Not sure the ‘broad gauge’ was a failure in and of itself, although in Britain the tight de facto loading gauges would have made it impossible to get ‘full use’ out of it. Best structural efficiency would involve putting the vertical secondary suspension at the transverse ‘quarter points’ unless you really need the high-speed stability of putting it ‘as far outboard as possible’ (as in the last generations of OSH passenger trucks, the carbody springs on the ALP44s, etc.)
I’ll grant you that 6’ was a bit less ‘excess’ than the Great Western tad-over-7’ gauge … but I think “standard” gauge has turned out to have significant limitations…
… and in my opinion no little part of the ‘narrow gauge’ winning out in Britain by 1891 involves politics rather than ‘engineering’ optimality…
The atmospheric traction might have worked with a choice of materials that was less tasty … but I agree that it was unlikely to have been a long-term solution for a variety of reasons. A bit like how I laugh at the idea that Beach’s atmospheric subway would ever have worked for NYC rapid transit, practically…
All that was probably needed for Great Eastern to succeed was the ‘right’ business model … the exact same one, I might note, that was used for Titanic. Leo Ames will probably have some comments on this. I am presuming that ‘better’ steam engines, boilers, etc.
You had all the details right, and there is little question at this late date that the broad gauge in general and the atmospheric traction and the Great Eastern in particular were failures compared to alternatives. All I was saying is that they didn’t need to be thought of as defective conceptions…
I still have a certain respect for the general idea of slip coaches, no matter how the various details of how to manage the trick without incurring the wages of sin, and cost-effectively managing the logistics of ‘cleanup’ after the passengers are off, make the idea seem so shudderingly bad to our contemporary eyes… and it does have to be said that even with some of the cockamamie details of some of the early broad-gauge GWR locomotives, if you wanted reliable high speed prior to the Civil War it helped somewhat to have more room between rails and better stability for high wheels. Just not too much room or too high…
A seven day schedule may be ok for apples and potatoes, but for really perishable stuff like lettuce, strawberries and fresh broccoli it will not work. One other item, the problems with getting enough salad lettuce has prompted the salad growers to find other places to grow lettuce. Mexico and Florida as well as central Colorado (usually only one crop a year).
The demand is there for the ability to move bulk quantities of lettuce. The packers have been developed a wide number of techniques to move larger quantities. What they do not have is any way to extend the shelf life of the lettuce once it is harvested from the field. Seven days out of the field and you start to get “rusty” lettuce.
Seven days for a perishable product is pathetic, worse than the rails did 50 years ago. If they can’t find a way, with all the modern improvements in communications, to run an occasional fast train in their mix, they are simply inept and unsuited to the modern age. Stuck with the easy, pokey stuff that suddenly is looking not so easy.
But then some folks on here might just wonder if you’re thinking this through all the way. Seven days may be slower than it was done in the good old days, but just because a railroad can (or could) do it in 7 days doesn’t mean it makes economic sense in the grand scheme of running a profitable railroad.
If I read things correctly in my old copies of the OG, produce traffic schedules and rates allowed a certain amount of delay if requested to allow the shipper to consider market prices for his product. Could a railroad still allow such a provision today without causing too many operating problems?
That would not be me, as I feel the railroads should be looking for new traffic flows that still earn back their cost plus reasonable profit, not just hope for flows which used to earn maximum profits with little effort, but not so much now.
Sometimes it looksl ike too much railroad management is anti-railroad…
In the ‘olden days’, perishable shippers used both ‘circuitous routing’ and ‘reconsignment and diversion’ in shipping their unsold product from the West Coast to the markets of the East. By having product moving it enabled the product to be shipped continuously from origin and give the product time to find a buyer while it was inroute. Once the sale was made, the reconsignment and diversion order would be implemented (normally in the vicinity of normal Gateway locations between Western & Eastern carriers), and the product would then be directed to the ultimate destination as a priority shipment, arriving in one to two days after the sale was consumated.
What might have been possible on the “old ATSF” is hardly relevant to today. A recent article by Dick Eisfeller in the SFRH&MS “Warbonnet” shows why. In the 1960’s Santa Fe was handling about 40 million gross tons on the “Transcon” between Clovis and Vaughn, NM. By 1988, (coincidentally, the year I was hired on) they were up to about 58 million tons. By merger date, in 1995, gross tonnage on that stretch of railroad was up to about 98 million tons. Essentially, during 7-year stretch, we took new business equivalent to the size of the railroad in 1966 and piled it on top of the 1988 railroad’s volume.
Our service offering in those years included multiple daily UPS and mail trains moving on 48-52 hour schedules between Chicago and California - not quite as fast as the Super C or the top passenger trains of the '60’s, but exactly what those customers needed based on their pickup, sort, and delivery times. Those schedules matched or beat team drivers running over the road. The only faster way to ship was air freight. Our big new partner of the '90’s, JB Hunt, only occasionally used this premium service. They preferred slower, cheaper trains for the vast majority of their business. We knew what we were doing - because we listened to the customers and understood their needs. I’m no longer part of the team, but I’m sure they still know what they’re doing.
By 2014, gross tonnage on this stretch was up to over 170 million - more than four times the 1960s volume. There’s no way you could do that and still operate a mid-60’s ATSF passenger lineup, even on the new, much-improved BNSF. Of course, we all remember the service nightmares of 2014. BNSF’s task now is to re-establish credibility with its premium shippers. Faster trains which customers aren’t asking for, and which would only add to congestion and reduce network capaci
Well, I’m no trainologist, but I question your methodology. The railroad in question appears to now carry 4 times the amount of traffic that it did in the past when the premium service we are talking about existed, and your answer is yes, but…[:-^]
Yes, but…Freight is measured by the ton. If you’re going to compare the Super C of the 60’s with today’s market & freight movements, you can’t do it using 1960’s numbers. The track layout is different. The traffic pattern is different. The trains are different. Because 4 times as much traffic moves now-based on something that can objectively be compared: tonnage- the flow is different. The train length is different. The sidings are different. In fact, nearly everything is probably different. Wouldn’t you have to take all that into account before basing a 2016 initiative on something that worked in the 60’s?
Then it would make more logic to count freight cars per hour. Trains per hour does not accurately describe how much freight is moving. A train can have any number of cars.
