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.
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.
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...
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.
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?
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.
think you need to provide the correct answer and give another question to keep this thread going.
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?
competition against the Hudson River Day Line steamboats and against the Boston and Albany-New York and Harlem competitive Albany - New York service.
Hudson River Day Line is the answer. The Harlem route wasn't particularly competitive with the boats.
Other than the large drivers, the Hudson River RR's engines were not particularly exotic. Master Mechanic Walter McQueen did develop what became known as the Croton valve motion, a riding cutoff motion first used on HR RR's Croton. This allowed a 50% cutoff, helping with "high speed" operation. This type of valve motion was superseded by link motion gears ("Stephenson") over the next couple of decades.
davekleppercompetition against the Hudson River Day Line steamboats and against the Boston and Albany-New York and Harlem competitive Albany - New York service.
I'd think the Erie's service from Piermont would be important. But boats would be competition, especially going downriver. Lots of room, full food service, relatively convenient arrival location...
The competition was really just for New York/Albany traffic. Then as now the largest city and the capital. At that the HR RR had to rely on a ferry to cross the Hudson at Albany as the bridge wasn't completed until 1869.
Even with the competition of the Hudson River Railroad and its successors, the Day Line lasted until September 1948. Its boats would have been in view of the E7-powered streamlined Empire State Express and the other members of the Great Steel Fleet.
rcdrye The competition was really just for New York/Albany traffic. Then as now the largest city and the capital. At that the HR RR had to rely on a ferry to cross the Hudson at Albany as the bridge wasn't completed until 1869. Even with the competition of the Hudson River Railroad and its successors, the Day Line lasted until September 1948. Its boats would have been in view of the E7-powered streamlined Empire State Express and the other members of the Great Steel Fleet.
Dave maybe you can remember, they used to advertise on channel 11 WPIX. As I remember they only went as far as Kingston.
Also FYI: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS_Alexander_Hamilton
The IGN
PS. My mistake, when Circle Line was operating the Alexander Hamilton she went to Poughkeepsie.
The Day Line's service to Albany ended in 1948.
I never did ride the Dau Line to Albany, but the summer of 1937, age five, my parents and I did use the overnight NY - Boston boat in both directions, conecting with the B&M to and from Plymoth, NH. After 1948, the Day Line boats were used for sightseeing, mostly, and I did enjoy that several times.
Before and just after WWI, the IRT rebuilt the Manahttan and Bronx elevateds for improved service. The Harlem River bridge was replaced by one with four tracks, two each on two levels, and the double level structure continiiued to north of the 143rd Street station, north of whicih the Bergen cutoff was constructed on old brick piers that the old Suburban Elevated Railroad had not used, for an addtional connection to the Westchester Avenue structure still used by the 2 and 5 today, adding to the one on 149th Street. Then the upper level two tracks merged into one, becoming the center express track in the 149th Steet elevated statioln. But just north of the Bridge, a single track with switches to both lower-level tracks ran down to the Willis Avenue New Haven RR and NYW&B station, Switching off that track was a five or six-track stub-end elevated yard that remained froml before the modernization, as did the conection to the New Haven. Tracks in the yard were only about four or five car-lenghs long, about 200 - 300 feet.
What was the purpose of the stub-end yard, and why did it remain after the modernization?
Three hints: The yard was not part of the 129th Street, Manhatan, to Treemont Avenue construction by the Suburban Elevated around 1892. It was built by the Manhattan Elevated, the unified company bought by the IRT around 1903, around 1900. And the yard tracks were not electrified, althogh the approach track was. The last rolling stock item left in 1942, intact, after sitting there for approximately 40 years.
Should be a give-away now.
Was it a coal yard? At least a couple of El systems moved coal over elevated sections to generating stations in the early years. (Met, South Side)
would not a coal yard require third rail for the motor cars to fetch the hopper or .gondola cars? If it were a coal yard, why a piece of equpment resting there for 39 years?
But you are close. When the yard was open, it was filled almost immediately. The last arrived in 1903. But some of the first had already been removed.
in 1942 the last one or two peices of equipment were removed. Probably taken to the Willis Avenue interchange with the New Haven and loaded by a New Haven crane onto a flatcar. Or hauled, if clearances permitted, to the still active at the time Lenox Avenue Harlem River IRT ovehaul shop and put on a barge or lighter.
It sounds like a "dead storage" yard for equipment that had outlived its service usefulness. CTA maintains a similar storage area, some of which is not electrified, at Skokie shops. The dead lines there were sources of parts, and sometimes frames for work car conversions.
The track described about the 42minute point in the video.
http://youtu.be/wyYnVKhRNYk
This is was originally presented by Roger Arcara. At the 42 minute mark he describes a track from the 129th St bridge down to the New Haven + also the NYW&B.
Rgds IGN
They also show up on the track maps of 1920
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/caption.pl?/img/maps/calcagno-1920-elevated.gif
Dead storage is correct, but you must be more specific. The equipment was removed as sold in working order. By 1904 o4 1905, any similar equipmet that needed repair was scrapped. Buyers were NOT other electric rapid transit or interurban or suburban railroads, except a few may have had a very short career on an almost connecting suburban railroad operation.
The answer is obvious given the time frame.
The 1904 date should do it. Was this a yard for equipment used to dig the subway?
I'm going to guess Forney engines, retired by electrification of the elevated lines. Quite a few ended up on logging roads, I believe.
rfpjohn, exactly. Next question please.
I take it that the 'last few items' were sentimental scrap that got 'remaindered out' for a scrap drive during WWII? (I am tempted to add, do their bit to counteract that part of the Elevated that was being fired back at us after we sold it off to the Japanese in the '30s, but much of that sale, contra authorities like cummings, turns out to be exaggerated...)
The last two Forney 0-4-4T locomotives were sold in 1942. The IRT had (wisely) held on to them until Unification, and the TA saw reason to scrap them, betting on increased need for motive power as the USA prepared for what many thought was the inevitable entry into WWII. Only locomotives in good operating condition were stored on those tracks. Any requiring repairs or ovehaul were scrapped just before or just after the IRT takeover of Manhattan Elelvated.
Wow! 1942! It's hard to imagine them holding onto those Forneys all those years!
OK, here's my question: A major US carrier's first venture into electric propulsion was on a minor branchline, roughly 7 miles in length. It was short lived. Name the railroad, the branchline endpoints and the reason for it's early demise.
PRR's Burlington and Mt Holly branch (7.2 mi.) got a 500v DC electrification in 1895. The electrification was discontinued in 1901 after a fire in the powerhouse in Mt. Holly. Two motorized combines ( 1 and 2 ) lettered for the Burlington and Mount Holly Traction Co. The entire branch was abandoned in 1927.
Burlington and Mt. Holly are both in New Jersey. Burlington is on the onetime Camden and Amboy, now NJT's River Line from Camden to Trenton.
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