CopCarSS wrote: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?
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?
Yes, they did that if they were any good at their art.
Yes, the Moffat's locating engineers and promoter realized from the beginning that the Main Range Tunnel was essential, and planned accordingly. The "temporary line" over Rollins Pass was only temporary at the very top; it holds the same 2.0% ruling grade as the rest of the climb up to the portals of a projected 2-mile tunnel, then begins the 4.0% temporary line.
RWM
CopCarSS wrote: 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?
Moffat had Blauvelt & Summner build the "temporary" Rollins pass line over the top (1904-1937, tunnel opened in '28) with an eye toward putting in the expensive tunnel later. The idea was open up the country and start generating revenue.
On ATSF's Raton Pass, Kingman & Robinson built a switchback over the top so they could head west and continue (issues with CP/SP)...The first and longest tunnel (timber lined) was not far behind. Remants of the switchback are there (along with the Engineer's Cabin), if you know where to look.
CB&Q's route over Rollins Pass/Berthoud Pass ( Paul Blount, Colorado Railway 1883) utilized 2 switchbacks and the map inferences indicates "Future Tunnel" without putting it in print.
Kingman & McMurtrie used several temporay allignments to bypass difficult tunnels and bridge xings) for Palmer on D&RG and to clean up after Frank King's clandestine work.
...and then there is always the Hagerman/ Wigglesworth fun and games on Colorado Midland that morphed into the Busk-Ivanhoe Tunnel Co. (and good luck that they kept the original high line in place)...
****
Chris - Put Ambrose's "Nothing Like It In The World" on your required reading list.
...and on RWM's comment on West Point, you need to add comments about the US Army Topag's (Before USGS & Hayden, Powell & Co "Big Four" mappers, it was these folks) - and the Artillery Surveyors that also filled the ranks from Jefferson Barrracks (St. Louis)..those folks fueled the pre and post civil war ranks of railroad engineers with a large portion of their technical/survey staff.
RWM & MC - Thanks for the info. I just ordered your suggested book from Amazon, MC.
BTW, MC, I see you referenced Overton's book on the Burlington earlier in this thread. I'm reading that one right now. Any thoughts other than what you already mentioned?
-ChrisWest Chicago, ILChristopher May Fine Art Photography"In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration." ~Ansel Adams
Have you read either of Griswold's books on DNWP & D&SL...or Rails That Climb? (Check them out at CRRM Richardson Library along with Jared Harper's book on Raton Pass and the big epistle on Colorado Midland. (all but Griswold are out of print, my 2 are on inter-office loan)....
After reading Ambrose, stop in Sterling to pay your respects to the six mudchickens that Jack Casement "planted" there.
Overton also wrote on the C&S (saw that book, never got to read it in detail)...Supposebly there is also a manuscript somewhere on Dodge's FW&D.
IF mother nature allows, Green and I will be surveying on the CRRM grounds 12-4 on Saturday in advance of moving Osment's triple throw switch to the backtracks. Then I am a road dog for a while (da' Mooks needs a new atlas to keep tabs on me - and look out EddyB!). Any luck earlier catching EJ&E on the prowl?
MC,
Thanks for the book recommendations. I'll definately be checking them out.
Are you going to get the three way switch off of the main loop?
Didn't have much luck with the J. Saw a couple trains, but they all had foreign power. I'm thinking about a spring trip back that way, and might dedicate one day to nothing but the J.
mudchicken wrote:(only two are still known to exist)
Where is the other one at, MC?
mudchicken wrote: 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)
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)
I've always been totally amazed how well the surveyors did back then, considering that they rode on horseback and camped out for very long periods of time. Additionally, it seems as though they did their jobs so well that very few routes were so inefficient that they needed to be redone.
muddy--do you know if the (Rollins Pass) Needle Tunnel has ever been re-opened?
CopCarSS wrote: mudchicken wrote:(only two are still known to exist)Where is the other one at, MC?
