Starrucca Viaduct, well over 1000' long, is made of PA bluestone, IIRC, and was built about 1853. Of course, the Romans built some structures that still stand, but it still amazes me that they were able to construct such a structure with such tight tolerances, and as quickly as they did. And, with hand tools. It, too, is still in use, albeit with one track instead of two.
One explanation for the longevity of the early engineer's work is that the technology has progressed, and the roadbeds they laid have benefitted from that advancement.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Some structures were horribly overbuilt, but others you seem to have forgotten about didn't survive the first train. The narrow gage experience showed this plenty of times. The understanding of structures/statics and materials science + metalurgy had not yet been fully developed.
tree68 Starrucca Viaduct, well over 1000' long, is made of PA bluestone, IIRC, and was built about 1853. Of course, the Romans built some structures that still stand, but it still amazes me that they were able to construct such a structure with such tight tolerances, and as quickly as they did. And, with hand tools. It, too, is still in use, albeit with one track instead of two. One explanation for the longevity of the early engineer's work is that the technology has progressed, and the roadbeds they laid have benefitted from that advancement.
Murph:
The track structure they laid is of course long, long gone, though I did some work in 2007 on a line still laid with its original 1903 60 lb. Minnequa rail. And some of the co-located splinter collections once called "ties" appeared to be original too.
Culverts and drainage structures such as you describe were not engineered with any knowledge or prediction of what loadings might be 100 years hence, nor were people at that time often even thinking there would be need for these structures that distant into the future. Their choices were limited to light-duty timber bridges using untreated low-quality timber that would be extremely expensive to maintain (with total replacement of every member on roughly a 3-5 year schedule), or stone-faced, rubble-filled structures that would be virtually maintenance-free -- and the cost differential between the two was not enormous. Once a decision was made for stone, the cost differential between engineering and constructing for the minimum-possible stone structure and something that was bulletproof was virtually nil.
Constructability, particularly with stone structures and hand labor, favors "heavy" anyway. There is no good way to build it light.
You don't need computers or even a pocket calculator to do 99% of the engineering we do today. You need common sense, experience, a pencil and paper, and good standards. The software is nice to have to do things like calculate earthwork quantities and size drainage openings. There is also software that purports to minimize earthwork and cut-and-fill quantities, and locate alignments, and you should see the wretched results they deliver! I once went to a demonstration by some very smart guys of how their software program could locate a rail line on virgin topography to minimize earthwork. The result didn't have hardly a stick of tangent rail in five miles, and bobbed up and down like a rowboat in a hurricane. In other words, it was utterly inoperable and unmaintainable. I wonder if they ever sold that to anyone other than some transit agency or DOT.
RWM
mudchickenSome structures were horribly overbuilt, but others you seem to have forgotten about didn't survive the first train. The narrow gage experience showed this plenty of times. The understanding of structures/statics and materials science + metalurgy had not yet been fully developed.
Amen. We are fools if we look at history only for confirmation of our cherished beliefs of today.
Google books as a lot of books, some online downloadable on railroad practices of the 1800s and early 1900s.
http://books.google.com/books?q=stone+arch+bridges&btnG=Search+Books
http://books.google.com/books?q=Starrucca+Viaduct&btnG=Search+Books
Try searching for car heating, locomotive electric lights, railroad construction, railroad bridges, railroad cranes, etc.
Rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
Railway Man mudchicken Some structures were horribly overbuilt, but others you seem to have forgotten about didn't survive the first train. The narrow gage experience showed this plenty of times. The understanding of structures/statics and materials science + metalurgy had not yet been fully developed. Amen. We are fools if we look at history only for confirmation of our cherished beliefs of today. RWM
mudchicken Some structures were horribly overbuilt, but others you seem to have forgotten about didn't survive the first train. The narrow gage experience showed this plenty of times. The understanding of structures/statics and materials science + metalurgy had not yet been fully developed.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
You answered your own question. (and then there is evolving science and pure dumb luck)
Starrucca Viaduct was opened in1848 for the Erie's double track 6ft guage..
But the point made here are well taken...I have been driving between North Jersey to the Southern Tier of New York since April of 1961...there isn't a highway, main road, or back road yielding a 2 and a half hour trip to 12 or more hours of driving that I havent' done. And I am constantly amazed at the work of the engineers who built the railroads and canals up and over and through the Pocono Mountains back in the 1830's and 40's! Roebling's feat of taking the D&H Canal across the Lackawaxen and Delaware Rivers and the bridges, viaducts, and tunnels of the Erie, Lehigh Valley, Lackawanna, CNJ and thier predecessors from 1830 well into the 20th Century are stunning even today.
RIDEWITHMEHENRY is the name for our almost monthly day of riding trains and transit in either the NYCity or Philadelphia areas including all commuter lines, Amtrak, subways, light rail and trolleys, bus and ferries when warranted. No fees, just let us know you want to join the ride and pay your fares. Ask to be on our email list or find us on FB as RIDEWITHMEHENRY (all caps) to get descriptions of each outing.
There were some wonderful locating engineers in the 19th century, Tehachipi for example. But we must understand the conditions placed upon them by their bosses (money persons). Funds were short and the need to have 800 miles of RR built in XXX months was the major criteria. So the most economical construction was usually what was engineered and it could be fixed later if the RR was successful.
But the locations they chose were for the most part the best to get from A to B. The curviture and grades were where the money must be conserved. We who have later worked at bettering those situations can attest that they did a great job given the financial constraints and the limits of construction capabilities they faced. Also, the revenue which early RR's needed to succeed was found from different sources than today, so you built where the revenue source was.
Remember that a location may be chosen because that was where water and timber could be ecomomically acquired. Or it was chosen because established local businesses gave money or property to have the RR come their way and the engineer did what his boss said to do, just as they do today.
I have great admiration for those early RR engineers. Other than relatively short " line changes" we are still using the locations they chose.
.
To pose another position; the early railroad construction IMHO was built in a race for expediency. To construct a railline; to go from point A to B, first, to prove it could be done, and secondly garner the rewards of more and better funding., To capturing the travelers, and freight between those two points. With labor back then as cheap, and somewhat available as it apparently was; with the loadings fairly light.
The requirements of the types of cars and locomotives, being fairly forgiving of the 'fast and dirty' laid track. The first idea was to make the mosr money and then improve the structure as traffic demanded, serviceability and not longevity was the apparent goal. Only after a line could prove its ability to earn for its company did the strengthening and overbuilding take place.
It seems to me that railroad size and speed development temporarily outpaced the adequacy of the track, bridges, and safety measures in the pioneering era, which resulted in a bewildering variety and quantity of accidents and failures. However, I would not attribute that to a deficiency in engineering ability. In reading the Railroad Gazette from that period, I am struck by just how engineering-intense the railroad industry was in that otherwise seemingly primitive era.
Lest we forget....Railroad Engineering, on both the Civil & Mechanical aspects was the Rocket Science and Brain Surgery of the day and attracted the best and brightest of the available people. That is not in any way to demean what those men accomplished with the materials they had to work with.
When you needed earth moved....hire 1000 Irishmen with picks and shovels, get 100 carts and 100 mules to move the carts any you had your state of the art Earthmover.
Drilling for your black powder explosive shots....hire 1000 Germans with sledge hammers and hand held star drill bits and you had your Jackleg drilling machines (if one of them was named Jack.)
The 19th Century engineering accomplishments are amazing when viewed from a 21st Century perspective.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Railway Man Once a decision was made for stone, the cost differential between engineering and constructing for the minimum-possible stone structure and something that was bulletproof was virtually nil. RWM
Once a decision was made for stone, the cost differential between engineering and constructing for the minimum-possible stone structure and something that was bulletproof was virtually nil.
There are a couple of stone culverts left from the original RR (Saint Paul & Eastern Grand Trunk, later part of the Milwaukee, Lake Shore & Western and finally the C&NW) grade through my hometown. Both were abandoned 60-70 years ago. One is at the bottom of a 20 foot embankment and the other is still in place for access between a couple of farm fields. At the time the line was constructed (1880-84, I believe) this was still pretty big lumber territory so they passed up a lot of readily available timber to quarry out the stonework. Oddly enough, a couple of larger bridges constructed later (1900-1906) were either timber (or timber approaches) until replaced with steel plate girders on concrete abutments.
I think expediency was a later developement than need. Need was the 1830 to 1850 era work, then came the expediency of "railroad fever" which finally petered out in the early 1900's replaced by rededication to need because of higher traffic demands and heavier equipment. It was probably also geographical...need in the east at the beginning, expediencey through the midwest to the coast during expansion; but the second "need" era was universal. And like our CCC and Eisenhower Highway system, first roads were built based on limited knowledge of future size of equipment which lead to constant repair and rebuilding exercises.
Kevin C. SmithRailway Man Once a decision was made for stone, the cost differential between engineering and constructing for the minimum-possible stone structure and something that was bulletproof was virtually nil. RWM There are a couple of stone culverts left from the original RR (Saint Paul & Eastern Grand Trunk, later part of the Milwaukee, Lake Shore & Western and finally the C&NW) grade through my hometown. Both were abandoned 60-70 years ago. One is at the bottom of a 20 foot embankment and the other is still in place for access between a couple of farm fields. At the time the line was constructed (1880-84, I believe) this was still pretty big lumber territory so they passed up a lot of readily available timber to quarry out the stonework. Oddly enough, a couple of larger bridges constructed later (1900-1906) were either timber (or timber approaches) until replaced with steel plate girders on concrete abutments.
Kevin: The large bridges you describe are a different case than the bridges about which Murphy posed his original question, which is what I was answering. Stone-faced arch bridges in the 1860-1910 period reached an upper practical economic limit as their size grew, usually once the bridge was more than two spans of 20' feet each, or a total embankment height of 25-30 feet above stream bed. Beyond that size, either the cost of the embankment, or the cost of the stonework, both became prohibitive. The earthwork cost became prohibitive because as you know the width of the embankment increases at something like 4x the rate of the height. The travel distance to obtain all that earth with animal- or man-drawn scrapers becomes too far. Similarly with stone, once beyond about a 20' height the cost to lift stone becomes very high because it reaches beyond a simple stiff-leg derrick powered by animal or man, and the quantity of stone exceeds what can be obtained in the immediate vicinity.
Beyond that limit, then timber even with its high maintenance costs becomes more economical, or iron or later steel bridges.
The economic rules of thumb for the choices of bridge design, type, and material were well-understood by railways by the time of the Civil War. There were some big mistakes before that time, such as blowing the entire budget for construction of a railway on a single big stone structure instead of choosing an alignment that didn't require such a monument to engineering stupidity, but not too many afterward -- at least not on the well-run roads.
Being a certified sourpuss, when I see a large, old stone railroad bridge in the U.S., while I acknowledge the engineering and construction accomplishment of the structure, its tempered by my dislike of the engineering incompetence and ego, the former for failing to find a more economical alternative alignment that lived within the economic need of the time, the latter for the presumption that engineering was more important than the client's checkbook.
henry6I think expediency was a later developement than need. Need was the 1830 to 1850 era work, then came the expediency of "railroad fever" which finally petered out in the early 1900's replaced by rededication to need because of higher traffic demands and heavier equipment. It was probably also geographical...need in the east at the beginning, expediencey through the midwest to the coast during expansion; but the second "need" era was universal. And like our CCC and Eisenhower Highway system, first roads were built based on limited knowledge of future size of equipment which lead to constant repair and rebuilding exercises.
Your last sentence caught my attention. It's conventional wisdom, it seems sensible, but unfortunately it's not what happened. I would be fine if all we had done in this country is fail to anticipate the future. What we actually did is willfully screw up the future in the name of political ideology, and to grasp for short-term individual economic gain. I'm beginning to think that while in theory we all think democracy is a wonderful idea, in practice we are almost never able to make the wise, shared-sacrifice decisions that a democracy requires.
I know hardly anyone wants to take the time to click through and read links, or go into the details but, truly, the devil really does live in the details, and please read the link below. Why? Because there was no accidental or excusable failure to antipate the future in the Interstate Highway Act. Everyone involved knew precisely what would happen. The only people who imagined it would all work out in the future nicely were members of the public who think that as long as you have an ideology you believe in, the details will all fall in place. Instead, there was a cynical decision made by everyone in the know to build an Interstate Highway System that everyone knew would crumble, and an ignorant decision made by those not kn the know to believe that their elected representatives, industry and union leaders, and trade association leaders would act in the best interest of the country.
Everyone in the transportation business, Congress, and the lobbying circles knew then how heavy trucks could be. And trucks with the axle loadings that we have today had already been in widespread use by 1950. But despite that knowledge, the Eisenhower Highway System, better known as the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, intentionally chose to undersize pavement thickness and bridge strength resulting in the failure of the pavement and bridges in short order on a great swath of the system. This decision which in hindsight seems unfathomably stupid happened because while everyone thought Interstate highways were a wonderful idea (even the railroad lobby!), no one wanted to be responsible for paying for them:
The poisionous compromise worked out was that the Federal Act would pay for only the minimum possible pavement thickness for the best possible soils. But the best possible soils do not exist in most of the nation! Instead, Congress, its decision-making the usual realpolitik mess of party ideology, lobbying money, and thousands of tangential concerns, decided that thicker pavement and stronger bridges were a maintenance issue and maintenance should be the problem of individual states, not the Federal Goverment. So it only paid for the thinnest possible pavement and the cheapest possible bridges, condemning the system to premature failure and wasting most of the money spent on pavement, bridges, and subgrade preparation.
Of all places, on the FHWA website, there is an excellent history of the sausage factory, I mean Washington decision-making process that led to the creation of the Interstate Highway attention. Read particularly, please, the parts where the railroad lobby is discussed, because (to my surprise) the railroad lobby actually was correct.http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/killbill.cfm
After you read this, you might be like me and wonder if democracy is such a great idea after all!
I do not have the time to read the entire link right now, but I will do so. It's interesting that the Bush and Gore families were political oponents in the 1950's. I'm sure it will be very enlightening. I'm of the conviction that the Interstates should have been toll roads from the get go.
As to RWM's doubts about democracy, Churchill provides a good quote. I'll remember it as best I can.
"Democracy is a very bad form of government, but all the others are so much worse."
Being from Illinois I know representative government isn't pretty or efficient or even very honest. But there's nothing better to replace it with.
greyhoundsI'm of the conviction that the Interstates should have been toll roads from the get go.
The Pennsylvania Turnpike, now almost 70 years old was {and is}, financed by tolls. It seems to have been a very useful success as a system and thru updating the tolls to the need, they have updated the structure throughout it's many years. Tolls now are roughly {for automobiles, don't know about trucks}, 7 times what they were at it's opening in Oct. 1940.
{Trivia RR data}....Route roughly follows the 1885 South Penn RR R of W that was never quite finished.
Quentin
The NYS Thruway is a toll road. At one time the plan was that the tolls were supposed to be dropped, probably when construction had been paid off.
They just raised the tolls again.
Many parts of the Thruway ran parallel to the old West Shore.
Railway Man [snip] There were some big mistakes before that time, such as blowing the entire budget for construction of a railway on a single big stone structure instead of choosing an alignment that didn't require such a monument to engineering stupidity, but not too many afterward -- at least not on the well-run roads. Being a certified sourpuss, when I see a large, old stone railroad bridge in the U.S., while I acknowledge the engineering and construction accomplishment of the structure, its tempered by my dislike of the engineering incompetence and ego, the former for failing to find a more economical alternative alignment that lived within the economic need of the time, the latter for the presumption that engineering was more important than the client's checkbook. RWM
Some random thoughts on this thread:
1) Re the above - wasn't it Edward H. Harriman who said that he was "tired of building/ paying for monuments to engineers !" ?
2) See William D. Middleton's "Landmarks of [on ?] the Iron Road, hardbound, Indiana University Press, within the last 5 years or so. A very good analysis on the early stone structures, with a little on alignments.
3) On locating engineers, I've not seen a better exposition for the layman than in John Stover's The History of American Railroads (hardbound, 1940's or 1950's, I think - my copy is still in a box someplace). He has a whole chapter on that, largely written around the experiences of one Edward Gillette, who as I recall did a lot of locating for the Burlington / CB&Q.
4) On RWM's comments: Wasn't it Al Perlman - as quoted by David P. Morgan - who had an expression about "beautiful theories or beliefs being murdered by a gang of brutal facts" (or similar) ?
5) This thread and your comments are just great ! There's a ton of wisdom and insight here, and opportunity for reflection, for those of us who work in the never-never land between the public and private sectors, which is where all railroads live anyway.
- Paul North.
Railway Man http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/killbill.cfm After you read this, you might be like me and wonder if democracy is such a great idea after all! RWM
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/killbill.cfm
Nothing in there I hadn't surmised especially in view of Eisenhower's admonisment of not trusting the industrial-military complex and his advisors warning of gas crisies and supply shortages of petroleum. But where I do have a problem with the piece is that he quotes Stephen Ambrose who is noted for plagurisms and other self inspirations. The other problem is that the piece was altered in 12/08 according to a note at the bottom but does not explain what was changed and why. Churchill's quote about democracy is good and accurate. The problem is not democracy but human behavior.
henry6The problem is not democracy but human behavior.
What's wrong with human behavior?
henry6Railway Man http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/killbill.cfm After you read this, you might be like me and wonder if democracy is such a great idea after all! RWM Nothing in there I hadn't surmised especially in view of Eisenhower's admonisment of not trusting the industrial-military complex and his advisors warning of gas crisies and supply shortages of petroleum. But where I do have a problem with the piece is that he quotes Stephen Ambrose who is noted for plagurisms and other self inspirations. The other problem is that the piece was altered in 12/08 according to a note at the bottom but does not explain what was changed and why. Churchill's quote about democracy is good and accurate. The problem is not democracy but human behavior.
Stephen Ambrose was an outstanding historian who made terrible decisions toward the end of an otherwise stellar career. While some of his last works were marred by plagiarism, inaccuracy, and carelessness, no responsible historian has made that accusation of the rest of his work, which is where the quote obtains. Ambrose's "Rise to Globalism" continues to be the standard 200-300 level college text on U.S. Foreign Policy, and his biography of Nixon is also one of the best.
