Did architects in America learn a great deal from the railroads ?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Invariably, railroad beds are elevated above the surrounding terrain, protecting them, mostly from water.

From flooding, high water tables and the instability of the ground.

The railroad beds seemed to endure when all other man made structures failed, due to floods, hurricanes and other natural forces.

Did the early American Golf Architects learn from the engineers who designed and layed the tracks throughout the land in the early years ?

Do elevated, constructed golf course features, likewise endure, due to one of the intended purposes of their design, the seperation of the feature from the eroding or unsettling effects of terrain and water ?  

And, wasn't it the introduction of the railroads, to or through locations throughout the land that led to golf course development ?

How else can you explain the introduction and success of golf courses deemed remote today, and wildly remote when they were first built ?

[Kyle Harris]

Pat,

Take a look at the railroad beds that have been neglected through the years. Ever walk an old railroad bed that hasn't been used for even a couple years? They're run down and neglected and in many cases non-existant.  

I can assure you that railroads endure because of constant maintenance and vigilance in regard to their condition.

I do agree that golf course development followed the railroads, especially in Philadelphia.

[Norbert P]

 In Scotland around 1850, there were abouot 25 golf courses throughout the country.

  Without doing some research, I believe this was about when steam engines and train tracks were becoming prolific within the industrial age.  (Tom MacWood, why have you forsaken us?)

 By 1900, there were over 250 golf courses in Scotland.

 I don't know if trains caused the growth, but I'm sure it had a huge part in its popularity.


I don't think it had much inspiration in the actual design of golf course construction beyond . . . hi and dry vs. low and in the flow.

  Then again, glacial moraine, in the form of eskers, which resemble train track beds, must have attracted the eyes of early designers.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Kyle,

While the tracks may be in disrepair, the beds remain in defiance to the NATURAL elements.

Vandalism is another matter.

[Kyle Harris]

Kyle,

While the tracks may be in disrepair, the beds remain in defiance to the NATURAL elements.

Vandalism is another matter.

The beds that haven't been used in Schuylkill County, PA and haven't been under the influence of man are no long in existance and exist simply as dirt paths with no evidence of ballast. In fact, prior to the bankruptcy of the Reading Railroad, Hurricane Agnes did extensive damage to the railroad beds in central PA, from which the Reading never fully recovered.

I come from a family of rail workers, the constant demands of the train usage and other weather factors necessitate constant vigilance - much like any golf course feature does. If the ground under the bed goes, so does the railroad bed.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Kyle,

Floods came and went, and the railroad beds endured because they were elevated well above the surrounding terrain on constructed berms/beds.

The ballast stones you reference were reclaimed, along with the steel tracks when the lines were abandoned.

[RJ_Daley]

Pat,

courses naturally followed the R.R.s across out country and Canada.  Even in the cities, the train was used to bring the golfers out to L.I., or in Chicago, out to places like Olympia Fields.  

As far as the engineering of the R.R. beds, influencing GCA, I doubt it anymore than a normal and common method to build earthen structure above flood plains and the like.  The same with draining a swamp to build a causeway across.  I would guess the R.R.s had more clout to do environmental manipulation in the 1800s and most of the 1900s than any GC development.

http://www.freshtracks.com/canada/rail_coach/golf_canadian_rockies_train.php

[Kyle Harris]

Kyle,

Floods came and went, and the railroad beds endured because they were elevated well above the surrounding terrain on constructed berms/beds.

The ballast stones you reference were reclaimed, along with the steel tracks when the lines were abandoned.

In my example, the lines were abandoned because they couldn't be repaired following Agnes in 1972.

. Wasn't Rae's Creek rerouted and the pond on the front left of 11 created because of flooding eroding that particular green? Water will erode away at the base of any man made dirt structure given enough time, especially if they aren't monitored and maintained. It's a combination of the elevation and maintenance that helps them persist in the face of mother nature.

An interesting example of a green persisting in flooding was the 17th at Huntingdon Valley, which was submerged one morning following a particularly nasty storm. Very little happened in the way of erosion.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Kyle,

I was referencing courses built in the early 1900's.

