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  • A Rail Equivalent of Interstate 80

  • This forum is for discussion of "Fallen Flag" roads not otherwise provided with a specific forum. Fallen Flags are roads that no longer operate, went bankrupt, or were acquired or merged out of existence.
This forum is for discussion of "Fallen Flag" roads not otherwise provided with a specific forum. Fallen Flags are roads that no longer operate, went bankrupt, or were acquired or merged out of existence.

Moderator: Nicolai3985

 #172442  by 2nd trick op
 
Most of our major interstate highways have rail mainlines in close paralell or, in the case of the Pennsylvania Turnpike/I-76, are built on old railroad grades. One of the principal exceptions to this, however, is Interstate Route 80 east of Youngstown, Ohio(Keystone Shortway).

Interestingly, a little research of early histories or bound volumes of Railway Age from long ago will turn up several ideas for these routes which nearly came to pass before the industry stagnated in the wake of the Great Depression.

Probably the most interesting is found in an article which appears to have been launched by backers of the Van Swearingen brothers' "Greater Nickel Plate" campaign of around 1925. This line would have used Jersey Central and Reading's Catawissa and Haucks branches from the New York/New Jersey region to Milton, Penna, then placed a new line via White Deer Valley (with, undoubtedly, a couple of substantial tunnels) before linking with NYC's Beech Creek line somewhere near Orviston. The remainder of the plan would have used existant trackage almost entirely.

Other plans revolved around the former PRR Low Grade Branch/Secondary Track, which left the Pennsy's Buffalo Line at Driftwood, Penna, and continued west to the Allegheny River at Brady's Bend. This line, which is still in existence for unit coal moves, has the lowest summit and easiest grades of any crossing of the Alleghenies, and plans to bypass Pittsburgh and link it directly to the Great Lakes region were formulated at one time.

With all the major lines fixated on grades and fuel economy as never before, it might be time to give these two forgotten ideas a second look.

 #172460  by Ken S.
 
Part of I-80 through NJ was built on the old DL&W Boonton Line.
 #172470  by henry6
 
You could use the LV-CNJ-RDG to Newberry Yard, the PRR Corry, the Erie to Youngstown. Or the PRR from Newberry to Sinnamahoning to the Lo Grade to Pittsburgh. All are stretches, mind you. Or stretch yourself so that it evenly splits between the Erie and PRR. But can you count in your mind the number of tunnels, bridges and helper grades you would need to really parallel Rt 80?

 #172768  by BaltOhio
 
The original segment of the Penn. Turnpike, between Carlisle and Irwin, is famous as the route of William H. Vanderbilt's South Pennsylvania RR. What isn't as well-known is that the highway actually used very little of the graded railroad line. The South Penn was engineered for a 1% ruling grade, whereas the Turnpike could allow 3%. Thus hard-core archeologists can find a gold mine of heavy cuts and fills off the highway route, including the entire 10-mile ascent of the east slope of Allegheny Mountain and a high fill 3 miles north of Somerset that crosses over the ex-B&O Johnstown branch. The latter spot includes a tunnel under the fill buiilt for the B&O, which CSX still calls the "South Penn tunnel." Careful study of topo maps between Burnt Cabins and Donegal reveal much of this graded right-of-way.

In the late 1920s the B&O planned a low-grade freight cutoff route that (going eastward) would use the former Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh to DuBois, the Buffalo & Susquehanna through the Sabula summit, and then either use PRR or build a parallel line to Newberry Jct. (Williamsport) to join the Reading's Catawissa branch. This was the reason the B&O acquired the BR&P and B&S, but the timing was disastrous -- it wasn't until the early 1930s that B&O merged the BR&P and B&S, and by then there was no money and no need.
 #173893  by NERailfan
 
Part of I-95 north of Boston was built on the Boston & Maine's South Reading Branch.

 #178249  by l008com
 
Its sure is hard to argue against this post in the Boston area. For you see, there are abandoned (and some still active) rail lines EVERYWHERE and there are highways pretty much everywhere... Fish in a barrel if you ask me. Its too bad I missed them all.
 #199819  by Agent at Clicquot
 
NERailfan wrote:Part of I-95 north of Boston was built on the Boston & Maine's South Reading Branch.
Yep. The area is so completely rebuilt that even knowing where it once was, it's still easy to miss when driving up Rte 128 (i.e. 95).

The east end of this route is still hangs on by a thread (or a roll of film). Eastman Gellatine of Peabody(?) is the remaining customer.

* JB *
 #199828  by Agent at Clicquot
 
BaltOhio wrote:Thus hard-core archeologists can find a gold mine of heavy cuts and fills off the highway route, including the entire 10-mile ascent of the east slope of Allegheny Mountain
Color me hard core. What's the state of the RoW presently? Has it been kept open by the 4x4/ATV crowd? Is it passable by mountain bike?

