Today, we are used to railroads all using the same gauge, the distance between the rails, of four feet, eight and one-half inches. While this is the standard gauge today, in the early days of railroading in the United States different railroads were built with different gauges. The predecessors of the Erie Railroad, among others, were “wide gauge” railroads built at a width of six feet between the rails.
People or goods being transported over railroads using different gauges had to be transferred from one train to another each point where the gauge changed, adding time and expense to the trip. Of course, this expense to the railroads was a source of profit for the people who did it and politicians in different jurisdictions sometimes mandated the gauge of railroads in their area as a way to protect a railroad or other economic interest.
The excerpt below from Edward Mott’s book “The Story of Erie” entitled “The War of the Gauges” is a good description (though from the point of the view of the Erie Railroad) of how the city of Erie, PA and politicians used laws mandating certain gauges to their advantage and the impact it had.
The War of the Gauges
When the Erie was completed to Dunkirk in 1851 there was no railroad connection farther west. The Cleveland, Ashtabula, and Painesville Railroad was being extended eastward, with the intention of connecting with the Erie or the New York Central Railroad by means of local roads across the northeast corner of Pennsylvania, known as the Triangle, and bordering on Lake Erie, the distance across that portion of Pennsylvania, between the New York and the Ohio lines, being fifty miles. The borough of Erie (now city) occupied the vantage point in that corner of the State on Lake Erie. A railroad known as the Erie and Northeast Railroad had been chartered, April 22, 1842, to be built from Northeast, a Pennsylvania village near the New York line, to Erie, about twenty miles. Nothing was done toward building the railroad until 1849, when, events seeming to indicate that the New York and Erie Railroad was certain to reach Lake Erie, the Erie and Northeast Company saw the importance of its railroad as a link in a chain of rail communication between the East and West and began work upon it. The railroad was completed January 19, 1852, the New York and Erie Railroad having then been open between New York and Dunkirk the better part of a year. In 1848 Pennsylvania capitalists obtained a charter from their State Legislature for the Erie and Ohio Railroad Company, to build a railroad from Erie to the Ohio line. This would have assured the completion of a line across the Triangle, but, unfortunately, the individuals interested in the project were dilatory in taking advantage of their charter, and in 1849 it was repealed in the interest of the Pennsylvania Central Railroad, which was then building to connect Philadelphia and Pittsburg, and which was determined to harass the New York trunk lines in obtaining thoroughfare through Pennsylvania.
In 1844 the Pennsylvania Legislature had chartered the Franklin Canal Company, with authority to repair the Franklin Division of the Pennsylvania Canal, and the privilege of constructing a railroad on the towpath north to Erie and south to Pittsburg, or on a route the company deemed most advantageous. Construing this concession somewhat liberally, the Canal Company located a railroad between Erie and the Ohio State line, which would complete a connection by rail with the Erie and Northeast Railroad, and give a direct line to the New York lines to Cleveland.
Under the New York railroad law of 1849, a company entitled the Buffalo and State Line Railroad Company was organized to build a railroad from Buffalo westward along Lake Erie to the State line, the purpose being to make a connection with the Erie and Northeast Railroad, and thus control, with that railroad and the proposed Ohio connection, the traffic to and fro between the East and West and the railroad then terminating at Buffalo, which was destined soon to become part of the present New York Central system. The original intent of the Erie and Northeast Railroad Company was to make the gauge of its railroad six feet, and, in fact, it had an understanding with the New York and Erie Railroad Company to that effect, being also under the impression that the Buffalo and State Line Railroad was to be of that gauge. The influences that subsequently combined the five local New York railroads between Albany and Buffalo into the one New York Central were then at work, and it was evident the Central was to be of the four-foot-eight-and- a-half-gauge, and also that the Buffalo and State Line Railroad was in existence in the interests of the Central, for the same gauge was adopted by the State Line Company.
