Thanks for the comments Wayne and Overmod.
Interesting about the Blue Line. Wonder if some kind of modern day equivalent could come about... might get rid of that graffiti. Most railroading is not in the publics eye any longer but still at some point they cross paths.
Yeah I didn't mention the aircraft carrier in #5. Wanted to focus on the ships. Consider it a subliminal lead in to #6. Good eye though!
Not familiar with why you "grind your teeth yet again" regarding the West Side Highway. Can you expand that a wee bit.
Some comment on the 'Blue Line' in #2 might be in order -- this is likely a kind of express car, with 'sold' billboard advertising on the sides, not just a privately-owned car like a contemporary billboard reefer. The Blue Line was one of many 'express lines' that acted somewhat as TV networks would a few decades later: they put together the priority traffic for 'manifest' freight and arranged for higher speeds, better rights, etc. that railroads at the period were less willing to dedicate to freight service on 'their own' nickel. Remember Vanderbilt complaining about how no one important benefited from express-train speed competitions, and how he'd rather 'charge what the traffic would bear' at the minimum speed and cost? This was a way to get benefit for the shareholders from high speed with minimum marketing or other risk...
Somebody missed that there's an aircraft carrier in #5 as well as #6. Someone astute could probably recognize the type of the many aircraft visible when you realize what you're looking at. I grind my teeth yet again looking at the West Side Highway.
"Cookeville" has an 'e' in it.
Good shots all! Let's see now...
Photo 1) That Lethbridge Alberta bridge reminds me of the Erie's "World Famous" Moodna Viaduct. I've excursioned over Moodna twice, quite a thrill!
Here's a C&O 614 / Jersey Transit excursion from 1996. I might have been on this one, they ran over several consecutive weekends but I don't remember which weekend I rode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJkwkOVpNuo
Photo 2) Yeah, freight trains would be a LOT more interesting if billboard boxcars hadn't been banned in 1937. Some of them were quite colorful, like the Heinz cars advertising pickles, relish, and euchered figs.
Photos 3 and 4) Not a big diesel fan, but who doesn't like "Superman Diesels?"
Photo 5) New York harbor! I remember seeing sights like that as a boy, and let me tell you those classic old liners were impressive as hell!
Photo 6) That's one fine assortment of fixed wing (CV) and helicopter (LHA) carriers! The last time I saw something that awesome was in the Philadelphia Navy Yard in 1975. Mothballed heavy and light cruisers, a few light carriers, and two "Iowa" class battleships, the Iowa herself and the Wisconsin. Depending on the flight path you can get a view like Photo 6 of the navy base from a commercial airliner flying into and out of Norfolk VA. Quite a sight.
Photo 6.
More random Classic pics perhaps worthy of discussion
1) Lethbridge Alberta .. nice pic capturing an eclipse
2) We could use a bit of this these days, sell some advertising !
3) Here's one for Johnny . Atlanta, Georgia 1954. Quite a lineup, obviously passenger trains still relevant, .. but for how much longer?
4) Tennessee Central. I'm thinking these guys could use some rock bolts and screening along those slopes.
Algood Hill, Cookville, Tennessee Apr. 63
5) Quite the sight of days gone by.
Thinking in order.
SS Constitution or Independence
SS America
SS United States
unknown
RMS Queen Elizabeth ( arriving)
RMS Mauritania
6) A formidable scene ...
What I found interesting comparing Richard Starkey and George Carlin was how one wore a British guard's uniform and the other wore an American conductor's uniform.
rcdrye 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...)
Yeah, I couldn't help but wonder how many parents were ready to leap across the room to cover their little one's ears, "Just in case!"
But I've got to hand it to ol' George, he did a fine job! Not as good as Ringo, but just fine just the same. And George was "old school" enough to remember "There's a time and a place for everything!"
Twas Ringo first.
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
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...)
CSSHEGEWISCHLet'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.
Overmod About as effectively as the use of such filters in Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space.
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.
M636CSo it is a drama. It looks like the scene was filmed during the afternoon with filters to suggest night.
But it's sure evocative of Snoopy's dark and stormy night...
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.
I knew about the Virginian battleship gons, but not the N&W and C&O. I also found a picture of a PRR example.
Dang you guys and gal are good. History here I tell ya, history!
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
Miningman2) Drama! " the sky suddenly turned black and out of the darkness ...and so forth.
Hey! Who's run off with my Lionel "Pennsy Torpedo?"
OvermodGone 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.
Hiyo gul' darned silver!
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 !
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!
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.
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.
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
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 "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".
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.
rcdryeThe "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.
Thanks rcdrye and Penny for responding. Very interesting. I am going to assume most everything in the photo is LONG gone!
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
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?
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