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Some Random Classic Pics perhaps worthy of Discussion

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Posted by M636C on Monday, January 6, 2020 1:08 AM

2). For some strange reason it's not all that often we see the C&EI in colour.  I'm not even sure some railfans know what their colour scheme was.

 

 

 

4)  Overhead view of Buffalo Central Terminal.  Looking kind of rough, it's past glory is gone.

 

In the Chicago view, the sleeping car just behind the C&EI locomotives is a Pullman built Duplex Roomette car. Good photos of these are rare. In Some Classic Trains, Dubin illustrates a conventional roomette car, apparently rebuilt from one of these around 1956, since the two level arrangement was not popular. These should not be confused with the Budd-built Slumbercoaches which looked generally similar. There is an HO model (not particularly good) sold by IHC that I think represents these cars. Note the gap in the fluting above the windows, where the words "Santa Fe" jostle with the upper level windows for space....

I assume the walkway from the Buffalo station to the platforms was removed to provide double stack clearance on the remaining main line tracks.

Peter

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Posted by Miningman on Sunday, January 5, 2020 10:33 PM

That description was written in 2009, so it might not be correct anymore.   Wow a hundred miles! 

I have gone back and questioned the information with an edit.

I also question the claim about no restrictions. Is that still true? 

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Posted by MidlandMike on Sunday, January 5, 2020 10:25 PM

Miningman
Not only is it the world’s longest and highest railway trestle,

A google search shows there is a railway bridge in China more than 100 miles long.

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Posted by Miningman on Sunday, January 5, 2020 9:29 PM

 

1) This is out where SD70DUDE lives. 

The following info was written along with the picture in 2009. Is this still true ?

Not only is it the world’s longest and highest railway trestle, but it may be the toughest, too. There are no restrictions on the length or weight of the mile-long freight trains that roll across the Lethbridge Viaduct a dozen times a day, even though the bridge was built 1907-09.

 

2). For some strange reason it's not all that often we see the C&EI in colour.  I'm not even sure some railfans know what their colour scheme was.

 

3)  Rock Island fan trip using WWII troop carriers. You know the new look 'Rock' wasn't a bad image at all.  At least they tried, a valiant but vain effort. 

In the photo they have stopped for lunch at Weatherford, Oklahoma.

 

4)  Overhead view of Buffalo Central Terminal.  Looking kind of rough, it's past glory is gone.

 

5)  Milwaukee Bi-Polar.  Amazing how big that really was.

 

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Posted by Miningman on Wednesday, December 25, 2019 12:52 PM

Well thank you for the Memphis explanation. 4.2 Billion? Like 4 thousand millions and a fifth of another one? Geez. For that kind of moolah it should come with a newly built NYC streamlined Hudson, a T1 and 7 full consists of faithfully recreated 20th Century fame. 

As to the food situation... you're right and I'm right. If I could take you in my time machine to, let's say, 1964, and enjoy a pizza at PeeWees in Burlington, Ontario you would definitely say " what the hell happened". I don't even think you can get Pepperoni like that anywhere any longer. All of those ingredients have been 'cheapened' and substituted. 

Try getting fish and chips that serve Halibut, instead of Haddock or Pollack or some pressed 'fish' combo thing. 

 

Meanwhile:

Ladies and Gentlemen ... The Electroliners!!!
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Posted by Overmod on Wednesday, December 25, 2019 12:18 PM

... don't think we can get the real deal and very famous Electroburger... food just is same , maybe come close but all the little [nuances] have vanished.

Actually this is one area where the world has blossomed, compellingly, over the years and especially in the last few.  Both the cuts of beef needed to produce the 'best' beef and the correct mix of them to produce the best burger are well-understood and reasonably documented.  I'm sure enough historical commissary information exists to replicate the make of the patties used ... but I'd also bet it was commodity burger meat for the '40s, and much of the taste was in the experience -- much like my beloved 'Am and cheese' sandwich with double the mustard and tall cup full of pebbled ice to decant my red can of Coke, drunk in a parlor chair at 80mph going through Elizabeth on a southbound Clocker...

But we have MUCH better meat, and buns, and condiments.  Look at the Allen Brothers ad you've probably already been pushed by Kalmbach -- there's a growing trend towards wagyu as a burger meat, and it's a form of heaven.

Meanwhile, the grill is just the well-known iron slab heated from below by elements driven by traction power.  No complex tinkering needed to make one (I have two much larger suitable slabs in storage, salvaged from Waffle House renovations with permission) and of course the care and feeding of the things and the paraphernalia (stones and screens and scrapers) to care for them is not only a conserved skill but a historically traceable one.  