Railway Man Everyone in the transportation business, Congress, and the lobbying circles knew then how heavy trucks could be. And trucks with the axle loadings that we have today had already been in widespread use by 1950. But despite that knowledge, the Eisenhower Highway System, better known as the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, intentionally chose to undersize pavement thickness and bridge strength resulting in the failure of the pavement and bridges in short order on a great swath of the system. This decision which in hindsight seems unfathomably stupid happened because while everyone thought Interstate highways were a wonderful idea (even the railroad lobby!), no one wanted to be responsible for paying for them: Rich states did not want to transfer money to poor states Populated states did not want to transfer money to unpopulated states The Republican party did not want a new tax The Democratic party did not want new debt The oil industry did not want a fuel tax The rubber industry did not want a tire tax The railroads did not want to be taxed for highways The truckers did not want to pay for anything whatsoever The AAA did not want auto drivers to be paying for the thick pavement that trucks needed but cars didn't The states and their highway departments did not want to be left holding the bag for building and maintaining highways that primarily benefited other states (pass-through trucking) The poisionous compromise worked out was that the Federal Act would pay for only the minimum possible pavement thickness for the best possible soils. But the best possible soils do not exist in most of the nation! Instead, Congress, its decision-making the usual realpolitik mess of party ideology, lobbying money, and thousands of tangential concerns, decided that thicker pavement and stronger bridges were a maintenance issue and maintenance should be the problem of individual states, not the Federal Goverment. So it only paid for the thinnest possible pavement and the cheapest possible bridges, condemning the system to premature failure and wasting most of the money spent on pavement, bridges, and subgrade preparation. Of all places, on the FHWA website, there is an excellent history of the sausage factory, I mean Washington decision-making process that led to the creation of the Interstate Highway attention. Read particularly, please, the parts where the railroad lobby is discussed, because (to my surprise) the railroad lobby actually was correct.http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/killbill.cfm After you read this, you might be like me and wonder if democracy is such a great idea after all! RWM
Well, now that I've got the time to read the link, I can't access it for some reason. I'll keep trying.
But in the meantime....
Every one of the 10 "positions" presented above is reasonable and logical with the exception of #8, "The truckers did not want to pay for anything whatsoever". People and institutions holding positions such as these will to try to influence the government's action. They're going to do it with publicity stunts, logic, reason, bribes, whatever. This attempted influence will happen no matter what the form of government. Even in a dictatorship there would be "intrigues" aimed at influencing the outcome.
Now here comes my own "ideology", or reasoned economic convictions as I prefer to call it.
Government action will always be the result of political compromises that produce sub-optimal results. Heck Fire, the first US transcontinental railroad was stalled by political disagreement over what route should be built. Nobody knows how long the delay would have gone on, or what wierd result would have developed, if several southern states hadn't tried to leave the United States and form their own country. With their representatives temporarily out of congress, things got moving.
Some things just have to be done by governments. Local road networks, judicial systems, etc. We need to accept that, pay the taxes, and realize that those things will always be the result of poltical processes and compromises that are going to produce sub-optimal results.
But when you get the government involved in writing such things as pavement specifications for buiding the Interstate System, you're asking for trouble. The only real action needed by the government would have been the granting of "Eminent Domain" condemnation rights to private companies seeking to build the super-highways. The toll super-highways could have been built by private companies just as most of the railroads were; do a traffic estimate, line up investors, and build. That would have been far more likely to produce a near-optimal result than the political intrigue and compromise of Washington, DC. And the truckers would have had to pay their own way. Private companies don't set up cross-subsidies, governments do.
It
Bucyrus henry6The problem is not democracy but human behavior. What's wrong with human behavior?
It marrs definitions, twists concepts, becomes immoral, makes devisive decisons, adulterates and alters philosophies, becomes evangistic inits own thoughts disregarding other's. Just for starters.
And, RWM...unfortunately Ambrose has been tainted and therefore will be looked at by me and others with a jaundiced eye. I suppose if I had read everything he ever wrote and was able to verify it all, I might have a different viewpoint. But for now, for me, his writings are suspect.
henry6 It Bucyrus henry6The problem is not democracy but human behavior. What's wrong with human behavior? It marrs definitions, twists concepts, becomes immoral, makes devisive decisons, adulterates and alters philosophies, becomes evangistic inits own thoughts disregarding other's. Just for starters.
This discussion has touched the relative merits and defects of democracy. Since you brought up your list of human deficiencies seemingly to explain why democracy is defective, what is your solution, or do you simply believe that all systems of government are doomed to failure because of destructive human characteristics?
Not all is doomed, somehow it all evolves and continues moving. But I would rather discuss railroads and railroading here and not get sidetracked in discussions of politics, religion, and other philsophies.
henry6 Not all is doomed, somehow it all evolves and continues moving. But I would rather discuss railroads and railroading here and not get sidetracked in discussions of politics, religion, and other philsophies.
That’s fine. We don’t have to discuss it, but you brought it up. I just figured you could explain it.
I've picked up bits and pieces in this thread, suggesting that some monumental engineering projects could have been less costly, if perhaps the lines were laid out differently. What were some of those? Off the top of my head, I'm thinking of things like the Starrucca Viaduct, or Moffet Tunnel, or Lucien Cut-off(?) I'm giving the engineers the benefit of the doubt, assuming that they made the best decisions, most of the time. (But then, I sometimes work with architects, who are good examples of puttingego before common sense.)
I think it goes without saying that today's knowledge and technology would allow for at least a differently built if not better built anything. And of course the further back in time you go the more accurate the statement. However the real challanging quesiton is there a project existing today built before, say 1900, that would be built exactly the same way as then? Even my example of Starrucca is open for critique as perhaps local cut stone would not be the choice of material today.
henry6Even my example of Starrucca is open for critique as perhaps local cut stone would not be the choice of material today.
But, Tree, that is assuming identical obsticals and reasons for building. The answer lies at the specific locationsof Starrucca vs Tunkannonk and the availaility of the stone, etc. We cannot compare projects or locations but ony time periods.
I would argue that the two structures are representative of the available technologies for such structures at the time they were built.
Tunkahannock was (and still is) considered ground-breaking technology at the time it was built.
greyhounds Being from Illinois I know representative government isn't pretty or efficient or even very honest.
Being from Illinois I know representative government isn't pretty or efficient or even very honest.
Ah, but it's so very, very much more entertaining.
Railway Man Bridges you describe are a different case than the bridges about which Murphy posed his original question, which is what I was answering. Stone-faced arch bridges in the 1860-1910 period reached an upper practical economic limit as their size grew, usually once the bridge was more than two spans of 20' feet each, or a total embankment height of 25-30 feet above stream bed. Beyond that size, either the cost of the embankment, or the cost of the stonework, both became prohibitive. The earthwork cost became prohibitive because as you know the width of the embankment increases at something like 4x the rate of the height. The travel distance to obtain all that earth with animal- or man-drawn scrapers becomes too far. Similarly with stone, once beyond about a 20' height the cost to lift stone becomes very high because it reaches beyond a simple stiff-leg derrick powered by animal or man, and the quantity of stone exceeds what can be obtained in the immediate vicinity. RWM
Bridges you describe are a different case than the bridges about which Murphy posed his original question, which is what I was answering. Stone-faced arch bridges in the 1860-1910 period reached an upper practical economic limit as their size grew, usually once the bridge was more than two spans of 20' feet each, or a total embankment height of 25-30 feet above stream bed. Beyond that size, either the cost of the embankment, or the cost of the stonework, both became prohibitive. The earthwork cost became prohibitive because as you know the width of the embankment increases at something like 4x the rate of the height. The travel distance to obtain all that earth with animal- or man-drawn scrapers becomes too far. Similarly with stone, once beyond about a 20' height the cost to lift stone becomes very high because it reaches beyond a simple stiff-leg derrick powered by animal or man, and the quantity of stone exceeds what can be obtained in the immediate vicinity.
Yeah, I wandered a bit off-topic...no one that knows me would be surprised about that! (LOL) I wasn't aware of the 4x ratio for embankments (I would have thought 2x-apparantly a 45 degree slope is too steep?). Building through timber country seemed an odd place to build stone culverts. However, the line was built from the city of Oconto (nearest rail- and lake head) and stone would have been available from quarries just across Green Bay. Seemed counter-intuitive to me but...learn something everyday.
Murphy Siding I've picked up bits and pieces in this thread, suggesting that some monumental engineering projects could have been less costly, if perhaps the lines were laid out differently. What were some of those? Off the top of my head, I'm thinking of things like the Starrucca Viaduct, or Moffet Tunnel, or Lucien Cut-off(?) I'm giving the engineers the benefit of the doubt, assuming that they made the best decisions, most of the time. (But then, I sometimes work with architects, who are good examples of puttingego before common sense.)
Murphy: You're way, way down in the weeds with your examples, and the answers get lengthy and technical. But there's a way to look at this from a higher level that does not nearly challenge my resources to type in this little white box before I go back to reviewing contracts tonight, that might be of use to you.
I have to unpack your question before I can begin to answer, because there's several parts to it. Your question is better stated as "What are examples of mismatch between location and alignment." To explain what that means, read on.
The first question in railroad engineering is not alignment, it is location. "Location" is the science of matching the railroad facility to the economic potential of a geographic area. Prior to any alignment studies, a proper locational analysis first considers the present and future traffic sources and demands of the area, and uses that to size the railroad facility and match its characteristics correctly to the traffic. For example, if the economic potential consists of a virgin forest that regenerates slowly, and the soil has little potential to support row crops once the trees are removed, then the location argues for a railway facility of low volume capacity, impermanent construction, and low cost of construction even if it results in high cost of operation, as slow speeds, tight curves, and steep grades will not be a major economic hindrance to the capability of the railway facility to move the traffic at a profit to the railway's owners. Alternatively, if the potential consists of a region bounded on one end by a major articulation point, on the other by a deepwater port backed by a well-watered hinterland with good soil and mild climate, and inbetween lies a wilderness mostly of desert and mountain with no significant agricultural potential and uncertain mineral deposits, then the location argues for a railway facility of high volume capacity, permanent construction, and low cost of operation, as slow speeds, tight curves, and steep grades will cause a cost of operation that quickly overwhelms the false economies of cheap construction. Secondarily, the location says that the particulars of the location between the two end points is of no great concern as for as local traffic potential, because there isn't any, but it does argue for the shortest route possible commensurate with the lowest operating cost possible.
If the location is done correctly, the alignment follows. But many railways, particularly the post-1900 transcontinentals, were located with extreme indifference to reality, their promoters afflicted by the grandiose idea that North America was "post-location" and all that mattered was a modern alignment -- the traffic and the profits would follow. This was a conclusion not unique to railroads in that era; it's best known as the "rain follows the plow theory" and had some manifest destiny theology mixed in.
The mismatch occurs when the location is misunderstood or not examined. Then the engineering solution to the economic problem is mostly likely seriously in error and the alignment is so placed that the traffic necessary to pay for the construction and operation cannot be attracted, or the line is built to standards that cannot be afforded by the traffic. The latter can be a line that is either too cheap or too expensive. A line that is too cheap for the traffic results in operating costs that bar the traffic from moving, for the traffic cannot afford the cost of its transportation to market. A line that is too expensive for the traffic results in construction costs that cannot be charged to the traffic if the traffic is still to move.
The locational error of the first-order is a line that is in excess of the traffic supply, either because the territory has none to offer or other more advantageously located rail facilities will continue to command it. A first-order error almost always results in the abandonment of the railway facility sooner or later, "later" has almost always been the result of government intervention intended to generate equal outcomes for citizens rather than equal opportunities. The locational error of the second-order is building a line too good or too bad for the traffic. In the former case the pain and suffering only accrues to the original equity holders, and once they are wiped out by bankruptcy when the traffic can't pay for the mortgage, the line under its new owners is at least of low operational cost. (But in some cases excessive cost of maintenance of the low-operating cost alignment have proven intolerable, too.) In the case of a line built too poorly for the traffic the error can be corrected by improving the alignment; one then hopes there is not too much stranded capital from the original facilities that cannot be reused with the improvement.
Examples of what I would list as first-order errors include new construction and heavy line changes:
Examples of second-order errors are rarely so glaring and usually only apply for a limited period of time:
I believe you can learn everything necessary about the science of location in A.M. Wellington's "The Economic Theory of Railway Location." And you can read how Wellington's lessons were applied -- or misapplied -- in James Vance's "The Geography of the North American Railway." I think you cannot possibly buy any other railway book that have even 5% of the knowledge, sweep, and truth of these two.
(An interesting anecdote: I chose the job I am in now specifically because of the man I would work for, who is not known to anyone outside of the railway industry but has been there and left his mark on the North American railway map in the last 30 years -- oh, things like the Conrail merger, the CN-EJ&E merger, etc. I interviewed with him and accepted the job entirely by telephone. When I walked into his office for the first time, I saw on his bookshelves the railway books he wanted to have at his fingertips at work, and the only two books other than reference material were Wellington and Vance. It didn't surprise me at all.)
As a Lackawanna afficianado, RWM, I must ask which Lackawanna Cut Off you are referring to, the NJ Cut Off or the Halstead-Clarks Summit Cut Off. But I am presuming the NJ Cut Off so the question of how that fits your parameters: it relieved curvature, two tunnels, a small bit of milage, and up and down geography while filling the needs of the then and future traffic of the railroad.
I'm also impressed with these old structures...including the old railway stations. I wonder how many of today's structures will still be standing in 100 years.
henry6 I think it goes without saying that today's knowledge and technology would allow for at least a differently built if not better built anything. And of course the further back in time you go the more accurate the statement. However the real challanging quesiton is there a project existing today built before, say 1900, that would be built exactly the same way as then? Even my example of Starrucca is open for critique as perhaps local cut stone would not be the choice of material today.
henry6 -
I'll stick my neck out here a little bit and nominate the PRR's Horse Shoe Curve alignment - even the whole division, from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh, including along the Juniata and Conemaugh Rivers - as one that would have been built the same way today as back then. Even today I can't see any railroad wanting to pay for the tunnels or extreme earthwork that would be needed to appreciably change the alignment - it would be far more than what BNSF just finished doing at Cajon Pass, California to add the 3rd track, and look how long it took for that project to be justified. Piggybacking on RWM's comments above, I'll observe that there hasn't been any local traffic in modern times between Altoona and Gallitzin. Even back in the day, the local traffic wasn't much - only a few opportunistic lumber and small coal mining operations (OK, it looks like there once was a short branch that went a little further west up Burgoon Run - I've hiked into the Curve on the old roadbed - but that had to have been already defunct by early in the 20th century.). Further (and farther), I'm not aware of any other possible alignment through Pennsylvania as good, that gets a railroad between those two endpoints.
henry6 As a Lackawanna afficianado, RWM, I must ask which Lackawanna Cut Off you are referring to, the NJ Cut Off or the Halstead-Clarks Summit Cut Off. But I am presuming the NJ Cut Off so the question of how that fits your parameters: it relieved curvature, two tunnels, a small bit of milage, and up and down geography while filling the needs of the then and future traffic of the railroad.
I'll stand up as a supporter of both cut-offs as having been completely economically justified. They were not "original" locations or alignments, and hence not newly subject to the errors in location as RWM described above. As cut-offs, they of course pretty much replicated the original location (route) - and so were subject to any errors in that, which I think were not much for the time and circumstances. (Although the NJ Cut-Off was abandoned and sold off by ConRail, for about the last 15 years NJ Transit has been gradually reassembling it and studying the resumption of rail service from the metro NYC area to Scranton, PA, which I think argues that the ConRail abandonment merely reflected CR's lack of use for the line, not that no one could find a good use for it.)
Instead, they were second-generation re-alignments, and although as such they were of course subject to perpetuating any errors of the original locations, as alignments they are pretty darned good. The details are not committed to my memory, but are extensively described in the literature of the time and in the railfan press. They are excellent examples of a more enlightened and sophisticated approach toward the economics of railway construction - build first cheaply and quickly, and improve as justified once the traffic develops. These cut-offs exemplify the next logical and economic step - the improvement after the traffic had proved out.
Recognizing that RWM's inclusion of them on his list was "provisional", I'd recomend that next time you're out east here with a day or so to kill [yeah, I know - in my dreams, right ?], take a drive along them and see for yourself. For the most part the routes are accessible, rural and scenic, and a nice diversion to the urban chaos. While here, pick up (or at least review) a couple of the books that provide more details. Then I expect you'll come to the same conclusion.
UlrichI'm also impressed with these old structures...including the old railway stations. I wonder how many of today's structures will still be standing in 100 years.
Depots from small to large linger because of historic preservation ideas, not quality of construction, design, or conception. The big-city depots are maintenance nightmares, code-compliance nightmares, environmental nightmares, and usually badly mismatched to today's needs. Even if they are pretty! We're all hoping that today's depots will not last 100 years because in 20-30 years hence there will be changes in requirements that argue for a new depot. But probably the future's historic preservationists will fall in love with today's depots, too -- as weird at that seems -- and we'll have to make do with their defects in the future as well.
Bridges today are engineered and constructed to much better standards than in the past. We engineer specifically with 100-year lifetimes in mind.
Conventional wisdom often claims that things of the present are not as durable as things of the past. When it comes to railways, conventional wisdom is wrong. What people with conventional wisdom do not see is all the junk of the past that has long since been scrapped, buried, or fallen down.
henry6As a Lackawanna afficianado, RWM, I must ask which Lackawanna Cut Off you are referring to, the NJ Cut Off or the Halstead-Clarks Summit Cut Off. But I am presuming the NJ Cut Off so the question of how that fits your parameters: it relieved curvature, two tunnels, a small bit of milage, and up and down geography while filling the needs of the then and future traffic of the railroad.
Did it pay for itself? That's the only criteria that matters.
