Choosing gauge
Rio Grande history - 2
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Choosing gauge |
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In the beginning, railroads were merely horse carts running on wooden rails. In England, wagon and cart wheelbases were standardized at four feet 8½ inches (56½ inches), said to be the gauge of ancient Roman chariots. Naturally, this uniformity spread to railroads, and when the technology was imported into the young United States, 56½ inches was viewed as optimal. It is stable enough for extremely heavy loads, allowing car widths of up to 11 feet.
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Photographed at the end-of-track in Alamosa, Colo., approximately 55 miles of this "dual gauge" existed in 1962. A standard gauge boxcar shows the difference between narrow gauge (left and middle rails) and standard gauge (outside rails). |
However, many railroad engineers felt that placing the two rails closer together could cut construction costs in half—with narrower rights-of-way, tighter curves, and steeper grades. Some cargo capacity was lost, of course, but that didn't deter the Rio Grande's visionary founder, "General" William J. Palmer. A Civil War veteran and an engineer, Palmer made his reputation solving transportation bottlenecks. When he began construction in 1871, he made sure his tracks were exactly three feet—36 inches—apart.
The trend was against him, however. President Abraham Lincoln had, by signing the Pacific Railroad Act in 1862, formally decreed that 56½ inches would be the standard railroad gauge of the United States. Most of the D&RGW's competition in the Rocky Mountains was built as standard gauge. The Palmer railroad really had no choice but to rebuild in compliance. The process of unloading cargo from narrow-gauge cars and reloading it into standard-gauge cars was time-consuming, inefficient, and expensive.
The legal battles with the Santa Fe effectively ended Palmer's dream of building to Mexico City, so the Rio Grande pointed itself through the mountains to the west, touching its namesake river only at Alamosa. The Rio Grande had already standard-gauged its connections with the transcontinental Union Pacific by July 1882, when the last slim-gauge branch from Durango to Silverton was officially opened. Much of this reconstruction required additional blasting, new fill, new roadbed, and newer, heavier rail.
The Rio Grande continued to operate one "dual gauge" line for years, often running trains containing both kinds of equipment. Using special converter cars called "idlers," the lighter-weight narrow gauge locomotives and more powerful standard gauge engines could both pulled mixed-gauge trains.
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