We were doing at least 20 mph, up a 0.60 grade. I think the trailing tonnage might have come close to 200 tons.
The 80 year old hogger had been blowing for about 6 or 7 seconds, and the farmer paused at the rails. Then, inexplicably, he began to move across them when we were maybe 25 yards away. The aged hogger was on the ball and dumped the air immediately. That's why the truck was pushed so little.
Sheesh!
That train doesn't run any faster than 5 MPH, and someone managed to get struck at a grade crossing?
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
I took the missus and her mum on a fall colours excursion to Armstrong in Oct 2007. It was a well-conducted excursion, very pretty, but we hit a 5 ton gravel truck towing a large hay wagon about an hour into our return trip. There is no engine-turning in Armstrong, so the engine was backing tender first, and the tender met the combo at about the towbar and we drove the two items about 15 yards past the uncontrolled crossing. The engineer WAS blowing the crossing, but he went very shrill just as I realized the farmer was not going to stop. Fortunately, no lasting damage, except a bent stirrup on the tender.
We were told that the bell and harp, weighing close to 300 lb, went.....'missing'. This was some time before restoration some years back. The restorers went to a local scrapyard to find some metal and....there it was. They purchased it, and there it sits in the first photo, perched up where it had every right to be.
Flintlock76"The MIT Guide For At-Home Nuclear Weapons Contruction"
I assure you that a competent nuclear engineer would have little trouble designing an effective fusion device from available data. Most of the difficulty is in fabrication ... which is also something good engineering training facilitates design of.
I should have qualified my statement, as in:
"The MIT Guide For At-Home Nuclear Weapons Contruction"
" Yours for the paltry price of $25,000,000! Such a deal! Be the first madman on your block with the ability to wipe it off the map!"
See? THAT you charge for. Basic marketing, don't ya' know?
Engineering guides and assistance for helping those in poverty-stricken areas? Sure, give free access to those folks. And why not, if it improves their conditions?
How did we get here from "Steam On CN Tracks?" Are we all going stir-crazy from COVID isolation?
Flintlock76Oh. So they don't even have the sense to charge for it?
I confess to being one of 'those people' who think a first-class 'liberal arts education' at least through college level ought to be part of 'free public education', extended just as employer expectations almost uniformly are from 12th grade or 'equivalency' completion. That this is furthered by the resources from MIT (even though really not in the 'liberal arts' category except methodologically) is a benefit, not something to be laughed at for not following the money. There are certainly enough who gatekeep knowledge to dribble out when sufficiently 'greased'.
OvermodThey are -- commendably -- following the principle that detailed academic knowledge should be free.
Oh. So they don't even have the sense to charge for it?
I mean really, they don't have to give it all away!
Flintlock76Who knows what MIT is thinking? If they're thinking at all.
Back in the days of 'digital libraries' when cyberspace metaphors for the Internet were still the 'coming big thing' I fought in, and lost, much of the battle for free access to academic content, as well as back access to digitized journals, tech society paper repositories, and conference proceedings. Out of all the truly recognized 'institutions of higher learning' only MIT has put their entire curriculum -- lectures and notes -- on the Web free so that anyone in the world can learn engineering on the same basis as those selected to ultimately receive a degree.
The flip side of this: I was uncomfortably aware of a large number of Pakistanis asking interesting questions in the nuclear-engineering program at Columbia in the mid-to-late 1980s. It came as no surprise that this was an orchestrated effort toward weapons development, and was ultimately quite successful.
I do still think it is more important to provide the knowledge than artificially restrict it. (Although the converse tactic, strategic disinformation openly provided, obfuscation on sourcing for the 'real' sensitive stuff, active hiding of some of the disinformation on the theory that the most convincing lies are those most strenuously hidden, is more than ever in play...)
OvermodThis while terrorists freely exchange bomb-construction information and can look up nuclear design parameters free from MIT.
Yeah, I just went to the Bulleit 'site. I see what you mean.
I suppose terrorists aren't too concerned with lawsuits or "nanny-staters." Who knows what MIT is thinking? If they're thinking at all.
54light15Make mine a Bulleit- having one now.
Although it's pathetic that we have come to the point that visitors to the site have to specify their age via what is no doubt an elaborate back-end logging routine to verify 'drinking age' to see pictures and read information about alcoholic drinks. This while terrorists freely exchange bomb-construction information and can look up nuclear design parameters free from MIT.
54light15I think bourbon should play a role, don't you think?
Certainly! But only after 5:00 PM.
Is this the only Canadian steam operation on tracks connected to the North American rail system?
CN 2141 is owned by the city of Kamloops, and I believe the group receives much other support from the city as well. 2141 was taken out of service for heavy maintenance several years ago, but as shown by the video she is now back to full operation.
I'd be quite interested in knowing the details of the operating agreement between CN and the Kamloops Heritage Railway.
The line they operate on is known as the Okanagan Connecting Track, and it forms both a industrial lead and the CN-CP interchange, as well as being CN's access to our Okanagan Subdivision branchline (one train each way per day), via a short section of trackage rights on CP's mainline. The Okanagan Sub was operated by a shortline, Kelowna Pacific, from 1999 until 2013. KPR went bankrupt and CN bought back the line, abandoning some of it.
The Okanagan Connecting Track has become quite busy in recent years, as many of CP's coal trains from southeastern B.C. are now interchanged to CN in Kamloops.
2141 ran some trips on the KPR line, back when CP was also more friendly to steam operation:
https://www.railpictures.net/showphotos.php?offset=0&where=||||||||1|||||CN%202141|||||||||||||||||||||||||||&newsort=12
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
I think bourbon should play a role, don't you think? Make mine a Bulleit- having one now.
Very enjoyable, thanks for posting it!
I'd love to be sitting on the "back porch" of that caboose with a big mug of coffee and a good cigar, wouldn't you?
Or sitting in the cab with a big mug of coffee and a good cigar. I think it was Steve Lee who said the three things that complement each other perfectly are coffee, cigars, and steam locomotives.
Never knew this existed....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_3AbUWzYZE
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