U.S. Airforce Simulators. Great idea! In use many years.
2) Oops!
3 Buffalo Central Terminal How did this happen? The Commodore would never accept or understand!
4) ... but the Buffalo remains iconic and defiant!
How do you deploy dat crazy ting?
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
Classified
Well, two cents. You have a Pullman troop car on the right and a former dinner on the left (by the guess of the side door and 6 wheel trucks.) Maybe this was a helicopter super life exercise as part of the Cold War effort of the early 60's? Love to know if they are still in use today or whatever happened to them.
They were used for B-52 training and continued on in use for other aircraft.. seem to remember they were used until 1989..will see if I can find the photo caption again.. should have written it down.
Here you go! https://www.fairchild.af.mil/News/Features/Display/Article/1248135/dust-on-the-rails-of-a-glorious-heritage/
Great pictures... Operation Cannonball! ... too cool.
The "former diner" is a converted WWII Army hospital carbuilt by ACF in 1944. Sister cars ended up in lots of postwar circus trains, the Monon's postwar fleet and Alaska Railroad's trains. Amtrak converted similar Korean war era cars to lounges (Montrealer's "Le Pub" and similar cars used on the Broadway) and baggage-dorms.
Miningman U.S. Airforce Simulators. Great idea! In use many years.
My dream house...
Jones 3D Modeling Club https://www.youtube.com/Jones3DModelingClub
Jones1945 Miningman U.S. Airforce Simulators. Great idea! In use many years. My dream house...
Man, I could build one hell of an "O" Gauge layout inside a set-up like that!
The Air Force markings would have to go though, no disrespect intended. I wonder how many gallons of "Marine Green" it would take to repaint?
Whaaaaaat!
OK. But did they always deploy the cars in that configuration? T-shaped? It seems to me they could only do it at sites where a diamond existed.
Is this the train at Fairchild AFB near Spokane?
There was a fairly detailed thread on RyPN that covered some of the B52 training equipment -- some of it was adapted from kitchen cars. Apparently a number of railroads have a couple of these, and so did Space Camp (at the rocket center in Huntsville). These were probably trucked to their positions as seen, as they were probably only intended to 'roll' in case of emergency ... a couple of museum people commented on what good shape the trucks were in.
Yes. Fairchild Air Force Base, Washington
More info:
https://www.fairchild.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/762953/operation-cannonball-the-rest-of-the-story/
"...Four train cars sit forlornly across from the base's Heritage Airpark. Many have wondered why and how they ended up parked there.
These Strategic Air Command simulator cars arrived at Fairchild in 1962 and have remained a permanent fixture for more than 50 years..."
"...The B-52 Stratofortress simulator consists of two cars. The first is named "Alpine Clover," and was built in 1917. It houses the bomber cockpit with its supporting computers. The number 2 car, named "Andrew Squires," was built in 1928 and contains computer benches, storage cabinets, and an administrative area. The KC-135 Stratotanker refueling tanker simulator also consists of two cars. The first is named "John M. Forbes," and was built in 1928. This car contained the tanker cockpit simulator and supporting computer systems. The second car had no name, so it was called "Little John." Little John was originally designed to transport U.S. Army personnel over commercial railroads. Little John was converted into a workshop and administrative area with "live aboard" facilities for Air Force simulator technicians when on the move..."
1) Sacramento Northern barge 'Ramon'.
In service Jan. 3, 1915 to Apr. 7, 1954 on the Suisun Bay crossing from West Pittsburg to Chipps Island. Here is a cool fact... that little structure on the deck was a lunch counter! You could also purchase newspapers, tobacco and sundry items. Imagine that!
Passenger service lasted until 1940, freight only after that.
2) A study in black and white, sunlight and shadows.
3) A nice wide panoramic style view of New York City, 1946.
This moment in time captures a New York Central 0-6-0 ( maybe it's an 0-4-0, just in case I'm wrong yet again) going about its busy day.
