CN's Thornton Tunnel in Vancouver has a similar ventilation building, disguised as a house:
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
NDG-- Very interesting , very good .
I have parallel experiences from youth, different equipment, buildings, locomotives, and so on but still very recognizable with your journey thru the tunnel and switching power from Electric to Steam.
I knew and with a very strong sense that this was just all too good to last. Then, as you say the Diesels came and everything changed and cascaded downward from there.
So my question to you is this-- Did you think, did you get that same sense that all this was just too good to last? That without really knowing about Diesels and the major changes to come that somehow this would all disappear right before your eyes?
Now I didn't know the wholesale changes to come, but there were dark clouds that I had no idea what they were but that this would be all taken away, disappear and never ever come back.
Perhaps the observed and sensed perfection of it all, the excitement , the pure enjoyment, even the calm but active ecstasy of it all gave one a sense there was only one way to go and that was it would end.
Thank You.
One of my favorite HO locomotive models is a FM C-liner in Northern Pacific "North Coast Limited" colors, lettered as No. 6500. You can see one at this link if you click on the thumbnail to get the enlarged version:
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-ahm-rivarossi-engine-1823854648
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/ahm-tempo-fairbanks-morse-liner-np-142547647
However, I doubt if NP ever owned a C-liner. But I just like the look!
List of "Surviving & Preserved Fairbanks-Morse Locomotives":
http://www.thedieselshop.us/PRSVDfm.HTML
- PDN.
St. Albans.
More.
The local Museum has several of the Loco Catch books from the era dealing with Compounds and Compound Operation.
Lovely Ink Drawings.
Ditto on Headlghts, Oil, Carbide and Arc.
Thin metal sheet in holder on rear of lamp to be placed in front of lamp to eclipse flame when In Clear at Meets rather than relighting same.
CPR Employee Time Tables had explict Special Instructions regarding Operation of Compound Locomotives regarding Exhaust Beats and Draft, Wheel Slip, using Engine Cylinders as air compressors to hold back train and so on.
( The Sound of Compound and Non-Compound/Simple double or triple heading would make a great recording! N'est Ce Pas?
Throw in a Shay, just the heck of it.
Nipper, rather than Alexa, listening?? )
Ditto Data on placement of Air Brake Equipped freight cars in Train, Retainers and Hand Brakes and Whistle Signals pertinent to.
A conpendium of history and information to those so sloped/inclined?
BaltACDTrain crews in the operation of new machinery? Hearsay!
I love that sarc!
Exactly why crews were expected to take to this marvelous new stuff with only casual instruction has never been quite clear to me. What is still more fun is to look at contemporary 'catechism' and reference books for railroad men which have whole chapters about what they are expected to do out on the road to overcome what may be massive mechanical failures ... with materials and tools they were evidently expected to have with them ... and get at least the light engine 'over the road'. The book I'm currently reading to try to find out 'tech' -- so far I think 326 may be a Rhode Island "Batchellor" compound -- what were all the CP compounds of this era? -- is Colvin's "American Compound Locomotives" (from 1903) and this is very rich in assessing the worth of a compound design, in no small part, by the relative ease with which it could be blocked or jiggered into emergency operability.
Reading between the lines: much of the 'patent' development appeared to focus either on very clever ways to manage simple-to-compound-working transition as "automatically" (and, usually, fairly quickly) as possible, or on explaining why an alert and Company-minded engineer can manage the (non-patented style of) transition valve better than any dumb (but patented) setup of intercepting and regulating valves, etc.
Presumably anyone who would read 'Catechism of the Locomotive' would also get hold of books like American Compound Locomotives and carefully read them for pointers...
SD70Dude Overmod We need more of the story on the Grand Trunk 'Rhode Island' compound 326. The CRO article provided by NDG is highly useful, but it does not contain any discussion of the actual testing or problems encountered. The engine was rebuilt to simple in 1905, still firmly in the 'saturated' era, so evidently the operating advantages of cross-compound operation in freight service were not sufficiently realized. Note the dimensions: 19" and 29" x 25" stroke, vs 18x26 for the assumedly-successful simple Moguls of lower TE. This is almost exactly a nominal 2-1/3 expansion ratio. I do not know if the HP and LP cutoff could be independently controlled or if there was a riding cutoff on one side to make balance adjustment easier on the road -- that is, assuming that cutoff would, in fact, give sufficient mass flow to get the engine balanced. Of course at typical speed for 2-6-0 traffic in that era, balance 'at speed' might not have been a strong priority ... but surge and nosing would probably be. Whatever the controls were, I wonder if the designers took the time to research and write up proper operating instructions for this new type of locomotive? And if they did, who educated the engine crews, or were they left to 'learn for themselves' on the job? Just like the T1......
