While it's only early autumn in the Northern Climes and everyone should be making the most of the hopefully good weather and sun, here's a link to some footage of 1950s New Zealand Railways" just in case the weather makes for indoor activities.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDdsgQtmsq8&index=3&list=PLFjRz3quvmyAS_dlmagdtPXaXg-N9v3DP
Hope you enjoy.
Cheers, the Bear.
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
Thanks Bear, great movie. I got a real kick out of the kids putting coins on the track near the end. Brought back lots of memories.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
Howdy, Bear,
Won't be autumn here (i.e., air temperature below blood temperature) for five weeks yet. Of course, we know it's winter when the eye candy puts a long sleeve shirt over the usual tube top...
As for different gauge, 1067mm (my standard) and 42" (your standard) can be measured with the same gauge bar. Maybe that's because Great Britain and the US beat Germany to the Japanese market - and the French never got there at all.
Love the video.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - 1:80 scale in a Southern Nevada garage)
Bear,
Great stuff, thanks fo the link! Plentgy more there that will be of interest, too.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
I liked the 300'+ pre-fab track sections with welded rail for the tunnel. Was that being done anywhere else in the world?
I tried to sell my two cents worth, but no one would give me a plug nickel for it.
I don't have a leg to stand on.
DSchmitt I liked the 300'+ pre-fab track sections with welded rail for the tunnel. Was that being done anywhere else in the world?
Welded rail? Yes, although this was a technology that was still being sorted in 1956.
The particular infrastructure I'm not so sure, in fact may have been used specifically for the tunnel project. The rail welding plant could certainly have served other projects with sticks of rail easily enough and I suspect that's what happened after the tunnel was done. The thing that suggested it was a tunnel-only set-up was the fact that the gantry cranes that lifted the panels were rolled forward. That required a paved surface here. I suppose a fat-tired version for non-tunnel locations might work, but I suspect the panels were mostly a tunnel only project.
Bear can tell us how far off my edumicated guess was.
mlehmanBear can tell us how far off my edumicated guess was.
I can remember Brent at around the tender age of nine placing a“new fangled” one cent piece on the track and being told off because I could have derailed the Train!!! I didn’t do it again though that may have been more about being frugal cos with one cent, if memory serves me correctly, I could buy either four wine gums or six aniseed balls.
Bear, I believe you're right about the Wikipedia surmise being full of hot air.
A matter of historical fact. When Commodore Matthew Perry signed the US - Japan treaty of friendship, one of President Fillmore's gifts to the Imperium was, "One locomotive, with tender, passenger car and track." That was in 1854. So far, I haven't been able to determine the gauge of that locomotive.
Just as an aside, most of the rest of the gifts were smallarms and alcoholic beverages.
Incidentally, I just learned that there were 12-drivered locos in Japan prior to my 'imagineered' Tomikawa Tani Tetsudo 2-6-6-2T. IGR acquired 0-6-6-0 compound Mallets (with really strange 6-wheel tenders - 2-4, with the last two axles in an arch-bar truck) from Alco, Baldwin and Hanomag. The last were withdrawn from service in 1934.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - 110 years after the introduction of rail technology to Japan)