The Woodstock Railway, from White River Junction to Woodstock, was 14 miles long. Of course, a summer, 1916, Guide would not show any through service. However, there is no indication in the June issue that any of the many trains is mixed. Perhaps the trains providing the connection were mixed, and when the service was discontinued they no longer carried passengers?
Johnny
I think the end date of the Pullman service is my error. The change to steel cars would have been triggered by the New Haven's 1913 wholesale change to steel cars to deal with the Park Avenue tunnels in New York. The key point was that the shortline's Mogul's were unequal to the task of lugging a steel Pullman up the 2% or so ruling grade. Dave is on the scent.
Bristol used a tank engine and an ancient ex-Rutland and Burlington coach. As far as I know New Haven Jct. did not have a ball signal.
Vermont Union Stations known to have ball signals, with passenger service end dates:
Bellows Falls 1965
Brattleboro 1965
Burlington 1953
Wells River 1965
White River Jct 1966
St. Johnsbury 1965
Some of them lost ball signals before passenger service ended.
Was this perhaps the Bristol Railroad, which connected with the Rutland at New Haven Junction and ran between the junction and Bristol, Vt.?
I could find, in the June 1916, Guide no through Pullman service on the NYC which would have used a shortline road as an endpoint.
White River Junction
Right state, wrong Union Station. Bellows Falls did have a five mile freight hauling interurban line to Saxton's River, but it didn't cross a deep gorge, and never hauled a through Pullman as far as I know.
I can think of at least five Vermont Union Stations with ball signals. This was the last one with both a ball signal and passenger trains.
A Vermont short line? I think Bellows Falls had such a signal. And was served by CV and B&M.
I'll add on a bit more. One end of the line was at a Union Station that had a working ball signal into the 1960s.
Bath and Hamisford? Unadilla Valley?
Dang near out of good questions... Since the WCF&N used the roundhouse as a shop and carbarn the city streetcar equipment rode the turntable regularly...
On to the new question! This 14 miloe long shortline railroad carried a through Pullman from New York on its mixed train during the summer months until the 1920s, when steel cars proved too heavy for its small motive power. Its 165 foot high wooden bridge crossing of a river gorge was replaced in 1911 with a steel span that remains in service today as part of a state highway, more than 75 years after the line was abandoned.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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?
The PCCs lasted a bit longer than the tunnel. There was a fantrip using a PCC on the day after regular operation ended.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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,
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.
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.
Mark
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.
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