1850

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

OK Look at yourself, and pretend the current annum is 1850’s.

Your developing a Major Railroad-

Now Bring yourself back- sitting in front of yourcomputer reading this-

How did the developers choose/obtain the land?
what did they have to pay for it?

Why did they choose to vuild an RR track there instead of maybe 10 feet/ 1 mile N/S/E/W of that location?

When i’m Drivivng aorund, I often notice how, RR tracks often split properties, farmers fields ETc… why would anyone have agreed to that in the first place?

I suppsoe my main Question is Why and How.

Why there, and How was the land obtained?

Also how can it be gauranteed the the land won’t heave in 50 years causing a sudden 6% grade?

The double CP tracks that ran by my old school- Were about 1 mile away from it. back in 1940- you could see the Tracks from the road attatched to the school- Now you have to climb to the roof of the school to see the tracks because hills have developed,

Do trains alter the Earth they are surrounded by?

I suppose those are my main questions, Don’t feel you have to answer them all- if you can only answer one segemnt, go for it.

2

There was a law (eminent domain) in the early days of railroads that gave the Companies right of way rights. basically they could force land owners to sell the part of the land that the railroads wanted for trackage and the land owners couldn’t contest it.

Later on, you see this law applied by Eisenhower to lay the national highway system down. thus with both you’ll see farmsteads and even city block with railsways and highways running through the middle of them, just because the railroad company or the governement thought it was the best route.

I’m sure the Hill by your old school were man made hill to quiet the sounds of trains to the school. probably some over zealous school offical thought the constant trains were interfering with the schooling of children and got the city(county) to put in sound barriers, in the form of hills. or the hills could be, as several are here, flood control devices.

3

As far as developing in terms of why, the answer is vision. They probably sold their vision to the government in great advertising fanfare too. That is why they likely got the routes they have. I would imagine that private investors who also bought into the fanfare, was a main contributor of the funding of the building but not the only investor. Governments have always been the key in those days to establishing a railroad in the first place. (John A McDonald desire for VanHorne to build the transcon line for example)

4

Steamerfan-

You have a somewhat distorted understanding of the law of eminent domain. Without getting too technical, let me give you a bit of an explanation.

Eminent domain is the power of the government (not the railroad) to take propertry for public purposes. In the United States, this power of the government is regulated by the 5th and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution which prohibit the taking of private property without just compensation and due process of law.

Early railroads were chartered by States. Obtaining a charter could be a difficult and time consuming legal process. Once the charter was obtained, usually by act of the state legislature, it granted the railroad certain limited powers of eminent domain. For example in some states, land taken by railroads automatically reverted to the landowner if it ceased to be used for railroad purposes. Remember too that fair compensation has to be paid to the landowners, a fact that when coupled with construction costs often drove railroads into receivership or bankruptcy sometimes more than once before the first train even turned a wheel.

Also, many railroads, especially in the west were formed by various state and federal land grants and easements. In these cases, the governement granted land already owned by the government to the railroads. Much of this land is not subject to nearly the restrictions placed upon the land obtained under charters as addressed above.

Hope this explains the process a bit better.

LC

5

Mudchicken’s long lost relatives, the location engineers, had much to do with it.

As far as railroads making hills move, I think not. Even in Canada, I don’t think the laws of physics/geology/ nature have been suspended or checked for national content. More likely that the trees grew in the residential developments that sprung up in the past 20 years. Unless there was a major line change for curve reduction or change of grade, the railroad will most likely be close to where it was in elevation (or just slightly higher due to years of adding ballast)

Right of way agents, then and now, bargain with landowners for the right to cross under the color of title required. In the 1850’s, railroads were a public improvement desired by all to get products to market cheaper/faster/with more retained value and to move people much faster than before. Eminent domain usually only happened when you had a few holdouts interfere, gumming-up the works. Local communities would raise bond monies and add other incentives (a la Herrington, Ks and the Rock Island, and may others) to get rail lines to locate near them so the comunities could compete ( and hopefully thrive in an expanding marketplace).

6

No one has mentioned a primary reason why track are placed where they are. Its only partly to get the most direct route between two points but more important is to minimize GRADE to as close to flat as possible. This is a far more important reason why tracks were placed where they were. Early steam engines were not very powerful so the grades had to be minimized even to the point of taking the longer route between two points. this was also the case to minimize infill, bridgebuilding and tunneling. all was tried to be kept at a minimum to save money.

7

LC, you’re somewhat right. but there was a federal law passed (don’t have the year or number on hand) during that time frame that afforded railroads Eminant domain rights, this law was revoked later on, such that the railroads had to petition and recieve limited charters to aquire land. Railroads took great advantage of the Rights of Eminant domain afforded them to expand, in fact the Pacific Railway Act of 1862 actually included provisions for Eminent Domain to the railroads involved, of course there were restrictions on where they could evoke the Eminant domain, but they had a good wide and long area to play witin in completing the assigned projects.

In the pacific act of 1863, there is an entire section (sec 3) totally focused on assiging and directing the railroads as to what their Specific Emineint Domain rights were.

