Classic Railroad Quiz (at least 50 years old).

[Deggesty]

henry6

With the exception of the D&H and RDG (where I'm not going) you got the flags.  How 'bout the pennents and handkerchiefs?

Henry, I'm really not sure as to what you mean by "pennants and handkerchiefs." Does this refer to small roads such as Buffalo Rochester and Pittsburgh and switching roads?

Thanks,

Johnny

[henry6]

With the exception of the D&H and RDG (where I'm not going) you got the flags.  How 'bout the pennents and handkerchiefs?

[Deggesty]

henry6

Texas Zepher seems to have dissappeared....I hope he is ok...does anybody know?  I PM'd him and got no response...

 THEREFORE...I''' venture another question.   I am going to the wilds of Pennsylvania tormorrow (Sat 11/7 to venture the paths of probably almost a dozen fallen flags...and pennants...and handkerchiefs tied to tree limbs...aside from the given, PRR, NYC, name as many of the fallen that I may encounter.  I live in Vestal, NY, I will travel no more than 100 miles away from my home and in probably a more west-southwesterly direction than any other.  See you tomorrow night.

I may be a bit out on distance on some of these, but I can name the following:

Lehigh Valley, Reading, Erie, Lackawanna, Delaware & Hudson, B&O, PRR, NYC, West Shore, Northern Central.

Edit: add Jersey Central.

Johnny

[Texas Zepher]

henry6

Texas Zepher seems to have dissappeared....I hope he is ok...does anybody know?  I PM'd him and got no response...

Forgot all about this thread especially that I had answered a question here.  But I generally like answering rather than asking the questions anyway...

[henry6]

Texas Zepher seems to have dissappeared....I hope he is ok...does anybody know?  I PM'd him and got no response...

 THEREFORE...I''' venture another question.   I am going to the wilds of Pennsylvania tormorrow (Sat 11/7 to venture the paths of probably almost a dozen fallen flags...and pennants...and handkerchiefs tied to tree limbs...aside from the given, PRR, NYC, name as many of the fallen that I may encounter.  I live in Vestal, NY, I will travel no more than 100 miles away from my home and in probably a more west-southwesterly direction than any other.  See you tomorrow night.

[henry6]

T Z:  your turn to ask a question....

[henry6]

Well Tex, you got all I was thinking of...but Taunton in RI may have been another...it gets murkey  because so many had already combined...like Rogers into Cooke in Paterson...

Ya got it!  Ya go next!

[Texas Zepher]

 

henry6

Speaking of early locomotive works...I believe there were six which joined to make the American Locomotive Works...name them and their cities.

Well I already named two:  Brooks Locomotive Works in Dunkirk, NY and Schenectady Locomotive Works in duh Schenectady, NY.

Dickson Manufacturing in Scranton, PA

Rhode Island Locomotive Works in Providence, RI (as I recall was bankrupt at time of the merger)

Cooke Locomotive in Paterson New Jersey

Richmond Locomotive works in duh Richmond, VA

Manchester Locomotive in duh Manchseter, NH

and ummm another city name one....   

[henry6]

The locomotive was thrown on a siding or in a shed and neglected for years while horses continued operations.

[daveklepper]

Was the locomotive used in revenue service until they got something more substantial or did they revert to horses?

[wanswheel]

Tom Thumb's brass engine was built at Sterling Works in New York to Peter Cooper's specifications and he used it in his factory "for pumping water and other purposes." The locomotive, as distinct from the engine, he built at Mount Clare.

Peter Cooper in the Boston Herald, July 9, 1882:

"It is now about fifty-five years since I was drawn into a speculation in Baltimore. Two men there, whom I knew slightly, came up and asked me to join them in buying a tract of three thousand acres of land within the city limits. It included the shore for three miles, and the new Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was going to run through it. The road was chartered, and a little of it was graded. Its cars were to be drawn by horses; nobody thought of the possibility of steam. I consulted my friend Gideon Lee, ... and he advised me that it was a good scheme. He said the land was worth five hundred thousand dollars, whether the road was ever finished or not. So I went to Baltimore, saw the land, and agreed to take one-third, and paid my money, twenty thousand dollars.

