Trains.com

Some Random Classic Pics perhaps worthy of Discussion

43505 views
725 replies
1 rating 2 rating 3 rating 4 rating 5 rating
  • Member since
    January 2019
  • From: Henrico, VA
  • 9,728 posts
Posted by Flintlock76 on Saturday, May 2, 2020 7:22 PM

Yeah, if you're doing a Western it's nice to have a 4-4-0 handy, even if you have to back-date it a bit!

At least it had slide valves to add to the authenticity.  We can overlook the air pump.   Whistling

Per Overmod's comment, Jewett also built the interurban cars for the late, lamented North Jersey Rapid Transit line.  They scrapped them too.   Crying

  • Member since
    September 2013
  • 6,199 posts
Posted by Miningman on Saturday, May 2, 2020 7:27 PM

L&PS Electrification 

January 15, 1916 

 

Floor plan and elevation interurban combine. 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 
         

 

  • Member since
    September 2013
  • 6,199 posts
Posted by Miningman on Saturday, May 2, 2020 7:31 PM

Awww... nuts ! 

FIXED BELOW

  • Member since
    September 2013
  • 6,199 posts
Posted by Miningman on Saturday, May 2, 2020 7:37 PM

Car 2 leads two wooden trailer cars and another powered car showing the popularity of travelling on L&PS. 
Berner-Maguire Collection 

Michigan Central diamond St.Thomas circa 1915-20 

Car 4 and another one stopped at Port Stanley. c.1915. 
Wells Fargo and Co. Express 
Note board and batten construction later stuccoed. See below. 

London & Port Stanley radial railway station in Port Stanley, Ontario. Al Howlett Collection.

Cars 6 and 2 at St. Thomas 6/1/1950

Car 8 trailing another car and box car, just west of the CASO station. 1956 
Note that motorman is in far car and brakeman on far end of box car being switched.

  • Member since
    September 2013
  • 6,199 posts
Posted by Miningman on Saturday, May 2, 2020 7:54 PM

 


L&PS Electrification 

January 15, 1916 

 

Floor plan and elevation interurban combine. 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 
  • Member since
    September 2003
  • 21,669 posts
Posted by Overmod on Sunday, May 3, 2020 2:40 PM

Miningman
Awww... nuts ! 

FIXED BELOW

Whatever it was you did -- TELL DAVE KLEPPER.  He has a similar problem a lot of the time, and your fix may be useful to be his fix.

  • Member since
    September 2013
  • 6,199 posts
Posted by Miningman on Sunday, May 3, 2020 4:31 PM

What I did was send it/ forward the article to my gmail account ( and also my work email) and low and behold it appears "normally". Then I copy it from there instead of the original source and it comes out normal. Dosen't seem like much but it works.

  • Member since
    March 2012
  • 85 posts
Posted by GeoffS on Sunday, May 3, 2020 6:47 PM

In the photo of the Michigan Central crossing in St. Thomas can anyone tell me what "the leaning tower of Pisa" to the left in the photo would have been used for? Very interesting!
Thanks!

GS

  • Member since
    September 2010
  • From: Parma Heights Ohio
  • 3,442 posts
Posted by Penny Trains on Sunday, May 3, 2020 6:53 PM

GeoffS

In the photo of the Michigan Central crossing in St. Thomas can anyone tell me what "the leaning tower of Pisa" to the left in the photo would have been used for? Very interesting!
Thanks!

GS

 

Cement factory?  Hmm

Trains, trains, wonderful trains.  The more you get, the more you toot!  Big Smile

  • Member since
    May 2012
  • 5,017 posts
Posted by rcdrye on Monday, May 4, 2020 6:27 AM

The "Elevator" setup is used for screening incoming materials - based on the color it's probably rocks and sand but similar towers were also used for coal.  The big stuff gets caught at the top, a smaller mesh screen in the middle and an even smaller one at the bottom.  I guess anything that made it through the bottom screen was "sand".

  • Member since
    March 2012
  • 85 posts
Posted by GeoffS on Monday, May 4, 2020 9:23 AM

Thanks rcdrye and Penny for responding. Very interesting.  I am going to assume most everything in the photo is LONG gone!

Geoff

  • Member since
    September 2003
  • 21,669 posts
Posted by Overmod on Monday, May 4, 2020 9:36 AM

rcdrye
The "Elevator" setup is used for screening incoming materials - based on the color it's probably rocks and sand but similar towers were also used for coal.  The big stuff gets caught at the top, a smaller mesh screen in the middle and an even smaller one at the bottom.  I guess anything that made it through the bottom screen was "sand".

