Chicago & NorthWestern : The non-transcontinental

[Andrew Falconer]

It is now possible to produce 3-Dimensional maps from satellite photos taken at various angles.

Has anyone been able to use these 3D maps to see that there were better routes over or through the continental divide of the Rocky Mountains than what was originally chosen?

Andrew

[Murphy Siding]

Read the book My 12,000 days on the Northwestern It really tells the tale  Larry

You wouldn't know the name of the author by chance?

[Railway Man]

It is now possible to produce 3-Dimensional maps from satellite photos taken at various angles.

Has anyone been able to use these 3D maps to see that there were better routes over or through the continental divide of the Rocky Mountains than what was originally chosen?

Andrew

Aerial photography makes our job easier, faster, and less expensive, but it's revealed absolutely nothing that the railway locators and engineers of 100 years ago didn't already know.  Those guys were very good at their job, and much tougher than us today, because they had to do everything the hard way: on the ground and outdoors.

Alignment is not the same as location.  Alignment is an engineering work, location is an economic work.  Alignment is the physical characteristics of the line -- vertical and horizontal alignment, cut and fill, tunnel and bridge, curve and grade.  Location is the economic assessment and prediction of a territory, the traffic the territory might provide to a railway, and the cost of operating a railway to serve that territory.  Location is done first, for example, the decision to build a railway from Council Bluffs to Sacramento via the Platte River Valley, southern Wyoming, the Great Salt Lake, and the Humboldt River of northern Nevada.  Alignment is the detailed survey in the field to choose whether the railroad is 5' above creek level or 50', on the left side of the valley or the right.  Alignment balances cost of operation vs. cost of construction, and since we have much cheaper means of mass excavation today than 100 years ago, there's a lot of things we can economically afford to do today that our predecessors could not.  That's not to say they were inferior; in fact, I think they were probably more clever than we are today. 

RWM

[jeaton]

I would definately go with clever.  I assume that survey parties had to get some sense of the lay of the land before starting to survey a route.  How else would they know that a route started was not going to lead to an obstacle that would be impractical to surmount?  Or did that happen? 

I find the thought of trying to find a way through a mountain range on foot or horseback to be a quite daunting task. 

[Murphy Siding]

     I would think, that an alignment could possibly be done using aerial photography.  One of my brothers was an aerial photographer for many years.  One job they did, that I thought was way out there, was to photograph piles of coal at Powder River mines.  They would do this quite often, and then use computers and 3-D technology to compare the change in the size of the coal pile over time.  From that, they would calculate volumes of coal, to somehow double-check the mines own volume figures (?)  I never understood the logic behind that program.

[Murphy Siding]

CB&Q actually did the surveys under the aegis of the Colorado Railway from 1881 to 1885. One of CB&Q's Location Engineers was a certain Horace Sumner, later of EP&NE and DNW&P(D&SL/Moffat) fame.

The Moffat DNW&P actually used the CB&Q / Colorado Ry. alignment from Kremmling to Bond to thwart UP during the Gore Canyon War of 1904-05 after buying the survey and rights from CB&Q (quite a story behind that adventure, even involves Teddy Roosevelt)...Ironically, UP was saved by that fact in 2005 in a lawsuit at State Bridge, CO  after the facts got blurred by time and a real estate lawyer tried to pull a fast one for an equally greedy landowner/developer. (UP almost lost at least 2 x 50 ft x 12 miles of its railroad R/W = 143.5 Ac and a portage site for rafts & canoes on the Eagle/Colorado river would have been lost)

D&RG bought Colorado Railway's filing through Glenwood Canyon to keep their Blue River Extension from being crowded out of a canyon that could barely accomodate one rail line in their race to Aspen and Grand Junction in 1886-87.

How did a railroad go about buying the alignment or survey(?) of another railroad?  Was it just a matter of finding out who had the goods, and making an offer?

[Railway Man]

     I would think, that an alignment could possibly be done using aerial photography.  .

Murph:

Yes, it can!  Or at least, provide what is called a "Digital Terrain Model."  But technology can't possibly automate the selection of the route as there are far too many variables and unknowns that require human input to assign rank and order, and probabilities.  These variables cannot be reduced to algorithms that are fed into a computer to spit out a result, because there are too many of them and their relationship is not strictly mathematical.  (There have been some attempts at desiging software to "choose a route" and the results were hilariously bad.)