"They drew on me every little while for taxes, etc., and when, at the end of a year, I went down again, I found out that neither of my partners had paid a cent on the purchase, and that I had been sending down money to pay their board! The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad had got some wooden rails laid, and thinking it might amount to something, I bought my swindling partners out, paying one of them ten thousand dollars. I thought it would pay, for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad had run its tracks down to Ellicott's Mills, thirteen miles, and had laid 'quakehead' rails, as they called them, strap rails, you know, and had put on horses. Then they began to talk about the English experiments with locomotives. But there was a short turn of one hundred and fifty feet radius around Point of Rocks, and the news came from England that Stephenson said that no locomotive could draw a train on any curve shorter than a nine hundred foot radius. The horse-car didn't pay and the road stopped. The directors had a bad fit of the blues. I had naturally a knack at contriving, and I told the directors that I believed I could knock together a locomotive that would get the train around Point of Rocks. I found that my speculation was a loss unless I could make the road a 'go.'

"So I came back to New York and got a little bit of an engine, about one horse-power (it had a three and a half inch cylinder, and fourteen inch stroke), and carried it back to Baltimore. I got some boiler iron and made a boiler, about as big as an ordinary washboiler, and then how to connect the boiler with the engine I didn't know... .

"I had not only learned coach-making and wood carving, but I had an iron-foundry and had some manual skill in working in it. But I couldn't find any iron pipes. The fact is that there were none for sale in this country. So I took two muskets and broke off the wood part, and used the barrels for tubing to the boiler, laying one on one side and the other on the other. I went into a coach-maker's shop and made this locomotive, which I called the 'Tom Thumb,' because it was so insignificant. I didn't intend it for actual service, but only to show the directors what could be done. I meant to show two things: first, that short turns could be made; and, secondly, that I could get rotary motion without the use of a crank. I effected both of these things very nicely. I changed the movement from a reciprocating to a rotary motion. I got steam up one Saturday night; the president of the road and two or three gentlemen were standing by, and we got on the truck and went out two or three miles. All were very much delighted, for it opened new possibilities for the road. I put the locomotive up for the night in a shed. All were invited to a ride Monday - a ride to Ellicott's Mills. Monday morning, what was my grief and chagrin to find that some scamp had been there, and chopped off all the copper from the engine and carried it away - doubtless to sell to some junk dealer. The copper pipes that conveyed the steam to the piston were gone. It took me a week or more to repair it. Then (on Monday it was) we started - six on the engine and thirty-six on the car. It was a great occasion, but it didn't seem so important then as it does now. We went up an average grade of eighteen feet to the mile, and made the passage (thirteen miles) to Ellicott's Mills in an hour and twelve minutes. We came back in fifty-seven minutes. Ross Winans, the president of the road, and the editor of the Baltimore Gazette, made an estimate of the passengers carried and the coal and water used, and reported that we did better than any English road did for four years after that. The result of that experiment was that the bonds of the road were sold at once, and the road was a success."

[daveklepper]

Not really revenue, but the first USA steam loco was the Tom Thumb, and it was built by Peter Cooper at his foundry in Manhattan for the B&O.

[henry6]

Speaking of early locomotive works...I believe there were six which joined to make the American Locomotive Works...name them and their cities.

[wanswheel]

Henry, yes your turn. The Best Friend of Charleston was the first locomotive in the world to pull a passenger train in 1830. The boiler and other parts were cast at West Point Foundry in Cold Spring, just south of Breakneck Point (tunnel picture) and across the Hudson from Storm King and the U.S. Military Academy. The foundry existed to make cannons at a secure location away from the coast, in peacetime it could diversify. The erecting shop was on Beach St. at West St. in Manhattan. Southern Railway's 1928 replica is not an exact copy of the original, which exploded in 1831.

http://www.samlindsey.com/images/FamilyHist/BestFriend_81.gif

http://books.google.com/books?id=FtsRIRjninUC&pg=PA24#v=onepage&q=&f=true

[henry6]

The builder in New York City was West Point Foundery...I just can't remember the engine...perhaps Best Freind of Charleston?

[Texas Zepher]

Well, I don't know if the manufacturers had multiple shops or not...

Rodgers was NJ.
Baldwin was Philly.
Lima was in Ohio.

