Tell me something I won't ever know...

[Acela026]

...and I'm being completely serious!  What with the recent interest in one of my old threads, I have become somewhat obsessed with railroads past.  (Classic Trains Magazine helps, too )  

I've always said I was born about 60 years late...

Anyway, if you have a story from the Golden Age or have some factoids to share...I'm all ears!  

Acela

[Acela026]

 

I thought I would share this, too. It always makes me cry...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnrHMCyRUQY&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Acela

 

[Firelock76]

Acela, your posting of "Daddy, What's a Train?"  reminds me of a story my father tells about me.  I have no memory of this, but when I was a three or four year old train lover my grandmother told me that "when you're grown up, there probably won't be any more trains."  Well, Dad says I let out a wail that could be heard through the house!  He ran into the room to find Grandma  trying to calm me down, "Oh, don't worry, I'm probably wrong..."    Thank goodness she was, and Grandma wasn't wrong very often!

By the way, I darn near let out the same kind of wail when Norfolk Southern cancelled the steam program in 1994!  

[K4sPRR]

Firelock, your not alone.  A similar situation occured when I too was youngster.  My grandparents lived across the street from the PRR mainline, about 15 miles west of the Horseshoe Curve.  With cars, trucks, the building of the national highway system and air travel litterally taking off, I too was told the train would be dead, and so was I.  Shocked!!!  What would I do all day?  My response to all of this was quite amusing to those sitting around.  Then the day came when my Grandfather said the PRR was going to merge with the NYC, What!!  No more PRR?  Devastated.

Anyway, Acelea, you were born a little late.  Something I will pass on was trainwatching in the 1950,s and 60's.   I particularly enjoyed watching passenger trains go by, especally at night.  Starting at about 11PM the PRR had quite a showing of named passenger trains going over the mountain.  You could see in them at night, something that was hard to do in daylight.  You could see people eating, moving about or just sitting in the lounge area's.  I particularly remember the individual table lamps in the dining cars all being lit, one at each window.  I currently have one of those lamps that I converted into a desk lamp.

Reading the names on the sides of the passenger cars was the daytime activity.  Being near Johnstown I thought the car that had the name "City of Johnstown" were for those traveling to or from there.  Other named cars brought similar thoughts. 

 Sparks would fly off the wheels as they sped by and nothing sounded better on a hot still summer night than an EMD E unit echoing through the mountain area.   Frieght trains looked like a freight train, a mix of cars, no graffeti, and outside of coal very few trains had the same type of car from one end to the other.  And, a caboose.

Listing the number on the helper units was another thing I would do.  They would go back and forth between Conemaugh and Altoona, I recall seeing 9625 twelve times in one day.  This was a habit my Grandfather taught me.  Steam was becomming less and less and the last one I ever saw was running light, westbound.  In my excitement I ran into the house and told everyone what I saw, they just stared at me like...so?  Guess Grandma was tired of sweeping cinders off the porch.

[AltonFan]

Acela026

 

I thought I would share this, too. It always makes me cry...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnrHMCyRUQY&feature=youtube_gdata_player

 

Acela

 

You should listen to "The Coming And The Going Of The Trains" by Merle Haggard.

[arkady]

Railroad memories?  Well, here are a few of mine.

When I was a kid, my family lived in a small town in central Pennsylvania, right on the PRR 4-track main line.  When a train passed through (the tracks ran parallel to the river), you could hear the whistle/horn and the clatter of the trains all over town.

I learned to hang around down at the station at an early age.  The last steam locomotive I saw (in 1956) was an I-1 decapod -- I know because I took several pictures of it on its way through.  What an experience it was to stand on the station platform when one of the big PRR steamers came thundering past!  Huge drive rods in a blur of power; clouds of warm steam enveloping you as it passed; the quick heat of the firebox on your face; the acrid scent of burning coal hanging in the air.  It really was an experience, and one we all took for granted at the time.

When the first-generation diesels came, it certainly wasn't the same thing, but they had an appeal all their own.  I particularly recall the Baldwin Sharks hauling long coal drags, their Mars lights gyrating as they blasted their horns for the crossing.

