The Americas

by Michael Frewston

  Having said that, the very first steam locomotive to run in the USA was the Stourbridge Lion, bought by the above-mentioned D&H, and first operated in August 1829. The Stourbridge Lion however was, according to a number of sources, built to a gauge of 4 ft 3 in (1295 mm), although subsequent variants of this locomotive, manufactured within the USA, were built to Stephenson gauge. Whether the original Lion was ever re-gauged is not known – its fate was to be eventually broken up, notwithstanding efforts by various entities, including the Smithsonian Institution, to preserve it. Certainly however, the Stourbridge Railroad, on which the original Lion was purportedly operated, was to 1435 mm gauge.

  The first ‘home-grown’ locomotive in the USA was Tom Thumb, designed and built by Peter Cooper, an inventor and manufacturer, in 1830. This engine was actually the first to operate what in the USA is called a ‘common carrier’ railway – i.e. a railway that anyone from the public could travel on.

  After importing locomotives from Britain, America was soon to go its own way in locomotive design. While the British had created many innovations, such as the front bogie, and ‘equalising levers’ (used to provide two-point support for the coupled driving wheels), it was the Americans who first put these innovations into practical use. The front bogie in particular was found to be essential in enabling locomotives to negotiate the uneven track and sharper curves typical of early US railways – the typical British locomotive of the day, consisting of only a rigid wheelbase (with both driven and non-driven wheels), was prone to derailing on such trackwork.

  Early Gauges:

  America’s first railways may have started out at the beginning of the 1830s using the 1435 mm (4 ft 8.5 in) Stephenson gauge, as noted above, but things didn’t stay that way for long. Just 30 years later, as many as nine different gauges existed, most with extensive route distances, creating a railway network that was as dysfunctional and as chaotic as Australia’s. Not only were there breaks of gauge between major regions and states in the USA, but even small intra-state areas encountered such breaks of gauge (e.g. the relatively small state of New Jersey saw both 1829 mm and 1473 mm gauge lines – but ironically not 1435 mm, at least not initially).

  The problem of course was that the rapidly developing USA still didn’t have a sense of national destiny or unity, such as was beginning to appear in the country’s northern neighbour Canada (see later). The USA of the south was as antagonistic towards the USA of the north as it was possible to be, short of breaking up the country completely (which it wanted to do), and this antagonism – both culturally, politically and economically – was one, though by no means the only one, of the factors that led to gauge differences in railway development.

  Although the first railways in America appeared at the end of the 1820s to Stephenson gauge, by 1832 three new gauges had appeared – 4 ft 9 in (1448 mm), 4 ft 10 in (1473 mm) and 5 ft 0 in (1524 mm). The first two of these additional gauges can be argued as being simply corrupted Stephenson gauge (I’ll touch on this later), but the last was definitely a different gauge altogether.

  One of the reasons that these three gauges all appeared quite quickly was that, in spite of importing both 1435 mm (4 ft 8.5 in) equipment as well as knowledge from England (and especially from the Liverpool and Manchester Railway), American engineers of the day decreed that, “the distance between the tracks should be about five feet” – a somewhat haphazard and imprecise method of specifying a railway gauge! And certainly not what would expect from engineers.

  It gets worse. In the 1840s, other railway companies introduced their own ideas as to what gauge they should be using for their railways, assiduously ignoring the ‘about five feet’ decree. There were many reasons for these additional gauges. For some railways, they felt that the wider gauges were technically superior (and to some degree, by the standards of the day, they were right – see Part 1 for more discussion on this, especially in respect of I K Brunel’s efforts in running 2140 mm gauge trains in Britain). For other railways, it was definitely a case of not letting a competing railway run their vehicles over your tracks.

  Thus, various parts of the eastern USA saw such gauges 5 ft 6 in (1676 mm), and even 6 ft 0 in (1829 mm). As can be seen in the map below, by the 1850s, no fewer than six major gauges – all used on what were essentially to become main line railways – were in existence (I’ve regarded the 1448 mm gauge, used by, for example, the Pennsylvania Railroad, as simply 1435 mm with 13 mm of additional lateral play added). (I have not touched upon gauges narrower than 1435 mm at this point, as these warrant their own section.)

