What are your nominees for certain lines that you don’t think of, when you think of a certain railroad. I have two “definites” and two “maybes”. The definites are the NYC’s Kanawha & Michigan line from Columbus down to Charleston, WV and beyond. Not quite the Water Level Route. Next is the Milwaukee Road’s ex CTH&SE’s line from Chicago down to southeastern Indiana, almost making it to Louisville, KY. Would this be the “Ohio River Extension”?
The two maybes are harder. My first would be the D&H’s line from Albany north to the Canadian border. Not quite what you think of an anthracite carrier. The second would be the Frisco’s route down to Pensacola. You don’t think of the Frisco and Florida in the same sentence.
What are your thoughts?
The PRR’s ex-Grand Rapids & Indiana. which ran north thru to the tip of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan at Mackinaw City
This makes me think of the PRR’s Delmarva Division down the so-named Peninsula.
Canadian Pacific’s route to Louisville, KY stands out.
That is the old Milwaukee Road CTH&SE route that I mentioned. Soo Line got it after the MILW went bankrupt.
I think the Milwaukee bought that line for access to coal mines for locomotive fuel.
Jeff
The Santa Fe branchline into central Louisiana. And its line down to Galveston.
The Rock Island in Louisiana.
The CB&Q all the way out to Colorado, in Colorado via the Colorado & Southern, and into Texas by the Fort Worth & Denver
When the Southern Pacific bought the El Paso & Southwestern, part of the deal was that they had to also take a coal mine at the northern end way up in New Mexico. The reasoning became that, if we have to own that mine, we might as well burn the coal for fuel. Accordingly, that part of the Southern Pacific had coal burning locomotives up until 1950, when some part of the agreement expired. You Southern Pacific scholars out there, please correct me as needed.
I don’t know about the ownership arrangements for the mine, but it was at the end of a branchline out of Tucumcari NM. The RI had constructed the trackage between Tucumcari and Santa Rosa, where they met the EP&SW. The RI leased that trackage to the EP&SW/SP. An arrangement that lasted long after the coal mines had closed and the branch abandoned.
After the RI shutdown the Cotton Belt (SSW) became the owner of the RI trackage. The SP, owner of the SSW, had agreed to buy the RI’s Golden State line in 1978. The SSW was set up to own and operate the trackage so SP could avoid requirements to only solicit traffic via UP and the Ogden Gateway. The SSW ended up leasing the Tucumcari to Santa Rosa trackage to its parent, SP.
Jeff
The famous AC-9 2-8-8-4s were built in 1939 specifically to burn that fuel, and they did so until they were converted to oil in summer 1950 when the railroad standardized on oil firing.
Th GN “Inside Gateway” that was well south of its mainline. It reached the isolated line thru its joint ownership of the SP&S, thence over a joint line with UP, thence over a short section of its own track south of Bend, OR, thence over the SP to Klamath Falls to reach its own line to connect with the WP to form N-S competition with SP’s Cascade Route.
The Rock Island in Louisiana is a good choice. I’d also nominate the eastern extent of the Choctaw Route that terminated in Memphis, TN.
That was what was left of the 35th Parallel Transcontinental route; I could never quite figure out how this wasn’t a contender for fast east-west traffic, and I still can’t quite believe it’s gone.
Which it was by the time I moved here. I had not realized the extent of ‘diversity’ at Central Station as late as the early 1960s… but it sure dropped off after that.
Meanwhile, I got the impression that Frisco traffic through Memphis and up was nothing like the traffic on the more northern routes. I’d have thought the line from Birmingham would have been a significantly trafficked line, but apparently 4-8-4s seldom if ever were run there…
Part of the reason was that the South was a largely agricultural region until the last 50 years. Industry didn’t move there until then. Manufacturing was centered in the Northeast and Midwest.
Thanks. I knew that but forgot to mention it.
I believe that the coal burners ran some distance out on the main line west of El Paso. I can say that because in 1988 I rode No. 1 out of the West Coast and coming back on No. 2 during daylight, I saw a large concrete coaling tower straddling the track, but I don’t remember which community was, but it was in New Mexico fairly close to El Paso. I remember reading somewhere online that it was demolished finally, years after coal powered steam departed.
In 1976/1977 the Rock Island spent a lot of money to rebuild the “Sunbelt route” between Memphis and Amarillo TX. The idea seemed to be to fix it up to sell it to the Santa Fe. The Santa Fe ran a few inspection trips after the rebuild and again before the final shutdown. By the time of the last inspections most of the line was again suffering from deferred maintenance.
The Santa Fe was interested if it could get help from the states for further upgrading. In Arkansas, resistance from MP and Frisco interests were able to stop any aid from the state.
IMO, the money spent would’ve been better spent on upgrading portions of the railroad that they were planning to keep.
Jeff