When Sacramento Northern's car ferry Ramon was out of service, passengers were handled in one of the company launches "Countess" or, after 1942, "Legonia". Similar in design to the launch in the photo, they were used as work boats or were available for charter (popular with duck hunters).
https://www.wplives.org/sn/ramon.html
Miningman 1) Sacramento Northern barge 'Ramon'. In service Jan. 3, 1915 to Apr. 7, 1954 on the Suisun Bay crossing from West Pittsburg to Chipps Island. Here is a cool fact... that little structure on the deck was a lunch counter! You could also purchase newspapers, tobacco and sundry items. Imagine that! Passenger service lasted until 1940, freight only after that. 2) A study in black and white, sunlight and shadows. 3) A nice wide panoramic style view of New York City, 1946. This moment in time captures a New York Central 0-6-0 ( maybe it's an 0-4-0, just in case I'm wrong yet again) going about its busy day.
I'd say you're on pretty safe ground calling that NYC switcher an 0-6-0, it's a pretty husky-looking machine, and an 0-4-0 wouldn't be much use in a large yard like that.
It's the Weehawken yard by the way, the terminus for the West Shore line. It handled freight and passengers, both for the NYC and the NYO & W as well. Occasionally the Jersey Central would run up that way from Jersey City for freight pick-ups and drop offs.
All gone now. The tunnel through the Palisades is still there with some trackage, used by NJ Transit light rail.
Where was the trolley under the elevated?
mm to MM--- All I know is that is the Third Ave. Elevated Metro Line that the streetcar is running under.
Correct. You see the conduit track, and if you enlarge the picture you will see the "T" sign for the Thrid and Amsterdam Avenue Third Avenue Railways/Third Avenue Transit Park Row (City Hall) - Fort George line, to bus in March 1947, track north of 65th Street maintained for pull-in and put-out K-line cars until June 29th 1947 and a few days later for work-car movement of shop equipment from the the 65th Street shops.
Go to the Third Avenue Lightweight thread and see a few similar photos of the same line and car-type,
Third Avenue picture just fine, but improved Weehawken:
Nice job on the picture David!
I enlarged the photo until I started losing resolution just for another look at our "mystery" steam engine. I was wondering if it was possibly a 2-8-0 setting out on a local freight run, but as I enlarged it I got a good look at the short boiler, and there appeared to be two sand domes which would be appropriate for a switcher. So it's more than likely an 0-6-0. Can't make out the side numbers at any rate.
It's an older shot all right, look at the Empire State Building, no TV antenna!
Flintlock76It's an older shot all right, look at the Empire State Building, no TV antenna!
That was 1946, in the era where Stratovision was still the better answer to television network coverage...
I just looked up "Stratovision," I had to, I've never heard of it.
I can see why. Not very practical, but for a cool name you can't beat it!
One of the more recent takes on the Stratovision concept was solar powered drones flying at 50,000 to 60,000' to provide internet service for rural areas. Yet another take was the "Big Brass" thread on the Dick Tracy comic strip ca 1980.
The key advantage of Stratovision is that "Line of Sight" is 200+ miles away, and a plane circling over NYC could cover the whole NEC.
Erik_MagOne of the more recent takes on the Stratovision concept was solar powered drones flying at 50,000 to 60,000' to provide internet service for rural areas. Yet another take was the "Big Brass" thread on the Dick Tracy comic strip ca 1980.
A number of the Rural Broadband Initiative plans involve one type or another of 'persistent drone' presence; others invoive aerostats of one type or another that can do station-keeping 'above the weather' ... and not incidentally can perform satellite up- and downlinking outside the weather effect on typical 'weather-influenced bands' that make your Dish service disappear in thunderstorms...
Amusingly enough, 'on and off' this has occasionally been touted (including by me) as an intermediate stage in achieving reasonable GIS-level differential precision in GPS systems -- the constellation of near 'satellites' (on high-altitude drones) having dedicated beacon stationkeeping and altitude precision and embedded stabilized atomic-clock references.
There are places where, at times, even with the added cost of the flying, the thing could be cost-effective. One such was the original Angel's Flight (before the name was taken over for a kind of airborne medical Uber service) which was to provide cellular telephone services to places like Aspen, Colorado that were either ill-served by a tower-based architecture or which involved tower locations that were difficult or unsafe to access at some times of year. Where there is enough perceived demand coupled to high enough opportunity cost, even 'flown solutions' start to become interesting. (Amusingly, the thing that essentially 'killed' this was the prospect of systems like Iridium, which was and is one of the technical marvels of the 20th Century but also remains, distressingly like the Great Eastern, something that has crippled the finances of sequential entities trying to make actual money with it).
