"All your questions will be answered in about 4 minutes. For the love of God don't expect to find truth about the Milwaukee Road Puget Sound Extension in this forum, because the discussion is religious in character.
RWM"
But RWM, are you not referring to all discussions involving railroads and railfans and not just the MLW PSE? That's indeed why the internet was founded!!!!
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Murphy,
The Milwaukee Road(then the St Paul Road) had built a quite extensive granger network in the Midwest. They realized two things:
A 3rd factor was basic 'I want to control my own railroad'. They could see that they were not the 'Super Grainger' and would be bought out at some time(and control would be moved out of the local area). The answer was to build the 'Pacific Extension'. The line had several issues:
They took a gamble and it did not pay off. Had they not built it, maybe they could have sold their Midwest lines for top dollar - Who knows. That is 'History'.....
Jim
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
Railway Man Murphy: A clarification that is crucial to this discussion. What Wellington said is this: "Alignment is a detail of location." To elaborate, alignment isn't something you work out after you decide on location, it's something you use to inform your location, i.e., alignment appears iteratively during the process of choosing the location. What Wellington argued is that too often the cart was before the horse: alignment was worked out but the goal of the alignment often remained unexamined or misunderstood. This is a classic error that is also common today (especially in resource-based economies such as the oil states), where projects are conceived, designed, funded, and built, and only afterward is their purpose and need considered! [snips & emphasis added - PDN.] RWM
[snips & emphasis added - PDN.]
RWM
Not to get too caught up in the semantics here, but for the non-professionals - particularly in this technological age - I'd also use the synonym "interactive" to provide a better sense of the relationship between location and alignment and the process of working them out, in the messy real world mix of geography, politics, economics, technology, finance, personalities, etc. that in which we live - none of that "In a perfect world, we would . . . " hypotheticals here !
"Iteratively" I heard early and often in engineering school. "Inform" - in the sense of being an "input to" - I never heard that application until I started working closely with a couple of sophisticated architects a few years ago.
What it all means is that we should try to choose select the means - alignment - that's appropriate for the intended end - the business and traffic of the location - and as well, make sure that the location is suitable for and worthy of the means - the alignment - that will be needed. They should not be considered in an idealized world or in a vaccum completely independent, ignorant, and unrelated to each other.
- Paul North.
Railway Man Paul, you really, really, need to read Vance. All your questions will be answered in about 4 minutes. For the love of God don't expect to find truth about the Milwaukee Road Puget Sound Extension in this forum, because the discussion is religious in character. RWM
RWM -
My questions above were more rhetorical than personal - I was mainly trying to get back to and focus some possible avenues of inquiry to address the question(s) first presented by Murphy Siding re: the PCE in his original post to this thread (above) - plus I'm a little curious myself. That said -
Your strong recommendation on Vance is noted - messages received and acknowledged ! "WILCO" (didn't mean to trouble you to have to write it again, I knew the good advice when I saw it the first time) In the meantime, I've found out that there are no less than 55 libraries here in Pennsylvania that are reported to have it -
http://205.247.101.11/search~S1?/aVance/avance/101%2C307%2C3355%2CE/frameset&FF=avance+james+e&11%2C%2C13
- the closest of which is Allentown's Public Library, which is not too far off my way home tonight.
LOL on the second part - that sums it up pretty well, I think.
Thanks again !
