Good evening guys! We're certainly getting a steambath for weather these days, and it's just going to get hotter until Wednesday. Yuck!
Sorry about your computer problems Al. Hopefully you'll be back up soon. Great stuff from you Dave on the narrow gage lines. You've got me thinking about the layout I need to design for my new house too! I just hope the boss actually lets me stake-out territory in the basement for a proper railroad room!
Here's a bit of a history lesson, but you guys probably knew this stuff anyway:
The Origin of the Sandbox Sept. 1946 Railroad Magazine
Meet grocer, stovemaker Jordon L. Mott, who gave the railroad industry its first locomotive sander in 1841. Born in Manhasset, N.Y., two years before the turn of the Nineteenth Century, Mott began his career as a shopkeeper at the age of twenty-three, turned his attention to iron founding in 1829, and quickly won fame as the inventor and manufacturer of the first anthracite-burning cooking stove. The success of that product led the enterprising young ironmaster to leave his original plant on Water Street, in lower New York City, and move to new and larger quarters erected on grounds of the old manor of Morrisana beside the Harlem River, and adjoining the bridge at 3rd Avenue.
Few of the thousands of New Haven and New York Central System passengers who glide through Mott Haven yards today are aware of the origin of the name; still less suspect that the man who once shipped his products from that site developed and patented a little funnel-shaped box to pour sand on slipping driving wheels. It was a crude device, yet it pointed the way to huge sand domes which are a basic part of all modern locomotives. In his specifications Mott even suggested the present method of application to the rails, though apparently without conviction.
“Although I prefer to discharge the sand upon the wheels,” Mott wrote, “it may be directed with like effect to the rails in advance of the driving wheels.”
On many roads, prior to 1890, the locomotive sandbox occupied very nearly the position indicated in Mott’s drawings, being placed directly above the drivers. The boiler top dome, however, had the advantage of keeping sand dry, and allowed for a greater angling of pipes to reach widely-separated wheels.
Five Rules to having a happy life1. It's important to have a woman who helps at home, who cooks from time to time, cleans up and has a job.2. It's important to have a woman who can make you laugh.3. It's important to have a woman who you can trust and who doesn't lie to you.4. It's important to have a woman who is good in bed and who likes to be with you.5. It's very, very important that these four women don't know each other.
Here’s an appropriate post for today from the Sept. 1946 Railroad Magazine:
Billy Sunday, the late evangelist who was a popular American figure 30 years ago, often turned to railroad items to illustrate his sermons. For instance:
“Some people believe they’ve got a Pullman ticket to Heaven and have asked the porter to wake them up when the train is pulling into the yards on the New Jerusalem. But I tell you they’re going to get a hotbox on the way.”
He often told the story of the day when as a White Sox baseball player, he rode the Hot Springs Railroad from Malvern to Hot Springs, Ark. This narrow-gage pike was commonly called the “Diamond Joe” Reynolds, who built it, and is now a standard-gage part of the Rock Island system. On the day Mr. Sunday tells about, there were five coaches on the train. Engineer Ryan climbed into the cab and started, unaware that the night before a forest fire had burned away most of the supports of a bridge across a narrow gulley.
To make matters worse, the bridge was located around a sharp curve. The rails and some of the ties remained – but not much more. On came the engine, traveling at what was considered good speed. As he rounded the curve, the hoghead took in the situation. But it was too late to stop. He made the decision and yanked her wide open. Engines and all five coaches leaped across. There was a creaking and grinding of timbers, but the slim-gage train gained the opposite side before the tortured rails sank. Ryan stopped his train and went back with the passengers to survey the scene of what William A. Sunday called “a miraculous escape.”
The future revivalist was deeply moved. “It must be the God has some mission for the persons on this train to perform,” he said at the time, and repeated many years later to congregations that often exceeded 20,000.
Billy Sunday was one on many well-known people who rode the Diamond Joe Line. Among others were Admiral George Dewey, the hero of Manila Bay; Charles A. Dana, the journalist; Jay Gould and his daughter Helen; General John H. Logan, of Civil War fame; James G. Blaine, who ran for President with Logan as his running mate; Admiral Bob Evens, commander of the Atlantic Fleet; Emma Abbott, the singer, and her company; Philip Armour, the meat packer; George M. Pullman; such top-ranking pugilists as John L Sullivan, “Gentleman Jim” Corbett and Jake Kilrain; and the evangelist who most influenced Billy Sunday’s preaching technique, Rev. Sam Jones, kin to the famous Casey Jones.
Yes, the little old wooden coaches of the slim-gage Diamond Joe Line carried a choice lot of celebrities.
One golfer tells another: "Hey, guess what! I got a set of golf clubs for my wife!" the other replies, "GREAT trade!"
Doug, slate in Wales reminds me of Mt. Snowden cog railway
http://purl.dlib.indiana.edu/iudl/archives/cushman/full/P12127.jpg
Dave's branch goes to the old Calaveras Cement Co. (except when stuck in Lodi again)
http://www.cagenweb.com/quarries/states/ca/images/ca_books/ca-bull_38/ca-bull_38_1906_p59_fig25.jpg
Horseshoe Curve 1941
http://purl.dlib.indiana.edu/iudl/archives/cushman/full/P02536.jpg
http://purl.dlib.indiana.edu/iudl/archives/cushman/full/P02537.jpg
http://purl.dlib.indiana.edu/iudl/archives/cushman/full/P02538.jpg
Thanks for the URLs Mike, and the prisoner story Dave. Can't wait until I get the space and time to do a little modeling of my own. Sooner would be better than later! Here's a little something that may of of interest (maybe not) to ya'll:
Railroads on Bank Notes by L. Miles Raisig Spet 1953 Railroad Magazine
In America today, it is often said and written that except for the fields of science and space travel there are no new frontiers, no new worlds to conquer. We beg to disagree, and freely offer to every collector of railroadiana and every student of railroad history, a virgin field, untapped, almost unknown, and bursting with collecting possibilities.
