all railfan here's a form to fill out
Todays date April 1st 2009
circle line 12
happy birthday conrail
trackcar is anolled
in effective in till 0:00hrs
signed CR6479 over
33 years ago today.
Growing up in NE Ohio in the early-mid 90s, this was my hometown railroad. My cousin had a Conrail line at the end of his yard, maybe 75 yards from the house. I have wonderful memories of playing in the barn or baseball in the opposite yard, hearing the engines sounding in the distance, and hopping on our bikes and high-tailing it across the property to catch the train.
We miss you Big Blue!
On a semi-related note, I've got a question that's been nagging me ever since those times. Along that line was a sign with the letters W M X, with the W on top of the M X. Looking back, I assume now this is just a way of identifying the line, although at the time my cousing and I liked to believe it was "Whistle Means X-ing (as in grade crossing, which there was one not too far down the line). Anyone know for sure?
Usually means:
Whistle
Multiple
X-ings
as contrasted with a mere W where's there's only 1 crossing in the vicinity. Usually used where there are several crossings close together - does that seem right for your cousin's location ?
I've always taken it to mean that it provides the locomotive engineer with some guidance and liberty to vary the sounding of the usual grade crossing whistle pattern - starting about 20 to 30 seconds before the crossing - of "2-Longs, 1-Short, and 1-Long through the crossing itself" to fit the needs of the situation, where such a pattern would get all run together. Perhaps a member here who'd more familiar with such rules can provide more details ?
- Paul North.
Aha... my 15 year mystery is solved! And our original guess wasn't that far off!
It does indeed make sense, Paul. Standing by the sign, we could see the first crossing and as soon as I saw the word "Mulitple" in your above post, I remembered there was another crossing about a quarter mile or so down from the first one.
I didn't mean to hijack the thread, but if anyone has any insight on the whistle pattern with multiple crossings, I'd love to learn.
Thanks (again) Paul!
The Conrail fans will like my current avatar, shot around 1980 on the Montreal Secondary.....
I think how MX is handled will depend on track/train speed, actual spacing of the crossings, and the individual engineer.
What you might hear will be a series of abbreviated Rule 19 (NORAC) signals.
Speaking of NORAC, here's the actual rule:
19. (b)— — o — 1. Approaching public crossing at grade and at a whistle post indicating “W” or “W/MX.” This signal is to be prolonged or repeated until engine or train is on the crossing, or, where multiple crossings are involved, until the last crossing is occupied. The whistle or horn must not be sounded at a whistle post indicating “W/R,” except in case of emergency.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Back well over 20 yrs ago when I first began going to local NRHS meetings and later joined, one of the members was a dude who migrated from NY or NJ (can't just recall which state) and we began a long friendship until cancer took him away several yrs ago. Anyway he had a career with PC & CR until making a career change. His favorite story on Conrail was how hard it was for the merged railroads and each company culture to mesh into the new formed giant railroad. There were cases of workers on Conrail, mainly exPRR & NYC guys, that would get into fistfights if one were to say something bad of the othr company. I don't know if this is true or not but there have been similar stories of PRR & NYC fans getting into their own fist punches at NRHS meetings back east. The early yrs of Conrail must have been interesting and somewhat of a comedy show concerning the human side of things. I give all these folks a thumbs up. There is nothing like supporting and standing up for one's favorite rr.
Thanks for sharing that story, SF (sorry.. I don't know everybody's name yet). I've done a fair bit of reading on the history of Conrail and everything I've gathered sums what you said: the people were as diverse and "interesting" as the mismatch of locomotives and cars.
What a great success story Conrail turned out to be; really a shining example of what our government is capable of when they really put their (usually) partisan minds to it.
I'd love to hear more stories from anyone who remembers/lived through the Conrail era; whether you worked there or (like myself) just have great memories!
Happy 33rd to Conrail. Lets not forget, technically they are still around.
Reading The Wreck of the Penn Central, and The Men Who Loved Trains, it's extremely disturbing to me that Conrail actually thought it made sense to keep PC together and not divest them into two separate operating entities. Except for the combined Selkirk yards that were built for Penn Central, nothing about Conrail running ex-NYC and ex-PRR as one system makes sense to me, both from logistical and financial respects.
