Hi, I know that there are several 0-4-0 saddletank engines that can be rented by tourist railroads and railroad museums. Flagg Coal #75 and Viscose #6 are two that I know of. Does anyone know how many small saddletankers are out there in the U.S. that are available to rent? (excluding Strasburg's Thomas 0-6-0). Is there a list somewhere? Thanks for any info anyone can give me.
Trains had an article on an individual who has two 0-4-0T's that have visited museums to provide steam operaiton and are light enough to be hauled around on single flatbed trailer or even a large truck. I think this was about three years ago.
Those are the Gramlings, father and son. Check "Trains" video, I believe there's a short video visit to the Gramlings facility.
The Gramlings are the only folks with a "Have Locomotive, Will Travel" program that I'm aware of.
I just checked "Trains" video, it's still there.
Did you invent a new word? I am 65 years old. Most of my family worked in the rail transportation industry. I have read magazines such as "Trains" and "Railroad", now "Rail road and Railfan" for over 50 years. This the first time I ever heard a tank engine referred to as a "saddletanker".
Does Thomas the Tank Engine know about this change?
Here is the definition of a saddletanker. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_locomotive. That's ok that you have never heard the term. After all, Percy has never heard of you.
tdmidget Did you invent a new word? I am 65 years old. Most of my family worked in the rail transportation industry. I have read magazines such as "Trains" and "Railroad", now "Rail road and Railfan" for over 50 years. This the first time I ever heard a tank engine referred to as a "saddletanker". Does Thomas the Tank Engine know about this change?
The Trains Magazine DVD archive that covers from the start in 1940 through 2010, shows 313 results for "saddletank". They start appearing in the September 1941 issue and the most recent example appears in the December 2012 issue.
Forming it with two words as "saddle tank" reveals an additional 56 hits, ranging from the very same issue from 1941 through May 2007, where there's a diagram of a Mallet on the Black Hills Central (With her water tanks annotated as "saddle tanks").
By comparison, SW1500, the designation of a popular switcher from the 1960's through to the present day, yields 279 results over the last forty years covered in this collection. So I'd say it's not exactly an uncommon term, even though it's certainly not as visible in today's world as it once was in the pages of Trains and in the minds of American railfans and railroaders.
Mr. Midget appears to have a very negative manner reading back on his previous postings.
I am much senior to Mr. M., and try to be positive as much as possible and pass on to others knowledge from my past.
When I was young there were more steam locomotives operating than Diesels, great Passenger Trains, and street cars, too.
The Internet is wonderful when used properly and respectfully.
Thank You.
The Term 'Saddle Tanker' has been around for years.
Michele SmartyI really enjoyed your community and the discussions here. Thanks
You're not leaving us, are you? We've barely gotten aquainted!
Nops dear i am not leaving your community. I am here. I just putted on my compliments here.
Saddletanker is a word that isn't used much anymore. Confined to the dumpster of history, like wireless, autogyro and cuspidor.
What term do you use? Tank engine?
54light15 Saddletanker is a word that isn't used much anymore. Confined to the dumpster of history, like wireless, autogyro and cuspidor.
And the world is a much poorer place without autogyros and cuspidors!
By the way, anyone out there still call refrigerators "iceboxes?"
In the days of iceboxes, the cooling was from the melting of ice, and even through WWII, battery-powered, solid-tire trucks roamed Manhattan, with drivers selling of blocks of ice for iceboxes. The word refrigerator means mechanical cooling.
But in Hebrew, the word mahkareer is used for both, kar meaning cold, kareer meaning ice, and mahkareer both icebox and refrigerator.
Arabic. cold, barad; ice, talj; icebox or refrigerator, tallaajee or barraad.
I sure know about iceboxes David, my grandfather had an ice business in Tenafly NJ years ago.
A couple of years back the wife and I took my parents to a local antique show. When Dad saw the prices on old iceboxes (they're collectables now, one had a $600 price tag!) he was flabbergasted. "$600!" he said, "They used to GIVE them away to preferred customers!"
Ice delivered in New York City by battery-powered electric trucks? That's amazing, I didn't know that!
There's a website you might find interesting. Actually, lots of people who remember iceboxes and those who don't will find this interesting.
www.iceboxmemories.com
Wireless confined to the dustbin of history?
Oh, oh, the research engineers at leading universities and Silicon Valley firms working on "wireless networks", "wireless communication", and "4G wireless data" are behind the times.
As far as "cuspidor", with the popularity of smokeless tobacco on college campuses, you really need to watch your step these days. Whether you enjoy tobacco products are dislike them, there may be a need for such a thing.
Tank engines, back on the original topic, include all steam engines carrying their water supply in tanks on the locomotive instead of in drawbar-connected tender or as in a Garratt. A saddletanker is a particular type of tank engine that envelopes the boiler in the water tank -- it always looked to me like a "pig-in-a-blanket" hotdog baked into a biscuit.
Maybe the term is archaic because steam locomotives are only rarely manufactured as new items. A cuspidor may be from a bygone era, but if you find one in an antique shop, it is still a cuspidor and not something else.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Paul MilenkovicWireless confined to the dustbin of history?
