Quotulatiousness

July 2, 2020

Fallen flag — the Toronto, Hamilton & Buffalo Railway

Filed under: Cancon, History, Railways — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

This month’s Classic Trains featured fallen flag is my favourite Canadian railway … I founded the TH&B Railway Historical Society many years ago (you can download a PDF of the first newsletter I did here … I didn’t have access to any TH&B photo I could use in the publication at that point, so it’s pretty much all text and tables). I put together as much information as I had about the railway at that time and printed up a few hundred copies to distribute at a regional railfan event (the CN Lines event in Oakville during October 1997), hoping to find fellow fans of the TH&B (back in those long-distant days when you couldn’t just run a quick search from your web browser, and most people didn’t yet have email addresses). The gamble worked and we had a formal historical society up and running for the following issue. I published the newsletter for five years before finally burning out and handing it over to more capable hands.

The society is still in operation, and the newsletter (now called The Ontarian) is mailed out four times per year. Membership information available at the society website.

Greg McDonnell begins the article with a quick look at the TH&B’s early history:

Detail from a map published in The Commercial and Financial Chronicle in 1908. TH&B trackage has been marked in red (not on the original image).
Wikimedia Commons.

Canada, thanks to its two transcontinental giants after 1923, had few small “regional” railroads. One, though, was the 111-mile Toronto, Hamilton & Buffalo Railway, which vanished in 1987.

Little TH&B had a larger-than-life presence that belied the reality of its being merely the southern Ontario stepchild that linked parents New York Central and Canadian Pacific. TH&B never realized its dream of being an independent road linking its three namesake cities, but in its heyday, it did haul sleeping cars from Toronto for New York, Boston, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia. In 1911, it became the first North American railroad to install Absolute Permissive Block signaling; it erected a splendid art deco station and office tower in Hamilton, Ontario; and it had Canada’s only 2-8-4 steam locomotives, not to mention two ex-NYC Hudsons.

In 1890, even before a rail was laid, TH&B deviated from its chartered intentions, dropping Buffalo from its plans in favor of an eastern terminus and connection with the Canada Southern, a subsidiary of NYC’s Michigan Central, at Welland, Ontario. In 1892, TH&B acquired its first operating trackage, the faltering 18-mile Brantford, Waterloo & Lake Erie, a Brantford–Waterford line that was extending itself to Hamilton.

The original Hunter Street station in Hamilton, replaced in 1929 with the current Art Deco station now operated by GO Transit.
Local History & Archives, Hamilton Public Library via Wikimedia Commons.

As crews spiked TH&B rails from Hamilton to Welland, the line’s strategic importance attracted suitors. And not just anyone, for on July 9, 1895, the still-incomplete railway was sold to a consortium headed by two of the most powerful men in North American railroading: NYC’s Cornelius Vanderbilt and CPR’s William Van Horne.

NYC, dividing its holdings with subsidiaries MC and CASO, took a 73% stake in the fledgling bridge line; CP held the remaining 27%, an arrangement that would endure for 80-plus years. TH&B was afforded a considerable measure of autonomy, but parental influence from New York and Montreal gave TH&B its unique international character.

The TH&B Society picks up the history in somewhat more detail (the original draft was mine, but several others have made additions and changes since then):

The next phase of construction was to be the line from Hamilton to Toronto. The surveyed route to Toronto closely paralleled the existing Grand Trunk Railway mainline. In order to avoid construction of a parallel line (and the potential loss of traffic to the competing line), the GTR granted running rights to the Canadian Pacific Railway between Toronto and Hamilton in 1896. That same year the TH&B constructed what became known as the Hamilton Connection between its line and the GTR at Hamilton Junction. The Hamilton Connection was subsequently leased to the CPR and became their physical connection to the TH&B.

In 1897, the TH&B obtained running rights over the Hamilton & Dundas Railway for the provision of freight service into the Town of Dundas. The H&D Railway, a local interurban line, ceased operations in 1923 and the TH&B acquired the former H&D right of way into Dundas to continue freight operations. The line into Dundas was known as the H&D Branch.

In order to tap into Hamilton’s expanding industrial sector, construction began on the Hamilton Belt Line in 1900. The Belt Line expanded with the construction of two additional branch lines in 1911 to allow access to all industrial sectors of the city, many of which were previously serviced exclusively by the GTR. Although the Belt Line was only six miles in length, it contained over 40 miles of yard and industrial sidings and would provide much financial sustenance to the TH&B over the years.

