 | |
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Locale | Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Dates of operation | 1876–1884 |
| Predecessor | Pittsburgh, Castle Shannon and Washington Railroad, Pittsburgh Railroad, Washington Railroad |
| Successor | Baltimore and Ohio Short Line Railroad |
| Technical | |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge |
| Previous gauge | 3 ft (914 mm) gauge |
| Length | 37 miles (60 km) |
The Pittsburgh Southern Railway was a railroad system that was located in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States.
This American railroad system was formed in March 1879 through the merger of the 3 ft (914 mm) narrow gauge Pittsburgh Southern Railroad (which was the 3 ft 4 in (1,016 mm) narrow gauge Pittsburgh, Castle Shannon and Washington Railroad [1] from July 1877 to April 1878), Pittsburgh Railroad, and Washington Railroad. It ran from Washington to Castle Shannon, where it connected to the Pittsburgh and Castle Shannon Railroad.
An attempt to use the 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge Little Saw Mill Run Railroad as a substitute connection to Pittsburgh using dual gauge track led to the Castle Shannon Railroad War of 1878. [2] [3]
It was converted to 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge in 1883. Purchased by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad on November 20, 1884, it was reorganized as the Baltimore & Ohio Short Line Railroad.
A narrow-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard 1,435 mm. Most narrow-gauge railways are between 600 mm and 1,067 mm.
A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of 1,435 mm. The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge, international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge and European gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the most widely used track gauge around the world, with about 55% of the lines in the world using it. All high-speed rail lines use standard gauge except those in Russia, Finland, and Uzbekistan. The distance between the inside edges of the rails is defined to be 1,435 mm except in the United States and on some heritage British lines, where it is defined in U.S. customary/Imperial units as exactly "four feet eight and one half inches", which is equivalent to 1,435.1 mm.
A broad-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge broader than the 1,435 mm used by standard-gauge railways.
In rail transport, track gauge is the distance between the two rails of a railway track. All vehicles on a rail network must have wheelsets that are compatible with the track gauge. Since many different track gauges exist worldwide, gauge differences often present a barrier to wider operation on railway networks.
The Cincinnati, Lebanon and Northern Railway (CL&N) was a local passenger and freight-carrying railroad in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Ohio, connecting Cincinnati to Dayton via Lebanon. It was built in the late 19th century to give the town of Lebanon and Warren County better transportation facilities. The railroad was locally known as the "Highland Route", since it followed the ridge between the Little and Great Miami rivers, and was the only line not affected by floods such as the Great Dayton Flood of 1913.
With railways, a break of gauge occurs where a line of one track gauge meets a line of a different gauge. Trains and rolling stock generally cannot run through without some form of conversion between gauges, leading to passengers having to change trains and freight requiring transloading or transshipping; this can add delays, costs, and inconvenience to travel on such a route.
Railways with a railway track gauge of 5 ft first appeared in the United Kingdom and the United States. This gauge became commonly known as Russian gauge, because the government of the Russian Empire chose it in 1843. Former areas of the Empire have inherited this standard. In 1970, Soviet Railways re-defined the gauge as 1,520 mm.
The Pittsburgh Light Rail is a 26.2-mile (42.2 km) light rail system in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and surrounding suburbs. It operates as a deep-level subway in Downtown Pittsburgh, but runs mostly at-grade in the suburbs south of the city. The system is largely linear in a north-south direction, with one terminus near Pittsburgh's central business district and two termini in the South Hills. The system is owned and operated by Pittsburgh Regional Transit. The T is one of the surviving first-generation streetcar systems in North America, with the oldest portions of the network dating back to 1903 and the Pittsburgh Railways. It is also one of only three light rail systems in the United States that continues to use the broad 5 ft 2+1⁄2 in Pennsylvania Trolley Gauge on its lines instead of the 4 ft 8+1⁄2 instandard gauge. In 2022, the system had a ridership of 2,429,500.
Standard gauge was favored for railway construction in the United States, although a fairly large narrow-gauge system developed in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and Utah. Isolated narrow-gauge lines were built in many areas to minimize construction costs for industrial transport or resort access, and some of these lines offered common carrier service. Outside Colorado, these isolated lines evolved into regional narrow-gauge systems in Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Iowa, Hawaii, and Alaska.