It most certainly is, and rightly so on a variety of levels. He means in the unqualified-noun sense, implying 'wireless telegraphy', the great scam propagated by Bill Marconi that held up real radio for more than a decade, and only survives today as nostalgia for hams.
None of the modern terms that have 'wireless' in them use it as anything other than an adjective, and except in a slangy sense always specify the noun (in your examples, 'networks' or 'communication' or 'data') or refer to the technology by its own name, like WiFi or Infiniband. Note that we don't have 'wireless' phones, we have 'cordless phones' or 'cell phones'.
I'm going to have to put the kibosh on 'autogyro' as it's like sand in the eyes to see it: the proper word de la Cierva used is 'autogiro' and that's what you should use too. Just yesterday I was reading proposals for compound lightweight experimental aircraft that would use an autogiro rotor with a Spratt control wing to achieve higher speed flight -- so no, the idea is still very much alive if not a common transportation term like the French Greek 'helico-pter')
No one knows a spittoon as a cuspidor any more; that was a particularly pompous euphemism for the thing. My maternal grandfather still uses spit cups when he chews, but they aren't objets d'art that are part of household decor -- and I do not expect a 21st-Century revival of that idea!
"
None of the modern terms that have 'wireless' in them use it as anything other than an adjective, and except in a slangy sense always specify the noun (in your examples, 'networks' or 'communication' or 'data') or refer to the technology by its own name, like WiFi or Infiniband. Note that we don't have 'wireless' phones, we have 'cordless phones' or 'cell phones'."
And what do you call a "smartphone" used in the mode of communicating either data or voice over a WiFi network, when available, instead of through a cell tower? Where I work, it is called "wireless", much as "tank engine" is a generic term for the saddle and side tank arrangement.
And what is text messaging besides a form of wireless telegraphy, where those young folk type with their thumbs on a 3-inch keyboard using a kind of stenographic code?
With the current generation using wireless telgraphy, smokeless tobacco and spitting on the sidewalks, what is next? Steam engines?
Paul MilenkovicAnd what is text messaging besides a form of wireless telegraphy, where those young folk type with their thumbs on a 3-inch keyboard using a kind of stenographic code?
You mistake my meaning (and Marconi's patent abuse). Wireless telegraphy uses the old kind of bi-state signalling (carrier either 'on' or 'off') with a wide-spectrum spark discharge to generate the RF.
The most irritating thing about this implicit waste of spectrum was that many folks who 'worked Cape Race' etc. were well aware that audio modulation of a RF signal was practical -- that was how they could distinguish among various stations independent of the 'fist' of particular operators - each rig had its own combination of tones.
The underlying technologies that make texting practical are remarkably more refined and complex than sending Morse with a spark gap -- even before we get into data modulation or asynchronous delivery. Don't confuse the UI with the underlying technology! (I have a Morse simulator running on my Mac as we speak, but I don't have to worry about FCC goons paying a call on me...and yes, my bug is a little overqualified for the job :-))
Paul MilenkovicWith the current generation using wireless telgraphy, smokeless tobacco and spitting on the sidewalks, what is next? Steam engines?
Perhaps.
But expect it to be called something other than a 'steam engine' in public. I'm still amused by terminology like 'organic Rankine cycle' (De-Learium, anyone?) or the term 'expander' for the part that does the work.
By the way the term "saddle tank locomotive" is included in the Dictionary of Terms in the 1930 Locomotive Builder's Cyclopedia, so it was not a term unknown to the professional end of the industry. It is defined as "A locomotive having a water tank over the top of the boiler and operated without the usual tender. Used for contractor's, industrial and suburban service."
That definition would exclude the (few) locomotives that had both the water tank on the boiler AND a tender. It would also seem to exclude the tank engines where the tanks, often squared off, were to the sides of the boiler, as in the old Mantua/Tyco model trains as well as several British and German examples.
I might also add that the "rent a locomotive" at the most recent steam festival in Owosso MI included an 0-6-0T, so it isn't just 0-4-0Ts. A friend ran it for half an hour and had a wonderful time.
Dave Nelson
There's a W.C. Fields movie, "International House" where he flies in an autogyro. I mean autogiro. Mmmmm, Giro. Lots of tzatziki on mine, please.
54light15 There's a W.C. Fields movie, "International House" where he flies in an autogyro. I mean autogiro. Mmmmm, Giro. Lots of tzatziki on mine, please.
One has a prominent presence in the classic, It Happened One Night, from right about the same time. Great movie, as is the remake from the 1950's that sadly lacks an autogyro, that stars Jack Lemmon and June Allyson.
I did not know they re-made "It Happened One Night." Let's also not forget "Little Nellie" the packed-in-five-cases "gyro-copter" star of "Thunderball."
But, it would be nice to rent a saddle-tanker. There's a few industrial sites with extensive rail systems here near Toronto that I'm sure wouldn't mind. But, better to get forgiveness than permission. Also, would I need the collision damage waiver or would it be covered by Visa?
54light15 Also, would I need the collision damage waiver or would it be covered by Visa?
Neither; you give them your existing locomotive insurance policy information and they use that.
Thanks for that. Have to check my policy. But, regarding "It Happened One Night." I recently learned that Clark Gable's easy nonchalance and general manner was the direct inspiration for Bugs Bunny, believe it or not. I choose to believe.
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