Then there were the Geeps, of which the PRR seemed to have an unlimited supply.  I once counted twelve MU-ed Geeps (including one of the rare B units) hauling a miles-long mixed freight one Sunday morning.

Passenger trains were still common in the Fifties, and it was a treat to watch them pull in to the station and load or unload passengers and baggage.  Then the conductor would step out, check his watch, signal to the engineer, and with a roar, the F-unit at the head end would start easing the train along.  At night, passenger trains had an aura of mystery, with all the strangers in their brightly-lit coaches hurrying through the dark, bound for who-knows-where.

Those four tracks were seldom empty at that time.  Every fifteen minutes or so, the crossing guard in his little elevated tower would pull back the lever and the crossing gates, with their metronomic clang-clang-clang would lower, halting automobile traffic.  You could see the westbound trains approaching from miles away, first the headlight shimmering in the distance, then the locomotive's nose as it drew nearer.  Then it would roar through, unstoppable as an asteroid, with its ear-blasting racket.  It wasn't unusual to have more than one train at a time passing through, and on many occasions, all four tracks were filled with the thundering freights of a prosperous nation.

All gone today.  The four tracks are down to two.  Cabooseless unit trains rumble through every couple of hours or so, along with one or two Amtrak trains, a few of which are even on schedule.  Most of the old station is gone, as is the crossing guard's tower.  And the trains are hauled by dead-black locomotives lettered "Norfolk Southern," strange and alien for a town that's nowhere near Norfolk, VA, and certainly isn't "southern."

At least you can still hear the air horns and the crash of passing cars all over town.  And late on a summer night at my parents' house, you can almost believe it's the whistle of a Decapod, calling across the years.

[Juniatha]

Hi Arkady 

 

That's nicely written , I can imagine the way it was , interesting to read of railroad crossing with bell and gates with trains passing in quantity .

I was late too , almost too late to see the very last of steam 'on the wild side' i e non-preserved , as an actual traffic moving power , luckily steam had lasted much longer around Berlin where I lived then , up to the early 1990s on DR and PKP - also Decapod engines mostly , although of types in stark contrast to an I1s , about half the engine mass yet with as deep a stack voice although much softer with wide blast nozzle and chimney -  and I also appreciate steam railroading stories ..

 

Regards

Juniatha

[Deggesty]

Juniatha, speaking of steam, I went to college in Bristol, Tennessee, in the mid to late fifties. From time to time, I would go into town after supper to watch the Pelican come in  and go out (7:40-8:00 p.m.) on its way from New Orleans to Washington. I spent most of my time each evening up by the N&W J that was waiting to be put on after the Southern's engine was taken off, and I usually waited there until the train departed. Once in a great while, I would be there for the southbound Birmingham Special  to arrive (12:55 a.m.). Watching a J come in was almost, but not quite, as soul satisfying as watching one leave.

All this came to an end with the year 1957; no longer was there an engine change in Bristol, for the Southern engines ran through between Washington and their several destinations (New Orleans, Birmingham, and Memphis)--and the PA's which had carried the Tenneseean between Bristol and Memphis were also gone.

[Juniatha]

Hi Johnny

     1957 would then have been the year N&W laid aside the 4-8-4 at least on this service ?
     In 1953 ( '52 ? ) they still produced an advertising company movie explaining how steam - modern steam by contemporary technology - was still more economic for the N&W RR than diesels because (a) steam could produce all the train mileage they could ask for due to their timetables and (b) steam was less costly to produce per ihp hour and less costly to run , too on a monthly ton-miles basis .
     I remember there even was an article in Railway Age or other contemporary magazine in 1952 or '53 where the same was laid out , including financial balance data to support it .   Basically it was explained with the N&W having an important percentage of their ton-miles total in coal traffic and this being suitable coal for locomotives it was the least costly fuel - reading between the lines , to me the explanation sounded slightly like forwarding an excuse for non-conforming with the rest of the RR industry , like an 'ok ,. we accept your reasoning’s - so please will you accept ours' , in any case I could feel through the article how uncomfortable the situation must have been for N&W by that time , there sure was a lot of pressure put on them from outsides - or not-so-outsides ...

