How about the Columbian? The B&O's train of that name was a pretty high ranking train on the Royal Blue route, later extended to Chicago (1941-1964) as the coach-only companion to the Capitol Limited. Milwaukee's version served as the secondary Chicago-Seattle/Tacoma train off and on from the 1910s to the 1950s, specifically 1911-1930 and 1947-1955.
daveklepper National Limited?
National Limited?
Nope, the National Limited name was never used on a western train.
It's time for another transcontinental journey on trains with the same name. Leaving the east coast, this train was the premier run on its route, but the other train leaving for the west coast was a secondary run at best. This trip was not actually possible because several years separated the two trains.
The train name, railroads and routing, please.
BTW - Atlantic Express/Pacific Express is not the answer.
Overmod ZephyrOverland Rcdrye's clue provided the catalyst: How about soprano Lily Pons? She christened RDG's Crusader in December 1938 and Boston & Maine Mountain class R-1 4108 (built 1937) was named after her. Ding! Ding! Ding! The fat lady has sung (so to speak...) Now, I'd have thought that the earlier clue I gave about observation cars would have steered you almost immediately to the Crusader... Next is yours.
ZephyrOverland Rcdrye's clue provided the catalyst: How about soprano Lily Pons? She christened RDG's Crusader in December 1938 and Boston & Maine Mountain class R-1 4108 (built 1937) was named after her.
How about soprano Lily Pons? She christened RDG's Crusader in December 1938 and Boston & Maine Mountain class R-1 4108 (built 1937) was named after her.
Ding! Ding! Ding! The fat lady has sung (so to speak...)
Now, I'd have thought that the earlier clue I gave about observation cars would have steered you almost immediately to the Crusader...
Next is yours.
Sorry for the delay...I've been out of town and away from my resources. Should have a question in the next day or so.
Overmod-----"One way I established my right to my nickname came during one of those late-night White Castle runs"
So ....what is the nickname?
So who and when the next question?
Yeah the '69 Malibu is good for that cornering effect as well because if you were on a date with a new gal well heck you could make it so she would just slide right into you. Bench seat you see, not buckets. Also no shoulder beats, I had lap belts installed later with the kids. Not as obvious as George Kostanzas stopping short.
Still have the car but not up here, at daughters place in Southern Ontario. Its well looked after.
Yes it was the 124. They rebranded it as the Spyder 2000 or something like that later on. Never really caught on here in Canada too much. Don't know about Stateside.
MiningmanIn 1977 I bought a Fiat Spyder convertible brand new.
Oh Lord, the One-Twenty-Four? Principal difference between a late-Seventies 124 and a car made out of tin is that the tin is nominally rustproofed... On the other hand, that's not brown, it's 'chestnut' -- marron, as they say. Or better stated, the color a good Italian girl's hair can be ...
AMC had the engine with the carburetor float tank arranged so that hard left turns would starve the jets, a disturbingly similar effect.
One way I established my right to my nickname came during one of those late-night White Castle runs. I was driving outbound down my street when what to my wondering eyes should appear but an Alfa Romeo spyder, top down, with a couple of kids frantically trying to pop-start it. Of course you know the good Samaritan urge kicked in ... they had sneaked the car out to joyride but they couldn't keep it running, and the father was going to KILL them.
Now this was a cool night after a humid day, so I just smiled and asked for something absorbent. Popped the distributor cap off, dried it inside and out and carefully wiped the light oil film off, then dried and checked the rotor. It is hard to remember when I saw more grateful faces. It pays to understand where Italian cars have their issues.
And then there was the Burger King midnight car (which I now wish I had kept). This was an older Fiat 500 that someone had abandoned in a corner of student Lot 22 at college (next to the Mercedes 300 3.5, but that's another story). I was struck by the fact this had the most delicate cast exhaust header I can recall seeing, and more than one carburetor ... and no steering lock or other wiring niceties preventing a quick hotwire. Pump up the tires, tinker and lubricate a bit, and voila! Just don't expect four people to fit comfortably at the same time especially around corners ...
Just for fun, Sunday afternoons, Tuesday night car get togethers at a burger joint. It was a 1965, white and looked identical to the one on the Dave Clark Five album ' Having a Wild Weekend' , although their album covers varied from country to country so perhaps not in the USA. So yes, sealed headlights and chrome 'ram' bumpers up front.
