rcdrye More obscure railroads. This two million dollar project was constructed to haul iron ore had elaborate bridges, deep cuts and a huge ore dock but never hauled a revenue load.
More obscure railroads. This two million dollar project was constructed to haul iron ore had elaborate bridges, deep cuts and a huge ore dock but never hauled a revenue load.
Hints: was supposed to open in 1892, had 2 4-8-0's from Brooks (used in construction, sold to Algoma Central). The grade down to the ore dock from the main line was around 5%. In an area with active iron mining today, including RRs that mainly haul ore.
Iron Range & Huron Bay
Tough question Rob. I was getting nowhere in answering it until you mentioned its two 4-8-0's were sold to the Algoma Central.
Mark
KCSfan Iron Range & Huron Bay Tough question Rob. I was getting nowhere in answering it until you mentioned its two 4-8-0's were sold to the Algoma Central. Mark
Glad I was able to drop good hints.
My Grandfather was born in 1886 in Champion MI. He wrote a short history (unpublished) of the IR & HB back in the 1940s or 50s. It got hit with the quadruple whammy of cost overrruns, dwindling iron reserves, the horrible grade down to the lake and what became the panic of 1893.
The Maine 2' gauge roads are well known and AFAIK were the narrowest common carriers in the US. Moving up in width, what was the next wider railroad gauge? Circa 1910 there was only one railroad of this gauge listed in the OG's. Name the railroad and its gauge.
Very good IGN, you are correct on all points. While it was a common carrier and carried passengers for a fare 25 cents, the Harbor Springs was primarily a logging road for which it also became known as the Hemlock Central. Its Shay engines were unique in that they were frameless and their boilers served as their frames.
Ephraim Shay is credited as the inventor of the Shay locomotive and he held the patents on its design which he later sold to Lima. An interesting history of Ephraim Shay and his locomotive can be found at http://www.shaylocomotives.com/shaypages/EphraimShay.htm.
Inauuration of Daylight Savings Time. I'm certain practicalliy any other reader of this Forum would have answered correctly if I did not do so first.
Saved electricity and fuel in general during WWI.
Name the first real North American interurban line, end points, long-time owning company, company that abandoned it. Number of cars required for regular service.
Dates are optional. One endpoint retained local streetcar service lone after, optional circumstances, dates, and equipment type.
East Side Railway running 15 miles between Portland and Oregon City beginning in 1893. Originally owned by Portland Railway Light & Power Co. The Milwaukie to Oregon City portion of the line was sold to Union Pacific in the 1980's which operated freight service on it until abandonment in 1993.
In some respects you are correct. However, the line was opened with single-truck (typical FOR THE PERIOD) local streetcars, open platforms, longitudinal side benches, smaller than Birneys. The word "interurban" was not used in its promotion or construction or initial operation. You can explore the historical websites and see a picture of a typical car, "Mabel." I am looking for the line that first used the word interurban in construction, promotion, and operation, any or all, and opened with double-truck interurban cars distinct from local streetcars of the period.
The Sandusky Milan and Norwalk opened in 1893 in Ohio between its namesake towns. Eventually (1901) it was absorbed into the larger Lake Shore Electric system it was abandoned in 1938 with the rest of the LSE. Sandusky maintained local streetcar service for only a couple of weeks after the LSE was abandoned before converting to bus,
I can check on this, but if you wish to answer, please do? Was the Sandusky Milan and Norwalk opened as an iinterurban line, or like the East Side line posted earlier, clearly a cross-country extension of the street railway sysem with equipemen appropriate to a street railway, not an intercity interurban. Was the word "interurban" used its promotion, construction, operation, or advertizing? Were single-truck bobbers used, much like horsecars, or double-truck cars with some amenities like railroad coaches?
Some more recent examples of cross-country trolley lines that were not interurbans are the Nanicoke line of Wilksbarre Rys., the Beltsville and Cabin John lines of Capitol Transit, the Sewickley and Trafford lines of Pittsburgh Rys. (as opposed to Pittsburgh to Charleroi-Rosco and to Washington, which were interurbans). The small local streetcar companies that got together and ran from Waukegan to Evanston were not interurbans, but the North Shore became an interurban once it owned all the lines between Milwaukee and Evanston, or at least Waukegan and Evanston.
