Overmod-- From 1871.... no 'h' or 'h'? That is the question!
Don't shoot the messenger ....from Mike ..on Big Boy thread Overmod insists Wasatch be spelled Wahsatch. The spelling of the mountains can be modern but not the old station.
https://archive.org/stream/altacaliforniapa00unse#page/267/mode/2up https://archive.org/stream/crofuttstranscon00unse#page/82/mode/2up
I would love to meet all of you, but 8000 miles away is too much. If there is something important to you on this website, by all means download it and backup your computer hard-drive with one or more USB devices and even another computer's hard drive, only sensible thing to do.
The UP 4014 blog is too important for me just to read. So I am assembling it itio a pdf for a permanent place in my computer data library. But I was unhappy with the photo quality and decided to do something about it, and the results are:
Firelock-- Read the last few posts on String Lining. Come join us at the new 'Woodstock' for Forum members . Same to any and all. Meet NDG, Overmod, SD70DUDE, ride behind steam, maybe if we ask super real nice the Dude can get you up in the cab for a bit. Blow the whistle anyway! Its a spontaneous thing, that is what makes it great. End of July 30, 31, Aug 1 in Edmonton. Be a hoot.
Overmod says " I know I had read about them by the time I was 5 or so in those vague old pre-Internet days where the libraries or bookstores were your source."
...magazines, lots of magazines, about everything! ...and more importantly no one had the power to wipe it ALL out, take you down, control content all at a whim and a push of a button from who knows where. No one, short of nuclear war, can wipe out my books, my photos but a 13 year old hacker can just for giggles. Of course you know all this. Let me state however that I agree with you and for now the Internet is beyond terrific, just feel something uneasy about it.
To tie this Internet thought and a gathering of us Railbirds together in Edmonton I would like to say this:
We are all lesser people when we are on line than we really are. That is why it is important not to be a jerk when on line. It would be such a fabulous event to meet as many as possible Forum members.. what else you going to do in the dog days of summer. Come meet us all.
Hmmm, "...nuclear golf ball with a blast radius of 350 yards..."
Reminds me of when I was in the Marines and we were learning about the white phosphorus grenade, the ol' "Willie Peter." The thing had a burst radius of 30 yards, but the average Marine could only throw it 25 yards!
As the instructor said, "Do NOT give one of these things to the guy who never made the football team!"
Sound advice. Then again, in an infantry platoon most grenades wind up the hands of those most capable of throwing them anyway. I threw a grenade once. Believe me, once was enough!
54light15And why Pacific? Or Atlantic? Mogul? Mikado? I understand Decapod, but those?
You get different stories depending on source. "Atlantic" as I recall is from Atlantic Coast Line (1894); "Mogul" is from contemporary history (2-6-0 being big and powerful like the Indian rulers, whose name of course derives ultimately from 'Mongol'); "Pacific" may in fact refer to New Zealand, who in fact had the earliest true examples. About "Mikado" there is little doubt; the first example was built for Japan. If I remember correctly someone like Freeman Hubbard carefully worked out in an article or story as many of the names as he could; I know I had read about them by the time I was 5 or so in those vague old pre-Internet days where the libraries or bookstores were your source.
SD70DudeNow if I could just figure out where they got the "Ten Wheeler" name from I'd be set!
Four in the lead truck, and six drivers, of course. "American" locomotives were often known as eight-wheelers back in the day.
Remember that the use of names for wheel arrangements was one of those folk evolutions, in the absence of a formal taxonomy that could be 'scientifically' accepted. That is what the Whyte system so rapidly became after its introduction to the trade circa 1901. It is interesting to read descriptions of new motive power in Sinclair and other magazines prior to that date, and watch the fun trying to characterize the locomotives and their capacities without a simple numerical axle arrangement...
Might have been possible to name it the 'Baltimore' type (the Rogers engines being some early famous locomotives with that arrangement) but it's one of those things that never got resolved enough for people to use. There is an intermediate example of this effect in the use of 'Mastodon' for 4-8-0 vs. 'Twelve-wheeler' ... I do not consider the El Gobernador arrangement to be the 'Mastodon' but to be either known by its name or perhaps as 'Stevens' type.
Penny TrainsThis golf ball GUARANTEES a hole-in-one!
By making the hole larger than the course.