In 1914, the 14-mile Dunnville Subdivision was constructed southward from Smithville to the Town of Dunnville and extended five miles further to the shores of Lake Erie at Port Maitland in 1916. Access to Lake Erie allowed the creation of the TH&B Navigation Co. that operated between Port Maitland and Ashtabula, Ohio, from 1916 until discontinuance in 1932.

The TH&B’s final expansion occurred in 1927 when running rights were awarded over the Canadian National Railways to gain access to the industrial City of Port Colborne.

1935 saw the first abandonment of trackage when the Ridgeville Spur, a small four-mile branch extending off the Welland Subdivision just outside of Welland, was abandoned and the rails were removed in 1936.

The St. Lawrence Seaway Authority completed the construction of the present-day Welland Canal in 1972 resulting in the relocation of several rail lines in the area. The Welland Subdivision was realigned between Fenwick and Welland where a new yard was constructed and operated in conjunction with New York Central’s corporate successor, Penn Central. The new shared facility allowed the closure and removal of the original and independent TH&B and Penn Central operations located within the city. Welland Yard continues to operate today as a Canadian Pacific’s marshalling facility for the Niagara Region.

In 1976, the United States Government amalgamated six bankrupt railroads, including the New York Central’s corporate successor, Penn Central, into a new entity called Conrail. In an effort to reduce debt, Conrail began shedding foreign investments including their controlling interest in the TH&B. In 1977, CP Rail acquired Conrail’s 73% interest giving CP 100% control of the railway.

In 1985, CP Rail and Canadian National jointly acquired the assets of Conrail’s Canada Division, the former Canada Southern Railway. CP Rail acquired exclusive ownership of the eastern end of the line between the TH&B connection at Welland and the international border crossings at Niagara Falls and Fort Erie, Ontario. While CP equipment was used to operate this portion of the line, known as CP CASO, the TH&B provided the managerial and administrative functions on CP Rail’s behalf.

The TH&B would continue to operate as a separate entity until 1987 when it was amalgamated into the Eastern Region of the London Division of CP Rail.

CP Rail abandoned the H&D Branch in 1988 with the Waterford Subdivision following in 1989. Also in that year, CP discontinued operations into Port Colborne, opting not to renew the running rights agreement over the CNR.

Today, the surviving portions of the TH&B, including the Hamilton Belt Line, the former Welland Subdivision and a portion of the Dunnville Subdivision operate as part of Canadian Pacific’s Hamilton Subdivision in CPR’s Southern Ontario Service Area.

TH&B GP7 number 72 arriving at Port Colborne with a caboose hop. This is the only paint scheme used for all diesel locomotives on the railway from delivery until the CPR merger.
Daryl Sherlock photo via the TH&B Railway Historical Society.

June 4, 2020

Fallen flag — the Texas & Pacific Railway

Filed under: Business, History, Railways, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

This month’s fallen flag article for Classic Trains is the story of the Texas & Pacific Railway by J. Parker Lamb:

Decorative ticket cover for a Texas & Pacific passenger train. T&P passenger trains were called “Eagles”, as in the Texas Eagle.
Image via Wikimedia Commons.

What grew to become the 20th century’s Texas & Pacific Railway sprouted from some of Texas’s earliest railroads. The Lone Star State’s pre-Civil War network included 11 operating companies. One of the earliest was the Texas Western Railroad, chartered in 1850 and soon renamed Vicksburg & El Paso. In 1856 its name changed again, to Southern Pacific Railroad Company. Of course, this SP had no relation to the Southern Pacific incorporated in 1865 in California, although the convoluted histories of their successors later would intersect.

Backers of this railroad envisioned it as part of a southern transcontinental route from the Mississippi River to San Diego. By 1860, construction of 27 miles was completed between Waskom, on the Louisiana border, and Marshall. The eastern connection was planned as the Vicksburg, Shreveport & Pacific, which already stretched from Waskom across Louisiana to the west bank of the Mississippi at Vicksburg (later part of Illinois Central, it is now part of Kansas City Southern’s “Meridian Speedway”).

The Memphis, El Paso & Pacific, chartered in 1856, planned to start at the Red River near Texarkana and build to a connection with the SP near Dallas, thereby bringing Midwestern traffic into the transcontinental route. Little progress was made before the Civil War, however, with only 5 miles of track built, near Jefferson.

