On my travels on the former Pennsylvania mainlines Nyc-Philadelphia-Chicago
and on the northeast corridor Ive never seen a grade crossing. Is this true and was it done to increase speeds on these lines.
I can speak for the Pennsy Mainline in the Altoona-Johnstown area…Currently, there are only two Grade Crossings between Altoona and Johnstown…One is at the Brickyard, just West of Altoona, and the other is at Carneys Crossing, between Cresson and Lilly. Around the beginning of the 20th Century, the PRR embarked on a major line realignment and curvature reduction on the West Slope. It bypassed several towns such as Portage and Cassandra with huge fills and cuts. Prior to this realignment, the railroad went right through these towns at street level.Along with this, the grade was raised in areas where what once was a grade crossing, became a Railroad Overpass. Old Rte 22 in Cresson for example where it now ducks under the Railroad,There are still quite a number of Grade Crossings in use on the Middle Division, between Altoona and Harrisburg, but Crossings were greatly reduced years ago on the Mountain in the Altoona-Johnstown area… Dave Williams http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nsaltoonajohnstown
The last few public grade crossings were closed in the 1980s, for safety as much as speed. One of the last NEC crossings to close is near Glenn Dale, MD; the construction sign announcing the closure lasted into the 1990s.
The NYC did a lot of grade crossing elimination, as well. As we’ve discussed here before, grade crossings are a major pain in the _____ for RRs. Even on the relatively low traffic Montreal Secondary there are long stretches with no crossings.
These grade crossings were closed as part of the USDOT/Amtrak Northeast Corridor Improvement Project (NECIP) to allow for increased speeds and eliminate a continuous source of collisions.
IT’s the idea behind the interstate, and before that, the autobahn. Take out the stops, and the road/rail can go much faster, because nobody is running into each other!
…Ahhh, the Johnstown-Altoona area…a great area…Especially for the railfan. Reeks of history. Home area not too far from Johnstown.
In Chicago, the only grade crossing on the Pittsburgh-Chicago main is at Lumber St about a mile south of Chicago Union Station. In northwest Indiana, there were several grade crossings in Hammond and Whiting.
The Pennsy Main (Chicago-Pittsburg) across northern Indiana parallels US30 most of the way so it had grade crossings about every mile and serveral in each town. Only a few overpasses were built. In the city of Fort Wayne, they elevated the railroad in the thirties, so the only grade crossings were outside of the city at that time.
The Pennsy Panhandle line through Logansport was built on-grade for the most part with a few grade separations for other railroads as topography allowed.
The Pennsy main to Indianapolis was grade separated for quite a ways between Richmond and Indianapolis.
I’ve spent considerable time along the ex-Pennsy mainline between Richmond and Indianapolis and only occasionally did it enjoy grade separation. Nearly every state road that ran north-south crossed at grade. The line was eventually relegated to superfluous status by the ex-NYC route to the north through Anderson and Muncie which had CTC and was in considerably better shape by the late 1970s than the rocking nightmare that Amtrak’s National Limited bounced along at 79 mph. I believe the December 1979 issue of Trains discussed this line segment in particular.
MKM
Mark,…since you used the term…could you expand a bit on the criteria used in generic classification of a railroad as a “super railroad”? I’ve seen it used in the magazine to describe multi-main grade separated corridors, as well as lines that are single mains, with frequent at grade crossings…
And the one time I posed this exact question to this forum, several members advanced opinion, which was just diverse enough collectively, that no hard criteria could be distilled from it.
I appreciate your insight. I guess where my uncertainty was based was that I had mistakenly assumed the designation to be strictly a specification on the physical plant alone, not realizing that the actual performance (volume) was a big part of it.
Thanks.
Amtrak has closed all crossing in the state of Rode Island (I was the last signal maintainer that inspected them) In my thirty seven years as a maintainer there were 15 deaths on the crossings . ALL were the fault of the drivers by running the lights or going around the gates. I was glad to see them go. I’ve seen what a train can do to a body. Please rail fans stay well clear of the tracks when taking photos