Even the predecessors of Alco are a bit too modern to be the first.  Those would be Brooks or Schenectady Locomotive Works.

The "Monster" was built in N.J. 

So it is probably a locomotive built by one of the many tiny machine shops such as one of the  H.R. Dunham built locomotives for the Camden & Amboy sometime between 1834 and 1836.


 

[wanswheel]

What was the first locomotive built in the Empire State?

http://memory.loc.gov/service/pnp/cph/3c00000/3c09000/3c09700/3c09770v.jpg

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=908142

Mike

[passengerfan]

Deggesty

passengerfan

Whose question?

Al, it looks as though Wanswheel (10:07 am on 10-21) gave more roads than anybody else.

Incidentally, I remember a comment to the effect that, since they were much lighter than steel cars, the aluminum cars did not "ride like Pullmans."

Johnny

Johnny the early Aluminum cars rode rough from what I have read, but having ridden a number of the postwar aluminum trains and cars I came away very favorably impressed susch as the AC&F UP postwar cars, CN Turbos, but not the Tempo cars. It was the truck dsign under the latter that gave them such a poor ride at speed. I think I have commented beore that anything over fifty was like a bucking bronc. They were perfect as the ski trains and should fit nicely on the Algoma Central where there speeds will remain low. In SW Ontario sevices they were built for higher speeds but the new truck design was not capable of handling the cars sway and pitch. Witnessed a Club car attendent spill a entire tray of drinks while trying to serve them. I have talked to few people who rode the cars when they were in SW Ontario service who had anything good to say about there ride, Th Turbos were kind of rough riding when operating slow through the switches at terminals but once above 35 mph they seemed to smooth out and it made for a very comfortable ride in the faster speed ranges.

Al - in - Stockton.     

[Deggesty]

passengerfan

Whose question?

Al, it looks as though Wanswheel (10:07 am on 10-21) gave more roads than anybody else.

Incidentally, I remember a comment to the effect that, since they were much lighter than steel cars, the aluminum cars did not "ride like Pullmans."

Johnny

[passengerfan]

Okay Here is my list of RRs that owned Aluminum Cars.

NYNH&H Comet

CN Tempo & Turbo.

B&O 1st lightweight Royal Blue transferred to Alton

GM&N Rebels

L&N Hummingbirds

NC&STL-L&N Georgians

MP Various postwar cars

T&P Various postwar cars

IGN Various postwar cars

KCS various postwar cars

UP various prewar and postwar cars

C&NW various prewar and postwar cars in City service

WAB coaches built for and assigned to City of St. Louis

Alton 2nd Abraham Lincoln 

Whose question?

I am trying to work in some much needed Vacation time and finally get a chance to try my new camera I purchased over a year ago for RR pictures and so far it has only shot family and a quick trip to San Diego. I am hoping to get away some time in the next three weeks.

Al - in - Stockton

[daveklepper]

The BMT had one Pullman-built subway-elevated aluminum train, built as an experiment about 1935.   The "Little Flower" saw it in for coupler replacement at Coney Island shops and ordered it donated to the scrap drive.  It proved when operating that elevated trains could be much quieter.   Possibly used PCC resilient wheels.   Its nickname was "The Gren Hornet>"

The BMT also had one Clark Equipment Company experimental aluminum PCC car, the only North American PCC not built by St.  Lous, Pullman, or Candian Car and Foundry.  It was built shortly after the first 1935 standard PCC's arrived from St. Louis as a replacement for one Brooklyn car that was diverted to Pittsburgh as a demonstrator and stayed there.  The St/ Lous cars were 1001 - 1099, and 1001 is restored and operating at the Branford, CT. musuem.  The aluminum car was numbered 1000.   In 1957, when Brooklyn streetcar service ceased, 1001 was already at Branford, and 1000 eventually went to Kingston, NY as part of the museum there.   I heard a rumor that because of detioriated condition, it was scrapped.  Too bad,.it pioneered standee windows.

 

Third Avenue Railway. later Third Avenue Transit, had home-built aluminum 551-600. double-end Peter Witts, used almost exclusively on Broadway-42nd Street, with their steel 601-625 Corten cousins.   They all went to Brazil in 1948, and a few have been preserved there, one operating at a museum.

