Classic Train Questions Part Deux (50 Years or Older)

[Dragoman]

A quick bit of "Dixie Flyer" semi-trivia: Was just watching parts of the 1945 film, "The Clock" earlier today. Though filmed entirely on MGM's backlot, the opening scenes attempt to recreate NY's Penn Station, including a train announcer. One of the announcements -- the Dixie Flyer on Track 15!

[Deggesty]

Wizlish

 

 

ZephyrOverland

Deggesty provided some of the answers, but because of your tenacity and getting some more of the answers, the next question is yours, Wizlish.

 

 

I wouldn't dream of it, although I respect your opinion.  Either you or Mr. Degges ask the next one...

 

Thanks, Wizlish, but I do not think that I should attempt to pose a question until I after I am back home from the hospital--which will not be before late next month. I am in need of much physical therapy, and I do not think I should ask my daughter to bring any of the material I would really need to ask a decent question; I have already asked a lot of her.

[Deggesty]

Dragoman

A quick bit of "Dixie Flyer" semi-trivia: Was just watching parts of the 1945 film, "The Clock" earlier today. Though filmed entirely on MGM's backlot, the opening scenes attempt to recreate NY's Penn Station, including a train announcer. One of the announcements -- the Dixie Flyer on Track 15!

 

To the connoisseur, that is worse than the announcement, on the program which promoted the train that was double-wide, the the Silver Meteor was arriving in Grand Central! It took several interlocking misalignments to get the Dixie Flyer to Penn Station, not just one at Zoo!

[ZephyrOverland]

Wizlish

 

 

ZephyrOverland

Deggesty provided some of the answers, but because of your tenacity and getting some more of the answers, the next question is yours, Wizlish.

 

 

I wouldn't dream of it, although I respect your opinion.  Either you or Mr. Degges ask the next one...

 

Ill take the next question - will be posted in a couple of days.

[rcdrye]

Wizlish - don't sell yourself short.  Some of your questions have been very interesting indeed.

[Wizlish]

OK, a quick one:  What was the first train through one of the East River Tunnels (leading to Penn Station)?

(Extra credit if you name which one of the bores was involved.)

[daveklepper]

A Long Island MU train, probably from Rockaway Park or Far Rockaway, possibly just from Valley Stream or West Hempstead. I assume you are talking about passenger-carrying trains, not test trains.  But if it was a test train, it was probably also an LIRR MU train.   The test train may have been the MP-42 Gibbs cars, but the passenger train most certainly would have been DC-MP-54s.  DD1s also ran through on tests before passenger-carrying trains, but their regular operation to and from Sunnyside Yard and for "change-at-Jamaica" LIRR through service and New Haven change-to-steam at Harold Tower service started, along with regular PRR service in the Hudson River Tunnels, about a month later.

The tunnel used by the first regular train was probably the one still most used by the same service today, the one entering the station as the most northern of the entrances on the east side, and the one leaving Long Island second from the south, third from the north.  (Where the tunnels cross is not definitely known to me, I suspect east of the river.)

[Wizlish]

daveklepper

... I assume you are talking about passenger-carrying trains, not test trains.  But if it was a test train, it was probably also an LIRR MU train.

No.  I am talking about the first train that went through.  It was a test train, of sorts.  The trip involved compressed air.

The tunnel used by the first regular train was probably the one still most used by the same service today, the one entering the station as the most northern of the entrances on the east side, and the one leaving Long Island second from the south, third from the north.  (Where the tunnels cross is not definitely known to me, I suspect east of the river.)

I'm looking for nothing more complicated than a number or letter designation.  There is one.  (I am not saying you are wrong.)

I will provide the answers to these if I see Zephyr puts his question up, so we don't have 'two going at once[.

[daveklepper]

I got this off the Timeline web:

February 20, 1908

The first East River tunnel is completed. Workers connecting the two ends of the tunnel send a toy train through, the first train to use the new tunnel.

I believe this was Tunnel No. 1, not 4,which is the one I mentioned earlier.

[ZephyrOverland]

Wizlish

I'm looking for nothing more complicated than a number or letter designation.  There is one.  (I am not saying you are wrong.)

I will provide the answers to these if I see Zephyr puts his question up, so we don't have 'two going at once[.

 

Wizlish - go ahead with your question.  Unfortunately, I don't have time right now to provide a question.

[Wizlish]

Mr. Klepper gets the gold star.  Ironically his reference doesn't state the name of the train, which was ... as it turns out ... the same as his favorite PRR consist.

It might be interesting to see if anyone over at "Classic Toy Trains" knows the actual Congressional Limited model that was used, and can provide representative pictures.

BTW, the tunnel (as given in my reference) was "D".

