Date
1 - 20 of 31
Narrow gauge - in 1905
|
John Stutz
I have recently been combing the technical press for articles on tunnel construction, and ran across a 1905 evaluation of the cost savings to be expected, in constructing and operating light railways on a narrow gauge.
This is by the editor of Engineering News, probably the leading engineering publication in North America at that time. It begins on the lower left of the following page:
https://archive.org/details/sim_enr_1905-06-29_53_26/page/688/mode/1up
John Stutz
|
|
|
|
Russ Norris
Really interesting, John, that the author has absolutely nothing good to say about "the narrow gage myth". I model the East Broad Top, which ran successfully from 1875 until 1956, and for much of its lifetime showed a profit for the shareholders. I'm sure you could think of other narrow gauge railroads for which the same could be said. And this was written at a time when the country was covered with narrow gauge railroads. Amazing. Russ Norris On Wed, Jun 16, 2021 at 3:29 PM John Stutz <john.stutz@...> wrote:
|
|
|
|
Ken Martin
By 1905 the fervor for narrow gauge was over. While there may have been some savings in construction as he points out the cost of maintenance is the same and where costs really add up is interchange where you have to unload one car and then load another car. It was one thing in the 1870’s where you have 27’ ng and 28’ sg cars but by 1905 standard gauge cars are 34’ and starting to get 40’ cars and you get to having two narrow gauge cars to one standard gauge car. By 1905 many narrow gauge roads were converting to standard gauge. Even the Rio Grande was building standard gauge also look at the South Pacific Coast (1906). The EBT was unique in that it’s main traffic was coal to the breaker in narrow gauge hoppers, unloaded, sorted and then loaded into standard gauge cars. So you avoided much of the interchange expense. Ken Martin
|
|
|
|
Dave Eggleston
Russ, Yes, there were lines that provided some, if not ongoing, profits but I doubt weren't talking about a large number of lines. I don't follow the EBT but other lines I do follow were completely dependent on extractive industries and mostly built inexpensively to keep costs at bay. Both of these were quickly found to be Achilles' Heels. Most lines tied to extractive businesses weren't as lucky as the EBT Yes, there were narrow gauge lines across the country in 1905 but the number had been rapidly decreasing in the prior decade. The lines remaining increasingly were in areas that offered no profit interest to larger companies for acquisition or standard gauging and many (not all) were local shoe-string operations that within a decade would succumb to transport and economic realities--not able to cheaply transfer goods, local economies too small to justify upgrades, the inroads of truck transport, etc. Even though many remaining narrow gauge lines would see good years for another 15 years or so, I think that the editor's criticism comes with solid evidence around the realities of traffic breaking gauge and the increasing costs (especially labor) around that, even in 1905. The narrow gauge had been around for 35 years by that time and the original arguments weren't holding as they had in 1870. While it got tracks to places that couldn't afford standard gauge, narrow gauge was already in the late 1870s seen as a bottleneck unless traffic was fairly captive or the physical realities offered no other choice. Cheaply built lines succumbed to their light engineering in many cases; lines built into low-income areas didn't generate enough to overcome their financing, operational and tax burdens. Lines like the Santa Cruz & Felton were wildly successful in their early years but when bought out by the 3' South Pacific Coast in 1879, the curvature and grades were immediately quite expensively reworked to near standard gauge standards to allow for operation at a profitable mainline level. The D&RG began standard gauging its narrow gauges around 1880 to be more profitable and competitive, the UP began to standard gauge several of its narrow gauge subsidiaries by the late 1880s, the SP did the same as early as 1879. The Tonopah boom of 1905 did finally drive up lots of traffic for the narrow gauge Carson & Colorado and SP and for about a year the connecting narrow gauge Tonopah Railroad tried to keep up with the traffic--it and the Carson & Colorado were quickly standard gauged in light of reality. Big narrow gauge systems in Oregon, Kansas, Utah and Ohio were all converted or abandoned in the 1890s in light of the realities of traffic handling and profitability. The SPng outlived the EBT, thanks to the SP's ownership and efficiency focus. But it was a part of a much larger line that was dramatically cut back to only the sections that paid and that the SP deemed not worth cutting into the slim profits by standard gauging. I am a fan of narrow gauge, pretty much have no interest in standard gauge lines, researching western lines for 40 years, just for the record. Dave Eggleston |
|
|
|
Randy Hees
The original proponent of the narrow gauge interurban missed several issues associated with interurbans... particularly the use of public street right of way, and the ability to operate on streetcar tracks into or through cities... Adopting a strange gauge would prevent sharing tracks with local streetcars. I would also suggest that interurbans were in many cases the "new narrow gauge" serving communities which could not justify a conventional railroad line... As for Russ... The East Broad Top was successful in part because the coal already had to be unloaded for cleaning and sizing, so the break of gauge was not an issue. Randy On Wed, Jun 16, 2021 at 12:43 PM Russ Norris <rbnorrisjr@...> wrote:
|
|
|
|
John Stutz
Russ
EBT was clearly a special case, being from circa 1905 on ,the transportation arm of a coal company operating in a district where the rolling coal seam topography precluded any large mines. That company survived by using the EBT to combine the output of multiple small mines, and move the raw coal to a single large coal cleaning plant, located alongside the standard gauge that could take it on to actual markets.
