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Classic Train Questions Part Deux (50 Years or Older)

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Posted by Deggesty on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 4:34 PM

daveklepper

Of course, New York - New Orleans on the Crescent, using PRR - Southern, A&WP,, WP&A, and L&N yield five carriers, and one of the two West POint route railroads probably figured for the short mileage.   But since you only want four carriers, I guess in must be the Washington - Neew Orleans sleeper,  deleting the PRR.  The Piedmont Limited also carried lightwieght sleepers on this route for a time. 

Dave, the A&WP Atlanta to West Point and the WRA from West  Point to Montgomery are about equal in length, with a total of about 150 miles. I am not at home, so I cannot give exact numbers (I do have an ETT with the numbers). Between Atlanta and East Point, the A&WP and CG shared their tracks. 

As to the current question, I am at a loss. I do not think of New Orleans as Tidewater; I have thought that the coastal area of Virginia and North Carolina as being the Tidewater, especially since these two states are divided into Tidewater, Piedmont, and Mountain (South Carolina is divided into Low Country and Up Country, with the Fall Line generally being considered the dividing line). Perhaps Maryland is also considered to be Tidewater, though the area east of Chesapeake Bay is, as I recall, the Eastern Shore.

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Posted by rcdrye on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 11:17 AM

You have one of the metro areas.  However, unlike the Royal Blue line where the whole consist was carried over the joint line, in this case a separate train was operated for the 28 miles, usually with the through sleepers and a rider coach.  For a further hint, at one end the short-haul carrier used a station its through trains didn't use.  The RRs distance between its "own" stations is only 26.5 miles.

Besides, it was about 36 miles from J.C. to Bound Brook...

Postwar cars included Budd-built 10&6s which were painted...

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Posted by daveklepper on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 10:31 AM

Ooops!    The route is Jersey City to Texas with the short operation over the Central of New Jersey to Bound Brook, then Reading to PHilly, B&O to St. Louis via Washington, and then the MP to Texas.

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Posted by daveklepper on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 10:24 AM

Of course, New York - New Orleans on the Crescent, using PRR - Southern, A&WP,, WP&A, and L&N yield five carriers, and one of the two West POint route railroads probably figured for the short mileage.   But since you only want four carriers, I guess in must be the Washington - Neew Orleans sleeper,  deleting the PRR.  The Piedmont Limited also carried lightwieght sleepers on this route for a time. 

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Posted by rcdrye on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 6:29 AM

The Atlantic City car ran Reading all the way.  The route I'm looking for was important enough to get new cars after WWII, and all of the carriers were Class I.

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Posted by daveklepper on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 4:03 AM

I know there was a Toronto - Philadelphia sleeper that ran CN-LV-Reading.   LV to Reading at Bethlehem, PA.  Possibly at one time there was a Toronto - Atlantic City sleeper that ran CN-LV-CofNJ-PRSL?    With Winslow Junction - Atlantic City the 28 miles?

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Posted by rcdrye on Tuesday, August 28, 2012 9:44 AM

Looks like the IC question got re-posted to a new topic. New question:

In a four railroad Pullman line between a major city and tidewater, this RR only got 28 miles.

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Posted by daveklepper on Tuesday, August 28, 2012 4:42 AM

Nothing,   It is RCDyre's turn to ask the question, unless he wishes to defer to the IC Central station poster.

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Posted by FlyingCrow on Monday, August 27, 2012 7:50 PM

I give up...what does this have to do with the current discussion  Huh?

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Posted by CSumption on Monday, August 27, 2012 2:42 PM
In 1937, how many passenger tracks were there at Illinois Central Station? What are some of the announcements a person might be able to hear standing on the platform?
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Posted by daveklepper on Sunday, August 26, 2012 4:11 AM

I am going to give RCDyrre credidt, because he did name the designer of the interior of what New YOrk fans always called "The Little Zephyr" which was a four-unit five-truck articulated train that could not mu with anything else and was light enough for el structures, but two wide for the platforms on anything but the Fulton Streeet elevated, which was cut back to Rockaway Avenue in in 1940.   The train spent most of its life on the Franklin Avenue - Prospect Park shuttle, a route that still runs today.  At times, like sunny summer days, when through service was provided from Franklin Avenue to Coney Island,the train would usually sit on a siding just south of Prospect Park Station, where I often saw it.  I did manange to ride it about ten or fifteen times, often as part of a non-fan family visit trip or whatever, simply asking if it was running, knowing only two trains were providing the service, and then waiting for it.  It wqs a very beautiful train, inside and out, and I was very sorry to see it scrapped about 1957, after being out of service since 1954.   The designer also designed the first streamlined Super Chief's interiors and did lots of other railroad work for Budd and others.   The successor firm existed when I was last in Philladelphia in the winter of 1995-1996.