I had an interlocking brick driveway, a year old, and I remember envisioning oil drippings all over the place. I had 2 Corvettes so the desire for that elongated front hood was already met, and my trusty '69 Chevelle Malibu convertible. Those were just for fun too. A Dodge Caravan and a Dodge 3500 van did the real getting around. I knew the XKE would be a serious pain.
In 1977 I bought a Fiat Spyder convertible brand new. Great car for 30,000 clicks and then it went all to hell. It had a tiny wire that attached directly onto the carburetor in the most flimsiest and Mickey Mouse way possible and had a bad habit of slipping off, especially if turning left for some reason. Of course the car would instantly die. However, I must say the Italians are the only people in the world that can pull off a brown car and make it look fabulous, but even that factory paint got weaker at the 30,000 mark.
MiningmanWhen an opportunity came in the mid 90's I shrugged and walked away. It was a rare moment when I actually acted responsibly.
There is a fundamental question you have to ask with English cars: will you use it for fun, or do you need it for transportation?
When I was growing up, American cars 'just worked' -- you went out, turned a key and it started, pulled a lever and worked some pedals (and kept pouring petroleum through a hole) and went where you wanted. Leave it out in the rain at the summer house for a year or two? It would start right up. Wait to change the oil until the filter was plugged solid with carbon? I have seen that car drive in and out of the facility.
English cars, on the other hand, are a mechanical adventure (and this is before we consider the ways of the Prince of Darkness... providing computers for fuel injection!). You never know what cheery and dotty mechanical contrivance will need tinkering with, often by the side of the road, before your journey will recommence. That's part of the fun -- a certain sense of achievement in these otherwise toilsome times, that you got there using your wits and your knowhow and not just the accumulated wisdom and work product of Detroit folks.
I think I have mentioned my beloved Land Rover 88, which one night developed a strange odor going down Route 1 in industrial north Jersey, the high-beam indicator light coming on without the high beams being engaged. I opened the hood to be presented with the sight of the speedometer cable glowing orange, evidently having become the positive ground for some damn thing or other. The thing that still, all these years later, is fascinating is that I thought if I shut the engine off and let things cool down, I could restart it and drive home ... and that's exactly what I did. (Yes, with the speedometer working apparently flawlessly.)
Used to be said of Italian cars that the only way you could keep them running was to spend much of the weekend tuning them. English cars are a bit different in that you have to keep after them -- where else do you find a note in the manual that says you have to repack the front wheel roller bearings every 20,000 miles or so? -- and the idea that you would, say, expect to keep an important appointment by going out and getting in it to drive there is likely to produce the results the Greek playwrights attributed to hubris. So only you will recognize if what you did was responsible or just self-denying.
(It does have to be said that I prefer the Sovereign, or the XJS with May heads, to any of the later XK-Es that have those awful North American sealed-beam light conversions and ram bumpers... far more space and just as much grace and pace. But a good early-Sixties roadster is still about the best it gets...)
I always thought I would own a XKE at some point in my life ever since I was a young teen. When an opportunity came in the mid 90's I shrugged and walked away. It was a rare moment when I actually acted responsibly.
What the heck was I thinking?!!
MiningmanPerhaps a Jaguar or two.
We aims to please.
I do not remember exactly when it was, but I think I was exposed to Mrs. Jenkins sixty or more years ago. Mercifully, I have had little exposure since. Perhaps I should have skipped this?
I pitied her husband, who had to pay for the use of the theater when she "sang."
The cats (and captions) were amusing.
Johnny
They needed to throw in Ita the Oceleot somewhere in that clip. Perhaps a Jaguar or two.
Someone has a lot time on their hands!
Great Quiz question...look at all the fun we had with this one!
MiningmanPrepare to squirm a bit. If you can take all six minutes you win a no-prize...
Oh, no, that's not the version of the Bell Song you want. This is.
I think this is what Standard M942 was intended to preclude.
Now that is an amazing observation! Wait a few years and use it for the quiz. Lily Pons and a GE Dash-8 or 9, who knew? The Dude abides!
