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(erielack) CWR
Normally CWR is transported in 1/4 mile lengths on a train consisting of flats equipped with rectangular frames, the rail sits on rollers on the frame. At the installation site a 'dozer straddling the ties pulls each length of rail off the train; I think rollers are placed on the ties also. If shorter lengths are required they're cut at the field, since on the rail train they're all the same length. Gons are an inefficient way of transporting CWR, but evidently EL wasn't laying enough to justify a dedicated CWR train so they used gons which would return to regular steel service once the project was done. Another option for EL would have been to use another RR's CWR train on short-term lease, say N&W's during Dereco years, but it sounds like they didn't do that.
Paul B
I think Rich is right, the cars probably went off line to pick up the
CWR and that required interchange numbers on the cars.
I've always read that CWR came in quarter-mile lengths. If so, that
would require about 25 gons to transport lengths that long. It would
seem that a train that long and unique would have drawn the lens
of railfans. Between the cars being parked, stored, transporting and
unloading the CWR, it just seems some photos of these should have
surfaced on the web, in Morning Sun, etc.
That begs the question: was all CWR sold/made in quarter mile
lengths? Were sorter lengths ever made/sold/used?
If the EL did not install much CWR, perhaps this was a one-time
train, quickly put together to transport a load of CWR, and then
returned to revenue use. That also begs the question: what other
modifications had to be made to these cars besides the installation
of racks? (In WWII when the Erie transported long lengths of
anti-sub cables, the gons had to be chained together in case
of a knuckle breaking)
Ronald R. Dukarm ELHS #532 ELHTS #66
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