Trains.com

Classic Train Questions Part Deux (50 Years or Older)

856725 views
8197 replies
1 rating 2 rating 3 rating 4 rating 5 rating
  • Member since
    September 2013
  • 6,199 posts
Posted by Miningman on Wednesday, July 12, 2017 3:02 PM

So "Daily except Sunday" can be traced to him! No railroad operations on Sundays. 

I thought perhaps it also could be Erastus Corning, was searching that one as well. 

Wonder if Erastus will ever make a comeback as a first name?

RME
  • Member since
    March 2016
  • 2,073 posts
Posted by RME on Wednesday, July 12, 2017 2:42 PM

Surely it is this guy in Hoboken

Nice hint pix.  General site is right there front and center, I think...

Also nice trick hint.  The statue was not so much 'moved' as turned around to face the other way.

Calling him a 'dropout' is a bit unfair.  If your father had died when you were 14 you might have left prep school, too.

  • Member since
    November 2005
  • 4,190 posts
Posted by wanswheel on Wednesday, July 12, 2017 2:05 PM

Kind of a downer that photobucket. Have to be philosophical, nobody died.

Another hint: He has something in common with Chauncey Depew, for whom is named Depew, NY.

  • Member since
    September 2013
  • 6,199 posts
Posted by Miningman on Wednesday, July 12, 2017 12:44 PM

I give up..think I got the guy but cannot find the statue. Found some older postings by you ( Wanswheel) circa 2008 re all of this but the pics have succumbed to the photobucket purge. 

  • Member since
    November 2005
  • 4,190 posts
Posted by wanswheel on Wednesday, July 12, 2017 11:25 AM

Commodore Vanderbilt’s statue has to be the oldest man-made thing at Grand Central Terminal, originally atop St. Johns Park freight station.  The statue of the subject of this question also has been moved over the years.

  • Member since
    November 2005
  • 4,190 posts
Posted by wanswheel on Tuesday, July 11, 2017 8:18 PM

What Columbia Grammar School dropout preceded Commodore Vanderbilt as president of the Hudson River Railroad, and where is his statue?

 

  • Member since
    September 2013
  • 6,199 posts
Posted by Miningman on Tuesday, July 11, 2017 5:51 PM

April 28, 1929 - First run of Niagara Falls Delxue - cars painted brown and gold.  Locomotive was CASO 8207 

You are correct Wanswheel.

8207 was a Hudson ...this was a Michigan Central assigned number but the railroaders called them CASO Hudson's. There were 30 of them. 

Also would like to add talk of Coney Island totally apropos as it is summer time and what better place than the beach.

I really got a kick out of Dave Klepper informing us of trains running " if it's a sunny day". They must have had better weathermen back then. Never would have thought that from a big big city...something you would expect from small town rural locals  where things are more informal. Great story. 

  • Member since
    November 2005
  • 4,190 posts
Posted by wanswheel on Tuesday, July 11, 2017 5:41 PM
  • Member since
    June 2002
  • 20,096 posts
Posted by daveklepper on Tuesday, July 11, 2017 3:07 PM

The original West End line as a steam railroad was built and inaugurated from the 39th Street Ferry pier to Coney Island by Charles Guenthner, CGS graduate, as the West End. Bath Beach, and Coney Island Railroad.  Much of the RoW became New Utrecht Avenue, which for many years had the West End Streetcar line with West End subway trains on the elevated structure above.  When the Brooklyn United elevated system bought the line frolm Guenthner, they immediately strung trolley wire, built a connection to the Fifth Avenue elevated, and began running gate-car elevated trains with service first to Sand Street and the Fulton Ferry in Brooklyn, then over the Brooklyn Bridge after they took over and electrified the cable Brooklyln Bridge railroad, to Park Row. Manhattan.  After the elevated structure and the Stillwell Avnue terminal were complete, steel subway cars took over with service to Manhattan via the 4th Avenue subway and the Manhattan Bridge.  This remains in effect todoay, except that the B trains run up 6th Avenue instead of Broadway and continue as locals on Central Park West and into The Bronx.