Railway Man Murphy: You're way, way down in the weeds with your examples...
Murphy: You're way, way down in the weeds with your examples...
Milwaukee Road Puget Sound Extension As in from Mobridge to the Pacific Ocean? Talk like that could get you knifed in some crowds!!
Paul_D_North_JrI'll stand up as a supporter of both cut-offs as having been completely economically justified. They were not "original" locations or alignments, and hence not newly subject to the errors in location as RWM described above. As cut-offs, they of course pretty much replicated the original location (route) - and so were subject to any errors in that, which I think were not much for the time and circumstances. (Although the NJ Cut-Off was abandoned and sold off by ConRail, for about the last 15 years NJ Transit has been gradually reassembling it and studying the resumption of rail service from the metro NYC area to Scranton, PA, which I think argues that the ConRail abandonment merely reflected CR's lack of use for the line, not that no one could find a good use for it.) Instead, they were second-generation re-alignments, and although as such they were of course subject to perpetuating any errors of the original locations, as alignments they are pretty darned good. The details are not committed to my memory, but are extensively described in the literature of the time and in the railfan press. They are excellent examples of a more enlightened and sophisticated approach toward the economics of railway construction - build first cheaply and quickly, and improve as justified once the traffic develops. These cut-offs exemplify the next logical and economic step - the improvement after the traffic had proved out. Recognizing that RWM's inclusion of them on his list was "provisional", I'd recomend that next time you're out east here with a day or so to kill [yeah, I know - in my dreams, right ?], take a drive along them and see for yourself. For the most part the routes are accessible, rural and scenic, and a nice diversion to the urban chaos. While here, pick up (or at least review) a couple of the books that provide more details. Then I expect you'll come to the same conclusion. - Paul North.
Paul, you're somewhat missing Wellington's point on location. It applies equally to decisions made about existing facilities too. It is a question of return on investment. Wellington argued that the mistake of engineers is to build without knowledge of why they were building. I really don't care if the line is de novo or we're going to replace a culvert, we had better first understand why we are spending a dime on improving the property or maintaining the property, the alternatives for spending our dimes, and the likelihood that the future traffic potential of the property will return our investment handsomely.
When someone at a railway or a consulting firm tells me that such and such an improvement will lower the cost of operation or add capacity, I ask them, "Did you compare it to abandoning the railway and putting the money into a mason jar buried in the backyard? Or purchasing trackage rights on another railway? Please say yes because otherwise your CEO or client is going to make you look like an idiot in front of a whole lot of people. And it won't be pretty for your career."
RWM - and others -
I think we're looking at slightly different sides of the same challenge (kind of like the parable of the 6 blind men who touched different parts of the elephant to learn more about it, but they each came away with a different impression). I'm very familiar with the "broader question" analysis - or said other ways, "What is the best definition of this problem ?" in an engineering context, or more generally, "What is the right question to ask here ?" Probably my 1st week in engineering school drilled that into me, and it's been with me ever since.
That said, for this comment I had taken it that we were beyond that first "go- no go" questions of should the Lackawanna continue to be in the railroad business with its own track on that route - in other words, the broader "location" question. Instead, I though we were now looking at the next tier of questions regarding the merits and economics of the many dimes that were spent on the realignment as compared to keeping the existing alignment, or any of the practical alternatives at that point - in other words, the return on investment (ROI) question. At that level, I still maintain that the Lackawanna's engineers did the right thing for the times. I believe - but can't cite or prove right at the moment - that the DL&W did recoup that incremental investment by the mid-1920's, certainly before the Great Depression, thus confirming the wisdom of their decisions. If and when I remember this thread - and find it - I'll be glad to post the results, one way or another.
Paul_D_North_JrFurther (and farther), I'm not aware of any other possible alignment through Pennsylvania as good, that gets a railroad between those two endpoints.
Paul....I'm curious, have you looked over the 1885 alignment of the partially completed South Penn RR R of W and how it might have compared to bridge the distance between Harrisburg and the Pittsburgh area....As you probably know the original Pennsylvania Turnpike roughly followed it when it was constructed and opened in Oct. 1940.
Railway Man Murph: The track structure they laid is of course long, long gone, though I did some work in 2007 on a line still laid with its original 1903 60 lb. Minnequa rail. And some of the co-located splinter collections once called "ties" appeared to be original too. [snip] You don't need computers or even a pocket calculator to do 99% of the engineering we do today. You need common sense, experience, a pencil and paper, and good standards. The software is nice to have to do things like calculate earthwork quantities and size drainage openings. There is also software that purports to minimize earthwork and cut-and-fill quantities, and locate alignments, and you should see the wretched results they deliver! I once went to a demonstration by some very smart guys of how their software program could locate a rail line on virgin topography to minimize earthwork. The result didn't have hardly a stick of tangent rail in five miles, and bobbed up and down like a rowboat in a hurricane. In other words, it was utterly inoperable and unmaintainable. I wonder if they ever sold that to anyone other than some transit agency or DOT. RWM
[snip]
Both of these were good for a laugh - I liked that clever and "sophisticated" innovative turn of phrase for ties, as well as the "roll-my-eyes" at the software. I have to wonder if or why they didn't have something built in for overriding parameters - even for the highways that it was most likely developed for, the standards for an Interstate or expressway wouldn't accept what would be OK for a subdivision street. But that's probably the answer right there - it was developed for use in subdivision designs = where most of the civil and site engineering money was, at least until a year or so ago - to drive the construction costs down to rock bottom-minimums, and so never considered the need for much longer intervals between vertical curves and grades, etc.
One point I want to put out here briefly: Not to take away too much from our worthy predecessors, but some of the location and alignment work wasn't any harder than simply following the drainage or watercourses - in other words, the "water level routes". A truism in the sanitary sewer design trade is that all you need to do is wait until it rains - then watch where and how the water runs off, and design the sewer to reflect that (only underground in a pipe instead).
As it happened, acceptable grades for both early and modern railroad operation are roughly the same as the principal reaches (stems) of major water courses - in the 1 to 2 % range, or 50 to 100 ft. per mile. Those existing valleys and grades - where Mother Nature had also already done most of the needed heavy lifting (OK - "digging" instead) seemed to approximately match what was needed for a good compromise between a decent (profitable) volume of trailing load and/or speed, and acceptable costs of construction.
One of my other hobbies is canoeing, esp. in moderate whitewater, such as Class II - III rapids. I've been surprised to see how many good whitewater streams - where a fall of 100 ft. to the mile is usually regarded as producing pretty good (= exciting) conditions - are paralled by a railroad grade, which in many cases are still quite active, at least here on the East Coast. The Grand Canyon and Snake River are much steeper and in a class by themselves, but here on the East Coast the CSX Sand Patch grade parallels the Youghiogheny, Guilford's B&M line runs along the Deerfield River at Zoar, both the LV and the CNJ ran along what is now the Lehigh River Gorge State Park, the DL&W runs along some of the best parts of the Delaware, the D&H ran along the Upper Hudson, NS and/or CSX is in most of the southern river valleys such as the New River, the Gauley, the one in north Georgia, the one on the westerly slopes of the Great Smokies, and then there's the one that parallels the last 20 - 30 miles of the Quebec, North Shore & Labrador, etc.
Paul - Funny you should mention the river thing. One of our regular local runs follows a river fairly closely for most of its route, crossing said river three times in the process.
The "follow the water" principle works pretty well, except for 2 or 3 conditions:
1) Where the terrain is so flat - and/ or the river meanders so much (think lower Mississippi River) - that the river's alignment doesn't offer any meaningful advantage for lower construction costs - then, it's better to get away from the constraints of the river and strike out overland. The far reaches of the 1st Transcontinental RR has some good examples of this.
2) At the other extreme, when you've followed the river as far as you can and are now confronted with getting through a mountain range via pass or a tunnel - those considerations will trump strictly following the stream. But even there, the upper sides of the valleys can be used to provide openings for an alignment as the track loops back and forth. Harold A. Boner in The Moffat Road has an excellent account of that for the eastern approach to the D&RGW (now UP)Moffat Tunnel; Tehachapi Pass, the GN (now BNSF) Cascade Tunnel, etc.
One further thought: Another good reason to follow the rivers is that's often where the intermediate population centers = towns = traffic sources and destinations were, at least here on the East Coast when the railroads were first being built (not so true west of the Missippi).
EDIT: P.S. - Larry - I seem to recall that the Adirondack RR used to have - maybe still does have ? - a canoe & train operation ? Carry the boats and passengers upstream a couple miles, then they unload and float back downstream to the starting point ? I know the Algoma Central Railroad did that for trips on the lakes up there (canoes in the baggage cars), and about 20 years ago a tourist operation along the Brandywine Creek in Chester County, PA near Chadds Ford (Wyeth family painter country) did, too. - PDN.
The "relatively pure" engineering responses which preceed adequately ,in my judgement, analyze what would be done in the vacum of engineering analysis. What is missing are the mandates of politicians and financiers who told (and still tell in too many instances) the engineers where and what to build or not build.
In the recent past RR management has become much more sophisticated about engineering expertise and advice. Take note of the CEO of NS. Unfortunately those who mandate via politics, Congress for example, care little about what makes either economic or engineering sense.
Paul_D_North_JrOne point I want to put out here briefly: Not to take away too much from our worthy predecessors, but some of the location and alignment work wasn't any harder than simply following the drainage or watercourses - in other words, the "water level routes". A truism in the sanitary sewer design trade is that all you need to do is wait until it rains - then watch where and how the water runs off, and design the sewer to reflect that (only underground in a pipe instead). As it happened, acceptable grades for both early and modern railroad operation are roughly the same as the principal reaches (stems) of major water courses - in the 1 to 2 % range, or 50 to 100 ft. per mile. Those existing valleys and grades - where Mother Nature had also already done most of the needed heavy lifting (OK - "digging" instead) seemed to approximately match what was needed for a good compromise between a decent (profitable) volume of trailing load and/or speed, and acceptable costs of construction.- Paul North.
Our forefathers in England and on the Continent found our water grades of 1-2% unacceptable and grossly excessive. Their idea of a water-level route was "mill-pond," i.e., flat. Vance discusses in detail the economic reasons why we diverged immediately from the British example and struck out on a very different type of railroading.
I think the locational work was much harder than observing water courses, or it must have been, because so many got it so badly wrong at the beginning, particularly in New England, embarking on projects with impractical or incompetent engineering that were quickly abandoned or bankrupt.
Paul, I think actually you and I have very different concepts of location, it's not a case of six blind men describing an elephant. Wellington said that following a river just because it was there and provided acceptable grades or that's where you thought population would occur, was a terrible idea. He thought that if you'd let the locational study devolve into looking to see where you could build a railroad instead of where you ought to build a railroad you had better hope you were lucky.
Paul_D_North_Jr henry6 As a Lackawanna afficianado, RWM, I must ask which Lackawanna Cut Off you are referring to, the NJ Cut Off or the Halstead-Clarks Summit Cut Off. But I am presuming the NJ Cut Off so the question of how that fits your parameters: it relieved curvature, two tunnels, a small bit of milage, and up and down geography while filling the needs of the then and future traffic of the railroad. I'll stand up as a supporter of both cut-offs as having been completely economically justified. They were not "original" locations or alignments, and hence not newly subject to the errors in location as RWM described above. As cut-offs, they of course pretty much replicated the original location (route) - and so were subject to any errors in that, which I think were not much for the time and circumstances. (Although the NJ Cut-Off was abandoned and sold off by ConRail, for about the last 15 years NJ Transit has been gradually reassembling it and studying the resumption of rail service from the metro NYC area to Scranton, PA, which I think argues that the ConRail abandonment merely reflected CR's lack of use for the line, not that no one could find a good use for it.) Instead, they were second-generation re-alignments, and although as such they were of course subject to perpetuating any errors of the original locations, as alignments they are pretty darned good. The details are not committed to my memory, but are extensively described in the literature of the time and in the railfan press. They are excellent examples of a more enlightened and sophisticated approach toward the economics of railway construction - build first cheaply and quickly, and improve as justified once the traffic develops. These cut-offs exemplify the next logical and economic step - the improvement after the traffic had proved out. Recognizing that RWM's inclusion of them on his list was "provisional", I'd recomend that next time you're out east here with a day or so to kill [yeah, I know - in my dreams, right ?], take a drive along them and see for yourself. For the most part the routes are accessible, rural and scenic, and a nice diversion to the urban chaos. While here, pick up (or at least review) a couple of the books that provide more details. Then I expect you'll come to the same conclusion. - Paul North.
Yes, RWM, both projects paid for themselves many times over. I grew up in Denville, NJ with the DL&W in my backyard and have lived in the Bingahmton, NY area for over 40 of the last 45 years. A good friend, W.S. Young is well noted for his histories of both the Starrucca Viaduct and The Hallstead Cut Off. So I am very familiar with the two cut offs with the many concrete bridges and the stone work at Lanesboro. Starrucca is on the same alignment as built in 1848. The DL&W Cut Offs of course run somewhat parallel to the initital tracks. Eliminating undulating grades, tunnels, many circles of curvature, while shortening the routes somwhat and increasing speeds, made the Cut Offs a paying proposition for the DL&W. The EL did not take advantage of them using the Erie route along the Delaware River for freight; Scranton was no longer producing hundreds of cars of coal daily and North Jersey commuter services (trip frequency, catenary, single track Boonton Line) did not make the DL&W line attractive. As for Conrail, the EL in general did not fit either red or green profiles. After passsenger service ended the EL virtually elimenated all service on the DL&W east of Binghamton into New Jersey; Conrail followed, feeding Scranton from Harrisburg before selling that line to the D&H. CR worst move was the quiet removal of rail and sale of NJ Cut Off right of way to a scapper before the public and its governing agencies were aware of what was being done. Yes, it was not useful to CR, but CR did not want it to be useful to anyone else. The current increasing need for rail passenger service along the Route I80 corridor across NJ and into PA has made the Cut Off alignment important and useful again. So does the new engineering to reuse the Cut Off work off new technology or rebuild on the old?
henry6Yes, RWM, both projects paid for themselves many times over. I grew up in Denville, NJ with the DL&W in my backyard and have lived in the Bingahmton, NY area for over 40 of the last 45 years. A good friend, W.S. Young is well noted for his histories of both the Starrucca Viaduct and The Hallstead Cut Off. So I am very familiar with the two cut offs with the many concrete bridges and the stone work at Lanesboro. Starrucca is on the same alignment as built in 1848. The DL&W Cut Offs of course run somewhat parallel to the initital tracks. Eliminating undulating grades, tunnels, many circles of curvature, while shortening the routes somwhat and increasing speeds, made the Cut Offs a paying proposition for the DL&W. The EL did not take advantage of them using the Erie route along the Delaware River for freight; Scranton was no longer producing hundreds of cars of coal daily and North Jersey commuter services (trip frequency, catenary, single track Boonton Line) did not make the DL&W line attractive. As for Conrail, the EL in general did not fit either red or green profiles. After passsenger service ended the EL virtually elimenated all service on the DL&W east of Binghamton into New Jersey; Conrail followed, feeding Scranton from Harrisburg before selling that line to the D&H. CR worst move was the quiet removal of rail and sale of NJ Cut Off right of way to a scapper before the public and its governing agencies were aware of what was being done. Yes, it was not useful to CR, but CR did not want it to be useful to anyone else. The current increasing need for rail passenger service along the Route I80 corridor across NJ and into PA has made the Cut Off alignment important and useful again. So does the new engineering to reuse the Cut Off work off new technology or rebuild on the old?
You've seen the ROIs? What were they, out of curiosity? I threw the DL&W onto the list as a possible example not because I know of its ROI, but because I'm curious. It was an expensive project. I'm aware the new line was an engineering improvement but I'm not aware if it was an economic improvement, nor has the railfan press ever bothered to answer that question that I know of. I'd like to see numbers that satisfy the question -- then we'd know if it was a monument to clear thinking or a monument to clients' ego and consultants' fees.
Railway Man You've seen the ROIs? What were they, out of curiosity? RWM
You've seen the ROIs? What were they, out of curiosity?
Best source: Tabers DL&W in the 20th Century and W.S. Young's Tunkhannok Viaduct and Hallstead Cut Of books.
henry6 Best source: Tabers DL&W in the 20th Century and W.S. Young's Tunkhannok Viaduct and Hallstead Cut Of books.
Can you do me a favor and quote the ROIs or a page number? Thanks!
Railway Man henry6 Best source: Tabers DL&W in the 20th Century and W.S. Young's Tunkhannok Viaduct and Hallstead Cut Of books. If I both remember and have time when I get home this evening, I'll try...if I don't, poke me again tomorrow or Wed. Can you do me a favor and quote the ROIs or a page number? Thanks!
If I both remember and have time when I get home this evening, I'll try...if I don't, poke me again tomorrow or Wed.
Paul_D_North_JrEDIT: P.S. - Larry - I seem to recall that the Adirondack RR used to have - maybe still does have ? - a canoe & train operation ? Carry the boats and passengers upstream a couple miles, then they unload and float back downstream to the starting point ?
Just the opposite, actually, as we don't get close enough to a launch point on the upper part (north branch) of the Moose River. The canoe businesses trailer them up, then they paddle back to the business location.
Our operation picks them up after a 3.5-4 hour trip down the middle branch of the Moose River. Nice trip - I've done it a couple of times. Mostly slack or otherwise smooth water. Ironically, the canoe takeout is just downstream from one end of the first Fulton Chain Railroad, commonly known as the "Peg Leg."
It's a great way to see the Adirondacks - both the canoe/kayak trip and the train ride. Since many people finish the trip much faster than the planned 3.5 - 4 hours we often pick them up on the way south instead of making them wait for us to return north.
Last time I paddled down I surprised a couple of river otters who repeated voiced their opinion of my presence....