Bogie exchange is a system for operating railway wagons on two or more gauges to overcome difference in the track gauge. To perform a bogie exchange, a car is converted from one gauge to another by removing the bogies or trucks, and installing a new bogie with differently spaced wheels. It is generally limited to wagons and carriages, though the bogies on diesel locomotives can be exchanged if enough time is available.
Indian gauge is a broad track gauge of 5 ft 6 in, used in India, Pakistan, western Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Argentina, Chile, and on BART in San Francisco, United States.
The Pittsburgh and Castle Shannon Railroad was a 3 ft 4 in narrow-gauge railroad in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Originally built in 1871, it may have been the first American common-carrier narrow-gauge railroad. It purchased a rail line called the Coal Hill Coal Railroad from the Pittsburgh Coal Company, and used a coal mine under Mt. Washington as a tunnel to transport coal from Castle Shannon, Pennsylvania to Pittsburgh. Passenger traffic was added soon afterwards, and the train carried passengers during the day and coal at night. The original plan was to extend the line to Finleyville, Pennsylvania, but the original narrow-gauge line ran only as far as Castle Shannon. The right of way continued as the Pittsburgh, Castle Shannon and Washington Railroad, later to become part of the Pittsburgh Southern Railroad.
The vast majority of North American railroads are standard gauge. Exceptions include some streetcar, subway and rapid transit systems, mining and tunneling operations, and some narrow-gauge lines particularly in the west, e.g. the isolated White Pass and Yukon Route system, and the former Newfoundland Railway.
The Pittsburgh and Western Railroad was a nineteenth-century, 3 ft narrow gauge railroad connecting Pittsburgh with coal supplies and the oil field around Titusville, Pennsylvania. Its right-of way formed the main line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad west from Pittsburgh. It was reorganized in 1889 under Malcolm A. McDonald.
The Little Saw Mill Run Railroad was a 4 ft 8+1⁄2 instandard gauge coal railroad in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. It was incorporated July 23, 1850, and opened in April 1853. Originally, it was owned by the Harmony Society, and ran from Temperanceville, Pennsylvania on the Ohio River to Banksville, Pennsylvania, running parallel to Saw Mill Run and Little Saw Mill Run. In an agreement with the 3 ft narrow gauge Pittsburgh Southern Railroad, it ran dual gauge tracks. It became part of the railroad empire of George J. Gould, merging with the West Side Belt Railroad in 1897. The superintendent of the Marine Railway at Sawmill Run for 13 years was Captain Edward Boland.
The Pittsburgh and Castle Shannon Tunnel, also known as the Mount Washington Coal Tunnel, was a 3 ft 4 in narrow-gauge railway tunnel under Mt. Washington.
The Baltimore and Ohio Short Line Railroad was the successor to the Pittsburgh Southern Railway, and a subsidiary of the B&O Railroad, and was organized as a legal entity 25 February 1885. The railroad was a link in the attempt of the B&O to serve the Pittsburgh market, and became part of the Wheeling Division of that railroad. It was constructed by gauge conversion of the former 3 ft narrow gauge railway to 4 ft 8+1⁄2 instandard gauge and the building of the Whitehall Tunnel. It ran from Glenwood Junction to Washington, Pennsylvania, a distance of 34 miles.
Coronado Railroad was a 20 in railroad which operated in a copper mining region of eastern Arizona.
Originally, various track gauges were used in the United States. Some railways, primarily in the northeast, used standard gauge of 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in ; others used gauges ranging from 2 ft to 6 ft. As a general rule, southern railroads were built to one or another broad gauge, mostly 5 ft, while northern railroads that were not standard-gauge tended to be narrow-gauge. The Pacific Railroad Acts of 1863 specified standard gauge.
The Lancaster, Oxford and Southern Railway (LO&S) was a 3 ft narrow gauge railway that operated in southeastern Pennsylvania between 1912 and 1918, as a successor company following the bankruptcy of the Lancaster, Oxford and Southern Railroad. The main line connected Oxford and Peach Bottom, Pennsylvania.