Paul_D_North_JrSome thoughts on the rationale for the CMSt.P&P "Pacific Extension" question: 1) [Gulp ] Search this forum for "PCE" and/ or posts by "MichaelSol". Up until a few months ago, he was a pretty prolific poster here, and was always quick to defend the PCE, at least in its later/ pre-abandonment stage. He may have said something about its genesis as well; 2) What do Charles & Dorothy Wood say in their 1960's (?) mostly picture & captions book, The Milwaukee Road ? (Superior Press, I think) I know that's not prime source history material, but they- and their sources - were about 40 years closer to it than we are now; 3) Someplace I read recently that "There are 2 reasons why a man does something - a good reason, and the real reason." I suspect that's the case here. That long ago, we may never be able to discern or know the "real" reasons; 4) Nevertheless, going at least as far as the Montana copper mines maybe makes sense. But why continue on through the worst of the Rockies ? It was pretty much virgin territory back then - maybe there was some thought that it would be developed and traffic sources would appear in the future ? What did the articles in Railway Gazette ( the Railway Age of the time) say about it ? Did any of the Milwaukee Road board members have ranches, minable lands, timber land, other land holdings, water rights, or hydro-power rights, etc. which would have benefitted from the PCE as well ? Corruption or conspiracy theorists, unite ! (never mind the inherent contradiction or hypocrisy in that last thought) 5) George W. Hilton wrote several articles in Trains in the 1960s about the cartels, the ICC, why railroads didn't compete, and why they overbuilt. I think the cartel explanation offered above is essentially complete, but reviewing what Hilton wrote might provide some additional insights and nuances; 6) Wouldn't the R&LHS or the NRHS have published articles on this ? And while those may be based on "sanitized" sources, there must have been a few college papers or professor-level business or history articles from the Pacific Northwest schools and universities that took a look at this as well - it's too good an opportunity to pass up, even if only in the vein of "Paradise Lost" or "Enterprise Denied" or the like. - Paul North.
Some thoughts on the rationale for the CMSt.P&P "Pacific Extension" question:
1) [Gulp ] Search this forum for "PCE" and/ or posts by "MichaelSol". Up until a few months ago, he was a pretty prolific poster here, and was always quick to defend the PCE, at least in its later/ pre-abandonment stage. He may have said something about its genesis as well;
2) What do Charles & Dorothy Wood say in their 1960's (?) mostly picture & captions book, The Milwaukee Road ? (Superior Press, I think) I know that's not prime source history material, but they- and their sources - were about 40 years closer to it than we are now;
3) Someplace I read recently that "There are 2 reasons why a man does something - a good reason, and the real reason." I suspect that's the case here. That long ago, we may never be able to discern or know the "real" reasons;
4) Nevertheless, going at least as far as the Montana copper mines maybe makes sense. But why continue on through the worst of the Rockies ? It was pretty much virgin territory back then - maybe there was some thought that it would be developed and traffic sources would appear in the future ? What did the articles in Railway Gazette ( the Railway Age of the time) say about it ? Did any of the Milwaukee Road board members have ranches, minable lands, timber land, other land holdings, water rights, or hydro-power rights, etc. which would have benefitted from the PCE as well ? Corruption or conspiracy theorists, unite ! (never mind the inherent contradiction or hypocrisy in that last thought)
5) George W. Hilton wrote several articles in Trains in the 1960s about the cartels, the ICC, why railroads didn't compete, and why they overbuilt. I think the cartel explanation offered above is essentially complete, but reviewing what Hilton wrote might provide some additional insights and nuances;
6) Wouldn't the R&LHS or the NRHS have published articles on this ? And while those may be based on "sanitized" sources, there must have been a few college papers or professor-level business or history articles from the Pacific Northwest schools and universities that took a look at this as well - it's too good an opportunity to pass up, even if only in the vein of "Paradise Lost" or "Enterprise Denied" or the like.
Paul, you really, really, need to read Vance. All your questions will be answered in about 4 minutes. For the love of God don't expect to find truth about the Milwaukee Road Puget Sound Extension in this forum, because the discussion is religious in character.
Murphy Siding Not meant to pick it all apart, meant to get a better understanding of what happened and why. If you took me the wrong way on that, I appologize.
Not meant to pick it all apart, meant to get a better understanding of what happened and why. If you took me the wrong way on that, I appologize.
No apology necessary...I was just keying topic thoughts off the top my head.
