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Classic Railroad Quiz (at least 50 years old).

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Posted by rcdrye on Monday, January 9, 2017 3:46 PM

Richmond?

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Posted by Deggesty on Monday, January 9, 2017 11:49 AM

rcdrye

I would guess Birmingham, start of the western section, though it could have been as far east as Austell or Atlanta, since the line originated there. If the line to Columbus was treated as a branch, Parrish Ala., where the line connecting to Memphis took off to the north would be the easternmost point.

 

No, you are way off. The zero milepost is not even on Southern property.

As to the junction at Parrish, that is the junction with the Northern Alabama, which has its own mileposts.

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Posted by rcdrye on Monday, January 9, 2017 11:29 AM

I would guess Birmingham, start of the western section, though it could have been as far east as Austell or Atlanta, since the line originated there. If the line to Columbus was treated as a branch, Parrish Ala., where the line connecting to Memphis took off to the north would be the easternmost point.

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Posted by Deggesty on Monday, January 9, 2017 9:59 AM

Yes, mile zero for the western end was in Columbus. Where was mile zero for the eastern end after the Columbus-Greenville section was separated from the Southern System?

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Posted by rcdrye on Monday, January 9, 2017 9:11 AM

If the 1891 Richmond and Danville map is to be believed, the railroad was the Georgia Pacific, a consolidation of the Georgia Western RR and the Georgia Pacific Railroad of Alabama.  The line to Greenville was built between 1882 and 1889. Controlled by the R&D, it became part of the Southern Railway System.  The section west of Columbus was operated as the Southern Railway of Mississippi until it was sold to local interests as the Columbus and Greenville Railway.  Milepost 0 in the public timetables was at Columbus.

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Posted by Deggesty on Sunday, January 8, 2017 9:42 PM

Back to the South. What was the name of the railroad that was built from Atlanta, Georgia, to Greenville, Mississippi? What was its status in the 1950's? Where was its zero milepost for its east end located at that time?

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Posted by wanswheel on Sunday, January 8, 2017 3:38 PM
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Posted by Miningman on Sunday, January 8, 2017 1:40 PM
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Posted by rcdrye on Sunday, January 8, 2017 12:37 PM

Much native american use of the symbol had the "hooks" branching off to the left or counterclockwise direction.  The coal company's, and the earlier Southeastern Express company's symbols are clockwise, and indistinguishable from the "Hakenkreuz" adopted by the NSDAP in the 1920s.

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Posted by wanswheel on Sunday, January 8, 2017 12:42 AM

It seems the Swastika Fuel Co. changed its name to the Raton Coal Co. on Nov. 7, 1938.

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Posted by daveklepper on Sunday, January 8, 2017 12:39 AM

The Swastika was and is indeed a main decorative theme in Indian architecture, sculpture, and decoration.  The congregation in New York where I am still considered a member, thank the Eternal, is in a building (the fifth) opened in 1898.  The congregation dates from 1654, in New Amsterdam (oldest N. American Congregation).  The building is very beautiful, and the main sanctuary has Tiffany stained-glass windows ---with the Swastika motive repeated as frames, and no thought has ever been given to replacing these very beautiful windows.i

The architet was Jewish, also   Obviously the early members of the initial congregation had trade relations with Indians.

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Posted by Miningman on Saturday, January 7, 2017 10:40 PM

Having no luck sending those piks...will post as soon as I can fiqure this out...using an iPad and can't copy and paste from the photos. 

 

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Posted by Miningman on Saturday, January 7, 2017 10:24 PM

Wow...did this company exist into the thirties and beyond...I'm sure they ran into some difficulties if they did. 

 

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Posted by wanswheel on Saturday, January 7, 2017 10:16 PM

Excerpt from The Railroad Man’s Magazine, June 1910

https://archive.org/stream/rmm_1910_06#page/n41/mode/2up

In glancing through the field of railroad heraldry, the first place historically must be given to the emblem of the St. Louis, Rocky Mountain and Pacific Railway Company. This emblem has practically got all mottoes, devices, or designs, enacted or constructed by our spike-sticking friends, beaten all the way round the world when it comes to age.

The main ground of this device is a swastika. The swastika was doubtless invented by some friend of the great-grandfather of the gentleman who built the Cheops pyramid or the smiling Sphinx or the hanging gardens of Babylon or the Tower of Babel. Anyhow, it seems to have been found in every part of the world, and at every time that history can put a tag on; and some that she cannot, even if she does not admit it.

