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Classic Railroad Quiz (at least 50 years old).

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Posted by rcdrye on Tuesday, December 10, 2019 3:46 PM

It's shown on CREATE maps as BRC, and ditto going back to late 1940s BRC maps.  I could easily believe it has PRR (PCC&St.L) history, as it would have been PRR's easiest access to Clearing Yard.  At one time it was C&WI, which can be read Chicago and Eastern Illinois.  The 1969 "Trainwatcher's guide to Chicago" doesn't give more history, even in the 1970 "Supplement".  C&O(PM) was a BRC owner.

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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Wednesday, December 11, 2019 10:10 AM

You've got it.  Rockwell Street Yard was owned/leased by BRC and sub-leased to PM.  Prior to 1962, BRC leased its tracks from CWI.

rcdrye, it's your question.

The daily commute is part of everyday life but I get two rides a day out of it. Paul
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Posted by rcdrye on Thursday, December 12, 2019 7:02 AM

Of all of the Class I railroads entering Chicago in 1969 only two had no ownership interest in any of the three major belt lines (EJ&E was owned by US Steel, and doesn't count), though both had owned shares in the teens and twenties.  To make this easier, here's a map of one that shows three.  Image from a late 1960s Official Guide is found on american-rails.com.

BRC Map

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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Thursday, December 12, 2019 10:25 AM

The roads are Chicago & North Western and Gulf, Mobile & Ohio (Alton).  Chicago Great Western was absorbed by C&NW in 1968.

The daily commute is part of everyday life but I get two rides a day out of it. Paul
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Posted by rcdrye on Thursday, December 12, 2019 10:37 AM

Well done.  Of some interest is that BRC retained rights on the Indiana Harbor Belt line to interchange with CGW and C&NW at Bellwood and Proviso.  The BRC overpass near Kinzie and Kenton does not have a connecting track to the C&NW, though there is a connector to the B&OCT near the former CGW Cicero yard. The Alton had an interest in the 1920s but gave it up after B&O got control of the Alton.

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Posted by daveklepper on Wednesday, December 25, 2019 10:23 PM

Still waitring for a CSS&SB question

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Posted by NP Eddie on Monday, January 13, 2020 7:16 PM

Today is Januaury 13th and seeing no one has asked a question, I will step in with one. Some of you know I live in Anoka, MN on the BNSF's Staples Sub.

Was there ever a sleeping car "Anoka"? Search long and hard in ancient lists.

Good Hunting!  Extra points for the accomadations in said car.

Ed Burns

Retired Clerk and resident of the "Halloween Capital of the World!

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Posted by Overmod on Monday, January 13, 2020 7:28 PM

Speaking of those red Soo Line cars!  

Pulled by that wretched abomination of a McKeen switcher ... until its 'accommodations' were in the ditch.

"Anoka" was also a 36-place McKeen railcar, but when the Minneapolis & Northern couldn't pay, the company took it back and, I believe, peddled it to UP.

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Posted by rcdrye on Tuesday, January 14, 2020 6:39 AM

Anoka must have been a wood car.  No entry for a steel one in the Pullman database.

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Posted by NP Eddie on Tuesday, January 14, 2020 10:21 AM

RC has the answer.  "Car Names and Consists", 1963, Wayner, page 64, "Sleeping and Parlor Cars on Roster in 1911, Great Northern Railroad lists the "ANOKA" number 8300 as a 14 section/smoking room car. It was indeed a wooden car.

Next question to anyone.

Ed Burns

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Posted by rcdrye on Tuesday, January 14, 2020 8:21 PM

Thanks for your generous acceptance of my weak answer...

One of this railroad's car ferry operations was retired after the railroad built a bridge over a large waterway.  The ferry had been a key link in one of its most important routes.  Just five years later the railroad's last main line car ferry was retired after a publicly funded bridge was completed.  Name the railroad, the routes, and the bridges.

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Posted by SD70Dude on Tuesday, January 14, 2020 10:30 PM

Southern Pacific.

Carquinez Strait (Benicia-Martinez) bridge opened in 1930, finally giving SP a direct Ogden-Oakland 100% rail Overland Route.

Huey P. Long bridge over the Mississippi River opened in 1935, completing the New Orleans-Los Angeles Sunset Route.

Greetings from Alberta

-an Articulate Malcontent

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Posted by rcdrye on Wednesday, January 15, 2020 6:32 AM

Correct! 

