NYC CASO and wartime

[Firelock76]

Thanks Wanswheel!  You know, looking at the "America's Railroads"  exhibit I can't help but wonder if there's a young Dave Klepper running loose there with his frantic parents trying to catch him!

Thank God for color movie film!  Isn't it wonderful?  Those images look like they could have been shot yesterday!

[Miningman]

Give yourself a break from the world and read that PDF file from the New York Central Brochure on their Ottawa Line. The prose is terrific. The New York Central really knew how to run their passenger service and run it well. 

I love the section where they state how little known the areas where and that it was a true underused treasure. It pretty much stayed that way, although the Thousand Island area is well known. Extremely interesting border running through the Thousand Islands. Amazing stuff.

As for the Train Fair video....how on Gods green earth did we scrap everything we see...a pinnacle of human achievement...it is tragic, plain stupid, heartless, wasteful, short sighted and most of all shameful. 

Rationalize and justify all you want....baloney pure and simple. Stinky rotten infested baloney at that. 

 

[M636C]

quote user="Miningman"]

Give yourself a break from the world and read that PDF file from the New York Central Brochure on their Ottawa Line. The prose is terrific. The New York Central really knew how to run their passenger service and run it well. 

I love the section where they state how little known the areas where and that it was a true underused treasure. It pretty much stayed that way, although the Thousand Island area is well known. Extremely interesting border running through the Thousand Islands. Amazing stuff.

As for the Train Fair video....how on Gods green earth did we scrap everything we see...a pinnacle of human achievement...it is tragic, plain stupid, heartless, wasteful, short sighted and most of all shameful. 

Rationalize and justify all you want....baloney pure and simple. Stinky rotten infested baloney at that.  

[/quote]

 

The World's Fair was seventy nine years ago....

And not quite everything has gone:

The exhibits from the B&O Museum, including the "Atlantic" and the replica "Tom Thumb" are still there. The "Duchess of Hamilton" has been restored to its 1939 appearance and is capable of being restored to operation.

I'm pretty sure the Italian streamlined electric set has been preserved, although the Italian diesel car has gone.

That doesn't mean I'm not sorry that the S-1 has gone nor all the NYC Hudsons. There is a PRR K-4 but not quite like 3768.

There was a CPR Royal Hudson and a CNR U-4 there both of which have representatives retained.

There is an EMD E-6 much like the E-4 displayed in 1940.

If someone wanted an 80th anniversary rail exhibition to recreate the rail display at the World's Fair, quite a lot could be provided, although it would cost a lot to bring the international items...

Not everything can be kept

Peter

[Miningman]

M636C-- Fair dinkum mate. When I see that S1, the streamlined Hudson and PRR 3768, actually virtually everything from the East, especially giants NYC and PRR I simply do not understand. Been a harsh long cold snow packed exhausting  winter...perhaps cabin fever setting in but I can see little justification and reasoning for eating your own. Heard the rationale and assorted nonsense too many times, just waive it off. We know about these things but will be the last bunch to understand or care. Lost the Budd company too!, incredible really. Thankfully we have a Royal Hudson and a CNR 6400 series still. 

Lost a lot lately personally ...gettin' to me. 

[wanswheel]

Miningman

Give yourself a break from the world and read that PDF file from the New York Central Brochure on their Ottawa Line. The prose is terrific.

It's definitely prosy enough to sample it some!

[Overmod]

M636C

There is an EMD E-6 much like the E-4 displayed in 1940.

If I remember correctly, and somewhat heartbreakingly, GM kept the originals long enough to display at the '64='65 followup Fair after they took them in trade ... then scrapped them afterward.

[M636C]

Miningman

M636C-- Fair dinkum mate. When I see that S1, the streamlined Hudson and PRR 3768, actually virtually everything from the East, especially giants NYC and PRR I simply do not understand. Been a harsh long cold snow packed exhausting  winter...perhaps cabin fever setting in but I can see little justification and reasoning for eating your own. Heard the rationale and assorted nonsense too many times, just waive it off. We know about these things but will be the last bunch to understand or care. Lost the Budd company too!, incredible really. Thankfully we have a Royal Hudson and a CNR 6400 series still. 

Lost a lot lately personally ...gettin' to me. 

 

What can I say...

Very disappointing, Eh?

 

Of course I'm in the middle of a very hot summer and it is fairly easy to look on the positive side. I was out photographing trains in bright sunshine today.

 

Australia has lost many of its capabilities in the pursuit of economic rationalism, much as Canada has. Sadly, in the interests of staying in power, our recent governments haven't acheived a a surplus budget since they are too busy trying to buy votes from  all sectors of the community.

