Trains.com

Classic Train Questions Part Deux (50 Years or Older)

856736 views
8197 replies
1 rating 2 rating 3 rating 4 rating 5 rating
  • Member since
    June 2002
  • 20,096 posts
Posted by daveklepper on Tuesday, February 16, 2016 7:49 AM

By unique, I am referring to the pre-WWII period --- althouhg come to think of it one or two of the other charactersitics, not on the South Shore, was shared with the B&O's Staten Island Rapid Transit, but that is a good question as to whether or not that is direct railroad ownership.

  • Member since
    June 2002
  • 20,096 posts
Posted by daveklepper on Tuesday, February 16, 2016 4:26 AM

Remember this history very well.  But my usual procedure was to go westbound onh the Broadway, then back on the replacement for the Century, the "Steel Fleet" as we called it. This was the opposite of my first trip, around 1959, west on the Century and back on the Boadway when both were all-Pullman.  Had forgotton about the special announcement.  The last time I rode the Broadway was four days before train-off, and then only from Lancaster to New York, on a round-trip Harrsiburg ticket so I could return on the Broadway. (Work on the Fulton Opera House restoration) The Amtrak condouctor told me some railfan friends, four fellow Branford members, were sharing two interconnected bedrooms in one of the two Heritage sleepers, and I could ride with them. But most of the Philly-NY portion was in the dining car.  The food service remained excellent to the end.

My question, name all the features of the original IC-suburban mu cars that made them different from any other railroad-owned and operated fleet of electric mu cars.   Two features and only two were shared with the South Shore cars and only with the steel South Shore cars.  Others were unique to the IC alone.

  • Member since
    May 2012
  • 5,017 posts
Posted by rcdrye on Monday, February 15, 2016 6:48 AM

Pennsy tried really hard to keep the Broadway all-Pullman, keeping it so almost a decade after coaches were added to the 20th Century.  Even the coaches finally added were ex-UP 44-seat coaches with substantial lounges, which PRR bought just before the PC merger. Technically the Broadway stayed all-Pullman, as it was "combined" with the General, a fiction that was dropped almost immediately. A measure of PRR's pride was the special gate announcement at Chicago Union Station.

  • Member since
    June 2002
  • 20,096 posts
Posted by daveklepper on Monday, February 15, 2016 4:31 AM

You said daily, and the only two Chicago PC named trains were the Broadway and the Floirda train.  The latter was every other day, not daily.  So the Broadway is it. 

  • Member since
    August 2005
  • From: At the Crossroads of the West
  • 11,013 posts
Posted by Deggesty on Sunday, February 14, 2016 7:46 PM

The Pennsylvania Limites?

Johnny

  • Member since
    May 2012
  • 5,017 posts
Posted by rcdrye on Sunday, February 14, 2016 3:23 PM

rcdrye
Of the PRR's 20+ daily departures from Chicago Union Station the 1950s and 1960s, this was the only one whose gate announcement included the phrase "The Pennsy welcomes you aboard!"

Both the Trailblazer and the Detroit Arrow were gone by the mid-1960s.  This train retained its name, but not the announcement, into the Penn Central era.

  • Member since
    June 2002
  • 20,096 posts
Posted by daveklepper on Sunday, February 14, 2016 4:12 AM

Either the Detroit Arrow (operated with the WAbash via Fort Wayne) or the Trailblazer, coach streamliner to NY.

  • Member since
    May 2012
  • 5,017 posts
Posted by rcdrye on Thursday, February 11, 2016 6:55 PM

If Paul (CSSHegewisch) wants to replace this with his own question, he's welcome to do so.

Of the PRR's 20+ daily departures from Chicago Union Station the 1950s and 1960s, this was the only one whose gate announcement included the phrase "The Pennsy welcomes you aboard!"

  • Member since
    May 2012
  • 5,017 posts
Posted by rcdrye on Saturday, January 30, 2016 8:16 PM

Paul - you're up!

  • Member since
    May 2012
  • 5,017 posts
Posted by rcdrye on Friday, January 22, 2016 10:11 AM

CSSHEGEWISCH

The interurban is the Chicago, Aurora & Elgin, which had flaps on high-level platforms east of Bellwood to allow clearance for freight trains.  The high-level platforms were for service operated by the Chicago Rapid Transit Co.

