Thank you NDG. As you have stated many times "the internet is wonderful". One can keep in touch from almost anywhere. It's finding the time will be a big factor when travelling.
Found this over dinner and thought of you immediately.
Oil multi coloured switch lamps, perfect grey and maroon in script at that. It's a toss up between script and block as far as I am concerned.
8745 Sherbrooke April 29, 1968 Note Budd Car in background for daily Dayliner to Montreal. Note too switch stand with oil lamp and yellow target for diverging route. Two yellow and two green lenses are normal for most yard switches. Red lenses would be used if the switch diverged to a main line. Also, a switch lock was required for such switch as seen here.
Thank You.
Very interesting and informative NDG. Thanks.
I am copying this post over from another thread because I had to re do it over twice due to internet problems where I am staying tonight.
Besides NDG and others might enjoy this account.
RME " Makes me think a bit of how Miningman might sing some of these songs:"
Well heck I lost the body of my message. You see what happens when you are not at home.
Ok start over. It's late I'm tired but cannot accept that the message was in vain. So here we "goes" again.
Yes, that is definitely me singing in the field exploring for gold.
Great cartoons. Those characters always playing with dynamite.
Reminds me of my first year as a student, working the summer at Falconbridges Strathcona Mine. In short order they assigned me to "nipping". A nipper delivers supplies to the miners in a stope. Steel, powder, tape fuse, caps, dynamite and other things. The men would "take their round" that is blast, just before lunch. That way the fumes would clear over lunch. After lunch they would muck out the stope and leave a clean sill for the next shift, who would start the cycle all over. Occasionally they would find a "chunk" a large piece of rock that did not break properly. This required secondary blasting.
In todays mining we do not use dynamite. Ammonium Nitrate ( ANFO) is used as a powder or slurry gel. ANFO was just on the scene back then but many old timers wanted their dynamite. So this miner, lets call him Hugh, tells me he has a chunk and to bring him a few extra sticks of dynamite. I nip them up to him and then climb up the raise to talk to Hugh.
He walks over to the chunk and places the sticks on the chunk, all the while talking away, then rolls out the tape fuse and walks it, and me, back to the raise, yakking the whole time. He lights the tape fuse and says " Ok lets get out of here". Me first.
He starts climbing down, takes a last look, me a few rungs down, and says "Oh sh..!" He yells at me to keep going and get clear.
Turns out one of the sticks rolled off the chunk. He climbs back up and starts to race against the tape fuse, a black powder streak sizzling away to the dynamite, grabs the stick and replaces it on the chunk and runs back to the raise.
I am now out of the raise and waiting 20 feet down the drift .
Boom! Concussion wave unsteadies me for a sec.
His miners hard hat came out before he did.
I'm stunned stupid. Then I see his light bouncing in the dark and moving and sure enough there is Hugh. He is not shaken, but I think well stirred. I cannot remember what he said to me, something like " hope I don't have to do that again" or "never done that before".
Cue the Merry Melodies music.
In Kenora tonight, home of the Giant Muskie and the CPR.
Tired and had to do this story twice so hope it sends this time! Don't fail me now.
NDG It was said they ran CN 6060 down there and purportedly got up to 60 MPH with it. The phrase was soon coined " 6060 at 60 on 60 " Old men and throttleitis. I understand CN 6060 has/had a crack in it's front tube sheet where the front end throttle and SH bolted on??
A great saying, but I wouldn't have wanted to be there to see it. 20 mph on the Stettler sub is rough enough, let alone 60 with a big engine like that. Today 6060 is limited to 10 mph as per the Alberta Prairie timetable, to reduce damage to both track and engine.
http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=30004
The slice cut out of the top of the smokebox was to enable easier removal of the superheaters, which are stored indoors awaiting the reassembly. I know they have to replace a portion of the firebox crown sheet, but am unsure exactly what other repairs are needed. Could very well be that a new front tube sheet, along with complete firetube replacement are needed. What is certain is that it is very, very expensive.
And from talking to the crews it seems that 1392 is more powerful than 41 (bigger cylinders, bigger boiler), even when working alone she would maintain track speed up several hills that put 41 down on her knees. But 41 has a lot of heart, she digs right in once the speed drops into the single digits and always makes it home.
A real-life 'Little Engine that Could'.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
The Meeting Creek station and elevators are still there, without rails of course. Alberta Prairie and the East Central Heritage Society are currently raising funds to rebuild the track from Stettler to Donalda, but unfortunately I think that's as far as it will go.
It was a really short-sighted and unfortunate decision by Central Western to rip up those rails and give up the land. The ROW is now broken in several places north of Meeting Creek, the farmers have taken away the fill and flattened the land to make larger fields without obstacles.
