To Mike ( wanswheel): And some of the others here who enjoy older volumes with interesting photographs of by-gone railroad scenes. Really interesting links; I enjoyed the read about the Central Vermont , and the historical tour of the Threepenny opera was interesting.
I had had no idea who Edward Hungerford was, so I was doing a little Internet searching. While doing so I stumbled on the following link to an e-book linked @ http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40242/40242-h/40242-h.htm
called The Modern Railroad by Edward Hungerford released in July of 2012 by Project Gutenberg.
It is a pretty long, but I think, an interesting read; followed at the end by an alphabetized Index. Which includes 'active' page numbers to link to photos included in the text of the book. Hope you can enjoy it. It is a littel off the topic but it fits in with the discussion of Beebe's books and his era.
Judging from the building in the upper right (Cleveland city hall), this locomotive is sitting exactly where the Amtrak station is.
I always enjoy reading Hungerford, especially his Men of Erie.
As always, Wanswheel's photos capture my attention.
wanswheel Sam, thanks for taking a look at the CV, which my grandfather was an engineer on. Here’s a picture of Hungerford and a locomotive named Sam, in Cleveland for the city's centenniel exposition in 1936. --Mike
Thank You! Mike ! On a couple of trips to Vermont, I got a chance to see the CV up close... amazing scenery and territory. Enjoyed the Photo.
P.S. Hope you enjoyed the e-book on Edward Hungerford's Modern Railroads and the photos!
Wonder if he (Ed Hungerford) was related to the Clarke Hungerford that was the President of the FRISCO in the late 1940's, early 50's???
wanswheelThe Threepenny Opera “by playwright Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) and composer Kurt Weill (1900-1950), was first performed in its original German as Die Dreigroschenoper at Berlin’s Theater am Schiffbauerdamm on August 31, 1928, with Weill’s wife, Lotte Lenya, in the role of Jenny Diver.
Lotte Lenya (died 1981) played ex-KGB and SPECTRE villainess Rosa Klebb in the James Bond hit feature,"From Russia with Love" (1963).
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Rosa Klebb being the prototype as it were for Frau Farbissina from the Austin Powers movies.
Firelock76 [snipped - PDN] . . . My favorite Beebe quote? In the lead up to election day 1948 an aquaintance of Beebe's said "If Dewey is elected President it'll set the country back 50 years!" Lucius' response? "And just WHAT was so wrong with 1898?" . . .
- Paul North.
You're welcome Paul! I'll tell you, Beebe was an original, no doubt about it. He went his own way and didn't give a damn what anyone else thought about it.
Whether I would have been able to stand being in the same room with him is another matter, he being a pate' de foie gras and champagne individual and me being a "burger and beer" guy, but who knows? Steam freaks do have a way of accomodating one another. At least I THINK we do.
Wayne
schlimm wanswheel The Threepenny Opera “by playwright Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) and composer Kurt Weill (1900-1950), was first performed in its original German as Die Dreigroschenoper at Berlin’s Theater am Schiffbauerdamm on August 31, 1928, with Weill’s wife, Lotte Lenya, in the role of Jenny Diver.
wanswheel The Threepenny Opera “by playwright Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) and composer Kurt Weill (1900-1950), was first performed in its original German as Die Dreigroschenoper at Berlin’s Theater am Schiffbauerdamm on August 31, 1928, with Weill’s wife, Lotte Lenya, in the role of Jenny Diver.
Jenny Diver and Lotte Lenya are also in the lyrics for "Mack the Knife", mentioned a few posts above, also by Kurt Weill. See:
http://www.leoslyrics.com/lotte-lenya/mack-the-knife-lyrics/ (last 2 verses)
"Mack the Knife Sung by Lotte Lenya" on YouTube at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPG9GcykPIY
which also says:
"The song "Mack the Knife" was witten by Kurt Weill for his wife Lotte Lenya. Here Ms Lenya sings "Mack the Knife" in its original German."
Interesting track arrangment behind that woman ( ) in the upper photo, Mike (wanswheel).
http://www.kwf.org/lotte-lenya/chronology-of-career
October 18, 1898 Karoline Wilhelmine Charlotte Blamauer born...in Vienna
Summer 1921? Karoline Blamauer adopts the stage name Lotte Lenja (changed to Lenya shortly after she moves to the U.S.)... "Lotte" comes from one of her given names, Charlotte...