Few persons other than confirmed collectors of obsolete paper money, students of the graphic arts, and serious antique collectors, are aware that one of the cheapest, most fertile, and abundant sources of American history lies in the private bank notes issued within the United States between 1800 and 1865.
But what of railroads, locomotives, and trains? By the time our forebears became interested in the practicality and economy of the steam locomotive, bank note engraving was already a highly skilled, advanced, competitive business, employing some of the finest American engravers on wood, copper, stone and steel. The former colonies had fused into a raw, furiously growing democracy, feeling its new power and thrusting ever westward for new and richer opportunities.
Each new move, each new enterprise, required credit; new banking companies, with little specie but plenty of paper, mushroomed over night. The banks might be dangerously near insolvency, having their creditors and the future only on their manager’s lie-ability, but their new paper was crisp and elegant and new, representing not only the best and latest in American life and living, but a bewildering array of portraits and events from Roman gods and senators to Napoleon, to American generals and presidents, and from Franklin experimenting with electricity to the Battle of New Orleans and beyond.
The railroad came to America; it stayed, grew, became many from one. Immediately its locomotives and trains appeared on the newer issues of private bank notes. The tremendous wave of new internal improvements – turnpikes, canals, and railroads – brought forth bank notes like snowflakes, and the rapid and inevitable American progress in locomotive building was quickly reproduced on the circulating currency. From about 1835, through hard times and good, through the War with Mexico and the War between the States, there was a continuous, thoroughly documented picture story of every major type and change in American locomotives and trains. The story ended only in 1866 when private bank notes were taxed out of existence.
In the year 1837, Michigan had just become a state. Its legislators believed completely in internal improvements, and with a collective eye to a large future profit, planned for three major railroads and two canals, within the state. With a population of 175,000, and with 68 mail routes, on 41 of which mail was collected and delivered once weekly. Michigan had 61 chartered banks and banking institutions.
The progeny of two of its banks may be seen in the accompanying photographs. It will be noted that the $1 note of the Tecumseh Bank is undated, unsigned, and unnumbered, and that the $2 note of the Bank of Washtenaw is undated. These two notes were never issued, and are in crisp, uncirculated condition, especially chosen for their sharp, clean engraving. Signed and dated notes of these designs were first issued about 1835.
The rain on the Washtenaw note is obviously a very early one, and appears to us today as little more than a team box on wheels dragging a carriage converted to rail travel. The locomotive is of the Planet type, originally imported from England, and showing refinements of construction over its predecessor type, the Rocket. In the four-wheeled Rocket, the larger front wheels had been the drivers, with power being transmitted through rods from outside cylinders. The Planet’s drivers were placed in the rear, were larger than the front bearing wheels, and power was transmitted from inside cylinders by a cranked axle.
The locomotive which is shown on the central vignette of the $1 note of the Tecumseh Bank probably antedates the Planet type, although it appears to be much more advanced. The spark arrester must have been one of the very first in existence; the covered tender and the unusual cowcatcher identify the engine as being the John Bull or the John Bull type. It bears the honor of being the first locomotive used in the state of New Jersey, in spite of its British name and origin. The cowcatcher shown here is a very rare type, being supported upon the rails by two small wheels.
At this point a word of warning is necessary. To expect to find in bank note vignettes exact replicas or drawings of engineering accuracy of famous locomotives, is to be disappointed. There is only one locomotive known at this time to the author which can be positively identified. This is the America, built by the New Castle Manufacturing Company of Delaware, and first used in 1854 on the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad. A vignette of this standard type engine appeared on a $5 note of the International Bank, Portland, Maine, as described in a bank note “reporter” of 1863. It is most likely that the vignette has also been used on many other bank notes which were not reported through lack of knowledge or because notes disappeared quickly from circulation, flowing the issuing banks’ failures.
Counterfeiting and production of bogus bank notes were so common and widespread between 1830 and 1865 that periodicals, devoted solely to the identification of legal notes and the detection of spurious paper, became necessary business and banking adjuncts. In more or less detailed descriptions the “reporters” gave denominations, vignettes, layouts and colors, to enable even the most naïve to identify notes offered as good, bad or indifferent.
Just a casual glance at the “reporters” of the 1850s and the early 1860s will show the enormous number of notes which bore, as a major or minor vignette or as a part of a scene, a reproduction of locomotive, tender, and cars. The train was known first as a “brigade of cars,” later as “train of cars,” and for many years as “the cars.”
Railroading in the beginning years, for passenger and employee alike, was a dirty and dangerous game. The rails were iron straps laid on parallel wooden beams. Often the end of a rail would loosen and curl up, to be caught by a wheel and forced up and through the floor of the car, to the painful injury of the unwary passenger. Such curled-up rails were known technically as “snake-heads,” and facetiously as “car inspectors.” Brakes at the beginning were non-existent and trains stopped in four different ways: (1) by running out of steam, (2) by running off the track, (3) by the jamming of wood blocks into the spokes of the locomotive wheels, and (4) by sheer muscular effort of employees and passengers wh
Yep Dave, looks like just you and me today. Glad you seemed entertanied by the railroad bank notes, and maybe we can find a missing locomotive or two. I can tell you we cave none of the type you listed at IRM. Here's part I of another little article that may be of interest:
Gold Trains by John P. Connoly - Aug 1945 Railroad Magazine
It was headline news when I read of the Yank seizure of about 200 tons of gold uncovered near the German town of Merkers some months ago. This loot from conquered European treasureholds had been hidden down in an abandoned salt mine to escape detection; but the retreating were compelled to desert their hoard, and the news story broke. In contrast to this is the silence that still cloaks the tale of perhaps the largest gold shipment in the world, which was transported across American roads about ten years ago.
The experience I had with the gold trains began when the United States Treasury decided to ship its bullion from the overtaxed deposit space on the east coast to new vaults built into the Kentucky hills. Twenty-four million pounds were carried from New York and Philadelphia to Fort Knox during the two six-month schedules from 1937 to 1941. Stretched out in a single line, the 503 cars used would have covered over six and a half miles of track, a fourteen billion dollar haul for a successful holdup. But unlike the haphazard storage of the ***, chance had no place in planning the move. Loaded under the glare of klieg lights, and the constant patrolling of armed guards, the cargo made its way safely to the electrically protected cache inland.
