Well a sad turn of events to be sure. I couldn't let the bar go off into it's good night without a comment and a farewell. I will miss this place, the one true place on these forums. I will have to decide weather or not to stay on in general. Thank-you to everyone for being so friendly, helpfull, and downright fun to know and interact with.Should anyone wish to, I will happily "pay the rent" and keep this joint open should anyone wish to keep participating. Otherwise thank-you all for being a true group of friends amonsgt the background noise around these forums.
Rob
NOTICE – NOTICE – NOTICE – NOTICE
Gentlemen,
I have decided to close the bar known as ”Our” Place.
Our 16-month run has been quite remarkable especially considering the structured nature of the Thread, far different and unique in comparison with the others on these Forums. I must admit that when this all began back on April 12th, 2005, the idea of longevity had not crossed my mind.
From personal reflections of our railroading experiences to entertaining Pix provided during our Photo Posting Sundays, interspersed with volumes of material discussing Classic Trains (real and model), we truly have set the bar to a standard that perhaps may not be topped.
We have undergone many changes since those early pages and have seen some good people come and go. Ours has been a social setting with real and imagined characters setting the stage for some wonderful exchanges and concocted scenarios. They are all in the archives for one and all to view.
My heartfelt appreciation goes out to those who regularly entered this place with a spirit of inclusiveness and good cheer. You were the backbone of what made this place so special!
Many THANX to all who helped keep the information flowing and of course to those who acknowledged and cheered from the sidelines.
Happy rails to all who have been faithful customers at the best cyber bar in the Ether!
Tom
NOTICE - NOTICE - NOTICE - NOTICE
G'day and Happy 16th Month Anniversary to "Our" Place!
Boris ring the bell and we'll serve 'em whatever they want . . .
Looks as if the Forums have returned in a spanking new format! Congrats to Kalmbach for the modernization et al!
Need to check out what's new and try to get up to speed with all of the changes.
Later!
QUOTE: Bergie Posted: 09 Jul 2006, 14:37:56 Content & Business Manager - Trains.com We need to take our forums down for a couple of days to migrate the content from our current reader forum into our new reader forum. We'll see you back in the forums on July 12 when the new Trains.com launches (sometime in the late afternoon). Erik -------------------- Erik Bergstrom Content and Business Manager Trains.com
QUOTE: PLOT SUMMARY: A cargo plane goes down in a sandstorm in the Sahara with less than a dozen men on board. One of the passengers is an airplane designer who comes up with the idea of ripping off the undamaged wing and using it as the basis for an airplane they will build to escape before their food and water run out.
QUOTE: PLOT SUMMARY: November, 1951. The 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital is shaken up by the arrival of Captains "Hawkeye" Pierce and "Duke" Forrest...crack surgeons but lousy soldiers. Joined by renowned chest-cutter "Trapper" John McIntyre, the surgeons set about dealing with the daily carnage of the war by raising hell. From getting rid of the idiotic Major Burns to helping the camp dentist commit "suicide", there's no lengths the Swampmen won't go to to distract themselves from the horrors of war.
QUOTE: PLOT SUMMARY: Featuring Moe, Larry and Curly WWI has ended and stooges have been discharged from the service, even though they've done absolutely nothing. When their sergeant discovers this, he beats them up badly, but the stooges have their revenge and beat him up. Years pass by and the guys become bums. They try to steal a meal from a well-to-do man who chases and catches them in front of a military recruiting station. When the boys ask for a job, he tells them to go into a nearby building and go to room 310. They sign up, but it turns out to be the army, and they're under their old sergeant's command again! They are assigned to train on a big gun at a naval base, and after messing up many times, they accidentally fire on the Admiral's flagship. The sergeant then blasts them away by firing a cannon at them.
QUOTE: Here’s a little something from assorted sources from the internet regarding a class of steam locomotive operating in India many decades past. BESA Class 4-6-0 Tractive effort: 22.590lb (10,250kg). Axle load: 39,599lb (18t). Cylinders: (2) 20 ½ x 26 in (521 x 660mm). Heating surface: 1,467 sq ft (137m2). Superheater: 352sq ft (32.7m2). Steam pressure: 180lb sq in (12.7kg/cm2) Grate area: 32sq ft (3.0m2). Fuel: 16,800lb (7 ½ t). Water: 4,000gal (4,800 US) (18m3). Adhesive weight: 118,000lb (54t). Total weight: 273,000lb (124t). Length overall: 62ft 3 ¼ in (18,980mm). QUOTE: More Briti***han anything that ran in Britain, this archetypal Mail Engine gave over 75 years of service and is still actively in use. This is the British Engineering Standards Association “Heavy Passenger” 4-6-0, introduced in 1905, of which a number (but not one of the originals) are still in passenger service in India at the time of writing (1987). The railways of India were developed mainly by private enterprise under a concession system whereby the then British Government of India guaranteed a modest return on investment in return for a measure of control, as well as eventual ownership. The government felt that one of their perquisites was to set standards and, having made rather a mess of the gauge question, made up for it with an excellent job of wetting out a range of standards designs for locomotives. The first BESA 4-6-0s were solid hunks of sound engineering, bigger when introduced than almost anything that ran in the same country. Their closest relations at home seem to have been some 4-6-0s built in 19-3 for the Glasgow & South Western Railway by the North British Locomotive Co. of Glasgow. NGL were to supply the first standard 4-6-0s to India. The BESA 4-6-0s stayed in top-line work even after their successors the India Railway Standard (IRS), XA and XB 4-6-2s had arrived in the mid-1920s, because of unsatisfactory qualities amongst the new arrivals. The great success of the BESA designs seems to lie in the fact that they were taken from British practice as it existed, with the difference that both average and maximum speeds in India were 25 per cent lower than at home while loads were about the same. (from a web site that did not identify its source, therefore I shall not credit further.) And with appreciation to Captain Tom for prior arrangements in loading my pictures from email to his photo site, here are a couple you may find of interest: The HPS was a typical BESA design locomotive, and prior to the advent of the bullet nosed WP, was the standard and most popular express power on the Indian Railways. Several were hard at work well into the late 1980s, especially on the NR and SR. Express passenger locomotives were loosely referred to as 'mail engines' in India, and the handsome HPS class of locomotives was the standard mail engine till the WPs came in. The engines had a maximum speed of 90 kmph, in keeping with their sleek express engine profile. The HPS/2 was in fact a derivative from an earlier HP class of locomotive. Other variants of the HP were the HPS and HPS/1. All (except the HP class) were provided with superheating. (from: http://www.irfca.org/~shankie/nrm/outdoor3.htm)