As far as I know, the Amond Joy Philadelphia cars were preceded by one year by the New York City R32's, which now have become the oldest North American rapid transit cars in service.   Their other distinction:  Before being put into service, one ten-car R32 train made a series of demonstration runs between Grand Central Terminal upper level and Mott Haven coach yard, with a temporary wood high platform installed at Mott Haven.    I rode up front on one of the demonstration runs.  This is probably the only time that subway equipment carried passengers on the New York Central.

The R32's are all stainless, and were less expensive to maintain than the newer R-38's, R-40's, R-40M's, R-42's, R-44's, which have been or are being retired and scrapped, except for the R-44's in service on Staten Island.  

 

The Budd R-11 was one ten-car train and not serial production.   Mechanically, and interior-wise, it was about the same as an R-10. I also rode it.  It came on line in 1949 and ran for about ten years,but was not scrapped until sometime in the 1970's.. .

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Posted by narig01 on Friday, August 24, 2012 10:37 PM

1st Stainless Steel subway cars:   The Zephyr's?  

Not sure how this counts but 1st mass produced Stainless Steel cars: The R-11's

and the designer associated with the R-11's : Otto Kuhler?

I remember the R-11's for one thing. A set ended up on the Franklin Av shuttle. 

From what I remember reading the Zephyr's spent considerable time there(on the Franklin Av shuttle)  til they were removed about 1960.

I think others have gotten the answer first.   Anyway thanks.

Thx IGN

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Posted by rcdrye on Friday, August 24, 2012 4:56 PM

Budd built a multi-unit articulated car for the BMT around 1935.  Because it was a one of a kind and didn't have couplers, it ran on shuttles in Brooklyn, mostly on El structure, since it was light enough to replace wooden cars.  It came out of service in the late 1950s, best guess being due to some unique part that couldn't be economically replaced.  I haven't been able to verify the interior designer, but I'm betting it was Paul Cret, who designed the interiors for the 1936 Denver Zephyr, along the way setting interior design standards that carried over into postwar cars. His firm is still very much in business.

The first mass production Stainless Steel subway cars were for Philadelphia's Market-Frankford line, around 1960.  I'm not sure if this is their claim to fame, but they were jointly owned by PTC and the City of Philadelphia, so they may be the first rapid transit equipment NOT paid for out of farebox revenues.  some of these were later retrucked to standard guage (built 5' 2 1/2") for operation on the Norristown High Speed line, the old P&W.  There was an earlier run of about 10 stainless steel cars in New York but that was really  a prototype run (R11?).

For me THE stainless steel rapid transit equipment will always be CTA's 2200 series from 1969.

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Posted by daveklepper on Friday, August 24, 2012 4:51 AM

Give the history of North America's first all-stainless steel subway equipment.   Why and when and for whom was it built, where did it operate for most of its life, and why and when was it removed from service and scrapped.   The interior was designed by the interior of what famous intercity train?   (An architectural firm that was still in business at least 16-1/2 years ago and should still be in business today.)

Part 2.   What was the first MASS PRODUCTION (fleet) of North American stanless steel subway, generally were operated, what important title can they claim? 

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Posted by rcdrye on Wednesday, August 22, 2012 6:42 AM

This one was probably a little too narrow, so Daveklepper should take the next one.

The state of California's Toll Bridge Authority acquired 5 wooden SN interurbans as collateral for installing ATC equipment on SN's cars so that they could be used on the Bay Bridge.  After SN service ended, Key System acquired the SN cars, which usually ran together on the F Berkeley line, where they were referred to as the "City of Berkeley".  One of these, restored as SN 1005, is at the Western Railway Museum in Rio Vista.  A couple of SN steel cars survived in MW service, and at least one of those is also at Rio Vista.  The SN cars were equipped for both 600 and 1200 volts. Key used 600.  What I'm not sure about is how the cars traversed the Bay Bridge, since Key cars used 600V third rail.  The SN cars had third rail gear from use on the former NE, but SN equipment normally ran on the 1200V overhead shared with SP on the bridge.  During bridge operation, the SN crews left the 600/1200 switch in the 1200 position while operating over the Key System between the Bridge yards and 40th and Shafter, and just lived with slow response.

