the tower? Thx ign
The tower? The tower at Clearing bridges the top of the hump I think.
Thx IGN
narig01 The tower? The tower at Clearing bridges the top of the hump I think. Thx IGN
Not the tower, but you're at the right place.
Excerpts from Railway Age Gazette (Oct. 2, 1914)
The new design retained the old hump between the two classification yards, its width being increased to allow four tracks to be operated simultaneously, two in each direction. The classification yards are each divided into two units of 26 tracks, each unit being served normally by one of the hump tracks, although provision is made for either of the tracks in one direction to serve either of the corresponding yard units....
A four-track lead is provided from each receiving yard to a point about 200 ft. from the hump where the four tracks merge into the two leading over the hump. This arrangement allows two trains to be pushed up almost to the hump, while two other trains are being classified on the other tracks so that they are in position to begin classification immediately when the others have finished. This will effect an important saving in time over the usual system under which the hump engine has to run back to the receiving yard for another train before work can proceed...
The westbound hump is 1 ft. higher than the eastbound to compensate for the force of the prevailing winds...
Thoroughfare tracks are provided along both sides of the yard with Y-connections under the hump, allowing movements to be made easily between any portions of the yard...
The subway under the hump is a double-track structure with a clear opening 30 ft. wide and 17 ft. high from top of rail to clearance line. It consists of re-enforced concrete abutments and transverse girders encased in concrete.
http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/ngpg382.jpg
Wanswheel is the winner with Clearing's unique bi-directional hump. Hump cuts are routinely pushed over the crest of the hump in both directions simultaneously.
What interurban line did Wilbur and Orville ride in 1904 and 1905?
Union traction company of Indiana
I think it may have been the Indianapolis & Eastern which served The Wright Brothers hometown of Dayton in 1904-05. The I&E became the Terre Haute Indianapolis & Eastern which IIRC later became a part of the Union Traction and still later the Indiana Railroad.
Mark
Neither Indiana nor Indiana city is in the name of this railway, which, according to one source, was usually referred to as the "Damned, Slow and Uncertain" line.
Damned Slow and Uncertain gives the answer away. It would be the Dayton Springfield & Urbana Electric Ry.
Mark, exactly right and thank you for accepting the grand prize. -- Mike
Excerpt from a 1910 article by Griffith Brewer, an Englishman
The flying ground used by the Wright Brothers is situated about eight miles west of the city of Dayton, at a small station called "Simms" on an electric car line between Dayton and Springfield. The cars, which are as large as Pullmans, leave the main street in Dayton on the ordinary city tram rails every half-hour, and in twenty minutes drop their crowd of aviators and spectators on the main road which runs alongside the rough weed-grown field. Every morning at breakfast the telephone used to ring, and the same answer suited all inquirers, "Well, you are as likely to see a flight today as any other day. The Wright Brothers don't know themselves whether there will be any flying," and this explanation was literally true. They never knew, any more than other inventors, what stage of the designing, testing, or experimenting they would reach that day. After the first day's visits to the factory and the workshop I generally remained at home, until Wilbur or Orville came running in to say they were going out to Simms on the next car. If the weather was fine, then we had to fight our way on to the car, Orville generally riding on the step because of the crowd going out to see the "airship proposition." Why does the man in the street muddle the "airship" with the "aeroplane?
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base has an online book, The View From Huffman Prairie, "the first airport in the world."
http://www.ascho.wpafb.af.mil/splendid/PAGE4.HTM
Mike, thank you for that excerpt. I forwarded it to my wife (separate computers), and asked her if perhaps her grandfather had been one of those who went out to watch, and her response was, "Could be." She, of course, has no real knowledge--but her paternal grandfather had a store right next to the bicycle shop, and the Wrights and the Harleys (her father's family) were friends. Sad to say, there is no evidence of the Harley presence in Dayton now. We were in Dayton this past spring and saw that the Visitor Center is where her grandfather's store had been, one place where the family had lived is now an on-ramp to an Interstate, and the other place where the family had lived has been swallowed up by the University of Dayton.