Dave, you're it ... until Zephyr comes up with his question.

[wanswheel]

Excerpt from History of the Engineering, Construction and Equipment of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company’s New York Terminal and Approaches (1912)

The East River Tunnels consist of four tubes, each a little over two miles long and each containing a single track extending under the Island of Manhattan and the East River from Seventh Avenue to near Van Alst Avenue in Long Island City. They start at the east end of the Terminal Building fifty feet below the street surface, and run parallel from Seventh Avenue to Second Avenue; two, A and B under Thirty-third Street and the other two, C and D, under Thirty-second Street.  From Second Avenue they converge until they enter the approaches to Sunnyside Yard at Van Alst Avenue. A and B are used by the Long Island Railroad for passenger traffic. C and D are used by the Pennsylvania Railroad for hauling empty trains to and from the station to their extensive terminal yards in Long Island City. As it is the practice on the Pennsylvania Railroad to number tracks from south to north, the designation of these tunnels has for operating purposes been changed from A, B, C and D to 4, 3, 2 and 1, respectively…

Probably the event of most interest to all concerned in building the tunnels was the meeting of the shields or in other words the junction under the river of the portion of the tunnel built from the two shores. To the engineers responsible for the alignment it would measure the degree of accuracy of their work for more than six years. For the contractor it would practically assure success and remove the last anxiety over one of the most hazardous works ever undertaken. To the working force it was the end toward which many of them had been striving for over four years under very trying conditions. There was keen rivalry to be the first to actually break through into the opposite heading. To the Railroad Company it meant that they had not spent millions of dollars in vain. True, there was much work still to be done, but it did not present any extraordinary features.

To provide as far as possible against accident, it was decided to make the junction in the hard material at the east edge of the central rock ridge rather than in the soft material of the easterly depression, where the shields would meet had the work continued uninterruptedly from both sides. The shields from the Manhattan side were the first to reach the point selected and tunnel driving from that side was stopped. It was known that it would be impossible to maintain exactly the same air pressure in the approaching headings and as the thickness of the dividing wall was decreased there was danger of its being blown out as well as of its being dug out without proper precaution by workmen over-zealous to be the first through.  As a precaution a bulkhead of concrete and sand bags was built at the cutting edges of the Manhattan shields completely closing the face. To provide for a passage between the shields before the removal of the bulkhead a heavy timber door was built into it and securely locked. The door was to serve both as a precaution against accident and to allow the officials of the work to be the first to pass through. While the bulkhead was being built an eight-inch steel pipe was forced forward horizontally for about fifty feet toward the Long Island side. The primary purpose of the pipes was to allow the engineers to check the alignment before the shields actually met. They also served to equalize to some degree the air pressure in the approaching headings. The checks of the alignment showed no deviation in any of the tunnels of more than one-half inch for either line or grade. As soon as the Long Island shields reached the end of the pipes the workmen could talk with those on the Manhattan side and were greatly excited for the remainder of the time until they could actually pass from one to the other.

Owing to the difference of pressure at the two shields, there was a strong air current through the pipes. The men in “D” tunnel, the first to meet, procured a toy train and placing it in the pipe, it was forced through at a high rate of speed. This was the first train to actually pass through the tunnels. The workmen in “B” tunnel, the second to meet, not to be outdone by those in “D,” procured a rag doll representing a lady and sent it through the pipe in the same manner, heralding it as the first lady to make the trip. This doll was preserved, framed and presented by the contractors as a souvenir to the engineers in charge of this tunnel.

As soon as the force from the east encountered the concrete bulkhead, they could not be restrained and one of the men soon had a hole through the concrete large enough to be shoved through head first, and in this manner the entire gang came through to the Manhattan end where an impromptu celebration was held. During the following day representatives of the Railroad Company and the contractor's officials made the trip through the door previously mentioned. As all the junctions were successfully made, no one begrudged the workmen the satisfaction of being the first to make the trip under the river from Long Island to Manhattan.

[daveklepper]

My qeustion:   Name at least five different North American electric railway operations where scrapped equipment furnished imortant componants of new equipment.

Coversion of old passenger cars into box-motor freight cars would not count, since the cars were not scrapped, just modified or rebuilt.

[rcdrye]

These may not be the five you're looking for, but here are five examples:

Third Avenue Railway System (New York) purchased dozens of streetcars from other systems, stripping them of usable components to install them on new carbodies.

TMER&L's cold spring shops built several series of cars using motors and controls from scrapped cars, including building articulateds out of single unit cars for both city and interurban service.

Key System cars in the 500, 600 and 700 series supplied trucks, motors, couplers and controls for the "Bridge Units" built for operation over the Bay Bridge. Not yet scrapped cars in those series operated in MU with the Bridge Units before the Bridge opened.