First you select the proposed alignment.  We use topographic maps and aerial photography, and a lot of experience and judgement.  When we think we have something approximately good, we call the surveyor.  He goes out and uses a technique known as "flying the route" and it's done usually with a helicopter.  If we're working in open country, we might have 2 or 3 alternate routes, and in some places 8 or 9.  Mounted onto the helicopter is a LiDAR (laser radar) which scans the ground and measures the distance between the ground and the helicopter, building a "point cloud" with multiple hits per square meter.  GPS determines where the helicopter is in space.  Photography records the appearance so that this can be overlaid too.  Software merges these data streams into a "Digital Terrain Model" that is accurate to at least +/- a few inches vertically and horizontally. 

The Digital Terrain Model then is input into a CAD program such as InRoads. and the desired vertical and horizontal rail alignment is layered onto the DTM.  Now the model can be studied.  Earthwork quantities can be calculated and the rail alignment moved around to optimize construction costs and rail operating characteristics.  Factors that go into the final alignment include the desired railroad geometry standards (curve radius, maximum grade, spiral dimensions, vertical curves, etc.), railroad operating and train-handling considerations, earthwork quantities and cost of excavation and fill which varies with soil types and rock conditions, geotechnical considerations (for example, slopes that will slough badly if cut, soils that are unsuitable for subgrade), hydrology and hydraulics considerations, construction methods, access methods, environmental issues (wetlands, for instance), etc.  It's not "push a button, alignment appears" by any means, and the cost of designing a new alignment is quite high -- there can easily be over a thousand engineering hours per mile of track by the time it's all said and done. 

There's a popular myth that technology is eliminating the role of human decision-making, whether it's dispatching a train, flying a plane, or aligning a route.  It isn't even close.  What computing power does is give humans more detailed information, and information that is can be manipulated more easily.  In fact, I think technology has actually made the human even more important, because what it enables is more sophisticated decision-making with results that have more meaning, more precision, and lower costs.  If anything technology like this is creating more jobs, and higher paying jobs too, because it enables us to deliver better results for lower costs.

RWM

[Railway Man]

How did a railroad go about buying the alignment or survey(?) of another railroad?  Was it just a matter of finding out who had the goods, and making an offer?

What is bought and sold is the right to the route.  The survey is just a piece of paper documenting the boundaries of the land and the proposed centerline of a track -- if it even gets that far.  It might just be a topographic sketch and some notes on likely gradients and construction costs.  The right to the route is a charter from the federal or state governments (depending whether you were in a state or a territory) granting the railroad the right to the route, the right to eminent domain, and usually contained provisions about width of right-of-way, maximum rates the railway would charge, maximum rate the state would tax the land and improvements, and a deadline to commence and complete construction.  Charters were usually exclusively granted between the two endpoints, or through a pass, or along some broadly described route, e.g., "from Council Bluffs to Sacramento along the 41st parallel route."  With that charter in hand the railroad could then survey a location and file to withdraw land from the public domain and negotiate with private landowners to assemble a longitudinal land corridor that is suitable for railroad use, and have "something of value" -- at least scarcity value -- in order to solicit investment and have collateral for borrowing. Charters were often invalidated because of fraudulent filings or failure to perform.  Competing charters were frequently granted by different governmental bodies and the claims would have to be sorted out in court.  Charters were often intentionally worded vaguely to give the holder maximum opportunity.  It's not really different than how laws are written by lobbyists now.

Many, many surveys were conducted bereft of a charter.  Performing a survey was cheap and a railroad needed one to have an idea of what kind of terms it might need to have before it filed for a charter.  A railroad might purchase the survey of another for convenience, but anyone with more than a half a brain would still reconduct their own if for no other reason than due diligence.

RWM

[gabe]

I assume that survey parties had to get some sense of the lay of the land before starting to survey a route.  How else would they know that a route started was not going to lead to an obstacle that would be impractical to surmount?  

Duh!  They would just look at a map.

[jeaton]

I assume that survey parties had to get some sense of the lay of the land before starting to survey a route.  How else would they know that a route started was not going to lead to an obstacle that would be impractical to surmount?  

Duh!  They would just look at a map.

