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Classic Railroad Quiz (at least 50 years old).

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Posted by rcdrye on Thursday, June 30, 2022 8:43 PM

Near as I can figure out from various sources C&NW carried the Challenger cars between Omaha and Chicago as part of a single Los Angeles Limited consist. Rebuilt cars were placed in service during the 1935-1936 period, with separate operation beginning in May 1936.  For many years the Challenger ran as 107-108, a nod to its Los Angeles Limited roots.

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Posted by ZephyrOverland on Friday, July 1, 2022 9:43 AM

rcdrye

Near as I can figure out from various sources C&NW carried the Challenger cars between Omaha and Chicago as part of a single Los Angeles Limited consist. Rebuilt cars were placed in service during the 1935-1936 period, with separate operation beginning in May 1936.  For many years the Challenger ran as 107-108, a nod to its Los Angeles Limited roots.

 

Your answer is close enough to what I was looking for. Between June 1935 and May 1936 UP's Challenger was primarily an Omaha-Los Angeles train. The C&NW did not operate a Chicago-Omaha segment of this train during this time period but did carry the through CHI-LA coaches and tourist sleepers via the Los Angeles Limited westbound and Portland Rose eastbound. C&NW condensed Overland Route schedules also show The Challenger as an Omaha-Los Angeles train.

In my opinion, UP's establishment of The Challenger concept was strategic whereas the lack of the train on the C&NW was a tactical move. One of UP's marketing strengths was offering a number of all-Pullman Chicago-West Coast trains (Los Angeles Limited, San Francisco Overland Limited, Portland Rose), with appropriate services that first class passengers expected. By the early 1930's all three trains were carrying coaches and tourist sleepers which may have caused the perception of those trains being downgraded. As I mentioned in my original question, UP may have seen C&O's George Washington, which was an existing service that was enhanced through branding and marketing, and decided to create The Challenger, giving coach and tourist patrons their own train with appropriate support services, resulting in the Overland Routes premier trains becoming all-Pullman (more or less) again. To bolster the new train, UP took the coaches and Tourist sleepers from the Portland Rose and put them on The Challenger between Omaha and Green River.

As for the C&NW, their rationale for not running a Challenger during this time may have been based on economics. Since The Challenger and the other premier trains operated within a 60-90 minute window between Chicago and Omaha, C&NW may have felt that the existing service they were operating was enough, with occasional additional coach/tourist sections, and saw no need to operate (or take on the additonal expense of) an additonal daily Chicago-Omaha Overland Route train. When The Challenger concept was proven, with increased business, then C&NW was on board in running The Challenger on their line.

Rcdrye, the floor is yours....

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Posted by rcdrye on Friday, July 1, 2022 10:08 AM

We'll stay on the Overland Route...  

C&NW, UP and SP ordered new equipment in 1937 to supplement the rebuilt heavyweights on the Challenger.  All three railroads ordered streamlined coaches, but SP slipped in something in some of its cars for the San Francisco Challenger that was not adopted by the other two railroads.  The SF Challenger was popular enough that several similar coaches were transferred to the SF Challenger from a Golden State route train. What was the special SP feature?

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Posted by daveklepper on Sunday, July 3, 2022 7:59 AM

Snack-bar or cafe?

Baby diaper-change table in expaznded ladies' room?

 

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Posted by rcdrye on Sunday, July 3, 2022 3:25 PM

The ladies' rooms were a bit larger than standard (as were the men's rooms).  This was achieved by a particular feature of the cars.  UP had many cars of several types with the same feature, none built after 1936, and all retired at the end of WWII.  SP's cars of similar design remained in service into 1971, and at least four of them operated in Amtrak service.

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Posted by daveklepper on Thursday, July 7, 2022 12:51 AM

A particlar USA area had three anusement parks, where, in one day, one could visit all three, probably even having time to enjoy one attraction at each, with travel between excluvely by electric rzailway, all journeys on 600-volt DC equipment, but three systems involved.

Name the parks and the system serving each.  Describe the trips between them.

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Posted by rcdrye on Thursday, July 7, 2022 6:39 AM

What I was looking for on the SP cars assigned to the Challengers was their configuration as an articulated pair, identical (except for smooth sides) to the cars supplied for the 1937 Daylight.  If I remember correctly the mens room was in the even-numbered car of the pair.  The cars rode pretty well on their triple-bolster trucks with their distictive hat-shaped pedestals for the journal boxes.  Except for some triple-unit diners for the Lark and Cascade, all of the articulated cars were pre-war.   Amtrak bought 6 pairs in 1973 (at least one with no window glass) and put at least 4 pairs in service, though all were retired by 1978.  SP got about $3000 a pair for them.  Amtrak used them on the San Joaquin and San Diegans.

UP's articulated cars were part of the pre-war City streamliners.  Cars got moved around some between trains, at one point the "City of Portland" had a set with 11 cars articulated together.