Early in the summer of 1936, I first heard of the government project John C. McCahan, manager of the B&O mail and express traffic, called to see me on a business matter too important to be discussed on the telephone. At that time I was Superintendent of Mail and Traffic Express at the Jersey City terminal of the Central of New Jersey-Reading Company. Mr. McCahan told me about the shipment and how it was to be sent parcel post to cut expenses. The only amount to be paid to the roads would be forty cents per car mile for the storage cars – usual rate for a sixty-foot mail car – plus army fares and coss of all meals. Several railroads were to divide the load, but details would be fixed at a meeting at the Capital.
Soon afterward, the principle lines concerned met in Washington. The Pennsylvania, New York Central, Baltimore & Ohio, Louisville & Nashville and Illinois Central had representatives there, while I looked after the interests of the Jersey Central Traffic passing over the various routes would merge at Louisville from which point the Illinois Central would move it to Fort Knox.
The late James W. Cole, a deputy Assistant Postmaster General, discussed the requirements. The proposed load was to take approximately 224 mail storage cars – later increased to 503 – two Pullman sleepers, a dining car and coach to care for the Army officials, postal clerks and guards who would ride the trains. Each road would have to provide all labor needed for loading and unloading the freight. Meals on board cost a maximum of seventy-five cents. Soldiers would travel at Army rates, postal clerks on their commissions – warrants granting free passage – while Pullman fares would be paid at the regular rate.
A twenty-six hour schedule was decided upon, since this would permit time for rest, inspection and servicing the train between each trip. It called for no record pace, as it was a few hours longer than the regular passenger run. After outlining the initial claims, Mr. Cole threw the meeting open to argument, and immediately a Post Office official objected to the use of the B&O route. He stated that the ferry services across the North River to Jersey City was dangerous, and the Pennsy provided not only the most convenient starting point but the shortest line.
I didn’t see that, and protested at once. It was a strange complaint coming form the man who had been responsible for gold shipments over the Central New Jersey and Reading only a few years before. However, the situation remained unsettled when we adjourned with a request from Cole to maintain silence so as the plans could be given no publicity.
Yet on August 18th, brief releases in the New York Times and the New York World Telegram announced that such a move was in the making. The leak must have been in Washington for the roads kept their bargain. When we heard no more, Mr. McCahan and I consulted with higher authorities since we were determined not to lose out share of the traffic. A as result, both the Baltimore and Ohio and the Central received their quota of traffic, and with this decision my work started.
The B&O enters New York City over the Jersey Central tracks into Jersey City and a ferry over the North River. Because I was in charge of all Jersey Central and Reading, mail loadings at this terminal were my job. The gold moved in two shipments: the first began in January 1937 and ended on June 18th of the same year; the second, started July 26th, 1940, wound up on January 24th, 1941. With only a temporary stoppage from late November 1940 until early the following January, so that terminal rail and car facilities might be open for holiday mails, there was no break in this schedule.
Together, the plans involved 503 storage cars divided between the Pennsy, New York Central and Baltimore & Ohio on an approximate 4:4:2 percentage basis – the Pennsy, 193 cars; Central, 196; B&O, 114. The consist, makeup, handling and loading on the three roads were the same. Even the cost per carload was the identical, since the Pennsy’s short-line rate had to be met by the other two.
Once it had been decided that we were to handle twenty percent of the traffic, operation work got under way. Certain changes had to be made within the terminal to perfect our facilities. To load the train in the passenger station was out of the question since there was no means for vehicles to reach the carside. We had to use freight track Number 6 which lay fifty feet south of the passenger depot. A team way runs between passenger track Number 20 and this, and using the combined facilities, mail trucks could back right up the car doors. On the Pennsy and Central the use of elevators to get the gold to the car levels made double-handling necessary in loading.
Before the scheduled trains could be run, the track highway had to be raised four inches to meet the tailboard level of the mail trucks to avoid any abrasion of the gold. The paving in the yard from the ferry slip to the end of the track had to be rolled to make the eight hundred foot driveway smooth. All yard arrangements were directed with the idea of protecting the gold bars from damage.
Powerful reflectors multiplied the light in the area where the work was going on. An extra water line was installed so that the train had its own yard supply. While mechanical preparations were being completed, my office was the stumping ground for the men whose planning guaranteed safe delivery of the bullion from the Assay Office in New York to the carsides at Jersey City. New York and Jersey police officers, government service men, plus members of the company forces mapped each step so that it would be about as easy to steal gold from the New York vaults at Wall Street as from the trucks in passage. There was neither time nor opportunity to get close to the yellow bars.
Special ferries crossed with the trucks from 6 p.m. when the loading would begin, until
Here's part II of my little article:
Several nights I timed the arrival of a ferry at Jersey. The average boat lay ten minutes in the slip before being “rung off” on its return to New York. N that time, one and sometimes two trucks would drive off, unload and go back on the same vessel. This meant coordination of both the work and the workmen.
Heavy oak, boxes bound by steel straps and secured by a brass telltale rotary lock held the gold. They had none of the ornate carvings of old treasure chests, and the men who cradled them onto skids and bolted them in place never saw a glint of wealth. But from the tension around the station, the speed of the husky laborers in easing them into cars, and the worried expressions of the overseers, I could hardly help sensing some strange feeling. Even hidden, the gold had influence on us there. Scorching white light of the floods illuminated the station so that a rat crawling over the boards could not escape detection.
The amount of gold represented three percent of all the gold mined in the world since 1492 – the year Columbus discovered America and Indian gold began to flood the Spanish treasuries. Five hundred and three cars were used by the three roads to carry the twenty-four million pounds, which according to my figures would be valued at about thirteen and a half billion dollars. A fraction of this load would have rewarded the most daring train robbery, yet there were no attempts made to hold it up. Watching the progress from my office where the activity was already routine. I decided to cover the movement of a truck from New York to our terminal, so as to get a more complete idea of the work. The trip made such an impression that I stayed up that night to write down the sensation.
