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Classic Train Questions Part Deux (50 Years or Older)

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Posted by FlyingCrow on Saturday, July 20, 2013 8:29 PM

If no one objects , I'll give it Mark...along with the correct answer.

AB Dean Jacksonville,FL
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Posted by KCSfan on Saturday, July 20, 2013 2:07 PM

FlyingCrow

Mark...you are correct so far, but I still need to tell me the correct place their stuff went !

Buck, I take it that my guess of the WP&Y wasn't correct. Their equipment might have gone to a Mexican or even a South American NG road. I haven't been able to find anything about its disposition so I'll just have to take a SWAG again and will say the Interoceanic (or was it the Interoceania) road in Mexico.

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Posted by FlyingCrow on Thursday, July 18, 2013 8:03 PM

Mark...you are correct so far, but I still need to tell me the correct place their stuff went !



AB Dean Jacksonville,FL
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Posted by KCSfan on Thursday, July 18, 2013 7:12 AM

After posting the prior reply a thought occurred to me that the Carolina & Northwestern's narrow gauge rolling stock and/or locomotives might have gone to a railroad that was being built at the time it was standard gauged and the White Pass and Yukon came to mind.

Mark 

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Posted by KCSfan on Thursday, July 18, 2013 4:18 AM

I believe this was the Chester and Lenoir Narrow Gauge RR which ran 120 or so miles from Chester, SC to Lenoir, NC. It became the Carolina & Northwestern Ry and was standard gauged in 1901 or 1902. I've no idea where its NG equipment went but Dave's guess of it going to the Tweetsie is as good as any I might come up with.

Mark

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Posted by daveklepper on Thursday, July 18, 2013 1:24 AM

I think it was the line that ran west from Morehead City, the Something (Morehead?  Atlantic?) and Western Carolina, and I imagine their eqipment went  to the Eastern Tennesee and Western North Carolina Ralroad when they went to standard gauge.

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Posted by FlyingCrow on Wednesday, July 17, 2013 8:16 PM

Well, I took a bit of a sabbatical while I attended to historical society biz over at  the ACL & SAL group.   I'm in the middle of setting up our new forum...of course you all are welcome to join, membership in the HS is not required, but it will still be a month or so before we're ready to sail!

Staying somewhat in the area and genre:  My question is :  What was the longest narrow gauge railroad in the Carolinas and who ended up with their equipment when standard gauged?

Wink

AB Dean Jacksonville,FL
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Posted by Deggesty on Wednesday, July 17, 2013 10:24 AM

Yes, Dave, the Linville River was one of the obscure lines. It and the ET&WNC had the same officers, and the representation in the Guide showed that it was a separate railroad. I imagine that it had the same operation as the West Point Route had--one crew for the full run between Boone, N.C, and Johnson City, Tenn. The 66 mile trip took four hours westbound, and four hours and fifty minutes eastbound, and if you came to Johnson City, two hours and ten minutes before going back home.

For many years, I have known of Grandfather Mountain, which is east of the line as it goes up to Boone; looking at the map in the Guide, I discovered that there is also a Grandmother Mountain, just south of Grandfather Mountain.

When my mother was about thirteen or fourteen years old, she went to a boarding school at Banner Elk, and she rode the ET&WNC from Johnson City to get there.

Johnny

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Posted by daveklepper on Wednesday, July 17, 2013 2:30 AM

Thez Liinville River is a new one for me.   Never knew it existed!   Thanks!

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Posted by KCSfan on Tuesday, July 16, 2013 9:15 PM

I wondered what happened to you Buck. You've been missed and it's good to have you back.

You've got the right train. It was locally known as the Boone Mail and ran on the ET&WNC between Johnson City TN and Cranberry NC and then on the Linville River RR from Cranberry to Boone. The interline operation didn't last long into the 1940's. The Linville River stopped running following flooding and washouts sometime in 1940 and was never repaired. The train continued to run for several more years but only between Johnson City and Cranberry. Looking forward to your next question.

