competition against the Hudson River Day Line steamboats and against the Boston and Albany-New York and Harlem competitive Albany - New York service.
On the old high speed motif...
The Hudson River Railroad built a series of fast passenger engines in the 1850s. What was the motive for providing service at the breathtaking speed of 50 MPH?
think you need to provide the correct answer and give another question to keep this thread going.
Now I hadn't heard of the antebellum HSR project. Based on the years I would guess that motive power would have been of the Crampton type with a huge single driver. Baldwin built a couple of Cramptons for Camden & Amboy and Vermont Central. Hudson River RR had some 84" driver 4-4-0's from the early 1850s that had cast iron driver centers - a pretty risky design.
That is not the one I was thinking of, but I would highly enjoy seeing the details.
The folks at the railroad museum in Pine Bluff, Arkansas noted that there was a "150 mph" right of way north through Mississippi (perhaps toward St. Louis from 'below') before the Civil War -- I think this was surely the Mobile and Ohio. Were there any motive power designs for actual trains, and if so, where are they documented?
I can't find the drawings that I remember seeing, but it seems to me there was a Chicago - St. Louis proposal with four tracks that had two express and two local tracks. Locomotives were drawn as having pointed ends.
It just occurred to me that nobody may have seen my question. Perhaps it was worded too weirdly.
There was a well-detailed proposal before the turn of the 20th Century to provide service with a peak speed above 170 mph, on six-minute headway. I asked who the proponents were, and what were the cities involved.
Researching this will be fun for a number of people who typically follow this thread...
The piece of the C&IAL that remained into the CSS&SB era was the right to use part of Chicago Avenue in East Chicago. The mid-1950's bypass of East Chicago removed even that. Looking forward to Wizlish's question.
The Chicago & Indiana Air Line was strictly a streetcar operation between East Chicago and Indiana Harbor. The corporate name was changed to Chicago Lake Shore & South Bend when the South Bend-Hammond line was built.
daveklepperHey, I object, the New York and Chicago Air Line may have been what you are looking for, but it was not incorporated in the CSS&SB! It may or may not have had a track connection with it, probably not directly.
In all fairness, he never said the two were related, only that the later Air Line was a vastly greater scheme. I did look for a couple of minutes (as you suspect, utterly in vain) to find continuity between the Chicago and Indiana Air Line and the New York-Chicago scheme before I realized it was only an accident of grammar, and illustration of similarity in the 'Air Line' name, that linked them.
Hey, I object, the New York and Chicago Air Line may have been what you are looking for, but it was not incorporated in the CSS&SB! It may or may not have had a track connection with it, probably not directly.
An engineer more famous later for his association with highways and Henry Ford teamed up with one of the people behind the development ofelectric power at Niagara Falls to developa proposal that may have influenced the Chicago - New YorkElectric Air Line Railway. This was notable for requiring an average speed over 140 mph (and therefore a peak sustained speed of over 170 mph!) with service to be provided on six-minute headway(!!) between its principal cities.
The design of car thought suitable for those speeds before the turn of the 20th Century was well-known enough to be mentioned in Astor's "A Journey in Other Worlds" of 1894.
Who were the principals, and what cities were to be served?
Wizlish got it. The Chicago & Indiana Airline was the first line that later became part of the CLS&SB, though most of the original 3.4 mile C&IAL (entirely inside East Chicago, Indiana) was abandoned about the time of the Insull takeover.
The bigger scheme I was looking for was indeed the Chicago-New York Air Line Railway. After about creating about 15 miles of arrow straight double track right of way (with a single track) between South Laporte and Goodrum Junction Indiana it became the Goshen, South Bend and Chicago (not reaching any of them), eventually part of Gary Railways organization. Cars 100 and 101 carried "New York" on one end and "Chicago" on the other for several years. A physical connection in LaPorte to the Chicago South Bend and Northern Indiana was used maybe once for a through trip from Gary to South Bend. With no traffic to speak of and poor connections on each end, the line fizzled out in early 1918.
The Air Line scheme was just the most extreme of the electric railway promotions in that era. Though effectively dead by 1908, the Air Line continued to print promotional literature until about 1911.
The Chicago and New York Airline Railway became part of Gary Railways steetcar system and not the CSS&SB. I presume you are looking for something else?
Not to mention the Chicago and IndianaPOLIS Air Line Railway (a couple of decades earlier) which was the progenitor of a very different 'famous' railroad, the Monon.
I think there's very little connection between the Chicago and Indiana Air Line Railway and the Chicago - New York Electric Air Line Railway of 1906. All these 'air line' railways, of course, just meant straight track ... interestingly enough, as with the Seaboard Air Line (probably the most famous with the name) this referred to tangent only and not grade. (The Chicago - New York line set high standards for grades, no more than 0.5%, and this was a significant reason why so little route mileage was completed!)