Murphy Siding The gist of the post, is about the location of rail lines. As I read it, location is about the decision, and execution of a railroad company to build a line into an area. The alignment, where the actual tracks get laid down, being something entirely different. From that, pops up a few questions: Why did the Milwaukee decide to go to Puget sound? A similar thought surrounds the time when railroads were expanding west. My town was served by 5 railroads at one time. Local railroad boosters put up money and land to lure several of them here. I can understand being the first railroad into what may become a prosperous farm town. And, maybe the 2nd. What about the 3rd, 4th, and 5th? Did they all sit, and reason out the possibilites, before heading for Sioux Falls, Dakota Terrritory. What effect did *booster* type groups have on railroad location? Did the copper mine in Butte, Montana, fall into the same category as the boosters?
The gist of the post, is about the location of rail lines. As I read it, location is about the decision, and execution of a railroad company to build a line into an area. The alignment, where the actual tracks get laid down, being something entirely different.
From that, pops up a few questions: Why did the Milwaukee decide to go to Puget sound? A similar thought surrounds the time when railroads were expanding west.
My town was served by 5 railroads at one time. Local railroad boosters put up money and land to lure several of them here. I can understand being the first railroad into what may become a prosperous farm town. And, maybe the 2nd. What about the 3rd, 4th, and 5th? Did they all sit, and reason out the possibilites, before heading for Sioux Falls, Dakota Terrritory. What effect did *booster* type groups have on railroad location? Did the copper mine in Butte, Montana, fall into the same category as the boosters?
Murphy: A clarification that is crucial to this discussion. What Wellington said is this: "Alignment is a detail of location." To elaborate, alignment isn't something you work out after you decide on location, it's something you use to inform your location, i.e., alignment appears iteratively during the process of choosing the location. What Wellington argued is that too often the cart was before the horse: alignment was worked out but the goal of the alignment often remained unexamined or misunderstood. This is a classic error that is also common today (especially in resource-based economies such as the oil states), where projects are conceived, designed, funded, and built, and only afterward is their purpose and need considered!
That said, onto your example. The example you discussed is examined in depth in three books, all by the same author, Julius Grodinsky, in "Transcontinental Railway Strategy, 1869-1893," "The Iowa Pool, a Study in Railroad Competition, 1870-84" and "Jay Gould -- His Business Career, 1867-1892". You would be vastly better off reading his books than reading this forum as all I can at best do is offer up a poor gruel of his logic and economic analysis. Wellington's and Vance's works are in harmony with Grodinsky, so read as a package you gain a Ph.D. comprehension of how railways got built, financed, operated, and the effects they had on the nation and the nation on them. (There are alternative points of view but they do not enjoy a large number of adherents except on what appears to me the lunatic fringe both right and left.)
Grodinsky's central argument is that railways west of Chicago had one burden that overwhelmed all others and one goal that trumped all others: an extreme lack of capital, and the need to command the territory. Brilliant financiers such as Gould, Huntington, Forbes and Joy grasped the capability of a railway system to create enormous wealth, that the means of that capability was market dominance in a territory, but only if the system could control the territory. But the extreme lack of capital meant that even if one saw the opportunity, it was almost always beyond one's reach because there was no ability to beg or borrow the money required to sieze the opportunity. As a result, construction was not systematic nor was it apparent who would win the territorial competitions, because even the best-financed systems went through terrible financing crises. This encouraged the amateurs, the theives, and the overconfident to try their hand at the game. And the outcome was that during times when money was cheap, a spasm of furious building occurred as everyone tried to grab as much territory as possible, including vast overlaps of the competitors in an effort to chop into pieces their territorial control, slashing rates, and starving them out.