  Ohio saw the use of 5 ft 4 in (1626 mm), and this was possibly the Irish gauge of 5 ft 3 in but with an extra 1 in or 25 mm of side play. It was confined to street railway systems, but I mention it here as it was a gauge that was said to prevent main-line railways from running their freight cars over street tracks.

  By the beginning of the 1860s, as little as 45% of new route distance was being constructed to Stephenson gauge, with the remaining 55% being built to one of the wider gauges. In all of those parts of the country that now had a railway (i.e. more or less everything east of the Mississippi or Missouri), little over 15% of the railway route network could be traversed without at least one break of gauge.

  The following shows the distribution of gauges throughout the eastern and southern USA in the mid-to-late 1850s or early 1860s, with Stephenson 1435 mm gauge amounting to less than 60% of the total by this time, down from nearly 100% at the dawn of America’s railways:

  Quite a few states (e.g. New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Ohio, Indiana) had two gauges within their borders, while Pennsylvania had three – 1435 mm, 1473 mm and 1829 mm (see Erie Gauge War, below).

  By 1861, around twenty major trunk railways were in operation (excluding the Great Western, which was primarily Canadian – see Canada below), as well as over 100 smaller lines. The major ones are listed according to their main gauges during or before 1861 (a few of these railways operated more than one gauge – for example, the Illinois Central operated extensive route distances of both 1435 and 1524 mm gauges):

  1829 mm gauge:

  Erie Railroad/New York and Erie Railroad

  Ohio and Mississippi

  1676 mm gauge:

  Grand Trunk (in both US and Canada)

  Pacific Railroad of Missouri

  Memphis and Little Rock (within Arkansas)

  1524 mm gauge:

  Charleston and Hamburg

  Illinois Central (southern division)

  Kentucky Central

  Memphis and Little Rock (east of Arkansas)

  Mobile and Ohio

  South Carolina Railroad

  1473 mm gauge:

  Mad River and Lake Erie

  Camden and Amboy

  1435/1448 mm gauge:

  Baltimore and Ohio

  Chesapeake and Ohio

  Illinois Central (northern division)

  Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway

  Marietta and Cincinnati

  New York Central

  Pennsylvania Railroad

  St Louis and Iron Mountain

  The underlying reasons for so many different gauges in the USA are for the most part quite different from those we saw in Australia (see Part 6). There, it was the states themselves that set down by legislation the gauges to be used (and in general, ‘interstate intransigence’ meant that those gauges had to be different from New South Wales, which had decreed the use of 1435 mm Standard gauge). In the USA by contrast, the states in general (there was the occasional exception) had little or no influence on track gauge, and so each railway company chose whatever gauge it wanted, for any number of reasons.

  It was of course a very short-sighted philosophy, but one that almost no-one had questioned. Few, if any, saw any need for gauge compatibility as railways met up – which of course they inevitably did, in spite of the fact that it was commonly supposed that each railway would remain a discrete entity. Considering how much American railways relied
on British expertise and experience in these early days, one may have thought that Britain’s experience of gauge diversity – and its resolution through the Gauge Act of 1846 – would have rubbed off on the Americans. Somehow it didn’t.

  In fact, there is but one reference to what might happen in the future if all the railways were built to different gauges. In the American Rail-road Journal of 21 January, 1832, an article notes, “when we consider that most of the principal Rail-ways now in progress…must soon intersect each other, either by extension of present lines, or the formation of new ones, we are forced to conclude that the discrepancy in the width of tracks will ultimately produce an infinitude of vexations, transfers and delays which might easily be avoided… The establishment of a particular width, by statute in two or three of the principal States…would probably have influence sufficient to the desired uniformity in most cases throughout the United States.” Prescient words indeed (and even shades of Mr Gladstone’s later vociferous words in Australia), but unfortunately such prescience went unheeded.