Railroad use in America commenced in 1827, so golf course architects had plenty of examples to study when they began to design and construct golf course features.

I've notice the almost universal elevation of railroad beds since I was a little kid, which almost goes back to 1827.

The errosive force of water depends upon its application and usually, the speed at which the water flows against that which borders it.

Floods aren't always raging flows of water, often they're merely the raising of the water level at a moderate to slight pace.

[RJ_Daley]

RR bed, flood damages  

[Tony_Muldoon]

Pat interestng new take on an old theme.  What did we learn form railroad construction?  I can't prove it but I bet something learnt, was the abilty to economically move large ammounts of soil and all thats meant for golf course construction.

I think there was a chicken and egg situation going on in the developmentof small towns. What came first the houses or the railroad?  The golf course always came later until in Scottish the railway companies developed places like Gleaneagles and Turnberry.

this develpment ws discussed below.

www.golfclubatlas.com/forums2/index. php?board=1;action=printpage;threadid=4523
and
http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forums2/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=30239

[jeffwarne]

Pat,

Take a look at the railroad beds that have been neglected through the years. Ever walk an old railroad bed that hasn't been used for even a couple years? They're run down and neglected and in many cases non-existant.  

I can assure you that railroads endure because of constant maintenance and vigilance in regard to their condition.

I do agree that golf course development followed the railroads, especially in Philadelphia.

Kyle,
It doesn't matter what you've observed, or your family's background----
You can't be right-

You're not using colored text!

[Jeff_Brauer]

If nothing else, I think the railroads drove the earthmoving industry to its then current heights, as that had to be developed to raise those lines, not only up and over flood levels, and for drainage, but up and over roads to avoid conflicts and on approaches to bridges, which were mostly fills, as that was cheaper than a bridge.

Granted, most of that raising and relocating for roads happened post 1900, and often in cities rather than the country, but railroads proved just how much earth you could move with horse and scoop.

For different reasons, both golf (cheap land) and railroads (need to follow river grades) both are often located in flood plains. Its one thing to have water rise, its quite another to have it rise and rage, as that causes damage to earth.

Side note of American railroad history - when the B and O was first building west of Baltimore with no real experience (the were the first US railway) their engineers had to decide which was more important - low gradients or broad curves.  They picked broad curves, when in fact, low gradients was the real key to effectively moving longer trains that would soon become common.  They were often called "Railroad University" as other railways learned from their mistakes.


I guess we could call the period prior to 1920 in american golf architecture "golf architecture university" as the second generation leared from the early pioneers mistakes.

[Patrick_Mucci]

RJ, the photo below looks like runoff damage from the ground to the right and above the tracks.[/color]




This is a good example of what I was refering to, the elevated nature of the bed keeping the tracks above the water, just like Raynor's footpads kept his tees and greens above rising waters in Florida.[/color]

[Doug Wright]

Patrick, here's one link between golf course architecture and railroads:

Howard C. Toomey was a civil engineer specializing
in railroad construction. He formed a partnership for
the design of golf courses with William S. Flynn shortly
after World War I and was responsible for much of
the firm's construction. With Flynn, he was responsible
for the 1928 design of the James River Course at the
Country Club of Virginia in Richmond, Virginia.
He died in 1933.

[RJ_Daley]

If I'm not mistaken, Bill McBrides Pensicola CC was remodeled with raised green and features to address the history of frequent low rising water type flooding.  I guess the FWs still flood, but the greens and features generally are raised enough.   I could be wrong.  

[TEPaul]

"And, wasn't it the introduction of the railroads, to or through locations throughout the land that led to golf course development?"


Patrick:

Of course it was.

It's definitely not just historical coincidence that golf and golf architecture initially began to emigrate out of the linksland of Scotland (the only place on earth where it'd been basically played on a constant basis for a number of centuries) with the onset of the blanketing of GB with railroads and at almost exactly the same time. The two events were completely related and I think it's hard for any of us today to overestimate how much the railroads effected and influenced that emigration of golf and architecture at that time.

And had it not been for the development of the steam engine and the mobile steam engine that blanketing of GB and America and other lands with railroads would not have happened.

