestle in the "work in progress" photo that I found. Since I do not own the rights to the photo, can't post it here, so I drew the sketch.
In the actual photo, the work progresses over approx 100 running feet with a dirt fill operation followed by a ballasting operation. And that was just more detail than I felt like drawing... Perhaps a total of 5 linear miles of grade separation raised in this way
When the dirt fill was in progress, it appears that they stacked oblong blocks, similar in appearence to parking lot bumpers, along the edges of the trestle to shape the fill against. Since covered or replaced with poured cement in most areas.
Thing about the actual photo, for years I had assumed that the "trestle" shown in the picture was just temporary false work. And not until this thread did I really notice that they were pouring the dirt right in around the wood.
I've adapted to the computer since it has helped my accuracy at work. My prior experience of having to do many of the same calculations manually in the past is an asset since I often have a good idea of what should be coming out of the computer. The problem lies with the younger employees who never seem to grasp GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) and assume that the output will always be correct.
diningcar Murphy, I was 28 in 1960 and would work for Santa Fe until 1990 when I was offered a buyout that was so good, I could not refuse. But I would do it all again if I were young once more.
Murphy, I was 28 in 1960 and would work for Santa Fe until 1990 when I was offered a buyout that was so good, I could not refuse. But I would do it all again if I were young once more.
Diningcar. I'll have to give you your props for being 90, or 91? Using a PC. You're a rare breed, and to the others on here with many years behind them. I can't even count on my hands the number of boomers who came after you. That refused to adapt and use computers..
Convicted One Euclid I assume that this visible part of the trestle has never been filled In this case it was completely filled, and ballasted. Variously shored up with concrete retaining walls in some areas, oblong blocks in others, as well as just sloped fill with grass planted on it in yet others. Obviously we've got a "57 varieties" collection of opinion, as to what is proper. So much for consistency.
Euclid I assume that this visible part of the trestle has never been filled
In this case it was completely filled, and ballasted. Variously shored up with concrete retaining walls in some areas, oblong blocks in others, as well as just sloped fill with grass planted on it in yet others.
Obviously we've got a "57 varieties" collection of opinion, as to what is proper. So much for consistency.
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