S. Berliner, III's Z-Scale (1:220) Model Railroad Page,
For modelers, the BERLINERWERKE (HO) Story, the story of the HO pike and Horsehoe Curve.
The full prototype Horseshoe Curve story will appear shortly.
The Z-scale Berlinerwerke-Z Saga is on a separate page.
My own LIRR pages may be of interest, as well (the Pennsy owned the LIRR from 1904 to 1966, having bought it out to gain access to Sunnyside Yard for Pennsylvania Station, and see also the Steinway System).
Visit these courtesy and official home pages:
Long Island Rail Road Historical Society
Long Island Sunrise - Trail Chapter (National Railway Historical Society)
Sunrise Trail Division (Northeastern
Region, National Model Railroad Association)
* - If you are a Pennsy fan (how can anyone NOT be?), there are endless sites to surf, some of which are listed at PRR Links; however, for me, the première site must always be that of the
The PRRT&HS Philadelphia Chapter runs a fantastic PRR Discussion Forum.
[Fans of Pennsy relative NYNH&HRR will be pleased to hear that the New Haven Railroad Historical and Technical Association, Inc. (NHRHTA) now has "THE NHRHTA NEW HAVEN RAILROAD FORUM"
(their site is wholly framed, meaning no separate direct URL, so you must go to the right-hand frame
and click on the link down near the bottom of the frame)
.]
One site that really got me, however, is Rob Schoenberg's, on which he has a PRR station sign maker, which allows you to assemble a Pennsy-style station sign in color, letter by letter. I'm trying to go Rob one better by adding a space, a hyphen, and an apostrophe. He has since superimposed a keystone outline (ya gotta have a keystone to make it a REAL make-believe Pennsy station sign!).
Rob also has on his site most of the PRR Equipment Diagrams! These are detailed below under PRR Links.
Also, for Pennsy fans with good imaginations (or strong stomachs), ya gotta see my Berlinerwerke Apocrypha page and its continuation page 2!
The rest of the links are at PRR Links.
On 18 Oct 97, I saw a film of the Sat./Sun. 12-13 September 1970 runs of the High Iron Company's Nickel Plate Berkshire 2-8-4 #759 running up the Curve and back, unassisted, with 15 heavyweight passenger cars at speed! Wow! I was there, but time dims even the keenest memories. Wow, again! It WAS 15 cars, I counted them; NOT 17 or 18 as I remembered.
I've finally added the Continuation Page 1, with Dimensions of the Horseshoe Curve, a mile-by-mile and even foot-by-foot guide to the Curve with actual (1:1) and HO scale (1:87.1) dimensions, and now Dimensions of the Horseshoe Curve in N (1:160) and Z (1:220) Scales to my Horseshoe Curve Continuation Page 3.
Also, on the Continuation Page 2, you'll now find an UPDATE of the BERLINERWERKE (HO) Saga.
These old shots, ca. 1955, from a retired PRR engineer, were sent to me by Jim Muhr,
and show fitting a driver tire in the Camden shop and taking water at a track pan
along the Juniata River on the PRR Middle Division at what must to be the Hawstone
pump/heater house (near Lewistown - see page 135 in Don Wood's "I Remember
Pennsy") with a loco approaching in the dark distance and a pair of M1s, one going in
each direction. The latter two pictures are so dark as to be almost unreadable,
so I artificially lightened them, thus all but wiping out the mountains in the
background:
(10 Aug 04)
(photos courtesy of J. Muhr - all rights reserved)
THE SOUTH PENN RR
(moved from the Horseshoe Curve pages to the main PRR page
and then here on 04 Feb 04)
The right-of-way of part of the Pennsylvania Turnpike was the right-of-way of the
still-born South Penn Railroad (abandoned 1885), and Mike Natale, who runs
THE TOLL ROAD MAP MASTER LIST, also has a page on
the abandoned highway and tunnels of the old route, with great color photos.
For far more extensive coverage of the
old South Penn, see Russ Love's
South Pennsylvania Rail Road site.
[New URL as of 12 Oct 2004, with maps of the Right of Way (AND no more
ads!).]
The old South Penn RR was originally thought to be the through route from
Philadelphia across the Allegheny wilderness to Pittsburgh and Chicago, but it never
quite seemed to get built. In 1883, William H(enry). Vanderbilt, Andrew
Carnegie, and other parties tried again; they were going to connect with the Reading
(heavily influenced by Vanderbilt) at Harrisburg and continue on to the P&LE and the
Lake Shore & Michigan Southern in the vicinity of Pittsburgh, with a tie-in to the West
Shore line across the Hudson from New York City. Work continued apace,
including nine Alleghany tunnels, three of which were almost a mile long each, until
threatened bankruptcy of the connecting railroads and other problems (depression,
etc.) brought work to a screeching halt. Court fights gave the West Shore to
the NYC and the South Penn to the PRR; the Pennsy let the South Penn go stagnant
for some 50 years until January 1935 when William Sutherland, General Manager of
the Pennsylvania Motor Truck Association, joked to Clifford Patterson, a Washington
County legislator that the South Penn right-of-way would make a dandy toll road to
help truckers beat the Pennsy. The idea took hold and on 23 April 1935,
Patterson introduced a bill to appoint a commission to look into the idea and, as they
say, "the rest is history". In 1937, Patterson introduced another bill which
authorized the Turnpike and it was signed into law on 21 May 1937. Work
commenced on 28 October 1938 and paving was completed on 29 June 1940.