Here's an interesting historic fact for you:

From about 1827 until about 1913 the United States had no central bank. During much of that time there was a capital requirement that outstripped and outstripped by a wide margin any other capital requirement the nation had, and that did include every capital requirement including wars, cities, industry, anything.

Can you imagine what that greatest of all capital requirements of much of those middle 19th century years was?

And it was probably not much different in GB at that time.

And what it did and meant in terms of development in almost every way is hard for us today to appreciate. The emigration of golf and architecture out of Scotland that was also a result of this is so miniscule in the grand scheme of things as to be almost unnoticeable. But to golf and architecture and its spread at that time the development of railway lines and railroads is completely central.

Furthermore, since there was no central bank at that time where do you think the capital for this most massive of all capital requirements came from?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Furthermore, since there was no central bank at that time where to you think the capital for this most massive of all capital requirements came from?

I had heard, from a reliable source, that it was from two (2) families.

The Drexel's and the Paul's [/color]

[TEPaul]

Patrick:

Congratulations, you've hit a new level of excellence---you're 50% right.  

[Patrick_Mucci]

TEPaul,

Would J.P. Morgan be the other half ?

A.J. Drexel, a distant relative of yours, was a force in finance and on Wall Street.

That's why I want to visit HappyDale Farms and see the hidden vault under the barn.

Is all that old currency you're hoarding still legal tender ?

[TEPaul]

"TEPaul,
Would J.P. Morgan be the other half ?
A.J. Drexel, a distant relative of yours, was a force in finance and on Wall Street."

Patrick:

Sure J.P. Morgan would be. He was considered to be the biggest and most influential financier in American history but he was by no means the only one financing that massive railroad expansion accross America. There were a number of them.

It was an interesting time in finance and construction in a nation-building mode. Those guys like Drexel and Morgan (actually Morgan's early career was first with Drexel & Co and then with a company called Drexel, Morgan, and eventually J.P. Morgan & Co after A.J. Drexel died).

Those guys were raising the money for those railroads but most of the people running them were a bunch of economic cowboys who could and did drive those financiers nuts! After all they were the ones raising the money and putting their reputations on the line with it.

The fact is A.J. Drexel of Philadelphia made Morgan or it's more accurate to say he saved him, then remade him and Drexel during his life was the only man in the world that J.P. Morgan answered to. There's an interesting little book out by one of Morgan's biographers called "A.J. Drexel, the Man Who Made Wall Street."

Part of the reason for that is Drexel took Morgan into his company at the behest of Morgan's father Junius P. Morgan, an American financier in London, and Drexel made young Morgan his man in New York. But there wasn't that much in New York at that time so Drexel built 23 Wall Street, that magnificent wedge-shaped building and that essentially put Wall Street on the map bigtime! 23 Wall Street was intended to be a major statement and it definitely was.

A lot of Morgan's reputation was first made by an incident in the 1880s. Those guys dealt in what were called "Call loans" and apparently at a card game one night Morgan sensed that J. Cooke (a guy Drexel also made) who dealt in financier backed loans to the government was going down and Morgan told Drexel the company needed to call everything in.

The only problem was Drexel was essentially a family company and A.J's brother, Francis, basically ran the call loans in New York. Francis didn't want to do it so A.J. had to decide to go with the advice of Morgan, an outsider, or his brother. A.J went with Morgan and the company got out of harm's way as the huge economic crash of the 1880s set in.

What Drexel did, according to that biography was to also essentially end neopotism in companies like that and go with merit alone.

That event made Morgan and the rest is American economic history of a tall order. J.P Morgan became the biggest name in finance in the world and that's just the way the publicity shy A.J. Drexel wanted it.

But what those guys did for railroad expansion was huge and what railroad expansion did for golf in America was huge too.

As far as golf architecture taking the idea of building up architectural features like railway construction did tracks, I don't really buy that analogy or tie in. But if there was any of that a guy who may've carried it from railroad track construction into golf course architecture might logically be someone like Flynn's Howard Toomey.

The fact is before Toomey got into golf course architecture he was a railroad construction engineer.