Incidents that happen during a time of feverish activity usually go by so quickly that it takes a while to get their meaning. One night after I had been timing the interval between the arrival and departure of a ferry, I was heading back toward the train when Major Carlson came over to me. The major had been detailed by headquarters at Governors Island to command the soldiers on guard.
“Got a pencil handy?” he asked. “Guess I left mine in the diner.”
I reached into my pocket and drew out my pencil, a cheap mechanical one. Sometime later that evening, he returned it and without thinking I stuck it into my coat pocket. Not until the next morning did I look at the pencil Carlson gave back and saw that it had stamped in gold “United States Army.”
After making my notes with it, I placed it in my desk, intending to return it next time I saw him. But it was only when I was clearing out my office on New Year’s eve in 1941 – preparatory to retiring after fifty years of railroad work – that I found it again. Since then I valued it so much I would regret to part with it. The Major Carlson I knew is the same Lt. Colonel Evans F. Carlson, hero of Guadalcanal and of Carlson’s famed raiders.
It was a few minutes after five when I stood outside the Assay Building on Wall Street. Already the doors of the building had swung open and crowds were poring out into the cluttered downtown financial section, shoving toward buses, subways and every sort of conveyance. Then from Broadway crosstown over Wall Street came a cordon of motorcycle police easing up to the curb in front of me.
While an officer got off and strode inside, the others sat at attention on their motors and there was nothing casual about the two 38s hanging from their leather belts, nor the observant way they eyed the alley. A few minutes later four five-ton trucks emerged from the narrow driveway alongside the Treasury, and armed guard seated beside each driver while through and steel slits in the rear I saw guards riding back in the compartment. The escort lined up immediately ahead, and with sirens screeching, the Cavalcade sped down South Street. Rounding Battery Place, they drove up West Street and on to the ferry house at Liberty Street.
As they crossed North River, the guards had every approach covered. Since this was a ferry special, there were no passengers on board. However, if passengers rode the ferry, police saw that no attempt was made to approach the convoy.
The moment we entered the yard, flood lights picked up every movement of the car and its passengers. No one was allowed within limits without showing an insignia which identified all those connected with the gold train. The ban included even Jersey Central officials.
Numerous lamps strung underneath the cars showed every track joint and bolt clearly. All of the time the train was in the yard, soldiers with their rifles shouldered patrolled along both sides of the cars, ready for instant action. Inside, postal inspectors and railway service men directed the loading, placing and bolting of 500-pound boxes on skids into the reinforced floors. This precaution protected the gold bars from abrasion which might be caused by shaking enroute.
The rhythm of the unloading was faultless. Men worked on both trucks simultaneously with such speed that I had several narrow escapes as I walked through the cars to watch the progress. From that first discharge of freight, trucks kept coming until ten o’clock when 48,000 pounds of gold weighed the train.
My next job was sealing up the storage cars. After bolting in inside doors, guards accompanied me as we turned the government locks fastening the doors on both sides of each car. This done, we had completed our yard work and headed for the diner for a gulp of coffee.
Soldiers paced up and down alongside the train awaiting five a.m. when they would pull out. Near five o’clock a Jersey Central engine backed down and coupled onto the drag to make its routine tests. Then the crew took over to get her underway to Philadelphia, first lap on the stretch to Fort Knox. In order not to arrive at Fort Knox before daylight, we figured on a slow schedule, leaving Jersey City at 5:15 a.m.; Philadelphia, 7:40; Washington, 10:20; Parkersburg, 8:10 p.m.; Cincinnati, 1:10 a.m., and Louisville, 4 a.m.; and arriving at Fort Knox at 5:45 a.m. Central Time. These were the important stops, where inspections were made.
The train consisted of an empty baggage car, combination coach, four to eight 60-foot storage cars loaded with gold, one twelve-section sleeper for postal officials and guards, a sixteen-section sleeper to quarter Army men, a diner, and tourist sleeper for the dining car crew.
I never rode one of the trains over the line, for while it traveled over the Jersey Central to Philadelphia, this was primarily a B&O show. However, I knew the territory they crossed well since I had been over it so many times, and had copies of her schedule and stops in my office. This way I could place her at any moment.
So the gold trains pulled out for Kentucky. But the details of her handling did not end with the outbound movement. On the third morning, the returning consist was due in Jersey City at about ten thirty a.m. The empty skids had to be taken off then and sent back to the Assay Office to be used for the outgoing shipment that same night. Army men aboard had to report at once to Governors I
Good morning everyone, and hope you're having a beautiful day like the one we're having here! Here's another article that I hope you'll enjoy. It's got trains and a heroic dog, and isn't that enough?
August 1945 Railroad Stories
Memories of the winter of 1908 are recalled by John F. Roden, c/o Mrs. Lena Hilton, Fair Haven, N.Y. He was then working on the old Ho-Jack Line, (the Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg, now in the New York Central system). One morning as they were starting out from Rome, N.Y., snow mantled the ground; the weather was crisp and cold.
“We backed our train into a freight yard at Oswego,” he writes, “near where an Adirondack Mountains guide named Gill lived with his family. Mr. Gill’s dog, Spot, liked to ride in the engine cab with us. He’d sit on the little drop seat ahead of the seatbox of Fireman Pat Rogan. Pat taught the animal to hold a corncob pipe in his mouth. It was comical to see the two of them, man and dog, sitting there, each with a corncob pipe.”
“On this particular morning we took Spot with us as usual, while we picked up cars from various manufacturing concerns. The weather continued sunshiny until about 2 p.m. Then a few snow flurries drifted down. As soon as the snowfall started, our four-legged railroader disappeared, much to our surprise, but we kept on with the job of making up our train.”