Early 1933 Begins divorce proceedings against Weill in Germany. The divorce may be partly tactical, as it will allow Lenya to recover some of Weill's assets which would otherwise be seized by the Nazis...
10 September 1935 Lenya and Weill arrive in New York...
19 January 1937 Lenya and Weill remarry...
5 May 1944 Becomes an American citizen.
3 April 1950 Weill dies of a heart attack...
20 September 1955 Re-opens as Jenny in The Threepenny Opera...wins a Tony Award in 1956...
28 September 1955 Attends recording session for "Mack the Knife" with Louis Armstrong and his All-Stars, in New York. Armstrong includes Lenya's name in the lyrics, an innovation other singers will take up. "Mack the Knife" has already been recorded as a popular song, and it will be recorded several more times in the 1950s, by Bobby Darin, Ella Fitzgerald, and Frank Sinatra, among others. At the same session, the band makes another recording of "Mack the Knife" with Lenya singing...
April-July 1963 Films From Russia with Love in Europe...Lenya's performance as Russian spymaster Rosa Klebb, including hand-to-hand (or foot-to-hand) combat with Sean Connery as James Bond at the end of the film, introduces her to the widest audience yet.
When I became a railfan as a teenager, I used to read a library's copy of The Central and Southern Pacific Railroads. This book was a major reason I became an SP fan, mostly because it did a great job of covering the SP empire, particularly with a fine assortment of photographs.
Fast forward 40+ years, I go to a train show where a vendor was selling the book for $30.00. Many, many books have been published on the SP, but I feel this is one of the best, so I bought it.
Wizlish "Hold the Vanderbilt, stab the Mail Annul the Limited, flag the Flyer, leave the Iroquois in a fix; This is the World, revealed and true: Give green to twenty-five and six; The 20th Century must go through!"
"Hold the Vanderbilt, stab the Mail Annul the Limited, flag the Flyer, leave the Iroquois in a fix; This is the World, revealed and true: Give green to twenty-five and six; The 20th Century must go through!"
Just noticed - a week and a half later! - that you illustrated a poem about the 20th Century Limited with a painting of both the Century and its arch rival, PRR's Broad Way Limited. Good job.
ChuckAllen, TX
I tend to hold Lucius Beebe in low esteem. His florid writing style is wretched and seems intended to entertain in its own right rather than inform or narrate. His lifestyle was probably based on inherited rather than earned wealth, which may explain his disdain for the egalitarianism of the Progressive and New Deal eras and the corresponding demise of the class system in which he regaled.
Beebe is not appreciated today as well as he should be partly because of some misimpressions. His style did get florid with time but his early books were very readable. His factual errors are sometimes cited but they are relatively small in number when you consider how little information was available in the 1940s or even the 1950s -- there was no internet and few books to consult. Some say his photography was dull but I think people should look more closely and consider his work as a whole. In my opinion his best has never been exceeded. Some of his output was ordinary but it was published as a record not because it was meant to be "artistic". His best photos were the most exciting steam shots ever printed. Don't judge his work from the poor reprints that are available.
I've always found Beebe to be curiously entertaining, but not a man to emulate. I don't want to get political here, but I suspect his inherited wealth gave him a mindset that most of us can never imagine.
Tom
An 1930s version of the entire "Threepenny Opera" in German is at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-igC0jAV_zQ
"Mack the Knife is well performed.
AT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QXJ3OXWaOY there is a clip said to be Bertolt Brecht himself. I've also seen a version with video, but not on youtube.
Apparently you can detect an Augsburg accent if you expert in regional German.
Michael J. Walsh,
Ireland
schlimm Lotte Lenya (died 1981) played ex-KGB and SPECTRE villainess Rosa Klebb in the James Bond hit feature,"From Russia with Love" (1963).
Anything notable about any of them ?
cefinkjr Wizlish Just noticed - a week and a half later! - that you illustrated a poem about the 20th Century Limited with a painting of both the Century and its arch rival, PRR's Broad Way Limited. Good job.
nhrand Beebe is not appreciated today as well as he should be partly because of some misimpressions. His style did get florid with time but his early books were very readable. His factual errors are sometimes cited but they are relatively small in number when you consider how little information was available in the 1940s or even the 1950s -- there was no internet and few books to consult. Some say his photography was dull but I think people should look more closely and consider his work as a whole. In my opinion his best has never been exceeded. Some of his output was ordinary but it was published as a record not because it was meant to be "artistic". His best photos were the most exciting steam shots ever printed. Don't judge his work from the poor reprints that are available.
