What was the singlemost damaging invention that hurt the railroads?

[vsmith]

Oh yeah I remember that show, James Burke was the host a typical episode started with mining in the 13th century and the need to get water out of the mines and one invention influences another an Fooom! we end up at the A-bomb having a direct connection thru the ages to a donkey powered water pump! Mind blowing show!

[mecovey]

Interesting answers but I think the invention that hurt the railroads the most was probably the featherbed.

[Overmod]

I think that a meaningful answer to this question might have to involve different periods of history.

In the 1800s, one significant "invention" was the perception of railroads in the eyes of courts and judges. One aspect of this was the formation of the ICC.

In the early 1900s, a problem with government (1906, 1917, etc), coupled with ICC insistence on non-abandonment of uneconomic "public" services.

Impact of early automobiles was MUCH more pronounced on trolleys and interurban service, and on precisely the kind of passenger service the railroads least wanted or needed to maintain. Ditto for long-haul trucking... not really a major factor up to the 1940s, I think.

Interstate system a MAJOR contributor to railroad problems, in several respects, but it's different for freight and for passenger:

Subsidized road construction & maintenance via dedicated fuel tax
Implicit construction, and maintenance, to heavy-truck standards. Could any single truck line, no matter how large, have afforded to construct, or even maintain, its own road network, let alone pay property taxes, etc. and deal with lawsuits over access and crossings?

Modern automobiles are just too cost-effective, *once you've invested in them for one reason or another*, in making convenient trips -- at the desired time, with multiple passengers and plenty of 'baggage', going directly to the destination with no diversions, and allowing stops for choice of food, attractions, sleep, etc. I think the first 'wave' came with the building of major state and US highways, but the real impact of convenience and speed came with the Interstates. Seems clear that automobile design and highway design went hand-in-hand from the mid-'50s all the way up past 1973, facilitating large cars with big engines

Continued tolerance of property taxation (often at high valuation) for railroads

Development of catalytic cracking, large West Texas oil reserves, etc. which made it cheap to operate automobiles.

Introduction of turbojet aircraft in domestic passenger service -- this essentially spelled the doom of the Pullman car just as it meant the effective end of the Atlantic passenger liner. Beebe and Clegg describe a great dying off of passenger business in 1957, just as the jets were making one-day transcontinental travel practical. I don't find this coincidental.

Funny thing -- I can't really find any more recent "inventions" that hurt the railroads badly after this point. I leave out whiz-kid management theories, Canadian-style financial 'innovation' (cf. the Reichman disaster with Santa Fe Southern Pacific) and lawyers running things (need I say more than "Stuart Saunders"?) as not being in the spirit of the original question...

[DSchmitt]

QUOTE: Originally posted by vsmith

Well I you want to be that specific, it wasnt the development of the infernal combustion engine , you have to go farther back than that. RR were doomed by...

...the Bicycle!

Good point. The bicycle was also responsible for the "better roads" movement which led to the construction of paved roads beyond the City limits of major Cities and ultimately (so far) the Interstate Highway System.

Without a paved highway system, trucks would be restricted relatively short hauls from the railhead.

[Mookie]

QUOTE: Originally posted by mecovey

Interesting answers but I think the invention that hurt the railroads the most was probably the featherbed.

Ouch!

Mook

[Mookie]

So where does it end? We just invent ourselves out of existance?

La Mook

[mvlandsw]

The automobile probably helped more than hurt. It and the jets killed the passenger train which are a burden to run anyway. The auto plants provide much traffic and revenue. The interstate highways caused the most damage by allowing trucks to handle this and much other traffic.

[tree68]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Mookie

So where does it end? We just invent ourselves out of existance?

La Mook

One of these days, when we've really figured out Star Trek-style transporters ("Beam me up, Scotty!"), there will be a facet of society mourning the passing of the big rig and the airliner. Highway preservationists will be trying to save stretches of Interstate Highways, and we'll be wondering what's next...

[Anonymous]

smooth roads

when you had the difference between powhole ridden myddy roads or faster smooth trains, it was easy to choose what was more comfortable to ride, or ship goods. once methods started coming out to keep the roads fairly smooth, it was easlier to hop into the automobile or load the goods into a truck to take into another town, and just as comfortable.

And LC. Without gasoline, we wouldn't have had the Doodlebugs :D which were very useful for branch lines.

[AntonioFP45]

The Interstate HIghway system!