Perhaps the best part is that we can build a better burger than what the North Shore provided, and establish a new Electroburger tradition for new generations rediscovering the fascination.

Care to expand a bit on that Memphis situation?

Memphis built a 'Main Street Trolley' at great cost, then a riverfront loop involving one of the two tracks of the old IC line to Central Station and a branch extension to the medical center on Cleveland. Now, there is a NS freight branch that goes right under that extension, easily reachable (by traction) via a couple of switches and a ramp... as I recall it is actually one of the first railroads in Tennessee, and it points right toward the airport with grade separation for a substantial part of the way.  This was a rational basis for high-speed transit from downtown, via satellite parking, to a sensible transfer station for airport shuttles if not actual terminal stops.

Now to operate this we needed a high speed train suitable for negotiating sharp curves.  The choice was obvious even before the 'opportunity' of running the loop at lunchtime with Elliott's-catered burgers finished on the famous grill and plunge-cooked as an alternative.  I went to Rockhill, got permission from the board there, got estimates for moving (it helped of course that it had been done before, to get it TO Rockhill which is not exactly easily accessible by standard-gauge rail) and sat back to await the politics.

Which ran off the rails on the innocuous, and not unimportant, priority of who would be served by a trolley to the airport -- we've had this discussion with the diesel line out to Pearson.  Airport workers with no cars need mass transit that comes reasonably near them.  To shorten a long and expensive story ... the final alternative chosen would have gone down a couple of well-trafficked streets with truly heroic grade-separation, taken 45 minutes and a fair amount of stopping and starting to wend its way to... well, somewhere close enough to shuttle the employees around to where passengers can't go ... security not permitting trolleys up to the terminals without inspection, ya know, and ... wait for it because they presented it with a straight face and so we should strive to listen to it ... been ours for a mere $4.2 billion.

The 'Liberty Liner' still resides safely in Pennsylvania, still optioned for a fair price, with opportunity still knocking.

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Wednesday, December 25, 2019 10:57 AM

I always loved the look of the front end of the Electroliner, it reminds me of Gort the Robot from "The Day The Earth Stood Still," the GOOD one, from 1951.

Check him out...

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/n3Pd4  

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Posted by Jones1945 on Wednesday, December 25, 2019 2:25 AM

Miningman

A lot of the processing has changed, definitely substitution of less costly and, in this case I will use the word 'cheaper', ingredients in just about all of the aspects of putting this thing together. Of course the .1% can still get the real deal but not us plebs. They say ' the consumers will never know the difference' but that's an outright fable. 

They also say 'the consumers will still eat them even though they are made of trash...because they have no other choice (giggles), all these brands are under the same parent company'. People have been slowly compromised on inferior, sub-substandard products from the country of the sweatshop, including model train stuff, food, clothes, etc., on the other hand, many folks are so getting used to the fast-food culture, IKEAization (Well they do have some good stuff). Bad money drives out good, it is getting old... Please don't order any replacement screw that was made in the country of the sweatshop, or the machine will be screwed by the broken screws that are as fragile as Pig iron. (I bet they use the same level of trash on their newly built "aircraft carrier" aka another vintage floating target)

 

https://www.cruiselinehistory.com/the-electroliner-90-miles-per-hour-from-milwaukee-to-chicago/

From the same website. The seat looked even more comfortable than the 1939 PRR Trail Blazer, despite the armrest wasn't wrapped by velvet! 

 

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Tuesday, December 24, 2019 8:14 PM

Penny Trains

Yeah, they'd take out the transfats, the gluten, the grease and everything else that made food taste like you WANT to eat it.  Wink

 

Not at the places I go to!  Dinner

My standard question, "Is it good for you?"

"Yes!  Of course!"

"Then I don't want it."    Cracks 'em up all the time!

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Posted by Miningman on Tuesday, December 24, 2019 6:35 PM

A lot of the processing has changed, definitely substitution of less costly and, in this case I will use the word 'cheaper', ingredients in just about all of the aspects of putting this thing together. Of course the .1% can still get the real deal but not us plebs. They say ' the consumers will never know the difference' but that's an outright fable. 

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Posted by Penny Trains on Tuesday, December 24, 2019 6:06 PM

Yeah, they'd take out the transfats, the gluten, the grease and everything else that made food taste like you WANT to eat it.  Wink

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

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Tuesday, December 24, 2019 5:28 PM

Yeah Vince, if they got the restored Electroliner's grill going it probably wouldn't be the same blend of burger meat, or the the same grill grease, or the same bun, well, you get it.

But it would be cool if they tried!  

As Jimmy Stewart said in "Shenandoah..."