Back to amusement parks.

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Posted by daveklepper on Friday, July 8, 2022 1:47 AM

Sorry, I thoght you confirmed my ladies-room answer.  But I know you have the answer to my amusement park question, in your head, so please have at it.

All three systens, like so masny others, have threads on this foruum, and one has a picture of one of the parks and the system serving it.

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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Friday, July 8, 2022 10:20 AM

I will guess that the amusement parks are Ravinia (before the Symphony), Riverview and White City, all in the Chicago area.  The operators are Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee, Chicago Rapid Transit Co. and Chicago Surface Lines.

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 Friday, July 8, 2022 12:17 PM

For a while around 1905 you could go from Forest Park (AE&C) to White City (63rd and South Park - now MLK Blvd) changing to the L at Laramie Ave (Met) and the Loop (South Side Rapid Transit.) The back to the Loop and a Chicago Railways streetcar to Western and Roscoe at the then-new Riverview park.  After 1905 the Met served Forest Park directly over AE&C tracks.

There were similar options in several cities, sometimes involving several companies and modes to make the trip.  Manchester NH had Derryfield and Pine Island parks (change at Transfer Station downtown) and Goffstown cars were met at Uncanoonuc Mountain by open trolleys for the short ride to the incline - also electrically operated.

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Posted by daveklepper on Monday, July 11, 2022 2:36 AM

Apologies for not getting back to this sooner.  Nay Aug Park, in Scranton, actually had an amusement park that closed before WWI/  With this information, can you provide another answer?

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Posted by daveklepper on Thursday, July 14, 2022 12:37 AM

RC:  YO have already won the right to ask the next qstion.  Yo may not have known that Nay Aug Park once, indeed, had an amusement park, bt I am certain you are very familiar with the other two.  Howevern I may possibly be mistaken that all three existed at the same time.

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Posted by rcdrye on Thursday, July 14, 2022 6:29 AM

From what can find Rocky Glen in Moosic was reachable via the Laurel Line (Lackawanna & Wyoming Valley) which was third rail...  I have seen photos of others in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area but can't find them off-hand.

 

A northeastern railroad offered to transport you and your car for $46 (in addition to two first class fares) to anywhere on its lines in its 1928 public timetable.  The railroad wasn't particularly known for passenger trains, though it did operate through trains with other railroads.  

One of the railroad's station buildings will begin serving passengers later this month for the first time in almost 70 years.  Most stations on the railroad had rudimentary platforms at best, mainly intended for handling one particular agricultural commodity, not for unloading automobiles - which in 1928 would have been transported in boxcars.

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Posted by daveklepper on Thursday, July 14, 2022 2:27 PM

Must be the Rutland.  Agriculture being milk.  Through Montreal - Mew York wuth the NR central and Montreal-Boston with yhr B&M.

 

THe three amusement parks I had in mind were Nay Aug Park at the enf of the Scranton Transit Line of tha5t name.Rocky Glrn adjacent to the Lautal Line, and San Souci Park on the Willsbarre Nanicoke line and the shuttle to Hanover.

Ed Miller's photo of Rocky Glen:

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Posted by rcdrye on Thursday, July 14, 2022 6:19 PM

I was looking for the B&W version of the Rocky Glen photo.

The Rutland it is. The former Vergennes VT station, moved a couple hundred yards north and beautifully restored, will start serving passengers on Amtrak's Ethan Allen starting July 29 as Ferrisburgh-Vergennes station.

Vergennes under the Rutland had a team track and passing siding but really didn't have anywhere to unload a car conveniently.

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Posted by Overmod on Friday, July 15, 2022 7:37 AM

I was going to mention Sans Souci but didn't know any of the actual transit detail, so didn't.

When I was very young, we drove from Kingston what seemed like an interminable way on the old 'pre-improved' death-trap 309 to visit that park... only to find it randomly closed without notice.  I remember being so angry that I boycotted them until they closed a while later.

I find that I feel ticked at them, rightly or wrongly, all these years later!

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Posted by daveklepper on Monday, July 18, 2022 2:15 AM

Rc is up for the next qestion

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Posted by Overmod on Saturday, August 13, 2022 2:06 PM

I'm bumping this in case he didn't see it.

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Posted by rcdrye on Saturday, August 13, 2022 2:51 PM

My oops...

In 1969 after a fatal accident involving a line car and a work flat, a transit system borrowed a line car from a museum, possibly the first time a museum artifact was returned to service (though not on its original railroad).  The car was later returned to the museum which still uses it for its intended purpose.  After the initial loan,  the car was reworked at the museum, then loaned again to the transit system for major wire work.   Name the museum, the car and the transit system.

As a footnote both the line car and the work flat in the original accident ended up at the museum, though neither is currently accessioned.