Overmod We need more of the story on the Grand Trunk 'Rhode Island' compound 326. The CRO article provided by NDG is highly useful, but it does not contain any discussion of the actual testing or problems encountered. The engine was rebuilt to simple in 1905, still firmly in the 'saturated' era, so evidently the operating advantages of cross-compound operation in freight service were not sufficiently realized. Note the dimensions: 19" and 29" x 25" stroke, vs 18x26 for the assumedly-successful simple Moguls of lower TE. This is almost exactly a nominal 2-1/3 expansion ratio. I do not know if the HP and LP cutoff could be independently controlled or if there was a riding cutoff on one side to make balance adjustment easier on the road -- that is, assuming that cutoff would, in fact, give sufficient mass flow to get the engine balanced. Of course at typical speed for 2-6-0 traffic in that era, balance 'at speed' might not have been a strong priority ... but surge and nosing would probably be.
We need more of the story on the Grand Trunk 'Rhode Island' compound 326.
The CRO article provided by NDG is highly useful, but it does not contain any discussion of the actual testing or problems encountered. The engine was rebuilt to simple in 1905, still firmly in the 'saturated' era, so evidently the operating advantages of cross-compound operation in freight service were not sufficiently realized.
Note the dimensions: 19" and 29" x 25" stroke, vs 18x26 for the assumedly-successful simple Moguls of lower TE. This is almost exactly a nominal 2-1/3 expansion ratio. I do not know if the HP and LP cutoff could be independently controlled or if there was a riding cutoff on one side to make balance adjustment easier on the road -- that is, assuming that cutoff would, in fact, give sufficient mass flow to get the engine balanced.
Of course at typical speed for 2-6-0 traffic in that era, balance 'at speed' might not have been a strong priority ... but surge and nosing would probably be.
Whatever the controls were, I wonder if the designers took the time to research and write up proper operating instructions for this new type of locomotive?
And if they did, who educated the engine crews, or were they left to 'learn for themselves' on the job?
Just like the T1......
Train crews in the operation of new machienry? Hearsay!
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
NDG Another Bridge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQO58c_Oovg Thank You.
A failure to design in redundancy so a single point of failure cause the entore structure to collapse? Lesson learned from the collapse of the Silver Bridge over the Ohio river in 1967.
With the caveat that I am not a civil engineer, my understanding is that bridge collapse led to much more attention to avoiding single points of critical failure. In Californie, the collapse of several overpasses during the 1971 Sylmar earthquake led to providing more hoop strength (tensile) in the bridge columns for new designs. The 1989 Loma Prieta quake showed that pre-1972 columns needed to be reinforced and the 1994 Northridge quake showed that reinforcement needed to be a top priority.
NDG--- Heard from Mike, he likes your posted pic and adds one.
Now for some actual string-lining. A few days ago BNSF pulled an EB freight onto the ground at the Bealville 2MT, UP Mojave sub. YT drone video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmWZZKW0QG8 Someone's got some 'splainin to do.
Links to my Google Maps ---> Sunset Route overview, SoCal metro, Yuma sub, Gila sub, SR east of Tucson, BNSF Northern Transcon and Southern Transcon *** Why you should support Ukraine! ***
MiningmanYup, agree, dosen't count! Interesting though. It's kind of like "I used to be a wealthy man, but not anymore" Meanwhile, what better place than String Lining for this : ( with the added caveat... does it count? ) The CannonBall Run https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/speeding-tickets-cars-coronavirus.html
Meanwhile, what better place than String Lining for this : ( with the added caveat... does it count? )
The CannonBall Run
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/us/speeding-tickets-cars-coronavirus.html
Records are made to be broken!
Yup, agree, dosen't count! Interesting though. It's kind of like "I used to be a wealthy man, but not anymore"
Overmod The Romans invented the haunch-loaded arch and hydraulic cement. They also, however, invented the 'insula' apartment house, much more similar to the bridge in question in the video... There is a parallel, however, with the Pequest Fill: when active commerce no longer used the Roman bridges and structures, they became a source of construction material -- the survivors remaining so more because they were too expensive to 'recycle'. The Persians had much more permanent bridges. But few if any of them remain. Why? Instead of using cement they used low-melting metal alloy as the "mortar" for stone aggregate... and this could be broken up, melted out, and 'adaptively reused' in an easier manner than re-calcining cement. The Persians had a far more permanent approach to bridgebuilding
The Romans invented the haunch-loaded arch and hydraulic cement. They also, however, invented the 'insula' apartment house, much more similar to the bridge in question in the video...
