From the Throttle - Bruce Lee
Just a few thoughts this month before we highball into the rest of the
newsletter.
First of all, congratulations to Dave Shaw who won our contest to come
up with a new name for our newsletter - Eagle Tracks. He wins a free month's
membership in the Society.
As I begin to develop track and operation plans for my own layout the
time is rapidly approaching for the Society's members to do the same for
the layout at the Recreation Center.
Now is the time to make your thoughts heard. As I understand the situation,
the plan is to finish the room improvements and then set-up the modules
near the entrance while leaving the remainder of the room available to begin
construction of a new layout. This will allow us to have someplace to run
our equipment and time to decide what to do with the rest of the room.
It is possible that we might choose to go with all standard modules.
The choice remains with you. Please come to our weekly meetings or call
one of the officers and let us know your thoughts.
President's Soapbox - Leo Harker
I have been interested for some time in the manner of early mountain
crossings by the Northern railroads as they struggled to cross the rugged
mountains in the West and Northwest.
With the possible exception of the Oregon Shortline, The other Northwest
Railroads, The Milwaukee, The Northern Pacific, The Great Northern, and
the Gilmore, Pittsburgh and Pacific resorted to switchbacks to cross mountain
ranges until tunnels were made to eliminate part of the grades. The urgency
of completing the line through to their destination forced the use of switchbacks
because a tunnel would take between two and three years to complete.
Notable among these switchback operations were the Great Northern, Northern
Pacific and Milwaukee Railroads as they crossed the Cascade range over Stevens
Pass, Stampede Pass and Snoqualmie pass in Washington State. The Northern
Pacific also used switchbacks on their main line where they crossed Bozeman
Pass between Livingston and Bozeman, and Mullan Pass west of Helena. These
switchbacks were all eventually replaced with tunnels although they were
left in place for a few years and used sporadically when tunnel problems
arose. They also used switchbacks on their Wallace branch to cross Lookout
Pass between Missoula, Montana and Wallace Idaho. This switchback was never
replaced with a tunnel and continued in use until the line was abandoned
in the 1980's.
The G, P, and P had both two switchbacks and a tunnel on the section
of their line between Armstead, Montana and Leadore, Idaho. Their switchbacks
also remained in use until the line was abandoned because the tunnel never
relieved enough of the grade.
Operations on a switchback line would have been interesting to today's
railfans, although it was both difficult and dangerous work for the trainmen
of that era. Grades on a switchback were typically steeper and curves were
much sharper than those generally accepted for mainline standards. This
required multiple helper engines on both uphill and downhill segments despite
trains being broken into much smaller units for these crossings.
Grades over the Northern Pacific's Stampede Pass were as steep as 5.6%
and as sharp as 15 degrees curvature. In fact, of the 7.04 miles of track
over this pass, 52.8% (3.72 miles) had greater than a 5.1% grade and more
than 40% (2.89 miles) were more than 10 degrees in curvature .
The six Stevens Pass switchbacks were each built with a spur 575 feet
long on the end, they were built with an ascending grade of 2.5% to help
slow a runway train, they were also built into an embankment to serve as
bunting and stop any train. The grade on the spur also assisted the engines
to start heavy trains in the opposite direction.
Typically, each spur could hold two Decapod (2-10-0) engines and seven
passenger coaches or 14 freight cars. Since the driving wheelbase of these
decapods was 17 feet, the blind drivers would extend over the rails on 15
degree curves causing derailments and forced tracks out of gauge. To overcome
these problems, the railroad laid additional rail along side of the main
for the wheels to run on. Two of the decapod engines used by the Northern
Pacific on the stampede Pass were unique in the way they were built; they
were also the largest 2-10-0s' used in the United States at the time weighing
148,000 pounds each. They were built by Baldwin to operate on curves with
a 330 foot radius. The first, fourth and fifth drivers had flanges while
the second and third had none. To further reduce friction, the first and
fourth axles had 3/4 inch of side play and the fifth had one full inch of
play, this made the rigid part of the wheelbase shorter than the Consolidations
(2-8-0) or Ten Wheelers (4-6-0) of the day. Because these engines were operated
50% of the time in reverse, an additional sanding system was added on the
rear of the drivers making for a very interesting locomotive. Because of
the maintenance problems faced by the NP shops on these locomotives, the
Northern Pacific never acquired any of the 2-10-2 or 2-10-4 locomotives
which were subsequently developed and used by other railroads and removed
their decapods from service by 1933 after serving as helpers and switchers
after the Stampede Pass tunnel was placed into service.
The Northern Pacific switchback line was opened for traffic on June 2nd
1887 and was used for approximately 1 and ½ years when the Stampede
Pass tunnel was opened. The Stampede Pass tunnel line from Tacoma to Ellensburg
was eventually closed by the Burlington Northern Railroad, a forest fire
on the west side damaged much of the track and part of the tunnel. The tunnel
was enlarged to accommodate modern head-end power, the line was eventually
rebuilt with traffic resumed in late 1996 by the merged Burlington Northern
Santa Fe which continues to this day.
Along the Right-of-way - Douglas Herrmann
My daughter sent me the following, and I thought you might be interested
in it. I have added the paragraph in parentheses, as I think that is the
correct explanation. But either is interesting.
The US Standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet,
8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because
that's the way they built them in England, and the US railroads were built
by English expatriates.
(Actually, the reason the US railroads were built to that gauge was that
the first locomotives for US railroads were built in England - and the people
who ordered them forgot to specify the gauge. So the builders just built
them to the standard gauge they were used to using, and when they got to
the US the railroad builders realized they would have to lay the rails at
that gauge. So they did. It's not so much that they were English expatriates,
but that they forgot to specify a gauge.)
Why did the English people build them like that? Because the first rail
lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways,
and that's the gauge they used.
Why did "they" use that gauge then? Because the people who
built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building
wagons, which used that wheel spacing.
Okay! Why did the wagons use that odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried
to use any other spacing the wagons would break on some of the old, long
distance roads, because that's the spacing of the old wheel ruts.
So who built these old rutted roads? The first long distance roads in
Europe were built by Imperial Rome for the benefit of their legions. The
roads have been used ever since. And the ruts? The initial ruts, which everyone
else had to match for fear of destroying their wagons, were first made by
Roman war chariots. Since the chariots were made for or by Imperial Rome
they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.
Thus, we have the answer to the original questions. The United States
standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the original
specification for an Imperial Roman army war chariot. Specifications and
Bureaucracies live forever. So, the next time you are handed a specification
and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right. Because
the Imperial Roman chariots were made to be just wide enough to accommodate
the back-ends of two war horses.
Timetable
May 7 - Business Meeting
May 9 - Saturday Work Party
May 14 - Room Preparation Continues
May 16 - Saturday Work Party
May 21 - Module Set-up (Okay, I'm optimistic)
May 28 - Module Set-up/operations
June 4 - Business Meeting
Points of Interest
As we are members of the Eagle Rock Railroad Historical Society I thought
it would be appropriate to concentrate on our local railroad the Oregon
Short Line.
Today there is very little left of the original Oregon Short Line. A
few locomotives on display, a few pieces of rolling stock used as storage
containers and many of the old structures.
Below are pictures/sketches of two of the old stations from the area,
from top to bottom Blackfoot and Pocatello.
I am aware of a few structures which are still standing. The old station in Victor, Idaho still stands on the original foundation and has been painted and restored (on the exterior) to match the day it was constructed. This old station is listed as a Historical Building.