Mark

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Posted by FlyingCrow on Tuesday, July 16, 2013 7:37 PM

I'm guessing the ET&WNC and the Linville River

Yeah, I'm back.   

AB Dean Jacksonville,FL
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Posted by KCSfan on Tuesday, July 16, 2013 3:12 PM

As far as I know the Denver and Intermountain was all electric and did not run any steam trains.

The interline NG train I am looking for did not run in Colorado.

Mark

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Posted by narig01 on Tuesday, July 16, 2013 12:01 PM
Didn't Denver and Intermountain run narrow gauge steam passenger steam? I think I reading somewhere that they did not use their own rails on some of it. And I do not remember the connection.
Thx IGN
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Posted by rcdrye on Tuesday, July 16, 2013 10:57 AM

D&IM was an interurban affiliated with Denver Tramways.  It had both standard and 42" guage lines.  If it did run interline, it was with DT.  As far as I know there was some common standard guage operation with C&S, but no narrow guage.

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Posted by daveklepper on Tuesday, July 16, 2013 10:32 AM

With all my study of Colorado Railroads and visits and actual rides, I did not know there was a railroad called Denver and Intermountain.   If this is the other railroad, other than the D&RGW, I'd like to know where it ran and where it connected with the D&RGW narrow gauge.   I asume one of the two railroads is indeed the D&RGW.   Well, there was also a Book Cliff Railroad, but in the 30's and later it connected (I think) only with D&RGW standard gauge if it lasted that long.

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Posted by KCSfan on Monday, July 15, 2013 12:45 PM

Sorry Dave but the RGS had no role in this trains operation.

Mark

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Posted by daveklepper on Monday, July 15, 2013 11:53 AM

Then I must conclude that the RGS had one remaining conventional passenger train that ran through on the D&RGW.     Salilda to some point on the RGS,, Teluride?  Ooray?  

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Posted by KCSfan on Monday, July 15, 2013 3:45 AM

daveklepper

I would imagine it was a train between Salida and Climax, operating via the D&RGW and the C&S.  The junction would have been Leadville?      The other possibility is Salida and Telluride via D&RGW and RGS via Ridgeway.  But I think the former, since by 1940 all scheduled RGS passenger service was probably by Goose, and Geese did not interline.  As long as the South Park main into Denver existed, this interline service did not exist and was not needed, but when the CS's line to Climax was isolated I believe this thru interline service was begun.

Not Salida-Climax. The train I am looking for did not run on the C&S and as you correctly point out RGS Geese did not run interline.

Mark

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Posted by daveklepper on Monday, July 15, 2013 2:42 AM

I would imagine it was a train between Salida and Climax, operating via the D&RGW and the C&S.  The junction would have been Leadville?      The other possibility is Salida and Telluride via D&RGW and RGS via Ridgeway.  But I think the former, since by 1940 all scheduled RGS passenger service was probably by Goose, and Geese did not interline.  As long as the South Park main into Denver existed, this interline service did not exist and was not needed, but when the CS's line to Climax was isolated I believe this thru interline service was begun.

Of course you could say that all RGS passenger service of any type into Durango was interline, because the RGS used D&RGW tracks and station in Durango.

I also thought abou the Silverton train continuing on the one of the Meirs lines north of Silverton that still existed in 1940, but you posted a passenger train, and in 1940 the Durango - Silverton service was by mixed train.

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Posted by KCSfan on Monday, July 15, 2013 2:17 AM

By 1940 narrow gauge passenger trains had become a rarity but one interline NG train still made a round trip six days each week. What was the route of this train and over what railroads did it run?

While not necessary to answer this question, add the name which locals called this train if you know it.

Mark

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Posted by rcdrye on Sunday, July 14, 2013 5:38 PM

Mark has the correct answer.  Bits and pieces of the II&I survive under NS ownership.  The east end of the line is in South Bend, along with the equally-NS NJI&I.

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Posted by KCSfan on Sunday, July 14, 2013 12:36 PM

Looking a few years earlier, I found the Indiana Illinois & Iowa RR which was a CCC&StL subsidiary which, in turn, was of course a subsidiary of the NYC. The II&I was know as the Kankakee Belt.