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Posted by daveklepper on Monday, August 15, 2022 3:12 AM

The Line car was built and for operated by theostonb Elevated Railway and then operated by the Metropolitan Transit Authority, where it was retired and moved to the Seashore Trolley Museum, Kennebunkport, MA.  It was borrowed by the Massachusttes Bay Transit Ayuthority, the "T" system.

 

there is also the  case of the Seashore Museum car being borrowed by the MTA for the filming of The Cardinal.

And is not the Typwe 5 on display at Boylston Street Station on loan from Seashore?

 

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Posted by rcdrye on Monday, August 15, 2022 6:59 AM

The line car did not come from Boston.  

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Posted by daveklepper on Wednesday, August 17, 2022 2:27 AM

While I am resolving my computer problems to permit useful use of Seashore's website, another reader can use the website, give the correct answer, and ask the next questuion.

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Posted by daveklepper on Wednesday, August 17, 2022 7:19 PM

Ottawa B-2. Ottawa Cae Co. 1826

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Posted by daveklepper on Thursday, August 18, 2022 4:14 AM

Correction, not the Ottawa car.

Probably bEastern Massachusetts  S-71.   Which did most certainly go througth Boston on Boston Elevated tracks when trahnsitioning between work on the Stoneham Line, the Chelsie system, and  the Quincy system----

Or possibly Clarmontv Railway 4. but unlikely.

Note that the main shop for Eastern Mass was on the Chelsie system  Eastern M ass vretained the shop and continued to use it after 1935 when the tracks leading to it were owned by Boston Elevated.

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Posted by rcdrye on Thursday, August 18, 2022 6:55 AM

Ottawa B-2 is a sweeper.  

S-71 is still around but has some structural issues.  Once it came to Maine it never went back, though the T did rewind its motors as "rent" for Claremont Ry 4.

Claremont Ry. car 4 was loaned to the T twice, the first time after T line car 3283 and motor flat 2606 were involved in a fatal collision. Both of those were eventually returned to service, and both ended up at STM later, but neither is currently accessioned.

Meanwhile the T outfitted #4 with trucks from a retired type 5.  Between trips to the T #4's fixed roof platform was replaced with a cable-operated platform taken from Atlantic Shore Line 108, an 1898 RPO now restored as Portsmouth Dover & York 108.  ASL used it as a line car from the mid 1920s until their operation at Sanford quit in 1947.  The right-of-way of Seashore's "Demonstration Railway" is former PD&Y/ASL.

#4's second trip to the T was to assist in adding gliders to frogs and otherwise reworking overhead on the Green Line to allow for pantograph operation.

#4 was extensively rebuilt in 2017.  During the work the parts of the frame that stemmed from Claremont Railway Light and Power's 1897 single truck open car #4 were clearly visible.  It remains a high-value work vehicle and something of a fan-favorite among Seashore visitors.  The Overhead Dept. still uses it regularly for tight spots and when work has to be done with the power on.

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Posted by daveklepper on Thursday, August 18, 2022 8:39 PM

The only at-grade ctossing with diaminds between relatively low-volyage DC and high-voltage AC  in North America was for which two rail lines and where and when?

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Posted by Overmod on Friday, August 19, 2022 8:36 AM

Aren't they Norristown (I think it was Norristown, and on the Reading; between a surburban 11kV line and the local streetcar) and 'somewhere' on the NEC in the Washington area where the trolley to Annapolis, MD crossed it?

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Posted by daveklepper on Saturday, August 20, 2022 1:21 PM

Norristown ex-Philly. & Western 100% grade-separated, third rail, 600V DC/

All other SEPTA streetcar-light-rail. ex-Red Arrow, ex=PTC, 600V DC overhead wire.

No grade-crossings with ex-PRR or ex-Reading electrified lines.

The grade-crossing I am asking abouit lasted only a short timel

The DC line had another unique feature that doesn't exist anywhere in the World today, but that feature was limited in use to one specific terminal area and not at the grade-crossing.  The feature continued in use in the area it was used until sometime after WWI, but not by the linem the system,  at the grade-crossing.

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Posted by rcdrye on Sunday, August 21, 2022 8:27 AM

Overmod's question about the NEC refers to the crossing of the Washingon Baltimore & Annapolis and Pennsylvania Railroad at Annapolis Jct. Maryland.  PRR built a "trolley gate" that swung an arm under the PRR's wire to allow 1200 VDC WB&A trains to cross the PRR 11.5KV electrification.  The "trolley gate" lasted in service only a few months before the WB&A was abandoned.  WB&A also had cars equipped for conduit service in Washington, and had a low-voltage AC two wire overhead setup in Annapolis until the entire WB&A was converted to DC in 1912.

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Posted by daveklepper on Monday, August 22, 2022 1:27 PM

You are uo RC.   Than ka.

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