Back then the freight and passenger operations were separate entities, Alberta Prairie only recently went into the freight business after RailAmerica sold all their Alberta lines back to CN, who was not interested in the orphaned remnant out of Stettler.
I rode the Alberta Prairie twice.
Once down to Big Valley behind 6060.
But a few years before that I went up to Meeting Creek, about the last year they did that. That was one of the nicer days I ever spent. Going north was uneventful. But at Meeting Creek they had a former Alberta Wheat Pool elevator open for tours. That was the first time I had been in an elevator out in the country since I left Irricana. The guide really new his stuff and had many interesting stories. From the lift to empty horse drawn Grain Tanks, to marks left on roof beams from the boxes on semi-trailer dump trucks, emptying grain down the same chute.
Then we went across the tracks to the former CN Station. Both the front, with the office and waiting room were open, but also the living area in back. There was a rope across the stairs to the second floor, but the feeling I got looking up those stairs I can still recall vividly.
We then boarded, and returned south as far as Donalda, where we stopped for a BBQ steak and baked potato dinner. We went back to a former CN Portable Station that had been relocated from Saskatchewan. There we met a very old retired Section Man who knew Irricana, and maybe even my Dad, who also had many stories to tell.
We then boarded the train for the final leg back to Stettler. The sun was getting low in the sky, making the scenery very pretty, and I had just finished a big meal so the rocking motion of the cars was a perfect ending to a perfect day.
Bruce
So shovel the coal, let this rattler roll.
"A Train is a Place Going Somewhere" CP Rail Public Timetable
"O. S. Irricana"
. . . __ . ______
NDG PS. CN 1392 will look good with 41. Rode the train and visited Big Valley and it's derelict R House aeons ago. Tank Car w pilot and headlite leading on return trip.
http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=30005
http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=29958
http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=30211
http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=30209
http://railpictures.net/photo/622071/
http://railpictures.net/photo/621511/
http://railpictures.net/photo/622281/
http://railpictures.net/photo/622278/
http://railpictures.net/photo/622072/
1392 without 41, on a photo freight. Those tank cars were being pulled out of storage, so does this count a a steam-hauled revenue freight move?
http://railpictures.net/photo/622123/
Also that water car you mentioned is now parked at Big Valley and coated in foam insulation, serving as the water tower there.
A real shame what happened to the Salem & Hillsborough, my understanding is that they are now just a static museum. At least 1009 and 29 are still around, and weren't destroyed by the fire.
Hmmm...the article states "carbon monoxide". That would make it a gasoline powered pump, which is forbidden underground. It has to be Diesel powered, electric or air compressor, lines run from surface because of that very reason. Someone did not know, ignorance, a hurried error? Tragic, needless.
They also refer to a "tunnel" which is a term commonly used by layman, the public, reporters and all that. A tunnel is a passage that goes from surface through or under and reappears back on surface.
Underground mine workings are drifts and crosscuts, accessed by a shaft or an incline ramp.
It is possible it is a tunnel, being a museum and all but that would supply a good passage of air. Perhaps one end is barricaded somehow but then an adequate ventilation system would be necessary to supply air.
I really don't want to get into long winded explanations but I'm sure you get a general sense. As stated it is needless and that makes it even more tragic.
NDG- Thanks for this, I am leaving in the am for vay-cay-shun, going on extended trip, return in 3+ weeks. I will check into the forums both Classic and Trains but expect that my contributions wil be very limited. Perhaps some time available late evenings when settled in.
Great story NDG. I can imagine the roundhouse foremans surprised look as in "What the!! ..?"
Perhaps he thought he was seeing a ghost, or the loco came back seeking revenge.
Most happy to hear we still have her with us.
Going a bit further up from Port Burwell around Windsor/Detroit we find Goderich, another lake port of importance in the day. Lots of grain handling, what killed it off was the Federal government's end of "At and East" policy, same thing that starved Port McNicholl.
What a quaint scene...check out that hand car! Maybe NDG used them?
Must have been a rarity by the mid fifties.
6275 switching the combine for the Mixed train. Note the hand car! July 1955 Harry Otterbein/Randy Masales Collection
D-10 892 on shop track for Mixed train in foreground. 6275 in background. July 1955 Harry Otterbein/Randy Masales Collection
Al Howlett
Note: 6275 was replaced by 6589 an MLW S3 until a tiny 44 ton Hydraulic Switcher number 17 was delivered by CLC in early May of 1959.
July 1963
Two views of HS-17 switching in Goderich yard 6/20/1968 Bruce Chapman Collection
But all is not lost!