 

The Cincinnati and Lake Erie "Red Devils", later on LVT's "Liberty Bell" and Crandic were aluminum.  A few have been preserved, one at Branford.

[passengerfan]

Texas Zepher

passengerfan

the Tempo cars which recently returned to Canada after a number of years serving as the Ski Train out of Denver

And ugly cars they were/are.  Very strange roof profile.

Had the pleasure of riding the Tempo cars when new they were built for fast services to southwestern Ontario to and from Toronto. They had a tendency to be very rough riding at speeds in excess of sixty mph. It was something inherent in the truck design that was never corrected. They were ideal for the ski train service from Denver as speeds never neared the sixty mark. They should also be ideal for the Algoma Central Canyon trains as speeds are not excessive in that service either. They were Canada's first HEP equipped cars and were constructed in Thunder Bay by Hawker Siddeley a name more familiar in Aviation circles particularly in the UK.

Al - in - Stockton

[wanswheel]

NH Dan'l Webster, articulated

The model trains industry seems to have produced models of aluminum cars on PRR Broadway Limited, NYC Empire State Express, MILW Olympian Hiawatha, SP Daylight, N&W unknown, and GN Big Sky dome car.

One of two Pullman aluminum cars at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair was sold to CGW in 1952, the observation sleeper George M. Pullman. 

http://bpics.rubylane.com/graphics/shops/rafterroom/061209201.7L.jpg?80

http://www.pullman-museum.org/main/prg509.jpg

http://webbie1.sfpl.org/multimedia/sfphotos/AAC-8212.jpg

City of Cheyenne, the 1933 Pullman aluminum observation coach

http://photoswest.org/photos/00019501/00019534.jpg

[Texas Zepher]

passengerfan

the Tempo cars which recently returned to Canada after a number of years serving as the Ski Train out of Denver

And ugly cars they were/are.  Very strange roof profile.

[passengerfan]

Before the CN Turbos there was the Tempo cars which recently returned to Canada after a number of years serving as the Ski Train out of Denver

Al - in - Stockton.

[wanswheel]

B&O, L&N, MP, KCS, New Haven Comet, CN Turbo

[ZephyrOverland]

passengerfan

No takers yet on the RRs that operated Aluminum lightweight streamlined cars. I came up with twelve.

Al in Stockton

 

I'll start - the Union Pacific

           - the G&MO with their Abraham Lincoln and Ann Rutledge train sets. 

[passengerfan]

No takers yet on the RRs that operated Aluminum lightweight streamlined cars. I came up with twelve.

Al in Stockton

[wanswheel]

Deggesty

Some people do like oysters.

Johnny, it's clear Arthur Stilwell would eat oysters even from the Hudson River.

http://www.arthurstilwell.com/cannibalsoffinance/15obstructivetactics.html

Stilwell designed and Pullman built the 30-ton capacity wooden tank car in 1897 to bring live oysters to Kansas City. Possibly figuring it's good for the economy of Port Arthur and it proves KCP&G's reach in a palatable way.

"The Man Who Fenced the West" filed his ICC documents: "William Dearborn, doing business as Louisiana Navigation and Railway Company."

http://www.plbg.de/lexikon/personen/images/edenborn1871.jpg

Mike

[Deggesty]

wanswheel

 Johnny, here's something:

"The Louisiana Railway and Navigation Company, organized in 1896 by William Edenborn as the Shreveport and Red River Valley Railway Co., was re-organized May 9, 1903, as Louisiana Railway and Navigation Co. It was known as the Edenborn Line and was completed and placed in operation October 1, 1906, as the short line between Shreveport and New Orleans. This line was owned outright by Mr. Edenborn, the only railroad in the U.S. owned by one individual."

I knew that the S&RVR preceded the LR&N, but I did not know that it LR&N was (apparently) simply the reorganization. I also now know why the LR&N was known as the "Edenborn Line." One of the old Guides that I have shows this in the road's representation.

the "Stillwell Oyster Car is interesting. It took me a moment to remember that the Kansas City Pittsburg and Gulf was the previous name of the KCS--and (I just discovered, in Railroad Names) the successor to the Kansas City Nevada and Ft. Smith. Were the oysters intended for Mr. Stillwell's own table? Some people do like oysters.

Thanks, Mike

Johnny