Within a decade after the war, these two lines would be fused into one company. In 1870 the Memphis road was renamed Southern Transcontinental Railroad, and in 1872 Congress issued a charter for the Texas & Pacific Railway, which soon acquired both the ST and SP. The new charter approved a route from Marshall to El Paso and San Diego, and required 100 consecutive miles of construction by 1882. Backers hired Gen. Grenville Dodge, who had been chief engineer of Union Pacific’s recently completed transcontinental line to Utah.

The route of the Texas & Pacific from the back of a ticket.
Image via Wikimedia Commons.

In 1880, the infamous “Robber Baron” Jay Gould joined the board and quickly became the president, and the T&P became a key part of his corporate empire (he already controlled the Union Pacific after 1873 and the Missouri Pacific from 1879):

“Jay Gould’s Private Bowling Alley.” Financier and stock speculator Jay Gould is depicted on Wall Street, using bowling balls titled “trickery,” “false reports,” “private press” and “general unscrupulousness” to knock down bowling pins labeled as “operator,” “broker,” “banker,” “inexperienced investor,” etc. A slate shows Gould’s controlling holdings in various corporations, including Western Union, Missouri Pacific Railroad, and the Wabash Railroad.
From the cover of Puck magazine Vol. XI, No 264 via Wikimedia Commons.

Meantime, Gould directed Chief Engineer Dodge to begin an all-out effort to lay rails through the vast and nearly uninhabited desert of west Texas. Construction crews reached Big Spring, 267 miles, in April 1881 and Sierra Blanca (522) on December 16, 1881. However, it was at Sierra Blanca where Gould’s dream of a transcontinental railroad evaporated. He had been bested by Collis P. Huntington, another determined and ruthless railroad tycoon. Huntington’s eastward construction crews had passed through Sierra Blanca three weeks earlier, on November 25, en route to their own “last spike” ceremony of the Sunset Route at the Pecos River (west of Del Rio) in January 1883.

Under the banner of the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio, controlled by Huntington and T. W. Pierce, construction crews had left El Paso in June 1881. When it was clear that Huntington was winning the race for a transcontinental line, a series of court battles ensued, followed by nefarious delaying tactics (including sabotage) by each construction crew, and finally by personal negotiation between the two principals. Gould’s legal case was based on T&P’s 1870 charter to build to San Diego, whereas Huntington’s Southern Pacific charter allowed him to meet the T&P at the Colorado River (between California and Arizona).

Wikipedia provides this sketch of Gould’s railway activities after his involvement in the Erie War:

After being forced out of the Erie Railroad, Gould started to build up a system of railroads in the midwest and west. He took control of the Union Pacific in 1873 when its stock was depressed by the Panic of 1873, and he built a viable railroad that depended on shipments from farmers and ranchers. He immersed himself in every operational and financial detail of the Union Pacific system, building an encyclopedic knowledge and acting decisively to shape its destiny. Biographer Maury Klein states that “he revised its financial structure, waged its competitive struggles, captained its political battles, revamped its administration, formulated its rate policies, and promoted the development of resources along its lines.”

By 1879, Gould gained control of three more important western railroads, including the Missouri Pacific Railroad. He controlled 10,000 miles (16,000 km) of railway, about one-ninth of the rail in the United States at that time, and he had controlling interest in 15 percent of the country’s railway tracks by 1882. The railroads were making profits and set their own rates, and his wealth increased dramatically. He withdrew from management of the Union Pacific in 1883 amid political controversy over its debts to the federal government, but he realized a large profit for himself. He obtained a controlling interest in the Western Union telegraph company and in the elevated railways in New York City after 1881. In 1889, he organized the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis which acquired a bottleneck in east–west railroad traffic at St. Louis, but the government brought an antitrust suit to eliminate the bottleneck control after Gould died.

May 8, 2020

Fallen flag — the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway

Filed under: Business, History, Railways, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

This month’s fallen flag article for Classic Trains is the story of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway by George Drury:

Pages from a circa 1937 booklet about the Santa Fe trains The Chief and the Super Chief. The railroad was showcasing the streamlined changes made to its main Chicago to California trains. Super Chief had given up its boxcab locomotives for EMC E1 units. Chief was no longer pulled by the “Blue Goose” steam locomotive, but by EMD diesel locomotives.
Wikimedia Commons.

The Atchison & Topeka Railroad was chartered in 1859 to join the towns of its title and continue southwest toward Santa Fe, New Mexico.