[JoeKoh]

The car and the highway system. a one two punch to the railroads.
stay safe
Joe

[Anonymous]

Three words- "modern", "mechanized" and "warfare". Rail passenger service did not take off until the military discovered that you could move huge numbers of troops and equipment by rail. World War I was the first war to expose lots of Americans to the truck and automobile. Dwight D. Eisenhower proved you could move a military convoy cross country using trucks. It wasn't easy, fast, or truly significant... but some historians say that his trip planted the seed of the modern Interstate system in his head. It took the German autobahn make it happen. It didn't matter that most of the German Army in World War II used horses to move around- millions of American men discovered it was easier to hop in a jeep, or a truck, to travel.

The American system of government also killed long range passenger service. World War I proved that nationalization of American railroads didn't work- for America. World War II proved that railroads could still move huge amounts of freight and people, if pushed hard enough by government. The systemic bombing of the French railroads just before D-Day proved that railroads have vulnerabilities that are easily exploited. If you knock out one tank in a road convoy, you hack off the drivers- and gunners- of nine other tanks. If you knock out a steam locomotive pulling a troop train, you have stopped all ten tanks from doing anything. It takes a fairly adept gunner to kill a single tank; it takes a 13 year old some muscle and a crowbar (or wrench) to derail a train.

The end of World War II and demobilisation of troops changed a lot of attitudes. Troop trains had priority during the war; not so, after the war. Soldiers remembered the joy and comfort of being shuttled cross country by trains. They loved their jeeps more... because the individual driver controlled it, not a skilled tradesman ten cars ahead of them. You could go anywhere, at any time in a Jeep- not so on the railroad.

World War II also was the real birthplace of the modern airline. Millions of Americans were exposed to aircraft in one form or another. The plane went from being a toy barely capable of carrying a few sacks of mail and ten passengers- on a good day- to being a transportation system capable of carrying troops and equipment farther, faster, and in better condition on arrival than the railroad.

Railroads still play an important role in military movement nowadays when it comes to moving freight. My son in law, going to Iraq, loaded his armored vehicles onto a freight train for shipment to a port. He then got on an airplane to go to Iraq. He waited for a couple of weeks for his equipment to show up before his unit became truly combat effective in Baghdad. He's back from Iraq now, and getting ready to transfer to Fort Bliss... the only thing holding him up is a container full of equipment he's signed for to arrive- being transported by ship, train, and truck.

Erik

[Modelcar]

...Story of Ike moving troops and machines in troop convoy back in the 30's and making an impression on him for his future thinking on interstates must be a fact as the story is surely out there and seems logical. That is one of the reasons for the concept of the original portion of the Pennsylvania Turnpike that was opened in Oct. 1940. Of course it became part of the interstate system in later years.
And for sure railroads moved huge amounts of freight and people in WWII....There wasn't too much choice to do it any other way....They used everything that had wheels and would run to do so...In my mind of observing and reading over the years...It was the railroads finest hour...Served our country so well and one of the spokes of the war wheel that enabled us to be the winner...!

[Overmod]

...Modelcar, yeah, but don't forget that Germany invented modern highways specially built and deployed for military use... in the same 1930s. The only road in the United States in this period that compared to the Autobahns (a term which translates approximately to 'railroads for automobiles' semantically -- think about why they added the word 'auto'; 'bahn' had come to mean 'railroad' in general use) was the Pennsylvania Turnpike... and we all know where THAT got its high-speed design basis.

8th Air Force conclusively demonstrated that highways rapidly become useless for high-speed deployment with a few well-placed bombs... you get a sea of mud, and concrete takes almost a month to set up to full load-bearing. Drop a bomb on a railroad track and you get the same sea of mud, but a bit of gravel and some lining and surfacing give you a decent main in no more than a few days. Eisenhower assumed there would be full air superiority over (and no "partisan" activity near) domestic highway routes. Not, perhaps, the best assumption as things have turned out.

My own opinion is that the 'defense' was a shuck to get the road program passed. Just like the 55-mph speed limit being passed to "save oil" was a shuck. Is it any news that governments lie to make things they want to do attractive... and to fob off any negative economic and social implications on 'national security'?

Doesn't make any difference to the outcome today, so I'll shut up.

[Modelcar]

...I am not saying we were in competition to who could build the most modern super highway before someone else could...to transport military hardware and troops on.....I'm simply saying that seems to be the progression as to how it happened in America. And as for disrupting any form of land transportation....a well placed bomb will stop any of them. As for a month to set up concrete to bring it up to full strength to put the route back in use....Just install a temp patch of suitable material in the void for the necessary 150 yards or whatever and put it back to use...No big deal. The only thing I'm saying is Ike got an early idea to construct this usable transportation route and in later years got it all started.