I think this gets it about right. It is easy, after the passage of years, to discredit somebody for outdated mannerisms or beliefs ... which, at the time, were shared by many, but now stand out (among us enlightened moderns) in their lonely nakedness.
The point to me is that Beebe was present at the creation of modern rail fandom, which might not exist at all, for all we know, without him.
Besides that contribution, the man had nerve and tons of style. If he's not for somebody's modern taste, I understand that ... while wondering how some of our up-to-date (for now) styles and beliefs will stand the test of time.
(What the heck is a "ukase", anyway ? )
Paul_D_North_JrAnybody know how many different trains were in that movie ? The key one was supposed to be the Orient Express, but I suspect 2 or 3 were used / depicted altogether. Anything notable about any of them ?
I remember at least two-both of which were supposed to be on the Orient Express. One was a 4-6-2, which looked right, but the other was a 2-10-2, which looked very odd on a passenger train.
BTW, SPECTRE is coming back in the next Bond movie, coming out in late 2015.
P.S. - Anybody know where to find the 14 steps that a Pullman waiter was supposed to go through to properly serve a bottle of Beer ? I posted it here a couple years ago, but without a functional search function (redundancy there ?), there's no hope of finding it again that way.
It's a good thing the "search community" feature still works from the Classic Trains forum interface: is this the thread? -- "How is a Reputation Built?" Indeed!
If a 83 year old dinosaur may comment ... the painting of NYC #5232 racing PRR #5491 eastward from Englewood (Chicago) is quite a classic. Both engines were built in 1927 ... the May 1929 Railway Guide of Chicago shows the Broadway Limited leaving its Chicago terminal at 12:40 pm and arriving at Englewood at 12:57pm. The20th Ceentury Limited leaves its Chicago terminal at 12:40pm and note D (stops on flag to pick up passengers). Thus the stage was set.
Which, of course, both railroads officially strongly denied. My guess is that both crews would stoutly deny any racing ... they were simply keeping their trains on "The Advertised". May thanks for finding that painting, brought back a flood of memories.
Who won? Well, both trains were scheduled into their New YorkCity terminals at 9:40 am the next morning. A schedued tie (?)
I've always felt the David P. Morgan developed his own style and, further, held no great liking for Lucius Beebe. DPM was known for accuracy, Beebe for his lack hereof. Can't find it right now, but in a review of one of Beebe's later works, DPM made the famous comment that it is relatively easy to acheive a mediocre success in an uncrowded field.
Yeah ... Beebe (read that: Clegg) had great photos but don't put much trust in what he wrote.
Just for fun I started re-reading Beebe's "20th Century" a few nights ago. His description of the morning "Parade O' Trains" (my phrase) down the east shore of the Hudson River, up to and including the passing of the "Century" is pure poetry.
Hey, either you like Lucius or you don't.
And Mr. Cobb, don't worry about being an 83 year old dinosaur, I'm a 61 year old dinosaur-in-training! One day I'll get it right.
What you people think being a dinosaur is easy? Try it some time!
Oh, and the "Century" and the "Broadway" weren't racing? Suuuuuuuure they weren't....
Be 83 Jan 25. Nice to Know I won't be alone at that age on this forum. The race continued into the diesel era. I know I witnessed it once, probably summer 1952.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BaltACD
Thanks, Balt ACD.. I appreciate the cartoon!
Being a bit of a Luddite myself.
But time to bring this Thread back to some semblence of the Realities of Lucius Beebe and how his 'Edwardian presence' played in the rail fan community. I went on a search for some relevance of the interactions between TRAINS ( and of Course David P. Morgan). I found an old Fred Fraley column on Beebe, in which he neither mentions DPM or TRAINS, but the comments of the TRAINS Posters from that July 2010 column are very interesting. Linked @
http://cs.trains.com/trn/b/fred-frailey/archive/2010/07/22/lucius-beebe-s-finest-hour.aspx
And linde here is a linked story about Beebe and Clegg from the January 17,2011 issue of TRAINS, an article by John Gruber (founder of the Center for Railroad Photography and Art.) @
http://trn.trains.com/railroads/2011/01/lucius-beebe-and-charles-clegg
[Check out the "hot linked" stories within this article. Well worth the reading.]
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