LIRR record had Mike and Ike going to a different dealer. They must have been resold by the original dealer.
The South Shore's earliest predecessor had a name suggestive of great speed, though the first piece was only a local streetcar line. Give the original name, and the name of the larger project that used the same term with much bigger goals.
Mike & Ike were never sold to IC. All of the locomotives had Westinghouse electricals. The other commonality was Iron & Steel Products, located in Hegewisch (Chicago) Illinois, that's what it said on the side of their building. Mike and Ike were sold to that dealer to be cut up, and it was that dealer by way of which the IC electrics were sold to South Shore. rcdrye gets the next question.
Iron & Steel Products was located just north of Pressed Steel Car Co across the CWI and NKP from the Hegewisch South Shore station. It went out of business in the early 1960's.
RC's answer was more complete than mine, and he should provide the next question. Dave
IC 10000-10003 (WH b/n 61046-61049) became CSS&SB 900, 903, 902 and 901 via a Hammond, Indiana dealer in 1941. They were built by Westinghouse (with Baldwin bodies and trucks) in1930. LIRR's Mike and Ike were likewise Westinghouse/Baldwin products (SN 60185), though diesels (with Beardmore engines, like NYNH&H's Comet!) Retired and scrapped by LIRR in the 1950s, their names were reused on a pair of LIRR locomotives donated to a museum in 2009.
I think all are ex-Illinois Central. Displaced by dieselization of Markham Yard and the downtown freight operations.
This one should be interesting: What do LIRR 403 (Mike & Ike) and South Shore steeplecabs 900-903 have in common?
CSSHEGEWISCH The smaller road is Wisconsin Central, parent road is Minneapolis, St. Paul & Sault Sainte Marie, both merged with Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic as Soo Line.
The smaller road is Wisconsin Central, parent road is Minneapolis, St. Paul & Sault Sainte Marie, both merged with Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic as Soo Line.
Wisconson Central emerged from bankruptcy in 1952. In 1953 WC's board authorized the construction of a new diesel shop at North Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, and also bought a fairly large (by Soo standards) group of GP9s, switchers and an SD9 in 1954. Under the lease agreements then in effect, MStP&SSM would have had to absorb any costs involved in using steam on the WC after early 1955. The merger took place in 1961, with the corporate shell of the DSS&A surviving as the Soo Line Railroad. All three roads were at least half owned by Canadian Pacific, which gained a 55% stake in Soo Line, later increased to 100%.
Pere Marquette (Sp?), C&O, Chessie System, B&O?
daveklepper The Lessor, the NY Chicago and StL or Nickel Plate, the Lessee, the Wheeling and Lake Erie?
The Lessor, the NY Chicago and StL or Nickel Plate, the Lessee, the Wheeling and Lake Erie?
Bit further north.
I haven't been able to find a current link for Metra's Ravinia Park trains, so I'm not sure what station stops they make, or even if they're still running. The 2009 schedule made all stops to Central/Evanston, then ran express to Ravinia. It's too late in the season to get the schedule from Metra's website.
In the early 1950s this line, which had been leased as part of a larger system since 1909, emerged from bankruptcy. In 1954 its directors authorized the building of a diesel shop in its own shop town along with the purchase of a far number of road-switchers. This move was enough to push the overall system to retire steam within two years. A few years later the larger system's long time nickname became the corporate name on the merger of the lessor, the lessee, and an affiliated railroad.
Well, each of you got half the answer, and I await rd's question.
Do the Metra Ravinia Park specials run not-stop Ogelvie (Sp?)-Ravinia?
More on the BMT specials. Whenever Franklin thru trains to Coney Island were run, the Shuttle to Prospect Park was not run. Ths meant that one could usually the "Little Zephyr" parked on the local track between facing and trailing crossovers on the northbound local track south of Prospect Park Station. The Franklin - Coney Island service also ran during the day on Saturday. During July and August also on weekdays, starting after the morning rush hour, and continuing through the evening rush hour to sundown. During the evening rush hour, these trains ran local, along with the regular Queensboro Plaza - C. I. Brighton via Tunnel locals. And still showed the white disk.
daveklepperYou can ask the next question, and also name the cultural event with the special Shore Line service, should be easy to determine, summer only. Only one train each way, however.
I believe rcdrye has done that, and I will let him go first with a question.
Dave is looking for the Ravinia Park specials, "An Orchestra with a railroad station". A modern-day version is still run occasionally by Metra.
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