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.
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.
- Paul North.
* - 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.
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."
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.
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.
RWM
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
(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.)
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.
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.).
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....
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...
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!
henry6 Best source: Tabers DL&W in the 20th Century and W.S. Young's Tunkhannok Viaduct and Hallstead Cut Of books.
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!
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.
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?
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?
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?
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.
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.
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_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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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 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.
Quentin
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_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."
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!!
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
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.
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.
Did it pay for itself? That's the only criteria that matters.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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