 

And the freight train crews required at least three men - the motorman, a guy on the front with a pole to flip the flaps up, and a guy on the caboose steps to flip 'em back down.  Near as I can tell from photos they were more or less 2x10s with hinged brackets.  In a few photos you can see that the crew didn't always get all of them flipped back.

 

  • Member since
    March 2016
  • From: Burbank IL (near Clearing)
  • 13,540 posts
Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Friday, January 22, 2016 10:06 AM

The interurban is the Chicago, Aurora & Elgin, which had flaps on high-level platforms east of Bellwood to allow clearance for freight trains.  The high-level platforms were for service operated by the Chicago Rapid Transit Co.

The daily commute is part of everyday life but I get two rides a day out of it. Paul
  • Member since
    May 2012
  • 5,017 posts
Posted by rcdrye on Friday, January 22, 2016 6:22 AM

This one has sat for a week.  Time to move on.

I was looking for the remnant of the Rutland between NYC's Massena line and the Adirondack Division at Malone.  It was retained for NYC and later PC use until the section of the Adirondack Division north of Malone was abandoned around 1970.

New question:  To accommodate some of its own trains on tracks shared by a different line, this interurban put flaps on the edges of some of the station platforms. 

  • Member since
    May 2012
  • 5,017 posts
Posted by rcdrye on Thursday, January 14, 2016 11:00 AM

Let's try a new one...

After this regional railroad was abandoned, a segment was left in place to connect two international routes belonging to the same, much larger, railroad.  The connecting segment remained into the 1970s, when the eastermost of the two international routes was itself abandoned.  The westernmost remains today.

  • Member since
    May 2012
  • 5,017 posts
Posted by rcdrye on Wednesday, January 6, 2016 4:34 PM

Wizlish, you're up.

  • Member since
    May 2012
  • 5,017 posts
Posted by rcdrye on Saturday, January 2, 2016 2:31 PM

You are of course correct.  Dr Webb also had his estate in Shelburne VT, that is now covered by the Shelburne Museum, the Morgan Horse Association and Shelburne Farms.  I'll leave to you the tangled "Webb" of the M&M, StL&A/A&StL, RW&O and incursions by the D&H.

  • Member since
    October 2014
  • 1,644 posts
Posted by Wizlish on Saturday, January 2, 2016 1:59 PM

This would be the New York Central, of course, who acquired 'just enough' stock from William Seward Webb et al.  Webb of course had bought control of the Rutland from the Clement interests in order to further his chances, or so he thought, at the Vermont governorship by being a local railroad president.

I had thought this was going to have something to do with the Mohawk and Malone/St.L&A approach to Montreal that became the Adirondack Division of such recent interest to railfans and trail advocates, but apparently it doesn't...

  • Member since
    May 2012
  • 5,017 posts
Posted by rcdrye on Friday, January 1, 2016 7:48 PM

The Rutland finally completed its dream of a route to Canada in 1901 after it bought the Ogdensburgh and Lake Champlain and built the Rutland-Canadian up through the Champlain Islands.  Shortly after the route's completion the Rutland fell under the control of a large railroad system.  Name the system and the man responsible for this, who was formerly president of the Wagner Palace Car Company.

  • Member since
    November 2005
  • From: Hope, AR
  • 2,061 posts
Posted by narig01 on Friday, January 1, 2016 7:16 PM

I saw several sites on the Champlain II and the Oakes Ames while looking for the previous question. Thought it would make a question. The wreck has become a dive site in Lake Champlain.

This is what I'd found.

http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00098800/00009/4j

 http://www.lcmm.org/shipwrecks_history/uhp/champlain_ii.htm 

http://www.waterfrontdiving.com/champlainIIHistory.shtml

 

rcdyre your question.

  • Member since
    May 2012
  • 5,017 posts
Posted by rcdrye on Tuesday, December 29, 2015 6:53 AM

The "Oakes Ames" was a sidewheel steamer built in Burlington VT in 1868 for the Rutland Railroad for carferry operation between Burlington VT and Plattsburgh NY, where a connection was made with the Montreal and Plattsburgh, a Delaware and Hudson predecessor.  Capable of carrying 14 36 ft freight cars, it was loaded through the bow from a float at the foot of Maple St, near the present Vermont Railway yard.  It operated the route until 1871, when the combination of D&H disinterest and slightly improved relations with the Vermont Central/Vermont and Canada made the seasonal ferry operation less attractive.  Sold to the Champlain Transportation Company, it was rebuilt as the line steamer "Champlain II"  which was wrecked on Split Rock Mountain, near Westport NY, in 1875.

