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Re: (erielack) The Piermont Branch

"STGCOMM_@_aol.com" wondered:

>  Why did the Erie go with 6' gauge to begin with
> (Was standard gauge not established in the US yet)?

Um, yeah.  You DO know, don't you, that the Erie was one of the first
railroads in the US?  In the 1830's, they didn't know from standard gauge .
. .and for a long time, there was a chance that 6' would be the standard
gauge.  The Erie wasn't exactly alone in this choice.

It was President Lincoln's decision that the "transcontinental railway"
would use the 4'-8 1/2" gauge that pretty much cast the die for the rest of
the industry.  This was the subject of a lot of lobbying.

There is a new (well-reviewed) book called Empire Express (No, not about the
Amtrak service to Buffalo!) which is about the building of the
"transcontinental railway."  I have not seen it yet, but it supposedly
covers a lot of the non-railroad political landscape surrounding the basic
track-building story.  This is one topic I wondered if it covered - how much
lobbying was done by the different gauges, and how the 56.5" crowd won.  I
am going to wait to see if my public library gets it.

SGL



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