Choices in single tracking former EL in WNY/PA under Conrail

Can anyone tell me more about Conrail's decisions as to which EL track to keep during its various single-tracking projects in western New York (Meadville/Buffalo to Honnell)? For example, I know the former EB main was removed in the Union City/Cambridge Springs area due to the condition/maintenance of bridges on the newer, lower-grade EB line. But why was the remaining WB line swung back to the EB west of Corry, as opposed to maintaining the WB line all the way to Columbus? Was the higher-density EB line generally in better shape, and favored for the line to keep whenver possible?

Also particularly curious about the thinking north of Hornell thorugh the Swain area.

Thanks.

Bewteen Hornell and River Junction Conrail used the former westward track as the main track, with the eastward track being limited to 10 MPH. This appeared to be the custom long before they single-tracked this portion.

This must have been due to the eastward track taking more of a beating than the westbound (due to the predominantly eastbound traffic pattern?) and by the time Conrail came along the westbound track looked better. I also wonder if they ran westbound trains between Hornell and River Jct. on the eastward main so that they could swing over to the River Line without having to reduce speed.

As I write this it seems to me that in some photo taken in the late E-L days it showed welded rail on the westbound track, but I have no idea where I saw it.

There must be someone out there who can answer up.

Corporate politics played a large role in determing how the lines in would be single-tracked, downgraded or just removed.

Between 1900 and 1910 in an effort to modernize, the Erie built the River Line, the low-grade line between Jamestown and Corry (whose name escapes me at the moment), and the Graham Line primarily as freight bypasses of high-grade lines. The three original segments these new lines replaced were retained for passenger routes, as they passed through population centers, such as they were, and remained in place up to the Conrail era.

Conrail was managed primarily by managers from dominant Penn Central (who mostly dated to the PRR and NYC days). They were eager to maintain their feifdoms and also wanted to see their favorite routes survive, a posture many say clouded the judgment of many early CR business decisions.

The Erie main posed a major threat to the PRR and NYC routes to Chicago, particularly for intermodal traffic. Most of the through freight traffic was quickly shifted to the PRR-NYC routes, but as long as the Erie tracks remained, they posed a threat. So in name of consolidating redundant routes, some of the most baffling decisions ever made in railroading took place. Rather than remove unused older routes, Conrail decided to remove the three low-grade freight bypass routes. The spectacular Belfast Viaduct on the River Line was quickly dynamited and the Jamestown-Corry route was ripped up. (The state of New York, which was eyeing the Graham Line and the equally spectacular Moondna Viaduct for rerouted Metro-North trains to Port Jervis, stepped in and saved that line.) This had the effect of rendering the once-swift Erie a throwback to its 19th Century effeciency.

As the 80s progressed, and the ex NYC and PRR lines became entrenched as the favored routes, the Erie route again began to pose a threat, this time to Conrail's Northeast rail monopoly. Although relegated to second-class status, with its western portion to Chicago torn up, the route from the New York City area to Buffalo was very much intact, and very attractive to competing railroads, which by then were being encouraged by the government to bring alternative rail options to the Northeast. Conrail selling the Erie line between NJ/NY and Buffalo would have been like shooting itself in the foot. CR sat on the line for a long time, and single-tracked much of it, again, in the name of efficiency, but in reality to make the line much less attractive to a potential suitor. CR flirted with offers from the Canadian Pacific and Canadian National, but was apparently was never really serious about selling. (CR set a ridiculous price for the line.)

This came back to bite CR in the hind end. When it downgraded the Erie main, Conrail envisioned itself as going it alone, maintaining its lock on the Northeast. When CR was instead split and merged into competing Norfolk Souther and CSX, the NS would have greatly benefited from having the Erie main intact and up to track speed. Ironically, it is now the competing Canadian railroads that are using the tracks today, competing with CSX and NS.

Interesting, did the cost of line maintenance factor in to any decisions?
Viaducts mentioned may have been a headache. The Moodena Viaduct
hasnt been painted or coated in years...the brush beneath the structure
was finally cut last year. No doubt this will decrease some of the rusting but
at some point somebody will have a stiff repair bill on their hands.

