As my railroad is set during WWI, I have a few questions about the USRA. My understanding is that the federal government took control over american railroads during the war. Does this mean all railroads, or just the major ones? My "fictional" railroad is an industrial short line - would that have fallen under the USRA control as well? I have also heard that some locomotives and equipment from one railroad was transferred, as needed, to other railroads. Does this mean that it was possible to see distinctive locomotives of one railroad operating completely out of their region? In other words, would this be justification to run another railroad's locomotive on my line?
I read the wikipedia page, but I am looking for more specifics. I suppose what I am getting at is whether railroads, on outward appearance, still operated as individual railroads during WWI. Was the Pennsylvania still the Pennsylvania and the New York Central still the New York Central? Or, was it likely for a Pennsy train to run thru on NYC tracks if it was most convenient?
My understanding is that the railroads were still separate entities. The USRA dealt more with things like day to day operating schedules to avoid congestion and delayed trains, and Improve the railroads physical plant that was crumbling in most cases ( there was some kind of financial crisis just before the war, Cash was tight for a lot of lines). Another goal was to standardise the industry as much as possible, hence the USRA designs for locos.
For instance my freelanced line is set in the mid 40's (WWII) As an anthracite line, all steamers are ether camel backs or have large Wotton fireboxes. The only locos on the line with standard fireboxes are a class of heavy Mountains that they received from the USRA during the big war. The top brass and engine crews liked them so much that they stayed on the roster, so the USRA's influence still shows years after . The USRA also had control of the rail lines at time in history also, but did not offer any standard designs. Instead it assigned different builders A set job, You build road diesels, you build switchers, so on and so on.
As best I can tell, the railroads stayed as separate entities. It's very hard to get railroaders to change and accept something that another road made. Also, there usually wouldn't be spare parts for a Santa Fe mountain in New York.
But I think there was some shifting around of locos. Wouldn't be popular as they were all suddenly short of power.
The railroads were not nationalized during the second world war, they were able to perform reliably and did not need government intervention. The USRA was strictly World War 1 and was no longer in existence during WW2. having been disbanded in 1920.
The United States Railway Association was the WWII version of the United States Railroad Administration. The main difference being that the United States Railroad Administration was a Progressive governmental take-over of a private sector industry, albeit during a time of war, WWI, ostensibly to improve the efficience of moving military materiel over the rails.
The United States Railway Association was a private sector entity, run totally by the nations railroads cooperatively, with the same goal of moving wartime military matriel about the nation during a time of war (WWII) with using the most efficient methods they could devise. It was totally private-sector-managed and in many ways was considerably more effective that it govermental predecessor.
At least that is my 45 year old recollection of what I believe I remember being taught in Social Studies/ U.S. 20th Century History in 11th Grade.
biL,
I believe you are correct. I guess I should have mentioned that "other" USRA to clarify my statement. The government run USRA and nationalization of the railroads, the topic of the original post, ended in 1920. The other USRA was as you said, a cooperation among the railroads without Unlce Sam's intervention. One could venture a guess that the lack of government involvement is WHY the second time around was much smoother. The private sector will ALWAYS outperform the same venture run by the government.
Puddlejumper Wrote:biL,
I believe you are correct. I guess I should have mentioned that "other" USRA to clarify my statement. The government run USRA and nationalization of the railroads, the topic of the original post, ended in 1920. The other USRA was as you said, a cooperation among the railroads without Unlce Sam's intervention. One could venture a guess that the lack of government involvement is WHY the second time around was much smoother. The private sector will ALWAYS outperform the same venture run by the government.
As I understand it, the WWI USRA really didn't get going until the war was almost over. This fact kinda initiated my curiosity about the subject. Apparently at some point during the war, certain people in the government felt that the private railroad system was not sufficient to handle a war of that magnitude. When you consider how many USRA designs were adopted long after the war was over - that probably means there was a lack of standardization prior to the war. I think a lot of railroads were scraping by with old, decrepit equipment, wood cars, and poor track standards. From what I understand, there were huge changes in railroad technology between 1895 and 1915, with larger locomotives, air brakes, superheaters, cast steel trucks, steel cars, and larger cars. If a railroad in 1915 was running 25 year old technology, that probably was not too compatible with the newer equipment of the day. By comparison, today's railroads are still running 25 year old locomotives and cars and most people wouldn't be able to tell what is 25 years old from what came out o the factory last year.
I am still wondering if the USRA mostly affected the class 1 railroads, or did the smaller lines (that weren't necessarily important to the war effort) also get affected.
The one thing that I remember from history about the USRA in WW1 was that the railroads were insisting on sending loads both ways (East and West) during the war. The result was that empty rail cars backed up at the East Coast ports waiting to find loads going to the West Coast. At the same time there was a shortage of rolling stock on the West Coast to load materials for the War effort. Finally "Uncle Sam " stepped in forcing the railroads to move empties to the West Coast for loading. During WW2 because we were fighting a war in both Europe and the Pacific, the freight was more balanced.
I'm not sure if it was the other USRA or another dept of the government, but during WW2 the use of metals was restricted so the various railroads had to prove to the government that they needed the equipment that they wanted to be built. The government also told railroads whether they could buy steam engines or diesels during the war. The Santa Fe bought a lot of the then new Ft units because of their water problems in the desert. I think I read that during the steam era the Santa Fe delivered 100 tanks cars per day loaded with water for use in locomotives for the area between Cajon Summit and New Mexico!
I wouldn't doubt that, Russ. You've got to boil a whole lot of water to to get and keep a 220psi head of steam going when you are exhausting it out into the air at the rate a big Northern or Mountain runs through steam! And with the grades in that area, they've got the bar pulled back pretty far most of the time! Thank God for Power-Stokers!
Interesting theory on the Santa Fe. I know that the Santa Fe main line across northern Arizona did not cross a single perennial stream or river (a river that flows 365 days a year). Yep, the entire width of the state and not a single water crossing Sure, there were streams and gullies that flowed for part of the year, and the railroad did take advantage of some of those. In Williams Arizona, there is a small snowmelt-filled lake called "Santa Fe lake" that was built for locomotive water. Plenty of other small lakes and dams in the region were also built by the railroad for the same purpose. The railroad also drilled wells along the main line every 20 miles or so, but around Flagstaff a well needs to be several thousand feet deep to reach water. I can definitely see the argument for early dieselization of that line. There is still no water on the south rim of the Grand Canyon. Both the Santa Fe and the Grand Canyon railway hauled water to the South Rim in order to water locomotives. Now, there is a pipeline to bring water from the North rim of the canyon, down to the bottom of the canyon, and up to the south rim. But the pipeline only supplies enough water for the hotels and campgrounds.
The biggest problem for the Santa Fe in the desert was not so much the lack of water as the fact that most of the available water was so alkaline that it could plug boiler tubes with scale in just one run of a steam engine. They spotted tank cars loaded with clean filtered water at places that had water available, but the local water was so full of chemicals that they could not use it.