I know that double trackage is of common use where heavy traffic calls for them,but I’m curious to know if there are many areas where three or more tracks,yards excepted,are in use.I suspect that big city commuter systems do have some,but what about haulers like U.P.,Santa Fe and the likes on their main routes?
I’m actually planning my future layout and,due to limited space,I have an area where a triple track setup would suit me fine but still,I’d like to keep it somewhat prototypical.I’ll likely do it anyway but I’m curious to know.Thanks.
It seems like UP’s mainline around Bailey Yard (North Platte, NE) is triple track. It also seems like some parts of BNSF’s transcontinental route has three tracks, but I am not sure about that.
There are three tracks around Horseshoe Curve, and there used to be four.
To the east of Chicago, the four track PRR mainline parallelled the four track NYC mainline. Parallel to THEM was the two track Erie mainline, the one track NKP mainline, and the one track South Shore mainline. 12 tracks enough for you? Also in Chicago, Metra’s North Western mainline heading north has three tracks.
Of course, the farther west you go, you’ll find fewer instances of multiple mains. I don’t think there’s anything but one and two track mains between Chicago and the Rocky Mountains.
The lines that carry Powder River coal were triple-tracked to handle the traffic. That includes UP and BNSF mains, as well as the jointly-owned line that actually services the mines.
The famous ex-Conrail, ex-Penn Central Horseshoe Curve was triple tracked the last time I saw it. That’s because the demise of the passenger business made one of the original four tracks surplus to requirements.
Former New York Central had long stretches of three and four tracks, especailly east of Buffalo. Don’t forget the New Haven RR as well. Boston and Albany also had a fair amoutn of three tracks as well, although most all of that is gone now.
The North East Corridor, at least between Philadelphia and New York, if not all the way to Washington D.C. is Quadruple tracked. This is done to allow the Acela trains to run on dedicated tracks in the middle. Slower passenger trains (commutor and regular Amtrak trains) use the outer tracks.
The N&W in steam days used long center passing sidings that were very long. This way trains could meet or pass without having to stop. This saved a great deal of time and fuel.
The CSX through northern Ohio has long stretches of 3 and 4 track main, especially around Ashtabula, and from Fairport through Cleveland to Lorain (the Fairport to Lorain stretch being quite a ways, 40ish miles). This is former NYC trackage, that as someone mentioned earlier, may have been the inspiration for the name “Broadway Limited”, as at one time it was all 3 track (or wider)
The neighboring Norfolk Southern, however, is still allmost all single track, with long sidings every few miles. Depends on what road and where, i would say.
All except the short stretch north of Peekskill, where the valley narrowed into a canyon and only two tracks could be squeezed in.
Of course, NYC also owned the West Shore tracks on the west bank of the river. Since that was double tracked, you could make a very shaky case that the NYC route up the Hudson was actually six tracks wide - but only four of them went to my old home town.
Whoa there, Azure; let’s not confuse folks by mixing prototypes. The Broadway Limited was the flagship of the Pennsylvania Railroad from 1887 until the PRR+NYC merger that created Penn Central. NYC’s contemporary and very competitive flagship was the Twentieth Century Limited.
You’re right though that the train name was inspired by the Broad Way (and that’s how it was initially spelled). The Broad Way they were bragging about was the 4-track main from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. Four tracks came later to most (but not all) of the PRR mains.
The NYC main from New York City to Chicago was predominatly four tracks. There were stretches that were not, for example the double track over Sandusky Bay and double tracks over the Maumee river into Airline Yard(Junction.) There were other sections of double and triple trackage as well. Frequently the two inner tracks on the NYC were considered the high speed main, with the outer tracks the low speed main, or was it the other way around?
Much of the four track mainline was reduced to double track with the installation of CTC which allowed closer spacing of trains, and the density of trains remained about the same between the four track and double track mains due to the CTC.
The Pennsy was called the “great Broadway” because of the four track main, not because of the street with the same name, or the Broadway Limited, which did run on the “Great Broad Way” or so I have been told.
Another one is the IC main from Matteson about 30 miles south of downtown to the Sg. Charles airline cut off at McCormack Place near down town Chicago. At points it is six tracks to this day. The westernmost two are now Metra commuter, then the two mains that continue south as one track beyond Matteson and lastly the freight mains that connect to all the crossing lines for transfer and freight traffic.
The IC (Metra Electric) suburban main line is four tracks between 11th Place and Kensington in and of itself, not including the parallel freight and passenger mains. It used to be six tracks north of 53rd Street.
The Chicago Rapid Transit North Side main line (formerly Northwestern Rapid Transit) was four tracks from Chicago Avenue to Howard Street.
Erie, Pennsylvania, has 4 tracks running through it and has plenty to model. There is an Amtrak station on the mainline and just off the mainline is a coke plant, gravel yards, a roofing shingle plant, the GE locomotive plant, and many other industries. You can expect 50 or more trains a day to go through here and the diversity of what you see day to day is amazing.
I thought it was one of NYC’s trains, i apologize if i mixed anyone up by that…as ive said, i dont model steam, i model modern, and my knowledge of steam and train names from predecessor roads is a bit lacking…
Got a couple of superb prototype & modeling multi-track mainlines for you…
1st => There is a recent TRP prototype magazine, APR/MAY/JUN, 2006, #69, “The Railroad Press,” (Hanover, PA) starting in Altoona where you can get prototype staging ideas before the article heads to Horseshoe Curve and then to Gallitzin on pages 16-35. The rest of the magazine concentrates on multi-track Class I railroads including “The Rockies and the Plains” and “AIR Los Angeles.”
2nd => The top of the Alleghenies with the 4-track Pennsylvania Mainline (now Norfolk Southern) from Altoona to Tunnel Hill & Gallitzin just doesn’t get documented any better than at the Northeast Rails website!
P.S.: The 4-track has recently been converted to a 3-track mainline. If you look closely at some of the West Gallitzin tunnel photos, you’ll see one of the tunnels re-bored for 2-track to handle modern rolling freight and especially intermodal traffic, and today’s other (“smaller”) tunnel now abandoned sans track.
…perhaps inspiration for track planning with a 2-track mainline? How about a 2-track dogbone mainline that reverses back and appears to actually be a 4-track mainline in the middle of the layout while the dogbones at either end are strictly that 2-track configuration?
3rd => I have found two suggested Kalmbach publications to model these mainlines…
[a] December 2002, Model Railroader, with Mike Shanahan’s, “Horseshoe Curve in the 1950s,” on pages 116-121, and his Brunswick &a