“Without any warning, a fierce north-western wind blew in from Lake Ontario. It was almost impossible for us to see signals in the swirling snowstorm. This slowed up our work. Not until about 5:30 did we get the train ready. Then we set out to the junction three miles away, where the Gill family lived and where stood a telegraph station at which we received orders before entering the main track. By this time the drifts had piled up so high that we had to do a regular snow-bucking job to get our train through.”
“When we arrived at the junction we decided we could go no further without a helper engine; so our conductor, David Knight, barged into the operator’s shanty to explain the problem to the yardmaster on the west side. He was told, in reply, there would be no helper engines available until 8:30 p.m. . It was then about seven. The op went home immediately after our arrival. This left us alone. There was nothing else for us to do, so we climbed into the engine, pulled the storm curtain tight, and sat around telling yarns.”
“That morning, as we learned later, Mrs. Gill had been fooled by the nice weather into taking a shopping trip with her small daughter. Of course, she had not expected the blizzard. The two of them had walked three-quarters of a mile to the trolley car and boarded it for a ride to the city.”
“But getting back to our party in the engine cab: while we were entertaining each other and keeping warm as we could, we suddenly heard loud and persistent barking. We thought Spot wanted us to take him into the cab. I got down to lift him up, but he would not let me do it. He ran away a few feet, still barking vociferously.”
“Well,” I said, “if you don’t care to come up here where it is warm, you can stay there and bark your head off.”
“With that I climbed back into the engine and made myself comfortable again. The dog returned, barking louder than ever, a sharp persistent bark. It was still snowing and blowing: you could not see more than 10 or 15 feet ahead. Spot really howled. At length Conductor Knight said: “Boys, there’s something wrong. That dog wouldn’t stay out there barking for fun on a terrible night like this. I’m going to find out what this is. Our helper won’t be here before ten o’clock anyway.”
“So Dave started out and I followed. Yelping excitedly, Spot ran ahead of us, occasionally running back to see if we were trailing along. He led us up the road a half-mile. There we found Mrs. Gill and her daughter. The lady had fallen down from exhaustion and the child was too small to help her. Dave and I carried them to their home. We phoned for a doctor and stayed until he came. Mrs. Gill gave birth to a boy.
“That boy is now 36. His mother is still living. Both owe their lives to Spot. The dog died long ago. I hope he had gone to some railway beyond the sunset. Only two of my old crew are left. I often visualize that gang in the engine cab, with Spot on his accustomed seat, and he and the fireman grinning happily, each with a corncob pipe in his mouth.”
A woman accompanied her husband to the doctor's office. After his checkup, the doctor called the wife into his office alone. He said, "Your husband is suffering from a very severe stress disorder. If you don't do the following, your husband will surely die." "Each morning, fix him a healthy breakfast. Be pleasant at all times. For lunch make him a nutritious meal. For dinner prepare an especially nice meal for him. Don't burden him with chores. Don't discuss your problems with him, it will only make his stress worse. No nagging. And most importantly, make love with your husband several times a week. If you can do this for the next 10 months to a year, I think your husband will regain his health completely." On the way home, the husband asked his wife. "What did the doctor say?" “He said you're going to die," she replied.
Thanks for your information and comments Dave. Should I eventually become the only one doing any posting, then that will be the handwriting on the wall for me, even though the thread seems to get a lot of "looks". Glad you liked the joke. It isn't easy finding all these "groaners." And now, here's something I've been meaning to post for sometime now. I have to make sure I have all the Railroad story magazines printed in 1935 to do this for a whole year though!
August in Railroad History – from Aug. 1935 Railroad Stories
August 1
1849 - Erie & Kalamazoo, first railroad in old “Northwest Territory,” leased to its chief competitor, the Michigan Southern (Now part of the N.Y. Central)
1850 – R.B. Mason, supt., N.Y. & New Haven R.R. stops the practice of letting cattle roam over the railroad’s right-of-way on the Sabbath. Although the road has no Sunday trains, some future emergency might make one necessary.
1830 – N.Y. Central & Hudson River R.R. consolidated from N.Y. City to Buffalo; first train scheduled over the entire line.
1870 – Lake Superior & Mississippi R.R. opened, St. Paul to Duluth; total mileage, 169
1891 – B&O gets shorter route to Chicago (present route of its through trains) by acquiring the Pittsburgh & Western Ry. And the Pitts., Cleveland & Toledo R.R. and the Akron & Chi.
1901 – Martin W. Clement enters Pennsy service as rodman. (Born Dec. 5, 1881, at Sunbury, Pa. On Sept 1, 1918 he became supt. Frt, transportation, Eastern Lines; on Sept. 16, 1926, v.p. in charge operation; and April 24, 1935, P.R.R. president)
1908 – Work started on world’s largest railroad embankment, the Pequest Fill, located on the N.J. cutoff of D.L. & W. near Leak Hopatcong, N.J. (It extends 3 miles; average height 110 ft.; total 6,625,000 cu. Yds. of material; completed in 1911.)
August 2
1892 – Evans and Sontag, notorious bandits, take $2,300 in gold from S.P. train at Fresno, Calif.
August 3
1831 – First trial run of steam passenger train in N.Y. State, on the Mohawk & Hudson R.R. (now N.Y.C.), an 18-mile road, Schenectady to Albany. Train hauled by “DeWitt Clinton,” road service. Locomotive was built at West Point Iron Works, weighed 4 tons, makes only 15 m.p.h. Cars are converted stagecoaches chained together.
August 4
1852 – Act of Congress grants “rights-of-way to all rail and plank roads or macadam and turnpike companies through the public lands of the United States.”
1891 – Second annual convention Brotherhood Ry. Carmen of America held at Pueblo, Colo., with 60 lodges represented and 4 amalgamated organizations.