Johnny
The line did become the Dayton and Western and merged with the local Springfield streetcar system, for a while was managed and integrated with the Cincinnati and Lake Erie, but then turned to independent operation (with lightweight one-man streetcar-like cars) when the C&LE was in bankrupcy, but when about to be abandoned, was bought from creditors by the Indiana Raailroad which connected with it in Springfield, with through car Dayton-Indianapolis service using rebuilt one-man medium-weight cars. The strike of 1936 brought an end to near profitability, and the interurban was abandoned. The local cars kept running under Indiana Railroad management about a year until a bus company took over. (Or perhaps IR operated the buses for a while, need to check.) Its operations to and from Springfield were generally timed for connections to and from he Indiana Railroad's interubans and that company's predicessors.
While on the subject of interurbans here's the next question.
What was the longest interurban route in North America? I'm interested only in a point to point line that was operated by a single road, no portion of which was over a subsidiary with a different name. There may have been through service over the entire route or an intermediate change of cars may have been necessary.Name the interurban and the end points and mileage of its longest route.
The Sacramento Northern from San Francisco through to Chico with car ferry interruption. The run across the Bay Bridge was of course on a publically owned railroad and not SN, and there was a bit of Key System trackge rights for a couple of blocks in Oakland, but from Oakland to Chico it was SN all the way, since the various subsidiaries had been merged into SN prior to end of interurban passenger service. The SN, itself, was a subsidiary of the Western Pacific.
The Indiana Railroad from Lousville to Fort Wayne or Louisville to Terre Haut doesn't count, because Indiana Railroad did not own the line south of Seymour, even though it operated the line, and the trains from Indianapolis to Louisville were really interline trains.
The last Sacramento Northern passenger service was the operation of 5-cent Birney cars in Chico, which lasted unitl after WWII, the last nickle streetcar in NA. The line was extended, for freight as well, to an Air Force Base in WWII.
daveklepper The Sacramento Northern from San Francisco through to Chico with car ferry interruption. The run across the Bay Bridge was of course on a publically owned railroad and not SN, and there was a bit of Key System trackge rights for a couple of blocks in Oakland, but from Oakland to Chico it was SN all the way, since the various subsidiaries had been merged into SN prior to end of interurban passenger service. The SN, itself, was a subsidiary of the Western Pacific.
Not the Sacramento Northern route from Oakland to Chico which was about 178 miles in length. The line that I have in mind was longer than that.
217 miles Cincinnati to Toledo on the Cincinnati & Lake Erie RR?
http://www.cincinnativiews.net/images-3/Red%20Devil%20Race.jpg
http://www.columbusrailroads.com/photo-orm/set2-8-1000.jpg
Oregon Electric from Eugene Oregon to Portland? Longest line would have been from Eugene to Forest Grove. The Forest Grove branch was 21 miles long, but I don't know how long the main was nor the mile post where the branch came off although it was quite close to the Northern terminus in Portland.
wanswheel 217 miles Cincinnati to Toledo on the Cincinnati & Lake Erie RR?
The route I had in mind was 240 miles in length. However an earlier reply casts some doubt on that being a single interurban line. At 217 miles the C&LE Cincy - Toledo line would be topped by the Illinois Terminal's St. Louis - Danville route which was 222 miles in length. However my 1937 OG shows the C&LE mileage between Cincy and Toledo to be 224 not 217 miles which just edges out the ITC line.
Keep trying to identify the 240 mile route I had in mind. If it proves not to have been under single ownership you will be the winner.
The 240 mile interurban route which I had in mind was the Indiana RR between Ft. Wayne and Louisville. But subsequently I have located an even longer route of 258 miles which I believe will prove to be the longest that meets the parameters of my original question.
Whoever identifies the latter route can ask the next question.
I don't know the answer. 1913 map at link shows Ohio Electric lines from Fort Wayne to Lima to Springfield to Columbus to Zanesville to Crooksville.