I never took a philosophy course, so I won't get into a "What came first?" arguement.

[mudchicken]

I assume that survey parties had to get some sense of the lay of the land before starting to survey a route.  How else would they know that a route started was not going to lead to an obstacle that would be impractical to surmount?  

Duh!  They would just look at a map.

In the days before the USGS Plane Table & Alidade Maps that begat the 15 Minute Quad Sheets (Aerial Photography came into its own in the 1930's and took 30 years to get proper coverage), those maps (Starting with the Hayden Surveys of the 1870's which begat USGS), were not the best in the world. Where Moffat went in 1904-06 had not yet been published by USGS.

In the present day, we watch plenty of engineers "get stupid" by putting too much faith in new technology like LIDAR mapping. (Great for planning, lousy for estimating quantities, grades and flowlines/thalwegs - this little thing called National Map accuracy Standard)...RWN hit it on the head nicely.....and you stil have to supplement aerial surveys with conventional ground survey methods.

You gain a certain deep respect for those original locating engineers, given what they did with the technology at their disposal. (most of todays engineers and surveyors could not function in those guy's shoes)

[CopCarSS]

In the days before the USGS Plane Table & Alidade Maps that begat the 15 Minute Quad Sheets (Aerial Photography came into its own in the 1930's and took 30 years to get proper coverage), those maps (Starting with the Hayden Surveys of the 1870's which begat USGS), were not the best in the world. Where Moffat went in 1904-06 had not yet been published by USGS.

In the present day, we watch plenty of engineers "get stupid" by putting too much faith in new technology like LIDAR mapping. (Great for planning, lousy for estimating quantities, grades and flowlines/thalwegs)...RWN hit it on the head nicely.

Quick Question, MC: I work with grades/flowlines/etc. a lot, but have never run into the term "thalweg." Can you give a quick definition, please?

[mudchicken]

How did a railroad go about buying the alignment or survey(?) of another railroad?  Was it just a matter of finding out who had the goods, and making an offer?

What is bought and sold is the right to the route.  The survey is just a piece of paper documenting the boundaries of the land and the proposed centerline of a track -- if it even gets that far.  It might just be a topographic sketch and some notes on likely gradients and construction costs.  The right to the route is a charter from the federal or state governments (depending whether you were in a state or a territory) granting the railroad the right to the route, the right to eminent domain, and usually contained provisions about width of right-of-way, maximum rates the railway would charge, maximum rate the state would tax the land and improvements, and a deadline to commence and complete construction.  Charters were usually exclusively granted between the two endpoints, or through a pass, or along some broadly described route, e.g., "from Council Bluffs to Sacramento along the 41st parallel route."  With that charter in hand the railroad could then survey a location and file to withdraw land from the public domain and negotiate with private landowners to assemble a longitudinal land corridor that is suitable for railroad use, and have "something of value" -- at least scarcity value -- in order to solicit investment and have collateral for borrowing. Charters were often invalidated because of fraudulent filings or failure to perform.  Competing charters were frequently granted by different governmental bodies and the claims would have to be sorted out in court.  Charters were often intentionally worded vaguely to give the holder maximum opportunity.  It's not really different than how laws are written by lobbyists now.

Many, many surveys were conducted bereft of a charter.  Performing a survey was cheap and a railroad needed one to have an idea of what kind of terms it might need to have before it filed for a charter.  A railroad might purchase the survey of another for convenience, but anyone with more than a half a brain would still reconduct their own if for no other reason than due diligence.

RWM

and you had to get the thing built by a certain date or poof!, no charter/grant/etc.....GLO sent folks out to check on you and your progress.

[mudchicken]

In the days before the USGS Plane Table & Alidade Maps that begat the 15 Minute Quad Sheets (Aerial Photography came into its own in the 1930's and took 30 years to get proper coverage), those maps (Starting with the Hayden Surveys of the 1870's which begat USGS), were not the best in the world. Where Moffat went in 1904-06 had not yet been published by USGS.

In the present day, we watch plenty of engineers "get stupid" by putting too much faith in new technology like LIDAR mapping. (Great for planning, lousy for estimating quantities, grades and flowlines/thalwegs)...RWN hit it on the head nicely.

Quick Question, MC: I work with grades/flowlines/etc. a lot, but have never run into the term "thalweg." Can you give a quick definition, please?

