[PRCo] Re: Reminescent of Pittsburgh

Tue Jun 10 15:18:27 EDT 2008

There were some other definitions which you should not overlook:

(1) Within the United States, the Interstate Commerce Commission,  
whose responsibility has been succeeded by the Federal Railroad  
Administration, had their definition.  Without taking the time to  
search for days in my now now-existent library or go to a law library  
and hunt, essentially the ICC said that if the carrier was a  
significant part of the national network, it was a "railroad."   If  
it was peripheral to the national network, even though it may have  
carried some interchange freight (in limited quantities), it was an  
"interurban railway."  DRPA's Lindenwold High Speed Line was created  
under the ICC as an interurban in 1968.   Interurbans had different  
standard financial accounting practices than "steam railroads" under  
ICC rules.    The ICC definition applied even if the carrier was  
totally intrastate in nature.  The Lackawanna and Wyoming Valley  
Railroad, running from Scranton to Moosic to Pittston to Wilkes-Barre  
from 1903 to 1952 as a passenger carrier and later as a freight  
carrier, was a railroad according to the ICC although most railfans  
may have regarded it as an interurban.   The Laurel Line behaved like  
a railroad ... not only did it haul anthracite from the mines and  
interchange it, and haul carload and LCL freight, but its agents also  
sold interline passenger tickets.  They had joint tariffs between  
Laurel Line points and New York City via the Lackawanna.

(2) Individual states may have had their own definitions of what was  
a railroad and what was an interurban or street railway or passenger  
railway.  Pennsylvania allowed companies to be chartered as  
"passenger railways" or "railroads."   One of the principal  
advantages of the latter was the right of eminent domain.   The  
Philadelphia and Western Railroad was incorporated four times, twice  
as a railroad during the construction phases (1907 and 1912) in order  
to take advantage of property condemnation provisions in the law, and  
then after building as a passenger railway circa 1908 and 1913.   One  
of the things that always intrigued me about the P&W was that they  
were one of only two passenger railway in the commonwealth that  
successful avoided filing an annual report to the Department of  
Internal Affairs throughout its entire existence.   Perhaps  
rechartering over and over kept the state confused?   (The other was  
Fairmount Park Transportation Company and I am wondering if it might  
have been that the Woodside Park owned the trolley and not the other  
way around as we have always believed?)

    Ed Lybarger has done a lot of reading of passenger railway  
charters in an successful effort to debunk the myths about  
Pennsylvania broad gauge trolley lines.  He may wish to address the  
Commonwealth's definition on what a "passenger railway" was.   I can  
state this much ... it goes way back to the time of the first horse  
car lines in the state.   Many of you may have noticed that the  
earliest ones often had the name Passenger Railway in their name,  
such as Citizen's Passenger Railway, the 1859 horse car line from  
34th Street to downtown Pittsburgh along Penn Avenue.

(3)  My friend of almost a lifetime, Bill Middleton, used a very  
simple definition in his book The Interurban Era.   I'm going to take  
that back.   Maybe it isn't it the book.   Perhaps it is simply that  
he purveyed that definition during a conversation we were having in  
1964 when Don Duke and Bill and I were photographing the Liberty  
Liners on the P&W together.  That was the one I gave you ... a  
electric railway linking two cities.   Bill always loved to include  
the Philadelphia and Western in the category of interurbans and  
certainly it was in 1912 when everything between 63rd Street (the  
Philadelphia city limits) and Norristown was rural with an occasional  
village along a country road or along the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Did we put this to rest?   Probably not.

fws3

On Jun 10, 2008, at 1:53 PM, Bill Robb wrote:

> That's true, but I was thinking main line vs interurban.  What I  
> came up with was.
> Interurban--primarily local passenger service, closely spaces  
> stations, intense usually equal-interval service (half-hourly or  
> hourly), often built beside steam railways, sharper curves
> Main Line--stations more widely spaced, five, six trains at most a  
> day, longer gentle curves
> In looking at 15 major Japanese interurbans the characteristics  
> also include up to five classes of limited service,  stations 1-2  
> km. apart, floor level station platforms, trains up to 12 car  
> trains in length, double track main lines with strategically placed  
> four track stations where fast limited trains over take slow  
> trains, each line operates as a self-contained entity without  
> branches.  Where branches exist they operate as separate lines.  
> Gauges, mainly 1067mm, with 1372mm  (Tokyo tram gauge) plus  
> 1435mm.  Voltage is now generally 1500V DC from overhead on  
> interurbans and most subway lines.
> Bill Robb
>
>
> Definition of interurban?  Go back to  junior high school Latin ...
> inter = between, urban = cities.
>
> On Jun 7, 2008, at 10:26 PM, Phillip Clark Campbell wrote:
>
>> ----- Original Message ----
>>> From: Bill Robb <bill937ca at yahoo.ca>
>>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>>> Sent: Monday, June 2, 2008 2:44:00 PM
>>> Subject: [PRCo] Reminescent of Pittsburgh
>>>
>>> This is a page I stumbled upon while searching for a defintion of
>>> interurban.
>>> It's a system in Poland near the border with Russia and Germany.
>>> You'll see red
>>> and cream cars, blast furnances, passing sidings in streets,
>>> private right of
>>> way operation and as the page says "the chronic lack of funds is
>>> visible on
>>> every step" Only urgent repairs are being made to rolling stock and
>>> infrastructure. But still there are relatively modern cars on wide
>>> headways like
>>> Pittsburgh. Popular with the railfans too.
>> http://www.p.lodz.pl/I35/personal/jw37/urbtr/sl-dabr-inurb.html
>>> Bill Robb
>>
>>
>> Thank you Mr.Robb; there are some interesting similarities and many
>> PCCes as well aren't there.
>>
>>
>> Charleroi:
>>
>> http://www.p.lodz.pl/I35/personal/jw37/urbtr/images/anderlues-
>> sncv1.jpg
>>
>> http://www.p.lodz.pl/I35/personal/jw37/urbtr/images/anderlues-
>> sncv2.jpg
>>
>> http://www.p.lodz.pl/I35/personal/jw37/urbtr/images/thuin.jpg
>>
>>
>> Other Foreign:
>>
>> Junction in Brussels:
>> http://www.p.lodz.pl/I35/personal/jw37/urbtr/images/brux/brux-4.jpg
>>
>> http://www.p.lodz.pl/I35/hist/rehimage/bruxelles-metro3-wezel.jpg
>>
>> http://www.p.lodz.pl/I35/personal/jw37/urbtr/images/brux/brux-
>> ii-14.jpg
>>
>> This is listed as a resilient crossing:
>> http://www.p.lodz.pl/I35/personal/jw37/urbtr/images/brux/brux-18.jpg
>>
>> Tram roundabout in Brussels?
>> http://www.p.lodz.pl/I35/personal/jw37/urbtr/images/bruxelles-
>> barriere.jpg
>>
>> http://www.p.lodz.pl/I35/personal/jw37/urbtr/images/brux/brux- 
>> ii-8.jpg
>>
>> http://www.p.lodz.pl/I35/personal/jw37/urbtr/images/brux/brux- 
>> ii-6.jpg
>>
>> http://www.p.lodz.pl/I35/personal/jw37/urbtr/images/brux/brux-1.jpg
>>
>> http://www.p.lodz.pl/I35/personal/jw37/urbtr/images/brux/brux-
>> ii-11.jpg
>>
>>
>> http://www.p.lodz.pl/I35/personal/jw37/urbtr/tramshots.html#sl-zagl
>>
>>
>> Phil
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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