Reminds me of the story about, as I heard it, Teller and Oppenheimer during the '40s, in the days of 'Super' design before Teller-Ulam, Mike and lithium deuteride. Teller was explaining to Oppie that he expected the device, perhaps one of the multistage 'matrioshka' alarm-clock evolutions, to have a multimegaton yield. Oppie thought about this a moment and asked how large the prompt fireball from the device would be ... about 3 miles across. And then started laughing! Teller was a bit miffed at this, as you might imagine, and asked what was so funny. "I was just trying to imagine", said Oppenheimer, "a military target large enough to drop it on".
To paraphrase a National Lampoon joke, here's the Beckme Corporation nuclear golf ball, with a blast radius of over 350 yards! Of course, the average golfer can only drive it about 220 yards off the tee...
This golf ball GUARANTEES a hole-in-one!
What is it they say about horseshoes and hand grenades? WELL....thanks to "Becky Corp.", you can now add golf balls!
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
Jeez, I heard there was a deadly acid inside golf balls and if you cut into one and got it on yourself you'd melt right down into your shoes!
And '54, if I hadn't seen that Sparrowhawk in 1971 I wouldn't think there were any left either. Beautiful little airplane too!
I've heard that about golf balls. If I tried to cut into one of the old man's Titleists, it would have been the end of the world. For me, that is.
Firelock76From what I've read and heard the "Big Boys" were indeed supposed to be called "Wasatch" types after the mountain range they were meant to cover.
You left out the "h".
The original Romanization of the tribe name, the summit location, and the UP material on naming the locomotives all spell it "Wahsatch", and that is the spelling that applies to discussion of the type name.
It does not matter that other geographical entities spell it 'Wasatch' (or that John Rimmasch spells his company name that way).
54light15I sure didn't know that the Fat Man bomb was a modeled after a golf ball.
Surely you knew as a child not to cut into a golf ball because it would explode!
Now if you had a toy soccer ball of appropriate size, putting the harnesses and flanges on 'as appropriate' for pits (or to use a more PC euphemism, 'physics packages') would give you less reason for complaint...
Firelock, I didn't know that there was a surviving Sparrowhawk. And I sure didn't know that the Fat Man bomb was a modeled after a golf ball. Maybe Ben Hogan or some other old-time golfer played a few holes with the scientists?
Great! I just love the gallows humor in those old Lionel atomic cars!
erikemLooks like the original Fat Man for the Trinity test, which was often referred to as "the gadget" by LASL personnel.
I thought I should throw a train or two back in the mix...even if they are radioactive...
SD70DudeIsrael has never admitted to possessing the bomb, but numerous intelligence analysts believe they have nukes.
In the recent bio of James Jesus Angleton (head of counter-intelligence CIA 1954-1975) by jefferson Morley, it seems quite clear that Israel has long had the bomb. Angleton aided the Mosad bylooking the other way while a Jewish-American, who owned a processing plant in upstate NY, "lost" a great deal of fissionable material.
Firelock76 Penny Trains Here's a gadget: Oh my. I've never seen a golfball look so, so, ominous... Shall we call it "Tsar Titleist?"
Penny Trains Here's a gadget:
Here's a gadget:
Oh my. I've never seen a golfball look so, so, ominous...
Shall we call it "Tsar Titleist?"
Looks like the original Fat Man for the Trinity test, which was often referred to as "the gadget" by LASL personnel.
Backshop It's at the Smithsonian, according to wiki.
It's at the Smithsonian, according to wiki.
Right you are Backshop, it's on display at the Udvar-Hazy facility of the National Air And Space Museum near Dulles Airport. You beat me to it! Well done!
54light15 The navy still owns all their aircraft as well, including the Curtiss Sparrowhawks that are at the bottom of the ocean in the wreckage of the Akron and Macon. They won't allow what is left to be salvaged and possibly restored. The fact that no others exist isn't changing their minds.
The navy still owns all their aircraft as well, including the Curtiss Sparrowhawks that are at the bottom of the ocean in the wreckage of the Akron and Macon. They won't allow what is left to be salvaged and possibly restored. The fact that no others exist isn't changing their minds.
Unless the owner's wrapped it into a ball, or it's found a home in a museum somewhere, I know that at least one Sparrowhawk surivived. I saw it at an airshow in Lakehurst NJ back in 1971. I'm going to have to check that.
MiningmanKind of makes you wonder, governments being what they are, that there are not a couple of these stashed away somewhere in Siberia.
Won't do them any good; the tritium will long since have decayed. Nothing of meaningful yield does not have at least one fusion stage.
My recollection of the 'Tsar Bomba' device was that it was symmetrical, and one side was simply loaded and reflectored with dummy material to produce the lower yield. It is not that difficult to reach high nominal megaton yields with a multistage device if size and weight -- and dirtiness -- are not design criteria. As Teller noted, ten times the yield beyond a fairly modest point just lifts the same amount of atmosphere, but with higher velocity. Little point in making the rubble bounce faster...