Regards

         Juniatha

[Stourbridge Lion]

Well, being a D&H fan let me pass on this piece of RR history you may not know...

The first operating Steam Engine to ever turn on wheels in North America was the "Stourbridge Lion".  There was also a sister engine that arrived at the same time called the "America" and there are those that say it was the first but I think it's just the national pride speaking.

There were actually four (4) engines ordered, "Stourbridge Lion", "America", "Delaware", and "Hudson" and the reason these are not so well know is the mystery on what happened to them.

"America":  Arrived in the US in New York via the clipper ship "Columbia" on January 15, 1829.  She was setup on blocks and tested on May 27, 1829.  On July 3, 1829, she would be loaded onto the steamer "Congress" and shipped up the Hudson River to Rondout.  There she was transferred onto a canal boat to the Gravity Railroad line to Honesdale.   Problem is there is no record of "America" arriving in Honesdale in on July 24, 1829.  So what happened to the "America"?

"Delaware", and "Hudson":  These engines arrived in New York in the Summer of 1829 and also shipped to Rondout.  There is no record of what happened to either of them after that.  So, yet another two engines lost to history.

"Stourbridge Lion":  Arrived in the US in "Gotham" and she too is setup on blocks and test on May 28, 1829.  She is also shipped on the "Congress" with "America" and is also transferred onto a canal boat to the Gravity Railroad line to Honesdale and arrives on July 24, 1829.  "Stourbridge Lion" is officially tested on rails on August 8, 1829 with "Horatio Allen" at the controls.  Another test is done September 29, 1829 and that test shows the "Stourbridge Lion" is too heavy and ends here RR service rotting away in a makeshift shelter for 20 years.  In 1849 until 1870 the "Stourbridge Lion" boiler is removed to be used in "Carbondale" in the shops.  In 1889 another firm took the boiler and all the other part that could be found and deposited them at the Smithsonian Institution.

America's first RR engine still somewhat survives still today

There is a replica of the "Stourbridge Lion" in Honesdale...

Lionel recently created a operational O Scale version that I am a proud owner of!!!!!!!

watch?v=MqYSTXHtKqI

[Firelock76]

Well isn't that little locomotive hot stuff! Thanks for posting the video. Listen, I've got a book called "The American Railway", a reprint of the original of 1889. Mr. Horatio Allen was still alive at the time and told the "Stourbridge Lion" story to one of the books contributors. He said the "Lion" was the first and only locomotive he ever ran. He HAD to run the "Lion", nobody else was willing!

[Stourbridge Lion]

... and that is the story that to me speaks the truth but there are still some that thinks the "America" was tested first in secret and then the "Lion" was done in front of the public second.  I sure wish there was a way to find out what at least happened to the other three engines and will they be found someday on the bottom of a river?

Yea, when Lionel came out with the Stourbridge Lion set it was a "must have" for me and I wiped out my RR budget at the time to get it.  My internet handle has been Stourbridge Lion for along time now in honor of this historical engine that so many don't know of her existence.  It's also what I use for my avatar on all RR forums.  Long live the D&H; established 1823...

[Firelock76]

To Stourbridge Lion:  I wouldn't be surprised that considering what happened to the track during the "Lion"s run that the other three engines wound up as stationary steam engines or boilers in a factory or machine shop somewhere, and then disappeared from history as time went by.

I did a little reading on the D&H's steam power last night, a VERY interesting story, and some VERY classy looking steamers toward the end.  I wondered why the D&H doesn't get more attention than it does, then I figured the road probably didn't attract much major railfan attention as it was too far away from a big metropolitan area, like say New York City, Philadelphia, or Chicago.  Not quite out in the boonies, but not close enough.   I don't know, what do you think?

[Stourbridge Lion]

The fate of the other three could have been just that, it's just that all three vanished from history while last being know on a boat and if they too where too heavy were they too heavy!