One reason that many eastern railroads, including the Erie and its successors, retired the eastward track in many locations was the corrosive effect of brine drippings on bridges. Meat reefers had salt in the ice to lower the temperature, and the brine dripped from the ice bunkers onto the track and bridges. There are many bridges out there with heavy corrosion in the floor beams and stringers on the south side of the eastward track from that single factor.

By keeping the former westward track in service, they can get a higher rating on the bridges because the loads are kept toward the better side of the bridge.

Very few steel railroad bridges have been painted in the past 25 years. The cost of preparing the surface and painting is prohibitive. Moodna Viaduct has lost very little steel, even though it has virtually no paint on it. The surface corrosion on the mild steel used on railroad bridges actually seals the surface, and becomes a passive coating. The few locations of active corrosion can be spot painted or repaired when necessary.

Moodna Viaduct was actually designed to carry two tracks - you can see the connection angles for the additional outside girders on the cross girders at the top of each bent. The two present track girders were to be the inside girders of tracks 1 and 2. The addition of one more track would have called for reinforcement of the columns - each column has empty rivet holes provided for adding plates to the columns. That was a common practice on the Erie after about 1908 (not on Kinzua or Portage).

The vegetation under Moodna was out of control, and Norfolk Southern started removing it as soon as they took over the bridge in 1999. It took a few years to complete the job, because it was not the highest priority and the work could best be done in the fall and winter months.

I thought it was gantleted until the diesel era. Was this so?

Quite a story about the saline spillage! Most interesting.

Moodna Viaduct was a gantlet while the Graham Line was double-track from the time of its construction until some time before April, 1957 (my oldest NY Division Timetable). When the Graham Line was single-tracked between East MQ and NJ, the gantlet was removed.

Differences between the "green" and "red" teams at Conrail were put aside in order that anything resembling a possible competition to either of those favored routes was decimated and decapitated or otherwise obliterated. So if removing a spike here, a switch there, or a rail over that, meant crippling the shorter, wider, less congested route, it was so ordered. The EL was delivering UPS traffic Chi to NJ better (faster, reliably) than any PC routeing could and therefore had to be severed and downgraded wherever and whenever possible. The NJ Cut Off was ripped up less someone get the idea of running faster west from Port Morris than one could from the shore of the Hudson. And so it went from spike to spike between Hoboken/Jersey City to Chicago. Buffalo snowed in, Pittsburgh bottled up, nowhere else to run, so customer: "GTH! Its my railroad and Ill pry if I want to."

To give the green and red their just due, however, it must also be noted that the EL was forced upon them after the EL unions rejected the CSX offering which also was after Norfolk Western turned their backs on Dereco.

I've heard over the years that there was spillage of saline saturated water from railcars between the East Coast and Buffalo on the DL&W mainline. Not sure if it was on the east bound or the west bound freight trains. The best example near my home was the former DL&W mainline trestle over the Genesee River at Mount Morris, New York where one side of the trestle showed considerably more corrosion from the salt dripping. This particular trestle came into play recently when the G&W salvaged 1/2 of this trestle to be moved and used for the new branchline to the American Rock Salt Mine near Mt. Morris. One side of the Genesee River trestle was in much better condition than the opposite side due to "rust" and detoriation. Comments and/or observations?

Was the Erie really downgraded out of spite? If the EL was a late addition to Conrail (everyone was certain EL was going to Chessie System at the time), and if Conrail was all about slimming down and becoming competitive... I mean, you couldn't save everything, right? *something* had to go. EL was the late guest to the party, and I'm sure suffered the most since the Conrail planners hadn't expected them to show up.

If the route was so important and competitive, why didnt any other roads make an offer for the EL? Probably because of EL's debt and the difficulty with the labor unions. Could routes be purchased from the EL estate, or was everything conveyed to Conrail? Perhaps a shortline or regional could have done something with EL's west end.

I could go on, but I think I'm drifting away from the original topic.