[Overmod]

smith and smart-cluck went at it a few posts ago, and out of the exchange came

Dang, I hadnt thought of this, if the steam piston came first then someone started using kerosine combustion to pu***he piston instead of steam then its the steam piston thats resposible for the kerosine moter and hence..the gasoline motor!

A little ACTUAL history might prove something a bit different.

Question: What was the original fuel for which internal-combustion piston engines were designed?

Question: What was the original fuel Rudolf Diesel intended to use in his compression-ignition engine?

The problem with the 'bicycle hypothesis' is much the same as Franklin's and Faraday's comment about the use of a newborn baby -- considered from the standpoint of how dangerous a baby actually is. The actual impact of motorized velocipedes on rail service is, well, about as significant as the impact of Hells Angels on traffic congestion. It was only after the four-wheeled vehicle became a convenience... and it was Henry Ford who made that happen mechanically, and the Chevrolet people after Durant who made it happen style- and comfort-wise in the eyes of the public... that you start to see the demographic changes that the Lynds noted so strikingly in Middletown (that is, the changes were firmly established in middle America by the late 1920s)

The point remains, though, as was made in a previous post: Loss of branch-line business was scarcely disastrous to the railroads (internal-combustion engines, it could easily be argued, were the *salvation* of quite a bit of this -- ask EMC about the market for railcars in the '30s). Loss of passenger business wouldn't have been detrimental to railroads if government hadn't made them retain trains that had long stopped paying their way. My understanding was that for most of railroad history, freight essentially subsidized passenger carriage in most places. Which brings us essentially to deregulated trucking, operating with cheap fuel over government-financed high-speed roads, competing with railroads in far less rosy a situation. If we could take this as a single 'system', it would in my view be the 'single damaging innovation' that put the railroads in such a grim state.

[Anonymous]

They are already saving part of the concrete highway. Sections of Route 66 are kept as historical artifacts. Who knows, next we may have tourist rides with meals served on old highways.

[Anonymous]

Logistics.

[Anonymous]

I figure it was all Evolution-

Evolution brought new things to life, and left older ones to rot-

the RR is no exception- In this day and age there are so many alternatives to the RR, it has become it's own monster-

Remember at one point- The only method of transportation were Trains!

Count how many there are now!

Car- Bus- Plane- Moped- Aladdin and his Magic Carpet

Amtrak is jsut as bad too! if they show up 10 minutes late- boom- you've just lost about 10% of the passengers- they will never ride a train again- people these days have no patience, and when somehting is supposed to arrive at 07:43, it better be there at 07:43, none of this 07:48 Bull.

here's a prime example- I live in a small town, on top of a ridge, back when T-rex was around that ridge was an Island Blah, blah, blah-

So because of the elevation (not much-) road makers couldn't make a road down the side of a mountain until whenever- CP rail took advantage of this, and there RR had one station in hudson, and one just after the hill, where the beach was- a relaxing day out of town-

yeah, a 16 minute walk- or a 4 minute train ride.

But how could you get to the beach, if it wasn't for the CP rail train? You couldn't take the non existant road, You couldn't Jump off the hill- well you could, but it would hurt.. a lot.

you couldn't walk it, there wa no path, no road

That was the only way-

Now you've ot a road, and besides the beach is LONG gone- dissapeared back when Houdini played with a rattle.

Evolution- thats what it was, Not a friggin Tricycle!

[Mookie]

Kevin! There you are - people are looking for you - for one reason or another!

Glad to see you back!

Mookie

[Anonymous]

Obviously, it was the invention of bean counters, who somehow convinced the railroads that they should tear out double track and replace it with single track which only instititionalized predetermined delays in shipments, that they should push for heavier axle loadings to become "more efficient" when all that did was cause a geometric rise in track maintenance costs, that they should rid themselves of "redundant" trackage when all that did was cause major headaches when derailments and such closed down the only remaining mainline, that they should cut back on the labor force to save on labor costs only to find that they didn't have enough employees when demand picked up, etc., etc., etc...............

[Anonymous]

http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/srchnum.htm

[Modelcar]

....Sounds similar of what I've been thinking to myself....and it's still happening.

[vsmith]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Overmod



Question: What was the original fuel for which internal-combustion piston engines were designed?

Question: What was the original fuel Rudolf Diesel intended to use in his compression-ignition engine?

I'll bit,

#1, I beleive it was a substance called Naptha (my bad spelling) a kind of kerosine vapor that was both smelly and explosive.

#2 Wasnt it vegitable oil? same as todays Bio-diesel.

PS I still stand by my last hypothothis.

The large statinary steam piston cylinder begat the small portable donkey steam engine which begat the need for a smaller easier to move and faster to set up and operate gas/ kerosine/coal oil internal combustion piston cylinder begat the gasoline internal combustion engine begat motorcycle, automobile, truck, airplane, etc.

