In railroad industry, the Ramsey car-transfer apparatus (Ramsey transfer) was a device to replace bogies on railroad cars to permit transfer of a train between railroad lines with different gauge.
The Ramsey transfer existed in a number of variations covered by several different patents. It was typically used to transfer cars between 6 ft (1,829 mm) broad gauge, 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge and narrow gauge (usually 3 ft / 914 mm in width) track.
It was invented and patented in 1876 by Robert Henry Ramsey as a simple and rapid device for removing trucks at repairing shops, and for transferring car-bodies between rail roads of different gauges. [1]
Two parallel tracks of 18 in (457 mm) were set approximately 9 feet (2.74 m) apart. Between these two tracks, the standard and narrow gauge tracks descended into a pit, one from each end of the pit, overlapping in the center and having a common center line. Beams resting on trucks riding on the 18-inch (457 mm) gauge tracks were inserted under the car to have its trucks changed. The car was then pushed over pit, resting on the beams. This allowed the old trucks to slip off the center pins. The old trucks were pulled out of the pit and new trucks were pushed in from the opposite side. As the car passed over the opposite side of the pit, the new trucks were guided to fit on the center pins. The car now continued on its way, its load undisturbed.
It was claimed that the entire procedure could be performed in less than eight minutes. However in 1851, this would have referred to cars without air brakes. More time would have been taken to deal with post 1880 cars with air brakes.[ citation needed ]
The Ligonier Valley Railroad was the first to use the method in 1878 in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. [2] It was also used in the same year by the Rochester and State Line Railroad at its Salamanca junction with the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad, a 6 ft (1,829 mm) gauge line.
It was also adopted by the Lehigh Valley Railroad; Wilmington, Columbia and Augusta Railroad; W. C. Virginia Midland & Gt. S. Railroad; Atlantic and Great Western Railroad; Pittsylvania [sic] R. R.; Pittsburg Southern Railroad; Dayton, Covington & Toledo Railroad; Dayton & Southeastern R. R.; Memphis & Little Rock R. R. and many others. [1] The East Broad Top Railroad, a coal rail road in Pennsylvania used it in its Mount Union Yard up to the closure in 1956. [1] [ disputed ]
Union Pacific Railroad (particularly along the Oregon Short Line Railroad) operated several Ramsey car-transfer apparatuses among various gauge breaks inherited from predecessor lines such as the Utah and Northern Railway and Utah Western Railway, in locations such as Salt Lake City, Utah, Ogden, Utah, and Pocatello, Idaho. [3] [4] In Ogden, Ramsey devices allowed interchange between the standard gauge Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroad mainlines with narrow gauge routes on the Oregon Short Line and Denver & Rio Grande Western Railway. Union Pacific operated extensive interstate traffic using the Ramsey transfer, such as shipping narrow gauge coal cars originating on the Denver, South Park & Pacific Railroad to Butte, Montana with Ramsey transfers when needed to account for the gauge breaks. [5]
The Ramsey devices along the Oregon Short Line were retired as narrow gauge routes were replaced with standard gauge, with the last narrow gauge transfers in Salt Lake City occurring in 1900 before the narrow gauge Utah & Nevada route was bypassed in 1900 to form the standard gauge line on what is now the Lynndyl Subdivision. [6] On one occasion in 1900 prior to retirement, the Ramsey Transfer in Salt Lake City was used to lend narrow gauge Utah & Northern passenger cars to the Rio Grande Western, which ran an excursion to Park City, Utah over standard gauge rails on their Parley's Canyon route using narrow gauge rolling stock. [7]
Ramsey car-transfer apparatuses were considered for use in Australia, which due to the lack of patent recognition between the United States of America and Colonial Australia at the time, resulted in members of the Parliament of South Australia discussing using an unlicensed copy of the Ramsey design on the nation's railways. [8]
The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, often shortened to Rio Grande, D&RG or D&RGW, formerly the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, was an American Class I railroad company. The railroad started as a 3 ft narrow-gauge line running south from Denver, Colorado, in 1870. It served mainly as a transcontinental bridge line between Denver and Salt Lake City, Utah. The Rio Grande was also a major origin of coal and mineral traffic.
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.
Mason Bogie locomotives are a type of articulated tank locomotive suited for sharp curves and uneven track, once commonly used on narrow-gauge railways in the United States. The design is a development of the Single Fairlie locomotive.
The Shay locomotive is a geared steam locomotive that originated and was primarily used in North America. The locomotives were built to the patents of Ephraim Shay, who has been credited with the popularization of the concept of a geared steam locomotive. Although the design of Ephraim Shay's early locomotives differed from later ones, there is a clear line of development that joins all Shays. Shay locomotives were especially suited to logging, mining and industrial operations and could operate successfully on steep or poor quality track.