-otto-

Every railroad that hauled fresh meat out of the midwest in reefers suffered the same damage to bridges and track from the brine drippings coming from the ice bunkers. Meat cars (but not fruit and vegetables) were maintained at a colder temperature by adding salt to the ice, which lowers the melting temperature. The eastward tracks suffered, because that was the loaded direction of the meat cars.

Many bridges on the Erie, Lackawanna, New York Central, PRR and others had more corrosion on the south portion of the floor beams from that source. If a double track bridge is to have one track removed, you can get a higher rating on the remaining track if it is on the good side of the bridge. NYC also used copper-bearing tie plates on the eastward freight tracks to reduce corrosion (they can be identified by letters CU in the cast brand), and they used "brine blocks" as fillers between bridge ties over the stringers and girders to protect them from the brine drippings.

One bridge on the Erie, over Oquaga Creek at Deposit, is the exception. It suffered more corrosion on the westward track. The steam helper engines started pushing there toward Gulf Summit with their cylinder cocks open, and the condensed steam caused more corrosion.

Conrail did not downgrade the Erie out of spite. There was actually very litttle if any emotion involved in the decision. The NYC was a more efficient route for most traffic, with highly developed class yards, lighter grades, and initially better track. Consolidated Rail Corporation had actually begun rehab on Penn Central almost a year before conveyance, under the auspices of the United States Railway Association.

The Erie consisted of mostly jointed rail which was reaching end of its useful life, and rehabbing that railroad at the same time as the NYC and PRR routes would have seriously delayed the operating advantages gained from that work.

Even in 1975, before conveyance, Conrail had developed a very complex and useful system for setting priorities on track rehab projects, based on future maintenance costs and the effect on operations of removing slow orders. The numbers did not favor pouring money into the former EL.

One of the people instrumental in making that system work was my former boss on the D&H, who went over to the EL in 1968 at the same time I did. I went back to the D&H later, but he stayed on and went to Conrail on the advance planning team. There was no spite or rivalry involved in those decisions.

Otto, it wasn't spite, necessarily, but rather a "I don't want it but you can't have it" business decision to stifle any chance of competition. Not really petty on one hand but could be construed as such. Short sighted, maybe, for Conrail management, but remember their big political backing came form the cities and counties along the Water Level and PRR MAIN routes and not the backwater Erie lines. Also, the traffic generated on those lines was greater than that generated on the Erie. They knew the value of the route for point to point operations but had to look at generating their revenues along the way. It was comfortable, too, for them to use what they already knew rather than a new property. Same kind of thinking holds true today when NS, CP,CSX, Guilford, etc., hold on to a few miles of a branch line rather than letting the whole thing go to a shortline operator!

Chief Troll makes a good point about EL rail. This factor is almost always overlooked by historians of EL's demise.

From the late Fifties onward, Erie, DL&W, and EL were seldom able to put together the cash to undertake large-scale rail projects, especially in view of the urgent need for other more urgent capital expenditures. EL narrowly avoided bankruptcy in 1963 and was in trouble again by 1969.

As a result, while NYC and PC had been steadily converting to continuous welded rail (CWR), EL's main track still included a lot of 112, 115, 130, and 131 lb. stick rail. On the "old main line" via Wellsville, eleven miles of 1920s 110 lb. rail remained. Some of the 112 and all of the 110 and 130 was rolled before control cooling of rail was required, meaning that it probably exhibited higher rates of internal defects. (I believe that at least some of the 127 lb. rail that was the NYC's mainline standard, which was cropped and welded all across the system, was also non-control-cooled.)

Much of the time, the 131 could have been cropped and welded for continued use on EL's main line. Likewise, control-cooled 112 and 115 lb rail was suitable for re-use as either CWR or stick rail on branch lines and in main line passing sidings.

Occasionally, it is alleged that management was slow to undertake the single-tracking projects that might have permitting concentrating limited resources on fewer tracks. Certainly, by the early 1970s EL was still attempting to maintain way too many miles of double track. However, this criticism overlooks the fact that single-tracking projects required up-front capital investments in signals and switches, if they were done right. The hatchet job that was done on the Delaware Division in 1973 showed the harm that could result when it was done on the cheap.

