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

[Derrick J Brashear]

Bill dropped off the list, then posted a whole bunch of stuff,
which all bounced. I'm forwarding it now...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Vigrass, Bill" <billvigrass at hillintl.com>
Subject: RE: Pittsburgh  Guardrails  Was: [Re: Johnstown PCC Scans & a Pit
	tsburgh Fantasy]
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 12:44:48 -0400

And don't forget that Altoona & Logan Valley Electric Ralway was 5' 3"
gauge. The wide gauges are all variations on a theme, it started with
5'2", to allow wagons to run ON the tramrails of horsecar lines.  With
std gauge, the right hand wagon wheel wore out the bricks provided by
the railway company.  Evidently wagons were about 5 ft inside the rim.
There are variations on the them with Trenton, NJ having four gauges:
std, 4' 8 1/2" Public Service Fast Line and Trenton-Princeton Traction
Co.; 5' 0" (Public Service Railway Co. Camden line), 5' 2" Trenton
Traction Co city lines and 5' 2 1/5" PA and NJ Traction to Morrisville
PA  (may have been '2 1/4, I dunno for sure).  There were lotsagauges.
Bill Vigrass 

> ----------
> From: 	Charlesebrown at webtv.net[SMTP:Charlesebrown at webtv.net]
> Reply To: 	pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> Sent: 	Sunday, July 18, 1999 4:31 AM
> To: 	pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> Subject: 	Re: Pittsburgh  Guardrails  Was: [Re: Johnstown PCC
> Scans & a Pittsburgh Fantasy]
> 
> 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
>