Hello!
Does anyone know how railroads managed the coexistence of their freight and passenger lines around the years 1900-1950? I’ve noticed that there is a lot of resistance nowadays by the freight railroads against implementing high-speed passenger operations over their trackage-the most popular arguments I have heard include issues with scheduling and infrastructure. How were these problems dealt with back then? Are they simply coming to light now because of the higher speeds?
Thank you!
-Joe
In general the mix of traffic was very different, and also the environment. “Just-in-Time” transportation and transit time for freight was not a big concern. Before the Interstate highways transcontinental trucks were not strong competitors. Today most freight on the railroads is long haul on the main lines; in earlier times the branch lines were very active. It was not uncommon to have shipments entirely within a small region with minimal use of the busy main lines. The physical plant was designed for the mix, with lots of cheap labor to maintain it.
Today the freight traffic is mostly on the same main routes the passenger operation wants to use. Many freight shippers demand fast reliable transit time or they will switch to road carriers. For freight and passenger to coexist the capacity has to be increased, usually by adding extra tracks, either main tracks or a lot more sidings. This can sometimes be done fairly readily, but rights-of-way are limited in width and the railroad might well need that extra land for their own future freight expansion.
Economic returns are an issue. That 10,000 foot freight is bringing a good chunk of change to the bottom line. You don’t want to risk losing that business by giving priority to trains that pay less well, and may even cost you money if there are problems keeping the schedule specifications.
Finally, and not necessarily leat, the liability issue is big. Potential payouts for a major accident involving a passenger train could be massive and the railroads don’t want to risk having their “deep pockets” picked as a result of business they didn’t particularly want in the first place.
As cx500 commented, there was not as much demand for fast freight in the first half of the 20th century as there is now–and passenger trains were generally given the right of way over freights. In the operating timetables, passenger and mail trains were usually listed as first class trains and freights were usually listed as second, or even third class, trains. Seldom was a freight superior to a passenger train–unless it were of the same class and proceeding in the superior direction (each timetable showed that movements in one direction were superior to movements in the opposite direction; e. g., trains moving north were superior to those of the same class moving south). It was possible for a train order to give a particular train the right over other trains, but usually the timetable class and superior direction showed what train was superior to another; inferior trains, of course, had to keep out of the way of superior trains. Some passenger trains were considered so important that it was not enough that an opposing inferior train be at a meeting point five minutes or so before the superior train was to arrrive; inferior trains were to be in the clear ten or fifteen minutes before the scheduled or train order time. Trains that had no schedule in the timetable were called “extras,” “work extras,” or “passenger extras,” and they had no timetable authority, but could be given, by train order, rights over other trains.
In the fifties, railroads began giving first class status to certain freights so that they could provide faster service–and passenger trains were often delayed because of the need to move these freights faster.
Indeed, in 1971, it was common for passenger trains to be delayed by freight movements, and, when I was returning to Chicago from Portland on the City of Portland in April of that year, I was pleasantly surprised to see that we were run around an eastbound freight and commented to no one in parti
Perhaps I should have added, in my previous post, that the timetables indicated where trains were to meet or overtake and pass other trains, often with bold type for the time of day and for the number(s) of the train(s) that they scheduled to meet or pass (or be passed by). If all the trains were able to adhere to their schedules, no more information was necessary–but when have all trains been known to keep to their schedules consistently? Train orders were created by the dispatchers and sent to the engineer and conductor of each train that was affected by the necessary changes and these orders took precedence over the timetable information.
One other thing that gets overlooked about freight trains in the ‘bygone’ days. They were relatively short…most on the order of 3000 to 4000 feet in length and they had crewmen on both ends of the train. If the train had a mechanical malady that cause it to stop, it could be inspected from both ends of the train at the same time, and when the problem was found and resolved the person the inspected from the head end could get on and ride the caboose in the interests of expediting the movement of the train to it’s next clearing point. Today’s freight trains are mostly in the neighborhood of 7000 to 9000 feet in length and all crewmen are on the head end of the train. When it is stopped by mechanical problems, the train can only be inspected from the head end and if and when the problem is resolved, the person performing the inspection must return to the head end. A 3.5 mile stroll, in the middle of the night with a brakeman’s lantern, on main track ballast inspecting for a myriad of mechanical issues takes time…a lot of time…time to wreck any high speed passenger schedule.
If we are EVER to have high speed passenger rail, it must be on it’s own right of way and track structure. The operation of 15 & 20 thousand ton freights on track the must be maintained to the level required of truly high speed operations would put maintenance costs through the proverbial roof, irrespective of the delays for mechanical issues in the operations of those freight trains wrecking passenger schedules.
One factor too is that many more lines were double tracked (or more) compared to now, so it was possible to run around slower freight drags with passenger trains, fewer bottlenecks. Wages for trackworkers was cheap, so mainlines were maintained to an incredibly high level compared to recent times.
Higher speeds?? Keep in mind a passenger train trip from Minneapolis-St.Paul to Chicago takes several hours more now than it did in 1938…
[:O]
I recall a passenger speed limit on that line slow to 90 or was it slow to 110 for a curve.
And that was done with steam, lack of nerve or fear and total dedication to the schedule to the minute. No technology in sight like we have today. MAYBE they had in cab signals to give them the room they need to knock off the 110 or whatever down to 40 or less.
In the early 20th century, passengers had the following options:
Beyond the town line freight had the following options:
Note that, for both passengers and freight, taking the train was the best, if not the only, option. Most people didn’t own their own horses.