“Santa Fe” was added to the corporate name in 1863. Construction started in 1869; by the end of 1872 the railroad extended to the Kansas-Colorado border, opening much of Kansas to settlement and carrying wheat and cattle east to markets. The railroad temporarily set aside its goal of Santa Fe — once the trading capital of the Spanish colony in that area — and continued building west, reaching Pueblo, Colorado, in 1876, just in time for the silver rush at Leadville, Colorado.

In 1878, the railroad resumed construction toward Santa Fe, building southwest from La Junta to Trinidad, Colorado, then south over Raton Pass. It chose that route instead of an easier route south across the plains from Dodge City because of Native American attacks and a lack of water on the southerly route and coal deposits near Trinidad, Colorado, and Raton, New Mexico.

The Denver & Rio Grande was also aiming at Raton Pass, but Santa Fe crews arose early one morning in 1878 and were hard at work with picks and shovels when the Rio Grande crews showed up after breakfast. At the same time the two railroads skirmished over occupancy of the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas River west of Canon City, Colorado; the Rio Grande won that battle.

The Santa Fe reached Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1880 (because of geography the city of Santa Fe found itself at the end of a short branch from Lamy, New Mexico) and connected with the Southern Pacific at Deming, New Mexico, in 1881. The Santa Fe then built southwest from Benson, Arizona, to Nogales, on the Mexican border. There it connected with the Sonora Railway, which Santa Fe interests had constructed north from the Mexican port of Guaymas.

Comparison map showing the Santa Fe Trail and the ATSF Railway, 1922.
Map from By the Way – A condensed guide of points of interest along the Santa Fe lines to California, Rand McNally and Company via Wikimedia Commons.

In 1960 the Santa Fe bought the Toledo, Peoria & Western Railroad, then sold a half interest to the Pennsylvania Railroad. The TP&W cut straight east across Illinois from near Fort Madison, Iowa, to a connection with the Pennsy at Effner, Indiana, forming a bypass around Chicago for traffic moving between the two lines. The TP&W route didn’t mesh with the traffic pattern Conrail developed after 1976, so Santa Fe bought back the other half, merged the TP&W in 1983, then sold it back into independence in 1989.

During the 1960s the Santa Fe explored merger with the Frisco and the Missouri Pacific with no success. By 1980 Santa Fe, which had been the top railroad in route mileage in the 1950s, was surrounded by larger railroads. It was well managed and profitable, and it had the best route between the Midwest and Southern California, but its neighbors were larger, and friendly connections had been taken over by rival railroads. Southern Pacific was in the same situation. In 1980 Santa Fe and SP proposed merger. Approval seemed certain, but in 1986 the Interstate Commerce Commission denied permission because the merger would create a railroad monopoly in New Mexico, Arizona, and California.

The Santa Fe, suddenly the smallest of the Super Seven freight railroads, began spinning off branches and secondary lines and became primarily a conduit for containers and trailers moving between the Midwest and Southern California. In June 1994 Santa Fe and Burlington Northern announced their intention to merge — BN would buy Santa Fe. The deal was consummated in 1995, forming the Burlington Northern Santa Fe, known today as BNSF Railway.

The denied merger between the Southern Pacific and the Santa Fe included an eye-catching proposed “Kodachrome” paint scheme for locomotives, as described in the Wikipedia article:

The holding company controlled all the rail and non-rail assets of the former Santa Fe Industries and Southern Pacific Company, and it was intended that the two railroads would be merged. They were confident enough that this would be approved that they began repainting locomotives into a new unified paint scheme, including the letters SP or SF and an adjacent empty space for the other two (as SPSF, the reverse order of the holding company).

The locomotive livery featured the Santa Fe’s Yellowbonnet with a red stripe on the locomotive’s nose; the remainder of the locomotive body was painted in Southern Pacific’s scarlet red (from their Bloody Nose scheme) with a black roof and black extending down to the lower part of the locomotive’s radiator grills. The numberboards were red with white numbers. In large block letters within the red portion of the sides was either “SP” (for Southern Pacific-owned locomotives) or “SF” (for Santa Fe-owned locomotives). The lettering was positioned on the locomotive sides so that the other half of the lettering could be added after the merger became official. Two ATSF EMD SD45-2s (ATSF #7219 and #7221) were painted with the full SPSF lettering to show what the unified paint scheme would look like after the merger was complete. One Santa Fe caboose was also painted with “SPSF” in a similar situation.

