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Classic Train Questions Part Deux (50 Years or Older)

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Posted by daveklepper on Saturday, January 8, 2022 10:56 AM

Wow1   Never thought of the Central serving Ottawa1

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Posted by SD70Dude on Saturday, January 8, 2022 3:43 PM

The track remained in place almost up to the river on the American side, to serve Alcoa's Rooseveltown aluminum plant (closed in 2015).  The NYC bridge piers are still visible in the river's north channel.  

CN's mainline was also rerouted in the Cornwall area due to seaway construction, and a short section of the NYC line is still in use as an industrial spur, to access the remaining customers on the old CN/Grand Trunk line.

A section on the south side of Ottawa was also retained to serve an industrial park, while now abandoned this spur also provided rail access to the Canada Science & Technology Museum and the Bytown Rail Society.  

While some sections have been reclaimed as farmland the route from Cornwall to Ottawa is easily followed on Google Earth, and a section between Russell and Embrun/St-Onge is now a paved trail, appropriately named the "New York Central Fitness Trail".

Greetings from Alberta

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Posted by Backshop on Saturday, January 8, 2022 6:40 PM

Name six railroads owned by Bethlehem Steel.

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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Sunday, January 9, 2022 10:14 AM

I'll start with Cambria & Indiana; Patapsco & Back Rivers; Philadelphia, Bethlehem & New England; Aliquippa & Southern; Chicago Short Line and Monongahela Connecting. 

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Posted by Backshop on Sunday, January 9, 2022 1:40 PM

You have three correct.  You have one Inland Steel and two owned by Jones & Laughlin.

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Posted by rcdrye on Sunday, January 9, 2022 3:03 PM

The first three are Bethlehem Steel roads.  Add Conemaugh & Black Lick, Lake Michigan & Indiana, and Upper Merion & Plymouth.  There were others besides these.

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Posted by Backshop on Sunday, January 9, 2022 3:41 PM

I was not familiar with the LM&I.  I assume it seviced BS's Burns Harbor mill?  I also didn't know that BS ended up buying Lukens Steel and the UM&P.

The other two that I had in mind were South Buffalo and Steelton & Highspire.

You're up!

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Posted by rcdrye on Monday, January 10, 2022 6:36 AM

PAul (CSSHegewisch) gets first crack.  I just worked off his list to get the others.

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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Monday, January 10, 2022 10:13 AM

Backshop

I was not familiar with the LM&I.  I assume it seviced BS's Burns Harbor mill?  I also didn't know that BS ended up buying Lukens Steel and the UM&P.

The other two that I had in mind were South Buffalo and Steelton & Highspire.

You're up!

 
Lake Michigan & Indiana does serve the Burns Harbor plant.  I have seen some of its power in storage east of the mill from US 12.  I will get back later with the next question.
 
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 CSSHEGEWISCH on Friday, January 21, 2022 10:10 AM

Next question: What do South Shore Freight and New York & Atlantic have in common besides ownership?

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Posted by rcdrye on Friday, January 21, 2022 4:05 PM

Let's see - Both of them...

Operate under trackage rights from state-owned commuter railroads - in both cases the commuter railroads used to operate the freight trains as well.

Have to use gauntlet tracks to get around high-level platforms.

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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Saturday, January 22, 2022 10:01 AM

You are correct.  Rcdrye has the next question.

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Posted by rcdrye on Sunday, January 23, 2022 7:21 PM

Back to the 20th Century Limited.  From 1903 to 1968, Chicago's LaSalle St Station (jointly owned with Rock Island) was the western terminus.  From the inaugural run to early 1903, the trains started and ended their uns in a different Chicago station.  Name the station and the reason.

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Posted by daveklepper on Monday, January 24, 2022 7:45 AM

At the time the 20th Century Limited was inaugurated,  in June 1902, the LaSalle Street Station was being thoiroughly rebuilt and was not in operation.  The Central coukld have used a temporary terminal iun the throat area.  I believe this is what the CRI&P did, and perhaps some New  York Central (actually Lake Shore & Michigan Soiuthern) did also,  but to provide better amenities, I believe the Century used the IC's Central Station for the short time untiil La Salle reopened, since the Central's Michigan Central and  Big Four (CCC&StL) were also users.   

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Posted by rcdrye on Monday, January 24, 2022 9:44 AM

Close.  The LS&MS tracks were still on the surface at that point (not raised to their present level until after 1907), so another nearby station was accessible without a ramp.  The station was (at that time) owned by a terminal company but was later identified with a trunk line.

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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Monday, January 24, 2022 10:09 AM

I will say that it was Grand Central Station at Wells & Harrison.

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Posted by rcdrye on Monday, January 24, 2022 11:40 AM

LS&MS (NYC) and Rock Island used Grand Central from 1900 to mid-1903 while the LaSalle Street Station was being rebuilt on the site of an earlier LS&MS/CRI&P station.  Grand Central at the time was owned by Chicago Terminal Transfer, later the Baltimore & Ohio Chicago Terminal.  The "temporary" ramp built for LS&MS and CRI&P remained in use for many years to reach freight houses near Grand Central.