QUOTE: More Briti***han anything that ran in Britain, this archetypal Mail Engine gave over 75 years of service and is still actively in use. This is the British Engineering Standards Association “Heavy Passenger” 4-6-0, introduced in 1905, of which a number (but not one of the originals) are still in passenger service in India at the time of writing (1987). The railways of India were developed mainly by private enterprise under a concession system whereby the then British Government of India guaranteed a modest return on investment in return for a measure of control, as well as eventual ownership. The government felt that one of their perquisites was to set standards and, having made rather a mess of the gauge question, made up for it with an excellent job of wetting out a range of standards designs for locomotives. The first BESA 4-6-0s were solid hunks of sound engineering, bigger when introduced than almost anything that ran in the same country. Their closest relations at home seem to have been some 4-6-0s built in 19-3 for the Glasgow & South Western Railway by the North British Locomotive Co. of Glasgow. NGL were to supply the first standard 4-6-0s to India. The BESA 4-6-0s stayed in top-line work even after their successors the India Railway Standard (IRS), XA and XB 4-6-2s had arrived in the mid-1920s, because of unsatisfactory qualities amongst the new arrivals. The great success of the BESA designs seems to lie in the fact that they were taken from British practice as it existed, with the difference that both average and maximum speeds in India were 25 per cent lower than at home while loads were about the same.
QUOTE: Originally posted by West Coast S Speaking of Doodlebugs, time for a history lesson on the most unremarked of them all: The most unique in my humble opinion, were manfactured by the Mckeen Motorcar Company of Omaha Nebraska, predates the EMC entry by a decade. Mr. Mckeen was a pioneering advocate of internal combustion engines and a prolific inventor with visions of a economical to operate railcar. In 1909 he appproached Union Pacific offering the first model to them if they could provide him with shop space. UP was intrigued and agreed to lease a portion of the Omaha backshop. Construction progressed rapidly, despite numerous fits with the unfamiliar and the orginal gasoline engine, drive line that required a redesign, a protoype, wooden bodied 40 footer was ready by years end. All involved were shocked by the unusual appearance, prow like a ship, bob tail end and porthole windows, ugly was how most would describe it. Once in trials UP found that it was capable of replacing steam in branchline passenger service to a point. Lack of a reliable starting system and a poorly designed clutch caused engineers to curse themselfs blue. UP weighed in on the initial results with the opinion that, overall it was a sound design but all production models should offer increased passenger RPO/baggage capacity as well. Encourage by the sucessful test, It was back to the drawing boards, Ranson Olds assisted with a improved clutch design, Delco/Remy was contracted for a spark plug starting system. A new 50 foot steel body with RPO/baggage was manfactured, with the same unique knife edge front and porthole windows . These were more to UPs liking and proved reliable and economical to operate. As a plus to the ugainly nose design,UP found the knife edge fronts useful in light snow removal. Once in service and gaining a reputation, SP came calling and offered to host trials on a revised 50 foot model. SP was very pleased with the operating cost and overall reliability and ordered fourteen for itself to be divided among its various holdings. UP, meanwhile re-motored all earlier cars with a new 325HP V12 gasoline engine with improved carburators and fuel delivery system that eliminated spitting and potential explosions, for the first time a reverse mechanism that bypassed the clutch was offered. Due to being traction impared, only the front axles being powered, McKeen designed various configurations of lightweight 20-30 foot trailers as a option , these proved popular as well. Due to unfortunate events, Mckeen would not survive to reap the benefits of it's pioneering efforts. A Federal probe into the companies business practices led UP to withdrawl it's support and evict Mckeen from the Omaha Shops, EMC, Pullman and Winton became involved in the internal combustion rail car business and by 1925, after having manfactured 42 Motor cars and a failed attempt at building industrial locomotives, the Mckeen Motor Car Company filed for bankruptcy. The Mckeen Motor Cars had a service life far beyond that of it's ill fated manfacturer. The last SP Mckeen was retired in 1939, SP was unique in continually upgrading the power plant to take advantage of the latest technology. SP was the first to stray from Mckeen's design by rebuilding most of the fleet to 73 feet. UP performed the most radical changes over the years, flat fronts, repowering by EMC and application of streamliner paint and a lone example rebuilt to 86 feet in length were but a few of the modifications undertaken before retirement in 1943. Final assignments were on Nebraska branchlines, where it all began, so many years before, rather apt in retrospect. The last Mckeen in operation was the lone unit, purchased new, by the Virginia & Truckee, retired in 1951. After retirement, it was shorn of all mechanicals to become a roadside diner. Recently, this only surviving example, once again escaped the torch and has been perserved with a eye towards furture restoration, providing the unique mechanicals can be reproduced. Dave [tup]
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