The end-game of the overlap strategy was the premise that territorial competition would quickly result in strong and weak systems, the expectation that the inferior competitor would eventually recognize his gambit had failed, would sell out to the superior competitor, and quit the field. No railway system ever, for one second, envisioned the future that actually transpired, where everyone, strong and weak alike, would all remain on the field of battle for the long term! Nor did they envision that all of track they built in order to command territory would be permanent -- they assumed that once the strategy was complete, at a tactical level a great deal of the duplicate plant would be removed. Gould, Huntington, Forbes, Joy, et al., calculated that the strategic battle would quickly sort out a few or even just one big winner and everyone else would be forgotten even to historians.
The railway builders did not forsee that the body politic would not leave them be, and did not forsee the body politic would force onto them a negotiated compromise that would stop the battle and freeze every railway in position like a bug in amber. This sudden interest of the public in the affairs of railways was catalyzed by the overreach of Gould, et al., who did not fully appreciate their role in creating the populist trend in politics that appeared in their era, but the real agent of action was the owners of inferior railways who faced with financial ruin at the hands of the superior railways chose to invite the public into their boardrooms and dictate terms of compromise onto all. It was a fantastically cynical and selfish decision to manipulate the public into protecting the few at the expense of the many. The true intent of the designers of railway regulation (the ones pulling the levers behind the scenes) was to protect the assets of stockholders in inferior railways. They succeeded at their goal spectacularly, and it cost the nation dearly by forcing the nation to subsidize a vast excess of railroad plant and a vast dispersion of industry, commerce, and production to places made feasible only by the artificially low railway rates subsidized by their more geographically advantaged competitors.
One could argue that a benefit of railway regulation is that it improved quality of life by enabling people to make a living in places like Sioux Falls instead of, oh, just to pick an example, Chicago, and in a democracy the majority has the right to determine what constitutes quality of life. But if that was the goal and not a consequence, we should have articulated it and paid for it on its own merits and not back-doored it through an expensive railway regulatory scheme. Greyhounds and I are sometimes polar opposites on matters of politics but I think we are in agreement that railway regulation had as its primary beneficiary not the public but the stockholder of certain companies, it turned fair economic competition on its head, it prematurely exhausted resources and the environment, and it destroyed trillions of dollars of wealth.
Sioux Falls is a classic minor articulation point where each railway company built to and through in an effort to sap the strength of its competitors. The thought process had little to do with Sioux Falls as some sort of unique destination; to the railways Sioux Falls looked the same as other minor midwestern articulations such as Mason City, Iowa, or Mankato, Minnesota.
Booster groups had only small influence on railroad decision-making at the level of a Sioux Falls. The railways were grateful for any free cash or land, and the lack of a booster group would imply that the commercial prospects of the city were uninteresting, but these groups did not command enough cash to bend a railway to their will.
henry6 . And in the long run, yes, pre 1900 was more likely built to get a line into a place not fully cognizant of being a part of a "super" mainline. It's easy to pick it all apart this far away in time.
. And in the long run, yes, pre 1900 was more likely built to get a line into a place not fully cognizant of being a part of a "super" mainline. It's easy to pick it all apart this far away in time.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Overlooked in this thread is the reason for the line. Is the reason the line is being built to reach a mine or a manufacturing plant or something else in particular or is it to move trains through an area non stop. Thus lines like W. Va mine spur or a grain country track were laid to reach a specific on line location. And the lines like Lackawanna's Cut Offs and the Milwaukee Road main were to move trains over a segment. So it would follow that one might put up with a little more grade or even go around rather than through when reaching for a short destination. And it would also follow that one would fill in or bore through to get as straight a lin or as level a gradient when bulding a cut off or speedy,high density main line. And in the long run, yes, pre 1900 was more likely built to get a line into a place not fully cognizant of being a part of a "super" mainline. It's easy to pick it all apart this far away in time.