This paint scheme, combining yellow, red and black, has come to be called the Kodachrome paint scheme due to the colors’ resemblance to those on the boxes that Kodak used to package its Kodachrome slide film (which was heavily used by railfans of the time). After the ICC’s denial, railroad industry writers, employees of both railroads and railfans alike joked that SPSF really stood for “Shouldn’t Paint So Fast”.

April 2, 2020

Fallen flag — the Pere Marquette Railway

Filed under: History, Railways, USA — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

This month’s fallen flag article for Classic Trains is the story of the Pere Marquette Railway by Kevin P. Keefe:

C&O’s formal acquisition of the Pere Marquette in 1947 did more than help usher in the postwar merger era; it also closed the book on a railroad with a colorful and quirky history. PM was created in 1900 by the consolidation of three roads: Flint & Pere Marquette; Detroit, Grand Rapids & Western; and Chicago & West Michigan. (The town of Pere Marquette; today we know the place as Ludington. Jacques Marquette, the French missionary and explorer, died and was buried here in 1675, and the name Pere Marquette had been given to the inlet lake off Lake Michigan, the river that feeds into it, and an 1847 community there.)

All three carriers had roots in the lumber industry, so the new Pere Marquette Railroad not only connected important Michigan cities, it also operated a branchline network covering much of the state’s Lower Peninsula. PM’s early corporate history was chaotic, marked by receivership and ownership changes. The Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton acquired PM in 1904 and for a time leased it to various parties, including the Erie Railroad. Thus did Baltimore & Ohio briefly control the PM through its ownership of the CH&D. When Pere Marquette came out of a receivership in 1907, it would be for only five years.

Those early, troublesome times, however, were marked by two strategic steps forward. One was the chartering of the Pere Marquette of Indiana, which built from New Buffalo, Michigan, southwest to Porter, Indiana, allowing PM to reach Chicago, via trackage rights on the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern (NYC). The second was the lease of the Lake Erie & Detroit River Railway, pushing PM eastward from Walkerville (Windsor), Ontario, to St. Thomas, thence to Suspension Bridge (Niagara Falls), New York, via rights on Michigan Central affiliate Canada Southern, and on to Buffalo on the NYC. Patched together as they were, these additions allowed PM to position itself as a Buffalo–Chicago bridge carrier.

Pere Marquette route map from a 1944 timetable.
Via Classic Trains.

In the ensuing years, the rectangular PM logo would largely disappear from view, although the road’s eventual 12 E7’s wore the script Pere Marquette train name, along with C&O identification, into the mid-1950s, thanks to equipment trust restrictions. PM’s three GE 70-tonners of 1947 were sold, but a few of its 16 EMD switchers (2 SW1’s of 1939 and ’42, 14 NW2’s of 1943–46) carried PM lettering into the 1960s, and C&O kept PM’s color pattern of yellow front-end bands with red pinstriping on a blue body on 11 more EMDs of 1948 that came fully lettered C&O: NW2’s 1850–1856 and E7’s 95–98.

As for the famous Berkshires, they, along with all of Pere Marquette’s steam locomotives, were retired by 1951. Eleven found a temporary reprieve on C&O’s Chesapeake District in Kentucky and West Virginia, but only for a few months. Two, 1223 and 1225, survived as display items in Michigan, and as a student at Michigan State University, I became involved with the restoration of the 1225, which today occasionally operates on excursions.

Perhaps it’s fitting that the Pere Marquette’s last equipment order as an independent railroad was in 1947 for six of EMD’s 1,500 h.p. BL2 “branchline” diesels, Nos. 80–85. Chosen to negotiate PM’s web of secondary lines — most of them rooted in the road’s origins as a logger — the homely diesels were as quirky and as singular as the PM itself. Pointedly, even though they sported the “speed striping” as found on the E7’s, the BL2’s were delivered in full “Chesapeake & Ohio” lettering.

Pere Marquette 1225, a Berkshire 2-8-4 steam locomotive, passes through Alma in March 2009.
Photo by Chelseyafoster via Wikimedia Commons.

The Pere Marquette also had a maritime division and one of their ships had a disastrous voyage (via Wikipedia) 110 years ago:

The Pere Marquette operated a number of rail car ferries on the Detroit and St. Clair Rivers and on Lake Erie and Lake Michigan. The PM’s fleet of car ferries, which operated on Lake Michigan from Ludington, Michigan to Milwaukee, Kewaunee, and Manitowoc, Wisconsin, were an important transportation link avoiding the terminal and interchange delays around the southern tip of Lake Michigan and through Chicago. Their superintendent for over 30 years was William L. Mercereau.