John Stutz
|
|
|
|
Nigel Phillips
John,
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
Not so special for a one commodity carrier. The Great Falls and Canada Railway was built to transport coal from small mines in Lethbridge AB, to the Great Falls smelters in MT, in 1890. 3 foot gauge, converted to standard gauge by the Great Northern in 1903. The Canadian section around Lethbridge continued as mixed narrow gauge/standard gauge for a few years until completely taken over by CP. Again, not so special for longevity. The Newfoundland Railway was narrow gauge from its inception in 1897 until it's closure in 1988 under CN ownership. 3.5 feet gauge. Freight and passenger for most of its life, 906 miles in total. The rot really set in when Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949. The White Pass and Yukon was formed from 3 narrow gauge railways in 1898, 3 foot gauge. Started as a one commodity railway (gold), later freight and passenger. Still running as a scenic railway although much shorter. The article referred to was spot on, most narrow gauge lines were quickly converted to standard gauge if successful. If not they were abandoned. Nigel On Thursday, June 17, 2021, John Stutz <john.stutz@...> wrote:
|
|
|
|
On Jun 17, 2021, at 14:30, Nigel Phillips <nigelp18000@...> wrote:
The article referred to was spot on, most narrow gauge lines were quickly converted to standard gauge if successful. If not they were abandoned.As any SPCRR.org members can attest, one highly successful 36 inch gauge line stayed that way for some time after its absorption into the transcontinental giant plying the same area. ~It ran between Santa Cruz CA and Alameda CA and ran a ferry service between there and San Francisco which beat CP/SP's similar service between Oakland and San Francisco. Read Bruce McGregor's _South Pacific Coast for an idea of big time urban railroading on a narrower than standard gauge. -- Artie the Hinged Jaw Retired AFU Game Warden |
|
|
|
Dave Eggleston
The SPC was a narrow gauge oddity from the start. Engineered more as a standard gauge to move commuters fast up the East Bay and to get tourists into, and long lumber drags out of, Santa Cruz and Felton on standard gauge grades and curvature.
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
When leased by the SP it was increasingly efficiency-ized; it was a big revenue generator but gauge break was still an issue. Lumber groves expanded, tourist travel increased, east Bay suburbs expanded and the situation just got more bottlenecked. It was a truly odd example and really shoulda started standard gauge but there were a few reasons it didn't. Costs and the lease may have impeded initial SP widening of gauge but by the early '90s it was inevitable and by 1900 things were under way. The effort was only slowed by the quake damage of '06. Already by 1901 cars considered excess by the SP were being transferred from the SPC to handle Tonopah traffic on the Carson & Colorado. I bet the SP would have standard gauged it by 1886 if they could have... Dave Eggleston On Jun 17, 2021, at 5:37 PM, Nolan Hinshaw <nualain48@...> wrote: |
|
|
|
Russ Norris
So, gentlemen, if narrow gauge was so inefficient and in most cases was phased out early on, why are you interested in such a dead end for North American railroading? And why is it that every year thousands gather for the National Narrow Gauge Convention and many more belong to this HOn3 list What is it that attracts you to what was essentially a dead end for the industry? Are we just a group of antiquarians? Why are you here? Seriously. Russ The SPC was a narrow gauge oddity from the start. Engineered more as a standard gauge to move commuters fast up the East Bay and to get tourists into, and long lumber drags out of, Santa Cruz and Felton on standard gauge grades and curvature. |
|
|
|
Dave Eggleston
Seriously? Well, first, they were fascinating subjects, many with interesting stories and ambitions. Second, many were very colorful, both in livery and operations. Third, they're smaller, making them fit better in limited space. Fourth, several survived into the dawn of railfanning, presenting archaic, oddball, romantic notions just at the right time. And many more reasons. We are a group of antiquarians, researchers, modelers, artists, cartographers, archaeologists, industrial historians, machine heads, etc etc etc. Maybe we like it just because it's different, odd, flawed. None of that means that narrow gauge was the smartest or best implementation of railroading technology, but it captured our imaginations and hearts. I can't see why it's hard to imagine people following technology that was flawed or deadended. I'm here because I found the Sandy River in 1972, followed that to the Gilpin which led to the C&S, then to the Monterey &Salinas Valley, the Santa Cruz & Felton and from them to the Nevada Central and Carson & Colorado. Somewhere I found British 2' industrial and WWI Brit trench lines and then Darjeeling, Patagonia, Welshpool, etc. To my eye and imagination all far more fascinating than any standard gauge with the exception of the CP's float operation into the Slocan, which is the closest to narrow gauge, but was standard gauge, that I've found. Dave Eggleston On Jun 18, 2021, at 4:06 PM, Russ Norris <rbnorrisjr@...> wrote:
|
|
|
|
Randy Hees
Russ Narrow gauge was not necessarily inefficient. When the first narrow gauge railroads were being built there was effectively no interchange of cars, so transloading was common and cost was not thought to be significant cost.. While standard gauge had been designated in 1863 there were a wide variety of gauges in use, and in fact at the dawn of the narrow gauge movement 3' was not the only gauge discussed... Several railroads in Arkansas and Texas were promoted as 42" gauge. First Mass then Maine tried 2' gauge. On many like the SPC the majority of their freight was local... Santa Cruz and San Jose to San Francisco. Campacities of standard gauge cars were similar to narrow gauge when NG was first promoted... Then iron bolsters were introduced so that campacities went up... then better draft gear and finally air brakes that allowed a rapid growth in capacity on standard gauge lines. On the SPC they had 15 ton cars in 1886, 20 ton cars in 1893... Keeping up with standard gauge campacites... Many railroads like the East Broad Top and most logging roads had a automatic break bulk as part of the industrial process . Randy Hees On Fri, Jun 18, 2021 at 4:06 PM Russ Norris <rbnorrisjr@...> wrote:
|
|
|
|
Nigel Phillips
A lot more fun than modeling one of the standard gauge lines. Plus knowing that no major RTR supplier is going to produce the locomotives.....Modeling a line that was only in existence for 10-15 years in the 1880s-1900s appeals to anybody interested in research. Plus I like modeling in quirky gauges. HO/OO gets boring after a while.