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/txu-oclc-6445490-electric_railway-anderson-1913.jpg
Same map, Toledo to Crooksville is a longer ride than Fort Wayne to Crooksville.
This hint may help answereing the question.
If you took a trip on this route prior to 1930 you would have needed an interline ticket.
Garrett to Louisville on Indiana Railroad?
Garret tp Fort Wayne was never part of the Indiana Railroad. While you would not need an interline ticket after 1930 to ride from Garret to Lousville, the line from Fort Wayne to Garret was still owned by the power company, and Indian Railroad was contracted to operate the line for them. Indiana Railroad did not even lease the line, but operated the line under contract. The same situation occured between Seymore and Louisville, or at least Seymore and New Albany, with Indiana Raiilroad having trackage rights over the NYC system "Big Four" bridge to Lousiville and possibly part owner of the dual-ague tracks in Louisville. (The Lousville system was broad age, and the railroad bridge was also dual gauge, with the "Daisey Line" interurban also broad gauge and also using the bridge.) But yes you could ride from Garet to Lousville on one interurban railroad's ticket, with mandatory changds at both Fort Wayne and Indianapolis. Some freight equpment occasionally ran through!
But the TRACKS from Garreet to Louisville were not one railroad. Possibly four.
An error. Somewhere I wrote that the Dayton and Western owned the Springfield streetcar system. They never did. Nor did the C%LE. It was owned by the Terra Haut Indiana and Eastern, which ran from Terra Haut through Indianapolis to Springfiled. With the THI&E, it became part of the Indiana Railroad in 1931. The Indiana Railroad continued operation of the Springfield streetcars after the interurban was abandoned in 1936-1937. It converted the system to buses in 1938 and continued Indiana Railroad operaton of the local bus system until 1948. It was a profitable bus operation during WWII.
wanswheel Garrett to Louisville on Indiana Railroad?
Right railroad, wromg route. Neither Garrett nor Louisville were the end points.
Here's a hint. A significant portion of the IR's freight traffic was interchanged with another interurban at one of the end points of the route.
Actually, the longest route would have been during the 1936-1937 Indiana Railroad Analgamated Union Anderson Power House and local transit strike. The interurban engineers and trainmen were not members. The interurban was shut down for lack of power west of Cambridge to New Castle and Indianapolis on the Richmond and Dayton line, and from Muncie through Anderson to Indianapolis on the Fort Wayne - Indianapolis main line. So IR sold Muncie to Indianapolis and Louisville tickets that were honored by going north to Fort Wayne, west to Peru, then south to Indianapolis, and then one could continue in regular fashion to Seymour and Louisville! This was the longest single-ticket single-railroad issued ticket interurban ride possibe ever in North America/
One ticket would do it. You would change at Fort Wayne. Through cars were operated via Peru from Fort Wayne to Indianapolis. Then you would change at Indianapolis.
Dave,
The route which I had in mind was Dayton - Indianapolis - Ft. Wayne (via Kokomo) a total distance 259 miles. I was not aware of the routing you describe that was necessitated by the strike; the distances of which follow: Muncie to Ft. Wayne - 66 mi., Ft. Wayne to Indianapolis (via Peru and Kokomo) - 135 mi., and Indianapolis to Seymour - 62 mi. for a total of 263 mi.
You are the winner and get to ask another question.
Five railroads reguarly operated directly into Manhattan: NYC, NYNH&H, LIRR, PRR, and LV. Plus the B&O during WWI. The NYNH&H was unique in serving both Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal. There were 19 regular engine change points used at one time or another for trains from to NY City to change from electric to diesel power. Plus two used only in emergencies, emergencies of a particular kind.
Anyone who can name at least 15 of the engine change points and describe in general the years of their use, can try to provide answers to:
Name all the regular change points and the two emergency change points.
What kind of emergency?
What were still used during WWII?
What are in use today?
Dual power locomotives are not included, since often the changeover was, is, and will be under the engineers discretion.
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