Pere Marquette 18

On September 10, 1910, Pere Marquette 18 was bound for Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from Ludington, Michigan, with a load of 29 railroad freight cars and 62 persons. Near midnight, the vessel began to take on massive amounts of water. The captain dumped nine railroad cars into Lake Michigan, but this was no use — the ship was going down. The Pere Marquette 17, traveling nearby, picked up the distress call and sped to assist the foundering vessel. Soon after she arrived and she could come alongside, the Pere Marquette 18 sank with the loss of 28 lives; there were 33 survivors. Her wreck has yet to be located and is the largest unlocated wreck of the Great Lakes.

March 5, 2020

Fallen flag — The Clinchfield Railroad

Filed under: History, Railways, USA — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

This month’s fallen flag article in Classic Trains magazine recounts the story of the Carolina, Clinchfield & Ohio, later known as the Clinchfield Railroad:

Clinchfield Railroad SD40 locomotive number 3002 at Spartanburg, SC in February 1968.
Roger Puta photo via Wikimedia Commons.

The Clinchfield was different. It was conceived by men who had the vision and resources to do things right. It was built to the highest engineering standards of the early 20th century. It never went through a financial failure or reorganization. Indeed, the Carolina, Clinchfield & Ohio Railway was the antithesis of traditional railroad evolution.

In 1902, a wealthy regional businessman, George L. Carter, began stitching together an integrated industrial enterprise to develop vast coal deposits in the Clinch (River) Fields of southwest Virginia and to deliver the coal across the southern Appalachian mountains to markets in the Carolinas and to ships calling at Wilmington, Charleston, Savannah, and Jacksonville. Carter, from whom Howard Hughes could have learned a thing to two about secrecy, operated using the South & Western Railway banner. The name said everything … and nothing. The S&W was chartered from any point on the Atlantic Ocean to any point on the Great Lakes. Carter agents seized by legal means and/or physical occupation key terrain features through the mountains in competition with the Chesapeake & Ohio and the Southern Railway.

Clinchfield Railroad map. The Clinchfield’s 277-mile, 5-state line stretched from Elkhorn City, Kentucky, to Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Map via Classic Trains.

Within that generous charter was the idea of building a railroad to haul coal south and merchandise in both directions between the Midwest and the Southeast. The plans also incorporated development of several on-line cities to consume coal and make products from regional resources to diversify and grow the freight business. Finally, a steamship line was organized to move coal beyond the ports to customers in the Caribbean.

By 1905, Carter realized he needed far more capital than he could personally provide. Reluctantly, he managed to convince Blair & Co., a big Wall Street investment house, to finance the project. M. J. Caples, an engineer with mining and railroad experience, laid out and then built a magnificent low-grade, high-capacity railroad. Tunnels, steel viaducts, generous fills, and rocky cuts appeared as needed. More than 4 percent (almost 10 miles) of the line was underground in 55 tunnels. With construction of the 277-mile railroad well advanced, its name was changed to Carolina, Clinchfield & Ohio Railway in 1908.

Coal began flowing across the 242 miles from Dante, Va., to Spartanburg, South Carolina, in 1909 while the owners and engineers debated how to cross the Cumberland mountains into the Ohio River valley. Between 1912 and 1915, a 35-mile extension including what was then the 10th-longest tunnel in the U.S. created a through route connecting Chesapeake & Ohio at Elkhorn City, Kentucky, with the three major southeastern carriers (Seaboard at Bostic, North Carolina; Atlantic Coast Line and Southern at Spartanburg). In constant-value dollars, the five-state CC&O was the most expensive railroad ever built in the U.S.

February 6, 2020

Fallen flag – The Nickel Plate Road

Filed under: Business, History, Railways, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Kevin J. Holland provides a brief look at the history of the New York, Chicago & St. Louis, better known as the “Nickel Plate Road”:

The New York, Chicago & St. Louis opened between Buffalo and Chicago on October 23, 1882, in many spots east of Cleveland just a stone’s throw from rival Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railway. What would become the Nickel Plate became a Vanderbilt property in January 1883.