The SM&N opened with double-truck railroad roof cars between Norwalk and Milan in 1893, finished to a connection with the Sandusky streetcar system in 1894.
OK. They did not use the word interurban in their promotion or advertizing. The first to do so was the Marion and Blufton, later part of Union Traction, and abandoned by Indiana Railroad, and initially operated by three wood railroad roof interuban cars, two for service and one for spare, replaced by Union with two lightweights, keeping one wood car as the spare. But the SM&N meets the description of an interuban and so you have answered the question and should ask the next question.
This major city streetcar system had a four track tunnel with subway stations that led to a bridge over a navigable river and another tunnel. City, Bridge and River. Bridge still exists for street traffic.
Philadelphia, Market Street Skulkill River Bridge, east of 30th Street Station, center tracks used by Maarket - Frankfort third-rail rapid transit trains from Frankfkort to 69th St. Upper Darby, outer tracks used by several streetcar line.
If this is the answer you want, I hasten to point out that west of the bridge, there was an elevated structure, with station at 32nd Street, for the rapid transit, and the streetcars had an instreet double track line under the structure.
Or is it Cleveland, with the four-track tunnel leading to a bridge of the river, (Cayuhoga), with the Madison and Detroit Ave. streetcars, among others, west of the Public Square, the tracks separating west of the bridge, and one of the pair having a tunnel. There was one station in the tunnel east of the bridge. All four tracks were used by streetcars.
daveklepper Or is it Cleveland, with the four-track tunnel leading to a bridge of the river, (Cayuhoga), with the Madison and Detroit Ave. streetcars, among others, west of the Public Square, the tracks separating west of the bridge, and one of the pair having a tunnel. There was one station in the tunnel east of the bridge. All four tracks were used by streetcars.
The Detroit-Superior bridge had four streetcar tracks on each end, reached by tunnel approaches, with a subway style station on the East (Superior) end. The bridge and tunnels were opened in 1925, last streetcar service (which had included postwar PCCs) in 1953. Bridge is still used as a road bridge.
But Ckeveland Transit sold is PCC's, mostly to Toronto, before the end of service, which closed with 4000-series double-truck single-end Peter Witt-type cars. fairly modern with leather-covered seats, and reasonably fast, dating (I think) from around 1929 or 1930.
The PCCs lasted a bit longer than the tunnel. There was a fantrip using a PCC on the day after regular operation ended.
I thought that was on two of the tunnel tracks, with the other two remaining in service. Did not the Madison line use the bridge and the east tunnel, wss the last line to go, and ended with 4000's?
Should I ask the next question, or would you like to ask another?
Let me drop another traction one.
This eastern interurban which operated until after WWII had several freight locomotives that lacked pilots, though all of the line's passenger cars had them.
I have photograhs that show that this was true of Lehigh Valley Transit, where all the ex-C&LE and the one ex-IR cas all had pilots, bit the freight motors did not. The question is whether you would consider the freight motors locomotives, since they were simply old wooden passenger cars with regearing and rebuilt with solid sides and one boxcar door (or two boxcar doors) on each side, with vestibules retained at both ends.
The Baltimore and Annapolis passenger equipment had pilots behind the couplers, under the car floor, and perhaps these were hinged "lifesavers" that, when hit, caused a pan to drop on the rails and scoop up anything above rail level. And as far as i can see, the freight power did not have this feature.
All West Penn passenger equipment had pilots, inlcuding the remaining Cincinnati curved-side used only in Connolsville = S. Connoslvile local service. The one freight motor remainiing after WWII did not, but the frieght service had been discontiniiued before WWII, and the loco and boxcars and flatcars were used in worktrain service.
Is it another interurban you are after? If so, must be the Piedmont and Northern, because they and they alone had several freight locomotives after WWII in the East.
The line in question had real locomotives, not box motors. Big hint - most of its operations were not under overhead wire. There's a single reason its passenger equipment required pilots.
