I’ve been looking at rail lines using Google Earth, and one really has to appreciate how difficult it must have been to survey and build railroads back in the 1800s. I looked up my home town of Sherbrooke, Quebec…the mainlines follow the two converging rivers… that makes sense…but the one line which I find most interesting is the former CPR “Short Line” which exits Sherbrooke toward the United States… The single track meanders back and forth with no obvious route to follow through the rolling countryside. Surveying that line as it rises toward Boundary, Quebec must have been challenging given the lack of an obvious route, the mountainous terrain, and probably alot of rock that had to be removed with the very limited machinery that was available at the time. If such a route were to be planned today would it be pretty close to the current route as it was built in 1880…or would it be significantly different given modern survey and construction methods?
It would be harder today… There weren’t as many NIMBYs back in 1880…[:-^]
If built with today’s earthmoving technology and 1880s social conditions, the route would be a lot straighter, the curves would be broader and the tangents longer - at the expense of (literally) moving mountains. If a ridge was in the way, instead of some roundabout route to reach the lowest pass, a modern rail enterprise would simply attack the rock with great gusto - and a tunnel boring machine.
To see what I mean, check details of the Japan Rail route along the north coast of Honshu. The pre-1900 route followed every curve in the shoreline. The 1960-70s rebuild moved the route a few hundred meters inland - in TBM-bored tunnels as straight as laser-beam surveying could make them. Even the passenger platforms moved underground.
Chuck
I could see that happening and then HSR the lot.
The only problem is do we have people with a sense of vision beyond—“But It Costs Money”–The 1880’s had people here who thought in terms of possibilities----
I’m very familier with the route. I admire the planners on the railroad back then , they did find a route with favorable grades. On the Sherbrooke sub there are substantial grades in Cookshire, Scottstown, Gould station, In and out of Megantic and of course up and down the boundary. Once you cross Boundary its a good downhill ride for about 12 miles and then some level running until you get to Tarrentine. After that its up and down all the way to Brownville Jct. Me. I often wondered about a “new” Railroad through the area and concluded that not much would be different. The territory is VERY challenging. Least there’s aren’t any tunnels !! Not too much rock was removed at all to make the grade.
Have you ridden the Orford express ? That will give you an opportunity to see the Farnham sub in person to Magog, the route follows the lake for a distance , very interesting.
Haven’t had a chance to ride the Orford Express yet but I hope to in the near future…hopefully Easter when I go back to visit family. I’m also looking to cycle along the trans Canada trail in the summer which apparently parallels much of the Sherbrooke division along the Magog River.
The MMA has done a fine job in revitalizing that line…CP really threw the baby out with bath water when they sold off the Short Line… They were right however to get rid of the old Quebec Central and the West End Extension in New Brunswick…
When taking the Southwest Chief from LA to Chicago in 2003 I was looking out the window along the route from Albequerque to Raton (the original Santa Fe route). All the way along there you could look out and see, on both sides of the track, old remnants of RR embankments from earlier alignments. They curved on both sides of the existing rails and were testimony to just how much shortening of the line had gone on as advancing technology made cuts and fill easier and cheaper.
Jack