Think of this as being like a gravity-fed 'launder' for coal.  (You probably wouldn't see a setup like this actually used for coal as there'd be too much trituration at that angle of drop as the separation was being made -- I think this is for concrete aggregate, as he said.)

I think the multiple downpipes are to reduce the load on the system that gathers the aggregate; it doesn't help to have a lot of gravel up at the top of the arrangement.  I presume the loading 'skip' runs up the back side of the tower on a cable arrangement, and trips automatically at the top.

  • Member since
    September 2013
  • 6,199 posts
Posted by Miningman on Monday, May 4, 2020 10:15 AM

In Mining we call them grizzlies . That can also refer to a horizontal steel latticework where big chunks of ore/rock can be pneumatically hammered.

GeoffS--Yes mostly everything is gone . The CASO is gone along with that diamond. The wire is gone too. Track is still there... CN operates on it, Diesel, London to St. Thomas and the Port Stanley Terminal Railway operates from St. Thomas to Port Stanley. 

  • Member since
    March 2016
  • From: Burbank IL (near Clearing)
  • 13,540 posts
Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Monday, May 4, 2020 10:26 AM

rcdrye

The "Elevator" setup is used for screening incoming materials - based on the color it's probably rocks and sand but similar towers were also used for coal.  The big stuff gets caught at the top, a smaller mesh screen in the middle and an even smaller one at the bottom.  I guess anything that made it through the bottom screen was "sand".

 
The process sounds similar to an upside down fractionating tower.
The daily commute is part of everyday life but I get two rides a day out of it. Paul
  • Member since
    March 2012
  • 85 posts
Posted by GeoffS on Monday, May 4, 2020 1:50 PM

Gentlemen:  Thanks for the new information. I didn't think much of what is in the photo would be there so many years later, but, in the imagination it's a cool thought.

Geoff

  • Member since
    September 2003
  • 21,669 posts
Posted by Overmod on Monday, May 4, 2020 2:05 PM

I wish I could find before-and-after pictures of some of the dramatic industrial changes that occurred after the early '60s in the area I grew up ... and passed through going from northern New Jersey to Kingston/Wilkes-Barre in those years.

There were sections of approach to the Garden State Parkway that had whole industrial complexes built OVER them, all served by a web of rail connections.  There was a place PA state route 115 stopped and made a right-angle turn over a bridge crossing a boiling canyon of trains -- which I couldn't see, being too short as a child.  This was one of the FIRST places I went when I could drive... only to find a great deal of concrete retaining and bridging and only one sleepy track. Then that track was gone, and the whole bridge was taken out, and the Jersey Central was gone, and then double track on the old DL&W, and then through traffic on the DL&W ... 

Gone now as if it had never been; it's even hard to figure out where it was, let alone how it was.

  • Member since
    May 2012
  • 5,017 posts
Posted by rcdrye on Monday, May 4, 2020 2:22 PM

The "elevators" used for coal separation were usiually at a flatter angle, and most often at the mine head. They were often used for "retail" coal intended for single car delivery to coal yards, small foundries and other places that have disappeared from the commercial/industrial landscape.

  • Member since
    September 2013
  • 6,199 posts
Posted by Miningman on Wednesday, May 6, 2020 12:17 PM

In Los Angeles there was an area in the industial section called 'The Patch' with railroad ally's. This kind of thing is mostly gone now.

Triple Diamond crossing !

 

2) Drama! " the sky suddenly turned black and out of the darkness ...and so forth.

 

3) New York Central trying to look classy amidst its declining empire.

 

4)  Battleship Gons!

 

5)  CP Rail Double Deck Commuter in Montreal area. All decked out! 

Got your spiffy horns, cute bell, stripes, lights, the works!

 

6)  No Hockey Playoffs ... remembrances though!

 

  • Member since
    September 2010
  • From: Parma Heights Ohio
  • 3,442 posts
Posted by Penny Trains on Thursday, May 7, 2020 6:27 PM

Miningman
2) Drama! " the sky suddenly turned black and out of the darkness ...and so forth.

Hiyo gul' darned silver! 

Trains, trains, wonderful trains.  The more you get, the more you toot!  Big Smile

  • Member since
    January 2019
  • From: Henrico, VA
  • 9,728 posts
Posted by Flintlock76 on Thursday, May 7, 2020 7:57 PM

Overmod
Gone now as if it had never been; it's even hard to figure out where it was, let alone how it was.