August 5
1898 – Gulf, Beaumont & Great Northern Ry. Inc. in Texas. (Santa Fe system)
Some years ago, at the time the Switz City, Ind., division of the Illinois Central was built, it was called the Indiana & Illinois Southern, and was a narrow gage. The rolling stock was second-hand and the roadbed was deplorable. Little effort was made to live up to the timetables, which were regarded as a joke. In fact, the pike was dubbed “The Try-Weakly.” An amusing incident occurred when Josiah McConnell, of Sullivan, Ind., wanted to make a trip to Switz City but missed the train by not more than two minutes. Glancing up at the station clock, McConnell observed in a rage that the train had actually left Sullivan five minutes ahead of time! So he filed suit, claiming $5,000 damages from the I.& I. S. Railroad Company. The case came up to trial in court, and the strange fact was brought out that the train which McConnell had missed should really have left the previous day. Therefore, instead of being five minutes too early, it was really twenty-three hours and fifty-five minutes late.
A man goes to a shrink and says, "Doctor, my wife is unfaithful to me. Every evening, she goes to Larry's bar and picks up men. In fact, She sleeps with anybody who asks her! I'm going crazy. What do you think I should do?" "Relax," says the Doctor, "take a deep breath and calm down. Now, tell me, exactly where is Larry's bar?"
Good Sunday morning! Before I make some breakfast and start my fun-filled day painting, I thought I'd give ya'll something to read with your morning coffee. Here is part I.
The Streamline Experiment by Jim Holden, Mar. 1035 Railroad Magazine
Polished like a ballroom floor, smooth as an eel, the New Haven’s “Rail Zeppelin” is just about the slickest streamlined train so far. It has motors and a control room at each end.
Quite a few people talk about the “streamline train” when they mean the U.P.’s latest motor unit. They miss the point, because there are eight or nine other streamlined trains, all different. To be sure, they are all part of the same experiment. And what an experiment! Nothing like it has been seen on rails since 1872, when New York built its wind-blown subway.
In order to understand what is really happening, it is necessary to go back a couple of years. In 1931 Dr. Oscar Tietjen of the Westinghouse Laboratories announced that he had been fooling around with train models in a wind tunnel. He found that a big steam locomotive with two coaches saved 32% of its power at 75 miles if streamlined. This had been suspected for some time, but not measured.
In March, 1931, Railway Age described the experiments and said: “Dr. Tietjen’s tests … open up a new field of possibilities in operating trains and cars faster than at present without increased energy or fuel requirements.
Nothing much happened. About a year later Dr. Tirtjen and his associate, K.C.Ripley, presented a paper which showed that wind was very tricky (everyone knows this, but they had the figures to prove it). For instance, a wooden locomotive model which they had been testing was one day waxed and polished. They were startled to find that this cut down the wind resistance about 40%. Here was real evidence that streamlining pays.
“Railroad companies anticipating the future development of high-speed trains,” they said, “should start now to build experimental trains.”
Even before Tietjen announced his tests streamlining was being championed by Otto Kuhler, well-known engineering artist. He stressed especially the advertising value of streamlined equipment, and designed several streamlined steam engines. This magazine was the first widely circulated periodical to print his drawings and ideas (August, 1931). Since then Mr. Kuhler’s ideas have gained headway, and he is now consulting engineer of the American Locomotive Co., in which capacity he will be responsible for the design of Alco’s future streamlined steam engines.
All this evidently had some weight. During 1932 many gasoline rail-cars were built, most of them streamlined in some way or other.
“Take that junk off,” said “Uncle Dan” Willard of the B&O when he first saw this engine. “I want my locomotives to look like locomotives.” This is what No. 1, the “Lady Baltimore,” looks like after they took the junk off her. A 4-4-4 type rebuilt from one of the older Atlantics, she can hardly be considered a streamlined engine. Even though she has a recessed front coupler, closed-in cab, and high-backed tender. However, she is a fast young gal, and the B&O will use her to haul its new streamlined trains between Washington and New York. We are wondering, what did she look like before they took all the junk off her?
True, the idea of streamlining is much older. In 1865 the Reverend S. Calthrop of Rochester patented a very smooth train. It was something like an earthworm. In 1892 there was a regular hurricane of talk by Frederick U. Adams. But though he did much figuring and later tried a train, it was not a true streamline. Adams had no way of administering wind.
Adams wrote a book in which he said: “A train properly designed for minimizing air resistance due to speed can be made to travel 100 miles an hour with less expenditure of power than is now required to move a train of equal weight and capacity at a rate of 50 miles an hour.” (Science has not caught up with Adams on this yeat.)
Most trains then had open platforms. Adams designed one with joined coaches )he was father of the vestibule), a turtle top, underpan, and flush windows. Its rear was pointed, but the head end looked like a pile of flatirons.
Eight years passed. Adams raised $8,000 to streamline a real B&O train, which was called the Adams Air-Splitting (not ear-splitting) train, and made 40 miles in 37 ½ minutes, which was not so startling. The B&O decided the idea wasn’t worth much to them. “If you want to go faster, burn more coal,” they figured.
Today’s motor unit train comes not only form the wind tunnel, but from the automobile. During 1932 and 1933 there was a serious epidemic of rail motor cars. In 1932 the Budd Manufacturing Co. sent to France the “Lafayette,” a typical rail-car except that it had sort of a snoot. It was stainless steel, streamlined affair with pneumatic tires and steel rims. It burned gasoline, made about 60 miles an hour.
Another was the Austro-Daimler pneumatic-tired rail-car. One was bought by Cotton Belt and runs between Dallas and Jonesboro (Ark.). France produced the Bugatti, which made 107 miles an hour on four 200-h.p. motors using alcohol-benzol. Others were built in France by Michelin, Renault, S.O.M.U.A. and Charentaise.
The Pullman Railplane appeared in 1933 with a truss frame and looking as bulbous as a baby blimp sixty feet long. Its maximum speed is about 90 miles, on two 6-cylinder auto engines.
These are only a few of the rail-cars, which are the immediate ancestors of the latest Wonder on Wheels, showing that it did not spring into full glory overnight.
The most startling thing which happened during the rail-car epidemic was the appearance of the new type car in Germany, with a joint in the center. Its picture was first published in the newspapers of December, 1932, and it was the original streamlined train. It looked something like the Pullman trains.