The swastika on a black flag, with a circle surrounding it, bearing the words, "The Rocky Mountain Route," is the emblem of this road. It probably typifies the age-enduring strength and richness of the country through which the road passes, as well as hints at its history, the swastika having been one of the earliest decorative designs of the American Indian tribes.

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Posted by Miningman on Saturday, January 7, 2017 9:20 PM

Have to get one of my students to do this! Sorry

Question goes to Deggesty 

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Posted by Miningman on Saturday, January 7, 2017 8:32 PM

You are correct Deggesty. Trying to insert some photos from my trip through the area but they are too big. Will keep trying. 

We used that assay lab a lot from our operating mines at St. Andrews, the Holloway and the Holt Mines, both gold. We used them as a check against our own assays and for our exploration work, as do many others. 

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Posted by Deggesty on Saturday, January 7, 2017 7:41 PM

Miningman

What a great picture of the low level bridge. 

Ok..I've had this question in reserve and have been reluctant to use it but really and truly it's just unusual thats all. 

Now up here in Canada we have some pretty strange named places. Here is one: It's in Quebec

Others would be Blow Me Down, Newfoundland; Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump, Alberta: Lower Economy, Nova Scotia; and of course,  ***, Newfoundland. The town I'm looking for still exists in Ontario. This is a railroad and mining town.  It is a junction point on the Ontario Northland Railroad, where the line splits off to Kirkland Lake and Rouyn/Noranda in Quebec and another to Timmins. 

It had two producing gold mines that really gave rise to the town itself. The Lucky Cross ( hint: the origin of the name) and the Crescent Mine. Today it houses miners working in the several gold mines in nearby Kirkland Lake and is the home of a very well known and famous assay laboratory. 

During WW1 the Government of Ontario changed the name of the city of Berlin in Southern Ontario to Kitchener and it has remained that way since. In 1935, once again the Government of Ontario changed the name, or at least attempted to, of this town to "Winston", but everytime they put up new signs the townsfolk ripped them down and replaced it with the original name. Their motto, even placed on the signs, was "To hell with Hitler, we had it first". They still use that motto. The town retained the name and remains that way today. 

It was a busy junction in it's heyday and right up until the early eighties but then things on the railroad slowed down. There is very little railroad traffic today but it remains a junction and is legendary with the T&NO/ONR. 

I hope no one is offended in any way. It always appears on lists of unusual names in Canada ..for us its the railroad and the important junction. The "Northland" from Toronto connected here with other trains but in later years the connections were replaced by buses. The Northland was sadly discontinued 2 years ago. 

 

It must be Swastika, with the junction just below the town, at Swastika Junction. (courtesy of SPV)

Back in the early forties, I was reading Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Books, and found, on the title page, a swastika. I spoke to my mother about it, and she told me that use of the symbol was much older than Adolf Hitler's use of it--and his emblem went  in the opposite direction.

 

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Posted by Miningman on Saturday, January 7, 2017 7:13 PM

What a great picture of the low level bridge. 

Ok..I've had this question in reserve and have been reluctant to use it but really and truly it's just unusual thats all. 

Now up here in Canada we have some pretty strange named places. Here is one: It's in Quebec

Others would be Blow Me Down, Newfoundland; Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump, Alberta: Lower Economy, Nova Scotia; and of course,  ***, Newfoundland. The town I'm looking for still exists in Ontario. This is a railroad and mining town.  It is a junction point on the Ontario Northland Railroad, where the line splits off to Kirkland Lake and Rouyn/Noranda in Quebec and another to Timmins. 

It had two producing gold mines that really gave rise to the town itself. The Lucky Cross ( hint: the origin of the name) and the Crescent Mine. Today it houses miners working in the several gold mines in nearby Kirkland Lake and is the home of a very well known and famous assay laboratory. 

During WW1 the Government of Ontario changed the name of the city of Berlin in Southern Ontario to Kitchener and it has remained that way since. In 1935, once again the Government of Ontario changed the name, or at least attempted to, of this town to "Winston", but everytime they put up new signs the townsfolk ripped them down and replaced it with the original name. Their motto, even placed on the signs, was "To hell with Hitler, we had it first". They still use that motto. The town retained the name and remains that way today. 

It was a busy junction in it's heyday and right up until the early eighties but then things on the railroad slowed down. There is very little railroad traffic today but it remains a junction and is legendary with the T&NO/ONR. 

I hope no one is offended in any way. It always appears on lists of unusual names in Canada ..for us its the railroad and the important junction. The "Northland" from Toronto connected here with other trains but in later years the connections were replaced by buses. The Northland was sadly discontinued 2 years ago. 