[quote]
QUOTE:
And be it further enacted, That the Union Pacific Railroad Company, and all other companies provided for in this act and the act to which this is an amendment, be, and hereby are, {Regulates the taking of private property for right of way.} empowered to enter upon, purchase, take, and bold any lands or premises that may be necessary and proper for the construction and working of said road, not exceeding in width one hundred feet on each side of its centre line, unless a greater width be required for the purpose of excavation or embankment; and also my lands or premises that

8

Something else to remember is that the railroads of today grew out of the amalgamation of a lot of little railroads. Local entreprenuers and promoters formed the “Podunk Hollow and Eastern” and the “Podunk Hollow and Western.” The PD&W connected with the “County Seat & Lake Shore” which in turn connected with the “Lake Shore and Big City.” Eventually the LS&BC gobbled all of them up to form the “Big City and Eastern,” itself later folded into the “Lake Central System.”, etc, etc.

That said, and also considering previous comments, the route the final RR followed was less a product of the best way to get from major end point to major end point than it was of the best way to get between all the little places the RR originally connected. If the RR had been built from major terminal to major terminal, it might never have touched Podunk Hollow, whose residents contributed heavily to the construction of the original RRs, and whose residents enjoyed the benefits enumerated above.

9

[quote]
QUOTE: Originally posted by kevinstheRRman

OK Look at yourself, and pretend the current annum is 1850’s.

Your developing a Major Railroad-

Now Bring yourself back- sitting in front of yourcomputer reading this-

How did the developers choose/obtain the land?
what did they have to pay for it?

They had surveyors out surveying the land to develope the best path, most of the time. They got the land by purchasing it or an easement through the property. Some got the property through eminent domain, or through land grants from teh government.

Why did they choose to vuild an RR track there instead of maybe 10 feet/ 1 mile N/S/E/W of that location?

  1. Could be another RR already had the other route. Politcal decisions. Many early railroads would built to where cities/towns were willing to put up money through subscription to stock or wiling to give the RR’s property.

  2. Grade and other topographical considerations

When i’m Drivivng aorund, I often notice how, RR tracks often split properties, farmers fields ETc… why would anyone have agreed to that in the first place?

Money. Or the farmer may have purchased property on each side of the ROW.
I suppsoe my main Question is Why and How.

Why there, and How was the land obtained?

Also how can it be gauranteed the the land won’t heave in 50 years causing a sudden 6% grade?

You can’t. All they can do is do soil testing to determine the conditions. Way back when, they usually just did a best guess.

The double CP tracks that ran by my old school- Were about 1 mile away from it. back in 1940- you could see the Tracks from the road attatched to the school- Now you have to climb to the roof of the school to see the tracks because hills have developed,

Do trains alter the Earth they are surrounded by?

I suppose those are my main questions, Don’t

10

You guys are all Great. I just learnt a great deal of knowledge.

if this school didn’t suffer from Cheapie-syndrome, I’d print it all out.

11

Kevin – fascinating questions! I’ll think about them some and reply later this evening or tomorrow… Mark and MC and others have certainly hit the high points, but maybe I can come up with a few illustrations from the history of the CV…

Got to go and vote!

12

And I think the school officials were not overzelous in protecting the students’ learning abilities from noise. That what education administrators are paid to do. They were doing their job.

13

Don’t forget all the high tech earth moving equipment that existed in 1850

Manpower - pick - shovel - black powder and mules and of course with your manpower don’t mix ethnic groups in a work force or you will have an ethnic riot.

14

Kevin – sorry to take so long to get back on this one! Location is a fascinating question… on moving earth, except for some small effects (the most notable being some soil movement where there are fills across such lovely things as swamp and muskeg!) even fairly major railroad alignments make astonishingly litte impact on the land around them – particularly when compared with such things as highways. Geologically speaking, the earth does move with time – but the geologic time scale is always so much longer than the human one that a change in grade or somesuch just doesn’t happen.
The CV does illustrate some of the points made above, though.
How did the CV (or rather, its predecessor) obtain the land? Believe it or not, in most cases the locals were sufficiently enthusiastic about the coming of the railroad that they happily sold it at low cost to the railroad; in some cases, they gave it away. Ditto many of the towns. Which is a far cry from today! One needs to remember that in 1850 the roads were few and far between, and getting from point X to point Y was a major, and often difficult and dangerous undertaking.
How did the CV choose where to go? In most cases there were relatively few choices, actually, once the end points and major intermediate points had been settled. The end points and intermediates were often chosen as junctions, or ports, or as towns or communities which were backing the railroad. Once that was settled, as VSmith pointed out, gradient counted for a lot then, as now, and with the very limited earth moving capabilities of the day, the choice of route was similarly limited. This is not so true in flat areas, of course, but in many areas a good deal of time and effort was put in to find the best grade. In the case of the CV, there was only one stretch, really, where there was a choice of two routes: between Montpelier, Vermont, and Royalton, Vermont. And in that area you see another factor: personal preference by the backers. It happened that one of them l