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
Nigel On Friday, June 18, 2021, Russ Norris <rbnorrisjr@...> wrote:
|
|
|
|
Climax@...
Its kind of learning how to date when you were interested in it but didn't know how it worked. You had a lot of fun exploring and investigating and got really deep into it as you go excited. Once you make up your mind which road you wanted you married into it and really created a new world. DB A lot more fun than modeling one of the standard gauge lines. Plus knowing that no major RTR supplier is going to produce the locomotives.....Modeling a line that was only in existence for 10-15 years in the 1880s-1900s appeals to anybody interested in research. Plus I like modeling in quirky gauges. HO/OO gets boring after a while.Nigel On Friday, June 18, 2021, Russ Norris <rbnorrisjr@...> wrote:
|
|
|
|
Gary Crawford
Russ, I find HOn3 a craft scale/guage, not everything is available, and I have to think a project thru. I can't just go out and buy it all. Modeling the Cincinnati, Georgetown, & Portsmouth pre1900. Gary On Fri, Jun 18, 2021, 8:44 PM Nigel Phillips <nigelp18000@...> wrote: A lot more fun than modeling one of the standard gauge lines. Plus knowing that no major RTR supplier is going to produce the locomotives.....Modeling a line that was only in existence for 10-15 years in the 1880s-1900s appeals to anybody interested in research. Plus I like modeling in quirky gauges. HO/OO gets boring after a while. |
|
|
|
Russ Norris
Well, it's certainly more challenging that using Bachmann or Walthers, but at the same time iy's a lot more fun! On Fri, Jun 18, 2021, 8:59 PM Gary Crawford <gdm6605@...> wrote:
|
|
|
|
To support Nolan's comment on the SPC being a big time railroad, I just uploaded to the files section a scan of a tattered employee time table from 1901 for the SP Coast Division. About half way through you will see "Narrow Gauge" at the top of the pages to denote the SPC part of the division. I don't think that CALTRAINS runs such tight headways as some portions of the SPC in 1901.
Dave Adams |
|
|
|
On Fri, Jun 18, 2021 at 04:06 PM, Russ Norris wrote:
Why are you here? Seriously.Because rust, dust and wood chips are more beautiful than graffiti. Because Narrow gauge railroads ran in places that were green, colorful reds,.yellows and blues. And they are closer to my human size. Class 1 standard gauge railroads are in places that are dark and dingy and smell bad. And the colors are from the paint the sales department likes. Because standard gauge railroards are like container ships and cruise ships. Who would model one of those? And, besides, I live in SPC country. |
|
|
|
Don Bergman
From: HOn3@groups.io <HOn3@groups.io> on behalf of Ed Weldon <23.weldon@...>
Sent: Saturday, June 19, 2021 12:59 PM To: HOn3@groups.io <HOn3@groups.io> Subject: Re: [HOn3] Narrow gauge - in 1905 On Fri, Jun 18, 2021 at 04:06 PM, Russ Norris wrote:
Why are you here? Seriously.Because rust, dust and wood chips are more beautiful than graffiti. Because Narrow gauge railroads ran in places that were green, colorful reds,.yellows and blues. And they are closer to my human size. Class 1 standard gauge railroads are in places that are dark and dingy and smell bad. And the colors are from the paint the sales department likes. Because standard gauge railroards are like container ships and cruise ships. Who would model one of those? And, besides, I live in SPC country. |
|
|
|
Don Bergman
Russ Norris wrote: Why are you here? Seriously.
It's CUTE!
And "requires" an occasional trip to the San Juans
And ditto to all the other reasons given.
Someone mentioned once "married" to a line...... It reminded me.....
My wife (55 Years 6-16-66) wants to put a sign over my train room door, "The Other Woman." But she knows that when I'm in there, that there is not another woman.
🙂
|
|
|