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Classic Train Questions Part Deux (50 Years or Older)

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Posted by daveklepper on Tuesday, April 19, 2016 3:49 AM

Flatcar moving the central portion of the riverfront arch in St. Louis, with excessive hight allowing a larger portion of the arch to be jointless and thus less subject to deterioration, as well as stronger structurally. 

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Posted by RME on Tuesday, April 19, 2016 4:24 AM

daveklepper
Flatcar moving the central portion of the riverfront arch in St. Louis ...

Interesting idea, and I'd like to see how it was moved if so.  But that would be in the 1960s, while the car in question operated several decades earlier.

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Posted by daveklepper on Thursday, April 21, 2016 7:00 AM

Interline move or purely NYCentral?

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Posted by RME on Thursday, April 21, 2016 4:27 PM

Most definitely interline.  As a hint, the route included St. Louis.

As another hint, we had a discussion a few days ago on the Trains forum about special tariffs permitting 'milling' stops for certain shipments.  The commodity carried on the car in question set something of a record for processing 'in transit' before delivery.

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Posted by RME on Friday, April 29, 2016 12:39 PM

Well, I thought someone would surely have gotten this - the answer is found many places on the Web, including videos...

It took fourteen years for the 'finished product' to make it up (that's a hint) to its final destination.  That trip was not made by rail, and it was not an overheight move but was very wide...

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Posted by rcdrye on Friday, April 29, 2016 1:23 PM

The Mt. Palomar telescope?

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Posted by RME on Wednesday, May 4, 2016 9:44 PM

Close enough.  The mirror blank from Corning.  Plenty of interesting detail on the Web including some video (that looks quicker than the indicated 25 mph!)

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Posted by rcdrye on Thursday, May 5, 2016 9:04 AM

In 1955 a Rutland Railroad local had to stop and wait for a large object to cross the tracks before it could proceed.  The large object was formerly used in a joint service with another railroad.  Name the object and the railroad.

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Posted by RME on Friday, May 6, 2016 11:15 AM

Hint: Think of a famous brand of pencil!

The railroad involved in the joint service was famous for compounds.  And if I'm not mistaken, Vermont public television has a film about the object and its rail trip.  Sometimes mourning is NOT associated with Electra...

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Posted by daveklepper on Sunday, May 8, 2016 3:03 AM

MUST HAVE BEEN A FUNERAL CAR USED BOTH BY THE RUTLAND AND THE DELAWARE AND HUDSON

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Posted by RME on Sunday, May 8, 2016 5:13 AM

Dave, that was a literary reference and a pun on the name of someone associated with the motion of the object in question - whose last name, for railfans, also brings up thoughts of compounds of a different sort.  There is nothing particularly funereal about the situation; in fact, much the opposite. 

Even if the object now sits on railroad tracks, and is not displayed in a more appropriate way like one of its counterparts.

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Posted by SD70M-2Dude on Sunday, May 8, 2016 2:43 PM

Sounds like RME knows the answer (love the puns too), but since he is holding off on specifics I will go ahead.

The object is the side-wheel steamboat Ticonderoga, and the railroad would be the Delaware & Hudson.  The reason for the move was to relocate Ticonderoga from Lake Champlain to the Shelburne Museum.  Recently a photo of the move appeared in Classic Trains' Magazine.

Greetings from Alberta

-an Articulate Malcontent

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Posted by RME on Sunday, May 8, 2016 7:49 PM

Very good. 

I don't like actually answering because then my questions will stall the thread for days or weeks, and that is no fun.  Much more enjoyable to help others (with better questions) get it.

(The other 'compound' name is Webb, btw.)

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Posted by rcdrye on Monday, May 9, 2016 6:30 AM

The Ticonderoga was owned by the Lake Champlain Transportation Compay which used it for line-haul service on Lake Champlain in the summer months, with D&H issuing joint tickets.  The "Ti" was used by LCT as a cross-lake ferry and excursion boat after the through service ended, even though it didn't handle automobiles well.  Electra Watson Webb, a descendant of Commodore Vanderbilt, was stocking up the Shelburne (VT) Museum and purchased the boat, which was moved overland on railroad tracks, crossing the Rutland's Alburgh sub south of the Shelburne Station. A Rutland local had to wait for the boat to finish crossing the tracks. The "Ti" remains on display at the Museum.

LCT Co. is still in business operating cross-lake ferries and excursion boats.

Your question, SD70M-2Dude!

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Posted by SD70M-2Dude on Monday, May 9, 2016 11:05 PM

Despite not being on an island, a subsiduary of a Class I railroad was not connected with the rest of the system physically, only by ferry.  Name the parent and subsiduary railroads.  Bonus points for naming any of the predecessor railroads the subsiduary was formed from, or those that operated its lines in later years.

Greetings from Alberta

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Posted by DS4-4-1000 on Tuesday, May 10, 2016 7:53 AM

SD70M-2Dude

Despite not being on an island, a subsiduary of a Class I railroad was not connected with the rest of the system physically, only by ferry.  Name the parent and subsiduary railroads.  Bonus points for naming any of the predecessor railroads the subsiduary was formed from, or those that operated its lines in later years.

 

The Atlantic City Railroad fits your requirements.  While operating in New Jersey it was only connected with the rest of the Philadelphia & Reading by ferry.
 
It was made from
The Camden, Gloucester & Mt. Ephraim Railway
The Philadelphia and Atlanctic City Railway
The Williamstown Railroad
The Williamstown and Delaware River Railroad
The Camden County Railroad
The Cape May, Delaware Bay and Sewell's Point Railroad
The Ocean City Railroad
The Seacoast Railroad
The Stone Harbor Railroad
The Wildwood and Delaware Bay Short Line
The Pleasantville and Ocean City Railroad
The Brigantine Railroad.
 