I was told in California on the NG inside Yosemite.
zardoz wrote: mudchicken wrote: 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)I've always been totally amazed how well the surveyors did back then, considering that they rode on horseback and camped out for very long periods of time. Additionally, it seems as though they did their jobs so well that very few routes were so inefficient that they needed to be redone. muddy--do you know if the (Rollins Pass) Needle Tunnel has ever been re-opened?
As far as I know, slill closed and partially collapsed after the 2 big slides - Haven't been up there in over 20 years.
mudchicken wrote:[On ATSF's Raton Pass, Kingman & Robinson built a switchback over the top so they could head west and continue (issues with CP/SP)...The first and longest tunnel (timber lined) was not far behind. Remants of the switchback are there (along with the Engineer's Cabin), if you know where to look.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
They built until they ran out of farmers. That sounds glib but it's pretty much the way it worked out. No one could say with certainty exactly where agriculture would come to an economic end, and that line varies with the rainfall cycles. Some of the lines got a little too far ahead.
The only other possibility when extending a line into an area of no local support is to come out the other side into some point where overhead traffic can be generated. The way to think about railroading beyond the farming belt is to imagine that it's all on a bridge over a vast and dismal swamp. From a traffic point of view, these railroads really are bridge lines -- and might as well be built on a bridge for all the interaction they need to have with the surrounding territory.
Murphy Siding wrote: mudchicken wrote:[On ATSF's Raton Pass, Kingman & Robinson built a switchback over the top so they could head west and continue (issues with CP/SP)...The first and longest tunnel (timber lined) was not far behind. Remants of the switchback are there (along with the Engineer's Cabin), if you know where to look.Any of you smart guys able to find it on GoogleEarth, or Terraserver? (Dale?)
Beats me. Perhaps in the middle of this aerial ?
http://terraserver-usa.com/image.aspx?T=1&S=12&Z=13&X=681&Y=5117&W=1&qs=%7craton%7c%7c
nanaimo73 wrote: 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
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
By 1910, probably true. But in 1865, it was snow removal for both South Pass and Fort Laramie as the main reasons. South Pass also had the disadvantage of a difficult construction route up the Sweetwater (similar to the DSL West of Tabernash) above Casper and a longer distance. Even with helpers, Sherman was then - and is now - much cheaper to operate than pushing the snow around on the other routes.
It is interesting that there was no "transportation route" (like a designated trail) over Sherman until Dodge discovered it while trying to escape an unwelcoming group of residents. Why? Because it was not a valley, but a ridge line that gradually dropped down to the plains -- and it topped out close by to where his other "up the valley routes" penciled out to crossover the hills. One of those routes now is "Track 3" over Sherman.
Some months ago, in some fairly acrimonious discussions of the relative merits of the (IIRC) Great Northern's and Milwaukee's routes, someone on the forum made much of several line relocations done on the GN after it was built. Was this a case of build-it-quick-and-cheap-and-fix-it-later, or was something else going on?
JOdom wrote:Some months ago, in some fairly acrimonious discussions of the relative merits of the (IIRC) Great Northern's and Milwaukee's routes, someone on the forum made much of several line relocations done on the GN after it was built. Was this a case of build-it-quick-and-cheap-and-fix-it-later, or was something else going on?
The GN, WP, SP&S, Milwaukee Road, and Canadian Northern were built to much higher initial standards than the earlier western transcontinentals. The GN is considered by engineers to be the first "super railroad" built not as a development railroad beyond the limits of settlement to which improvements would be made later after traffic developed, but for low operating costs and high capacity from the outset. Nevertheless there are always improvements that can be made with the advantage of time and money, and the GN had both.
Some of the earlier western transcontinentals were extensively relocated where passing through rough country. The UP-Central Pacific and Santa Fe almost do not even lie on their original right-of-way west of Cheyenne and central Kansas, respectively. Canadian Pacific was dramatically improved and that work is on-going. The D&RGW was not built as a transcontinental and in order to make it into one its alignment had to be almost 100% replaced; in some cases the present main line is on its third and fourth alignment. The SP Sunset Route passes for the most part through open, flat terrain and did not require extensive improvement, excepting mountain crossings such as Beaumont Hill, Tuscon-Benson, and the climb to Sierra Blanca, Texas. The NP lies in between those extremes.
