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Changing
Position of the Third Rail In using a wye with third-rail trackage, on one leg
of that wye the location of the third rail had to change. Turning
equipment of either gauge on the wye posed no problems but when two
different gauge engines or with cars of differing gauges had to use the
wye, it meant stopping, uncoupling, then the engine going around the
other two legs of the wye and coupling up again.
If a crew forgot, the results to the weaker piece of roiling
stock would be damaging. I
saw the entire end of a narrow gauge box car shattered one time, and no,
I don’t have a picture of the shambles, as to take one would have been
very embarrassing to the yard crew. The
Tionesta Valley, when having to take a standard gauge PRR box car to the
Barnes plant a couple miles south of the TV terminal, would spot the box
car almost onto the place where the position of the third rail changed.
This was the throat of their engine house yard next to the girder
bridge. The engine would uncouple and back down the track about 30 feet,
then a cable would be used to draw the box car over that piece of track.
When coupled up again, the narrow gauge engine would take the car on
down to Barnes where all the mill track was dual gauge. One time the PRR derailed some cars on their line
through Sheffield, not however blocking the TV track connections at two
points. To get the daily
passenger train past the wreck the TV's sharply curving track from the
depot down to the yard was employed, a narrow gauge engine moving one
standard gauge car at a time. Then
it would push the car to the other track connection, The curve from the
depot was too sharp to handle more than one car at a time.
The PRR crew and the passengers must have had a time enjoying
this strange detour, having to leave their K-4 behind and wait for a
freight engine to come up from Renovo and head the strange mixed up
consist on toward Philadelphia, a few hours late that day. Bob Richardson
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