 

But along with the almost complete loss of manufacturing industry, there has been a loss of technical knowledge generally, such that people don't understand how things work.

 

My next door neighbours have a Honda Civic sedan. The front bumper moulding had sprung away from the body after a slight bump. This was on the side that faced my home and it annoyed me. So this afternoon I adjusted the postion of a couple of the adjacent mouldings, gave it a solid thump and it was back in place.

 

But not even young people going into mechanical trades work on their own cars anymore because there is less need to and far fewer items are manually adjustable.

 

If the engineer of the MMA oil train at Lac Megantic had had a good understanding of the problems of the lead C30-7, he could have shut it down and left one of the other units running to maintain the air. Had he looked at the prime mover, the polyurethane filling the spaces left by broken steel castings  should have suggested that all wasn't well, let alone the person that put the polyurethane in place thinking that was a repair. As with all such incidents, a correct call at any number of stages would have averted the disaster.

 

But to return to 1939. While the S-1 was amazing, a locomotive the same size as the "Big Boy" with half the number of coupled axles and the longest rigid frame ever cast was not even practical by the standards of the time. Keeping a T-1 would have at least provided a locomotive that could run on many PRR main lines...

 

Peter

[Firelock76]

The S-1, for all its magnificence, reminds me of the old joke about a guy who builds a boat in his backyard, and then can't get it out past the house!

The S-1 was a great runner, and got the PRR to seriously think about persuing the duplex concept, it was just too darn big to be practical.

Still, they should have sent it to the Northumberland collection instead of scrapping it.  What a shame!

[Miningman]

Yes, Overmod alluded to correspondence within the PRR as to it's fate and there was some gnashing of teeth over its disposition. In the end however some bigshot overrules and it succumbed to the bean counters. So much for company pride and history, let alone science and achievement. 

After that the floodgates opened and PRR and NYC, many others, did an outstanding job of destroying themselves...workers must have been terrified. Pockets were greased, certain bank accounts swelled and we were sold a bill of goods. Some crooks were caught, Sauders legacy is that of a 'Vandal'. 

What of all those monstrous war time profits and cost savings everywhere? PRR declared a loss in 1947...like whaaat?

Not one Hudson, not one Niagara. Pennsylvania Station. 

We didn't need the Nazis to bomb the Crestline Roundhouse, ...did it for them. 

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

A roundhouse that is no longer needed eats money (property taxes and maintenance) that could be put to better use elsewhere.  Misplaced company pride put red ink on the Centennial annual report.

[Firelock76]

CSSHEGEWISCH

A roundhouse that is no longer needed eats money (property taxes and maintenance) that could be put to better use elsewhere.  Misplaced company pride put red ink on the Centennial annual report.

 

All true, all very true, but I see where Miningman's coming from.

I try to be a bit charitable, the men running railroads, then and now, are businessmen, not historians, buy at least the PRR made some attempt with the Northumberland collection, the B&O did even better.  It's the NYC that has me scratching my head.  All those steamers they were exhibiting such pride in a few years earlier, Hudsons, Niagaras, Mohawks, et al, and they didn't save ONE?

Flogging a dead horse, I know.

[MidlandMike]

I know one Mohawk, and maybe two, were saved.  (Elkhart and St. Louis)

[Firelock76]

MidlandMike

I know one Mohawk, and maybe two, were saved.  (Elkhart and St. Louis)

 

You're absolutely right, there are two at the places you mentioned.  I let my hyperbole get the better of me.

[M636C]

The L-3 in particular is a good substitute for a Hudson. The front three-quarter view is very similar. The driving wheels are significantly smaller, but there are more of them. You don't have to imagine anything about a Hudson with an L-3 to look at. Virtually all the constructional details are the same and they are the same size within inches, based on the drawings in the Kalmbach Cyclopedia.

Both the Mohawks were lucky to survive, and may not have been as deserving as a Hudson.

I have a Lionel scale Hudson, a 1990 reproduction, not a real 700E, and I should get a Mohawk to go with it, to satisfy my desire to compare them.

Peter

[Firelock76]

It may be sacrilege to some for me to say so, but honestly I prefer the look of the Mohawk to that of the Hudson, the Dreyfuss Hudsons excepted.

Can't tell you why, it's just one of those things.

[Overmod]

Firelock76

It may be sacrilege to some for me to say so, but honestly I prefer the look of the Mohawk to that of the Hudson

De gustibus non disputandum est ... BUT I think the Mohawks in general suffered from far too low a visible driver diameter, with even the test high-speed units getting up only to 72".  What works on a Berk does not on a 'long Pacific', and had there been Mohawks with the 75" of the original Niagara (or, perhaps, the 79" of the corrected ones) you'd have something as balanced as the J1s.  (I don't think much of the proportions of any J3 compared to the 'original', and the J2s even without sagging cabs just ... well, B&A had just as pretty 4-6-6s, if you kept your view strictly of the front.  I have no particular issue celebrating a restoration of 3001 as just as significant, and beautiful, a piece of NYC power as a contemporary Hudson ... and, in fact, in recommending 3001 be finished before setting up a replication like "5345".