"We don't know if we don't try, and if we don't try we don't do, and if we don't do, then why are we here on this earth?"

Wayne

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Posted by Miningman on Tuesday, December 24, 2019 5:13 PM

Thank you Jones..it is fun shovelling the coal and keeping the Forum lively!

Firelock and Overmod-- don't think we can get the real deal and very famous Electroburger... food just is not the same , maybe come close but all the little nuisances have vanished. 

Care to expand a bit on that Memphis situation?

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Posted by Overmod on Tuesday, December 24, 2019 4:16 PM

Flintlock76
Well, there IS that Electroliner under restoration at the (I think) Illinois Railroad Museum, and IF they get the grill car goin' again we MAY see the return of the Electro-Burger!

My understanding was that IRM finished the restoration (quite some time ago!) and that the Electro-Burger galley is still seats, as rebuilt.  It is really too small to serve as much of an actual food kitchen for a preservation museum where all the passengers want a bite during the short demo ride.  That doesn't change the beauty of the restoration, or the thrill of having an actual running Electroliner in all its originally-shadow-lined glory.

Now, part of the rebuilding of the other Electroliner for the Memphis airport line explicitly did include not only restoration of the galley, but its operation in coordination with Elliott's downtown.  And the replacement cars would have had some food service too, since they would have shared the downtown loop.

Pity it got blown up into a $4 billion social-welfare boondoggle, isn't it? Wink

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Tuesday, December 24, 2019 10:29 AM

Well, there IS that Electroliner under restoration at the (I think) Illinois Railroad Museum, and IF they get the grill car goin' again we MAY see the return of the Electro-Burger!  One can only hope...

I think only then will the restoration be 100% complete.

Oh yeah, I forgot about Photo 1.  Jeez, that thing looks beyond creepy, it's downright funereal!  Like something out of a Victorian gothic novel, like Bram Stoker's "Dracula."  

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Posted by Jones1945 on Tuesday, December 24, 2019 2:17 AM

Picture 1: Spooky indeed. If you search the photo on Google, a lot of spooky stuff appears. If the artist shown the rail map on her long dress or the jewel on her neck, it would have been less creepy.

Picture 2: : )

Picture 3: The windy city, used to be the Capital of Railroading of the World, lost tons of great steel kings and different types of interesting public transportation vehicles in the past 80 years. Electroliner was only one of them. The livery of it still looked stylish and up to date, let alone the content like the Tavern Lounge inside this streamliner. Dining facilities have been replaced by Automat Food "Service" Cars, something like the canteen on the Starships in the movie. 

Picture 4: Never have a chance to travel on the Turbo Train. They were the answer to any higher speed railroad vehicle outside North America.

Picture 5: The C&O livery fits the Ingalls 4-S very well. Only one was built but managed to serve for 20 years, impressive!

Thank you Miningman for keep adding coal to the choo choo train~!Yes

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Posted by Miningman on Monday, December 23, 2019 9:36 PM

(Sigh)-- another reason to feel sad over Christmas, there will never be another Electroburger. 

The Turbo that burned was covered under a tarp for years in a yard. That 97% availability figure is a bunch of hooey. I suppose I could say I've had 100% availability since being born minus the 11 minutes I was actually dead. Still it's a pretty high number. 

As to the Auto Train Hostess... it's the shorts and those high socks. You know out in field exploration a lot of geologists wear shorts and high socks in the summer but they sure as heck don't look like that. Hairy legs don't work with the look and the gals aren't dumb enough to try it. 

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Monday, December 23, 2019 8:51 PM

Only 3% of them burned up?  Whistling  

Now on the photos...

Photo 2.  Dang, I do miss the women's fashions from the 70's, some were quite fetching.  

Photo 3.  Every time I see an "Eletroliner" I get the craving for an "Electro-Burger," but there's none to be had!   Crying  

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Posted by Miningman on Monday, December 23, 2019 8:21 PM

Turbo train on fire
 
According to CN/VIA records, after the 1974 rebuilding the Turbo's had a 97% availability record.  Whatever that means. 
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Posted by M636C on Monday, December 23, 2019 5:38 PM

Miningman

  Worked ok once they got all the bugs out.

 

 

I had only one trip on a Turbotrain, Toronto to Montreal in September 1977.

I was still trying to find my seat as the train departed. There had been a warning about not standing as the train passed through the station throat, and it was quite rough.

Later I found my way to dome seats in the leading power car and was having a reasonable time (the partition to the cab was glass, so you had a good view forward.) Apparently there was a fire alarm from one of the forward turbines. The first thing that happened was the conductor appeared and collected all the upholstery, conveniently held in place by Velcro and dumped it all in the vestbule behind the dome.