Although eclipsed by the Lake Shore’s plush limiteds, NYC&StL from 1893 fielded three unpretentious, reliable Chicago to Buffalo, N.Y., passenger trains, establishing a long-standing pattern of modest passenger service. In 1897, Delaware, Lackawanna & Western entered the picture, conveying NYC&StL cars from Buffalo to Hoboken, N.J.

“The great … Nickel-plated railroad”
When NYC&StL was being surveyed, Editor F. R. Loomis of Ohio’s Norwalk Chronicle waxed enthusiastically on the railroad coming to town referring to it as “the great New York and St. Louis double-track, nickel-plated railroad.” Use of “Nickel Plate Road” proliferated, in newspapers and by the road itself.

In 1914, LS&MS and Nickel Plate were wards of New York Central. Passage of the Clayton Act that same year was intended to bolster the earlier Sherman Antitrust Act, and left NYC with a dilemma. Enter brothers Oris P. and Mantis J. Van Sweringen, self-made Cleveland real-estate developers who purchased acreage from NYC Vice President Alfred H. Smith. “The Vans” as the brothers were known, approached Smith, by then NYC president, to discuss their plans involving land owned by the Nickel Plate. As the Clayton Act’s divestiture deadline loomed, Smith engineered a sale to the Vans of not only the land they sought, but of the entire Nickel Plate Road. Their Alleghany Corporation holding company eventually in­­cluded control of the Nickel Plate, Chesapeake & Ohio, Pere Marquette, Erie, Wheeling & Lake Erie, Chicago & Eastern Illinois, and Missouri Pacific.

The gaunt NYC&StL was ripe for re-equipping under its new owners. Addressing the Vans’ lack of railroad experience, Smith orchestrated John J. Bernet’s move from an NYC vice-presidency to be Nickel Plate’s president. Neglected physical plant and obsolete motive power received needed attention under Bernet, who reincarnated the road into a lean and aggressive contender.

Nickel Plate Road GP9 number 526 switching a way freight at Gibson City, IL on November 24, 1962.
Roger Puta photo from the Mel Finzer Collection via Wikimedia Commons.

January 3, 2020

Fallen flag – the Pennsylvania Railroad

Filed under: Business, History, Railways, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

The origins and an outline history of the “Standard Railroad of the World” for Classic Trains magazine by George Drury:

The original Pennsylvania Railroad ran from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. Much of its subsequent expansion was accomplished by leasing or purchasing other railroads.

Construction began in 1847. Two years later the Pennsy made an operating contract with the Harrisburg, Portsmouth, Mountjoy & Lancaster, and by late 1852 rails ran from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh via a connection with the Portage Railroad between Hollidaysburg and Johnstown, Pa. The summit tunnel was opened in 1854, bypassing the inclined planes and creating a continuous railroad from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh.

In 1857 PRR bought the Main Line of Public Works and in 1861 leased the Harrisburg, Portsmouth, Mountjoy & Lancaster, putting the entire Philadelphia to Pittsburgh line under one management.

PRR also acquired interests in two major railroads, the Cumberland Valley and the Northern Central. The Cumberland Valley was opened in 1837 from Harrisburg to Chambersburg, and it was extended by another company in 1841 to Hagerstown, Maryland. The Baltimore & Susquehanna was incorporated in 1828 to build north from Baltimore. Progress was slowed because of the reluctance of Pennsylvania state officials to charter a railroad that would carry commerce to Baltimore. The line reached Harrisburg in 1851 and Sunbury in 1858. By then the railroad companies that formed the route had been consolidated as the Northern Central Railway. Pennsy acquired majority ownership of the Northern Central in 1900.

The Pennsy expanded into northwestern Pennsylvania by acquiring an interest in the Philadelphia & Erie Railroad in 1862 and assisting that road to complete its line from Sunbury to the city of Erie in 1864. The line to Erie was not particularly successful, but from Sunbury to Driftwood it could serve as part of a freight route with easy grades. The rest of that route was the Allegheny Valley Railroad, conceived as a feeder from Pittsburgh to the New York Central and Erie railroads. The Pennsylvania obtained control in 1868, and in 1874 opened a route with easy grades from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh via the valleys of the Susquehanna and Allegheny rivers. PRR leased the Allegheny Valley Railroad in 1900.

Horse shoe curve near Altoona on the Pennsylvania Railroad, circa 1874.
Photo by W.P. Mange & Co. via the Library of Congress.