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Posted by daveklepper on Wednesday, August 22, 2012 4:17 AM

I could imagine that SN sold its most modern interurban cars to Key System. which had scrapped its old wood cars interurban cars and used the electrical and mechanical equipment for new articulated body cars (with old performance!).  National City Lines eventually bought Key System also and eventually went all-bus.  Key system was strapped for cars during WWII.   Remember its operation of the Shipyard Ry with ex open-platform IRT 2nd Avenue elevated wood cars that shed their third rail shoes and got pantographs.   Probably SN did not sell those steel interurban cars immediate at the end of Pittsburgh. CA -San Francisco passenger service, but kept them for special uses, including fan trips, and then sold them to Key at the start of WWII when Key needed all the equipment it could obtain.

But I remember SN's Sacramento city cars as double-truck cars.   Am I mistaken?  And they were sold to PGE, not SCL, then NCL bought PGE's transit system and formed SCL..

And again SN DID continue passenger service in Yuba City - Marysville and Chico after all interurban passenger service was discontinued.   The Chico service, all single-truck Birney, was heavily used during WWII, with an actual extension north to the Air Force base.

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Posted by rcdrye on Tuesday, August 21, 2012 6:24 AM

I'm looking for the city connection that ended up with five of the SN's interurban cars.  The cars were not acquired directly from SN, unlike the six (not five) Birneys that ended up on SCL.

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Posted by daveklepper on Tuesday, August 21, 2012 3:55 AM

Pacific Gas and Electric was the intermediate owner, running the Sacramento Northern's local Sacramento service combined with the local service that had been operated by Central California Traction and which operated the rest of the Sacramento Local service with several lines. The one combined line of SN and CCT may habe been Colonial Heights.    The cars were double-truck lightweights, possibly double-truck Birneys which is more of a design designation (no tapered ends, otherwise a typical one-man double-truck double-end lightweight).   The single-truck BIrneys continiued in operation on Sacramento Northen's two remaining passenger operations:  Marysville-Yuba City and Chico.

The last was the last nickle fare streetcar in North America and the only example of third-rail operation of single-truck Birney cars, required when the cars were moved to and from SN's shops for overhaul.

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Posted by rcdrye on Monday, August 20, 2012 12:09 PM

You have the main line interurban.

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Posted by KCSfan on Monday, August 20, 2012 11:50 AM

I doubt if this is the answer you are looking for but I'll mention it anyway. After the Sacramento Northern got out of the passenger business five (or maybe six) of its cars were  bought by the Sacramento City Lines, a National City Lines company, which operated them for a couple of years until the last local Sacramento transit line was converted to busses. However I understand these cars were Birneys and not the heavy interurbans that had run on the SN main line.

Mark  

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Posted by rcdrye on Monday, August 20, 2012 6:47 AM

Let's flop to the west coast.  After a western interurban discontinued passenger operations, five of its cars were sold to one of its city connections for further operation.  Name the interurban, the city connection, and the intermediate owner.

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Posted by daveklepper on Monday, August 20, 2012 3:56 AM

rddrye has a correct answer, but not the answer I was looking for.   Since it is a correct answer, he gets to ask the next question.   There was no physical limitation as to car dimensions or floor heights or widths or anything preventing New Haven mu's from running south from Penn Station.  Note that I said I observed a train of green mu's in 1971 in Trenton-NY local service with pantographs raised.

All New Haven electric locomotives of the following classifications:   EF-3, EP-3, EP-4, and EP-5 had cab signal equipment compatible with PRR's to allow running into Penn Station.  So did the FL-9's! The EF-3's did not have third rail shoes and neither did the mu's built for the Harlem Shuttle and later confined to New Canaan branch service.   The EP-3's, EP-4's, and EP-5's and FL-9's had third rail shoes that were cam operated or dual sprung to either be useful on LIRR third rail or retracted out of the way.   NO New Haven mu's had this capability.   (I doubt that the M-8's have it today!)   So an attempt to run New Haven mu's west from Harold interlocking might have resulted in some interesting fireworks.

During the dark period of Penn Central passenger service, before the real infusion of money, Penn Central found it had a surplus of the old green New Haven mu's which had largely been replaced by the postwar air-conditioned 4400 "washboards" during the Dumain era and were not scrapped.   So some were used as trailers, without third rail shoes, with motors either removed or just not used, behind GG-1's in Trenton-NY local service.   Pantographs were raised for heat and light.   Less expensive than repairing MP-54's.

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Posted by henry6 on Thursday, August 16, 2012 11:47 AM

Cab signalling was one thing. Another matter was high platform and /or car heights and widths. Even though they both served Penn Station, out on the line clearances and heights may have been a factor, especially with MU's...as a matter of fact I don't ever remember seeing live or in pictures, nor hearing about NH MU's in Penn!  I do know NH  MU's were bigger.  I always got a kick out of PRR commuter service equipment with the battered MP54's compared to other road's MU cars, to the MP79 coaches, and all the luxurious mainline equipment along side them!  Didn't fit for some reason.

