Gravity - The most well known being the D&H Canal & Gravity RR between Carbondale and Honesdale, PA
Distillate - Electric (not gas or diesel electric) - Powered many rail motor cars and IIRC the UP1000
MagLev - Still largely experimental. Japan will have the first such line.
Natural Gas - Electric - I think only experimental so far and BNSF is one railroad that comes to mind as currently exploring this power source.
Mark
Hydrogen (BNSF locomotive).
Mark, consider yourself the winner, but only graverty was among those I had in mind, and that was the Mt. Tamalpas (Sp?) of Pacific Electric. Others I had in mind were conduit current collection for streetcars and for the WB&A interurban while operating on Washington, DC streetcar tracks, aircraft propeller propulsion, used by German Avaiators at their Afula airbase during WWI to make R&R trips over the narrow gauge line to Hafia and then around 1929 used for an experimental railcar by the German railways, in use sporadically until the middle of WWII, the linear motor system used at Scarboro, Vancouver, and the JFK Airtrain, and the experimental high speed electric railcar that raced a steam train in Germany, and that picked up three-phase electric power from three or four wires at the SIDE of the track.
rc: contribution appreciated, but steam is steam, and fireless of any type are in that catagory, note no separation of oil and coal-burning. Ther donkey engine with cable attached is really the same technology as a funicular, or am I mistaken?
The Gripwheel ran on a peeled-log tramway. It's inventive owners ran a cable from one end of the tramway to the other, looping it over the drum on the Gripwheel, which had what was intended to be a stationary vertical boiler and donkey engine on the platform. Just the opposite of a funicular where the cable moves and the engine is stationary. See Labbe and Goes "Railroads in the Woods". IT was used to drag hitches of logs that were skidded on planks between the "rails".
OK, I stand corrected, but Mark has more anwers than you, and I know you won't mind his asking the next question.
The propeller-driven German railcar was called the Rail Zepelin. It can be seen, along what I think is what the German airman at Afula contrived, and much much else, that you will enjoy at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iajwyx02Hqw
Guy has good taste, considers inverted bathtubs weird.
We're all familiar with the Fred Harvey - Santa Fe relationship. It's lesser known that until 1930 Fred Harvey operated the dining cars on another railroad. What was that railroad and which of its trains carried Fred Harvey staffed diners?
FRISCO
I have a pass for STL&SF RR Eating Houses, Fred Harvey, Manager.
Good to be back at it...been in that horrible place with the gosh awful beds, terrible food, where they wake you up in the middle of the night for one pill, and you're hooked up to all sorts of stuff that beeps off and on all the time.
Congratulations on your recovery and welcome back to the world of the living!
FlyingCrow FRISCO I have a pass for STL&SF RR Eating Houses, Fred Harvey, Manager. Good to be back at it...been in that horrible place with the gosh awful beds, terrible food, where they wake you up in the middle of the night for one pill, and you're hooked up to all sorts of stuff that beeps off and on all the time.
Buck, good to have you back. I wondered why we hadn't heard from you in so long and didn't realize that you'd been hospitalized.
The Frisco is correct. Up until 1930 Fred Harvey operated dining cars on the Bluebonnet, Texas Special, Texas Ltd, Sunnyland, KC-Fla Special, Memphian, Meteor, Oklahoma Special and Oil Fields Special and a café/club Car on the Air Capitol Ltd. Looking forward to your next question.
Yes, Buck, it is good to have you back. I had to spend three nights in such a place (at least I was not waked in the night as you were, but the air mattress let my body put pressure on my lower back in a painful manner when I lay on my back) going on three weeks ago.
Johnny
Glad you are back!
Buck - Are you up to asking a new question? Yours are among the very best!
Buck...do you have a question?
Since no one else has touched this for a few weeks, I'll toss out a new question...
Until the mid 1960s Boston and Maine's Employee Timetables had the usual speed restriction categories for freight and passenger trains, along with special instructions for work trains. There was one other category of train that was permitted to operate at passenger speeds, as long as the maximum didn't exceed 50 MPH. What kind of trains were these?
Mixed trains?
KCSfan Mixed trains? Mark
Sort of. Most of them ran overnight or early in the morning.
Milk trains.
KCSfan Milk trains. Mark
A sample restriction from the New Hampshire Division in 1964:
Maximum permissible speed of the milk Extra between Boston and Danbury is fifty (50) miles per hour and Danbury to White River Jct. is forty (40) miles per hour and will comply with all timetable speed restrictions that apply to passenger trains.
Passenger trains south of Danbury were allowed up to 70MPH. North of Danbury the passenger speed limit was 40 anyway. Of course by 1964 the milk Extra [sic] was pretty much a dead item. Other anachronisms in the1964 ETT include rules to prohibit standing on tenders.
Looking forward to getting the thread going again with your question, Mark!