To give an idea of where rubber-tired transport was during that time, in 1919 the Army mounted a cross-country convoy of 80 vehicles. It took a day short of two months (Departed Washington, DC on July 7th, arrived in San Francisco on September 6th,) a lot of ad hoc roadbuilding and a lot of vehicle maintenance issues to complete the trip (80 vehicles started, 74 finished.) The worst-case competing freight was easily five times faster and fifty times more convenient. (To-be-president Eisenhower was one of the officers on that convoy. Later he encountered the Autobahnen. Is it any wonder that he pushed so hard for the Interstate highway system?)
Chuck
[color=blue]During the 30’s intercity truck transportation…especially widely separtated citys was abount nil. If freight had to travel any distance then trains were about the only option…Just In Time inventory had yet to be invented and if a shipment took 10 days or 15 days to make the trip the shipper and consignee just had to deal with it an go on.[/color]
To Quote LastChance: “I recall a passenger speed limit on that line slow to 90 or was it slow to 110 for a curve.”
I believe that this was where the MILW crossed the EJ&E at Rondout–the passengers on the Hiawatha were not to be disturbed by a rough crossing at grade.
Somewhere in one of my books I have a pic of the “SLOW TO 90 MPH” sign at Rondout…I heard that at one time it said 100 MPH.
Interesting to think that today Minneapolis/St.Paul sees two passenger trains a day, the eastbound and westbound Empire Builders. A century ago, St.Paul Union Depot hosted around 200 passenger trains a day - not to mention all the freight traffic running past the depot too.
And, forty years ago, there were two stations in Minneapolis as well as the station in St. Paul. Now, there is one, not much bigger than a hatbox, in St. Paul, close to the boundary between the two cities.
But of course White Plains, NY, Stamford, CT, Fredericksburg, VA, New Carrolton, MD, see more passenger trains today than ever. Admittadly they are only commuter trains, but you gotta take the good with the bad.
In the early part of the century, 1900-World War I, passenger trains were a profit center. The railroads were making money on them. After WWI passenger business began to decline as cars became more common, first on short runs and eventually after WWII on long distance runs because of the airlines… Many passenger trains kept running years after most of the passengers left just to haul the mail.
Enjoy
Paul
Prior to 1958, a lot of unpatronized locals and other trains were operated because the various state commissions wouldn’t allow their discontinuance. Something about public convenience and necessity.
It is absolutely amazing that this question is posed! It really hits home that there have been so many changes in railroading in the past 25 years that for many…and too often those in the business,too…don’t know and can’t conceive how railroads used to operate. Neither a mainline, branchline, or shortline operation of 1950 is an old man’s recollective fantasy but a reality of a forgotten past. Some of us oldsters are confused as to why you can’t run “first class” passenger trains in the face of mile+ long double stacks while the youngsters of today can’t figure out how a streamliner wound through and around coal drags and merchandise high ballers with speed and safety. The rules have changed, the track has changed, the rolling stock has changed, the employee and employee structure has changed, management has changed, the dynamics of the physcal structure and equipment along with the traffic have all changed so much. Would a Gould, a Harriman, a Vanderbilt or even a Shoemaker, Saunders, or Langdon recognize today’s railroad business?
Henry, I’m 78 years old and can only say “Amen” to your commentary. I can readily remember a time when railroad operations were not measured solely by their contribution to the comanies’ “bottom line” as they are today. Even for a time when they were losing money, passenger trains retained their symbolism in the eyes of top management. A crack passenger train that was well maintained and ran consistently on time had great advertising value and served to convey to shippers and the general public alike that the host railroad was a well run outfit.
As a case in point I’ll mention Wayne Johnston who was president of the Illionis Central in the 1940’s and '50’s. If the Panama Ltd. wasn’t pulling into Central Station on the advertised at 8:45 am he asked where she was and the reason for the delay. His personal interest in the road’s passenger trains carried do
Mark, I remember reading in Trains, back when the KCS had passenger service and the MKT did not, an interchange between a MKT man and a possible customer. The essence of the conversation was that the customer gave his business to the KCS, because it was a full service road; the MKT man replied that his road was also a full service road. The customer’s response was that the MKT did not offer passenger service, so it was not a full service road.
As to the matter of not having any idea as to how passenger trains and freight trains kept out of each other’s way, I remember a brief conversation with a conductor/assistant conductor on Amtrak this past spring; he had never heard of first class trains.
As to Wayne Johnston, he may have been even more passenger-oriented than Graham Claytor. He made certain that foreign-road cars and engines that ran regularly on his trains were painted the IC colors, which certainly made for a more pleasing sight.
I would hardly call Graham Claytor passenger-oriented while he was the VP-Law on Southern. He was responsible for finding loopholes in the law that allowed Southern to trim its passenger service drastically without regulatory approval. At any rate, he deserves a lot more recognition for his WW2 service as commanding officer of the USS Cecil J Doyle.
I hope the editorial staffs of Trains, but especially Classic Trains, are reading this thread closely. It outlines the genrational differences in understanding railroading as a business and as a hobby down through the generations. The major changes over the past 50 years are almost incomprhensible to the younger generation as well as to the old…today’s trains ain’t your daddys Oldsmobile for sure. The need for more material about how railroads operated in each of the last ten to fifteen decades in a factual rather than nostalgic way would go a long way in helping both the youngsters and the elders understand the differences in operations from one generation, decade, railroad, etc, to the next. Weeping nostalgically for the past does not help the railfan of today to understand the yesterday of railroading nor how it arrived at today. An indepth look at a book of rules and its applications or old style Trains Magazine operations articles would be one way to go. Comparing a train and a railroad of today with one of yesterday is another idea. Much time is spent on these forums misunderstanding railroad business, railroad history, and railfanning because of these generational differences.