Making a Prototype - Colorado

[Dave V]

Sorry...  This is what happens when I take something seriously!   

FWIW it's a complement that my "Alles in Ordnung" genes are allowing consideration of such an alternate history in the first place...   

[eric220]

Sorry...  This is what happens when I take something seriously!   

FWIW it's a complement that my "Alles in Ordnung" genes are allowing consideration of such an alternate history in the first place...   

It's all good, and I appreciate your indulgence.  I may invoke Rule 1, but that's the whole point of the thought exercise:  There are outcomes that I want; how could history have unfolded to make it so?  I enjoy the research and refinement process, and you've given me some things to think about.

[eric220]

Gee, and I though I had it rough trying to justify the Reading Central

I was hoping that this wasn't going to devolve into justifying the merits of the whole idea, but that seems to be where this conversation goes every time I bring the subject up.  On that note, I'm done here.

[Dave V]

This is a tough audience for something like this.  Although we're not all prototype modelers, we almost all lean toward the prototypical.  Honestly the majority of model railroaders are fine justifying schemes that are vastly less thought-out or plausible than what you've done.  We tend to be the guys that cringe when reality is bent a little too far.

That said, I understand the fun you had thinking and planning this out.  My GSP&P freelanced layout was planned out using USGS topo maps and I really enjoyed thinking about it for a long time before I ever built anything.  It didn't have to be real to anyone else...it seemed real enough to me.

If you ever read Malcolm Furlow's writings, you'll discover that he used to lose himself in writing fictional stories about what he was modeling.  I'll admit that I wrote some fiction about a runaway on the GSP&P that's since been lost to history.

Whether or not you can bring your dream into reality in such a way that a skeptic is convinced is independent of the joy you've experienced in the planning and dreaming over all these years.  In the end, it's not a matter of what makes us happy...it's what brings you joy when you enter the train room.

[wm3798]

Like Dave, I'm impressed with the map work.  I did the same thing, on a much smaller scale, to connect the Ligonier Valley with the B&O in Somerset via the abandoned Laurel Hill turnpike tunnel.

But yes, we all tend to prototype, although not as Puritans.  But @Dave V  used the magic word:  Plausible.  A Conrail era spinoff shortline using an abandoned highway tunnel to handle bridge traffic is unlikely, but given the tunnel was originally built for a railroad it becomes plausible.  A double track Juniata Division may not be real, but given the volume of traffic handled in the region, a fictitious PRR secondary is plausible.
While the yarn you're ripping is interesting, there are a whole lot of reasons it's not plausible.
PRR was notorious for soaking up other lines via stock control, 99 year leases, or outright purchase. 
In my opinion, it would be far more plausible for a Pennsy transcon to be built out of existing lines, then using power appropriate to that line.  Imagine a DRGW mallet with a Belpaire firebox...  that sort of thing.
Or Tennessee Pass with PRR style canenary...

Far more plausible, with a lot of imaginative possibilities.

Anyway, don't put out the flame, just try looking at it from another angle.

And make sure the Hard Hat makes it into a scene!

Lee   

[Dave V]

PRR was notorious for soaking up other lines via stock control, 99 year leases, or outright purchase. 
In my opinion, it would be far more plausible for a Pennsy transcon to be built out of existing lines, then using power appropriate to that line.  Imagine a DRGW mallet with a Belpaire firebox...  that sort of thing.
Or Tennessee Pass with PRR style canenary...

Far more plausible, with a lot of imaginative possibilities.

Lee

I was thinking the same thing as Lee for the second time today (see the DKS house build thread for the other!).  The Pennsy got so big not because it built but because it bought.  Oh, don't get me wrong...  The New York tunnels, Penn Station, the A&S Low Grade Line and the other things it actually built were among the most impressive achievements in railroading the world over...but PRR didn't build all the way to Chicago.  Almost all of PRR trackage outside of Pennsylvania & New Jersey was built by a different company.

At the peak of its power could the PRR have merged with the Union Pacific?  Maybe...but what would that have looked like?   It would not have taken PRR to Colorado, but it would have gotten it from Chicago to the Pacific. 