Kevin C. Smith Railway Man [snip] Stone-faced arch bridges in the 1860-1910 period reached an upper practical economic limit as their size grew, usually once the bridge was more than two spans of 20' feet each, or a total embankment height of 25-30 feet above stream bed. Beyond that size, either the cost of the embankment, or the cost of the stonework, both became prohibitive. The earthwork cost became prohibitive because as you know the width of the embankment increases at something like 4x the rate of the height. The travel distance to obtain all that earth with animal- or man-drawn scrapers becomes too far. [snip] RWM Yeah, I wandered a bit off-topic...no one that knows me would be surprised about that! (LOL) I wasn't aware of the 4x ratio for embankments (I would have thought 2x-apparantly a 45 degree slope is too steep?). [snip]
Railway Man [snip] Stone-faced arch bridges in the 1860-1910 period reached an upper practical economic limit as their size grew, usually once the bridge was more than two spans of 20' feet each, or a total embankment height of 25-30 feet above stream bed. Beyond that size, either the cost of the embankment, or the cost of the stonework, both became prohibitive. The earthwork cost became prohibitive because as you know the width of the embankment increases at something like 4x the rate of the height. The travel distance to obtain all that earth with animal- or man-drawn scrapers becomes too far. [snip] RWM
Yeah, I wandered a bit off-topic...no one that knows me would be surprised about that! (LOL) I wasn't aware of the 4x ratio for embankments (I would have thought 2x-apparantly a 45 degree slope is too steep?). [snip]
Kevin - Yes, a 45 degree slope = 1:1 (= 1 ft. "run" horizontal for a 1 ft. "rise" vertical) is generally too steep for all but the most angular or rocky soils, cheap construction, and a lack of concern for future stability, erosion, and maintenance costs, as well as perhaps safety issues. More typical is a minimum 2:1 (about 30 degrees) or so for embankments of this type - variations often range up to 3:1, but you wouldn't do that if you were concerned about minimizing the quantities and costs of the earthwork.
The latter are even worse than RWM's comment alludes to. The cross-sectional area - and hence the quantities and costs - vary as the square of the height of the embankment. For an embankment of top width W, height H, and 2:1 side slopes:
Width at bottom = W +2H + 2H = W + 4H
Average Width is 1/2 of (W + W+4H) = W +2H.
Cross-section = H x Avg. Width = H x (W + 2H) = WxH +2H^^2.
Further, note that for roadway widths in the 15 to 20 ft. range, the height-squared term would dominate pretty quickly once the height got above around the same values - like the 25 to 30 ft. that RWM mentioned above - esp. since it has the 2-multiplier associated with it. For example, for a 15 ft. wide roadway and a 20 ft. high fill, the 1st term would be 15x20 = 300 sq. ft., but the 2nd term would be 2x20x20 = 800 sq. ft., or about 2.67 times as much as the 1st term (300), or about 72 % of the total (1,100 sq. ft.).
Railway Man [many snips] I believe you can learn everything necessary about the science of location in A.M. Wellington's "The Economic Theory of Railway Location." And you can read how Wellington's lessons were applied -- or misapplied -- in James Vance's "The Geography of the North American Railway." I think you cannot possibly buy any other railway book that have even 5% of the knowledge, sweep, and truth of these two. [emphasis added - PDN.] (An interesting anecdote: I chose the job I am in now specifically because of the man I would work for, who is not known to anyone outside of the railway industry but has been there and left his mark on the North American railway map in the last 30 years -- oh, things like the Conrail merger, the CN-EJ&E merger, etc. I interviewed with him and accepted the job entirely by telephone. When I walked into his office for the first time, I saw on his bookshelves the railway books he wanted to have at his fingertips at work, and the only two books other than reference material were Wellington and Vance. It didn't surprise me at all.) RWM
More info on the referenced books:
The Economic Theory of the Location of Railways: An analysis of the conditions controlling the laying out of railways to effect the most judicious expenditure of capital, Arthur Mellen Wellington, WIley, 6th ed. 1914, 980 pp.(hardcover), ASIN B00086P1J6 or B000NPBCIQ. Amazon currently lists 2, 1 at $110.00 and 1 at $133.91. Amazon also lists 1 of the 1887 ed. as a "collectible" for $200.00 from Powell's Books (notably, the largest independent bookstore - based in Portland Oregon, and really good people, from my visit and dealings with them). If you want that one, better move quick, because I've got my eye on it, too
The North American Railroad: Its Origin, Evolution, and Geography (Creating the North American Landscape), James E. Vance, Jr. (Professor Emeritus of Geography, Univ. of California - Berkeley, 1925-1999), Johns Hopkins University Press, 1st ed. 1995, 384 pp. (hardcover), ISBN 0-8018-4573-4. Amazon lists it as available used from $4.34, "new" from $31.34 to $39.00 (5 supposedly available). Of the 2 reviews there, the 5-star wanted more maps; the 3-star decried the "university verbiage" sentences.
abebooks.com is a vastly better source because you're dealing directly with the used/rare book dealer, don't have the useless Amazon markup, and you get a much better deal because you have transparency to the dealer who cares about your business. I've purchased more than 1,000 books through abebooks with not one bad result.
Best price on abebooks is $9.98 for Wellington (1/10 of Amazon's low, low prices), and $9.94 for Vance. Check the shipping price on Amazon compared to the private dealer, too.
Hey, thanks much, RailWay Man !
That's definitely a better resource - they list 11 of the Wellington book, for example.
However, and just FYI - the $9.98 Wellington is apparently an "e-version", not a "hard copy" format. A softcover reprint is available for $34, which is good enough for me.
Also, not to rain on your parade, but their "Company Information" page now says:
"AbeBooks Inc. is a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc. AbeBooks, an online bookselling pioneer, was acquired in December 2008 and remains a stand-alone operation with headquarters in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and a European office in Dusseldorf, Germany." [emphasis added - PDN]
Nevertheless, I'll take your recommendation as stated. Thanks again.
P.S. - A 1,000 books, eh ? I don't doubt you - in fact, all the better ! You'll make me look so good by comparison the next time my wife and I debate the space that my book & magazine collection takes up ! (Note that I'm not asking how many you still have - but I'm sure the answer is "Almost all", right ?) A moderator on another forum - screen name George Harris - once described those of us in this business as something like "inveterate packrats" because the really good books and references are no longer published and so are hard to come by. I sit here and gaze up at a pocket-sized hard-back copy of Railroad Curves and Earthwork by C. Frank Allen, McGraw-Hill, 1931, and think to myself, "Yeah, I represent that remark . . . ".- PDN.
One further observation or question on the Wellington and Vance books that's interesting, and maybe a little scary, too:
Note that it's effectively a century between them - 1887 or so to 1914 for Wellington, and 1995 for Vance - and there's nothing else worthwhile in the meantime ?
And while I'm on my soapbox [OK, keyboard], it seems we have another example of "White's Law of Railroad Scholarship"* on display here:
We're all discussing the theory and practice of railroad locations and alignments here, but - aside from RWM's emphasis on the threshold question of whether or how the railroad should be there at all, etc. - unless we're next going to be discussing the construction proposed line from the Lower 48 U.S. states to Alaska or similar, this is all pretty much academic (only). Now that the Abo Canyon 2nd track addition is underway, and the DM&E expansion has been approved, I'm not aware of any other major railroad construction, extension, or relocation projects that are looming in the near future that would put this theory into practice. Then again, maybe I just don't know about them - yet.
* - First postulated by John H. White, Jr., former Curator of the Museum of Land Transportation [or similar title] at the Smithsonian Institution, and author of numerous books on our favorite subject, in a Trains "Turntable" column on the inside back page of the magazine sometime in the 1970's:
"The amount of scholarship devoted to a railroad subject is in inverse proportion to its importance."
Modelcar Paul_D_North_JrFurther (and farther), I'm not aware of any other possible alignment through Pennsylvania as good, that gets a railroad between those two endpoints. Paul....I'm curious, have you looked over the 1885 alignment of the partially completed South Penn RR R of W and how it might have compared to bridge the distance between Harrisburg and the Pittsburgh area....As you probably know the original Pennsylvania Turnpike roughly followed it when it was constructed and opened in Oct. 1940.
Quentin -
No, other than having driven over it maybe a dozen times (mostly in darkness at one end of the day or the other, unfortunately, so I really couldn't appreciate it much).
That area is very tough to compare alignments in, because it's essentially a chain of parallel mountain ridges across the most desirable direction of the alignment, without any obvious or clear-cut pass or other feature to lead towards a preferred solution. From what little I know of it, any analysis tends to wind up being circular - i.e., "If I go this way, that is a pretty good route", but there's several routes that might meet that criteria, and not a lot to differentiate one way or route over another.
Considering the dynamics or "railroad geo-politics*" of the South Penn - it was built as a rate-breaking "spoiler" line by Andrew Carnegie in cahoots with the NYC, as I recall. (Somewhere in there the PRR started the West Shore as a putative competitor to the NYC - not sure which of these was first or as revenge, though.) Anyway, as you know the mutual chicanery and maneuverings were ended by a deal brokered by J. P. Morgan on his yacht Corsair, and everyone involved "got a haircut", in the current vernacular, one result of which was that the South Penn was immediately abandoned as it then was. This says a couple of things to me:
- Maybe the PRR already had already claimed and occupied the best route over the Alleghenies in central Pennsylvania. Just because the South Penn was built later - not that many years later, either - and in a different place doesn't necessarily mean that it was better. That different location might have been the "next best" one available; and/ or,
- The South Penn likely was not that much better - however one defines better, perhaps in this context in terms of new on-line traffic sources for the costs required of the new construction - of a route than Horse Shoe Curve. Otherwise, the PRR would have claimed and used the South Penn, perhaps instead of the later "Mule Shoe" route that paralleled and bypassed Horse Shoe Curve to the south from Hollidaysburg to Gallitzin Summit.
Finally - proving once again the educational and analytical value of this forum and posting to it (at least to me), I just made the following connection in responding to your post - accepting your 1885 date for the South Penn alignment:
The 1885 South Penn RR and West Shore RR debacle might well have been the motivation (or "last straw") that prompted the Interstate Commerce Commission Act of 1887 ("ICC Act"), if I've got that date right. It's now known that the ICC Act was to make the railroad cartelization (OPEC-like) of the late 1800's enforceable on all the players, and that the ICC Act was in fact drafted by a PRR lawyer. (George W. Hilton wrote several lengthy articles on this and related subjects in Trains in the late 1960's and early 1970's, cited historian Albro Martin if I recall that correctly.) Having sufferered through and from this bitter and expensive situation and machinations at Carnegie's instigation (sound familiar to today's financial chicanery ?), I have no trouble believing that the men of the PRR - mainly engineers/ businessmen such as J. Edgar Thomson and Alexander J. Cassatt - were fed up with it all, and hence determined to prevent it from ever happening to them again. Perhaps having failed to prevent it on their own, the next best way to accomplish that would be to invoke the force of law and power of the Federal government (I'll leave it to someone else to say which was the more powerful organization back in that day . . . ).
Well, that's enough on this for now. Thanks for asking, and the opprtunity to think this through a little bit - I hope this is responsive to your inquiry.
* - Back in the mid-1970's I went to a evening lecture by a Univ. of Pennsylvania professor on this subject. It was all very interesting, but as it was just prior to ConRail, it seemed strangely divorced from reality. When almost every NorthEast US railroad was in bankruptcy and struggling to survive, playing such games with each other - a favorite tactic and entertainment of corporate lawyers such as Stuart T. Saunders of PennCentral and his kind, by the way - while ignoring the fundamental problems of poor track, old equipment, and especially non-competitive rates and service, was kind of like "arranging deck chairs on the Titanic": "Yes, you may cut out your competitor and merge with another railroad, but at the end of the day you're all still going to be broke." It seemed to me then - and now - that their efforts would have been better directed to other goals.
Murphy, I don’t know that the Lucin Cutoff could have been better located; its location is certainly superior to that of the original line in that it eliminated much mountain running with curves and grades and distance (48 miles shorter). Since the route is across open water, it is subject to wave damage as well as wind damage, and is not cheap to maintain. After the causeway was constructed, replacing much of the original trestle, with two culverts to carry water between the north and south arms of the lake, it was discovered that the culverts did not allow sufficient waterflow to prevent a much higher salt buildup in the south arm (more freshwater comes into the northern arm), so the causeway was breached about twenty-six years ago to increase the waterflow.
The WP’s route, around the south end of the lake, also called for some high maintenance twenty-six years ago when there was an early snowmelt on the west side of the Wasatch; the waves were lapping at the track.
Johnny
samfp1943 To pose another position; the early railroad construction IMHO was built in a race for expediency. To construct a railline; to go from point A to B, first, to prove it could be done, and secondly garner the rewards of more and better funding., To capturing the travelers, and freight between those two points. With labor back then as cheap, and somewhat available as it apparently was; with the loadings fairly light. The requirements of the types of cars and locomotives, being fairly forgiving of the 'fast and dirty' laid track. The first idea was to make the mosr money and then improve the structure as traffic demanded, serviceability and not longevity was the apparent goal. Only after a line could prove its ability to earn for its company did the strengthening and overbuilding take place.
As Confederate Cavalry General Nathan Bedford Forrest once supposedly said, military victory most often goes to "...whoever gets there firstest with the mostest..." [from an Army Logistics Command webpage, appropriately enough - see: http://www.almc.army.mil/alog/issues/MarApr97/systems.htm ; emphasis added - PDN] Also: "A good track today is better than a perfect track tomorrow", to paraphrase Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.
In this context, it's worth remembering that - which was not always known or done back in the day - especially with regard to the logistics problem. Until the railroad was actually built and in place, it was very difficult to get all those supplies, materials, and equipment for the construction far enough out in advance to avoid delaying that operation. Once the railroad was up and running, though, it was much easier and cheaper do anything, esp. to get the big, heavy, and long things - like steel bridge pieces - out to where they were needed. Then dhe rebuilding or relocation could hopefully be done more deliberately and purposefully for the circumstances, esp. once the revenue stream had started coming in. But until the system was connected and operating, it just wasn't practical to get that or such things as tunnels done far enough or long enough in advance. In effect, the railroad was its own lifeline. Once built, it could always be improved. But a railroad that stopped even a few mile short of its goal didn't accomplish and wasn't worth much.
Railway Man You've seen the ROIs? What were they, out of curiosity? I threw the DL&W onto the list as a possible example not because I know of its ROI, but because I'm curious. It was an expensive project. I'm aware the new line was an engineering improvement but I'm not aware if it was an economic improvement, nor has the railfan press ever bothered to answer that question that I know of. I'd like to see numbers that satisfy the question -- then we'd know if it was a monument to clear thinking or a monument to clients' ego and consultants' fees. RWM
Checking through both Taber and Taber and Young, neither books go into ROI statistics but explain the Cut Offs in larger terms of modernizing the railroad allowing for bigger and heavier locomotives, longer and heavier trains, and faster speeds for both passenger and frieght all as part of the benefits of the projects. Taber and Taber offer tables on revenue and profitablity of the Erie, CNJ, LV, and DL&W as a result of their modernization programs from 1900 to 1914 to 1926 on Page 53 of DL&W in the 20th Century, Vol. 1 in a general discussion of the benefits of the programs on the same pages. The whole chapter is devoted to all the modernization programs including both Cut Offs, other concrete bridges, fills, and additional tracks which were added. Young in his Tunkhannock, The Great White Bridge revised and reprinted in 2005 also extols the effeciencies achieved and allowed rather than an ROI figure.
But, using that information, backed by how railroads were "rationalized" in the early and mid 1800's, replaces the need for an ROI. Railroads in the East were built on routes that went to the natural rescources which were needed in the larger, coastal cities. And they were often built through cities and towns where financing was offered rather than because the cities and towns were in the path between two distant points. Plus railroad fever of the time demanded a railroad in everytown no matter what. That was the East from 1840 to 1890, So engineering was done to meet the need of then and there. When all was laid out, by 1895-1900, new engineering was able to step in and undo the bad in places, and look at the emerging prospect of moving freight and passengers to and from the coast and mid and far west rather than just from the mountains to the Atlantic, and be a 20th Century railroad.. Yes, the Erie Canal, and by concept the Erie Railroad, were midwest to coast links. But the Erie, its components, and virtually all other rail lines, were built to local needs of the time first. The new Century needed a total revamping of the railroad system before the Century began. It is almost like Phillip's latest TRAINS column is a report on a 21st Century repeat of railroad improvement projects.
Paul_D_North_JrThanks for asking, and the opprtunity to think this through a little bit - I hope this is responsive to your inquiry
Paul....an excellent response. Enjoyed every bit of it. The South Penn has been an interest of mine since a very young fellow.....If you do get the chance to travel thru on the Turnpike in daylight you might keep a lookout for old alignments from the South Penn, as they are still visible in the area {in general}, between Allegheny tunnel and Donegal area at locations where the Turnpike is not positioned right on the old alignment.
And lots of mileage is not....The South Penn was attacking the Allegheny and Laurel Hill ranges with a max of 2% and the Turnpike softened that to 3% max....So the old alignment is more circuitous that allowed the two alignments to enter the same tunnel locations that were started back in the 1885 event.
One thing for sure.....They did not follow any creeks or streams thru this general area.....Somerset County is a Plateau of roughly 2,000' elevation and the mountain ridges at the east and west ends....
And yes, Mule Shoe entered into this area {of the Pennsy alignment}, and was used up to a decade or so ago....prehaps 2 decades now.....
I would like to comment on one part of "1880's railroad engineering", and that is of the steel structures (bridges). By 1880 or soon thereafter these structures were not designed "by the seat of the pants". They were designed for certain conditions and loadings (L3, L4, etc) depending on the railroad input regarding equipment to travel on the road. Most were through truss and/or plate girder designs. Structural Engineers would use this input to analyze the forces on the members and size them accordingly. Truss analysis is very accurate in that the forces are "determinatable", therefore most long spans were truss type. Plate girders were most often used on approach spans and short span conditions. They are more complicated to design in that there are secondary forces (moments) that are "indeterminate", but there were accurate design methods for these back then, also. The accepted design standard was (and is) to load steel members to approx 2/3 of the expected yield of the steel. This is a large safety factor and many 1900 bridges are still in use today. True, some have been reinforced but many are as they were built. I just wanted say that steel structure design methods were quite advanced in the period dicussed in this thread. There is an 1895 three span swing truss bridge across the Coosa River in Gadsden, AL, where I live, that carries grain trains with 3 to 4 SD-45's for power. It is easy to see all of the bridge very close and there is no sign of additions or modification. It could use a paint job but CSXT said they had better places to spend their money and assured the City of Gadsden that is was structually sound and that they inspected it regularly.