Some mountain crossings were never much improved, notably Tehachapi. SP superseded the Siskiyou Line with the Natron Cut-Off.
JOdom wrote: Some months ago, in some fairly acrimonious discussions of the relative merits of the (IIRC) Great Northern's and Milwaukee's routes, someone on the forum made much of several line relocations done on the GN after it was built. Was this a case of build-it-quick-and-cheap-and-fix-it-later, or was something else going on?
The GN's public relations celebration of its Marias Pass crossing was just that: public relations. It had been known by earlier surveyors, and there was in fact a better crossing at Cadotte Pass farther south. John Stevens found a decent appoach from the East, but then sacrificed its advantages with seventeen separate and distinct 1% grades that required nearly 2,500 feet of overall elevation gain -- and loss -- in the 140 miles before the GN even got off the prairies and into the mountains.
Too, the original route, into Butte, was not a model of engineering prowess.
The total elevation change from Havre to Marias Pass is only 1,657 feet, but a train between Havre and Summit even today "sees" a total elevation gain of 4,081 feet. That's a lot of work to get over the Continental Divide. James J. Hill, of course, was ultimately a railroad promoter in the best tradition of P.T. Barnum, and the celebration of Marias Pass was really just a PR effort which intentionally overlooked the real circumstance of both the history of the Pass, and the reality of how much elevation GN trains actually had to overcome before they even got to the actual Pass.
At Stevens Pass, the GN constructed the worst of all western Transcontinental mountain crossings, with several switchbacks, 3% grades, and enormous curvature -- that is when they didn't have to stop and back up to make a switchback -- 180 degree "curves" essentially.
I seem to recall they lost two passenger trainloads of people to avalanches one winter -- more people killed in tragic disasters because of the engineering of the mountain crossing than suffered by any other railroad. A tunnel finally replaced the switchbacks, but it wasn't much better. The final tunnel solution was a very, very expensive proposition and, according to BN engineers who have worked and worked to find a "solution" to the tunnel, it has had a negative IRR (internal rate of return) from the day it was opened, and will for all time. In 1977, the FRA refused to include the route in its list of eligible rail lines for FRA fundng.
One BN study in the early 1980s looked at abandoning the Stevens Pass route altogether in favor of a re-route through Easton and over Milwaukee's Snoqualmie crossing, and that the $1.5 Billion price tag of rerouting the entire line "would be worth it," according to one of the engineers on the study, to get rid of the Cascade Tunnel.
A hallmark of "modern era" construction, compensated grades, was not utilized on the original GN construction as best I can determine.
Line relocations were necessary for the GN for a variety of good reasons relating to the initial construction; but even at that, there are parts that can't be "fixed" and made economical to operate.
To the extent that GN otherwise passed through the near desert country of northeast Montana and north central Washington state, it was building a railroad on pretty much flat ground that did not require a lot of engineering genius, even as it sacrificed the population centers and agricultural production as well as mining generally further south along most of its route.
And please, before this gets into an anti-Milwaukee thread, which usually occurs anytime anyone says anything, anything at all, negative about the Great Northern railway, these comments are posted simply to point out that the usual conventional wisdom -- about anything -- needs to be examined in the light of actual analysis based on facts, and not the railfan hagiography that accumulates over the years about this or that railroad titan, or this or that railroad route.
To the point of this thread, CNW and the other Grangers looked West to follow the farmers, as RWM has pointed out. The repeal of the British Corn (Wheat) Laws and political turmoil had created an enormous European wheat market that was fed in large part through Great Lakes ports from ever-expanding Midwest wheat production. And it couldn't expand fast enough right past the 100th Meridian and into the Climatic danger zone of alternating rainfall and drought.
It is unfortunate, but the better explanation of railroad success and failure west of the Mississippi is presented in non-railroad literature such as in Walter Prescott Webb's The Great Plains (Lincoln, Neb.: Univ. of Neb. Press, 1931, 1959, Bison Books reprint, 1981), Mary Hargreaves in Dry Farming in the Northern Great Plains 1900-1925 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957) and Dry Farming in the Northern Great Plains: Years of Readjustment,1920-1990 (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1993).