If Pennsy had bought the Colorado Midland as in your history, it could have made the connection right here in Colorado Springs by absorbing the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific.  That said, no part of the Colorado Midland was in any condition to handle any more than small 2-8-0s and very short trains, so it was worthless as part of a larger system.  It was a pretty atrocious way to cross the Rockies, especially given how the D&RG had beat them over Tennessee Pass.  So then the PRR needed to buy the D&RG(W).  The AT&SF didn't like that one bit because as much as it hated the D&RG, the D&RG was only a regional player.  A transcontinental PRR threatened the AT&SF Southern Transcon across Arizona.  Oh, BTW, the AT&SF had controlling interest in the CMRy so it was never interested in selling its route to PRR.  AT&SF then took the PRR to court to stop the merger with the D&RG since this was the era of monopoly busting.  Southern Pacific and Union Pacific felt equally threatened and joined in the suit.  The merger never happened.

PRR would stand to make more money being the eastern anchor of a multi-line transcontinental route without the headaches of operating the whole line...which is exactly what it ended up doing.

I think freelancing exercises are fun, great, and plausible when you're doing shortlines and small regionals.  When you start messing with the national rail network writ large, it gets sticky.

[eric220]

The Hard Hat will definitely have a place on the layout.  It's currently still happily sitting in Lewistown watching H10's and M1's go by.

[Dave V]

Just curious as to how it might look...

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[eric220]

Now that’s hawt! Gives new meaning to “coast to coast tender.”

[nkalanaga]

PRR-GN would actually be plausible, although probably as an alliance, rather than a takeover, by either party.  The two road's steam and electric locos shared similarities, and both were financially stable.

As for "working dual gauge", it could be done without turnouts.  Your plan has dual gauge between a yard and the shops.  That could be done with two "pointless turnouts", I have no idea what the D&RGW called them, along the same lines as a gantlet track.  I have one, handlaid of course, and it works beautifully.  The frog has to have its polarity switched, but that's the only "moving part".  If you use DCC, that could be done automatically.

[DKS]

I was hoping that this wasn't going to devolve into justifying the merits of the whole idea, but that seems to be where this conversation goes every time I bring the subject up.  On that note, I'm done here.

I was being facetious, and I should have used an emoticon, or not posted at all. I wasn't being critical--I apologize.

[wm3798]

Just curious as to how it might look...

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That's what I was referring to...  with the addition of western style power that would be needed to summit the Rockies and Sierras that might not have been needed East of Big Muddy.  Heavy 4-8-4s... again, maybe an FEF adorned with PRR appliances ...  you can't labor under the specifics of Pennsy prototype equipment, since they frequently adapted their "standard" designs to meet local conditions...  and conditions in the Rockies are decidedly not the conditions of the East.

So instead of getting tangled up in historical and geographic knots, you can free your mind to wonder what a hill climbing GG1 might look like, or just how big and fast a Prairie flyer might have been turned out by Altoona!

Lee

[Hawghead]

Just curious as to how it might look...

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Is that an M1a Mountain??? 

Scott

[Hawghead]

I was hoping that this wasn't going to devolve into justifying the merits of the whole idea, but that seems to be where this conversation goes every time I bring the subject up.  On that note, I'm done here.

Welllll,  actually that is exactly what you requested.  You developed a scenario, then asked what people thought of it.  To be fair you prefaced a lot of it with the, "because I want it", disclaimer, but still.  As my dad used to say, "never ask the question you may not like the answer to".  That said, while I agree with most that it is an unlikely scenario, what does it matter?  If it's what you want then build it.  Illegitimi non carborundum. (You watch, someone is gonna say that's not a real Latin phrase)

I've seen other model railroads that had completely fictitious back stories, some totally tongue in cheek, that were fantastic.  Just remember, "If you build it, they will come."

Scott 

[C855B]

... Illegitimi non carborundum. ...

Uh... that's not a real latin phrase.   

I've been sitting here with my bag o' popcorn watching the repartee, thinking to myself "there were some awfully good reasons the UP and ATSF went around Colorado."

As much fun as it is to theorize an alternate history to create a fascinating modeling scenario, a coast-to-coast transcon honestly has no justification for routing through that section of the Rockies. I'll side with the "maybe a secondary main" assertion, but only if that secondary initially existed to tap local resources.