Thread and gradient of a small stream - something drainage e-people/ civil tribe obsess about.

[CopCarSS]

Thread and gradient of a small stream - something drainage e-people/ civil tribe obsess about.

Ah. Got it. Thanks!

[mudchicken]

It is now possible to produce 3-Dimensional maps from satellite photos taken at various angles.

Has anyone been able to use these 3D maps to see that there were better routes over or through the continental divide of the Rocky Mountains than what was originally chosen?

Andrew

Horrible pixel detail accuracy. If the route was there, the original guys did a marvelous job of finding the best route.

[nanaimo73]

  If the route was there, the original guys did a marvelous job of finding the best route.

On exception (IMHO) would be Union Pacific through Cheyenne instead of Fort Laramie. Apparently construction would have been more difficult following the Laramie River. On page 39 of the May 1969 Trains, it mentions UP surveyed this route during 1909, which would have been 40 miles shorter, and saved 1000 feet of climb.

[Railway Man]

  If the route was there, the original guys did a marvelous job of finding the best route.

On exception (IMHO) would be Union Pacific through Cheyenne instead of Fort Laramie. Apparently construction would have been more difficult following the Laramie River. On page 39 of the May 1969 Trains, it mentions UP surveyed this route during 1909, which would have been 40 miles shorter, and saved 1000 feet of climb.

I am not understanding your line of reasoning Dale.  Are you saying they didn't know about this route in the early 1860s?  And would have naturally chosen it had they known about it?  If so, I don't think so on both counts but I'll have to look at Grenville Dodge's autobiography when I get home, as well as the Trains article.

RWM

[nanaimo73]

My understanding is that they knew about the Fort Laramie route, but chose to build through Cheyenne because it was easier.

The reference in Trains is a paragraph in a box in the top corner of page 39. I believe the altitude near Medicine Bow would top out at 7000', compared to 8000' at Sherman.

A cut-off was surveyed in 1909 between Yoder and Medicine Bow that would have saved 40 miles and 2000 feet in grade. Project was abandoned because of the crippling effect it would have had on the well established cities of Cheyenne and Laramie

[Railway Man]

Ah.

So they did know about it but threw it out (along with a few dozen other possibilities like the South Pass, Berthoud Pass, etc.) 

I guess it would depend then on how you define "best" route.  Many railroads ruined their investors by misapprehending the economics of location and overspending on construction.  Few railroads were ruined by building too cheaply.

Are we certain the Laramie River Route would have had a lower cost of operation and maintenance?  If so, why do you suppose it was never taken up as a bypass?

RWM

[Murphy Siding]

I would definately go with clever.  I assume that survey parties had to get some sense of the lay of the land before starting to survey a route.  How else would they know that a route started was not going to lead to an obstacle that would be impractical to surmount?  Or did that happen? 

I find the thought of trying to find a way through a mountain range on foot or horseback to be a quite daunting task. 

Didn't they start, by following existing routes of travel?  The wagon trails to the west, for example, like the Oregon Trail, wouldn't that be a good place to start?

[jeaton]

I would definately go with clever.  I assume that survey parties had to get some sense of the lay of the land before starting to survey a route.  How else would they know that a route started was not going to lead to an obstacle that would be impractical to surmount?  Or did that happen? 

I find the thought of trying to find a way through a mountain range on foot or horseback to be a quite daunting task. 

Didn't they start, by following existing routes of travel?  The wagon trails to the west, for example, like the Oregon Trail, wouldn't that be a good place to start?

A reasonable point.  It is probable that by the time the early European settlers started poking around our eastern and western mountain ranges, native Americans had developed a considerable knowledge of passable of routes.  After all, they did have several centuries to develope routes.  I guess that by the time railroad construction was begun, there could have been a fair amount of knowledge about trail routes that had been developed in "pre-history" and documented by early European explorers and settlers.

Never-the-less, having once driven old US 40 from Reno to Sacremento (before I-80) following the Truckee River and and driving x thousand feet up on the edge of the canyon to get out, I have to wonder.  If the Central Pacific had been laid out from East to West, would the survey party have reached that point and said "We're screwed"?  I suppose they did know that at some point in that area, wagons and horses had to be winched up canyon walls to get on a trail over Donner.