Bored idle rich begat two wheeled foot powered "bicycle" to impress French Courtisans which begat the foot peddled boneshaker begat the high wheeled Pennyfarthing begat painfull faceplants and broken limps begat equal sized spoked wheels, rear chain drive, pnuematic tires begat insane desire to go faster begat nation wide "good roads" movement for better roads and a "national" highway system begat bolting said infernal combustion engine to frame and attaching chain drive to the crankshaft, begat better motors begat interest in mounting motor into horse carraige and frightning the old ladies around Central Park with the new "horseless carraiges" begat H. Ford assembly line of Model T in any color as long as it was Black begat masses driving begat demand for more highways and better road conditions culminating in the post WWII era of the National Interstate Highway System which allow trucks to carry more goods farther than they previously could and undercutting the heavy regulated RR freight rates while also allowing more people to drive there cars on trips and vacations where pre-WWII they would have taken the train. All this really hits home by the mid to late 1960's when RRs nationwide are reeling from declining ridership and decline in frieght services.

So its a long winding road but the connections are there.

[jeaton]

Yeah, That's the ticket!

[Paul Milenkovic]

Most damaging invention? The Diesel electric locomotive.

And no, I am not one of these nostalgic romantics, and I was born after Dieselization was largely done. I have read what I can on the subject and have developed some observations. Just because steam was old technology didn't mean it wasn't appropriate technology.

The Diesel electric is primarily a low-speed lugging machine of limited horsepower but plenty of motored wheels while the steam locomotive (and also the electric, which is a steam locomotive by remote action) keeps climbing in HP the faster you go. Low speed lugging of ever longer and slower trains, service be damned, is the norm.

The Europeans kept steam longer and went to electrics (some Diesels) and run shorter, faster trains.

And the nail in the coffin is the AC traction motor Diesel with even more stump pulling power and no short-term ratings so railroads can tie up mainlines for hours with crews crossing a ruling grade without helpers at a crawl.

I know the arguments pro-Diesel. Thermal efficiency: the innovations of Champelon and Porta pretty much take care of that: the steam engine never has to reach Diesel efficiency because coal is cheaper than oil and trains are reasonably energy efficient to begin with. High maintenance: maybe the answer is to use water softeners. Pounding the tracks: improvements in counterbalancing could take care of that.

The big anti-steam argument is not enough powered axles and no MU. That's the whole point: if your goal is to run long, heavy, slow trains with poor service, Diesel is the way to go.

[DSchmitt]

QUOTE: Originally posted by kevinstheRRman

I figure it was all Evolution-

Evolution brought new things to life, and left older ones to rot-

the RR is no exception- In this day and age there are so many alternatives to the RR, it has become it's own monster-

You are on the right track. There is no invention that has really hurt the railroads. They have adapted, however imperfectly, to meet changing conditions. Most of the rail lines (not all) that are now gone were marginal operations at best. In most cases other forms of transportation, once developed, could provide better service. Many other lines disappeared because the industries they served disappeared. One big customer (for instance a mine) may make it worthwhile to serve an area. If that customer closes serving the remaining customers by rail may not make economic sense. Methods of doing business also change. For instance, at one time railroads carried living cattle relatively long distances. Now cattle are carried shorter distances by truck.

[Overmod]

VSmith et al:

Answers: (I'm a bit sad nobody else 'bit'...)

1) No, it wasn't naphtha... and the invention of the "internal combustion engine" is quite a bit earlier than you might think. Hint: it was perfectly obvious at the time, and it's a solid fuel.

2) Also a solid fuel.

Answers tomorrow if nobody surfs the web tonight. Where are the Knowledge Bowl people when you "need" em?


BTW, you're right with the 'begat' chain... but you need to say just what Kevin said, because it's a different face of the same coin. Railroads did well when they were the 'only practical alternative'... but when their service became seen as less convenient and more expensive (in ways that made sense to people with money and choices), other alternatives became preferred... and, of course, more intensively developed.

[Anonymous]

interstate highways [:(!]

[Overmod]

Mark -- you're close, but not real close.

1) Gunpowder

2) Pulverized coal dust (no way in the world water gas is going to work in a compression-ignition motor!)

Does the 1807 source indicate where its hydrogen is coming from? (This is interesting because the source will almost certainly be related to the 'industrial-quantity' production facilities developed for early ballooning, which IIRC involved zinc and acid). Was this motor unsuccessful in an intended use in an airship? If so, that might not mean it was unsuccessful as an internal-combustion machine, just ill-suited to make a contemporary balloon into a dirigible...