Moreover, that seven planes circling over appropriate places in appropriate orbits could cover something like 78% of the then prospective television audience with a good clean signal -- this in the age when 'coast-to-coast' broadcast networks were Big Time, and incredibly expensive to set up and run.
A big, although usually unremarked point about this was that the aircraft -- and their motors, parts, mechanics, etc. -- were really, really cheaply available. Every time I watch Fred Derry in that bomber I think 'with a few extra generators and some 400Hz broadcast equipment this baby wouldn't be sitting here idle like this'...
Of course, if you wonder why it didn't (pardon the pun) 'take off' in the late 1940s... consider objection from the existing broadcast industry, its suppliers, its patent-holders. And of course distributed atmospheric 'free broadcast' as a consumer technology is largely destroyed, even with COFDM and good autonomous-flight technologies, in a world of 5G mesh technologies and well-built-out tower infrastructure providers.
There is one problem with high altitude transmitting sites - inversion layers. I remember one day in San Diego when the major L.A. FM stations were not coming through as they did 95+% of the time, but one exception was a station whose transmitter was on the Hollyweird Hills versus Mt Wilson. At that time, the Santa Barbara stations were booming in from 200 miles away.
OTOH, the USN has their TACAMO aircraft where the point of flying was to get a long enough vertical run to make a reasonably efficient antenna at ~20kHz.
Erik_MagOTOH, the USN has their TACAMO aircraft where the point of flying was to get a long enough vertical run to make a reasonably efficient antenna at ~20kHz.
Austere was considerably lower carrier than that. And much of the purpose of flying was to have the necessary length of antenna to make the trick work, which for TACAMO is over 6 miles (as I recall the airborne version of Austere was over 120 miles as flown, which called for some interesting structural provisions). What the vertical sag of that latter array in normal service would be, I can't tell you; it had never occurred to me before now that one point of the TACAMO deployment would be to have the trailing portion of the wire approximate a vertical omni radiator...
L&PS. London and Port Stanley ...great photo of Line Car with linemen at work on overhead wires.
Montreal Tramways Nice Street scene
A1e 30 CP New Shops 1066 9/1887 Ottawa West 1/10/1941 Floyd Yates This slightly blurred photo attests to the difficulty of photographing moving subjects with yesteryear's cameras. This engine would be the fourth last 4-4-0. It became a spare for the old K&P and was last used in filming of the 1949movie Canadian Pacific staring Randolph Scott. It was stored in West Toronto roundhouse and scrapped 5/1950.
Movie version of 30 carrying two numbers including 80 easily repainted 8 to 3 or reverse! "Hat box" fake also, link and pin coupler on pilot, plus old style oil headlight and diamond stack. Note fake wood pile which appears to be scrap rather than cord wood normally used. Actual coal bunker lies beneath it since wood grates would be needed along with experience firing it! Banff, Alberta. Courtesy Doug Phillips.
Good photos, and they say so much.
Photo one, I enlarged that one just to be sure. Yep, those linemen, no hard hats, no safety vests. Different time all right, although one does appear to have heavy rubber gauntlets on.
Photo two? It doesn't get more charming than that! Good lookin' trolley!
Thank you Flintlock/Wayne
Added one more photo and a little story. Got to be a movie star for its 15 minutes of fame , then of course they scrapped it.
More should be said about the L&PS as pictured there, as electrified to a hell of a high standard in 1914.
That car can only be #2, built by Jewett in 1915 as a sister to the NYW&B cars... as serious a piece of high-speed rolling stock as was built for any railroad in those times. Sister #14 from 1917 has apparently been preserved, so people can realize what sort of high-speed connection from London to the CASO at St. Thomas could be achieved.
This was likely one of the high-water marks of for-profit heavy DC passenger railroading, I think contemporary with the stuff being done on MILW in general sophistication. It deserves better mention than as a near-forgotten anachronism, one with all the other interurbans and radial railways now gone essentially without trace in the real world unless you know where and what to look for.
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