The New York and Erie, as well as the Central, knew the importance of a connection that would give it thoroughfare across that comer of Pennsylvania, and under the New York General Railroad Law of 1850 the Dunkirk and State Line Railroad was organized to build a railroad from the Dunkirk terminus of the Erie to the Pennsylvania line, with a gauge of six feet, to meet the Erie and Northeast connection there with the same gauge. This, of course, was in the interest of the Erie, and would give it a line toward the West without breaking bulk. This aroused the Buffalo and State Line Railroad Company, or, rather, the interests in the Central that controlled it, and they so harassed the Erie in its Dunkirk and State Line project that the Erie was weak enough, early in 1851, to consent to a compromise with the Central, instead of insisting on having its independent connecting line, the building of which it abandoned. The Buffalo and State Line Railroad was originally laid out to go via Fredonia, three miles from Dunkirk. By the compromise with the Erie the route was changed, and the railroad was built via Dunkirk, to give the Erie connection with it, and a neutral gauge, known as the Ohio gauge, was adopted by the local railroad, the Erie and Northeast Railroad agreeing to lay the same gauge, the width of which was four feet ten inches. Then the Erie subscribed $250,000 to the stock of the Buffalo and State Line Railroad, to aid in its construction, and placed itself ever after at the mercy of its great rival, which never hesitated to assert its supremacy in that connecting line whenever Erie interests might be damaged by so doing. The Buffalo and State Line is now part of the Central’s Lake Shore and Michigan Southern system. The four-foot-ten gauge necessitated a breaking of freight bulk and changing of cars by passengers by the Central at Buffalo, and by way of the Erie at Dunkirk.
But the Pennsylvania Central Railroad’s influence and the influence of the borough of Erie now appeared again. By the arrangement between the Buffalo and State Line and the Erie and Northeast railroads, the two New York trunk lines were to obtain a highway across Pennsylvania, which the Pennsylvania Central Railroad determined to prevent; and the borough of Erie discovered that passengers and freight, east and west bound, would pass through that place without changing cars or breaking bulk there, and thus disappointing citizens of Erie who had calculated on making money by such a break in the gauge. Responsive to the demands of those influences, the Pennsylvania Legislature, March 11, 1851, passed a law establishing the legal gauge for all railroads west of Erie to the Ohio line at four feet ten inches, and prohibiting all railroads east from that borough from laying track except of a four-foot-eight-and-a-half or a six-foot gauge.
The Erie and Northeast Company, standing on what it claimed was its charter rights, refused to comply with the law, and laid its tracks at the neutral or Ohio gauge, but when the work of laying the track through Erie borough was attempted, the rails were torn up and the workmen dispersed by infuriated Erie people. The cry was, “ Break gauge at Erie, or no railroad ! ” The riots were fierce and bloody, and guns and pistols were the order of the day; and orders of the Pennsylvania courts, and even the authority of the United States court, were defied. During this lawless outbreak many lives were lost. The Governor of the State refused to use his authority to restore order. The Erie and Northeast Company was determined. It abandoned the route through Erie, and attempted to build its railroad around the place, but the tracks were torn up and bridges destroyed by the Erie rioters.
From 1853 until 1855 the War of the Gauges was waged by the people of Erie, supported by the State government and politicians, and in defiance of the courts. Passengers and freight, during the winter, when the lake was closed, had to be transferred by wagon from a point east of Erie as near as the people of that place would permit the cars to come on that side, to a point west of the borough, where the cars from that direction were stopped, and vice versa. The hardships of this were great, especially to emigrants, who were travelling westward in great numbers. This was called “Crossing the Isthmus.” The War of the Gauges forced the Erie to abandon one of its through passenger trains, and a freight and a stock train, for many months, resulting in heavy loss.
In 1855 the State of Pennsylvania, to punish the Erie and Northeast Railroad Company for its determination to aid in advancing the general transportation interests of the country in face of the opposition of the Pennsylvania Central Railroad and of the selfish lawlessness of the people of Erie, repealed its charter, confiscated its railroad, and placed it in charge of State agents. This resulted in a compromise. The Erie and Northeast agreed to build its railroad into Erie and to the harbor, and to subscribe $400,000 to the stock of the Pittsburg and Erie Railroad, the Buffalo and State Line Company subscribing a like amount—a condition of the blackmailing settlement being also that the Cleveland and Erie Railroad should subscribe $500,000 to the stock of the Sunbury and Erie Railroad, another projected Pennsylvania line—and the gauge law was repealed. The charter rights of the Erie and Northeast Railroad and its property were restored to the Company, and the disgraceful, high-handed, and lawless War of the Gauges was over. In 1857 the Erie and Northeast Railroad passed into the possession of the New York Central, and the Erie management soon discovered how foolish it had been in succumbing to the Central interests in the matter of the Buffalo and State Line Railroad (“ Administration of Homer Ramsdel,” Page 121).
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- Mott, Edward. 1899. Between the Ocean and the Lakes – The Story of Erie. New York, NY: J.S. Collins.