James J. Hill himself considered the Manitoba (GN) to be a Red River wheat road, and only when the NP reneged on an agreement in that regard did Hill vow to build West -- for no other good business reason than to punish the NP -- hence his original GN terminus at Butte, Montana, which generated the bulk of the NP's profitable transcontinental traffic at the time. But, the point is that Hill did not see transcontinental railroading as the ultimate future -- rather, he was more interested in maintaining a monopoly of the wheat market in the Red River Valley region, and only when he lost that monopoly did he look to the only other alternative that he had: building West.
After the transcontinental railroad bankruptcies of the 1890s, no doubt there were flashbacks to that era after the Panama Canal opened in 1914, when Western railroad traffic dropped by as much as 40% while the Midwestern roads continued to grow at historical rates. By 1921, one former Western railroad president, now at an Eastern line, remarked to Clarence Barron (Barron's Magazine) that the Western roads were "going to pieces."
At that point in time, no one was celebrating outstanding feats of alleged engineering, 800 lb Gorillas, or the stunning foresight of pioneer railroad titans.
They were, instead, worried about survival.
Murphy Siding wrote: I can see where a railroad surveyer would typically be scoping out the route, as far as where to put the line. Was he also altering the route based on the cost of tunnels,bridges, etc? The guys must have had some far ranging engineering and cost estimating skills?
Those location engineers/ surveyors were among the best in the country and were a valued commodity. How Moffat Tunnel and the lines getting there were hardly a one shot deal. Sumner chose the best route after running 8 different alignments and grades 1903-1905, then picking the most practical alignment and grade. The Moffat Tunnel was the best of 4 alternatives examined some 20 years later. (even as it was, Moffat went broke building the thing, the line - tunnel came after he died)
Abo died in NM trying to find a route for SP.
Blickensderfer (UP) came up with the solution for Evans and Loveland's Colorado Central for the Georgetown loop after others gave up.
BTW, and FWIW, this is a most interesting thread. This is the kind of stuff I come to the forums to read about.
Thanks to all who have written such detailed and informative posts!
zardoz wrote: BTW, and FWIW, this is a most interesting thread. This is the kind of stuff I come to the forums to read about.Thanks to all who have written such detailed and informative posts!
Another surveying question:
When the railroads were working their ways west and building towns along the way, how much thought and effort was given to the location of those towns? Would the railroads' alignments be altered to go through an area that would serve well for a new town? Or was the goal to head west in as efficient a way as possible, letting the towns pop up where they may?
That very much depends on era.
In the era of the Overland Route, Sunset Route, Northern Pacific, and CPR, there were almost no settlements of any magnitude between the endpoints. The Overland Route bypassed the only two "major" towns, Denver and Salt Lake City, in order to reduce first cost. Both were connected to the main line by branch lines within a year of completion of the main line. The CPR progressed construction from each endpoint a great distance before it even knew where it would connect the two ends in the middle. The early transcons could and did place the towns where they chose, and selected locations that had efficient railroad operating value as well as situated to develop local traffic. Of note, if you look at the New York Central across upstate New York, the major centers of population happen to be 103 miles apart: Albany, Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo -- it's not coincidence.
Late-built transcons such as GN, WP, SP&S, Canadian Northern and Milwaukee Road had no choice but to acknowledge centers of commerce that had appeared and grown in the interim. Their later history has been instructive at how well they did; both WP and MILW chose routes that ran through the most unproductive country possible.
Transcons in between the two extremes did some of both, acknowledging by-then existing towns in some cases and creating from thin air some others.
CopCarSS wrote: zardoz wrote: BTW, and FWIW, this is a most interesting thread. This is the kind of stuff I come to the forums to read about.Thanks to all who have written such detailed and informative posts!Another surveying question:When the railroads were working their ways west and building towns along the way, how much thought and effort was given to the location of those towns? Would the railroads' alignments be altered to go through an area that would serve well for a new town? Or was the goal to head west in as efficient a way as possible, letting the towns pop up where they may?