Miningman If you can take all six minutes you win a no-prize,
If you can take all six minutes you win a no-prize,
What didn't I win?
That final high note is the exact same pitch as a GE Dash-8 or 9 spinning out on wet rail. Sent shivers down my spine, unfortunately not in a good way (heard the locomotive "cover" way too many times).
The movie that clip is from (1935's "I Dream Too Much") also contained a young Lucille Ball in one of her first film roles.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Lily Pons was not the fat lady! However, the old adage of a thousand monkeys banging away randomly on a keyboard for eternity would have come up with this answer before me!
Prepare to squirm a bit. If you can take all six minutes you win a no-prize,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZjwRN6v9bE
Kind of interesting fact is that she had a pet Ocelot named Ita that had a habit of threatening visitors. "Bad Ita, Mr. Fonda is not a chew toy".
ZephyrOverlandRcdrye's clue provided the catalyst: How about soprano Lily Pons? She christened RDG's Crusader in December 1938 and Boston & Maine Mountain class R-1 4108 (built 1937) was named after her.
Overmod A popular entertainer christened a new train service shortly before being honored with her own name being used on equipment (on a different road). What are all the names, and types of equipment involved?
A popular entertainer christened a new train service shortly before being honored with her own name being used on equipment (on a different road). What are all the names, and types of equipment involved?
Rcdrye's clue provided the catalyst:
As a hint - you got the job description exactly right in your original answer.
I will badly miss wanswheel here as well as elsewhere
Hmmph. I have Eleanor Powell christening the Super Chief, but no equipment named after her that I can find... And Mae West doesn't seem to have launched any trains, but the streamlined steam power for the Chief got her name - even if unofficially....
While the christened train was indeed notable for something to do with observation cars, the name in question was put on a part of the train very far from the viewing end...
The only entertainer I could come up with was opera singer Helena Modjeska, whos name graced a Wabash (Pullman operated) parlor observation on the Banner Blue until the car was renamed City of Lafayette in 1954. Did she christen another train?
That is beautiful and 100% correct.
Wish I could give you a cup of this fabulously delightful French Roast I'm enjoying in a big Pendleton coffee mug from my collection of fine Native art.
Big Red indeed a great name for an E8 on the Frisco.
All yours.
Racehorses (the two 'special cases' were these and are noted):
E7:
2000 FairPlay, 2003 Steel Dust; 2004 Dan Patch.
E8:
2007 Whirlaway; 2008 Messenger; 2009 Jet Pilot; 2010 Count Fleet; 2011 Gallant Fox; 2012 Flying Ebony; 2013 Seabiscuit; 2015 Twenty Grand; 2016 Citation; 2017 Pensive; 2018 Ponder; /019 Cavalcade; 2020 Big Red (this appropriate for an E8, but a euphemism for Man-O-War); 2021 Gallahadian (sic?); 2022 orig. Middleground, but this was copyrighted so changed to Champion, Gene Autry's horse)
Non-racehorses:
E7: 2001 Ranger (Henry Lee); 2002 Comanche (survivor of Little Big Horn); 2005 Winchester (Sheridan)
E8: 2006 Traveller (Rob't E. Lee); 2014 Truxton (Andrew Jackson)
The new quiz question:
In the spirit of the upcoming Kentucky Derby and the recent Bowie Racetrack thread.
The Frisco had a substantial fleet of E's, #2000-2005 being E7's and 2006-2022 being E8's. A slightly unusual practice was that in addition to the road numbers they were all named after famous horses. Some were Derby winners, some were famous in history, such as the only surviving anything of Custers regiment at the Little Big Horn.
The names of the horses were applied up front on the cab below the windows on all units.
What are the names of the horses as applied to each unit.
This should be relatively easy for anyone to come up with BUT I need two caveats, special circumstances, identified.
One was only the nickname of the horse because a royalty had to be paid if they used the actual horses name so I need both the nickname as applied and the actual name.
The second one, the name had to be changed on the unit because the first applied name was copyrighted, so a new horse was substituted altogether. It was a horse that belonged to a famous entertainer that we have recently talked about over in the Trains Forum.
Giddy-up!
Yes, having let the cat out of the bag I will PM to you Overmod.
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