Personally I'm sorry the Niagaras had to get that Frankenstein "Selkirk" smokebox-front arrangement, no matter how good for maintenance it turned out to be -- and that goes for Mohawks and Hudsons as well.  (Not as bad as those K6 engines, though -- few things could be!)

[Firelock76]

Well Overmod me old son, since you've popped a little Latin on us how's about some "Light of Rome?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxqJF_7RCkE

I don't understand a word they're saying but it sends chills up my spine anyway.

Something in my ethnic background kickin' in?  Could be...

Roma aeterna est!

[M636C]

 Mohawks in general suffered from far too low a visible driver diameter, with even the test high-speed units getting up only to 72". 

I'm not sure what was meant here...

The title "test high speed units" would normally refer to the rebuilt L-2s (2998 and 2999?) with 69" driving wheels that served as prototypes for the L-3s.

3000 itself was fitted with 72" driving wheels.

But I understood that all L-4s had 72" driving wheels.

Peter

[Overmod]

M636C

But I understood that all L-4s had 72" driving wheels.

Yes, I should have said just 3000.  And yes, the L-4s had 72" drivers, but still not tall enough, in my opinion, to rival the Hudsons (or Niagaras) as visually high-speed engines.  (The fact that even the rebuilt L-2s were plenty fast for most practical NYC passenger trains, while remaining excellent freight engines, we can overlook as this is a discussion of esthetics and not practicality.)

[Miningman]

598 Mohawks to the scrappers, 275 Hudsons ( all of 'em) 27 Niagaras (all of 'em).

2 out of 600 Mohawks spared, one by begging and pleading and one by sheer audacity and luck. A lot of Mikes, 0-6-0's, 0-8-0's and on and on it goes. 

A lot of steam everywhere scrapped, does anyone know the number that were around and active, say VJ Day,  and then Jan 1 1960. 

Just the PRR number is mind numbing. 

[Firelock76]

Hey everyone, we saw "Darkest Hour" today, and it's GREAT!  Gary Oldman's just stunning as Winston!  And it's something I never expected to see again, that is, a movie for mature men!  And women too, lest I be misunderstood!

Do yourselves a favor and go see it, you won't be disappointed!

[Fr.Al]

wjstix

Back to the German-Italian-Japanese pact for a second...the exact wording wasn't really all that relevent. The US declaring war on Japan - even though it was in response to a Japanese attack - was in affect an 'attack' on Japan that Germany would be obligated to respond to. If not, Hitler risked losing the confidence of the European countries he was allied with or who had pro-German governments.

 

I dispute whether Hitler would have feared losing the confidence of his European allies. Except for the neutrals like Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, and Portugal, Hitler ruled the continent. I doubt that his allies such as Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria had any beef with the US. They joined Hitler either to regain lost territories, such as Hungary. Romania wanted to get back what the Soviets had grabbed, plus prevent Hungary from retaking all of Transylvania. Bulgaria wanted Macedonia and Greek territory; she never declared war on the Soviets. Then there was Finland, who unlike the three countries above, never declared war on the US. She wanted to get back what the Soviets had taken. We tend to forget that Hitler started the war as Stalin's ally.

[Firelock76]

We've gone 'round and 'round on this in the past on various threads, but the general consensus among World War Two historians is that Hitler was under NO obligation to declare war on the United States just because Japan did.  The Japanese certainly didn't declare war on any of the European countries Germany did, at least not until it suited their own purposes to do so.

Maybe Hitler thought Japan might maybe, possibly, declare war on the Soviet Union and attack Siberia with all those troops they had in Manchuria sitting on their butts doing nothing and take some of the heat off the Germans fighting in Russia.  If that's what he thought he was sadly mistaken.

Goering, Ribbentrop, Keitel and Jodl strongly advised Hitler not to declare war on the US, but he didn't listen, which was strange because for the most part Hitler seemed to have learned the lessons of World War One up to that point, especially the one of don't get the Americans involved in a European war.

[daveklepper]

The N&W J could probably match the Niagra or Hudson in top speed if required, but compare the driver size.  Driver size is important but not everything.

Probably, though, the fastest USA steam locomotives were the PRR T1s, with either the Atlantics or the Baltics (Hudsons) of the Milwaukee second.   And if we include Canada, then  wonder if the true Jubelees ever had a chance to show their stuff.