Northtowne
Checked another book: The Lackawanna Railroad in Northwest New Jersey by Larry Lowenthal and William T. Greenberg, Jr. and they also expouse the virtues and resulting abilities and yields of modernizing the plant rather than checking in with ROI figures. What I am beginning to feel is that today's engineers, like so many of today's investors, are so consumed by short term ROI as the guidepost by which all is done, that overall improvement and long term investment have not entered into contemporary business decsions at all. None of that has to do with the quality of 19th Century engineering and design toward longevity but reveals that today's short term goals and design either lead to poor quality or reflects the short sightedness on the part of our Salons of Commerce! But again, Don Phillips latest column states that railroad companies have moved toward the 1900 era of thought investingin modernizing and improvments to be prepared in the long term for what is to come. Ironically it comes in the same decade of the 21st Century!
henry6 Checked another book: The Lackawanna Railroad in Northwest New Jersey by Larry Lowenthal and William T. Greenberg, Jr. and they also expouse the virtues and resulting abilities and yields of modernizing the plant rather than checking in with ROI figures. What I am beginning to feel is that today's engineers, like so many of today's investors, are so consumed by short term ROI as the guidepost by which all is done, that overall improvement and long term investment have not entered into contemporary business decsions at all.
Checked another book: The Lackawanna Railroad in Northwest New Jersey by Larry Lowenthal and William T. Greenberg, Jr. and they also expouse the virtues and resulting abilities and yields of modernizing the plant rather than checking in with ROI figures. What I am beginning to feel is that today's engineers, like so many of today's investors, are so consumed by short term ROI as the guidepost by which all is done, that overall improvement and long term investment have not entered into contemporary business decsions at all.
Would not the prosperity of the railroads mentioned be indicative of the value of the investment? The roads were able to operate heavier locomotives, longer trains, at faster point to point speeds than they were able to on the twisted, up and down, longer routes they replaced. A Mountain or Northern or Wyoming or Berkshire would never have been able to deliver the larger sized loads in the same performed if it were not for the improvements like the lack of or enlargment of tunnels, the relief of grades, the elimination of circles and circles of curves, and the strenghtening of or replacement of bridges. Look at the tables presented in the Tabers' work. It is obvious that the cost of the improvements paid off. If they hadn't, those lines would never have reached the 20's much less weatherd the 30's and handled the 40s ans survived into the 50s. The PRR and NYC roads and thier own investments would have killed off any competition which hadn't likewise improved. We work in a world today in which bits and bytes intrpret and predict...if the computer doesn't say so, it ain't so. So many buisnesses which operate only off computer read outs die and quick death. Those who have a gut or feel or talent or bent or whatever you want to call it for thier business will succeed because they; look beyond the bits and bytes for the answers. I have seen many small businesses close within a year of inception because the ownersunderstood only the computer numbers but neither the business itself nor the customers they sought to serve.
henry6 Would not the prosperity of the railroads mentioned be indicative of the value of the investment?
Would not the prosperity of the railroads mentioned be indicative of the value of the investment?
DeggestyMurphy Siding I've picked up bits and pieces in this thread, suggesting that some monumental engineering projects could have been less costly, if perhaps the lines were laid out differently. What were some of those? Off the top of my head, I'm thinking of things like the Starrucca Viaduct, or Moffet Tunnel, or Lucien Cut-off(?) I'm giving the engineers the benefit of the doubt, assuming that they made the best decisions, most of the time. (But then, I sometimes work with architects, who are good examples of puttingego before common sense.) Murphy, I don’t know that the Lucin Cutoff could have been better located; its location is certainly superior to that of the original line in that it eliminated much mountain running with curves and grades and distance (48 miles shorter). Since the route is across open water, it is subject to wave damage as well as wind damage, and is not cheap to maintain. After the causeway was constructed, replacing much of the original trestle, with two culverts to carry water between the north and south arms of the lake, it was discovered that the culverts did not allow sufficient waterflow to prevent a much higher salt buildup in the south arm (more freshwater comes into the northern arm), so the causeway was breached about twenty-six years ago to increase the waterflow. The WP’s route, around the south end of the lake, also called for some high maintenance twenty-six years ago when there was an early snowmelt on the west side of the Wasatch; the waves were lapping at the track. Johnny
All good observations.
I hope this doesn't come across as picky, but terminology is important and the Lucin Cut-off is properly described as a "line change" not a "relocation." A line change improves or revises the line but there is no fundamental change in the function, traffic equation, or economic equation of the railway facility. A relocation, in contrast, is a reassessment of the original business model. An example of a relocation is the D&RGW relegating its original narrow-gauge main line via Marshall Pass to branch-line status and constructing a new standard-gauge main line via Tennessee Pass, in order to begin participating in transcontinental traffic flows, and emerging from a purely local/regional business model into a national business model.
There are some of us who think that the Lucin Cut-off wasn't a great idea. The major problem is that the fill is continuously sinking into the lake bottom because it is denser than the mud bottom of the lake. As a result the lake bottom has actually been displaced and pushed up to the point where it breaks through the water surface on either side of the fill! What is now known is that the original M-K constructed fill of the D.J. Russell era was very marginal from a geotechnical point of view, barely in equilibrium with the weight-bearing capacity of the lake bottom. Subsequent additions of rock to the fill to get its height above the 1983 lake rise increased its weight to the point where the lake bottom has transistioned from stable to plastic, and gone into motion that once started doesn't want to stop. The mud is several thousand feet thick, and in effect the battle to add rock to the fill is an effort to fill the entire basin with rock. If the lake level rises abruptly again as it did in 1983, it may become physically impossible to add rock faster than the water rises and the fill sinks, and we may be seeing a recapture of the original alignment via Promontory Pass, or a permanent diversion to the former WP.
tree68 Paul - Funny you should mention the river thing. One of our regular local runs follows a river fairly closely for most of its route, crossing said river three times in the process.
One other very important and practical reason for the early railroads to follow the streams, which I forgot to mention yesterday:
Those steam locomotives needed a ready source of a lot of water to operate properly (since we never adopted the use of exhaust-steam condensing locomotives on any wide-scale basis).
Deggesty Murphy, I don’t know that the Lucin Cutoff could have been better located; its location is certainly superior to that of the original line in that it eliminated much mountain running with curves and grades and distance (48 miles shorter). Since the route is across open water, it is subject to wave damage as well as wind damage, and is not cheap to maintain. After the causeway was constructed, replacing much of the original trestle, with two culverts to carry water between the north and south arms of the lake, it was discovered that the culverts did not allow sufficient waterflow to prevent a much higher salt buildup in the south arm (more freshwater comes into the northern arm), so the causeway was breached about twenty-six years ago to increase the waterflow. The WP’s route, around the south end of the lake, also called for some high maintenance twenty-six years ago when there was an early snowmelt on the west side of the Wasatch; the waves were lapping at the track. Johnny
As I review the ROI question and my responses, I also come up with the question: ROI aside, what would have happened to railroads in the 20th Century, especially eastern railroads, if they had not re-engineered their plants in the early 1900's?
Railway Man [much snipped] Examples of what I would list as first-order errors include new construction and heavy line changes: Milwaukee Road Puget Sound Extension Colorado Midland Western Pacific Lackawanna Cut-Off (possibly, but I'm not sufficently familiar with the traffic potential of this very densely packed and complicated area to be sure) The Missouri Pacific-funded heavy reconstruction of the D&RGW Royal Gorge Route alignment between 1923 and 1929. C&O Chicago Extension (possibly). [more snips] RWM
[more snips]
RWM -
To add to your list of early 20th-century first-order errors (above), I'll suggest the Western Maryland RR's Connellsville Extension (or whatever they called it), along the Potomac & other rivers from Cumberland, MD towards (but not quite to) Pittsburgh, PA. It was magnificently engineered with several wonderfully long and huge truss bridges and trestle / viaducts, and even bypassed the B&O's (now CSX) Sand Patch grades with a shorter route, but it didn't have a single branch, and basically paralleled the B&O the whole way. Even after acquiring the WM, CSX's predecessor still chose to keep the old alignment. It's been abandoned and torn up about 20 - 25 years now, and is now a great rail-trail.
Much the same could be said about the rest of the abandoned WM, from Hagerstown to Cumberland, but at least at Cumberland there was a major branch to the southwest that justified the existence that portion.
I still want to respond to and clarify some other points of our above discussion yesterday of location vs. alignment in economic terms, streams, traffic sources, etc., but time constraints preclude that right at the moment - maybe later on this evening.
Numbers - Numbers! It is nice to have methods and formulas which provide satisfaction that we are about to do the right thing. But the source of and reliability of the basic assumption numbers which are applied to the methods and formulas is where the great potential for erronious results lie. This is especially true when applied to line changes or major yard construction projects after the RR has established itself as a viable enterprise. It was not so apparent in the 19th century when RR's were built into yet undeveloped locales.
With the initial RR construction to locations where no RR existed the potential was perhaps more speculation than science. Thus encentives such as Land Grants were offered as an ingrediant to ROI. And the abandonment of entire RR's or branch lines constructed in the 19th century is indicative of assumptions or speculations which proved erronious. ROI could be computed in the 19th century but assumption numbers were very speculative. IRR (internal rate of return) was measured with alternatives in another business or the stock and bond market, if indeed IRR was even considered by other than the very astute investors.
Todays RR's must use IRR to compare projects which compete for investment funds and the "savings" or "additional revenue" numbers must be checked by a "post audit" to ascertain how the results compare to the assumptions. A prime example of a failed investment (and in fairness not a bad assumption which could be foreseen) was the Santa Fe's investments in the 1970's at Oklahoma City which enabled it to exclusively serve a new General Motors assembly plant that is closed and will not reopen. Savings which justify expenditure are a principal source of error (or manipulation by those wanting their project approved). Post audits are necessary to find that, for example, the reduction of two swich engine assignments, or any other saving actually occurred.
Also, IRR evaluates the "time value" of the assumption numbers. Thus a saving of $100,000.00 per year today is, if continuous, worth perhaps $5000.00 per year in 15 years dependant upon the interest rate assumed. It is a complicated scene competing for investment dollars and it appears to me that today's major RR's are very astute with their choices.
diningcar Numbers - Numbers! It is nice to have methods and formulas which provide satisfaction that we are about to do the right thing. But the source of and reliability of the basic assumption numbers which are applied to the methods and formulas is where the great potential for erronious results lie. This is especially true when applied to line changes or major yard construction projects after the RR has established itself as a viable enterprise. It was not so apparent in the 19th century when RR's were built into yet undeveloped locales. With the initial RR construction to locations where no RR existed the potential was perhaps more speculation than science. Thus encentives such as Land Grants were offered as an ingrediant to ROI. And the abandonment of entire RR's or branch lines constructed in the 19th century is indicative of assumptions or speculations which proved erronious. ROI could be computed in the 19th century but assumption numbers were very speculative. IRR (internal rate of return) was measured with alternatives in another business or the stock and bond market, if indeed IRR was even considered by other than the very astute investors. [snipped]
With the initial RR construction to locations where no RR existed the potential was perhaps more speculation than science. Thus encentives such as Land Grants were offered as an ingrediant to ROI. And the abandonment of entire RR's or branch lines constructed in the 19th century is indicative of assumptions or speculations which proved erronious. ROI could be computed in the 19th century but assumption numbers were very speculative. IRR (internal rate of return) was measured with alternatives in another business or the stock and bond market, if indeed IRR was even considered by other than the very astute investors. [snipped]
We should keep in mind that much of the railroad construction in the late 1800's and early 1900's was essentially the "venture capital" segment or the equivalent of today's Silicon Valley businesses of the era - as BaltACD said, the "rocket science" and "brain surgery" of the day. So we should not be too surprised that the failure rate and "cannibalization" following was fairly high - railroading was by no means a mature science or a settled business.
Paul_D_North_JrRWM - To add to your list of early 20th-century first-order errors (above), I'll suggest the Western Maryland RR's Connellsville Extension (or whatever they called it), along the Potomac & other rivers from Cumberland, MD towards (but not quite to) Pittsburgh, PA. It was magnificently engineered with several wonderfully long and huge truss bridges and trestle / viaducts, and even bypassed the B&O's (now CSX) Sand Patch grades with a shorter route, but it didn't have a single branch, and basically paralleled the B&O the whole way. Even after acquiring the WM, CSX's predecessor still chose to keep the old alignment. It's been abandoned and torn up about 20 - 25 years now, and is now a great rail-trail. Much the same could be said about the rest of the abandoned WM, from Hagerstown to Cumberland, but at least at Cumberland there was a major branch to the southwest that justified the existence that portion. I still want to respond to and clarify some other points of our above discussion yesterday of location vs. alignment in economic terms, streams, traffic sources, etc., but time constraints preclude that right at the moment - maybe later on this evening. - Paul North.
Excellent example. The location was poor. There was no traffic source to pay for all that construction.
Railway Manbut it didn't have a single branch,
I might comment the WM did have trackage rights from Rockwood north thru Somerset and on over the Boswell Branch of {then B&O}, to Gray, Pa., to pull coal out of that mining facility. This was back some decades ago. The R of W up into Gray can still be found if one has knowledge where to look. I have seen WM engines up in there pulling out loads of coal to take back to Rockwood and to the main line.
Edit: Above quote came up as "RWM", but believe it was Paul's....
diningcarNumbers - Numbers! It is nice to have methods and formulas which provide satisfaction that we are about to do the right thing. But the source of and reliability of the basic assumption numbers which are applied to the methods and formulas is where the great potential for erronious results lie. This is especially true when applied to line changes or major yard construction projects after the RR has established itself as a viable enterprise. It was not so apparent in the 19th century when RR's were built into yet undeveloped locales. With the initial RR construction to locations where no RR existed the potential was perhaps more speculation than science. Thus encentives such as Land Grants were offered as an ingrediant to ROI. And the abandonment of entire RR's or branch lines constructed in the 19th century is indicative of assumptions or speculations which proved erronious. ROI could be computed in the 19th century but assumption numbers were very speculative. IRR (internal rate of return) was measured with alternatives in another business or the stock and bond market, if indeed IRR was even considered by other than the very astute investors. Todays RR's must use IRR to compare projects which compete for investment funds and the "savings" or "additional revenue" numbers must be checked by a "post audit" to ascertain how the results compare to the assumptions. A prime example of a failed investment (and in fairness not a bad assumption which could be foreseen) was the Santa Fe's investments in the 1970's at Oklahoma City which enabled it to exclusively serve a new General Motors assembly plant that is closed and will not reopen. Savings which justify expenditure are a principal source of error (or manipulation by those wanting their project approved). Post audits are necessary to find that, for example, the reduction of two swich engine assignments, or any other saving actually occurred. Also, IRR evaluates the "time value" of the assumption numbers. Thus a saving of $100,000.00 per year today is, if continuous, worth perhaps $5000.00 per year in 15 years dependant upon the interest rate assumed. It is a complicated scene competing for investment dollars and it appears to me that today's major RR's are very astute with their choices.
I couldn't more agree with your analysis, insights, and conclusion. I would add only - and curious to see how you respond -- that as the business model of railroading became better developed it is not unreasonable to increase one's expectations of due diligence by the promoters. It's one thing to poorly locate a line in 1860 when little is known about the traffic potential and the political stability of the nation is sketchy, and another to poorly locate a line in 1903 when the industry has a half-century of experience under its belt and the nation over a century of rule-of-law. Excusing an illbegotten extension in 1870 is one thing, extending the same excuse to a George Gould in 1903 makes my eyebrows go up.
I like very much your sentence about IRR being considered only by the most astute investors, if even them. That's a measure that eludes most people even today, a reason why I couldn't fathom investing one cent in real estate during the last ten years -- I couldn't predict where the top was and I didn't want to buy just before it. I'm a long-term kind of guy whose satisfied with very modest returns.
I had several discussions about strategy at work yesterday where I tried to get them to consider IRR on several alternative investments of our resources. No luck on getting through, alas.
diningcar Numbers - Numbers! It is nice to have methods and formulas which provide satisfaction that we are about to do the right thing. But the source of and reliability of the basic assumption numbers which are applied to the methods and formulas is where the great potential for erronious results lie. This is especially true when applied to line changes or major yard construction projects after the RR has established itself as a viable enterprise. It was not so apparent in the 19th century when RR's were built into yet undeveloped locales........ ......... A prime example of a failed investment (and in fairness not a bad assumption which could be foreseen) was the Santa Fe's investments in the 1970's at Oklahoma City which enabled it to exclusively serve a new General Motors assembly plant that is closed and will not reopen.
Numbers - Numbers! It is nice to have methods and formulas which provide satisfaction that we are about to do the right thing. But the source of and reliability of the basic assumption numbers which are applied to the methods and formulas is where the great potential for erronious results lie. This is especially true when applied to line changes or major yard construction projects after the RR has established itself as a viable enterprise. It was not so apparent in the 19th century when RR's were built into yet undeveloped locales........
......... A prime example of a failed investment (and in fairness not a bad assumption which could be foreseen) was the Santa Fe's investments in the 1970's at Oklahoma City which enabled it to exclusively serve a new General Motors assembly plant that is closed and will not reopen.
