Thanks, Dave. After I posted my reply, I came across a photo of a B&M Pacific in Montreal! There was also a picture of a B&M Mountain on the East Wind.
This road’s roster was heavy with Pacifics, acquired from the early 20th century through the 1920’s. They ranged from slide valve equipped lightweights up to large, heavy-duty types and were used for both passenger and freight. Their newest examples were sold to a connecting road after larger steam power was bought.
Name this line, the connecting road which bought the large Pacifics from them and the type of power which led to these Pacifics being sold.
Well Dave, you got the RF&P right (had to give my home road a plug) and the 4-8-4 power upgrade, but the Pacifics went elsewhere. Anybody got that part?
I believe the C&O bought those RF&P Pacifics as stop-gap while their own top-of-the-line Pacifics were being rebuilt into Hudsons.
My question: Name and give all details on a major railroad line constructed by two railroads, both Class !s at the time, built from each end with an agreed-upon meeting point that today is still the junction between two of the majors. This line was built fairly late in the era of major railroad construction and effectively broke a major monopoly in frieght traffic. It is still important today, used by two railroads, but of importance only to one of the two.
This sounds like the Inside gateway line of the GN(SP&S) and WP completed in 1931. The SP&S’s Oregon Trunk built the section from Wishram Washington on the Columbia River southward to Bend Oregon in competition (and later cooperation) with Union Pacifics Deschutes Railroad. GN Continued the line south from Bend to Klamath Falls Oregon. The junction point between GN and WP was and is Bieber CA, in the middle of nowhere about 80 miles south of Klamath Falls Oregon and 60 miles east of Redding CA. Still important to successor BNSF, which has traffic rights over WP successor UP’s Feather River route. SP had previously had a virtual monopoly on freight traffic from California to Oregon and Washington. Through a variety of trackage rights agreements and swaps both UP and BNSF operate trains there, though most of UP’s traffic goes via the ex-SP Cascade route further west.
The NP favored the SP for the freight traffic between those two roads and the GN favored the WP.
One part of ancient history is this: I started on the NP in April, 1966 as a yard clerk at Northtown. Any revenue traffic routed NP Portland SP was actually interchanged to the SPS at Pasco, with the SPS forwarding those cars to the SP at Portland. I suspect Pasco had a seperate track for the SP block. Coding for the cars were "1721SP (or after 1968) 12143SP. 1721 was the NP station number for Pasco and 12143 became the new station number to reflect the upcoming merger. Cars for the SPS proper were 1721SS or 12143SS. All NP SPS freight traffic was interchanged at Pasco unless specifically junctioned at Spokane. As information, NP company for Portland was taken to Seattle and placed on an NP train for Portland.
On a line that was jointly operated by two railroads there was a section about 9 miles long where one railroad was used in one direction on one side of the river, and the other in the other. The first railroad operated most of the passenger trains, the second only a few, and only on one end. The exception to this pattern was a jointly operated train that ran end to end on the joint line, operating both ways on the second railroad’s line along the river. As a result of this the second railroad’s engines and crews were regularly seen in the jointly operated train’s terminal, even though it was off line.
Name both railroads and the common name of the joint line. Special credit for getting the ends of the paired track section and the joint train’s terminal city. Masters’ points for figuring out why the train ran against traffic one way on the paired track.
Yes, it’s the Conn River Line. From north to south CV owned from White River Jct to Windsor VT, B&M to Bellows Falls VT (Sullivan RR, through Sullivan County NH) and Brattleboro VT (Vermont Valley). B&M’s line from Brattleboro to East Northfield MA crossed the river into New Hampshire and back. CV’s line (originally Vermont Valley) ran (and still runs) on the west side of the river. B&M’s line closed as a through route in 1970 when a bridge abutment failed, and the remnant was abandoned in 1986 after a period of lease by Green Mountain Ry. All else passed into the hands of Central Vermont in 1987 and New England Central in 2005.
Trains that used the route included the Ambassador, from Grand Central to Montreal, and the Montrealer northbound and Washingtonian southbound. B&M crews Springfield - White River Junction and CV crews north of there. The B&M Cheshire, Boston - White River Junction, used the line Bellows Falls - White River Junnction. The White Montains Day Express, with B&M crews, ran Grand Central - Berlin, NH. When the Red Wing had a NY section, to and from Montreal, B&M crews handled it. B&M-CP interchange was at Wells River Jc., north of White River Jc., but south of Berlin, NH. The Vermonter is the Amtrak passenger train on the route today, Washington - Burlington, VT.
Without doing further reserch, this is about it. Should I provide more information or ask the next question?
I think the last CV passenger service, from New London to WRJ was a doodlebug.
“Normal” CV trains south from Brattleboro to New London used the paired track arrangement, dispatched both ways by B&M. The odd train out was listed under the B&M’s trains and was the mail train that served the town of Vernon, Vermont. Because it was a pool operation it often drew a CV locomotive and crew, which would operate over the B&M from East Northfield MA to Springfield MA.
Lots of EMD E8 were built, for possibly about twelve or more railroads, not as many as E7s, but more than E9s, the last in the series.
There was another E8. It was fully designed but never built. Who, what, where to be used, why not built— major railroad item and major USA item that made the railroad item possible. Give a good guess as to how many would have been built to meet its operating environment.
Any idea where the idea was or could have been realized?
My first guess would be the Pennsylvania, which had E-class atlantics up through E7. My guess would be that the Penn Station project, and with it steel cars, both exceeded its capacity, and reduced its value, since the electric run across the meadows cut 9 miles off the steam run from Jersey City to Philadelphia.
There was no government project that facilitated the Penn Station project, the PRR did it on their own, and the Penn Station project preceded the E6s. Indeed, the Penn Station project necessitated the steel cars, making the E2 and E3 Atllantics not powerful enough for trains of the new steel cars, which the E6 could handle. Some E2s and E3s were modernized after construction of the E6s (prototype 1910, fleet 1914) to become E7s (larger cylinders, piston valves replacing slide valves, superheat, but keeping Stephenson valve motion, making them essentially E5s except for the valve motion), but were still light Atlantics, not heavy Atlantics. A PRR E8 would come after the E6s and E7s, logically. So continue.
EMD (or possibly EMC, at the time) did build a diesel-electric (for one railroad only) that would have been a logical competitor for the E8, but I think with regard to performance, not economy or maintenace, this E8 would have done a better job, much as a single K4 or NYCJ1 Hudsonover a single EMD E7 unit.
The concept of this E8 was successsful, for a time, exactly on one different railroad, and approximately on another. But only for a time. And these two analogies were well-known famous locomotives. A third railroad had one similar to the second as an experiment only.
There was never an electrification from NY to Philadelphia per se. The main line was electrified Trenton - Wilmington as part of the Philadelphia suburban electrificaiton, but of course to main-line standards. Then the AC electrification was extended north to Sunnyside Yard, with the Hell Gate Bridge elecrification just a few years later. For a while, the electric-steam change was at Wilmington (and Paoli for trains to and from Pittsburgh). Then came Washington and Potomic Yard, and then Harrisburg and Enola, from Paoli. Finally, “The Port Road.”