electrification project

sometime ago I heard that the PRR and NYC was looking into electrifying to Chicago. PRR with the overhead wiring and NYC with 3rd rail. Why couldn't they do this?

This would've been great for Amtrak considering more service to Chicago from NYP or GCT and the route from NY-Chicago would've had concrete ties and be the most longest electrified coridoor. Longer then the NEC plus there would be Acela service. Instead of 16-18 hrs it probably would take 12 or 13 if the Acela ran from NYP-Chicago.

I have heard about this as well. I would belive why they didn't do this is because of the distance and assosiated costs, power needs, etc. Imagine how many substation and generating plants you would need in those days for an NYC to Chicago electrified route? Also, there is the fact of the Mountains and IIRC, don't high grades greatly affect the performance of electric locomotives? Anyway, whos says the juice would still even be around today? And if so, who says Acela's would run on it?

I figured if enough trains were run on the line by PRR and NYC it can be busy as the NEC. It would be great if the Acela ran on the NYP-Chicago run considering that now it take around 16-18 hours. Acela could cut it down to 12. That will bring even more people to the route. Not only would it qualify for the longest distance of high speed rail in the US but maybe even the world.

I had not heard of the PRR considering electrification to Chicago. They did very seriously consider electrifying the Altoona to Johnstown run with third rail. In fact the FF1 was designed for that service. It was far too powerful for the Hudson tubes.

After the overhead electrification reached Harrisburg, the Pennsy did study extending the wire to Pittsburgh. But one of the big hurdles the Pennsy would have had to overcome was funding. The US government provided the loans for the NEC electification to provide jobs during the depression. That funding was no longer available to extend the wire further west.

Too bad that Pittsburg electrification didn't happen otherwise the air would be alot more cleaner and the service would be more frequent. With the frequent service more people would definantly take the train and the city of Pittsburg would be even popular like Phili. Plus more jobs would've been created had that happened.

The US Government missed out on this and on not following through on an idea of electrifying NYC-Chicago.

I unlocked this forum , so if you want to post here you may.

Len.

Mountain grades actually DON'T affect electrics much - they generally have enough reserve power to maintain track speed. In fact, grade climing ability is one of electric's strong points - they run circles around diesels in that area.

Remember, the GG-1s could start and accelerate a train in the NYT Penn tunnels, and did it regularly. And they could do it quickly, just like today's stuff can. I doubt you'd find a single unit diesel in the same situation, with the same train, that could comne close.

The time to have done a PGH electrification was after WWII, when rectifier technology was all but off the shelf. With 60hz feeding the system, it would have been MUCH cheaper to build.

The PRR never had any plans, serious or not, to electrify all the way to Chicago. Not even they could have afforded such a thing. And that's even considering that, financially speaking, they were the "Microsoft" of the Roaring Twenties. Their step-by-step electrification of eastern lines was already very expensive. Aside from some serious studies of Altoona-Johnstown and Harisburg-Pittsburgh, that was it.

While PRR tinkered with improved electric AC designs for new motive power, the NYC went in a different direction...they bet the farm on advanced steam technology. Hudsons, Mohawks, Super-Hudsons, etc. ... that was their way of dealing with increased traffic. As for NYC's existing electrification, their older DC third-rail scheme was relatively inefficient. The necessity of substations every few miles in a long-distance 3rd-rail would have eaten up their capital funds in no time. Why bother with it (or even with DC catenary) when you already have the best steamers in town?

I read some time ago that PRR costed a Harrisburg-Pittsburg electrification in the late 1940's and found they could afford the capital either to electrify to Pittsburgh, or to dieselize steam operations, but not both. So even though electrification would have been beneficial, it just wasn't going to happen. I believe the NYC looked at electrifying NY to Cleveland around the same time and presumably got the same sort of result.

It would have been a terrible waste of money. Look at the PHL-HBG run today, we can't even get electric locos on that segement of the line or good track. Plus with the track being out of Amtrak's hands west of HBG, who says NS would have even kept the wires up? Contrail took them down from the Trenton Cutoff as soon as they could.

While the topic of "what if the electrification wnet to Pittsburgh" appeared to be "off topic" at that Forum, I thought I would share comments I made there regarding this supposition:

"The electrification to Harrisburg was completed during 1938, by the time any additional work could be considered, WWII intervened, where, with a few exceptions here and there, the railroad industry had to "make do wiith what they got". Unfortunately, after WWII, the PRR chose to "rest on its laurels' as the "Standard Railroad of the World" making, beyond diesel locomotives, only minimal investments in infrastructure and equipment (especially passenger).

This of course was in sharp contrast with its principal competitor. the New York Central, that quickly recognized after WWII that old ways were the harbinger of extinction and sought with some degree of success to rectify such.

However, Conrail was the "great DE-electrifier" that deactivated all non-passenger electrification within five years after C-Day. With the great efficiencies realized by the current generation diesel locomotives and with our worldwide indiference towards exhaustion of a finite resource (eviction of the current tennant @ 1600 on Jan 20 and/or the "powers that be" in Beijing will hardly change that), I believe that the freight electrification, other than the several "captive' electric utility railroads about", will remain extinct.

While hardly technical in nature and scope, a great read, assuming you can find it somewhere, is William D. Middleton's "When the Steam Railroads Electrified" published by Kalmbach about thirty years ago".

I remember after the end of the electrification to Harrisburg the PRR looking into extending service further west. Their first target was not Chicago, it was Pittsburgh. However there later was consideration to extend passenger service further west over the main line to Chicago. Neither of these propositions ever cme to fruition as a result of:
It was the late 1930s and we were still hurting from the great depression
Then the forties came with that start of WWII, our supplies ran thin, and ridership reached highs
And then of course I am sure many of us remember what happened to the Pennsy after WWII

Elwood