Chicago Transit Authority used components from almost 600 scrapped PCC streetcars to build the 6000 and 1-50 series L cars.  Several cars in both series got new motors, but windows and door motors came from scrapped PCCs.

Far bigger than a conversion to a box motor, Piedmont and Southern's four-truck electric locomotive of 1918 was nonetheless built from part of scrapped passenger cars.

[daveklepper]

Your answers are acceptable.   In the case of Third Avenue, New York City, seats and other components from scrapped cars, even light sockets, were used in the construction of new cars, not necessarily from cars bought from other companies.  The latter were relatively modern cars, rebuilt slightly to extensively to conform to Third Avenue's requirements, many nearly indistinguishable from its own lighweigh home-mades.  Of special note was using pieces of dissembled and cut-up Brill Maximum-Traction single-motor (small wheel idler) trucks to mass produce a lisenced replica of the standard and popular Brill E-177 truck for their new 4-motor cars.

In addition to the other re-uses you named, a number of interurbans took trucks and mnotors from scrapped passenger motor cars to build frieght motors.  I believe the Philadelphia and Western's one freight motor was such, with four motors for relatively light work, ditto the Laural Line.  But Illinois Terminal and Oregon Electric built four-truck eight-motor freight locomotives for full-sized freight trains, the latter spending a long life on the North Shore.   There were other cases, I am sure.

Your question

[rcdrye]

P&W's lone box motor was actually a factory job from home-town Brill.  They did have some demoted passenger equipment in freight and work service.  Lehigh Valley Transit built a whole fleet of box moters from passenger cars.

In a more modest rework, Claremont (NH) Ry built their double truck line car #4 (now at Seashore Trolley Museum in Maine) from a single truck open car, also numbered 4. Except for new truck frames, everything was home-built.  Worked well enough to get borrowed by Boston's "T" in the 1990s.

 

New question:  This electric railway's modest freight service was powered by box motors and several sets of steeple cabs, one pair each from three different sources.  Name the railroad, and the builders of the steeple cabs.

[daveklepper]

Before looking into the builders of the steeplecabs, was this the Bamberger?

[rcdrye]

Bamberger had a couple of Baldwins, and a couple of homebuilts, but isn't the one I'm looking for.  The one I'm looking for was noted for operating the steeplecabs in pairs.

[NP Eddie]

Rob:

Are you looking for the B&O?

Ed Burns

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

The railroad in question is the Chicago Aurora & Elgin.  2001-2002 were built by GE, 3003-3004 were built by Baldwin and 4005-4006 were built by the Oklahoma Ry.  They always operated in pairs with their own mate.

[rcdrye]

B&O had boxcabs, and steeple cabs, all GE.  This railroad started out with box motors, added one, then a second steeplecab, then another pair, and then a final pair.  Each pair's units could only MU with each other, though pairs 2 and 3 had similar controls.  Box motors were also used in pairs on freight trains until after WWII.

[daveklepper]

looks like you got your answer on simultaneous posting

[rcdrye]

Paul (CSSHEGEWISCH) has the correct answer.  Both the 3003/4 and 4005/6 had Westinghouse HLF controls but the CA&E never bothered making the jumpers compatible. 2001 was purchased by the Thomas Conway management a couple of years before 2002 was purchased under Insull.  After the 1957 end of passenger service they continued briefly in freight service, being retired as their flanges wore out.  Retired in reverse order of the way they came, 4005/6, 3003/4 and finally 2001/2.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Speaking of Insull steeplecabs, South Shore had a pair of light steeplecabs that were sold off since they were a bit light for freight service on South Shore.  Who was the purchasing road?

[rcdrye]

It's amazing the weird results you get when searching the internet.  The book would have been easy, but it was at home.

Baldwin-Westinghouse B-1 (50 ton) 1005 went to Niagara Junction as their 11.

The other one was 1006, also a B-1, which went to NJ as their number 10.

One CSS&SB site says they went to New Jersey Transit (!)

NJ 11 went to Cornwall (Ontario) Railway in the late 1950s where it was scrapped for parts

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

rcdrye got the right answer on South Shore's "Mike & Ike".  It's his question.

[rcdrye]

This eastern railroad's floating bridge lasted until it was condemned while the railroad was under USRA control.  Need the railroad and the waterway.

[daveklepper]

PRR at Cape Charles, Chesapeak Bay?  EXccuse me, not the answer, you probably mean a real bridge, not a bridge for car-floating on barges or ships with tracks.

[rcdrye]

Yep, it was a real bridge, copied from another one over the same waterway that was replaced a lot earlier.

[Wizlish]

Rutland Addison branch?  Lake Champlain, wasn't it?