But as traffic grew, elevated cars made a comback, including of course this RoW.  Until post-WWII B-division cars began arriving, after 1948, rush hour steel West End trains were cut back from Coney Island to Bay Parkway, and wood gate-car elevated trains provided the rush hours service between there and Coney Island.  Since these cars had subway-type third rail shoes, they were painted green instead of the usual BMT brown, so avoid being sent into the wrong service or mixed with normal elevated cars.

  • Member since
    November 2005
  • 4,190 posts
Posted by wanswheel on Tuesday, July 11, 2017 2:53 PM

http://www.canadasouthern.com/caso/search/search.php?zoom_sort=0&zoom_query=8207&zoom_per_page=20&zoom_and=0&zoom_cat%5B%5D=0

Excerpt from New York Central Lines Magazine, June 1929, page 46

http://www.canadasouthern.com/caso/magazine/images/magazine-0629.pdf

A departure from standard in colors both inside and out, the Motor Queen, named after the two terminal cities on its run, Detroit, the "Motor City," and Cincinnati, the "Queen City," was put into service on April 28 by the Big Four Railway and the Michigan Central Railroad…

This new deluxe day coach train has a color scheme of brown above and below the windows. The window sashes and the spaces between are in fawn…

This is the second train in colors that has been announced by the New York Central Lines. The other is the Niagara Falls DeLuxe operated over the Michigan Central between Buffalo and Chicago, by way of Niagara Falls. It consists of a baggage car, a club smoker, deluxe coaches, a dining car of standard type and an observation car. The club smoker is being finished with walnut grained walls and brown carpet to match, while the observation car is being finished in flat colors in shades of brown and tan.

  • Member since
    November 2005
  • 4,190 posts
Posted by wanswheel on Tuesday, July 11, 2017 2:47 PM

daveklepper

The promoter and boss of the steam railroad that first used this RoW graduated from the same grammar and preparatory schools that I did, CGS, Colulmbia Grammar School

Dave, which steam road (on this map?) and what was the guy's name?

  • Member since
    September 2013
  • 6,199 posts
Posted by Miningman on Tuesday, July 11, 2017 10:37 AM

OK...the question is:

Way back in April 28th, 1929 the New York Central, during a time when passenger service was still a thing of grandeur, inaugurated a new train, on the CASO, a very special exclusive train. 

In a departure from standard practice it had a new stunning colour scheme. 

What was the train? What was the colour scheme?

It was associated with 2 other new trains. 

It is my understanding that some of the equipment, although extensively rebuilt, is still existing and preserved. 

Monster bonus points for identifying the locomotive # on its first run. 

  • Member since
    September 2013
  • 6,199 posts
Posted by Miningman on Tuesday, July 11, 2017 10:06 AM

A case of the question being answered by the poser of the question..sort of. 

Dave what we need is for yourself to teach a 1 day course on the NYC system with EASY to follow handouts and PowerPoints. Have no idea how you can keep this all straight in your head but it is pretty amazing and I'm certain that you are the worlds preeminent authority on just what is what in NYC transit. 

I will pose a question in half and hour from this posting.

  • Member since
    June 2002
  • 20,096 posts
Posted by daveklepper on Tuesday, July 11, 2017 8:36 AM

I will let you have it.   The terminal is new, 1918, but the tracks north of the terminal, always in use by the West End line, and a few years later used by the Sea Beach until about 1960 when it got its own entrance, are on the original RoW at grade level.  The track is now used by the D.  Rigth after Christie Street, it was used by the B, with the swap between Brighton Express and West End between the D and the B just a few years ago.  The B now runs only weekdays and is express on the Brighton and on 6th Avenue, but local on Central Park West and in the Bronx (no longer going to Washington Heights, where now the C goes), and doesn't go to Coney Island anymore, just to Brighton Beach, with the Q running local and going all the way to Coney Island.  But is the D that using the old RoW now.

