Transcontinental Railroad?

[vsmith]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Texas Zepher

QUOTE: Originally posted by randybc2003

Am I much mistaken or didn't AT&SF (Yup - I know BN&SF) have direct and owned service into Houston and Galvaston? - and Long Beach, and San Francisco?? Hmmmm?
[%-)]

Yes I believe you are correct, as well as, in 1928 the Santa Fe purchased the "Orient of Texas" giving it (over simplified term) the port on the Pacific Ocean at Topolobampo, Mexico. This port is said to be 400 miles closer to Kansas City than any of the ports in the US. I don't know why they sold it off. Quite quickly it seems.

Oh yeah, and earlier there was the Sonora land grant from Mexico in 1879. That was used to build to the port of Quaymas Mexico in the Gulf of California.

Quick Refs:
Book "Santa Fe ... Steel Rails Through California", Duke.
Book "Route of the Warbonnets", McMillan.
Web site: http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/KK/eqk5.html

They sold it off because Topolobampo, Mexico turned out to be two adobe shacks and a station at end of rail on the Gulf of California, sure it was a Pacific Port but it was so far off the beaten path that there was no where near enough shipping to justify the thru rail service. its still a small time port to this day.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by DSchmitt

QUOTE: Originally posted by cjm89

QUOTE: Originally posted by DSchmitt

From the California Zephyr Virtual Museum http://calzephyr.railfan.net/ [8D]

The following locomotive types were purchased specifically for the California Zephyr

CB&Q F3A and F3B A+B+A sets

DRGW PA1 and PB1 A+B+A sets, F3A and F3B A+B+B+A sets

WP F3A and F3B A+B+B sets, FP7A and F7B A+B+A sets

Each railroad furnished the locos for its segment of the route. Other types of locos were sometimes used in latter years. [:)]

Don't forget that the CB&Q also used E8s and E9s!

According to the Zephyr web site, although they were used, they were not purchased for the Zephyr service.

True, and the California Zephyr F-s were repainted in the Q's freight scheme and put into freight service in the early '50s. Interesting enough, they kept their passenger numbers and were the only passenger Fs and the only Fs without dynamic brakes on the CB&Q. I think there were three sets of ABA units to handle the different segments of the CZ on the Q.

[ericsp]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Junctionfan

I think the BNSF is pretty close right now. Their purchase of Frisco gets them pretty close to the east.

It go them to western Florida. I remember BNSF was planning on selling that line. I don't remember hearing what happened.

[railandsail]

I know it will be far from 'prototypically correct', but I want to name my new model train layout either, 'the Continental' or the 'Trans-Continental'.

Why? I've ended up with a lot of B&O, C&O steamers and diesels. And I just had to have a slew of those beautiful Santa Fe locos as well, both steamers and primarily diesels. I want to run them all on one layout.

So as I have it planned I will have a B&O city scene on the lower deck, and a Santa Fe scene on the upper deck. My railroad will stretch from the east coast to the west coast.

I also have some nice passenger cars for both the SantaFe line and the B&O line.

ha...ha

[railandsail]

...not going to be quite this BIG     :)
Assigning a Theme for Your Model RR

[Overmod]

CP5415

Not on their own track they don't!!

And not with one train they don't!!  (The closest approximation was the old Sunset Limited extension east of New Orleans, but I think that's still gone...)

I see that this is a long-gone zombie thread, and it would have been far better for the most recent poster to have started a new and specific thread about 'best prototype for a transcontinental service', but here goes anyway:

There were indeed a number of attempts to put together a transcontinental, the one being done by a younger Gould (with, if I recall, the Alphabet Route being a result in the east and the Western Pacific in the west) coming the closest to actual 'transcontinentality'.  By then the ICC was just years away from becoming the Progressive elephant it turned into after the Esch Act, after which point there really wasn't any advantage to operating as a transcontinental, and some very substantial financial-overexposure reasons not to Hold All That Taxable Property Yourself.  Let alone all the likely knee-jerk reaction to perceptions of Robber-Baron Empire-Building if you tried it in those years.

I still think one of the 'likeliest' transcontinentals would be the 'fifth system' of DL&W-NKP connecting to ATSF ... for the meaningful thing that a transcontinental line could provide, shortest time and most direct service between coasts in regions that mattered.  You can imagine the functional advantage in steam days of using a 3776 class, handing over to a 700-series Berk, and thence to a Pocono over Nicholson and then the Cutoff.  The fun thing here is that this combination, along with C&O, was one of the 21 'regional combinations' in the Ripley Plan.  (Yes, together with Erie, for what that's worth.)  I for one would have liked to see what a van Sweringen AMC could have developed as a high-speed freight engine for that traffic.

But the situation you have is more difficult.  B&O easily connects with the aforementioned Alphabet Route, but that doesn't really help you much in what you want to do.  As a freight route it isn't really that competitive either with the NYC Water Level Route or the PRR, so you'd have to come up with some justification for using it as the extended east end of a transcon, particularly with such a high-speed-optimized railroad as the Santa Fe.  Some others here probably have a better idea of the best B&O connections to Western roads, and what the available 'dancing partners' would be.  The problem is that I really don't see ATSF being a very likely one...

[wjstix]

Junctionfan

I think the BNSF is pretty close right now. Their purchase of Frisco gets them pretty close to the east.

 

IIRC, Burlington Northern bought the Frisco around 1980. Don't know that it got them any farther east, since BN already served Chicago, which I think was to the east of any SL-SF lines?

 

p.s. re the original post...I believe in the U.K. the 4 'post-grouping' large railways all met at London, but none went through London, so someone travelling from say Glasgow to Kent would have to change trains in London...similar to someone going from New York to L.A. changing trains / railroads in Chicago. In Britain,  I believe they are just now building a tunnel under London so trains can go through in the future?

 

[Overmod]

Stix, Birmingham is east of Chicago.  And southeast is a very different set of connections (or coastal destinations) than Chicago affords...