Said the caption: “A streamlined rail motor car now being tested by the German National Railroad Company.”
The picture showed its bulbous front, deep under aprons, slick sides. In the front were three low windows, two head-lamps and two spreading bumpers. The bumpers looked like a mustache and the front was a good deal like a face.
“This new type of rail motor car,” said the account, “which the German State Railroads expect to put into service between Berlin and Hamburg during the early part of 1933, is said to be capable of attaining a speed of more than 99 miles per hour.”
By April the train been christened the “Flying Hamburger” (and what a name!), It leaves Hamburg early in the morning and Berlin late in the afternoon. It can travel 100 miles an hour.
This is the experimental “Railplane” of the Pullman Car. Co., a light-weight, high-speed gas buggy designed to take the place of a small steam train. So far as we know, this “railplane” is still waiting for a buyer.
Hi folks! Continuing the the August event calender, we have:
August 6
1789 – Friedrich List, father of German railroading, born at Reutlingen, Wurtemburg. He died in Austria Nov. 30, 1846
1850 – Organization of Syracuse and Rochester Direct R.R. (opened in 1853, one of the original roads comprising N.Y. Central)1858 – Kirby C. Jackson enters P.R.R. engine service. (He was one of seven brothers, all locomotive engineers.) He retired April 1,1902. On his 100th birthday, March 8, 1932, he claimed to be “world’s oldest railroad man,” and was given a white pass, good on any Pennsy passenger train.
1872 – N.Y., N.H. & H. inc in Conn. (Total mileage today, 2,072.)
1927 – Prince of Whales opens Toronto Union Station in Canada.
August 7
1903 – Circus train wrecked on Grand Trunk Ry. at Durand, Mich.; second section crashes into rear of first section; 26 killed, many injured.
1911 – Union Station opened, Winnipeg, Canada.
August 8
1829 – “Stourbridge Lion,” pioneer locomotive makes first trial run on Delaware & Hudson Railroad at Honesdale, Pa. with Horatio Allen at throttle. First practical steam engine to run on any American railway. Built by Foster, Rastrick * Co. at Sourbridge, England. (Although weighing only 7 tons, she was found too heavy for the tracks and had to be taken out of service.)
1833 – America’s first major rail accident occurs on Amboy & Bordentown R.R. in N.J.; several persons killed.
1837 – Track-laying starts on narrow-gage Mineral Range R.R. in Michigan. (Now standard gage)
1931 – Berlin-Frankfort Express derailed, 109 injured, at Juterbog, Germany, by Sylvester Matuska, fiend who wrecked trains in 3 countries.
A seal walks into a bar and asks the bartender for a drink.The bartender asks the seal, "What's your pleasure?"The seal replies, "Anything but Canadian Club."
You’ve seen plenty of pictures of U.P. No. 10001 coming head-on. Now take a look at its scientifically designed tail end.
The Hamburger has two coaches on three trucks. It has a 12 cylinder V-type Diesel of 405 horsepower at each end, with electric drive and a control room. Both cars are full of seats, and there is a lunch room serving pickled schnapps und pretzels to people who just can’t wait. Other advanced features include a handy towing-ring at either end.
If the Hamburger had not appeared when it did. Some sort of Diesel train was bound to show up. The Diesel may be a very old type of engine, and may have been rejected for railroad use a hundred times, but today’s Diesel is something entirely new.
“What is new about it, “ say the Winton Engine people, “is the way in which the defects of the two-cycle principle have been overcome.” The Diesel fires on every stroke of the piston, which beats the automobile’s every other stroke. Some of the new Diesels have four exhaust valves per cylinder, which helps develop power.
Some people insist there are now too many kinds of Diesel-electric units to remember. In this country there are four – Pullman, Budd, Goodyear-Zeppelin and American Car & Foundry (ACF). The best-known Pullman units are the U.P. trains. They are mostly of aluminum alloy and look smooth. They are articulated (joined, but in one piece) and have a motor in the front only.
Budd trains are somewhat the same but sheathed in stainless steel. Burlington’s Zephyr is the best known. They have ridge running the length of the train, because the sheathing is thin. These trains are also articulated.
The Goodyear-Zeppelin of the N.Y., N.H. & H. (New Haven) is smoother than any – more like a balloon. It has a motor and control at each end, is articulated. ACF’s train is smooth outside, but wider: for example, on the Gulf, Mobile * Northern machines. There is a motor in front only, and each car has its own trucks.
Both the New York Central and Pennsy, giants of the east, are going in for streamlining too. The N.Y.C. took its Hudson type engine No. 5344, hung a big black metal shroud over her and named her after its famous old king, Commodore Vanderbuilt. The Pennsy tapered off the sides of its new 4800 series electric engine, painted a few speed lines on them, and announced that the “streamlined” electrics will pull passenger trains between New York City and Washington “as soon as electrification is completed.”
The first Pullman streamliner, as you will remember (the U.P M10000), was no Diesel, but a 12-cylinder distillate burner. Its 600 horsepower are now thought a little weak for a three-coach train, especially as a sleeper had been added, making four. But the M10000 pretty nearly set the style for this country. It was the first to have a center of gravity as low as 38 inches. Articulation – three coaches on four trucks – make it really one long car. This seems like a nuisance to some railroad men, and is not being adopted on all the new trains.
The second U.P. streamliner, about which so many blurbs have been written, shows a great decrease in horsepower per pound of weight. Here is a 900-horsepower Diesel instead of the 600-horsepower distillate motor; but the train now weighs over four hundred thousand pounds, considerably over twice as much. However, it is not a heavy train. Since this unit has made 120 miles an hour, there is no use saying it is underpowered. However, it seems to show that the motor train is already getting heavier.
The M10001 has a 38-inch center of gravity, same as the first. The coaches are 11 feet high, according to our record, a height which has already been raised to 11 feet 3 inches in the New Haven Zeppelin. The U.P. streamline is not as wide as a standard train, and some claim the aisles are too narrow. Newer trains are wider as well and maybe heavier.