SP's Martinez-Benecia Carquinez Strait bridge was, at the time, the largest steel structure on the West Coast, replacing a ferry from Port Costa to Benecia.  Believe it or not, the bridge was actually built by the Central Pacific, which had obtained owership of the California Pacific in 1876, but was under lease to the SP until 1959.

The Long Bridge was a federal/state project, and is still owned by New Orleans Public Belt.  SP's (well... T&NO's) ferry was a little upstream at Avondale.  A lot of T&NO's freight traffic was transloaded at Algiers, and didn't use the ferries, as SP's Morgan Line steamships called there. The junction between the NOPB and T&NO was made at the aptly named location Westwego.

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Posted by SD70Dude on Saturday, January 18, 2020 2:27 PM

This just appeared on Facebook, and I'm at a loss for a question.  If you are a member of a certain group the answer is up there, and I won't consider it cheating if you get it that way.

During what year was this photo taken?  There is enough information in the photo.

Image may contain: sky, tree and outdoor

Greetings from Alberta

-an Articulate Malcontent

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Posted by rcdrye on Saturday, January 18, 2020 5:08 PM

Hmmm, let's see.  I can't read the number on the engine, but the CN "noodle" logo was introduced in 1961 - I think its first appearance on freight cars was 1963, which is also the year the CN-owned Oshawa Railway ceased electric operations.  Oshawa had a number of Baldwin-Westinghouse motors, including Seashore Trolley Museum's 300, which I have worked on and with.  The engine in the photo is not 300, which retained the center window on the cab side - plated over on the engine in the photo.  Besides, 300 has been painted green from the time it left Westinghouse's East Pittsburgh Works, where it had sat after Cuban sugar plantation owner Central Limones failed to complete its purchase.

What it looks more like is the lone B-W class S in Canada, CN-owned Cornwall St. Railway 17.  Built for Salt Lake & Western, sold to CP's Grand River Railway, it came to Cornwall in December 1962, where it was converted from 1200v to 600v operation.  The color scheme is right, meaning the photo could be at Cornwall before it was completely repainted (from CP red to CN Green) and relettered - dating the photo to 1963 as well.

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Posted by SD70Dude on Saturday, January 18, 2020 11:51 PM

Very good for correctly deducing that this is in Cornwall, but it's not 1963.

What year did CN purchase the Cornwall Street Railway?

Also, there is something on the boxcar that would not have been there in 1963....

Greetings from Alberta

-an Articulate Malcontent

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Posted by rcdrye on Sunday, January 19, 2020 6:08 AM

So... it appears CN didn't repaint 17 with any speed (or maybe ever).  The ACI label on the boxcar puts it in 1971, the last year of Cornwall electric operation, which is also the year CN started operating the remaining Cornwall lines in its own name.  CN had an interest in the Cornwall before then.

Cornwall Street Railway had more than a dozen freight locomotives over the years, none bought new, and from what I can remember, no two the same model.

 

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Posted by SD70Dude on Sunday, January 19, 2020 11:30 PM

Yes, 1971 it is.  Here is motor #16 a year later, with a faint CNR scrawl still barely visible.

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Greetings from Alberta

-an Articulate Malcontent

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Posted by rcdrye on Monday, January 20, 2020 6:39 AM

Like many 1970s scanners, I missed the ACI label on my first pass...

I'll post a new question later today after I make sure of the background info.

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Posted by Miningman on Monday, January 20, 2020 9:04 AM

"Like many 1970s acanners, I missed the ACI label on my first pass..."

Good One! 

 

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Posted by rcdrye on Tuesday, January 21, 2020 6:47 AM

In this transit system's first "new build" expansion after becoming a public agency, the extension completed in 1970 involved a short tunnel with very tight clearances.  Because the cars assigned to the line were not air-conditioned, 200 of the over 700 cars of the same type had to be fitted with inside window guards to keep patrons body parts inside the hand-crank opreated windows.

Name the sytem and the extension. 

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Posted by daveklepper on Tuesday, January 21, 2020 9:09 AM

Chicago Transit Authority, O'Hare Airport extension.

Previous construction was not for extensions, but for replacement of elevated structures with subways and highway-median RoW.

