[PRCo] Re: New Railfans, Historians and Lack of Background Knowledge

[Fred Schneider]

Maybe Ed looked that one up.   He looked up a lot of franchises and  
published the reasons in Trolley Fare.   There were dozens of  
different reasons ... the company next to us was using this gauge;  
the local buggy manufacturer made buggies with wheels x - inches  
apart; we don't want trains on our streets; on and on and on and  
on.    Ed looked up all the reasons.

There were more standard gauge companies in Pennsylvania than board  
gauge.

But because the largest companies were broad gauge, there were more  
miles of track and more cars that were broad gauge.

Philadelphia Rapid Transit; Southern Penn; Phila. Suburban, Trenton,  
Bristol and Philadelphia were 62 1/4 inches.

Trenton and Mercer County; Bucks County Interurban, Lancaster,  
Pittsburgh, West Penn, Harrisburg, Reading, Hershey were 62 1/2  
inches.  I think West Chester St. and WCK&W were also 62 1/2 inches.

Altoona was 63 inches.

Allentown, Erie and most of the northern properties were standard gauge.

Allentown and Reading Traction was 62 1/2 on the south end, 56 1/2 on  
the north end and the Kutztown car barn had dual gauge tracks.   
Tracks in Kutztown also were three rail.



On Sep 8, 2007, at 12:13 PM, Derrick J Brashear wrote:

> On Sat, 8 Sep 2007, Fred Schneider wrote:
>
>> will eventually vanish because society doesn't need it.   In time we
>> won't care about motorman's day cards used by West Penn Railways.  Or
>> why Altoona had a unique 63 inch track gauge.  And half the cars in
>> our trolley museums will also disappear.   Sadly, they won't all be
>> the duplicates that go either.
>
> Why 63 inches?
>
>