This M10001 was a pioneer train in many respects, and a lot of problems had to be fought out. One of the most persistent was whether to sheath with aluminum alloy or stainless steel. Alloy won, though it is expensive. Other makers have stuck to stainless steel, so this problem is not settled.
U.P. is going to use front control in their two none-car trains being built for the Chicago-West Coast run, and the horsepower is upped to 1,200 in the form of a 16-cylinder V-type Diesel. Similar to this is the one being built by Pullman for the Illinois Central. Though only a five-coach, its Winton Diesel runs up to 1,200 horsepower. This will take care of extra coaches if the I.C. wants any on its Chicago-St. Louis run. Strictly a lounging and eating train, it will have a buffet so you can eat anywhere you want. Such informal eating is practically universal on the new trains. B. & O.’s latest steam train has a kitchen right where you can watch your hamburger fry, through plate glass. This may cure passengers of bringing along three dried-out cheese sandwiches and a dead banana.
The sort of train being built by Budd is on the order of the Burlington Zephyr. You can tell by one of its horizontal bands, like clapboards (or at least you could when this was written – things change so fast). The stainless steel of which they are built is very thin, to keep down weight, and it needs reinforcement; hence the ridge effect.
Budd built for the Texas & Pacific one of the first motor train in this country (November, 1933), but this may not count. It was angular around the nose, even pointed, and makes little better than 75 or 80 m.p.h. Except for the prow it did look like a two-coach Zephyr. It was a gasoline-electric, having a pair of 240-horsepower motors right up in front where they could be taken out the minute they broke down. This train had many novel gadgets, including one set of pneumatic tires. When last heard from it was on a Fort Worth/Texarkana run, down in Texas.
A man was wandering around a fairground and he happened to see a fortune-teller's tent. Thinking it would be good for a laugh, he went inside and sat down. "Ah....." said the woman as she gazed into her crystal ball. "I see you are the father of two children." "That's what you think," said the man scornfully. "I'm the father of THREE children."… The woman grinned and said, "That's what YOU think!"
Hmmm ... this might be my last post unless others join in ....
August 9
1869 – Deliberate head-on collision near Hapersville, N.Y., and free-for-all battle between rival gangs in Gould-Fiske raid in strruggle for control of Albany and Seusquehanna R.R.
1876- First S.P. train enters Mojave, Calif.
1877 – Carelessness in closing drawbridge over Shrewbury River on Long Branch line of Central R.R. of N.J. causes train to plunge into the water; 5 killed, 65 wounded.
1905 – “Death Valley Scotty” begins his famous $5,500 fast run, Los Angeles to Chicago, on the Santa Fe. (He covered 2,205 miles in 44 hours, 55 mins. Nearly half the trip was over mountain divisions.)
August 10
1867 – Opening of Java’s first railroad
1877 – Construction of Nova Scotia Central Ry. (now part of the C.N.R. system) begins at Lunenburg, N.S.
1881 – Chatsworth wreck
August 11
1868 – Opening of first railroad in Tahiti
1871 – North & South Georgia R.R. narrow gage organized to run between Columbus and Rome, Ga., 330 miles. (Now Central of Ga. Ry.)
1884 – C.P.R. opened. Montreal to Toronto.
1899 – Algoma Central Ry. Inc. in Canada (Now A.C. & Hudson Bay Ry., 324 miles)
Comments anyone?
Good morning everyone, and especially Dave, who has been the only person who has really stuck by this thread. Your support is very much appreciated!
I too, did some growing-up in California. I lived in Long Beach, Annaheim and Huntington Beach. My only contact with the trains were with the one that ran through a vast tomato field near my home in Huntington Beach, and believe me, we didn't want to be seen by the train crew who worked that line, or by our parents, as we were not supposed to be there and knew it. The reason I have been accumulating "vintage papers" is that I have no early experiences of my own to share. It's only recently that I've been able to actually work with vintage locomotives and cars, and that's thanks to the volunteer philosphy of the Illinois Railway Museum. Thanks for sharing your rail experiences. I'm sure I'm not the only one who enjoys reading them.
Here's some information concerning rail events on this day in August:
August 12
1848- Death of Geo. Stephenson, pioneer English railroad and locomotive builder.
1870 – Narrow-gage Rio Grande Ry. Inc. in Texas to run between Brownsville and port Isabel, 26 ¼ miles. (Now Port Isabel & Rio Grande Valley Ry. This is the southernmost complete line in the U.S., although part of Florida East Coast Ry. Extends further south.)
1873 - Great Western Ry. Merged with Grand Trunk.
1883 – Santa Fe R.R. surveyors attacked by Apache Indian; 13 of the party killed, Aug. 16, last Indian massacre of railroad men.
1885 - Cloudburst washes away N.Y.C. railroad bridge over Walton Creek 7 miles west of Schenectady, N.Y., leaving track suspended in air across gully
1892 – Death of Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone.(There are more than 140 million miles of telephone wire and about 36 million telephone instruments in use on the globe in 1935)
2006 – “Our Place” celebrates its 5th month of operation in the Kalmbach Classic Trains forum, already firmly established as the premier thread for a constantly changing variety of railfan information, frolic and fun under the guiding hand of Tom Weber and the cast of characters who reside in the village of Mentor. Former patrons are encouraged to visit the thread today in an attempt to re-open the doors.
One fine day, Bob and Tom are out golfing. Tom slices his ball deep into a wooded ravine. He grabs his 8-iron and proceeds down the embankment into the ravine in search of his ball.The brush is quite thick, but Tom searches diligently and suddenly he spots something shiny. As he gets closer, he realizes that the shiny object is in fact an 8-iron in the hands of a skeleton lying near an old golf ball.Tom calls out to his golfing partner in an agitated voice, "Hey Bob, come here, I've got trouble down here."Bob comes running over to the edge of the ravine and calls out, "What's the matter Tom?"Tom shouts back, "Throw me my 7-iron! You can't get out of here with an 8-iron."
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