Pittsburgh Guardrails Was: [Re: Johnstown PCC Scans & a Pittsburgh Fantasy]

[Charles Brown]

Thanks once again, Jim, for answering my many questions!  I'm sure
learning a lot from you and others on this list.  I appreciated the
guard rail information, particularly on how trucks travel around curves.
Never thought that much about it, but what you said makes sense (and
thanks for explaining it in such a way that even I could understand it,
not an easy accomplishment).

I didn't even realize that Philadelphia had a different gauge, albeit by
only a quarter of an inch.  Thought that all of your Pennsylvania
systems were built to the same gauge.  So how well do the Philly cars
operate at PTM?

You shamed me into getting off my butt and digging out the Baltimore
book.  In regards to the origin of their gauge, here is what it says:
An Ordinance was passed on March 28, 1859, which set "the provision that
the gauge be 'the same as that of ordinary street carriages.'"  I don't
quite know what they mean by that.  It is my understanding that
Pittsburgh's gauge was so that wagons could travel inside the rails
where it was smoother?  If that's the case, why did Baltimore have wider
carriages (maybe they had bigger horses' rear ends there)?

An amusing story regarding the gauge concerns a proposed standard-gauge
interurban from Washington DC that contracted with United Railways to
use the tracks of the Baltimore local system to gain entrance to
downtown from Ellicott City.  To solve the gauge problem, the interurban
would switch trucks under their cars at Ellicott City.  The East Broad
Top used a similar method, but I would think that switching electric car
trucks would be a bit more complicated (not to mention time-consuming)!

Gee, you know, in between going thru the Cincinnati and Baltimore books,
I'm finding out that those systems were quite interesting too.  Maybe
I'll ditch this list and join their's... :-)

In regards to my trip, I had planned on going back to my little mobile
home on the Texas prairie (Ken calls it tornado bait) via Tucson and El
Paso, but I don't know if I can tear myself away from this list for a
week.   

Charlie

Charlesebrown at webtv.net