Well, actaully very few if any interurban locomotives had pilots. Most were equipped for switching and had foot-boards, like diesel switchers. One interurban that had most of its operations NOT under wire was the Fonda Johnstown and Gloversville, which ended passenger sevice before WWII, but its "bullets" and other passenger equipment did have pilots, and so did the one combine retained for express and lcl service when passenger service was discontinued. I am not certain when the wires came down or when it should stop being considered an interurban, becoming just another short line railroad.
An interurban that might meet your descrition is the Laural Line, the Lackawanna and Wyoming Valley, with its main line third rail, not overhead wire, the only main line exception being the entrance to Wilksbarre and the terminal loop there. The Nay-Aug-Park and South Scranton branch-lines, the latter freight-only and still used for freight by a local short line, used overhead wire. However, my memory says that they had only two locomotives, both without pilots and with footboards, although at one time they may have had more. The passenger cars did have pilots, on one end, and operated as single-end cars, and could mu. These were steel cars, with vestibules and traps and stairs on both ends, train doors, and railroad roofs. Two old wood-sheathed cars were kept for the Nay-Aug-Park branch, one required for service and one spare. These had traps and stairs on both ends but on one side only, and were double-end cars, since the Scranton - Nay-Aug-Park run meant going through the single-track main-line tunnel, then reversing to go up the branch, climbing a grade, and the terminal there did not have a loop. At scranton, they did not go around the loop but just reversed in front of the station. And these two cars had pilots at both ends. And always ran as single cars. Whethey they had (kept) mu equipment, I don't know. I am writing about the time I made my first visit there, winter 1949-1950, with Richard Seeley, when I was an MIT Freshman, 17 about to be 18, and he a year older and a Sophomore. I returned the summer of 1950 when I was the photo counselor at Camp With-a-Wind, Honesdale, PA. By that time the service to Nay Aug Park had ceased and wood cars scrapped. Scanton Transit still had a streetcar line there, however.
daveklepperAn interurban that might meet your descrition is the Laural Line, the Lackawanna and Wyoming Valley, with its main line third rail, not overhead wire, the only main line exception being the entrance to Wilksbarre and the terminal loop there.
You are entirely correct - down to the reason the passenger cars required pilots and not the freight motors. None of the freight trackage had grade crossings.
Wait, you are making an assumption. Possibly you were told this. True, the third-rail main line had no grade crossings, only where there was trolley wire in Willksbarre, where there were plenty of them! But the South Scranton branch, which Dick Seeley insisted we walk, and in the snow at that, did have grade crossings, and frieght motors ran there with the freight trains. Most of the track is still there, and you should be able to inspect it. Again, interurban freight locomotives had footboards like diesel switchers and some steam switchers, and seldom ran through whatever grade crossings existed at any speed approaching that of the passenger equipment. And at times they ran in the street, too (not on the Laural Line), with footboards and not pilots.
My question: Consdering all the interurban lines that still provided passenger service after WWII, the Waterloo, Ceder Falls, and Northern had two wonderful and photogenic special featurs that no other USA interurban line operating at the time had. What were they?
daveklepper My question: Consdering all the interurban lines that still provided passenger service after WWII, the Waterloo, Ceder Falls, and Northern had two wonderful and photogenic special featurs that no other USA interurban line operating at the time had. What were they?
WCF&N had open platform observation cars (one was converted into a closed solarium). WCF&N also had a rare feature for an electric line - a turntable. Excellent article in Summer 2012 Classc Trains.
Other interurbans had had both before - CNS&M and Oregon Electric had once had open platform observations, as had a fe others. I think Quebec Railway Light and Power still had a turntable in service but it was not, of course, in the USA.
Correct on all counts, and you gave the reason why I wrote USA specifically. The Quebec - St. Joachim interurban operation, as you noted, did also have a turntable at the Quebec terminal, and unlike the one in Waterloo, it was used regularly to turn passenger equipment. The Waterloo one was used for access to the roundhouse, which was the repair and maintenance location for the WCF&N freight locomotives (also most if not all equipped with footboards and not pilots!). Undoubtadly the single-end interurban passenger equipment also rode this turntable on occasion, but not regularly. They usually wyed. Look forward to your question.
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