Furthermore, when CSX and NS acquired their relevant portions of Conrail the shares look almost exactly divided between ex-PRR and ex-NYC but for the Shared Assets divisions which continue today.
There was some discussion in the books as to how PRR, and NYC, strived to make a more sensible merger with other lines but eventually were forced to merge into the disasterous Penn Central after some tricky corporate politics got in the way and messed everything up.
Even so, why didn't Conrail break up PC into two distinct Conrails? That's something the books do not really answer.
I should add that Conrail rain multi-billion-dollar losses for years all paid for by the government. I think that money was earned back before the CSX/NS breakup of Conrail, but I cannot tell for sure if the money disappeared or really was earned back (and paid back to the gov't).
I believe the USRA studies and Preliminary and Final System Reports circa 1974-75 ldid consider such alternatives, but discarded them. At that point, Penn Central was an 8-year old hybrid of mostly different territories in the east, but common territory around Pittsburgh and from roughly mid-Ohio out to Chicago and St. Louis. There wasn't really any downside to keeping NYC and PRR together at that point - a lot of the consolidation moves had already been implemented, the Poughkeepsie bridge had burned, and there was no turning back then. What would have been gained by splitting them up again ?
Plus, you're overlooking what ConRail was able to do with the resulting "stew" of 7 NE railroads (RDG, PRSL, CNJ, LV, and L&HR): Unload the NE Corridor onto Amtrak, and unload the commuter lines onto an alphabet soup of local commuter agencies (SEPTA, NJT, MN, LIRR, CDOT, MBTA).
More importantly, CR was able to "cherry-pick" and put together new and functional replacement freight lines, at least in my corner of Pennsylvania: RDG from Harrisburg to Allentown, then the LV to N. Jersey; and RDG and CNJ from Phila. to N. Jersey. Amtrak got the only freight route that the PRR ever had into N. Jersey - the NEC - so without those newer lines, the ostensible PRR side would be out of luck, cut off at the Delaware River from that entire intermodal and chemical traffic market. It's pretty obvious that with that "new" Reading/ Lehigh Line route from Harrisburg - copletely devoid and uncluttered by passenger traffic, and with the BethIntermodal facility at the old steel mill in Bethlehem, NS now has a better route and market position to N. Jersey and NYC than the PRR ever did. Plus, in addition to the NYC's River Line along the Hudson River, CSX now has the RDG-CNJ Phila. - N. Jersey route - something NYC never had.
Others here may be able to suggest similar examples, particularly in the northern and western PA, and in the MidWestern states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan.
Just wanted to mention something touched on in Paul's post. The Poughkeepsie Bridge actually did Penn Central a big favor by burning. There wasn't so much damage that it couldn't be repaired, but it gave them the reason they needed to get rid of that line. Only one train used it regularly on a daily basis at that point, and they simply wanted all traffic through Selkirk. This bridge has been a subject of controversy as to what to do with it, but it stands intact and is a magnificent structure to see from down at track level where the River Line goes right below it.
trainfan1221This bridge has been a subject of controversy as to what to do with it, but it stands intact and is a magnificent structure to see from down at track level where the River Line goes right below it.
i miss hearing conrail's horns like S3L,S25L and RS3L . i grow up on conrail in 1992-1999 as she was a class one railroad. i loved seeing the railroads that made up conrail.
Good Conrail books worth reading: Conrail Commodities and The Men Who Loved Trains. The Wreck Of PC I have noticed has been republished and is on the market. I believe our public library has this book. For those of you who have read it, what is your impression? If its worth it, I'll check it out and read it.
I actually looked through Conrail Commodities at the Great Train Store once, didn't get a chance to buy it before they went under but it looked like a good book.
Happy birthday big blue happy birthday big blue!
The road to to success is always under construction. _____________________________________________________________________________ When the going gets tough, the tough use duct tape.
Boy I cant wait to start threads on the DMIR, EJE, BLE, GN, NP, SOO, IC, DME, Frisco and every other fallen flags birthday! This thread to me is like wishing happy birthday to a dead relative...
Mechanical Department "No no that's fine shove that 20 pound set all around the yard... those shoes aren't hell and a half to change..."
The Missabe Road: Safety First
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.