There is a parallel, however, with the Pequest Fill: when active commerce no longer used the Roman bridges and structures, they became a source of construction material -- the survivors remaining so more because they were too expensive to 'recycle'.
The Persians had much more permanent bridges. But few if any of them remain. Why? Instead of using cement they used low-melting metal alloy as the "mortar" for stone aggregate... and this could be broken up, melted out, and 'adaptively reused' in an easier manner than re-calcining cement.
The Persians had a far more permanent approach to bridgebuilding
Well you said it Mod-man, the Persians had a much more permanent approach to bridge building, but their mistake was to use a "mortar" that was easily pirated and re-cycled. Which is why, as you say, few of them remain. So their permanence didn't count for much in the long run.
You can't expect permanence when you build with materials people can run off with when no-one's looking.
NDGNow on ebay. St Albans, VT. CV Roundhouse and Standpipe to left. Early Nose Crest. https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/pGIAAOSwsEpejnU3/s-l1600.jpg https://www.ebay.com/itm/Railroad-Slide-Canadian-National-CN-8740-Snowing-circa-1950s-Red-Border/362966157606?_trkparms=aid%3D777001%26algo%3DDISCO.FEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20180911133149%26meid%3D0f8a4136e1ac4056a969ee385a24ec73%26pid%3D101002%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D1%26mehot%3Dnone%26itm%3D362966157606%26pmt%3D0%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D2380057%26algv%3DPersonalizedTopicsForGuests&_trksid=p2380057.c101002.m4497&_trkparms=pageci%3A3c94daa3-7bd5-11ea-ab7b-74dbd180c387%7Cparentrq%3A6887661d1710a9e846914b77ffe9c1ba%7Ciid%3A3 Thank You.
Bloody pathetic.
Miningman said it best concerning another bridge collapse:
"The Romans could have built a bridge at that spot and it would still be there!"
He's not kidding, here's a list. It usually took an earthquake, or an act of war, or some other act of man to destroy an Roman bridge. Those guys built for keeps!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Roman_bridges
Now on ebay.
In winds like today's I've seen hawks intentionally hovering above a certain spot of ground to wait and catch their next meal! The buzzards can tack and sail gracefully over lots of territory with close to zero expenditure of energy. Reminds me of the wonderful title of Scott Weidensaul's book on birds, Living on the Wind.
This kind of wind would blow box cars down the track, especially if it's a quartering wind and the doors are open - the interior catches the wind like a cup or sail.
Today has been WINDY. Drove to my non-Big Box hardware store - saw a bird trying to fly into the wind having ZERO ground speed !!!!
Overmod Yes, but the Richmond compounds for Grand Trunk (both the 2-6-0s and the 2-8-0s appear to have had common cylinder dimensions) had the HP cylinder on the left side. I concur that 326 was likely cross-compound.
Yes, but the Richmond compounds for Grand Trunk (both the 2-6-0s and the 2-8-0s appear to have had common cylinder dimensions) had the HP cylinder on the left side.
I concur that 326 was likely cross-compound.
Thank You..
DeggestyAnd, I wonder how many people who saw "Compound" on the cab knew what it meant.
Likely a lot. During the roughly decade and a half of the evolving compound craze, 'using the steam twice' became a kind of Gilded Age equivalent of the kind of applied techology we associated with 'aerospace' in the late Fifties and Sixties. It broke the increasingly severe limitations that faster and heavier motive power imposed on strictly saturated boilers, and made increased pressure something that could be practically used to generate increased power.
Its second wave (which can be roughly marked by Vauclain abandoning the outside-four-cylinder type of Vauclain Compound and embracing the four-cylinder balanced type of Vauclain Compound) added at least the possibility of implicit high-speed balancing (and limited rod, crank, and bearing stresses) to the Great Thermodynamic Savings.
It is difficult to realize just how revolutionary the Schmidt-type superheater was, when metallurgical technology advanced far enough to make it practical. It takes very careful analysis to see why it worked so well when the many other types of arrangement either did not or showed maintenance disadvantages out of all proportion to what they provided. What is even more interesting is how the subsequent attempts at re-introducing compounding in the United States*, right up to the proposed adaptation of French technology as a kind of 'alternative' to what the N&W booster valve could do, were relatively unsuccessful...
And, I wonder how many people who saw "Compound" on the cab knew what it meant.
Johnny
Judging by the size of the cylinder, I would guess that it's a cross-compound.
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