But even the mighty can fall, and the PRR fell into difficult times after WW2:

During World War II Pennsy’s freight traffic doubled and passenger traffic quadrupled, much of it on the eastern portion of the system. The electrification was of inestimable value in keeping the traffic moving. After the war Pennsy had the same experiences as many other railroads but seemed slower to react. PRR was slower to dieselize, and when it did so it bought units from every manufacturer.

As freight and passenger traffic moved to the highways, Pennsy found itself with far more fixed plant than the traffic warranted or could support, and it was slow to take up excess trackage or replace double track with Centralized Traffic Control.

PRR was saddled with a heavy passenger business. It had extensive commuter services centered on New York, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh and lesser ones at Chicago, Washington, Baltimore, and Camden, New Jersey. It had gone through the Depression without going bankrupt.

Pennsylvania and New York Central surprised the railroad industry by announcing merger plans in 1957. The two had long been rivals, and the merger would be one of parallel roads rather than end-to-end. The merger took place on February 1, 1968 — and Penn Central fell apart faster than it went together.

PRR E8A 5803 with Train 72, The Red Bird, passing the Hartsdale, Indiana tower and crossing the NYC and EJ&E on November 26, 1965.
Photo from the Roger Puta collection via Wikimedia Commons.

December 5, 2019

Fallen flag – the Denver & Rio Grande Western

Filed under: History, Railways, USA — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

The origins of the Denver & Rio Grande Western by Mark Hemphill for Trains magazine:

1914 route map of the Denver & Rio Grande Western and Western Pacific railroads.
Map via Wikimedia Commons

In the American tradition, a railroad is conceived by noble men for noble purposes: to develop a nation, or to connect small villages to the big city. The Denver & Rio Grande of 1870 was not that railroad. Much later, however, it came to serve an admirable public purpose, earn the appreciation of its shippers and passengers, and return a substantial profit.

The Rio Grande was conceived by former Union Brig. Gen. William Jackson Palmer. As surveyor of the Kansas Pacific (later in Union Pacific’s realm), Palmer saw the profit possibilities if you got there first and tied up the real estate. Palmer, apparently connecting dots on a map to appeal to British and Dutch investors, proposed the Denver & Rio Grande Railway to run south from Denver via El Paso, Texas, to Mexico City. There was no trade, nor prospect for such, between the two end points, but the proposal did attract sufficient capital to finish the first 75 miles to Colorado Springs in 1871.

William Jackson Palmer 1836-1909, founder of Colorado Springs, Colorado, builder of several railroads including the D&RGW.
Photograph circa 1870, photographer unknown, via Wikimedia Commons.

Narrow-gauge origins
Palmer chose 3-foot gauge to save money, assessing that the real value lay in the real estate, not in railroad operation. At each new terminal, Palmer’s men corralled the land, then located the depot, profiting through a side company on land sales. Construction continued fitfully to Trinidad, Colo., 210 miles from Denver, by 1878. Above Trinidad, on the ascent to Raton Pass, Palmer’s engineers collided with the Santa Fe’s, who were building toward California. Realizing that a roundabout narrow-gauge competing with a point-to-point standard-gauge would serve neither the fare box nor the next prospectus, Palmer changed course, making D&RG a supply line to the gold and silver bonanzas blossoming all over Colorado and Utah. Thus the Rio Grande would look west, not south, and would plumb so many canyons in search of mineral wealth that it was a surprise to find one without its rails.

Turning west at Pueblo, Colo., and outfighting the Santa Fe for the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas River — where there truly was room for only one track — D&RG entered Leadville, Colorado’s first world-class mining bonanza, in 1880. Three years later, it completed a Denver–Salt Lake City main line west from Salida, Colo., via Marshall Pass and the Black Canyon of the Gunnison River. The last-spike ceremony in the desert west of Green River, Utah, was low-key, lest anyone closely examine this rough, circuitous, and glacially slow “transcontinental.” Almost as an afterthought, D&RG added a third, standard-gauge rail from Denver to Pueblo, acknowledgment that once paralleled by a standard-gauge competitor, narrow-gauge was a death sentence.

New owners, new purpose
Palmer then began to exit. The company went bust, twice, in rapid succession. The new investors repurposed the railroad again. Instead of transient gold and silver, the new salvation would be coal. Thick bituminous seams in the Walsenburg-Trinidad field fed beehive coke ovens of a new steel mill near Pueblo and heated much of eastern Colorado and western Kansas and Nebraska.

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