Not as counter to RWM's point of view as you seem to think. At the time CRIF&NW was built, the breadbasket was wide open to competition and Iowa seemed to be in the way of where everybody wanted to go. They got part of what they wanted by having CRIP buy a large part of their investment so they could play keep-away and influence traffic to a degree.
mudchicken Spring? You can have it. Give us winter back and the moisture that comes with it. Most effective fire suppressent around. Cedar Rapids, Iowa Falls & Northwestern (Burlington, Cedar Rapids & Northern / controlled by CRIP sine 1881) wandered into your fair burg in 1886 in search of interchange, river terminal facilities and industries and later as access to them thar goldfields. They were a totally speculative railroad. that wanted to serve ag communities with a desire to be on a main line or with two railroads to break up a monopoly on service by CB&Q and the Omaha Road. As one granger too many, it got broken up between CB&Q and CRIP in the end (1902). Your end of the railroad joined the railroad that went everywhere the hard way and mostly died with it in 1972-1980.(Some more of it died in 2008 - IANW after another of those starving grangers owned it, namely C&NW)
Spring? You can have it. Give us winter back and the moisture that comes with it. Most effective fire suppressent around.
Cedar Rapids, Iowa Falls & Northwestern (Burlington, Cedar Rapids & Northern / controlled by CRIP sine 1881) wandered into your fair burg in 1886 in search of interchange, river terminal facilities and industries and later as access to them thar goldfields. They were a totally speculative railroad. that wanted to serve ag communities with a desire to be on a main line or with two railroads to break up a monopoly on service by CB&Q and the Omaha Road. As one granger too many, it got broken up between CB&Q and CRIP in the end (1902). Your end of the railroad joined the railroad that went everywhere the hard way and mostly died with it in 1972-1980.(Some more of it died in 2008 - IANW after another of those starving grangers owned it, namely C&NW)
* Speculative railroad* kind of runs counter to RWM's idea of a railroad checking everything out before building the right sized railroad into the right area. Were they speculative, in that they wanted to get into a new area to cash in on someone else's lucrative traffic, or tspeculative, in that they wanted to build up the business and sell the railroad at a high price.
Re: Milwaukee's PCE
One of the reasons that the Milwaukee built the PCE was to give Anaconda Copper another rail line into Butte and Anaconda to compete with the NP. Several members of the Milwaukee board were also members of Anaconda's board and probably had a significant conflict of interest in approving the extension.
The extension from Morbridge to Harlowtown was nicely engineered, with a couple of excpections the grades were 0.5% or lower, very few curves sharper than 3 degrees. This is especially evident comparing the alignment of the Milwaukee with the NP between Forsythe and Terry.
Cedar Rapids, Iowa Falls & Northwestern (Burlington, Cedar Rapids & Northern / controlled by CRIP sine 1881) wandered into your fair burg in 1886 in search of interchange, river terminal facilities and industries and later as access to them thar goldfields. They were a totally speculative railroad that wanted to serve ag communities with a desire to be on a main line or with two railroads to break up a monopoly on service by CB&Q and the Omaha Road. As one granger too many, it got broken up between CB&Q and CRIP in the end (1902). Your end of the railroad joined the railroad that went everywhere the hard way and mostly died with it in 1972-1980.(Some more of it died in 2008 - IANW after another of those starving grangers owned it, namely C&NW)
Murphy Siding Pretend it's spring already. Pretend that I'm transplanting this topic from another thread. The 1880's engineering thread is spreading into several interesting directions, each of which is interesting to me. I thought I'd try to narrow the focus on part of it. with out taking away from the whole- starting with this post: The gist of the post, is about the location of rail lines. As I read it, location is about the decision, and execution of a railroad company to build a line into an area. The alignment, where the actual tracks get laid down, being something entirely different. From that, pops up a few questions: Why did the Milwaukee decide to go to Puget sound? A similar thought surrounds the time when railroads were expanding west. My town was served by 5 railroads at one time. Local railroad boosters put up money and land to lure several of them here. I can understand being the first railroad into what may become a prosperous farm town. And, maybe the 2nd. What about the 3rd, 4th, and 5th? Did they all sit, and reason out the possibilites, before heading for Sioux Falls, Dakota Terrritory. What effect did *booster* type groups have on railroad location? Did the copper mine in Butte, Montana, fall into the same category as the boosters?