  I believe the article was correct in its assessment of how just a few major States, agreeing on a single gauge, would have set the standard for the whole country, but that simply didn’t happen. There was simply too much ‘exceptionalism’ – together with what was a still developing country spread over a vast area – to expect a sense of the ‘common good’ to appear at this early juncture in America’s history.

  The 1473 mm (4 ft 10 in) Ohio ‘broad gauge’:

  I mentioned above that some railways, primarily operating in the state of Ohio, but also in parts of New Jersey and Mississippi, used a gauge of 1473 mm, some 38 mm (1.5 in) wider than Stephenson gauge. This gauge was even legislated in the charters that governed a number of railways operating in these states, such as the Camden and Amboy Railroad in New Jersey, one of the earliest railways to adopt this gauge.

  Its origins appear to be due to the type of crude track that some railways were building in those early days in the interests of speed and economy over long distances – a wooden longitudinal bearer, or stringer, on which a flat wrought iron ‘strap-rail’ was secured. At the time, this type of construction was much cheaper than conventional T-section iron rail spiked to sleepers (ties).

  While this type of track construction was able to support the light vertical loads of the day (even locomotives rarely weighed more than 15 tonnes), it was found to be very susceptible to lateral forces, especially from long wheelbase vehicles on curves. Widening the gauge to 1473 mm from Standard gauge ameliorated this problem to a significant degree.

  The next problem of course was that if the back-to-back measurement of the wheel flanges was also increased by the same 38 mm as the gauge increase, such vehicles could no longer run on 1435 mm gauge tracks, or even on the 1448 mm gauge rails, which were Stephenson gauge with 13 mm of extra lateral play allowed, and which became the standard for many years for many railways, including the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR).

  This was solved by widening the wheel treads (while still keeping the same 1350 mm back-to-back measurement consistent with 1435 mm Standard gauge), such that the wheels could still be supported by the rail head on the widened gauge without falling in – something that a normal narrower-tread wheel would likely do. That is why early photographs of some American railway vehicles using these wide treads (known as ‘compromise’ vehicles) often show them with wheel treads overhanging a 1435 mm gauge rail by a considerable margin. Wheel treads as wide as 130 mm were not uncommon – compared with a normal tread width of 75 to 100 mm, depending on specification.

  This left only one final problem – excessive lateral side-play on the widened gauge with a standard 1350 mm back-to-back dimension. While speeds were still low (generally below 40 km/h), this was not too much of a problem, but as speeds increased, the side-to-side oscillations permitted by the widened gauge tended to destroy the wrought iron strap-rail type trackwork.

  Incidentally, this type of track was also susceptible to the iron strap rail breaking and coiling up (known as a ‘snake head’), spearing its way into the vehicle travelling over it. Not a major problem if it was a freight car, but many human passengers were injured and even killed as a result of ‘snake heads’ coming up through the floors of passenger cars.

  As trains got heavier and faster, it became necessary to rebuild the track using standard T-section rail on sleepers. However, during this process, for whatever reason, the 1473 mm gauge tracks were not converted to 1435/1448 mm, at least not initially and indeed not for a number of years to come.

  As an interim measure, the railways in Ohio (and in particular the PRR) started to require the use of vehicles with an intermediate gauge – which worked well on the 1473 mm Ohio gauge, but caused binding problems on the 1435 mm gauge. By 1869, the PRR had incorporated into its route network a number of 1473 mm gauge lines that extended from Ohio to Chicago, and they had to find a workable solution to this 38 mm gauge difference.

  This was accomplished by widening the gauge for the 1435 mm gauge lines east of Pittsburgh to 1448 mm, and narrowing the 1473 mm gauge lines west of Pittsburgh to 1461 mm, and adjusting the wheel gauge (specifically the flange back-to-back measurement) accordingly. That way the original 38 mm difference was reduced to just 12 mm.

