I learned that Conrail removed the 4th track (2nd on the inside) in 1981. Does anyone know why? I can't find much discussion on the reason to do so. Please share more insight.
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Traffic levels, dispatching efficiency and decreased maintenance costs.
Also, according to an older MOW employee, because the empty trackbed made it easier to get to derailments, emergency crew changes, etc. without needing to occupy a track or climb up or down from the not-so-nearby roads.
With modern CTC and less train frequency without passenger trains, the RR did not need the 4 th track. At one time most of the line from Phillidelphia to Pittsburgh and beyond to Conway was 4 track. The exception being Jacks Narrows I think. I was told that in those days a Real Lull on Horseshoe curve was about 15 minutes. Now it can be hours.
Most of the line across PA is now only 2 tracks.
The maintence cost is one issue and taxes are even part of it. The RR is private property and must pay real estate and other taxes on what it owns including improvements such as track and buildings. So if they remove a track, that area now becomes a vacant lot so to speak, rather than an improved structure.
Due to the loss of heavy passenger traffic the fourth track wasn't needed anymore.
Becky, Tom & Gabe Morgan posted:Also, according to an older MOW employee, because the empty trackbed made it easier to get to derailments, emergency crew changes, etc. without needing to occupy a track or climb up or down from the not-so-nearby roads.
Which has been paying off in the last 3 weeks
Brendan
Speakina' history, I just consulted my 1947 PRR timetable and my 1959 PRR timetable.
1947 timetable at the top and 1959 at the bottom:
In 1947 every day sixteen passenger trains each way went around Horseshoe Curve. In 1959 that number had dwindled to eight trains each way.
When I watched trains at Horseshoe Curve with my Dad in the late '50s it was never more than a half hour and usually less between trains (even if the train was a Centipede pusher set drifting back down the Hill
).
Lew
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prrjim posted:With modern CTC and less train frequency without passenger trains, the RR did not need the 4 th track. At one time most of the line from Phillidelphia to Pittsburgh and beyond to Conway was 4 track. The exception being Jacks Narrows I think. I was told that in those days a Real Lull on Horseshoe curve was about 15 minutes. Now it can be hours.
Most of the line across PA is now only 2 tracks.
The maintence cost is one issue and taxes are even part of it. The RR is private property and must pay real estate and other taxes on what it owns including improvements such as track and buildings. So if they remove a track, that area now becomes a vacant lot so to speak, rather than an improved structure.
Jim; the three track section of the old Middle Division ran from Tunnel Interlocking just west of Barree to Forge Interlocking just east of Tyrone.
Tunnel Interlocking was remotely controlled by Spruce Tower - just beyond the western end of the Short Mountain tunnels.
Curt
Gpritch posted:I learned that Conrail removed the 4th track (2nd on the inside) in 1981. Does anyone know why? I can't find much discussion on the reason to do so. Please share more insight.
It was well-covered in all the major rail mags at that time, it is mentioned in most of the in-print books about the curve.
The TRAINS article in the Jan. 1985 issue by Fred Frailey entitled "Mountain Railroad Revisited" seems to give the most details: while Stanley Crane gets the blame or credit for pulling No. 2 track in April 1981, the studies had already been done by a group headed by an industrial engineer named Paul Carey. When Crane toured the line in early 1981, the statistics were available for his questioning. Since the New Portage line (Muleshoe) was also pulled at the same time, CR gave up 40% of its capacity on the east slope.
By 1980, the collapse of the steel industry and the reduction in passenger trains had brought the train count down to 60/day.
To quote one of the local CR officials in the article: " Mr. Crane got some good rail to lay somewhere else"; cold economics there...
Leaving aside the demise of passenger service, you could almost say the pulling of the fourth track was the direct result of the 100 ton freight car. This development cut nearly in half the number of trains needed to move a given tonnage. Add to that 4,000hp diesels able to get that horsepower to the ground because of AC traction and you have the second revolution of railroading. PSR is a kludge-attempt to double tonnage-capacity again but it will never have the impact of the previous two revolutions (the first revolution being the doubling and more of locomotive capacity with the switch to diesels).
Lew