Mark

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Posted by rcdrye on Sunday, July 14, 2013 7:13 AM

Since the TA&G hit all three states, and CNO&TP has only two cities (not four) it doesn't quite fit.  This one is geographically a little closer to the tiny road in the previous question.  In both the company's name and its parent's name three names begin with the same letter (but not the same letter for the company and its parent...), and finally the company lost its individual listing in the OG in the late 1930s or so, the parent in the late 1950s, the parent's parent in the late 1960s.

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Posted by KCSfan on Saturday, July 13, 2013 1:18 PM

Deggesty

TAG ran from Chattanooga, Tennessee, through Georgia on its way to Gadsden, Alabama. I was unaware that it became a subsidiary of the TNO&P; I had understood that the Southern took it directly into its family.

Johnny I sure slipped up on that one. A good 40+ miles of the TAG's entire 91 mile line was in Georgia. I may also be wrong about it becoming a subsidiary of the CNO&TP. I'm anxious to see what Rob says.

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Posted by Deggesty on Saturday, July 13, 2013 12:43 PM

TAG ran from Chattanooga, Tennessee, through Georgia on its way to Gadsden, Alabama. I was unaware that it became a subsidiary of the TNO&P; I had understood that the Southern took it directly into its family.

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Posted by KCSfan on Saturday, July 13, 2013 10:33 AM

I believe this must have been the Tennessee Alabama & Georgia which became a subsidiary of the Cincinnati New Orleans & Texas Pacific which in turn was a subsidiary of the Southern Ry. The TAG ran from Chattanooga TN to Gadsden AL but didn't reach GA.

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Posted by rcdrye on Friday, July 12, 2013 5:40 PM

Singer also had a bunch of "phone booth on a truck" electric plant switchers in South Bend. 

THIS relatively short railroad which was the subsidiary of a subsidiary of a major eastern carrier also had the names of three states in its name, actually reaching two of them.  Its parent had the names of several important cities, and in turn the parent system had yet another state in its name.

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Posted by KCSfan on Friday, July 12, 2013 7:45 AM

rcdrye

You must be referring to the 11 or so mile New Jersey Indiana and Illinois, which was more or less the Singer Sewing Machine Company's in-house line, though it also served Studebaker and possibly Bendix in South Bend Indiana, running to a connection with the Wabash to avoid having to to deal with the mighty New York Central System.  A little bit survives today from where the NJI&I crossed the LS&MS to the customers' plants, served by NS as successor to both Wabash and NYC.

I'm assuming the headquarters were at the Singer Building in New York, an unheard-of 47 stories tall in 1908.

You've nailed it Rob and the next question is yours. Incidentally in the early 1920's Singer built and operated another railroad, the Thurson and Nation Valley, in Quebec. Singer sold the NJI&I to the Wabash in 1926.

Mark

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Posted by rcdrye on Friday, July 12, 2013 6:45 AM

You must be referring to the 11 or so mile New Jersey Indiana and Illinois, which was more or less the Singer Sewing Machine Company's in-house line, though it also served Studebaker and possibly Bendix in South Bend Indiana, running to a connection with the Wabash to avoid having to to deal with the mighty New York Central System.  A little bit survives today from where the NJI&I crossed the LS&MS to the customers' plants, served by NS as successor to both Wabash and NYC.

I'm assuming the headquarters were at the Singer Building in New York, an unheard-of 47 stories tall in 1908.

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Posted by KCSfan on Friday, July 12, 2013 6:41 AM

KCSfan

KCSfan

Consisting of the names of three states, the name of this railroad was almost as long as was the railroad itself. What railroad was this, what were its endpoints and what was the reason for its construction?

General Headquarters of this short line were located hundreds of miles away from the railroad itself in what for a time was the tallest building in the world.

Today's hint -

The road was built in 1905 by a large manufacturing company but was operated as a common carrier. Until shortly after WW-1 it ran two daily passenger trains in each direction whose 50 minute run times equated to an average speed of 13.9 mph.

Mark

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