Champlain Transportation is still in business as Lake Champlain Transportaion, running among others a seasonal route from Burlington to Port Kent NY (where the "Ames" stopped, but not to transfer cars) and from Grand Isle VT to Cumberland Head near Plattsburgh.  The original Montral and Plattsburgh line was replaced by the current route via Rouses Point in the 1880s.

  • Member since
    November 2005
  • From: Hope, AR
  • 2,061 posts
Posted by narig01 on Monday, December 28, 2015 12:36 AM

A trivia question.

Congressman Oakes Ames had a steamship named after him while serving in congress. Name the railroad it was operated for and the two ports it served.

  • Member since
    May 2012
  • 5,017 posts
Posted by rcdrye on Thursday, December 24, 2015 6:14 AM
The CN Junction in the town of LaColle is known as Cantic, to separate it from Lacolle Jct about a mile west where the CN crossed the D&H's Naperville Jct. The CN Rouses Point sub is the route of Amtrak's Adirondack, the line up through Alburgh to Cantic is the connection to the New England Central, formerly the route of the Montrealer. The line west of Cantic to Valleyfield was abandoned in the 1980s.
  • Member since
    November 2005
  • From: Hope, AR
  • 2,061 posts
Posted by narig01 on Wednesday, December 23, 2015 7:32 PM

I'm not sure what happened to my reply.

 

My guess was St Albans, Vt - Alburgh, Vt - Lacolle, Quebec - Rouses Point, NY. That was from looking at what remains today. (Mostly rusty rails).

In digging around the internet, I see that Wanswheel, Dave Klepper and you(rcdye) had a lively discussion last December on Central Vermont passenger trains. 

I'll try to get a question posted tonite.

The IGN

  • Member since
    May 2012
  • 5,017 posts
Posted by rcdrye on Wednesday, December 23, 2015 6:47 PM

IGN gets the next question for the partial answer.  When the Rutland was abandoned, the Central Vermont chose to discontinue operation over the bridge and trestle between Rouses Pint NY and Alburgh VT.  Instead CV's Rouses Point Sub operated from East Alburgh VT to Cantic QC and back to Rouses Point via the CN's former Canada Atlantic and Rouses Point lines.  The operation was made a little more difficult since there was no connecting track in the SE corner of the crossing at Cantic.  Traffic had dwindled to practically nothing by the late 1980s, so the rights over CN were not included in the sale of the Central Vermont to RailTex's New England Central in 1995.

  • Member since
    May 2012
  • 5,017 posts
Posted by rcdrye on Saturday, December 19, 2015 6:52 AM

narig01

Was the railroad that was abandoned the Rutland?

Rgds IGN

 

It was.  Now fill in the detour blanks.

  • Member since
    November 2005
  • From: Hope, AR
  • 2,061 posts
Posted by narig01 on Saturday, December 19, 2015 5:28 AM

Was the railroad that was abandoned the Rutland?

Rgds IGN

  • Member since
    May 2012
  • 5,017 posts
Posted by rcdrye on Friday, December 18, 2015 10:05 AM

One of the Canadian railroads is involved.  The entire detour was less than 12 miles long.

  • Member since
    October 2014
  • 1,644 posts
Posted by Wizlish on Friday, December 18, 2015 9:29 AM

It's got to involve CASO, right?

  • Member since
    May 2012
  • 5,017 posts
Posted by rcdrye on Tuesday, December 15, 2015 6:33 PM

OK, so I was wrong.  The picture of the bridge was in the September issue of Trains, not Classic Trains.

  • Member since
    May 2012
  • 5,017 posts
Posted by rcdrye on Friday, December 11, 2015 6:11 AM

There was a picture of the bridge in a recent issue of Classic Trains.

  • Member since
    May 2012
  • 5,017 posts
Posted by rcdrye on Tuesday, December 8, 2015 2:45 PM

daveklepper

Minnesota one and N. Dekota the other?

 

Bit further east.

SUBSCRIBER & MEMBER LOGIN

Login, or register today to interact in our online community, comment on articles, receive our newsletter, manage your account online and more!

FREE NEWSLETTER SIGNUP

Get the Classic Trains twice-monthly newsletter