BaltOhio wrote:Careful study of topo maps between Burnt Cabins and Donegal reveal much of this graded right-of-way.
Thanks for the pointer.

Between this and my plans to mountain bike sections of the OOS EBT, looks like I might need a second week of vacation time for all this ferroequinarchaeology!



I saw a photo on a website devoted to the abandoned PA TPKE tunnels. One photo showed a cut stone r.r culvert near Sideling Hill. It's length is reported to be 250'. Might someone be able to calculate how high the fill would have been above this culvert? Here's a deep link to the picture:

<http://my.en.com/~johnb/patpke2.htm>

* JB *

 #199921  by BaltOhio
 
Most, if not all, of the South Penn's graded sections have reverted to nature, so it takes some work to follow them. One person who has is Russell Love, who lives near Pittsburgh. He has produced a CD that covers his explorations of the entire South Penn route, both the graded portions and the portions where no work was even started. His web site is: southpennrailroad.com.
 #200226  by henry6
 
NY RT 17/I86 was made possible by the EL merger and the abandonment of DL&W trackage especially from Vestal to Elmira and parts through Corning. In the Catskills of NY, RT 17 benifeted in many places by the loss of the NYO&W tracks. In W.S. Young's new book about Tunkannock Viaduct and the DL&W Clarks Summit to Halstead Cut Off, he notes that one of the plans talked about would have elminated Scranton on an alignment close to I81 of today. I am willing to be that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of such interstate highway alignments across the country which are there because of abandoned rail rights of way or othre failed plans.

 #201559  by choess
 
The B&O owned most of the South Penn ROW for a time via the Fulton, Bedford & Somerset RR. For a time they had trackage rights over the PRR from Hydman to Mann's Choice; had they ever used the FB&S, they would have diverged here onto the South Penn and run west to Somerset, bypassing Sand Patch.

 #201604  by BaltOhio
 
Interesting that the B&O had trackage rights between Hyndman and Mann's Choice. Do you know when, and whether they were ever actually exercised? In the early 1900s, B&O had several plans for using the ex-South Penn right-of-way, but these were mostly oriented to a mainline connection around Hancock or Rockwood (the former using new construction, the latter using the S&C branch from Somerset). I never saw one using PRR west of Hyndman, but it could be.

At that time, the B&O and PRR were closely allied (and in fact, B&O was under PRR management 1901-04). In effect, the two railroads split the old South Penn route between them, with B&O assuming ownership west of Everett and a PRR subsidiary owing it east of there. The idea was to render the South Penn route useless for any potential new competitor -- e.g., George Gould, or someone like him. Once the B&O had its portion of the line, it made several attempts to figure out a use for it, but of course nothing ever materialized.

B&O (via the Fulton, Bedford & Somerset) owned the route until it was sold for the turnpike about 1938.

 #203147  by choess
 
According to Chris Baer's history online, the trackage rights were never exercised and were held March 23, 1904 &ndash; April 12, 1922. I assumed, though I have no proof, that the destination would be Somerset, since it's the closest point at which the B&O intersects the South Penn grade to the west (excepting the coal branch to Dovey). At least in connection with these trackage rights, Hancock-Everett-Hyndman seems rather roundabout, so I think looking west is a safe assumption.

The PRR subsidiary, incidentally, was the confusingly named Southern Pennsylvania Ry. & Mining Co., which built the line from Marion (on the Cumberland Valley) to Mercersburg Jct. to Mercersburg and Richmond. Why, I don't know; they would have had to run a ways up Path Valley to reach the South Penn grade.

 #203356  by BaltOhio
 
What is Chris Baer's "history online"? I know Chris, and he certainly knows his stuff, but I wasn't aware that he had gotten much into the South Penn story or posted anything on it.

I think it's highly doubtful that the PRR had any intention of using its portion of the South Penn property. I stronly suspect that it used the Southern Pennsylvania Ry. & Mining Co. (which was actually a Cumberland Valley subsidiary) as a regulatory dodge, since it was twice-removed from the PRR itself and since it was also close enough the the South Penn to make some slight sense. (Remember that the Pennsy had been burned when the Vanderbilt-Roberts-Morgan agreement was challenged and declared illegal under PA law.) Most of the PRR's part of the South Penn went through an almost total traffic vacuum; the only viable section was already served by the Cumberland Valley. The PRR just wanted the South Penn out of the way and forgotten. People had been trying to breathe life back into it as late as the 1890s, and as long as it was a wild card, it was a threat.