RWM, diningcar, & others -
Something else we ought to keep in mind is that railroad lines do not necessarily have to survive forever in order to be commercially successful, much as we might wish for them to do so (as most of us also do for ourselves personally). It is entirely reasonable and practical to build a line for a known and anticipated limited useful life, with the expectation that all operating expenses will be paid, and that the capital so invested will be completely recovered, together with a commensurate Return On Investment (ROI). [Note that "profit" is 1 component of that, but a purely economic return or "rental" of the money is another, together with a risk reward, and a few other components that I can't recall just now - and which are beyond the scope of this discussion anyway.]
One example that I think we can all accept are logging railroads and branch lines - we don't view them all as failures just because they were pulled up a few years after being laid, when they'd outlived their economic usefulness.
Another example was a railroad that was built by David Moffat to serve Leadville, Colorado, I believe, just a few months before another competing RR with a much better route got there and essentially put Moffat's line out of business by being able to charge less. During its brief existence, Moffat's line was able to make enough money to recover its costs. [I'm writing this from memory - my source is Harold A. Boner's The Moffat Road, and it's at home, not here. RWM, I recall from prior posts that you're familiar with mining and that area, so you may have a different view of this - I have no knowledge independent of Boner's recounting of it, so I'll understand if you disagree. But I'll try to provide the specifics in a later post.]
Accordingly, not every line that we're discussing here may be a failure. As RWM has requested for the Lackawanna Cut-Offs, we ought to look at the figures - if available - for each such line, before judging its promoters and engineers too harshly. On the other hand, yeah, some of them deserve it - "We don't need no stinkin' numbers*" to confirm that !
* - Adapted from the movie Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, if I recall correctly.
Paul_D_North_JrRWM, diningcar, & others - Something else we ought to keep in mind is that railroad lines do not necessarily have to survive forever in order to be commercially successful, much as we might wish for them to do so (as most of us also do for ourselves personally). It is entirely reasonable and practical to build a line for a known and anticipated limited useful life, with the expectation that all operating expenses will be paid, and that the capital so invested will be completely recovered, together with a commensurate Return On Investment (ROI). [Note that "profit" is 1 component of that, but a purely economic return or "rental" of the money is another, together with a risk reward, and a few other components that I can't recall just now - and which are beyond the scope of this discussion anyway.] One example that I think we can all accept are logging railroads and branch lines - we don't view them all as failures just because they were pulled up a few years after being laid, when they'd outlived their economic usefulness. Another example was a railroad that was built by David Moffat to serve Leadville, Colorado, I believe, just a few months before another competing RR with a much better route got there and essentially put Moffat's line out of business by being able to charge less. During its brief existence, Moffat's line was able to make enough money to recover its costs. [I'm writing this from memory - my source is Harold A. Boner's The Moffat Road, and it's at home, not here. RWM, I recall from prior posts that you're familiar with mining and that area, so you may have a different view of this - I have no knowledge independent of Boner's recounting of it, so I'll understand if you disagree. But I'll try to provide the specifics in a later post.] Accordingly, not every line that we're discussing here may be a failure. As RWM has requested for the Lackawanna Cut-Offs, we ought to look at the figures - if available - for each such line, before judging its promoters and engineers too harshly. On the other hand, yeah, some of them deserve it - "We don't need no stinkin' numbers*" to confirm that ! - Paul North. * - Adapted from the movie Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, if I recall correctly.
Paul -- My earlier example of a logging railway is precisely what you're talking about for a temporary railway facility. All Wellington was arguing for is, "please, this is about money, not about curve geometry and big bridges, and by applying those lessons assiduously we perform a greater social good than just enriching ourselves at the expense of others."
The example of David Moffat is Cripple Creek, Colorado, but while Boner was correct in that there is a business case for a low-cost-of-construction, short-term, high-profit railroad to a cost-no-object traffic source, he misapplied it to Cripple Creek and apparently had only a dim idea of Moffat's business methods. David Moffat was a shrewd investor of regional significance who made a great deal of money trafficking in the greed and ignorance of others, and was not ethically challenged by things such as jury tampering. See the book "A Mine to Make a Mine, Financing the Colorado Mining Industry, 1859-1902" by Joseph E. Smith.
Railway Mandiningcar Numbers - Numbers! It is nice to have methods and formulas which provide satisfaction that we are about to do the right thing. But the source of and reliability of the basic assumption numbers which are applied to the methods and formulas is where the great potential for erronious results lie. This is especially true when applied to line changes or major yard construction projects after the RR has established itself as a viable enterprise. It was not so apparent in the 19th century when RR's were built into yet undeveloped locales. With the initial RR construction to locations where no RR existed the potential was perhaps more speculation than science. Thus encentives such as Land Grants were offered as an ingrediant to ROI. And the abandonment of entire RR's or branch lines constructed in the 19th century is indicative of assumptions or speculations which proved erronious. ROI could be computed in the 19th century but assumption numbers were very speculative. IRR (internal rate of return) was measured with alternatives in another business or the stock and bond market, if indeed IRR was even considered by other than the very astute investors. Todays RR's must use IRR to compare projects which compete for investment funds and the "savings" or "additional revenue" numbers must be checked by a "post audit" to ascertain how the results compare to the assumptions. A prime example of a failed investment (and in fairness not a bad assumption which could be foreseen) was the Santa Fe's investments in the 1970's at Oklahoma City which enabled it to exclusively serve a new General Motors assembly plant that is closed and will not reopen. Savings which justify expenditure are a principal source of error (or manipulation by those wanting their project approved). Post audits are necessary to find that, for example, the reduction of two swich engine assignments, or any other saving actually occurred. Also, IRR evaluates the "time value" of the assumption numbers. Thus a saving of $100,000.00 per year today is, if continuous, worth perhaps $5000.00 per year in 15 years dependant upon the interest rate assumed. It is a complicated scene competing for investment dollars and it appears to me that today's major RR's are very astute with their choices. I couldn't more agree with your analysis, insights, and conclusion. I would add only - and curious to see how you respond -- that as the business model of railroading became better developed it is not unreasonable to increase one's expectations of due diligence by the promoters. It's one thing to poorly locate a line in 1860 when little is known about the traffic potential and the political stability of the nation is sketchy, and another to poorly locate a line in 1903 when the industry has a half-century of experience under its belt and the nation over a century of rule-of-law. Excusing an illbegotten extension in 1870 is one thing, extending the same excuse to a George Gould in 1903 makes my eyebrows go up. I like very much your sentence about IRR being considered only by the most astute investors, if even them. That's a measure that eludes most people even today, a reason why I couldn't fathom investing one cent in real estate during the last ten years -- I couldn't predict where the top was and I didn't want to buy just before it. I'm a long-term kind of guy whose satisfied with very modest returns. I had several discussions about strategy at work yesterday where I tried to get them to consider IRR on several alternative investments of our resources. No luck on getting through, alas.
diningcar Numbers - Numbers! It is nice to have methods and formulas which provide satisfaction that we are about to do the right thing. But the source of and reliability of the basic assumption numbers which are applied to the methods and formulas is where the great potential for erronious results lie. This is especially true when applied to line changes or major yard construction projects after the RR has established itself as a viable enterprise. It was not so apparent in the 19th century when RR's were built into yet undeveloped locales. With the initial RR construction to locations where no RR existed the potential was perhaps more speculation than science. Thus encentives such as Land Grants were offered as an ingrediant to ROI. And the abandonment of entire RR's or branch lines constructed in the 19th century is indicative of assumptions or speculations which proved erronious. ROI could be computed in the 19th century but assumption numbers were very speculative. IRR (internal rate of return) was measured with alternatives in another business or the stock and bond market, if indeed IRR was even considered by other than the very astute investors. Todays RR's must use IRR to compare projects which compete for investment funds and the "savings" or "additional revenue" numbers must be checked by a "post audit" to ascertain how the results compare to the assumptions. A prime example of a failed investment (and in fairness not a bad assumption which could be foreseen) was the Santa Fe's investments in the 1970's at Oklahoma City which enabled it to exclusively serve a new General Motors assembly plant that is closed and will not reopen. Savings which justify expenditure are a principal source of error (or manipulation by those wanting their project approved). Post audits are necessary to find that, for example, the reduction of two swich engine assignments, or any other saving actually occurred. Also, IRR evaluates the "time value" of the assumption numbers. Thus a saving of $100,000.00 per year today is, if continuous, worth perhaps $5000.00 per year in 15 years dependant upon the interest rate assumed. It is a complicated scene competing for investment dollars and it appears to me that today's major RR's are very astute with their choices.
RWM, To follow-on with a response about decisions made after a RR was an established entity:
My incomplete analysis is two-fold;
1.Many, perhaps most, RR executives in the 20th century (up to the late 80's) were not that astute. Many having risen through the ranks were not inclined to hire those with an understaning of investment principals because "we are successful and have always done it that way". And to be fair, investment bankers and Wall Street analyists did not recognize this weakness and pressure them to "become modern". Also, ICC regulation provided a crutch upon which to lean, which is another story to complex to address here.. The Staggers Act made them compete in the marketplace and by the late 1980's they began to become serious about marketing their business and making better investment decisions.
2. Many good investment decisions were made in the 20th century. Some were lucky as their value became apparent with the changing of our complex economy, ie., Santa Fe's decision to construct, in 1937, 235 miles of new track between Amarillo, TX and Las Animas Jct. This line had little business until coal became a major transportation commodity. It is now the major BNSF route for loaded coal trains to Texas because of its favorable grades and shorter distance.
A wise and apparently well analized project which does not fit into the "luck" catagory was Santa Fe's decision made shortly after 1900 to build the Belen Cutoff which is now the center of BNSF's Transcon. Santa Fe had as their access to California's development their line from Chicago through Kansas City, La Junta and Albuquerque which had both Raton and Glotieta Passes on it. Santa Fe had built south into Oklahoma and Texas from Kansas and were obviously unable to compete with the SP for California traffic and so President Ripley started this 275 mile new rail line, which because of financing difficulties took ten years to complete. It immediately began to function as intended.
As I initially said, very incomplete, but perhaps some perspective.
In looking back at rail expansion projects which, from the perspective of 2009, seem to have been poorly considered, one has to distingush between projects where the promoters should have known better, and projects which seemed justifiable based on what the promoters knew or could reasonably anticipate at the time, but ultimately proved otherwise. Certainly, some of the investments in new rail facilities in the late 19th and early 20th century had all of the trappings of speculative "bubbles" which, as bubbles are wont to do, ultimately burst. And it wasn't only the steam railroads. Much of the investment in interuruban electric railroads would also fall into this category.
However, even the most conservative railroad investor around the turn of the last century could not have reasonably foreseen the explosive development in highway transportation which was to come and completely alter the face of railroading. An investor at that time could have reasonably assumed that railroads would continue indefinitely to be the country's primary transportation infrastructure, and that both rail freight and passenger traffic would continue to grow by leaps and bounds as the nation grew. Seen in this light, many (but not all) of the investments in additional main lines that now seem foolish may have seemed reasonable and prudent. Investments in branch lines would also have seemed reasonable in a pre-highway era when branch line networks were important sources of traffic.
Numbers are great but, as someone else said, numbers are only as good as the assumptions behind them. If the underlying assumptions prove wrong, the numbers aren't worth the paper they're written on. Unfortunately, it's hard to predict the future, particularly over the life of a long-lived investment like a railroad. And it's not only railroads. Look, for example, at the major newspapers like the Chicago Tribune (now bankrupt) that made big investments in new printing plants just as the internet era was about to burst upon them.
The answer is that humans are notoriously, even pathologically, unpredictable. Even though there is a lot of wisdom in the aphorism, "The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour" in the world of Industrial/Organizational Psychology, a large part of my own background, the fact is that behaviour is most affected by context, and context is heavily influenced by concurrent and immediate problems, or what are perceived to be problems.
Translated, what a person says they will do (future), and what they actually end up doing, are far too often linked only by the wilful duplicity inherent in lying. The lie will sometimes be done with full intention to lie at the time of promising, or it will become the lie when the person elects to do what they had promised not to do when the times comes to fulfill the promise. Think politicians. Some of them actually do intend to do what they say they will do, but a confluence of events and pressures at the time of fulfillment makes them take a more 'pragmatic' approach...and do the opposite.
A case in point: Liberal government in British Columbia, with its hefty majority and popularity, shoved near-sighted legislation through a couple of years back forbidding the Government from having defecit budgets....ever again. Our Premier is about to recall the Legislature to suspend that law. Go figure!
-Crandell
Time to trot out this quote:
"Fighting a war is not an exercise in mathematics. We deal with people, not numbers. Numbers have their own special kind of perfection. People remain people no matter what we try to do with them." - Russian Gen. Col. Pavel Leonidovich Alekseyev in Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising. [emphasis added - PDN]
Paul_D_North_Jr Time to trot out this quote: "Fighting a war is not an exercise in mathematics. We deal with people, not numbers. Numbers have their own special kind of perfection. People remain people no matter what we try to do with them." - Russian Gen. Col. Pavel Leonidovich Alekseyev in Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising. [emphasis added - PDN] - Paul North.
Your other quote, that you attributed to Butch & Sundance, based on "Badges-we don't need no stinkin' badges!" (More or less), is from Treasure of the Sierra Madre. The more applicable quote from Butch and Sundance would be "Who are those people?"
Back on track......Wouldn't the Hoosack(sp?) Tunnel be a good example of engineering marvel masking the economics of a situation? It cost $21,000,000 nearly 150 years ago. Do you think that has paid for itself?
Murphy - I was responding to Crandell / selector's comments about human nature, which was engendered by other comments about political involvement in the railroad business, and the virtues (or lack thereof) of democracy as reflected in said involvements, which I believe was the subject of one of RWM's early posts (somewhat disgusted, I think is a fair characterization) on this thread. More recently, Railway Man and diningcar were having an interesting dialogue about the validity of economic forecasts for proposed railroads and the like, and I thought the quote was relevant as a caution to not get too carried away with believing your own predictions in the face of a whole lot of uncertainties.
Appreciate the correciton on the quote source. I can picture the scene in my mind, but obviously I was making the wrong connection there.
Hoosac Tunnel - yes, I think it has paid for itself, even though it took 25 years or so to finish, as you probably also know. Until the NYC's Boston & Albany got over Washington Hill at the NY-Mass State Line, it was the only useful rail route west from Boston - otherwise, you had to go via NYC or Montreal. It opened up the Bay State and surrounding areas of New England to connect with the whole westward expansion, and allowed coal and farm goods to go east to there and for export, etc. It was so heavily used that it had to be electrified to deal with the coal smoke from the steam engines. That it's still in use - and Norfolk Southern recently (within the last year or so) cut a deal with Guilford/ Pan Am Rwys to upgrade it as some kind of joint venture and use it as a priority route in operation - "the "Patriot Route" is what I think they're calling it - speaks well for its continued viability and usefulness. I think it's been under-utilized as an intermodal route, but that's another topic for sure.
Murphy Siding Back on track......Wouldn't the Hoosack(sp?) Tunnel be a good example of engineering marvel masking the economics of a situation? It cost $21,000,000 nearly 150 years ago. Do you think that has paid for itself?
If it hadn't been built (dug?) the Boston and Maine would never have been able to compete in the east-west traffic. It was decidedly built because there was no cheaper or more economical solution in the long or short run. Again, ROI is a contemporary investment term seeking a reason to drop dime and so it splits into a million pieces that pop back up into your hand within seconds! Before 1980 investment would be a thought process of determining if there would a profit could be gained within a time period of years instead of days. And there was no guarentee. Of course there was ROI, but it was expected over a longer period of time, not predicated on a computer model or simulation; and guarenteed to be guarenteed..
henry6 If it hadn't been built (dug?) the Boston and Maine would never have been able to compete in the east-west traffic. It was decidedly built because there was no cheaper or more economical solution in the long or short run. Again, ROI is a contemporary investment term seeking a reason to drop dime and so it splits into a million pieces that pop back up into your hand within seconds! Before 1980 investment would be a thought process of determining if there would a profit could be gained within a time period of years instead of days. And there was no guarentee. Of course there was ROI, but it was expected over a longer period of time, not predicated on a computer model or simulation; and guarenteed to be guarenteed..
Well, that's an interesting revision of history and economics.
Paul_D_North_Jr Murphy - I was responding to Crandell / selector's comments about human nature, which was engendered by other comments about political involvement in the railroad business, and the virtues (or lack thereof) of democracy as reflected in said involvements, which I believe was the subject of one of RWM's early posts (somewhat disgusted, I think is a fair characterization) on this thread. More recently, Railway Man and diningcar were having an interesting dialogue about the validity of economic forecasts for proposed railroads and the like, and I thought the quote was relevant as a caution to not get too carried away with believing your own predictions in the face of a whole lot of uncertainties. - Paul North.
The tunnel cost $21,000,000 to contruct way back when. That's equal to $462,000,000 in 1983 dollars. If the investors had put the $21,000,000 in the bank at 3%, they would have had $462,000,000 by 1983. In 1983, Guilford bought the whole railroad, including the tunnel, for $24,000,000. Did the tunnel project pay for itself?
But how much money was earned by moving freight and passengers between the building of the tunnel and its pruchase by Guilford? And why would the B&M have increased clearances to move higher and wider loads over the years? Again, contemporary investment and ROI thinking: if it ain't on paper in front of you it don't and didn't exist! I don't understand the thinking of some of you, I thought we are a country of entrapanures, big business, big ideas, big ventures! Returns of investments, yes, by all means. But not is such short sighted ways.
Do you own house? If it was built in 1910 or 2000 what is the ROI? And where would you have lived if you hadn't bought the house and at what cost? Is the only ROI in the resale? No value given to the use?
henry6 But how much money was earned by moving freight and passengers between the building of the tunnel and its pruchase by Guilford? And why would the B&M have increased clearances to move higher and wider loads over the years? Again, contemporary investment and ROI thinking: if it ain't on paper in front of you it don't and didn't exist! I don't understand the thinking of some of you, I thought we are a country of entrapanures, big business, big ideas, big ventures! Returns of investments, yes, by all means. But not is such short sighted ways. Do you own house? If it was built in 1910 or 2000 what is the ROI? And where would you have lived if you hadn't bought the house and at what cost? Is the only ROI in the resale? No value given to the use?