6275 is preserved inside the Huron County Pioneer Museum in Goderich. July 31, 2013 James A. Brown
Not all were so lucky. Can you imagine being the heartless torchman cutting up this beauty.
https://youtu.be/1XkioFHJgDA
Check this out. Is it a train? Or what? Interesting, dumps like a skip. Gotta watch to the end. People still call it INCO.
Thanks again NDG. Takes me back to things I've forgotten about.
NDG Here is an expansion joint on open rail on Montreal Tramways. http://dewi.ca/trains/montreal/pix/a005_12.jpg
I've seen expansion joints like that on a few CN bridges too. Never examined one closely though.
Two-man cars on Montreal Tramways were green and were rear-entrance. Nearly all were single-end. One-man cars were cream-light-yellow with red lettering and stripes and were front entrance. About two-thirds were double-ended.
And then there were the Golden Chariots. Two-man, sight-seening, open, tiered theatre seating, single-end.
SD70M-2Dude- Great post and pictures, but my day is screwed up now!
I've spent 4.5 hours going deeper and deeper into those links and still in my housecoat and made second pot of coffee and way behind for todays activities. All of those scenes very familiar to me and it is shocking to think it is no more.
Just to clarify conflicting Casino stories, there are 2 Casinos in the Falls. The first one built around '97-98 was on the other side of the CASO mainline and would block incoming traffic. The 2nd one around 2005?, real fancy smancy, was built over the now former CASO main after the rails were tore up. The Casinos, owned by the Provincial government, ensured those rails became history and real fast to boot.
As an observational note, the 2nd Casino, as one approaches it from the main entrance, strongly resembles the ancient crashed spaceship that the crew found on the original Alien movie, and again shown in the movie Prometheus. The "advanced keepers" were trying to wipe out humanity because they didn't like how things were going.
Ironic
NDGHere is an expansion joint on open rail on Montreal Tramways.
Have you got a better picture that shows explicitly how these things were bonded?
Sicard! The guy who invented the snowblower!
There are several bridges like that on CN's ex-National Transcontinental route through New Brunswick too.
Lovely Stuff!!!
Wonderful what the experts find!
Miningman Niagara Falls can be real nutty but fun. The CASO mainline went right thru the center of the street in the main tourist drag. Folks going to the Falls Casino would have to wait impatiently as the crossing signals and gates come on and a long freight would slowly slowly slowly crawl by, with the casino just on the other side. Was hilarious to see people yelling at the train from rolled down windows. Tracks ripped up in 2001 or 2002 much to the relief of the city council after more than a hundred years. No respect.
Niagara Falls can be real nutty but fun. The CASO mainline went right thru the center of the street in the main tourist drag. Folks going to the Falls Casino would have to wait impatiently as the crossing signals and gates come on and a long freight would slowly slowly slowly crawl by, with the casino just on the other side. Was hilarious to see people yelling at the train from rolled down windows. Tracks ripped up in 2001 or 2002 much to the relief of the city council after more than a hundred years. No respect.
http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=29284
http://www.railpictures.ca/upload/here-is-an-unusual-day-for-the-niagaras-clifton-hill-tourist-area-no-cars-i-was-heading-downtown-as-i-knew-there-was-a-train-coming-over-the-border-from-the-states-and-hoped-to-park-and-grab
http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=30025
http://www.railpictures.ca/upload/cp-and-cn-were-connected-in-niagara-falls-by-a-track-which-ran-off-the-cp-and-thru-the-intersection-of-queen-st-and-erie-ave-as-pictured-then-along-park-ave-thru-the-intersection-of-victoria-and-br
http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=21673
http://www.railpictures.ca/upload/history-in-the-making-as-the-first-seamless-international-grain-train-makes-its-way-across-the-steel-arch-bridge-connecting-niagara-falls-ontario-with-its-american-counterpart-the-dh-7309-was-us
And from the Railpictures.ca time machine, CN's yard in the Falls. What a difference 20 years makes:
http://www.railpictures.ca/upload/perhaps-a-bit-of-confusion-on-my-headings-due-to-the-fact-this-is-a-cn-area-image-but-a-couple-of-cp-detour-trains-are-passing-e-and-w-on-the-cn-grimsby-sub-at-the-time-of-this-photo-the-cp-line-th
http://www.railpictures.ca/upload/the-time-machine-can-be-cruel-and-this-is-just-one-example-this-is-or-was-niagara-falls-yard-the-yard-office-is-still-there-the-cn-police-call-out-of-this-building-as-well-as-some-mow-crew-tha
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