Pretend it's spring already. Pretend that I'm transplanting this topic from another thread. The 1880's engineering thread is spreading into several interesting directions, each of which is interesting to me. I thought I'd try to narrow the focus on part of it. with out taking away from the whole- starting with this post:
Pretend it's spring? What's a spring? Isn't it going to be cold and dark forever? Seems like it already has been.
US railroads were overbuilt as in five rail lines to Sioux Falls, SD. I know of two reasons. First, the railroads organized themselves into cartels. A cartel will use to many resources (five ways to Sioux Falls) to produce a level of output. A railroad could build into Sioux Falls knowing that it would become part of the cartel and that the cartel would set the freight rates high enough so that everyone would make money. There seemed to be little risk and a guaranteed profit. Some railroads were built just to get into the cartels, even when the other lines were adequate to handle the traffic.
Of course, the cartels proved unstable. Some line would always cheat. So, in the 1880's the railroads sought a governent sanctioned cartel known as the Interstate Commerce Commission. This was to have disasterous results decades latter for the railroads when trucking developed outside the government's rail cartel and the ICC blocked the railroads from reducing rates to compete with the truckers.
Second, much of the investment made in constructing a rail line is largely "sunk". You can't get it out. Examples are grading, cuts, fills, tunnels, bridges, etc. A trucking company can just redeploy its vehicles elsewhere. That rail line structure isn't going anywhere. That made it difficult for a railroad to leave a market once it had entered a market. So even if a company became disastisfied with the money it made serving Sioux Falls, there was no way to take up the investment and move it elsewhere. So the number of rail lines serving a location tended to go up, not down.
All this fell apart when truckers broke the rail cartel for good. (They were not being nice, they tried very hard to establish their own cartels.) Given the diminished volumes of rail shipments the cartels could not set rail rates high enough to cover everyones' costs and only the strong survivied. Which is how it should have been in the first place.
As to the Milwaukee Road PCE (chills now run up and down my spine). The Milwaukee (or the St. Paul) had been the major bridge carrier between Chicago and the Twin Cities. When the GN and NP bought the Burlington that status was threatened. The Milwaukee could have seen little risk in building to Puget Sound - after all, they would become part of a cartel and enjoy traffic at rates set so they could make money. They did this just years ahead of paved roads and the initial crumbling of the rail cartel. They also had a real problem in that the railroads of that era depended greatly on short haul local traffic. The territorry the Milwaukee built through never developed enough to produce significant local business. Want one more strike? Seattle/Tacoma wasn't that big of a deal as a port until relatively recently. The pie they were trying to get a piece of wasn't that big.
Railway Man 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: 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). Examples of second-order errors are rarely so glaring and usually only apply for a limited period of time: Union Pacific-Central Pacific: The details of the location were highly perishable -- very little of the original line in Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada lies on the original embankment or between the same right-of-way boundaries and often not even within miles of the original right-of-way. But I do not think the location was bad for its date of constructon, but both railways hung onto it a little too long. The noteworthiness of the massive Harriman realigments of the 1897-1906 period were not that they were made, but that so little of the work had begun before Harriman arrived. It was not as if the shortcomings of the alignments were not apparent prior to Harriman. The Denver, South Park & Pacific Gunnison Extension. This gets down into the weeds and you have to really study the alignment and the history to see the mistake. The locating engineer chose an alignment subject to avalanches; he put it on the wrong side of the valley. (The Extension was also a first-order error; there was no traffic for the DSP&P in Gunnison.) SP&S, Spokane-Pasco. An very low-cost line to operate, but so expensive to maintain that BN chose to abandon it and place its traffic onto the parallel former NP facility. There was no significant local traffic to affect the decision. 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.) RWM
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.
(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.)
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