The other thing I think of is Lewis and Clarke leading the Corp of America up the relatively gradual Eastern Slope to the Mountana Continental Divide.  They expected an easy passage down a westward slope to a great river that would take them for an easy boat ride to the Pacific Ocean.  Boy, were they surprised.

Writing this, I remember what got me going about getting the lay of the land.  I and a park ranger were once going through an off the path section of Mammoth Cave National Park in an area of the park known as Eaton's Valley.  Now reverted to forest land, this was property once owned by my Great Grandfather and we were looking for a small grave site.  At one point we were separated and I became disoriented.  Were I not able to call the ranger and follow his voice, I might still be wandering in the backwoods of the park.

I suspect a few forum member probably wish I had stayed lost.

I have to go with MC in admiring the skills of early surveyors.  Even with modern equipment, the whole survey business looks pretty tricky to me.

 

[Railway Man]

Jay and Murph:

Native savvy was pretty local.

The wagon roads didn't just happen but followed routes pioneered by actual engineers, many of them graduates of that famous engineering school, West Point.

The body of knowledge that the railway locating engineers drew on was an extensive set of government explorations and surveys culminating in the Pacific Railroad Surveys of 1853-55, five surveys conducted by the U.S. Government, directed by Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War.  These surveys laid open the West and defined where the locating engineers were going to start running their line -- or where they would not.

The Pacific Railroad Surveys drew upon earlier surveyors performed by John C. Fremont, about as pure an explorer as there was, who drew upon old mountain men for knowledge (who in turn had learned a lot from native Americans, as well as from wandering around); Howard Stansbury, a brilliant civil engineer who located Cheyenne Pass, the route used by the Overland Stage and Union Pacific Railroad; Lt. Colonel Edward J. Steptoe, and James Harvey Simpson, chief topographic engineer for General Johnston's Army of Utah.  All have place names in the West memorializing their contributions.

The Northern Pacific survey followed the 47th and 49th parallels from St. Paul to Puget Sound and was led by Isaac Stevens (as in Stevens Pass of the Great Northern), and included Captain George B. McClellan and Lt. Rufus Saxton.  McClellan is fairly well known for his role in the Civil War, Saxton was one of the very few generals ever awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his defense of Harpers Ferry.  This survey formed the basis for the Northern Pacific Railway location.

The Central Pacific survey followed the 37th and 39th parallels from St. Louis to San Francisco Bay and was led by Lt. John W. Gunnison until he was killed by Ute Indians at Sevier Lake, Utah, then by Lt. Edward G. Beckwith.  Gunnison, who previously had been the second-in-command of the Stansbury Expedition which explored and mapped the Great Salt Lake Valley, was the namesake of a Rio Grande division point, a river, and a county in Colorado.  Beckwith like Saxton and McClellan rose to the rank of brigadier general in the Union Army.  Much of this route was unsuitable for a transcontinental railroad.  Beckwith was a poor second to Gunnison.

Two Southern Pacific surveys were performed.  One ran along the 35th parallel from Oklahoma to Los Angeles which formed the basis for the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad location, led by Lt. Amiel Whipple, who became chief topographic engineer for the Army of the Potomac and died in battle as a brigadier general.  The second, and one further to the south from Texas to San Diego which formed the basis for the Southern Pacific Railroad location, led by Lts. John Parke and John Pope, both of which then led the party that surveyed the border with Canada, and rose to the rank of brigadier general in the Union Army.

A fifth survey ran north-south from Seattle to San Diego, and was led by Lts. Parke and Robert Williamson.

Later surveys conducted by Clarence King, John Wesley Powell (both who later became chief of the U.S. Geological Survey; Powell is the namesake of Lake Powell), Ferdinand Vandiver Hayden (as in Hayden, Colo.), and Lieutenant George M. Wheeler filled in the gaps particularly in the Great Basin.

As the biography on Wheeler points out, these were "tedious, grueling reconnaissances." 

The transcontinental railroads were very much a public-private partnership from the beginning.

RWM 

[jeaton]

RWM

So I get the idea now.  Those initial exploratory surveys became what I termed earlier as the general lay of the land and laid out what might be possible for rail routes on the one hand and on the other also discoverd those that lead to an impassable obstacle. 