  Other railways resorted to similar measures. The Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad also adopted the 1461 mm gauge in converting both its Standard and Ohio gauge routes. By the 1870s a number of other railways in the same part of the country had done the same thing.

  It was now clear that Ohio gauge was beginning to disappear. By 1875, the PRR had set the 1448 mm gauge (i.e. Standard gauge with an extra 13 mm) as its standard throughout its system. Other railways, wanting to follow PRR’s lead, also adjusted their gauge to 1448 mm. By 1880, the 1473 mm Ohio broad gauge had all but disappeared.

  Did this mean that 1448 mm, rather than 1435 mm Standard gauge, would automatically become the default gauge for America? At this juncture, the 1448 mm gauge had spread far beyond just Ohio, and indeed looked as if it could become the standard gauge for the whole of America, led by the PRR.

  The problem now was that many railways, especially in the New York area, were still set at 1435 mm Standard gauge, and PRR vehicles (and indeed all the other railways’ vehicles gauged for 1448 mm) were found to bind excessively on Standard gauge rails, resulting in either derailments or heavy wear to the rails.

  In 1896/97, the American Railway Association met on a number of occasions to resolve the issue. Faced with many factors that could favour either gauge, but cognisant of the fact that the transcontinental railway link had already been legislated at 1435 mm Standard gauge (see below), it settled on the narrower gauge of 1435 mm as the best solution for all railways, regardless of whether they currently ran on 1435 mm or 1448 mm gauge rails.

  Thus did America, like in Britain and Europe, affirm the use of Stephenson’s gauge of 1435 mm as its standard, albeit some 60 years after railways first appeared. The transition for all those railways using 1448 mm gauge, involving just 13 mm, was accomplished over many years, and usually merely as part of routine maintenance rather than a wholesale conversion.

  Pie-men and Peanuts: The Erie Gauge War:

  We’ve seen a few ‘gauge wars’ in the course of our odyssey, both in today’s world and in the course of the history of railways, including the historic struggles between I K Brunel’s broad gauge and Standard gauge, resulting in Britain’s Gauge Act of 1846. The Erie Gauge War was an American gauge war that didn’t just stop at technical, or even commercial, arguments as to the best gauge, but metamorphosed into a real physical war, albeit a very short one.

  The city of Erie is in the very far north of the state of Pennsylvania, on the south shore of Lake Erie, and was the point where travellers from, say, New York to Cleveland, in Ohio, would have to endure two changes – one at the NY state line and one in Erie itself.

  Railways from the east, in New York State, were originally built to 1829 mm (6 f
t) gauge (see map above). The two main such railways were the Erie and North East Railroad (ENER), which ran from New York City, and the Buffalo and State Line Railroad (BSLR), which ran from Buffalo to the Pennsylvania/New York State line, some 30 km or so north-east of Erie. The 30-km long extension of this line into Pennsylvania, between the NY State line and Erie, was also built to 1829 mm gauge.

  The main railway to the west, on the other hand, from Erie to the border with Ohio, was built to the Ohio broad gauge of 1473 mm. The railway company building this line was the Franklin Canal Company.

  In May, 1853, the New York Central Railroad (NYC) was formed through a merger of ten separate railways, and it started looking at running trains all the way from New York City to the mid-west states, especially Ohio. To enable this to happen, in late 1853, the ENER and the BSLR, which were to later merge to form the Buffalo and Erie Railroad (BER), and over whose tracks the NYC hoped to run, had their track gauge, as far as the NY-PA state line, converted from 1829 mm to 1435 mm Standard gauge, the same as the NYC.

  This left just the short 30-km stretch of line between the NY-PA state line and Erie at the broad 1829 mm gauge. Passengers thus had to undertake two changes of trains, one at the state line and one in Erie itself. As we saw in Australia, these changes were at best inconvenient when things went well, but as often as not involved missed connections, long (sometimes overnight) waits – and much business for local freight handlers and labourers, as well as hotels, restaurants and street-vending food sellers. In Erie, those vendors, selling pies and peanuts in particular, were always assured of brisk business each time a train arrived.