  • Member since
    September 2013
  • 6,199 posts
Posted by Miningman on Monday, July 10, 2017 12:02 PM

This must be it then. 

"Coney Island, Stillwell Avenue, has been the joint Southernmost terminal of the Brighton (now Q), Culver (now F), Sea Beach (now N), and West End (now D) lines for 99 years, since it replaced several surface terminals used by the private steam railroads that we folded into the Brooklyn United elevated system, which then became the BMT, then part of the B-Division of the Transit Authority.  Only the N remains running purely on what were BMT lines; the others also use part of the IND"

  • Member since
    June 2002
  • 20,096 posts
Posted by daveklepper on Monday, July 10, 2017 12:20 AM

There is a hint in a Transit thread on the Trains Forum.

  • Member since
    June 2002
  • 20,096 posts
Posted by daveklepper on Sunday, July 9, 2017 12:16 AM

Actually, more than a few years.  All the original Rockaway-area route that is used by subway trains is no longer on the original RoW, because the LIRR, after electrification, elevated this portion of the line, and the remaining surface portion, at Rockway Park was an addition. Similarly, most of my fellow CGS-graduate's railroad RoW was also replaced by elevated structure.  The difference is that most of the RoW not used by rapid transit trains once the elevated structure was comleted, was still in use for a streetcar line with the same name as the rapid transit (first elevated, then subway) line that used the elevated structure and the remaining RoW that is the subject of the question.  The streetcar lasted until sometime in 1947.

  • Member since
    June 2002
  • 20,096 posts
Posted by daveklepper on Sunday, July 9, 2017 12:00 AM

Nope.    A few years earlier.

RME
  • Member since
    March 2016
  • 2,073 posts
Posted by RME on Saturday, July 8, 2017 3:06 PM

Not something involving the Rockaways?

  • Member since
    June 2002
  • 20,096 posts
Posted by daveklepper on Saturday, July 8, 2017 2:14 PM

An autobiographical hint:  The promoter and boss of the steam railroad that first used this RoW graduated from the same grammar and preparatory schools that I did, CGS, Colulmbia Grammar School, the oldest in New York State and one of the oldest in the USA, started as Kings Grammar School as part of Kings College before the Revolution.  The track at various times saw steam, trolley-pole-equipped elevated cars, and then steel subway cars with third rail shoes.  With the latter, two routes used the RoW for a long time, but after WWII, one route, which had been an addition in the steam days, was relocated on a separate RoW slightly to the east.  The junction between the two routes was a flat juncion, if I remember correctly.  At the present time there is no reason for inteference between the two routes at either end of this RoW, although there is a location elsewhere where the two routes run together for a considerable distance, a much greater distance than the extent of this old and still-in-use Row.   There are no stations directly on this RoW.

  • Member since
    June 2002
  • 20,096 posts
Posted by daveklepper on Friday, July 7, 2017 10:52 AM

Here is a difficult New York question, but doing the research is possible.  What and where and what current rout is the oldest surviving actual RoW, elevated or surface, still in use without plans for change in the New York City subway system.  Not including PATH. (parts of Newark- Jersey City)

  • Member since
    August 2005
  • From: At the Crossroads of the West
  • 11,013 posts
Posted by Deggesty on Wednesday, July 5, 2017 3:35 PM

You have the two roads--The Tropical Trunk Line's Jacksonville, Tampa  & Key West Railway, which ran from Jacksonville to Sanford, and the Plant System's Florida Southern Division, which ran from Sanford through Tampa to Port Tampa, where it connected with Plant System steamers for Havana, Mobile, and Ellenton (on the Manatee River).

There were many roads in Florida at that time, and eventually most of them were collected into the threer major lines--ACL, SAL, and FEC (the L&N already had its line from Flomaton to River Junction; the GS&F also existed from Macon to Palatka).

