BROAD GAUGE DAYS.
The Erie Railroad, chartered by the Legislature of New York
in 1832 as the New York & Erie Railroad, began construction
in 1836 and after a series of delays the road was opened from
the Hudson River to Lake Erie on April 22nd, 1851. Although the
original charter provided that the entire line was to be within
the State of New York, this was later modified to permit the road
to pass through a small portion of neighboring Pennsylvania.
Built in an era when the question of a general uniform gauge
had not been settled, the Erie was constructed to the broad gauge
of 6 feet between the rails. The rare old photo shown here was
owned by Joseph Boyd and located by Julian Caster of Elmira, N.Y.;
it was taken at Cameron Mills gravel pit in 1879 while the crews
of the New York, Lake Erie & Western Railway were engaged
in laying the Erie's second main track. Engine 199, an eight-wheeler,
heads a string of ballast cars, and a steam shovel for loading
them stands on the spur in the gravel pit at right.
The third rail visible within the 6-foot gauge tracks of the
Erie was used by the standard gauge trains of the Lehigh Valley
Railroad, the latter using a section of the Erie's trackage on
the journey between Waverly and Buffalo, New York. (Courtesy of
Erie Railroad Company)
from A Locomotive Engineer's Album by George B.Abdill
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