Hi Fred,

The PRR had a gauge of 5'-0". All of 47.5 miles long. The first transcontinental railroad. Built in 1855. At the cost of about 10,000 lives. The Panama jungle is a tough place to build and run a railroad.

Today's railroad while related to the Panama RR is now standard gauge and follows the new alignment and route that was built at the time of the American Era during the construction of the Panama Canal. Most of the older right of way is now under water.

Cheers,
Bill Keene
Irvine, CA


On Jun 11, 2010, at 5:56 PM, Frederick Freitas wrote:

Hi Bill,

The Panama RR, was it standard, or narrow ga. ?
If narrow, you know there will be a car so lettered on a
PRR flat headed to a shipping point.

Fred Freitas
admitted SPF

________________________________
From: William Keene <wakeene@...>
To: STMFC@...
Sent: Fri, June 11, 2010 5:40:46 PM
Subject: Re: [STMFC] Re: PATCHING, and fine scale chain

Hi Tim & Group,

I think that the bridge dates from the early 20th Century... something like 1902, I think. In this case you have the correct idea. But I would guess that it is more likely that it was shipped by rail instead of going around the tip of South America.

But there is a third route... by ship to Colon, Panama, Colombia (remember that Panama was a state of Colombia at the time), then transshipped over the Panama Rail Road (PRR... just love those initials), and then transshipped again up the west coast with the final delivery being by rail. Most likely still faster than going the extra miles around South America.

Cheers,
Bill Keene
Irvine, CA

On Jun 11, 2010, at 2:16 PM, Tim O'Connor wrote:

Eric is correct -- this is the Central Valley prototype in Piru, CA
http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=pr2gdb530vcq&scene=11424394&lvl=2&sty=o

The CV web site says the bridge was built by the New York Bridge Co. It
was no doubt shipped in pieces some distance by rail, but might have gone
by ship to either New Orleans or even around the Horn before being loaded
onto freight cars.

Tim O'Connor

I don't believe the Central Valley truss bridge is a pin-connected truss bridge. A model image is on their mainpage: http://www.cvmw.com/
I'm more familiar with a pin-connected truss looking more like this one. Note the steel members along the bottom outide of hte truss.
http://www.texnrails.com/catalog/details.asp?sid=JF25697055421821&mfg=TMS&item=2200301&cat=&series=
Of course, material for either type of bridge most likely was transported in steam era freight cars to the building location.
Eric

------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]