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19-910: The railroad, conceived by GTR president Charles Melville Hays to break the near-monopoly of the New Haven Railroad in southern New England, was chartered in April 1910, and was to be built as a completely grade-separated air line , having low grades and long high bridges over valleys. Hays went down with the RMS Titanic in April 1912; nevertheless, construction on the SNE commenced at full speed in May. However, all work stopped in November 1912, ostensibly due to an inability of worldwide bond markets to finance further GT expansion, although pressure from

38-525: A branch around the west side to the docks south of downtown. The former route, leading into Providence Union Station , was planned to pass through a tunnel under Smith Hill , on which little if any construction was undertaken before cessation of work in Rhode Island. Some of the plans included a branch to Boston or a separate route to Boston from the Central Vermont, but they never reached

57-468: A desire by the reorganized railroad ( Canadian National Railways ) to concentrate on serving Canadian ports with existing lines rather than building new ones in the U.S.; the existence of an all-weather port in southern New England ( New London ) already served by the Central Vermont; the Federal control of American railroads between 1917 and 1920 and its disruptive aftermath; and the increasing influence of

76-410: A part of leveling an area for construction; it may also contain sand, rocks, and stones, as well as earth. Fill dirt should be as free of organic matter as possible since organic matter will decompose creating pockets of empty space within the fill which could result in settling. Uneven or excessive settling of the fill can result in damage to any structures built on the fill. A common use of fill dirt

95-404: Is earthy material which is used to fill in a depression or hole in the ground or create mounds or otherwise artificially change the grade or elevation of real property. Fill dirt is usually subsoil (soil from beneath topsoil ) and underlying soil parent material which has little soil organic matter or biological activity . Fill dirt is taken from a location where soil is being removed as

114-422: Is in highway maintenance to build up the shoulders of highways so that the ground on either side of the pavement is at the same level as the pavement itself and that the highway shoulders are sufficiently wide as to allow vehicles room to pull off of the highway if needed. A second common use of fill dirt is to fill in a low-lying construction site to raise the level of the building foundation in order to reduce

133-495: Is most often mined from commercial sand and gravel mines then imported to the project site, and must meet specifications for gradation outlined by the Project's Geotechnical Engineer. The logistics and availability of fill dirt material has become a growing concern for the commercial sand and gravel industry in recent years as the need for fill material has surged and the available resources in mines are depleted. This directly impacts

152-833: The Southern New England Trunkline Trail . The Southern New England Trunkline Trail follows not the path of the SNE, but rather the abandoned right-of-way of the New York and New England Railroad . Charles Melville Hays Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.226 via cp1108 cp1108, Varnish XID 253564403 Upstream caches: cp1108 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 10:36:49 GMT Fill dirt Fill dirt (also called cleanfill , or just fill )

171-568: The New Haven, at the time closely allied with financier J. Pierpont Morgan , was widely suspected. Construction soon resumed in Massachusetts so that contractor John Marsch , who threatened litigation against the GT for breach of contract , could be paid for the work. However, construction in Rhode Island, for which a different contractor was responsible, did not restart. By 1916 almost all

190-673: The SNE in the Connecticut legislature . In climbing out of Palmer, the SNE would have crossed over the Boston and Albany Railroad twice (in addition to the CV's diamond crossing of the B&;A at Palmer, still in use today). The second crossing would have been a spectacular, tall steel trestle on a hairpin turn over the B&A and the Quaboag Valley . In Millville, Massachusetts ,

209-536: The SNE would have passed over the Blackstone River on another (straighter) high-level bridge, with both the New York and New England Railroad (now abandoned) and the Providence and Worcester Railroad (still in use) below. Several full-height supports were built as well as several partial supports in the river. The two above trestles were built for steel; however, one major trestle was made of wood and

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228-687: The chances of flooding. Several massive uses of fill dirt are with improvements to the Port of Seattle Sea-Tac Airport , the addition of a new runway to the Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia , and the Kansai International Airport off the coast of Osaka , Japan , a project involving the creation of a new man-made island of some five square kilometers. Fill dirt

247-440: The construction stage. An official Massachusetts railroad map shows the entire right-of-way in the state as being of "abandoned" type, and of "unknown" ownership. Most of the grade is overgrown, rock cuts flooded, and embankments quarried out for their gravel. Many sections have passed into private ownership and have been built over by modern developments. Many of the old concrete bridge abutments are still visible. Two sections of

266-482: The grading and concrete work in Massachusetts was completed, although no steelwork other than on highway overpasses was ever erected. World War I was seen as only a temporary financial setback to construction, which, however, never resumed. Several reasons have been given for the abandonment of the SNE project in addition to the war: bankruptcy of the GT due to overexpansion by subsidiary Grand Trunk Pacific ;

285-617: The motor truck and automobile (passenger service on the SNE had been contemplated along with freight). Attempts were made throughout the 1920s, and into the early 1930s by politicians and businessmen, mostly from Rhode Island , to restart the work and to get the line completed as a way to break the New Haven's stranglehold on freight traffic in Rhode Island, but the Great Depression finally put an end to their efforts. Some concrete abutments were removed for highway projects starting as early as 1929, and several washouts later compromised

304-496: The public and end-user as the cost of construction increases due to the logistical challenges of importing material from greater distances as materials grow more scarce. In an effort to combat the costs and increasing logistical challenges related to dwindling sand and gravel stockpiles, some services are offering contractors and the public a way to exchange fill dirt materials in addition to locating operating sand and gravel mines. Internet based services allow consumers and contractors

323-879: The right-of-way have been improved as a public trails open to non-motorized vehicles. The longest is a five-mile section in Sturbridge that is in the Westville Lake recreation area, it can be accessed at Westville Dam, Wallace Road, and River Street. The other 2-3/4 mile long section named the Grand Trunk Trail is in the Douglas State Forest , it crosses SW Main Street, the Streeter Trail, the Midstate Trail , Wallum Lake Road and

342-510: The right-of-way, particularly during hurricanes in 1938 and in 1955 . The construction of the SNE's gently-graded "air line" had its geographical costs in high fills, long trestles, and sharp curves. Also of crucial importance to the Grand Trunk was avoiding Connecticut . The company purposely had not sought a charter to build through the home state of the rival New Haven, which Charles M. Hays assumed would mount significant opposition to

361-624: Was actually built: a 1,000-foot long, 55-foot tall "beanpole" trestle over the French River and the New Haven-controlled Norwich and Worcester Railroad . For reasons of cost, the trestle was intended to be permanent. Typical of railroad construction at the time, the SNE also built many semi-permanent wooden trestles, around which fill would be dumped to create embankments . The main route would have gone through Woonsocket, Rhode Island to downtown Providence , with

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