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Posted by SD70M-2Dude on Saturday, January 7, 2017 5:33 PM

Now you have the railway, the bridge (known simply as the Edmonton Bridge at the time) was indeed built in 1900, rails were added in 1902, lasting until 1954 as an industrial spur.  For many years streetcars of the Edmonton Radial Railway also shared the single lane span with a gantlet track arrangement.  It became known as the Low Level Bridge after the CPR finally entered Edmonton proper by building the aptly-named High Level Bridge a mile upstream.  The Low Level Bridge still carries road traffic today, the original span having been widened and a second 2-lane identical span added next to it. 

The bridge was saved by the railway during the great flood of 1915 (river rapidly rose over 40 feet above normal) by parking heavily loaded boxcars on it to weigh it down.  A locomotive was stationed at each end ready to pull the cars off the bridge if it should give way.Image result for low level bridge flood

The next question is yours Miningman, ask away.

Greetings from Alberta

-an Articulate Malcontent

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Posted by Miningman on Saturday, January 7, 2017 2:40 PM

Of course...in Alberta and not Saskatchewan...it was the Edmonton, Yukon and Pacific Railway (EY&PR). The Calgary and Edmonton Railway wanted to build it years before but the nasty CPR stopped them from doing so. Then some Edmonton businessmen tried again in 1896 under the Edmonton District Railway. The EY&PR finally got it done and built  ( actually the Canadian Northern in disguise) In 1900.

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Posted by SD70M-2Dude on Saturday, January 7, 2017 2:01 PM

Miningman

Bridge completed in 1909.

Close, but the bridge I am thinking of was completed even earlier.  Good try though and thanks for posting that picture. 

Also you are correct that it is not the Qu'Appelle, Long Lake & Saskatchewan, but had they built a bridge immediately upon reaching Prince Albert they would have been the first to cross the North Saskatchewan.

Greetings from Alberta

-an Articulate Malcontent

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Posted by Miningman on Saturday, January 7, 2017 1:23 PM

Bridge completed in 1909. The line split "on the other side" going to Paddockwood and the other west to Shellbrook. Wish they had put in one more...due North to La Ronge and the Athabasca Basin but really there was nothing up there at the time except a promise of resources yet unknown. 

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Posted by Miningman on Saturday, January 7, 2017 1:20 PM

The Qu'Appelle Long Lake and Saskatchewan Railway reached Prince Albert first but did not cross the North Saskatchewan River.

In competition, the Canadian Northern, in order to complete the northern route to Edmonton crossed the North Saskatchewan River. 

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Posted by SD70M-2Dude on Saturday, January 7, 2017 2:28 AM

Name the first railway to cross the North Saskatchewan River, and the bridge it used.  I am looking for the original name the railway was chartered under, not the larger parent system that aquired it.

Greetings from Alberta

-an Articulate Malcontent

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Posted by ZephyrOverland on Friday, January 6, 2017 9:41 AM

SD70M-2Dude

Are you thinking of the Mountaineer?  The Amtrak train briefly operated on a Norfolk, VA to Chicago route during the mid-70's and the pre-Amtrak train was a joint Soo Line-Canadian Pacific operation from Chicago to Vancouver.

 

 

That's the train I'm looking for, SD70M-2Dude.  Even though the two trains operated years apart, they do have a connection.  For some reason, Amtrak used the name graphic from the Soo/CP Mountaineer in their timetables, the same one that was used in the late 20's.

You have the next question, SD70M-2Dude.

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Posted by SD70M-2Dude on Friday, January 6, 2017 7:16 AM

Are you thinking of the Mountaineer?  The Amtrak train briefly operated on a Norfolk, VA to Chicago route during the mid-70's and the pre-Amtrak train was a joint Soo Line-Canadian Pacific operation from Chicago to Vancouver.

Greetings from Alberta

-an Articulate Malcontent

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Posted by ZephyrOverland on Thursday, January 5, 2017 9:36 PM

You could, in theory, have traveled coast to coast on trains utilizing this one name - one an Amtrak train and, utilizing a time machine, a pre-Amtrak train.  

The name and the routing, please.

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Posted by ZephyrOverland on Saturday, December 31, 2016 7:34 AM

rcdrye

ZO is up

 

A new question will be put up in a few days.  Happy New Year all!

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Posted by rcdrye on Thursday, December 29, 2016 9:15 AM

ZO is up

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