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Posted by daveklepper on Tuesday, January 21, 2020 9:58 AM

Correction: In 1970 it may have been opened only as far as Jefferson Park, with a connecting bus to the Airport and I believe interchange wih the C&NW northwwest suburban line (to Harvard?).  I'm not certain about the exact chronology of this extension.

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Posted by rcdrye on Tuesday, January 21, 2020 10:32 AM

At the time it was just considered the Milwaukee Extension, from Logan Square to Jefferson Park.  The 150 cars of the 2200 series, and the 180 cars of the 2000 series, were all air conditioned.  Most of the 2000s and 2200s were assigned to Lake-Dan Ryan, the first extension opened in 1969.  The few ramaining AC-equipped cars assigned to Congress-Milwaukee and Douglas-Milwaukee were nowhere near adequate to cover car assignments, so 100 pairs of 6000-series PCC cars were fitted with window bars - inside the carbody as the tunnel clearances were tight.  CTA also made modifications to work equipment, making bald-roofed cars out of 4000-series cars formerly equipped with trolley poles and roof ventilators.

Other cars in the 6000 series and 5-50 series were fitted later with the same kind of grills to allow them to be used on the Milwaukee lines.  The rest of the extension to O'Hare Airport followed in the 1980s.  Today's Blue line is essentially the old Congress-Milwaukee line extended to O'hare, with Douglas trains operating the Pink Line via Lake Street.  The Dan Ryan section of Lake-Dan Ryan was joined to the Howard Line in 1993 as the Red Line.  Today's Green Line has Lake Street and the lines remaining from Howard-Englewod and Howard-Jackson Park.

Jefferson Park Station has a covered passage connecting to the UP-NW (former C&NW) line.

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Posted by daveklepper on Wednesday, January 22, 2020 5:58 AM
Only CTA had over 700 cara with crank windows. Elsewhere rhey were found on standee-window all-electric PCC streetcars. What transit system had the largest number of identical cars, built to the same specifications, differing only in tiniest detals, same propulsion and control systems, built over a period of at least ten years? Post a photo if you have one and can do so, and describe in detail the design, the system, the specific car-type designation(s), builder(s), etc, any rebuilding and color scheme, as thorough as you can be. Influence on other systems?
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Posted by daveklepper on Saturday, January 25, 2020 11:58 AM

Over 1000 cars very close to identicle, one with body somewhat rebuilt as prototype for first post-WWII equipment but keeping its original electrics and mechanicals.  None ever air-conditioned but continuede opeerating into era of air-conditioned equipment.  Some can be ridden occasionally including the one rebuilt car.  A few others had some interior modernization with improved lighting.

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Posted by rcdrye on Saturday, January 25, 2020 8:03 PM

New York had several series  (R10 through R36, not all "R" numbers were for these cars) built for the "A" division and "B " division from the late 1940s therough the 1960s that could be characterized by a single operator's window and three or four sets of doors per side.  Both GE and Westinghouse versions were built, with SCM (Simplified Cam Magnetic) and AB-type unit switch control respectively both allowing automatic acceleration (the actual GE and Westinghouse controllers varied from series to series.  The last order was delivered around the time of the 1963-1964 worlds fair. Cars were built by ACF, Budd and St. Louis Car.  R10-R16 cars had four sets of doors per side, later cars had three.

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Posted by daveklepper on Monday, January 27, 2020 9:00 AM

All B-division post WWII cars and IND prewar cars had and have four doors per-side.  All.

All A-Division post WWII cars and IRT steel and composite cars had and have three doors per side.  All.  Gibbs and composites had the center door added early.

You have the right system but the wrong cars.  Read all the information I presented already, and you will figiure it out.  Far more identicle than the cars you mentioned.

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Posted by daveklepper on Monday, January 27, 2020 9:04 AM

BMT Steels (A, B, BX, BT) 3 doors per side. D Triplex 2 per body side, Multi six-truck five body: One per body side.

The idenentacle cars, not only over 1000, but over 1500, with continuous numbering, possibly three different builders but identacle.

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Posted by rcdrye on Monday, January 27, 2020 9:34 AM

OK, then, the R1-R9, built by ACF, Pullman and Pressed Steel for a total of 1703 cars, all for the IND, between 1930 and 1940.  Westinghouse ABF unit switch controls or GE PC-10, two motors per car (on one truck).  Four door sets per side, two end windows and a low clerestory for ventilation.

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