There was no actual sign of fire. We had stopped close to Dorval Airport and one of their fire tenders had turned up on an adjacent road.

The following Rapido, hauled by a set of FPA/FPB-4s pulled alongside and we were transferred across via the ballast.

So I'm not sure they got all the bugs...

Peter

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Posted by Miningman on Monday, December 23, 2019 3:28 PM

1). Kind of a creepy/spooky way to present a map of your railroad, I guess Cherubs were popular then but it would perhaps illicit howls of indignation today? 

2) Speaking of howls of indignation how would this go over today for the Auto Train. I remember the old Colonel 'what's his name' over at the 'other Railroad publication' had dozens of these shots. I think they are quite nice actually.

 

3)  Been talking about the now gone Electroliner over on trains. Here's a nice shot in the thick of the city with a matching crossing tower.

 

4)  Anyone besides me miss the Turbo Train?  Here's a lengthy consist departing Ottawa. Worked ok once they got all the bugs out.

 

 

5) A C&O Ingalls?  Of course not, only one ever built and it was for the GM&O. Too bad, it seemed destined for success and developed a reputation as being very 'tough'. Ingalls jumped in the market at the right time too, immediately after the war.  Apparently supplier problems made production difficult for Ingalls. Nice job on the photo shop, almost for sure that's what it would look like.

 

 

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Posted by Overmod on Wednesday, December 18, 2019 7:06 AM

BaltACD
#3 is the SP's advanced adoption of PSR and the storing excess power.

Someone with more SP knowledge and better eyesight may confirm this, but I see mostly four-axle and switchers in there -- could reflect preference changing as the railroad went to SD40/45s and the like, and away from Geeps for the mainline power.

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Posted by BaltACD on Wednesday, December 18, 2019 6:30 AM

Miningman
3). Now if I was the CEO of Southern Pacific and saw this I would gather my sales force and tell them they have 60 days to find enough new business to put all of these locomotives to work. 

#3 is the SP's advanced adoption of PSR and the storing excess power.

Even before PSR, railroads would store power that was excess to their current needs. With my career with CSX, at times there would be hundreds of units stored because of short term business fluctuations in business.  When business would rebound there would be no units stored.

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

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Posted by Erik_Mag on Tuesday, December 17, 2019 11:49 PM

#4 is a Lima built AC-9, originally set up as a coal burner for the line that was originally the El Paso & Northeastern, which connected El Paso with the Rock Island. Not much in the way of tunnels or snow sheds on the line, so no need for a cab forward.

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Posted by Miningman on Tuesday, December 17, 2019 11:07 PM

1) Well one last look at pleasant Ellenville on the NYeeeeOW.

 

2).  Multiple personalities. It states Penn Central on the sides. It's marked ConRail on the nose. It has a patch amidships that identifies MKT. Your choice I suppose. It was a tumultuous time.

 

3). Now if I was the CEO of Southern Pacific and saw this I would gather my sales force and tell them they have 60 days to find enough new business to put all of these locomotives to work. 

 

4)  Speaking of Southern Pacific, check out this beast. Not all their articulates were Cab Forwards. 

 

 

 

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Posted by Overmod on Tuesday, December 17, 2019 9:50 PM

Flintlock76
Took me almost 24 hours.  I'm a little slow sometimes.

Don't feel bad.  I never got it.  (And I can't pretend I didn't try...)

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Tuesday, December 17, 2019 7:00 PM

Neeeyow?

Oh, NOW I get it!

NeeeYOW!  NYO&W. 

Took me almost 24 hours.  I'm a little slow sometimes.

Do yourselves a favor gang, don't get old!  Whistling

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Posted by Penny Trains on Monday, December 16, 2019 6:35 PM

Ah, the kitty.  (Neeeyow!  Laugh)

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

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Monday, December 16, 2019 3:39 PM

Those could  "Old and Weary" Camelbacks, the O&W was an early rider on the Camelback bandwagon, but the photos are just too indistinct to tell.  

The caboose behind the Camel in the second photo looks like it's got an O&W herald on it, but to my knowledge the O&W cabooses didn't get the herald until the 1930's, that photo looks much earlier.

By the way speaking of O&W Camels, did I show everyone my latest aquisition?

http://www.lionel.com/products/new-york-ontario-western-conventional-4-6-0-camelback-253-6-28755/  

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Posted by Miningman on Monday, December 16, 2019 2:21 PM

Flintlock pointed out the Camelback at the O&W station in Ellensville,NY. 

.... maybe it's one of these gals.

 

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