I don't see any real evidence that people are more short sighted today than they were in 1909 or 1809. It's not like someone just discovered the time value of money in 1980.
Projects with long term paybacks are regularly approved and funded. Think of the replacement for the Kate Shelley Bridge, the Transcon double tracking, or the CN's acquisistion of the EJ&E. The large up front sums spent on projects like this will be earned back many years in the future. The "It's all about next quarter's numbers" crap is just that, crap.
In the past there were risk takers such as Jim HIll who built the Great Northern. There were also the Blackstones. If you've never heard of Blackstone he was a long time head of the Chicago and Alton. A prosperous railroad in its day, the C&A made money by concentrating on short haul passenger and freight movements in its Chicago/St. Louis/Kansas City triangle. Blackstone avoided risk by refusing expansion or combination with other railroads. When the Santa Fe needed a route between Kansas City and Chicago it considered buying the C&A. Blackstone wasn't interested and the Santa Fe built its own line.
This all worked fine until they paved the roads. The short haul freight and passenger business went to those highways and the C&A became a railroad without a traffic base. It's all split up now with parts of it belonging to the CN, UP and KCS. As I've heard they say in the Army: "Anything you do can get you killed, including nothing."
What I'm saying is that your position is more ideology than reality. People still take economic risks that have paybacks too far in the future to be economically quantified with certainty. The MBA trade schools have certainly brought more analysis into decisions. That's generally a good thing. But no successful enterprise does what you say: "If you can't quantify it on paper, it doesn't exist". If they try that they'll stagnate and fail. They'll be weeded out and replaced by better managed firms. Which is the way capitalism is supposed to work. Unless, of course, they get a government bail out. That screws everything up.
Murphy Siding henry6 If it hadn't been built (dug?) the Boston and Maine would never have been able to compete in the east-west traffic. [clip] Consider me skeptical. Using the thought that RailwayMan put forth earlier, about whether investing the money in some part of the physical plant did more for the money than putting the money in a mason jar: The tunnel cost $21,000,000 to contruct way back when. That's equal to $462,000,000 in 1983 dollars. If the investors had put the $21,000,000 in the bank at 3%, they would have had $462,000,000 by 1983. In 1983, Guilford bought the whole railroad, including the tunnel, for $24,000,000. Did the tunnel project pay for itself?
henry6 If it hadn't been built (dug?) the Boston and Maine would never have been able to compete in the east-west traffic. [clip]
Consider me skeptical. Using the thought that RailwayMan put forth earlier, about whether investing the money in some part of the physical plant did more for the money than putting the money in a mason jar:
To add a little to this, some Hoosac Tunnel facts (from When the Steam Railroads Electrified by William D. Middleton, Kalmbach Publishing, 1970-something, the chapter on "Taming the Tunnels"):
- Hoosac Tunnel cost $14 million (which is only a "scale" or size comment - doesn't take away from this debate). It took 22 years to build (not 25 as I posted earlier) - it's just about 5 miles long. Also, 195 men died in its construction.
- Hoosac is 600 feet lower than the Boston & Albany's crossing of the Berkshires further south, which give it a operating advantage. I can't recall the general elevations in this area with any confidence - probably in the 2,000 to 3,000 ft above Mean Sea Level range - but for any of those this would have reduced the elevation to be overcome by at least 20 %, and also avoided any need for that many more miles of additional line simply to dilute the ruling grade down to an acceptable level ("development" is the technical term) .
- By 1910 when it was electrified, it was handling over 100 trains a day on its double-track main line. That's pretty respectable in anybody's league, so I have to believe that it was earning its keep.
(This and following points are mine, not the book's): The B&A as a NYC subsidiary was "in fief" to NYC financial interests, which would not have sat well with the Boston commercial community - back then (as now), cities and regions also competed commercially. The Hoosac Tunnel gave the Boston crowd the power to be masters of their own fates in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
One thing not mentioned yet: The construction of the Hoosac Tunnel was financed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and various state agencies and commissions. To say it was a fiasco is an understatement - blown budgets, politics, defaulting contractors, delays and standstills, investigations, etc., etc. The most common book on it is titled "A Pinprick of Light". So consider it a good example of maybe why you don't want governments / politicians funding - or at least meddling in - big public works projects. By the way, I don't recall how the B&M then came to use it - did the state then essentially just give it to the railroad for $1 ? I don't recall that the RR had to purchase it for any amount, or that there were annual payments, rent, tolls, fees, etc. of any kind. I'll have to look that up sometime.
To be fair, some of that was inherent in the nature of the work - geotechnical exploration/ investigation hadn't been invented yet, so they had no idea of the most important factors - the underground conditions that were going to be encountered. Also, it was technically very ambitious - probably the reach of this project was beyond the grasp of the technology of the day, when they started - really, similar to the US committing to putting a man on the Moon by the end of the 1960s. If the tunnel promoters had known what they were going to encounter, they never would have undertaken it. The only thing that saved them is that the steam and compressed-air drills were invented, developed, and perfected during its construction, and that enabled most of the construction to be essentially done in like the last 4 or 5 years.
Finally, that the tunnel that cost $21 million (I'll stay with your figures) to build in the mid-1800s, which amount likely would have been worth $463 million by 1983, was a small portion of something else that was sold for $24 million in 1983, is not dispositive. As henry6 alludes to, the tunnel, as an economic entity (again, I don't recall how that investment cost was worked out between the state and the RR) - certainly recouped or justified its investment in the next half-century or so after it opened (1875 to the 1930s Depression), at 100 trains per day - although to stick with the theme of this thread, there may well have been other better investments and returns, railroad and otherwise - out there at the time. But, having paid for itself and been economically all used up, to dispose of the tunnel for a comparative pitttance in 1983 (108 years later) is not surprising to me, and not inconsistent with it being a worthwhile investment.
Instead of henry6's house example, I think that it's more like buying a new car for $20,000, using it for many years (say 10, as I tend to do), and then selling it for $500. Does that low disposition sale price mean that it was bad investment ? No, not at all. I got my use out of it - it was essential to have one to earn far more in income (roughly 50 times the car's annual cost, on average, to put it into perspective) - just as the B&M used the Hoosac Tunnel to earn far more in revenue on all the freight that it moved through the Tunnel to elsewhere. I budgeted for and made the payments on the usual 80 % loan for the several years as long as that lasted - so without a doubt the investment was recouped - and of course kept up on the operating costs, maintenance, insurance, registration, inspection, etc. So I would have been happy to give it away for $ 0, or to sell it to a collector or aficionado for $10,000 - that's an end-of-service-life market value question, not related to the return on investment or value of use during its economic life. However, if I'd had to sell it after 2 years for only $500 - big mistake and loss, no doubt about it. The parallel would be if the Hoosac Tunnel or the whole B&M had been sold after 10 years for the $24 million - again, that would appear to have not been worthwhile. But that's not the way it happened. The B&M got its use and money back out of the Tunnel over that 108 years as a ROI - would be intersting to see the actual figures, if they were ever broken out that way. That the Tunnel was worth only a fraction of the $24 million entire Guilford price in the crummy railroad business environment of the early 1980's is not inconsistent. (Compare with the DM&E story in the current March 2009 issue of Trains, which went the other way - what was it, $26 million investment in 1980-something to a $1.48 billion sale to CP last year ?)
Well, I didn't mean to write this much. Hope it is helpful.
P.S. to Murphy: No apology necessary for your questioning my Tom Clancy quote above. Looking back, I can see where it seems pretty random. And I liked your quote from the Army - it echoes what the wiser financial advisors say, to the effect that even putting your money under the mattress (= doing nothing) has risks - mainly erosion in purchasing power or real value due to inflation - which is very much the case today in view of current monetary actions and the developing fiscal events.
The way I interpret entrapenurial attitudes of the late 19th and early 20th Century is that, though so called Robber Barons, they worked at creating industry thus jobs thus communities thus US commercial strength. Today the investors' companies seek not to make productes or produce services but rather save money reducing US commercial strength via the elimination of products and services, quality of product, and jobs. Saving money is thier most important entrapanurial activity while the product be damned.
henry6 The way I interpret entrapenurial attitudes of the late 19th and early 20th Century is that, though so called Robber Barons, they worked at creating industry thus jobs thus communities thus US commercial strength. Today the investors' companies seek not to make productes or produce services but rather save money reducing US commercial strength via the elimination of products and services, quality of product, and jobs. Saving money is thier most important entrapanurial activity while the product be damned.
By “save” money, I assume you are including the earning of money because if they only wanted to save their money, they would not go into business in the first place. So if you are referring to earning money, I don’t see how you can do that while thinking the product be damned, as you say. Earning money has always been the objective of business, so I don’t understand your point about the difference between now and the robber baron era.
Bucyrus Earning money has always been the objective of business, so I don’t understand your point about the difference between now and the robber baron era.
Earning money has always been the objective of business, so I don’t understand your point about the difference between now and the robber baron era.
Earning money by producing and selling a quality product is one thing. But by cutting costs products have become less valuable to the consumer. Too many times these investors have saved themselves out of business. I am thinking of two incidents whereby investors, anxious to save money, closed factories manufacturing their product moving the operation to another state or off shore. One, a canoe manufacturer, eventually began purchasing completed product from a company formed by former employees when they could not produce a saleable product of the same quality. Another, a high end stereo manufacture, purchased by investors, manufacturing process as moved off shore; quality and quantity sagged, along with sales so quickly that old plant was rebooted within months. In the broadcasting industry, huge corporations gather as many radio stations as they can in a single market, gets rid of 75% of the staffs. instead of making more money per market, the station groups actually bring in less than the sum total of each station had under seperate ownership. Money saved not equal to money lost. These investors have eliminated a lot of local jobs, reduced a lot of local spending which further reduced the number of other local jobs, take income out of local community further reducing local economy. Other industries have followed the same course in their own way. So how has the US strengthened itself? sustained or created a better quality of life? built an economy which will sustain itself now and in the future? Yes,earning money is the aim of being in business, but being short sighted in your ROI goals is self defeating for the investor, the consumer, and the country.
Murphy Siding Consider me skeptical. Using the thought that RailwayMan put forth earlier, about whether investing the money in some part of the physical plant did more for the money than putting the money in a mason jar: The tunnel cost $21,000,000 to contruct way back when. That's equal to $462,000,000 in 1983 dollars. If the investors had put the $21,000,000 in the bank at 3%, they would have had $462,000,000 by 1983. In 1983, Guilford bought the whole railroad, including the tunnel, for $24,000,000. Did the tunnel project pay for itself?
I want to play with this a little more on the numbers only, [Enrico] "Fermi problem"-like, as follows:
Let's use $21 million for the Hoosac Tunnel's cost, in 1875 dollars (although I found a ref. that said $14 million, as noted above).
Let's also use 30 years (like the mortgage on your house) for capital recovery of 100% of that cost, using an "interest" rate (rate of return/ Return on Investment) of 6.00 %. That's a handy figure, because it results in a payment of $6.00 per month per $1,000 of principal for a 30-year term.
$6.00 per month per $1,000 of principal for a 30-year term x 1,000 would be $6,000 per month per $1 million principal, or for the $21 million principal here, x 21 = $126,000 cost per month for the tunnel.
Dividing by 30 days per month (avg.) = $4,200 tunnel cost per day.
Although we know that there were 100 trains per day by 1910, let's use 50 trains per day as an average to be on the safe/ low side. We'll also ignore, or assume that passenger trains contributed nothing towards this cost.
$4,200 tunnel cost per day / 50 trains per day = $84 tunnel cost per train.
Now, let's assume that each of these trains was fairly short - only about 60 cars - of which only half - or 30 cars - were loaded. So $84 tunnel cost per train / 30 loaded cars per train = $2.80 tunnel cost per carload.
Let's further assume that each loaded car had 40 tons. So $2.80 tunnel cost per carload / 40 tons per carload = $0.07, or 7 cents, per ton of payload.
Let's further assume that each carload was going 300 miles average, and that the average railroad freight rate at that time was $0.005 per ton-mile= 0.5 (1/2) cent per ton-mile. So for each ton to move 300 miles, the rail freight rate was 300 miles x 0.5 cents per mile = 150 cents, or $1.50, per ton of payload.
Against that $1.50 per ton of payload freight rate, the tunnel cost of 7 cents per ton or payload is 7/150 = 4.67 % of the total freight bill. Obviously, if the lower $14 million tunnel cost referenced above is correct instead, then the share of the freight rate that would have to be allocated towards the tunnel's cost would be proportionately less, down to about 3.1 % of the freight bill.
Oh yeah ! I had no idea when i started that this is where it would come out. Seat of the pants, sure, but yes, that Hoosac Tunnel could have well paid for itself in only 30 years, even on the basis of these very safe (low) assumptions.
Anyone should feel free to check and critique my math, logic, analysis, etc. If you don't like the values I've assumed or used, substitute your own - "YMMV", as the saying goes ("Your Mileage May Vary") - and let us know what you come up with instead.
Not part of this analysis is whether 6 % was or is a fair rate of return for such a risky venture, and whether there was or wasn't other more appropriate or remunerative ventures, investments, or even other railroad improvements - routes, tunnels, bypasses, etc. - into which the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and/or the B&M could have invested that amount of capital instead, and made out just as well or better. That's a topic for another time (thread or post), and from this far in the future, we may never know anyway. But without a doubt, the Hoosac Tunnel paid for itself, either to the railroad which operated through it, and/ or in benefits to the government and people that fronted the money in the hopes of greatly improving their rail access, communications, and transportation to and with the rest of the United States.
P.S. - As RWM noted quite a few posts earlier on this thread above, you can do a lot of this analysis with just a pencil and the back of an envelope, with a little common sense and knowledge of how things work and their relative proportions, etc. No calculus or computers here - I did most of it in my head, and just used a simple calculator to check my math and make sure I hadn't misplaced a decimal somewhere and wasn't off by an order of magnitude (factor of 10) someplace in this. - PDN.
I want to take a few minutes (and words) to reinforce the points made by RWM (and others) with regard to this topic - esp. the "location" and "alignment" issues - continuing with using my car as an example (as below) to hopefully illustrate it a little better:
What I didn't mention is the - note, important concept coming here - "alternatives analysis"* that should be engaged in whenever a significant expenditure or investment is being considered.
[* - finally remembered that "buzz phrase" from engineering school ! ]
In this context, to get to work to earn money, I could - and should - also be considering and analyzing using possible alternatives instead of or in addition to the $20,000 car, such as:
- a $10,000 motorcycle;
- a $30,000 pick-up truck;
- a $40,000 luxury SUV;
- a $1,000 bicycle;
- taking the bus instead (no rail line around here, unfortunately);
- tele-commuting via the Internet;
- selling the house and moving to where I could walk to work;
- quit the job, go live on the top of a mountain and grow organic vegetables (thanks to Prof. Walter P. Saukin, Jr. for that one !)
Obviously, with the initially less capital-intensive ("cheaper") ones, I could keep/ save that money and instead invest it - say, in the stock market (where it would have lost 35% of its value over the past year !) So maybe I really would have been better off with the convertible sports car after all . . . [I've been waiting all day to write that one !]
You get the picture, I'm sure, together with the likely pros and cons of each one - which will vary depending on whether its for here in the NorthEast US where I am now, or in a nice sunny warm spot like Florida, the price of gas, operating costs, how old I am, my physical and medical condition, etc., etc.
These are all broad, "big-picture" choices - the analogy to what RWM (and others) have referred to as the "location" decision - shoudl we build a railroad here at all, between which points, what traffic base is there, what geography, economic, and competitive hurdles will we face, etc., as well as how much money will it likely cost and what rate of return will be required to attract the necessary capital investment. For example, even the Alameda Corrdior project sold bonds to finance that improvement, which had a market-driven interest rate coupon attached to them.
In contrast, the choice of which specific car to buy for around $20,000 - a worthwhile investigation, to be sure, but not the same as the broader questions above - is more like the "alignment" question for a railroad. In other words, now that we've decided the fundamental question of the points between which we're going to build this railroad line, what's the best route to accomplish that, with due attention to all the details like bridges, tunnels, grades, connections, etc. - like the options or accessories on a car - or what RWM referred to as "down in the weeds". Important stuff, which can significantly affect the performance and enjoyment of the delivered car and whether it works really well or is a "lemon" - but not the same as those other questions.
What's really important here is the knowledge and keeping in mind that there are such differences in the engineering analysis - such as between "location" and "alignment" questions - and the wisdom to recognize them and address each and their respective alternatives appropriately in the specific circumstances.
Paul_D_North_Jr [snip] Instead of henry6's house example, I think that it's more like buying a new car for $20,000, using it for many years (say 10, as I tend to do), and then selling it for $500. Does that low disposition sale price mean that it was bad investment ? No, not at all. I got my use out of it - it was essential to have one to earn far more in income (roughly 50 times the car's annual cost, on average, to put it into perspective) - just as the B&M used the Hoosac Tunnel to earn far more in revenue on all the freight that it moved through the Tunnel to elsewhere. I budgeted for and made the payments on the usual 80 % loan for the several years as long as that lasted - so without a doubt the investment was recouped - and of course kept up on the operating costs, maintenance, insurance, registration, inspection, etc. So I would have been happy to give it away for $ 0, or to sell it to a collector or aficionado for $10,000 - that's an end-of-service-life market value question, not related to the return on investment or value of use during its economic life. However, if I'd had to sell it after 2 years for only $500 - big mistake and loss, no doubt about it. [snip]
Acouple things I would like to point out: I don't feel that the importance of ROI is a new thing by any means. The company I work for was started in 1888. It was started for the same reason as every company-to make a profit. Every investment in the company since then has been to continue or to improve that process. Every profitable company operates that way. The pressure, and time-frame requirements to make that profit may have changed, but not the fundamental concept behind it. If you disagree with me, explain why you think I don't get it.
You seem to be putting a lot of this discussion into the perspective of everything being different and better in the *good old days*. I think you'll find, that everything that is good and bad in the business world today has been around forever.
