Looking back this was a banner year for members posting on Classic Trains.
Cannot imagine how much information was put forth and items that influenced people ( such as making a supreme mess of my kitchen making Lobster Newburg)
Great great items from everyone ....so much passion and dedication.
Cannot wait for 2018 to unfold on here.
Also Big Boy size thanks to Classic Trains and the staff.
Photo of the Day is a great way to start every day...bleary eyed, in my housecoat, coffee in hand, it's just what the doctor ordered...best thing ever!
You said it!
And what a great bunch of people here! No dog fights, name calling, back-biting, insults, or any general nastyness you might see on other forums. Not that everyone doe it on other forums but you know what I mean.
Looking forward to another year of fun and learning, and Happy New Year to all!
Firelock76 Looking forward to another year of fun and learning, and Happy New Year to all!
Indeed!
My New Year's resolution: Make up a few good questions in advance so I am prepared for the quiz.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Adding my wishes for everyone to have a Happy New Year.
I too have posts I would like to make if I could just get things organized.
The Photo of the Day really is the best way to get the day started.
Bruce
So shovel the coal, let this rattler roll.
"A Train is a Place Going Somewhere" CP Rail Public Timetable
"O. S. Irricana"
. . . __ . ______
AgentKid---Well heck get organized! Want to see more of that Alberta prairie railroading and all the history and stories that go along.
This isn't the prairies and far from Alberta but am captivated by this picture. Perhaps it will encourage you.
As a kid and young teen I was fascinated by the switchers and really really adored the old passenger cars. Those older cars had 'stories to tell and knew the railroad' ... I realized their glory days were gone and relegated to service on smaller trains. No one had to tell me that, I could see the new postwar equipment, those cars didn't look like these ones. Once in a blue moon I would get one on a trip to Toronto. As a toddler I vividly recall riding in them with my mom to go shopping or to the doctor in Hamilton. They had a very special aura to them and smelled great inside. Sometimes I would see them painted shades of a weird colour they used for the 'work gang' trains, and there they were still going, their glory days gone.
8421 switching a single old wood truss-rod car. It may have been turned on the loop behind the roundhouse. Note tell-tales above engine. These are to warn switchmen on roofs of cars of restricted overhead clearance. In this case Spadina Avenue bridge.
great photo --- thanks
Really liked the old CN-GT-GTW-CV color scheme, green, black, and gold. Something very railroad and classy about it. Would fit a streamliner just fine.
Miningman, I know just what you mean about old passenger coaches and what stories they could tell. About ten, maybe fifteen years ago we went for a ride on the New Hope and Ivyland in Pennsylvania, and the NH&I uses old Reading coaches built between 1917 and 1927.
These cars were in what I'd call a "state of preservation," that is, kept up and clean, but unrestored, so all the honest wear was still there to be seen. I sat there and just had to wonder what the car would have to say if it could speak.
Miningman( such as making a supreme mess of my kitchen making Lobster Newburg)
Funny you should bring up that discussion again. One of my Christmas gifts was a book on Cedar Point by David W. and Diane DeMali Francis. It's from the Images of America series by Arcadia Publishing. (For those who don't know, Cedar Point is a large amusement park located in Sandusky Ohio and I worked there from 1988 to 1991.) On page 81 there's a menu dated Monday, June 29, 1936 for the Green and Silver Grill which was located near the beach and the Breakers Hotel. Pretty swanky:
Surprisingly, on a menu that featured entrees like "Real Main (where's the "e"? ) Lobster Newburg", "Roast Prime Rib of Beef" and "French Jumbo Frog in Butter, Grenoibloise", the Lobster wasn't the most expensive thing on the menu! It was only $1.75, with choice of soup or appetizer, potato and vegetable, beverage and dessert. "Broiled Baby Lobster" with the same sides came in at $1.50 and "Steamed Chicken Lobster" cost $1.35. Nope, the most expensive thing on the menu was a "Porterhouse Steak Charcoal Broiled" at a whopping $2! Even adjusting for inflation the meal was a bargain by our standards!
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
That is a swanky looking place, although I'll pass on the Jumbo Frog.
Keep the meat and potatoes comin' though!
The lobsgter sounds interesting--one size each for 3 sizes of eaters. As o frog legs, once was enough for me. I had taken the Bird from Birmingham, expecting to change in Nashville for St. Louis--and #6 ran so late I spent the night and a day in Nashville. I do not remember what restaurant I ate dinenr in, but I decided to try the frog legs on the mnu--and was not highly excited by the meal.
Johnny
Yeah I'll leave the frog legs and slugs (snails) to the swells and higher ups in society.
As for Cedar Point...great place, long history. Lake Erie is mysterious, magical and very special but treacherous and deadly at the same time.
Dave Klepper-- Thank you. It is a photo that tells a thousand stories.
Remarkable that near everything you see is now gone. This was the time JUST before the 60's came and everything but everything changed. The green and gold you admired, which as you pointed out would look great on today's trains, gave way to the black and white and the CN noodle, which is still with us.
Most of the scene today is the Rogers Centre but many still call it the SkyDome, home of the Toronto Blue Jays. The CNR Spadina roundhouse is long gone, about where the outfield and the in-stadium hotel is. The GMD and Alco/MLW switchers are no longer with us as is of course the steam and the heaveyweight car, the cabins, towers and almost all of that track.