Other than the Maine 2' roads almost all US and Canadian narrow gauge railroads were 3' gauge. However, as late as 1930 there were still two roads that were a different narrow gauge. What were these two railroads and what was the gauge of their tracks?
You were not specific as to the kind of railroad, and Denver Tramways was 3ft-6in gauge, with one of the interurban lines to Golden also was that gauge and even hauled frfeight at one time. Los Angeles Railways was also 3ft-6in gauge. Some three-rail dual-gauge track wih Pacific Electric existed, uwually with only one trolle wire overhead. The San Francisco cable-cars are still four-foot gauge.
daveklepperThe San Francisco cable-cars are still four-foot gauge
San Francisco's remaining cable lines are 42" guage. Both Denver Tramways and LA Railway (as well as Portland OR) inherited the 42" track guage from cable cars. San Francisco also had standard and 5' guage cable systems, even after the 1906 earthquake. Baltimore's 5' 4" cable guage also lasted to the end of streetcar service.
daveklepper You were not specific as to the kind of railroad, and Denver Tramways was 3ft-6in gauge, with one of the interurban lines to Golden also was that gauge and even hauled frfeight at one time. Los Angeles Railways was also 3ft-6in gauge. Some three-rail dual-gauge track wih Pacific Electric existed, uwually with only one trolle wire overhead. The San Francisco cable-cars are still four-foot gauge.
Dave, you are right I should have been more specific. I intended to limit this question only to common carriers and exclude streetcar and transit only lines.
Well one was that strange portage railroad up in Canada, the smallest common carrier railroad anywhere, that linked two lakes and the steamships that operated on them, primarily for the tourist seasons. I don't remember the name of the railroad, but its rolling stock for passengers were two old Toronto open-bench streetcars, and it used two narrow gauge tank engines. The gauge was something strange like 40 inches, and it was reguilt to similar strange gauge, 42 inches I think, because the former-industrial relplacement power was more expensive to regauge than relaying the track. From an issue of CLASSIC TRAINS. I will try to dig it up and present the details. Was the other possibly Mount Tamalpas? What about Mount Washington or Manitou and Pikes Peak?
Dave, none of these. One road was the longest narrow gauge railroad in North America at the time of its abandonment in the 1980's. The other was a much shorter line that was converted to standard gauge in 1931.
Well, of course, rode the first. The CN's Newfoundland operation, 3'-6". Fomerly Newfoundland Ralways. Road the "Newfy Bullet" in 1969 a few months before end of passenger service. Could the other have been on PEI? Rode that too, standard gauge of course, about six months before the Queen's visit to Charlottetown. Was told the line was formerly narrow gauge.
Newfoundland Ry with over 900 miles of narrow gauge lines is correct. Too bad it was abandoned in 1988. The other road I'm looking for was a much, much shorter and rather obscure US line that connected with and ultimately became a part of the N&W.
Ohio River and Western Railway, converted to standard gauge in 1931, but I don;t know the gauge. Wilkepida implies it's 3ft, but they are probably wrong.
daveklepper Ohio River and Western Railway, converted to standard gauge in 1931, but I don;t know the gauge. Wilkepida implies it's 3ft, but they are probably wrong.
In this case Wikipedia is right, the Ohio River & Western was 3' gauge. The name of the road I'm looking for is made up of the names of two rivers.
Earlier you mentioned riding the Newfie Bullet. At that time did the train still carry a sleeper and dining car? Did you ride it all the way from St. John's to Port-aux-Basques? I, and I think others too, would be interested in hearing your remembrances of that trip.
I was with a Chicago Railroad Club Maurie Kleibolt Group. We went from Chicago to St. Johns and back by train and boat. I had a roomette both ways in both the International and the Ocean Limited, and we had parlor seats on the trains between Toronto and Montreal. I had an upper berth both ways on the Newfie Bullet, and the train did have an excellent dining car. For our groups exclusive use, there was a business car at the rear for use as a lounge and observation car, and those that had spent additional fare money had rooms in that car. I found the scenery in Newfoundland beautiful, and the people very friendly. All the trains we rode were on time or near on time, but the Newfy B. never got above about 45 mph,, and the trans-Island trip was about 24 hours. We left Port=Au-Basques in the morning after overnight on the boat from North Sidney, and I had a single cabin, again both ways, and arrived in St. Johns in the moring. I had designed the sound system for the performing arts hall there, although it was a coworker's projects, and so I dropped by the place and found a rehearsal in progress. The architect and building owners never contracted for a checl-out visit, and I found the system below my standards in intelligibility, but remedied the problem after buying a capacitor and resistor to put in the mssing specified equalization circuit. That evening I enjoyed the play in the play but had to leave before the end so as not to miss the train. Dining car food was good, we were allowed to ride the back platorm if we could endure the cold, and the ce track was in good shape. Cars were clean, windows clean, everything worked.
Anyone wishing photos can email me at www.daveklepper@yahoo and get jpg's or one pdf, whichever comes up easier on the computer I am using.
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