Another little factor is that the 131 and heavier rail used a different size tie plate than the 110, 112 and 115 rail, meaning that the spike holes fell in different places.

In hindsight, EL's installation of CWR in Western New York and Pennsylvania seems carefully calibrated to the gross tonnage over each line segment. Perhaps this simply reflected head wear and curve wear at the time. Example: The Buffalo Division westbound track between Hornell and River Junction, which saw most Allegany Division freight traffic in addition to Buffalo trains. Or the single track segment of the main line between RH (west of Steamburg) and Waterboro. Or the Columbus & Erie RR from about MP 7 to Columbus, which functioned as the eastward main line and I believe also handled some westbound traffic by the 1970s. Or the single-track line west of Meadville. Many short segments of CWR apparently were necessitated by excessive head wear or curve wear of the predecessor stick rail.

A study of the available data indicates that Erie Lackawanna's installation of CWR in western New York and northwestern PA occurred predominantly in 1966--when EL had a little cash and a supply of heavy rail from the DL&W--and in 1974-75, when the company was spending government loan funds.

Most of the time, the presence of CWR in the track played a major role in Conrail's single-tracking decisions, although bridges, sidetracks, and other were also big factors. In the late '70s and early '80s, Conrail welded rail program was hungry for reusable CWR and stick rail that could serve as feedstock (no different from EL's treatment of DL&W lines in WNY). When studied up close, however, Conrail's single-tracking of the former EL main line usually left the existing CWR in place.

Regarding the larger question of what-lines-did-Conrail-keep-and-why: Erie Lackawanna, which had historically functioned as NYC's competitive shadow, was a stepchild within Conrail. The ex-EL lines were redundant only because they were owned by Conrail. Had they been owned by Chessie or N&W, or by MARC-EL, they would have been core main lines and presumably would have been rebuilt with CWR, just as Conrail did to the still-significant mileage of ex-NYC and PRR main lines that remained stick rail in 1976.

Toward the end, there is no question that Conrail sought to abandon a large segment of the former EL between Hornell and Meadville in order to prevent a potential connection between CSXT and D&H. This is not speculation; it was stated by David LeVan in a 1995 meeting with Congressman Amo Houghton, in which I was present. That policy was echoed many times by his subordinates, who understood well enough that defending the monopoly was always the prime directive.

WDB

WDBs assessment on the survival of former EL west of Hornell is correct. The Corning Leader neswpaper and Railpace magazine both had articles circa 1995 on the development of a Southwest New York rail authority which wished to restore service to the old Erie main, which had gone dormant between Hornell and Corry about 4 years earlier. CR was quite ruthless in making surethat neither D&H nor NYS&W could complete a connection to CSX at Pittsburgh, going so far as to remove a section of track at Corry to prevent it. The courts intervened and the tracks were relaid. Keep in mind that CR could be quite the bully- witness the 1983 removal of the old DL&W at the Lackawanna Cut-Off in spite of a court order telling them NOT to do so!

It's quite ironic that NS now uses the former Erie main in the manner today that had been proposed by D&H.

The subject of the western end of the former Erie is covered in an xcellent book by H. Roger Grant called ERIE LACKAWANNA: Death Of An American Railroad 1938-1992. It's a virtual bible on the EL and its predecessors. Plus it even quotes one WD Burt!

I recall a comment in Grants book by N and W's John Fishwick right around the time they shipped him off to assume the takeover of the E-L, in the DERECO deal. " The Erie-Lackawanna is sort of uneccesary because you have the New York Central to the north and the PRR to the south etc. " I was shocked thinking that to be, a rather incendiary statement to make publicly. In the final analysis that was exactly the thinking of most PC people. I have most of the Morning Sun E-L books and the road bed and track pictured looked beat right into the ground after 1972. It was a true testimony to all the E-L people that not only did they hang on till 1976 they gave the PC some very serious competition.