The CPR roundhouse, located in the same general vicinity still exists though and has a railway museum and a brewery. It is home to the 4-8-4 6213, which used to be displayed on the Exhibition grounds adjacent to the marine museum. It has essentially been outside since it dropped the fires in '59. Society itself changed just as dramatically.
Penny Trains"French Jumbo Frog in Butter, Grenoibloise"
Is that the way they spelled it?
Grenobloise style is one of the quickest good eatin' sauces ever devised, and best uses of the Maillard reaction: it's just unsalted butter, lemon, and capers browned up in the pan you sauteed the main dish in a moment before. Sole is a particularly good way to experience this; it's almost as fast as pan-blackened redfish to prepare...
Even the not-quite-chicken taste of frog's legs might benefit from this flavor delight.
An old girlfriend of mine remarked on the fact that much steamed lobster derives its taste from the melted butter: she invented the idea of a sterilizable sponge that could be affixed to a fork for repeated biting and dipping to give all the joy of the lobster tail at a fraction of the cost. Something similar could probably be arranged by adapting something like chicken nuggets to the frog's-legs format. It would taste better, too.
I do have to say that snails are good, very good, once you actually overcome the instinctive struggle to get them into your mouth.
For some reason, mentioning snail as a culinary delight reminds me of what one spectator at a snail race exclaimed: "Look at that S car go!"
I do not remember just when or where, but I did at least once have the opportunity of eating snails. I might try that again, if given the opportunity.
Well now I did the Lobster Newburg but there is no way in tarnation I'm having anything to do with those slugs. I'll leave that to the Mitt Romney crowd at their high falutin' New York restaurants.
The Grenobolise sauce however is terrific. Easy-peasy you can even make this camping or in the bush. Capers are da bomb. Anchovies too!
I have caved and put up an Avatar. It's a T Shirt I wear overtop of whatever I'm wearing only and for every exam the students write as I silently go up and down the aisles watching them sweat.
OvermodOvermod wrote the following post 7 hours ago: Penny Trains "French Jumbo Frog in Butter, Grenoibloise" Is that the way they spelled it?
Yep. Notice also the "Main Lobster". Which, I guess, is better than those more famous "Lake Erie Lobsters".
Question 1: Was that the whole Jumbo Frog? If so, I trust it was drawn.
Question 2: Did the restaurant also serve Side-Track Lobster?
Deggesty Side-Track Lobster?
Side-Track Lobster?
What's that seasoned with, creosote?
No idea. This is the only menu I've seen from that restaurant. Last time I was inside that particular buiding it was part of the CP convention center and we (CP employees) were camped out on the floor for movie night. I think it was either "Troop Beverly Hills" or "Good Morning Vietnam". What can I say, it was the late 80's!
Miningman, I am very glad I never had you for an instructor. That T-shirt is so awesome I would never be able to pay attention during tests!
SD70Dude- Well thank you. The idea is to inspire, ..after 2 or 3 exams they look forward to it. They know it's coming and they really do dig deep. It's actually the students that are awesome!
They are back on Monday, the first year students starting for Semester II. The Instructors started on the 2nd prepping up. Thursday around 4:00pm the Big Boss came down to us in person and said "take the day tomorrow..you don't have to come in" ....no arguments from me!
We are bracing ourselves for Polar Vortex Part ( lost track), -40 Wednesday, there better not be any wind. What a winter...a classic!
It was +5 in Edmonton today, everything is melting (again!). What a wierd winter.
The railroads are very happy that warm weather has returned (for now), they can run long, long trains again without air problems.
We do not get Chinooks in Northern Saskatchewan...stuck with a sub polar climate, period.
I worked in central Saskatchewan for a time, it's hard to top a prairie blizzard. One night it was so bad I couldn't sweep out a switch, as fast as I swept out the snow more blew in. I can only imagine what the north is like.
Freeze-thaw-freeze-thaw ain't all it's cracked up to be, the roads are skating rinks at night and the actual outdoor rinks quickly become unuseable. Forget the puck on the ice and it melts into its own hole (black rubber warms up quickly in the sun).
We only get the freeze thaw cycle for maybe 10 days in the fall and the spring if that..in between it is just deep freeze, snow and on bad days wind. Winter simply arrives one day late October and leaves one day late in May just like that. It's an honest cold, dry, unlike areas with high humidity, freezing rain and all that misery. It can wear you down however because it is relentless and steady, there is no break. As a Prof/Instructor I can't do the Bora-Bora thing or even Vegas. I suppose at Christmas break but I choose to stay. Summers are outstanding (bugs!) and it is pristine up here. It's the real deal frontier, not for everyone.
Railroading is 3 hours away in Prince Albert and Flin Flon and a bit further South in the prairies. It's all good.
In Cleveland we get "Alberta Clippers" as the weather people like to say.
Penny Trains In Cleveland we get "Alberta Clippers"
In Cleveland we get "Alberta Clippers"
You're welcome! We send them south to spread the fun of winter!
Yes, most uncharitable of Canadians to hoard all that nice fresh snow. I say we help it get distributed just a bit more. I hear Toronto knows what to do with it if nobody else wants it.
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