I started a new book, Erie-Lackawanna, Death of an American Railroad.
In reference to Erie’s line into Chicago, it says the following: …“opened in 1883…between Marion, Ohio and Hammond, Indiana,featured “airline” qualities. It is likely that this 250-mile extention could claim to be the best-engineered ROW between Ohio and Illinois”.
I would suppose this line is still in use? I’ve never been to Ohio, but central Indiana seemed to be pretty flat to me. Is the route mentioned above through some challenging territory?
Are you sure that it wasn’t “Air Line”, not “airline”?
That would mean that it was laid out with relatively few curves, and none of any major proportions. Surprising how many of those flatlander railroads aren’t really all that straight.
Another thing about the old Erie: it had been built originally as a six-foot-gauge railroad. When it was converted to standard gauge, it still had those wide track centers. This made it a lot easier for Erie to handle dimensional loads than just about anybody else in the Midwest (sorry, SJ–I’m talking about the Midwest east of Chicago). The railroads are only now catching on to this with their newly-laid (or relaid) multiple track.
I wish the author had examined the track charts of the various lines in competition with the Erie and assessed that old claim instead of just repeating it. The insertion of the weasel word “likely” is evidence only of laziness; it’s not like the track charts are secret or hard to find. Anyone actually looked at the track charts and care to proffer an opinion based on facts instead of hearsay or puffery?
? Wouldn’t this be only 15-1/2" wider than anybody else’s track that was laid out at 4’-8 1/2"?
As far as the term midwest goes, a lot of times I’ve read of the Ohio/Illinois area being called the old northwest. But, then I used to live in a city where East Boulevard North headed north, then turned east, and became East North street.[:-^]
Got you topped, Murph–we have one street in the city at the center that has a north, a south, an east, and a west–and an upper and a lower along that entire stretch!
I suspect that if one rail was moved to bring the Erie to standard gauge, it was the inner rail (saved rebuilding station platforms). The increase of over two feet between the tracks (or, 15.5 inches between track centers) was probably more than enough to bring some additional dimensional-load business their way.
No, they would not be former NYC and PRR lines, the C&O Northern is the line from Limeville, KY, to Columbus, the N&W also terminated at Columbus and Cincinnati, prior to the Nickel Plate/Wabash merger.
Wasn’t there a map of the month about two years back that compared the mileage/grades of the “official territory” of which the Erie was a part? IIRC the Erie was longer, but flatter (relatively) than the other trunk lines in the area. The problem was the Erie (intentionally) missed every high-population (traffic-generating) area it could. This was great for bridge traffic, but not when it had to earn its own keep.
Also the Erie was credited with having deep ballast and wide clearances before it was standard-gaged. In places across the flat-lands of Indiana the two mains were in separate rights-of-way. In the town of North Judson the C&O and PRR had a diamond and interlocking between the Erie’s tracks.
Would track charts of the Erie (from Marion), the PRR (from Bucyrus), the B&O (from Tiffin) and the NYC&StL (from Bellevue) to the Illinois border be available online ?
I don’t know – they might be. I am really thin on track charts from that part of the continent. Dave Cramer sells track charts at http://www.trainsite.8m.com/
how about the NYC line from toledo west to butler indiana? after all they broke a speed train record on that line running a jet train at 180+ mph.the viaducts in defiance are pretty good too as many trucks that have hit them.