Thanks for the lesson. 

[spokyone]

 

The Northern Pacific survey followed the 47th and 49th parallels from St. Paul to Puget Sound and was led by Isaac Stevens (as in Stevens Pass of the Great Northern), and included Captain George B. McClellan and Lt. Rufus Saxton.  McClellan is fairly well known for his role in the Civil War, Saxton was one of the very few generals ever awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his defense of Harpers Ferry.  This survey formed the basis for the Northern Pacific Railway location.

RWM 

Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens gave Captain George McClellan the task of finding a railroad route through the Cascades. In late summer 1853, McClellan scouted Naches Pass but pronounced it impractical for a railroad. McClellan then visited Yakima Pass from the east, initially thinking it was Snoqualmie Pass. He concluded it was also not a suitable route. He never made it to the true Snoqualmie Pass and recommended against it in his report to Stevens, based on what the Indians had told him.

 

Stevens Pass - Located 60 miles northeast of Seattle, Washington in the Cascade Range. Named for John F. Stevens, the engineer who discovered the pass in 1890.

Could these two men have been related?

[MP173]

Indeed, this is a very interesting and informative thread discussion.  For a flatlander from Illinois and Indiana, it is just amazing these trails, railroads, and highways were developed. 

Looking at the 36 x 48 US railroad map above my desk, it becomes pretty obvious that from the north-south line from Colorado west there was some serious work done. 

What really amazes me is the absolute lack of railroading in certain vast areas of the US, such as Nevada between the SP line and the UP line thru Las Vegas and the stretch in Southern Utah down to the Santa Fe mainline around Flagstaff (other than the Black Mesa and Lake Powell).  Another stretch is from the WP line north thru Nevada and Oregon.

Finally, is there a book out which describes the building of certain transcontinental lines over the Rockies?  I am not looking for a specific line, but a general book covering several, something like the Trains special a few years ago on mountain railroading.

ed

[CopCarSS]

I was thinking about the engineering discussion last night, especially in regards to the Cheyenne / Ft. Laramie routing posted above. When surveying routes, did engineers look for places that could be built quickly and cheaply and make notes about possible time/money saving changes that could be added later at additional cost?

One local example that seems like a possibility for this is Rollins Pass and the Moffat Tunnel. I'm assuming the line was layed over Rollins Pass because in the beginning that was the only feasible option fiscally. Did the engineers have a plan for a tunnel through the continental divide originally, or was that someone else's idea later on?

[blhanel]

What really amazes me is the absolute lack of railroading in certain vast areas of the US, such as ... the stretch in Southern Utah down to the Santa Fe mainline around Flagstaff (other than the Black Mesa and Lake Powell). 

After driving through that area, it doesn't amaze me at all now.  It's a pretty rugged pile of rocks, pock-marked with big holes (such as the Grand Canyon).  Take a drive up to Four Corners, the point where Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado meet- it's a wonder that they found a way to run the highway through there.

[Railway Man]

 

Stevens Pass - Located 60 miles northeast of Seattle, Washington in the Cascade Range. Named for John F. Stevens, the engineer who discovered the pass in 1890.

Could these two men have been related?

Duh, what was I thinking. 

[Railway Man]

Indeed, this is a very interesting and informative thread discussion.  For a flatlander from Illinois and Indiana, it is just amazing these trails, railroads, and highways were developed. 

Looking at the 36 x 48 US railroad map above my desk, it becomes pretty obvious that from the north-south line from Colorado west there was some serious work done. 

What really amazes me is the absolute lack of railroading in certain vast areas of the US, such as Nevada between the SP line and the UP line thru Las Vegas and the stretch in Southern Utah down to the Santa Fe mainline around Flagstaff (other than the Black Mesa and Lake Powell).  Another stretch is from the WP line north thru Nevada and Oregon.

Finally, is there a book out which describes the building of certain transcontinental lines over the Rockies?  I am not looking for a specific line, but a general book covering several, something like the Trains special a few years ago on mountain railroading.

ed

An absolute lack of traffic in those areas you mention.  The lines that are there are all scurrying from one side to the other as quickly as possible.

The books I think you would enjoy very much are "Transcontinental Railway Strategy," by Julius Grodinsky, and "The North American Railroad Network," by James Vance.

RWM