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Posted by rcdrye on Thursday, August 16, 2012 11:17 AM

I have to think that this had to do with the cab signal systems.  There was certainly no reason NH locomotives and MUs couldn't  run under Pennsy wire from a power point of view, and the GE rectifiers certainly ran there as E-33s and E-40s in the PC era.  More recently through trains have been run using New Haven Line MU cars to sports events in the Meadowlands.

The variety of systems used for cab signalling or automatic train stop was truly amazing, and complicated by electrification.  Back in the 1970s Amtrak had to be very careful about assignment of the F & E units it owned to make things work.  An example of this was that Zephyr detour moves over the C&NW Galena Sub had to be led by ex-IC E9s or C&NW freight units, since the ex-CB&Q units normally assigned had no ATS or cab signals, and the UP units often used had cab signals but not ATS .  The "Cab signal from Hell" was later applied to SDP40F and later units to get around this kind of problem, and could be used on cab signal, ATS and ATC systems.

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Posted by daveklepper on Thursday, August 16, 2012 9:01 AM

Although PRR AC 11000V 25Hz locomotives could and did operate on the New Haven via the Hell Gate bridge, including regular service in the PC-Conrail-Amtrak eras, and MP-54's ran to New Canaan and New Haven on a fan trip, with the exception of the four special mu's built for Harlem shuttle service and the freight locomitves, some like the EF-3a's used in passenger service, the rest of the New Haven mu cars, all the green cars running into Grand Central Terminal and the 4400 PUllman "washboards" that followed in the post-WWII era, never ran on the PRR.   What prevented this from happening, even for special moves or fantrips?

But on a business trip to NY to Philly or Wshington, in the autumn 1971, I saw a train of green New Haven mu cars with pantographs raised stopping at a local station.   How was this train powered?   Why?   What event put these cars into Trenton-Penn Station local service?

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Posted by Deggesty on Wednesday, August 15, 2012 4:31 PM

Yes, Dave, you do have the next question.

I had trouble figuring out the new layout yesterday, so I created a new thread which stated that the question had been answered correctly, but I did not remember that you had answered it. This afternoon, I was able to get on line again (I am back in a hospital because of an infection), and I discovered how the reworked system lets one get to the latest page of a thread.

Johnny

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Posted by daveklepper on Wednesday, August 15, 2012 7:21 AM

With the Philadelphia answer, do I get to ask the next question on this thread?

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Posted by BaltACD on Monday, August 13, 2012 7:19 AM

al-in-chgo

What comes to mind first is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: 

There was an old B&O passenger station right downtown, and while convenient for passengers it was kind of a pain for the RR to use operationally because the main-line service like the Capitol Limited had to "ooch" down quite a steep grade to get downtown.  There may have been grade crossings involved, too. The city fathers did not care for that. That station was torn down sometime in the late fifties/early sixties (within the scope of this Quiz) for an expressway. The B&O Mon (Monongahela) Valley commuter service had a small station downtown but it was less of a hindrance.  However, it was a small station and a terminal and unsuited for thru traffic by the B&O long distance trains. 

B&O's Smithfield St. Station was a dead end affair.  Great for the McKeesport-Versailles commuter runs.  B&O stopped using this station for through trains when they obtained trackage rights over the P&LE between New Castle, PA and McKeesport, these trains used the P&LE station at what is now Station Square.

When B&O used the Smithfield St. station for through trains operating on the P&W Subdivision, if a through train was to use it, there would be at least one back up move involved from Laughlin Jct to the station - most likely the arriving train would pull by Laughlin Jct and back the train into the station, and then pull out to depart.  Laughlin Jct interlocking contained a wye between the P&W Sub and Smithfield Street station.

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

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Posted by daveklepper on Monday, August 13, 2012 5:00 AM

The city is Philadlephia, with the problem being the "Chinese Wall" between historic and beautiful Broad Street Station and the main line at "Mantua Junction," and the two replacements were and are Broad Street Suburban and 30th Street, the latter in part occupying the Mantua Junction location..

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Posted by Deggesty on Sunday, August 12, 2012 4:40 PM

Al, thanks for the history of the B&O's stations in Pittsburgh, but Pittsburgh is not the city I have in mind, nor is the B&O the road. The PRR station (reworked some) is still in use by the Capitol Limited and the Pennsyvanian. So far as I know, the B&O's station in the city I have in mind never cuaued any problems.

Johnny

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