Oh some of it's still there.  The Northern Branch, moribund to be sure, but still there.  The West Shore, now CSX's "River Sub,"  the Pascack Valley Line, the Bergen County Line, the old Erie Main Line.  And not all that much different from the way it used to be. 

By the way, a friend of mine saw that NJ Transit Jersey Central "Heritage" GP-40 a few weeks ago on the Pascack Valley Line!  Unfortunately he didn't have his camera with him.

  • Member since
    January 2019
  • From: Henrico, VA
  • 9,728 posts
Posted by Flintlock76 on Thursday, May 7, 2020 8:01 PM

Miningman
2) Drama! " the sky suddenly turned black and out of the darkness ...and so forth.

Hey!  Who's run off with my Lionel "Pennsy Torpedo?"

  • Member since
    January 2002
  • 4,612 posts
Posted by M636C on Thursday, May 7, 2020 8:19 PM

2) Drama! " the sky suddenly turned black and out of the darkness ...and so forth.

 

This is a scene from the 1936 movie Broadway Limited....

So it is a drama. It looks like the scene was filmed during the afternoon with filters to suggest night.

Here is an extract with most of the critical train scenes.

The full movie, and a different 1941 movie are both available on Youtube:

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=youtube+movie+broadway+limited&docid=608015455864947116&mid=A9350EB36B93053BB248A9350EB36B93053BB248&view=detail&FORM=VIRE

And a postwar Lionel advertisement to start with.

Peter

  • Member since
    September 2013
  • 6,199 posts
Posted by Miningman on Thursday, May 7, 2020 9:16 PM

Dang you guys and gal are good. History here I tell ya, history! 

  • Member since
    September 2011
  • 6,449 posts
Posted by MidlandMike on Thursday, May 7, 2020 9:45 PM

I knew about the Virginian battleship gons, but not the N&W and C&O.  I also found a picture of a PRR example.

  • Member since
    May 2012
  • 5,017 posts
Posted by rcdrye on Friday, May 8, 2020 6:26 AM

Different six-wheel trucks were used by each railroad's version.  I was familiar with the Buckeyes used by VGN.  The weird truck under the N&W car was an oddball even in the N&W fleet, most of which used a Lewis model similar to the Buckeye. The truck under Pennsy's lone car of the type looks almost like it came out from under a passenger car, and was the same kind found under the tender of streamlined K4s 3768.

http://prr.railfan.net/freight/classpage.html?class=G23

The design of these predated the "Bathtub" coal gon by around 50 years.  The cars fell out of favor as the tidewater dumpers were gradually converted to work with standard 70 ton hoppers in the 1940s, and most were out of service by the early 1950s. 

 

  • Member since
    September 2003
  • 21,669 posts
Posted by Overmod on Friday, May 8, 2020 9:25 AM

M636C
So it is a drama. It looks like the scene was filmed during the afternoon with filters to suggest night.

About as effectively as the use of such filters in Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space.

But it's sure evocative of Snoopy's dark and stormy night...

  • Member since
    March 2016
  • From: Burbank IL (near Clearing)
  • 13,540 posts
Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Friday, May 8, 2020 10:24 AM

Overmod
 

About as effectively as the use of such filters in Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space.

Let's hear it for the absolutely worst movie ever made.  Ed Wood's work (?) is my younger son's guilty pleasure.

The daily commute is part of everyday life but I get two rides a day out of it. Paul
  • Member since
    September 2003
  • 21,669 posts
Posted by Overmod on Friday, May 8, 2020 11:02 AM

CSSHEGEWISCH
Let's hear it for the absolutely worst movie ever made.

I'm not fully convinced that Underdog has since replaced it.

It might be added that Plan Nine with the simple addition of an MST3K soundtrack is one of the most entertaining movies ever made.  Something you really couldn't say about Underdog...

I'm still part of the jury that's still out on that perpetual contender Thomas and the Magic Railroad.  With some work and less Britt, that might have worked as a movie.

  • Member since
    May 2012
  • 5,017 posts
Posted by rcdrye on Friday, May 8, 2020 1:23 PM

The post-CGI Thomas stuff is all pretty much awful.  We still haul out the "live" ones for our grandsons every once in a while (on VHS, no less).  Pretty funny to think of them choosing George Carlin as the narrator for a kids' show (The seven whistle signals you can't use on television...)

  • Member since
    September 2010
  • From: Parma Heights Ohio
  • 3,442 posts
Posted by Penny Trains on Friday, May 8, 2020 6:30 PM

Twas Ringo first.

Trains, trains, wonderful trains.  The more you get, the more you toot!  Big Smile

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