Grand Central also served the B&O, Pere Marquette and CGW during the period.  Former owner Wisconsin Central used IC's Central Station from 1899 on before moving back to Grand Central in 1912. 

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Posted by daveklepper on Friday, February 4, 2022 8:14 AM

Waiting for CSSH's question for ten days

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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Tuesday, February 22, 2022 10:28 AM

Just for fun.  According to the TV series, what locomotive was Superman more powerful than?

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Posted by rcdrye on Wednesday, February 23, 2022 6:38 PM

An SP GS-4, of course.  What else would you find running through the Chatsworth Rocks (AKA Krypton)?

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Posted by daveklepper on Thursday, February 24, 2022 1:03 AM

The SOO, Chicago - Salt Saint Marie, with the Milwaukee.

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Posted by rcdrye on Thursday, February 24, 2022 7:57 AM

daveklepper

The SOO, Chicago - Salt Saint Marie, with the Milwaukee.

 

Wrong thread, but I'll take it.  Milwaukee and Soo Line ran a Chicago-Sault Ste. Marie Pullman (usually an 8 sec, 2 cpt, 1DR) via Pembine Wisconsin until the late fifties using the Copper Country Limited and Soo's nameless 7 and 8 (that once carried the name Atlantic Limited).  In later years it was every other day. 

In addition to this one "line" Soo Line had a contract with Pullman that allowed for borrowing cars as needed, but operated their own sleeping cars, with CP cars on the western routes, especially in the summer.

CSS - I'll copy this over to the other thread.

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Posted by daveklepper on Thursday, February 24, 2022 8:15 AM

Apologies to CSS, and congratulations  to RC on the Daylight-painted 4-8-4.

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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Thursday, February 24, 2022 10:06 AM

Rcdrye is right, of course and he gets the next question.  They don't turn up too often, but there are a few shows from that series that show Daylight-painted E7's as the locomotive.

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Posted by rcdrye on Thursday, February 24, 2022 6:05 PM

The Daylight's route was one of the few SP liked using E-Units on, at least until the dynamic-brake equipped E8 and E9s arrived.  PAs and FP7s got the mountain assignments.

Thirty of the 72 steam locomotives of this wheel arrangement were more powerful than a Big Boy, at least as far as starting tractive effort goes.  Superman would have had a tough time pulling against one of them.

Of the other 42, 10 were just about equal to a Big Boy in starting tractive effort, but were also equipped with tender boosters which gave them an edge even over the other engines of this type.

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Posted by Woke Hoagland on Friday, February 25, 2022 9:21 PM

The TV series had a GS3, not a GS4... well, it had the single headlight and not the two lights in the smokebox door, which I always thought made the front look piggish...

That was in the black-and-white episodes.  When they got the budget for color, they went to the diesel Most Beautiful Train In The World... and that, alone, made adjusting a color TV set worthwhile...

Weren't those simpled 2-8-8-0s in a previous question about tender boosters?  They took them off 4-12-2s, didn't they?

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Posted by rcdrye on Saturday, February 26, 2022 3:59 PM

Not 2-8.8-0s.  Remember that there were 72 of the wheel arrangement.  B&O alone had around 150 2-8-8-0s.  The type I'm looking for were only owned by four railroads.  Most of the ones with more tractive effort than the Big Boys did not have boosters.

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Posted by Backshop on Saturday, February 26, 2022 4:25 PM

2-8-8-4 Yellowstones.  The ones owned by the DM&IR had more tractive effort than a Big Boy. The others were owned Northern Pacific, Southern Pacific and Baltimore & Ohio. I always liked them because they were "long" Berkshires and I like Berkshires better than Mountains or Northerns.

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Posted by rcdrye on Saturday, February 26, 2022 7:04 PM

I'll accept that as an answer, though you left out Western Pacific. SP's 12 Lima AC-9s were the only cab-in-back articulateds in later years. Most of SP's cab-forwards were backwards Yellowstones.  Western Pacific and Northern Pacific had the ones with boosters.  WP's were very close to Big Boys in starting TE without their boosters.  NP and DM&IR's had more starting TE than Big Boys.  B&O's were quite a bit lighter than the others.  Alco built the prototype NP Z-5, Baldwin built all of the rest except for SP's.

Tractive effort (from Steamlocomotive.com)

B&O EM-1        114,500

SP AC-9            124,300 (same as later AC class cab-forwards)

UP 4884-1         135,375 (there was some variation among Big Boys)

WP M137/151    137,000 + 13,900 booster

DM&IR M3/M4   140,000

NP Z-5               145,930 + 13,400 booster

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Posted by Backshop on Sunday, February 27, 2022 8:42 PM

What were the most powerful two cylinder US steam locomotives without a leading truck? 

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