In 1933 the PRR and RDG merged their Atlantic City lines into the PRSL which eventually became part of Conrail.
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Posted by SD70M-2Dude on Tuesday, May 10, 2016 2:05 PM

That does fit the requirements of my question, but it is not the one I was thinking of.  I should have known there would be more than one possible answer.  The subsiduary I was thinking of was operated by a shortline in its later years, but is now entirely abandoned (hint: the ferry crossing was over the sea, not a river, should have mentioned that originally.  Gotta quit posting right after work Zzz).

Greetings from Alberta

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Posted by NorthWest on Tuesday, May 10, 2016 5:09 PM

Either CNoR's Halifax and South Western, or CP's Dominion Atlantic in Nova Scotia?

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Posted by SD70M-2Dude on Tuesday, May 10, 2016 5:55 PM

Dominion Atlantic it is, coming under CP control in 1911.  The last gypsum-hauling remnant ceased operating in 2011.  The ferry connection was from Digby, NS to Saint John, NB.  As far as I know CN never sold any former H&SW track to a shortline, it was all directly abandoned.

Predecessors were the Western Counties Railway, Midland Railway, Windsor & Annapolis Railway, Cornwallis Valley Railway, Nova Scotia Central Railway, and Middleton & Victoria Beach Railway.  DAR also had trackage rights over the Intercolonial's Windsor Branch to access Halifax, and eventually leased it outright.

As maritime railroading declined CP first spun off the DAR (and other lines) into the internal short line Canadian Atlantic Railway, but this did not do enough and the remaining DAR track was sold to Iron Road Railways, who renamed it Windsor & Hantsport.

Your question, NorthWest:

Greetings from Alberta

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Posted by NorthWest on Tuesday, May 10, 2016 9:10 PM

This short New England railroad was expensively extremely well engineered with few curves and easy grades. However, it never saw a revenue train and was quickly scrapped following a JP Morgan anti-trust suit.

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Posted by SD70M-2Dude on Tuesday, May 10, 2016 10:10 PM

Considering the circumstances, could one say the project sank? Whistling

And how do you scrap a line that the rail was never laid on?

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Posted by NorthWest on Tuesday, May 10, 2016 11:17 PM

The rail line was completely constructed with rails and all. It just never saw anything but construction trains. After lying dormant while the case was resolved, the outcome made the line unusable for its intended purpose (or anything else but scrap metal around WWI).

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Posted by RME on Wednesday, May 11, 2016 4:36 AM

While we're on the general subject, it would have been highly interesting to see how traffic would have developed from Poughkeepsie via the Westchester (&) Northern had Morgan lived long enough.

This presumes that the Poughkeepsie Bridge became used to an extent that its reinforcement to handle 'modern' freight traffic could be justified, and the remarkably ill-conceived use of New York rapid transit as the 'last mile' of the NYW&B could be worked around somehow ... although what that could be even that early isn't too clear to me.  The route of the 'Federal' around NYC in the time around WWI is kind of the 'anti' version of this...

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Posted by daveklepper on Thursday, May 12, 2016 8:34 AM

If converted back to rail,.the Poughkeepsie Bridge could handle the weight of modern freight trains easily.  It was built and operated as a double-track bridge, with no restrictions on power, and the heaviest NYNH&H power, their 2-10-2s, crossed regularly.   Could easily handle any of today's trains if rebuilt as single-track.

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Posted by rcdrye on Thursday, May 12, 2016 9:16 AM

New Haven converted Poughkeepsie Bridge to a gantlet arrangement to handle the 2-10-2s.  It looked like six rail track with the four outside rails shiny.  The effective change to the Cooper rating compared to double track was something like a boost from E-45 to E-67.

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Posted by RME on Thursday, May 12, 2016 9:27 AM

daveklepper
If converted back to rail,.the Poughkeepsie Bridge could handle the weight of modern freight trains easily

This is interesting because all the time I was growing up there was a 10mph speed restriction on the bridge and the 'general consensus' was that some combination of construction and material was imposing a safety limitation on the bridge that was not recognized in the 'days of NH steam'.  (The recent discussions concerning 1361's firebox structure not having the expected strength without double-nutting -- and perhaps not then -- might be another example of this.  If I recall correctly, there were also implicit restrictions on loading gage that made the 'new' generation of larger cars (Plate C?) inconvenient to route that way.  Does anyone know, or have access or links to, any information or prospecti on how much that aspect of improvement was expected to cost?

 

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Posted by rcdrye on Thursday, May 12, 2016 12:07 PM

The "upgrade" in Cooper rating was negated pretty quickly by deferred maintenance.  I'm sure no one was standing in line to help replace ties and rail on the bridge, or to climb around under it and fix gusset plates and rivets. The Plate C issue may have been related to a couple of highway bridges over the railroad in Connecticut and New York, and not directly to the bridge itself.

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Posted by NorthWest on Thursday, May 12, 2016 6:59 PM

The railroad was designed to connect the NH and B&M.

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Posted by RME on Thursday, May 12, 2016 11:38 PM

SD70M-2Dude
Considering the circumstances, could one say the project sank?

Are you making fun of poor Mr. Hays?

I don't think North West is asking about the Southern New England anyway -- too many details don't match.

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Posted by narig01 on Friday, May 13, 2016 12:28 AM

Was it built for approximately $4,000,000 and sold for scrap in 1921 for $30,000?

I'll let someone else answer this.

The IGN

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