In railway engineering, "gauge" is the transverse distance between the inner surfaces of the heads of two rails, which for the vast majority of railway lines is the number of rails in place. However, it is sometimes necessary for track to carry railway vehicles with wheels matched to two different gauges. Such track is described as dual gauge – achieved either by addition of a third rail, if it will fit, or by two additional rails. Dual-gauge tracks are more expensive to configure with signals and sidings, and to maintain, than two separate single-gauge tracks. It is therefore usual to build dual-gauge or other multi-gauge tracks only when necessitated by lack of space or when tracks of two different gauges meet in marshalling yards or passenger stations. Dual-gauge tracks are by far the most common configuration, but triple-gauge tracks have been built in some situations.
The Utah & Northern Railway is a defunct railroad that was operated in the Utah Territory and later in the Idaho Territory and Montana Territory in the western United States during the 1870s and 1880s. It was the first railroad in Idaho and in Montana. The line was acquired by a Union Pacific Railroad subsidiary, the Oregon Short Line, and is today operated by the Union Pacific Railroad as the Ogden Subdivision, part of the Pocatello Subdivision, and the Montana Subdivision.
The McKeen Motor Car Company of Omaha, Nebraska, was a builder of internal combustion-engined railroad motor cars (railcars), constructing 152 between 1905 and 1917. Founded by William McKeen, the Union Pacific Railroad's Superintendent of Motive Power and Machinery, the company was essentially an offshoot of the Union Pacific and the first cars were constructed by the UP before McKeen leased shop space in the UP's Omaha Shops in Omaha, Nebraska. The UP had asked him to develop a way of running small passenger trains more economically and McKeen produced a design that was ahead of its time. Unfortunately, internal combustion engine technology was not and the McKeen cars never found a truly reliable powerplant.
The Sumpter Valley Railway, or Sumpter Valley Railroad, is a 3 ft narrow gauge heritage railroad located in Baker County, in the U.S. state of Oregon. Built on a right-of-way used by the original railway of the same name, it carries excursion trains on a roughly 5-mile (8.0 km) route between McEwen and Sumpter. The railroad has two steam locomotives and several other pieces of rolling stock. Passenger excursion trains operate on weekends and holidays from Memorial Day through the end of September.
The Oregon Short Line Railroad was a railroad in Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Montana and Oregon in the United States. The line was organized as the Oregon Short Line Railway in 1881 as a subsidiary of the Union Pacific Railway. The Union Pacific intended the line to be the shortest route from Wyoming to Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. Construction was begun in 1881 at Granger, Wyoming, and completed in 1884 at Huntington, Oregon. In 1889 the line merged with the Utah & Northern Railway and a handful of smaller railroads to become the Oregon Short Line and Utah Northern Railway. Following the bankruptcy of Union Pacific in 1897, the line was taken into receivership and reorganized as the Oregon Short Line Railroad ("OSL"). The OSL became a part of the Union Pacific System in the Harriman reorganization of 1898.
A variable gauge system allows railway vehicles in a train to travel across a break of gauge between two railway networks with different track gauges. For through operation, a train must be equipped with special bogies holding variable gauge wheelsets which contain a variable gauge axle (VGA).
Union Station, also known as Ogden Union Station, is a train station in Ogden, Utah, United States, at the west end of Historic 25th Street, just south of the Ogden Central Station. Formerly the junction of the Union Pacific(UP) and Central Pacific (CP) railroads, its name reflects the common appellation of train stations whose tracks and facilities are shared by railway companies.
The Pacific Coast Railway was a 3 ft narrow gauge railway on the Central Coast of California. The original 10-mile (16 km) link from San Luis Obispo to Avila Beach and Port Harford was later built southward to Santa Maria and Los Olivos, with branches to Sisquoc and Guadalupe.
The Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company (OR&N) was a rail and steamboat transport company that operated a rail network of 1,143 miles (1,839 km) running east from Portland, Oregon, United States, to northeastern Oregon, northeastern Washington, and northern Idaho. It operated from 1896 as a consolidation of several smaller railroads.
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.
The Nevada–California–Oregon Railway was a 3 ft narrow gauge railroad originally planned to connect Reno, Nevada, to the Columbia River. However, only 238 mi (383 km) of track were laid so service never extended beyond Lakeview, Oregon. Because of the company’s reputation for mismanagement, it was often called the "Narrow, Crooked & Ornery" railroad.
The Utah Division of the former Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad (D&RGW) is a rail line that connects Grand Junction, Colorado and Salt Lake City, Utah in the Western United States. It is now incorporated into the Union Pacific Railroad (UP) system as part of the Central Corridor. The modern Union Pacific has split the line into two subdivisions for operational purposes, the Green River Subdivision between Grand Junction and Helper, Utah and the Provo Subdivision from Helper to Salt Lake City. Daily passenger service is provided by Amtrak's California Zephyr; the BNSF Railway and Utah Railway have trackage rights over the line.
The Lynndyl Subdivision is a rail line owned and operated by the Union Pacific Railroad in the U.S. state of Utah, running from Salt Lake City southwest to Milford, where the Caliente Subdivision continues towards Los Angeles. It was formerly part of the Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad and a section currently forms a segment of Union Pacific's Central Corridor. The subdivision is named for Lynndyl, a small community along the rail line. The highest elevation attained on the line is 6,061 feet (1,847 m) at Tintic. As of 2003 the line sees 16 trains daily between Lynndyl and Smelter.
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.