Finally- My house was built in 1917. I purchased it in 1995, and paid it off in 2006. Because it now allows me to not pay $1500/month rent on a similar home, it is just like saving $1500/month. I'd say my ROI looks pretty good right about now.
If there weren't a return on investment investors wouldn't invest...getting back more than you put in is what it is all about and I am all for it. Over the past 25 or so years, however, I believe investors have been, well, greedy and shorsighted. They have demanded huge and quick returns with very little concience to the future of the product, the company, and, horrors to horrors, the country. To send manufacturing jobs off shore has been good for the quick bottom line but has only yielded higher unemployment, downgrading of cities, and a dumbing of the American public. But we are told that they are more patriotic who invest than those who toil. Or question thier motives and the modus operndi! Thus I am niether Democrat or Rebublican but Cynical!
henry6 If there weren't a return on investment investors wouldn't invest...getting back more than you put in is what it is all about and I am all for it. Over the past 25 or so years, however, I believe investors have been, well, greedy and shorsighted. They have demanded huge and quick returns with very little concience to the future of the product, the company, and, horrors to horrors, the country. To send manufacturing jobs off shore has been good for the quick bottom line but has only yielded higher unemployment, downgrading of cities, and a dumbing of the American public. But we are told that they are more patriotic who invest than those who toil. Or question thier motives and the modus operndi! Thus I am niether Democrat or Rebublican but Cynical!
It seems to me that if a company believes they can make more money by going offshore and it backfires on them, then it was a matter of bad business judgment or simply a business mistake. But you seem to be saying that they were greedy and thus wanted too much too fast. You also seem to be suggesting that private companies have some sort of civic duty to make the country collectively more well off even if it means that such companies will make less money in the process.
But is it not good business sense to want your business to make as much money as it possibly can in as short of a time as possible? Should companies settle for less profit if by doing so, they can remain in the U.S. as a favor to the U.S. citizens who want jobs?
Question: How has the fact that companies have moved offshore yielded a dumbing of the American public?
There are many companies that move their production offshore with great success to their business. Would they be greedy and shortsighted just like the companies which were unsuccessful in going offshore?
And one more question: What exactly is greed when it comes to business? How do you know when you cross the line?
Bucyrus ] It seems to me that if a company believes they can make more money by going offshore and it backfires on them, then it was a matter of bad business judgment or simply a business mistake. But you seem to be saying that they were greedy and thus wanted too much too fast. You also seem to be suggesting that private companies have some sort of civic duty to make the country collectively more well off even if it means that such companies will make less money in the process. But is it not good business sense to want your business to make as much money as it possibly can in as short of a time as possible? Should companies settle for less profit if by doing so, they can remain in the U.S. as a favor to the U.S. citizens who want jobs? Question: How has the fact that companies have moved offshore yielded a dumbing of the American public? There are many companies that move their production offshore with great success to their business. Would they be greedy and shortsighted just like the companies which were unsuccessful in going offshore? And one more question: What exactly is greed when it comes to business? How do you know when you cross the line?
]
What is patriotism? If a business is considered a citizen of a country, uses the country and its people to prosper, then it should also have an obligation to support that country. The private citizens are expected to be "patriotic" so why shouldn't business "citizen". A business can, and should, make as much money in as short a time as possible. But at what cost? Destroying its home, not employing the people expected to buy the product, and not looking out for its own future as well as that as the community to which it operates are short sighted and greedy. You cross the line when neither your employees nor your neighbors have enough economic clout to keep you in business. Wouldn't a company that took less up front, took its time getting a return on its investment, keep that business going longer not for the employees or the country, but for itself; rather than running its course in a year or less, it might support the investor for 20 or 30 or even 50 years. That's what the old line Robber Barons did but not what today's Greed Barons do.
Another factor of investors and small business people I have dealt with are those who use computer models to operate their business. They do not have any knowledge of their product or service, have no "feel" or talent for the business they are in, and quickly fail, often leaving creiditors hanging. Too many businesses that fail are not good for the economy either.
henry6 Bucyrus ] It seems to me that if a company believes they can make more money by going offshore and it backfires on them, then it was a matter of bad business judgment or simply a business mistake. But you seem to be saying that they were greedy and thus wanted too much too fast. You also seem to be suggesting that private companies have some sort of civic duty to make the country collectively more well off even if it means that such companies will make less money in the process. But is it not good business sense to want your business to make as much money as it possibly can in as short of a time as possible? Should companies settle for less profit if by doing so, they can remain in the U.S. as a favor to the U.S. citizens who want jobs? Question: How has the fact that companies have moved offshore yielded a dumbing of the American public? There are many companies that move their production offshore with great success to their business. Would they be greedy and shortsighted just like the companies which were unsuccessful in going offshore? And one more question: What exactly is greed when it comes to business? How do you know when you cross the line? What is patriotism? If a business is considered a citizen of a country, uses the country and its people to prosper, then it should also have an obligation to support that country. The private citizens are expected to be "patriotic" so why shouldn't business "citizen". A business can, and should, make as much money in as short a time as possible. But at what cost? Destroying its home, not employing the people expected to buy the product, and not looking out for its own future as well as that as the community to which it operates are short sighted and greedy. You cross the line when neither your employees nor your neighbors have enough economic clout to keep you in business. Wouldn't a company that took less up front, took its time getting a return on its investment, keep that business going longer not for the employees or the country, but for itself; rather than running its course in a year or less, it might support the investor for 20 or 30 or even 50 years. That's what the old line Robber Barons did but not what today's Greed Barons do. Another factor of investors and small business people I have dealt with are those who use computer models to operate their business. They do not have any knowledge of their product or service, have no "feel" or talent for the business they are in, and quickly fail, often leaving creiditors hanging. Too many businesses that fail are not good for the economy either.
When a company uses the country and its people to prosper, it fulfils its obligation by paying wages and taxes. Employing the people expected to buy the product is not part of the deal. Nor is forgoing profit so it can employ more people than needed. I have my idea of what patriotism is but when you frame it as an obligation to support the country, it sounds more like socialism than patriotism.
In a free market system, it seems to me that when a company tries as hard as it can to be make a profit, it is doing everything for the country that it can be expected. So, I am still not sure what you mean by greed as applied to business. I hear that charge every day but have yet to find anybody who can explain it. If a business is expected to make every dollar it possibly can, how can it do so when you impose all these unquantifiable social obligations on it.
You've got me into another round robin where no one gets off. You won't accpet my postulatons and answers and I don't accpet yours. Let's get back to trains.
henry6 You've got me into another round robin where no one gets off. You won't accpet my postulatons and answers and I don't accpet yours. Let's get back to trains.
I am just trying to understand the reasoning of your postulations. Otherwise, labeling corporations as greedy seems like a fad. Nobody can explain a fad.
greyhoundsI don't see any real evidence that people are more short sighted today than they were in 1909 or 1809. It's not like someone just discovered the time value of money in 1980.
One difference between 1980 and 1909 was the high rates set by the Fed in late 1979. There's a big difference in required payback time when interest rates are 12% versus 6%, IIRC the funds rate went above 18% for a short while.
I think you are attributing to malice and greed what should be attributed to new transportation efficiencies and communication improvements. People haven't recently become more malicous and greedy, but transportation and communication certainly have improved.
Suggested Reading: "The Box, How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger" by Marc Levinson.
Before containerships and modern communication it was impractical to have supply chains that stretched around the world. Now, it's possible to have an efficient, low cost, supply chain that runs from China to New Jersey. That's what has changed, not people.
Distribution channels (supply chains) will always, always, always, configure to the most efficient structure. If more value is received per unit of input ($$$) by manufacturing in China and shipping to the US as opposed to manufacturing in the US, that's the way things have to go. You can't stop it. It's like water running downhill. It's going to happen. We have to adjust to the technological change. We can't "uninvent" the containership or the internet.
The government could try to put high tariffs on imported goods as a protectionist measure. But that won't work. It never has. We can't wall off the US from the world economy. We'd all end up paying much more for things and become continually poorer as we had to pay more and more from our incomes for goods.
Transportation and communication technology developed and improved, reducing their costs. That's why goods come from China. Not because people just got greedy in the past 25 years.
Railway Man Paul_D_North_Jr [snips] Another example was a railroad that was built by David Moffat to serve Leadville, Colorado, I believe, just a few months before another competing RR with a much better route got there and essentially put Moffat's line out of business by being able to charge less. During its brief existence, Moffat's line was able to make enough money to recover its costs. [I'm writing this from memory - my source is Harold A. Boner's The Moffat Road, and it's at home, not here. RWM, I recall from prior posts that you're familiar with mining and that area, so you may have a different view of this - I have no knowledge independent of Boner's recounting of it, so I'll understand if you disagree. But I'll try to provide the specifics in a later post.] [snips] Paul -- My earlier example of a logging railway is precisely what you're talking about for a temporary railway facility. All Wellington was arguing for is, "please, this is about money, not about curve geometry and big bridges, and by applying those lessons assiduously we perform a greater social good than just enriching ourselves at the expense of others." The example of David Moffat is Cripple Creek, Colorado, but while Boner was correct in that there is a business case for a low-cost-of-construction, short-term, high-profit railroad to a cost-no-object traffic source, he misapplied it to Cripple Creek and apparently had only a dim idea of Moffat's business methods. David Moffat was a shrewd investor of regional significance who made a great deal of money trafficking in the greed and ignorance of others, and was not ethically challenged by things such as jury tampering. See the book "A Mine to Make a Mine, Financing the Colorado Mining Industry, 1859-1902" by Joseph E. Smith. RWM
Paul_D_North_Jr [snips] Another example was a railroad that was built by David Moffat to serve Leadville, Colorado, I believe, just a few months before another competing RR with a much better route got there and essentially put Moffat's line out of business by being able to charge less. During its brief existence, Moffat's line was able to make enough money to recover its costs. [I'm writing this from memory - my source is Harold A. Boner's The Moffat Road, and it's at home, not here. RWM, I recall from prior posts that you're familiar with mining and that area, so you may have a different view of this - I have no knowledge independent of Boner's recounting of it, so I'll understand if you disagree. But I'll try to provide the specifics in a later post.] [snips]
Nice summary of Wellington, and the longer view of the business and its effects. Similarly - but not quite the same - John G. Kneiling used to write, "Look at the bottom line - somebody should !". Kneiling was more focused on operating costs and revenues, whereas Wellington is more on the capital expenditure side of matters.
You're right, the Moffat example is the 3-ft. gauge Florence & Cripple Creek Railroad, which was described in The Giant's Ladder (not The Moffat Road as I posted earlier), at pgs. 60 & 62. Summarizing Boner's account:
Moffat built the F&CC from 1891 to 1894 - 3 years to build about 25 miles as I scale it - in a race with the Colorado Midland to reach the then-newly discovered gold mines at Cripple Creek. The F&CC got there only 8 months before the CM's standard gauge line, but during those 8 months, the F&CC's monopoly more than paid the total cost of its construction. After the CM's line - which had a much shorter route to the smelters at Colorado Springs - got to Cripple Creek, the F&CC made no profit, and Moffat sold it to the CM in 1899. [emphasis added - PDN]
You pointed out above that "he [Boner] misapplied it [the business case] to the Cripple Creek". Is that addressed in the Smith book you referenced (below), or is there something else to know or analyze that is not stated by Boner or Smith ?
Thanks also for the reference to the Smith book - I'll have to get it through the Inter-Library Loan sometime.
Paul_D_North_Jr RWM - Nice summary of Wellington, and the longer view of the business and its effects. Similarly - but not quite the same - John G. Kneiling used to write, "Look at the bottom line - somebody should !". Kneiling was more focused on operating costs and revenues, whereas Wellington is more on the capital expenditure side of matters. You're right, the Moffat example is the 3-ft. gauge Florence & Cripple Creek Railroad, which was described in The Giant's Ladder (not The Moffat Road as I posted earlier), at pgs. 60 & 62. Summarizing Boner's account: Moffat built the F&CC from 1891 to 1894 - 3 years to build about 25 miles as I scale it - in a race with the Colorado Midland to reach the then-newly discovered gold mines at Cripple Creek. The F&CC got there only 8 months before the CM's standard gauge line, but during those 8 months, the F&CC's monopoly more than paid the total cost of its construction. After the CM's line - which had a much shorter route to the smelters at Colorado Springs - got to Cripple Creek, the F&CC made no profit, and Moffat sold it to the CM in 1899. [emphasis added - PDN] You pointed out above that "he [Boner] misapplied it [the business case] to the Cripple Creek". Is that addressed in the Smith book you referenced (below), or is there something else to know or analyze that is not stated by Boner or Smith ? Thanks also for the reference to the Smith book - I'll have to get it through the Inter-Library Loan sometime. - Paul North.
I disagree that Wellington only focused on the capital side. Read his book and see what you think. As for Kneiling, Morgan didn't call him a curmudgeon for nothing. I could never tell what Kneiling was focused on, but it wasn't useful for me.
The conventional wisdom on Moffat and the F&CC is that Moffat dared to build a line where more conservative and fearful men failed to act. That story was Moffat's story, the one he wanted people to believe. The reality is that Moffat used his position as president of the D&RG to negotiate a favorable interline traffic agreement for the F&CC, negotiated by himself as the D&RG and by himself as the F&CC, thus taking money out of the D&RG shareholders' pockets and putting it into his own. The D&RG would not entertain a connection with any other railroad, in effect awarding a sole-source contract to a company controlled by its own president. Nice work if you can get it. It was extremely lucrative for Moffat and his friends until competition appeared, the Colorado Springs & Cripple Creek District and the Midland Terminal, both with connections to Santa Fe and Colorado & Southern. At that moment, the F&CC, with the crummiest route and the highest operating costs, ceased to be a meaningful player.
Boner was correct that a lower-cost railroad put the F&CC out of business, but he had no idea why.
I remember one thing that Kneiling was advocating. He wanted to reduce tare weight by the use of dedicated trainsets. That way each car could be made with a drawbar and center sill only as strong as needed for its dedicated position in the train. He thought it was wasteful to haul around all the extra tare weight in a train of loose cars where each one was designed to be first out in say a 200-car train. As a continuation of this thinking, he even wanted to distribute the traction motors more or less throughout the train rather than have them all pulling from the locomotive. The dedicated trainsets would handle everything in containers and be called land ships.
BucyrusI remember one thing that Kneiling was advocating. He wanted to reduce tare weight by the use of dedicated trainsets. That way each car could be made with a drawbar and center sill only as strong as needed for its dedicated position in the train. He thought it was wasteful to haul around all the extra tare weight in a train of loose cars where each one was designed to be first out in say a 200-car train. As a continuation of this thinking, he even wanted to distribute the traction motors more or less throughout the train rather than have them all pulling from the locomotive. The dedicated trainsets would handle everything in containers and be called land ships.
To an extent that has happened with DPUs and aluminum-body cars, though not in the utopian sense that Mr. Kneiling advocated. In my opinion I do not think Mr. Kneiling sufficiently appreciated the realities of what railroad customers would actually agree to do, the great cost of eliminating the causes and effects of random events in the great outdoors, and the great importance of reliability, simplicity, and flexibility in railroading. His trainset would have been an all-or-nothing proposition that would have been 100% in service or 100% out of service for trivial causes like a bent grab iron. Mr. Kneiling's solutions were rarely incremental. To realize any one of them would require a radical reorganization of the railroad culture, regulatory environment, and ownership environment, as well as a radical reorganization of the shippers, the federal and state government, and U.S. society. But perhaps that's what he really wanted, and railroads were only a stalking horse. In any case, when you try to think through how to execute Mr. Kneiling's plans, one keeps peeling back more and more layers of the onion, and when one arrives at the core, the instruction is "Return to Go, July 4, 1776 and this time get it right you dunderheads! Now continue reading my instructions on how to run a perfect railroad system."
....It would be nice to have functions in our world as dedicated and precise as Kneiling thought it could be. But that's not our world then, now and won't be.
Well he was a professional iconoclast. I thought it was kind of gutsy for DPM to have him onboard poking at hornets’ nests every month. He was as controversial as the all-diesel issue.
Were John writing today, he'd be a perfect candidate for a blog - - or this forum ! - which would probably be referred to more often than not as a "rant". It sure seems that his ghost or alter ego is in some of these posts, including some quite a bit above, and some long past threads.
Seeing what RWM has written about John above and over on the Coal Loading/Unloading thread, I think you had to take John with a grain - no, a big pinch of salt. He covered a lot of subjects, many of them not closely railroad-related, such as politics and governments. As to those, I "consider the source" when evaluating them, the same as I do for pronouncements by politicians, the pop culture crowd, and sports figures, etc. (among others) about subjects outside of their areas of acknowledged expertise.
I may start another thread on John, rather than lose that subject in and clutter up this one with that. If so, I'll post a link to it here as well.
Just a note on Mr. Kneiling. On another thread, a person who identified himself as his son, stated that his father passed away in 2000.
I actually found John Knieling fascinating...if only because he urged one to think outside the box before the phrase became popular. His concept of unit trains was the one thing where he was on target but he also made one's mind wander through what could be done differently than the sameold.
henry6I actually found John Knieling fascinating...if only because he urged one to think outside the box before the phrase became popular. His concept of unit trains was the one thing where he was on target but he also made one's mind wander through what could be done differently than the sameold.
Interesting phrase as one place where Knieling was spot on was advocating the use of containers for general freight. He was also on the right track about reducing tare weight, with the articulated "Fuel Foilers" and double-stack cars being an incremental approach to his ideal of the integral train.
I'll side with RWM with his comment on Knieling's mechanical ideas. As an example, Knieling proposed using a combined cycle gas turbine plant with single phase AC drive - the combined cycle turbine would have been too large and single phase AC is not a good choice for traction motors.
Another Knieling mistake was his criticism of traction alternators versus traction generators - completely missing the limitations of DC generators in high HP locomotives.
Summing up, Knieling had a lot of high level insight, but missed some of the details.
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