Firelock76 Here's a good B-36 "might have been." I remember back in the early 70's there was a B-36 on display at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. A local group got the idea "Hey! Let's restore it to flying status!" The D-FW airport folks were all for it, and the group was well on their way, even to the point the got those big recip engines started, and then one day the Air Force showed up. "Nothing doing!" they said. "That's still OUR airplane! The airport's got it just as a loaner, so don't even think about making it fly again!" That was the end of that. Now in 2018, I believe the B-36 at the Pima Air And Space Museum in Tuscon AZ is the same airplane, but I'm not sure on that. I've been through D-FW several times, and didn't see any B-36 on display anywhere. That's something that would be hard to miss. www.pimaair.org/
Here's a good B-36 "might have been."
I remember back in the early 70's there was a B-36 on display at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. A local group got the idea "Hey! Let's restore it to flying status!"
The D-FW airport folks were all for it, and the group was well on their way, even to the point the got those big recip engines started, and then one day the Air Force showed up.
"Nothing doing!" they said. "That's still OUR airplane! The airport's got it just as a loaner, so don't even think about making it fly again!"
That was the end of that. Now in 2018, I believe the B-36 at the Pima Air And Space Museum in Tuscon AZ is the same airplane, but I'm not sure on that. I've been through D-FW several times, and didn't see any B-36 on display anywhere. That's something that would be hard to miss.
www.pimaair.org/
Firelock 76, Permit me to tie up what seems to be a loose end, and bring the story of the Pima Air B-36 to a 'Paul Harvey moment'.
Linked here is a Video of the attempt to bring that B36 in flyable condition.
@https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VykzdDTOHmU
Saw a presentation of the history of the Ft. Worth B-36, Can't remember the channel. It was started in the early 1990's, by a group of empoyees that had built it. " The Last B-36 built at the plant (Convair(?) in Ft.Worth"
They worked on it for a number of years in a hangar there at Carter Field, and were close to reassembly, when the folks at "Lockheed' pulled the plug, and put them out of the hangar, which was needed to build the F-35. So 'the group of re-constructors' had their plane covered abd put out in an adjacent field. Their efforts to find financing in that area to re-assemble the plane failed to gain enough dupport. SO, The Air Force, reclaimed the title to it. { The Air Force owns all those historic planes and only 'loans' them out for exhibition. The B-17 'Memphis Belle' was another that they had reclaimed back from the group in Memphis that had not maintained their exhibitionstandard.
Currently, here in Wichita, the B-29 'Doc' (airworthy( flies out of McConnell AFB) and is temporarily housed in a Hangar at Spirit Aviation...The City of Wichita is in the process of building an exhibition hanger at Deight D Eisenhower Airport (nee: Mid Continent A/P).
Ah, thank you so much sir! Now I can sleep tonight...
If I recall correctly .... I know you didn't ask me but thought I would answer
Erikem, sorry but I have to ask.
What does IIRC mean? I know LOL, IMHO, FWIW, and OMG, to say nothing of "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot," but IIRC has me scratching my head.
Penny Trains It was Andrei Sakharov who decided to trash the 100Mt design that Kruschchev wanted and go with the 50Mt version. His reasoning, as I heard it, was that at 100Mt the fireball would be the width of the Earth's atmosphere and half the blast would go off into space, so why waste the Uranium?
It was Andrei Sakharov who decided to trash the 100Mt design that Kruschchev wanted and go with the 50Mt version. His reasoning, as I heard it, was that at 100Mt the fireball would be the width of the Earth's atmosphere and half the blast would go off into space, so why waste the Uranium?
IIRC, 50MT is about where the blast does more to punch a hole in the stratosphere than increasing blast radius. The weight of the atmosphere for above a given area at sea level is equivalent to weight of a five mile long horizontal column of air at sea level with the same cross-sectional area.
IIRC, the main reason that Sakharov went with the 50MT design was concern about world wide fallout, which would have been getting close to the total of all of the previous testing. The change from the 50MT design to the 100MT design was replacing the lead casing with depleted uranium casing, with the extra yield coming from the depleted urnanium being fissioned by the neutrons generated by the fusion reactions.
"Neither confirm, nor deny..." is the Israeli policy, and a wise one too. "Keep the bad guys guessing" is a sound strategy, especially for the Israeli's.
When they say "Never again!" they're not kidding. I don't blame them either.
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