Johnny

  • Member since
    June 2002
  • 20,096 posts
Posted by daveklepper on Wednesday, July 5, 2017 2:37 PM

At Sanford, it connected with what was then the South Florida Railroad to Tampa.  Not sure when that came into the Plant System.

  • Member since
    June 2002
  • 20,096 posts
Posted by daveklepper on Wednesday, July 5, 2017 2:31 PM

The Jacksonville Tampa and Kwy West became part of the Plant System IN 1893.

  • Member since
    August 2005
  • From: At the Crossroads of the West
  • 11,013 posts
Posted by Deggesty on Wednesday, July 5, 2017 1:54 PM

daveklepper

It is a really tough question to answer thoroughly and accurately.  All the railroads making up the through service were part of "The Plant System," but names were changed, mergers took place, there was conversion from 3-ft gauge to standard, and from standard to 3 ft gauge, a really strange spaggetti bowl.  There is the Jacksonville, Tampa, and Key West, which became the Jacksonville and Johns River, the Sanford and St. Petersberg, the Florida, the Florida Southern. and more!  All went into ACL in 1902.

 

In 1893, only one part of Jacksonville-Tampa route which became the ACL's main line (CSX's A line)  betweene the two cities was in the Plant System. Incidentally, the junction point became a division point on the ACL.

Johnny

  • Member since
    June 2002
  • 20,096 posts
Posted by daveklepper on Wednesday, July 5, 2017 1:29 PM

It is a really tough question to answer thoroughly and accurately.  All the railroads making up the through service were part of "The Plant System," but names were changed, mergers took place, there was conversion from 3-ft gauge to standard, and from standard to 3 ft gauge, a really strange spaggetti bowl.  There is the Jacksonville, Tampa, and Key West, which became the Jacksonville and Johns River, the Sanford and St. Petersberg, the Florida, the Florida Southern. and more!  All went into ACL in 1902.

  • Member since
    August 2005
  • From: At the Crossroads of the West
  • 11,013 posts
Posted by Deggesty on Wednesday, July 5, 2017 11:52 AM

In the good old days of the Atlantic Coast Line, there were  through trains between Jacksonville and Tanpa, going through Sanford.

There was through service through Sanford in 1893--but what were the roads that provided the joint service?

Johnny

  • Member since
    June 2002
  • 20,096 posts
Posted by daveklepper on Wednesday, July 5, 2017 11:12 AM

It was competitive speedwise with the Central's more direct service, despite the engine and crew change in Fort Wayne.

  • Member since
    May 2012
  • 5,017 posts
Posted by rcdrye on Wednesday, July 5, 2017 11:08 AM

Between Wabash's financial woes around its Pittsburgh extension and PRR's desire to get into the Chicago-Detroit market the PRR/Wabash route via Fort Wayne was a pretty good bargain.  Dropping direct service to Chicago for the few local passengers saved lots of equipment time and trackage rights fees.

  • Member since
    June 2002
  • 20,096 posts
Posted by daveklepper on Wednesday, July 5, 2017 11:08 AM

I agree Johnny has the right answer, because neither the CTA nor CRT were technically railroads, they were transit lines.  Yes, at the same point, but that was not your question, the direction was your question.  One line came from the west and one from the north.  And while the CM&St.P may have owned the track in Wilmette, it was operated by the CRT, and then ownership did transfer to the CTA in anycase, so the CTA was the connecting road.   Anyway, I look forward to Johnny's question, and just wished to make the point that the CNS&M was a class one.  So was the South Shore.  Was the CA&E?  It was a railroad legally, but I am not sure of its class status.

On the other had, the Indiana RR was an interurban, legally.  Many don't know that the Hudson & Manhattan was also legally a railroad, although the successor, PATH is not.  Not sure if the H&M was a Class One though.

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