(1) Depends on the railroad (CB&Q was more into it than ATSF....DiningCar could probably tell you all kinds of stories from his experience)
(2) Depends what was there when they got there. (La Junta was the town of Otero when ATSF got there and KP/UP was already in town....D&RG platted El Moro to circumvent Trinidad - ever been there?)...Many of the railroad surveyors out here were also Deputy GLO Contract Surveyors. Some towns were rather ornately laid out, others were crude.
(3) Depended on what the railroad needed at a given location, section facilities or yards & engineer facilities. (and the sculduggery of local politics - all kinds of stories like the deals with Coolidge & Syracuse KS on ATSF, Hugo and LImon on UP, Ellis and Oakley KS on UP, Rock Island at Bovina/Limon, Kit Carson on the KP, Las Animas on KP/ATSF, Dodge City (CRIP/ATSF), Herrington, KS on CRIP (move the railroad, FREE land!), Boise City OK, Richland, KS (platted by a railroad that never got there), Palmer's D&RG laid out a plat for part of Manitou Springs with the aid of a landscape architect that laid -in tract lines with a french curve (d'OH!) and so on...
(3)
Murphy Siding wrote: CopCarSS wrote: zardoz wrote: BTW, and FWIW, this is a most interesting thread. This is the kind of stuff I come to the forums to read about.Thanks to all who have written such detailed and informative posts!Another surveying question: In a similar vein- who determined the names of all those towns that were named after rairoad people? S.D. is full of towns named after railroad people(Mitchell), their kids(Alexandria), their hometowns(Aberdeen), and probably their pets. Who got that job?
CopCarSS wrote: zardoz wrote: BTW, and FWIW, this is a most interesting thread. This is the kind of stuff I come to the forums to read about.Thanks to all who have written such detailed and informative posts!Another surveying question:
Head of the "Let's Stoke The Ego Department" or gratefull locals.
Or punchdrunk mudchickens in the desert sun (Siberia, CA Bagdad, CA Surprise Lizard Acres) or when you run out of names for section facilities Able, Beta, Gamma, Delta....on the original ATSF Transcon in CO plus similar namings on other lines based on alphabetical order)
Anyone remember the beginning of "Blazing Saddles"?
mudchicken wrote: In a similar vein- who determined the names of all those towns that were named after rairoad people? S.D. is full of towns named after railroad people(Mitchell), their kids(Alexandria), their hometowns(Aberdeen), and probably their pets. Who got that job?Head of the "Let's Stoke The Ego Department" or gratefull locals.
In a similar vein- who determined the names of all those towns that were named after rairoad people? S.D. is full of towns named after railroad people(Mitchell), their kids(Alexandria), their hometowns(Aberdeen), and probably their pets. Who got that job?
In the East, the railroad was built to connect important towns; it was amiably subservient to an old civilization; it accepted the dictates of the alderman and the legislator, it came to town meekly, glad to find an unoccupied spot where it might plant its station, allowing small matters like streets to force it up in the air on bridges or bury it deep in tunnels; but in the West the road developed the full stature of independence. It pushed its way across States, counties, plains, mountains, consulting only the dictates of its own pleasure. Towns came because of the road, not the road because of the towns. Some official put an inky finger on the map. "There," he said, "is a good place for a city. Call it Smith's Coulee, after our master-mechanic."
"The West," one railroad official remarked, "is purely a railroad enterprise. We started it in our publicity department... the West was inevitable but the railroad was the instrument of its fate."
Roy Stannard Baker, "Destiny and the Western Railroad," Century, 75:6, April 1908, p. 892.
mudchicken wrote: Anyone remember the beginning of "Blazing Saddles"?
mudchicken wrote: zardoz wrote:muddy--do you know if the (Rollins Pass) Needle Tunnel has ever been re-opened?As far as I know, slill closed and partially collapsed after the 2 big slides - Haven't been up there in over 20 years.
zardoz wrote:muddy--do you know if the (Rollins Pass) Needle Tunnel has ever been re-opened?
Mudchicken, looks like you were up there around the same time I was.
Here are some photos from 1981 when you could drive through it:
More of my Rollins Pass pictures from 1981 here towards the bottom.
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