So much for the South Penn Rail Road!
Ref.: "Pennsylvania Transportation", George Swetnam, Pennsylvania
History Studies: No. 7, The Pennsylvania Historical Association, Gettysburg, 1964/68.
Russ Love sent around this glorious photo of the South Penn right-of-way alongside
the Pennsylvania Turnpike (visible through the trees at left), looking downgrade back
towards New Baltimore or Bedford in Nov 2005:
(12 Oct 04)
(reduced from Nov 2005 photo courtesy of R. Love - all rights reserved)
[Click on thumbnailed image for larger picture.]
This looks so much like an old RoW at Cold Spring
Harbor on Long Island that also never saw trackage.
The "Main Line"
{moved here from PRR Cont. page 1 on 04 Feb 04}
It doesn't seem possible to me that I'd left this out, but I can't find it anywhere, so
here goes (again?):
The term "Main Line" derives from the "Pennsylvania Main Line
of Public Works and Utilities", that system of canals and inclined-plane and level
railroads, started in 1826 (with an initial appropriation of $300,000 - that
didn't get them very far), that first joined Philadephia to Pittsburgh back in 1829.
Running through some better neighborhoods in Philadelphia, it raised
property values, not the opposite, and so became linked with "upper crust" society.
In 1831, authorization was given to build an "Allegheny Portage Railroad" to
bypass the troublesome inclines; its opening in 1833 was effectively the death knell
for the canals (hastened by the opening of the PRR in 1852). Oddly enough,
horses were still in use on some parts of the APR as late as 1850. The
"New Portage RR" was completed in 1855 to bypass all planes and canals
and its RoW was used in part by the PRR, which emerged victorious, buying out the
canal system for $7,500,000 in August 1857, followed by the PRR buying out most
other Pennsylvania canals, and the canal system then faded away ingloriously ca.
1877, whereupon the PRR promptly raised its rates!
Ref.: "The Pennsylvania Main Line Canal", Robert McCullough and Walter Leuba, The American Canal and Transportation Center, York, 1973.
BNSF Red Rock Sub in OK/TX
{moved here from PRR Cont. page 1 on 04 Feb 04}
Why is there a BNSF item here on a PRR page? Because it is the partial story of
how a bunch of water tanks on the Red Rock Subdivision of the now-BNSF from
Oklahoma City (Norman) to Gainesville, Texas (and on to Ft. Worth) came to be named
for
towns on the PA Main Line, that's why! Some became towns that still exist.
From my old National Geographic map, road maps, and atlases, here they are, starting
halfway north from Ft. Worth (Marietta): Overbrook, Ardmore, WynneWood,
Paoli, and Wayne (not counting Gene Autry and a few other unrelated
towns between Ardmore and WynneWood). Note that all the "Main Line"
towns are north of the Texas line in Oklahoma.
{I added Overbrook and capitalized the second "W" in WynneWood.}
Supposedly, a PRR civil engineer went out to the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe in 1887
and did the naming; I'd put up a request for more background on the PRRT&HS
Discussion Web; I think this was covered here long ago but have lost my record of it.
I would swear there were more Main line towns out there but don't see any more on
the maps.
Ref: "ON LOCATION - Ardmore, Oklahoma", Dwane Stevens,
July 2000, TRAINS, pp. 70-73,
an article about the Red Rock sub that does NOT note the Main
Line connection.
More on B4a #643
[See The Only B4a Still Steaming (the only
B4a at all?) on the main PRR page.]
When I last visited Williams Grove, on Labor Day 2003 (01 Sep), #643 was
stripped down; they are operating with a tiny Whitcomb diesel sporting
#643's whistle (or one like it). Seems that not having any public
highway crossings, they are not covered by the NRA Boiler Code but, rather,
by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's DoT, whose boiler inspection is more
rigorous and she flunked! Her backhead has some thin spots and her
rating was dropped to 80#, which is enough for their minimal operation but NOT
enough for the air brakes! So, down she went and the smokebox was found
to be a rusted disaster; it was almost rotted through where the spark arrestor screen
support meets the smokebox barrel (just above where the the steam pipes enter the
valve chambers) and those areas have been cut out. They'll be rebuilt and a
new backhead will be fabricated and fitted.
Here's what I saw as I walked in:
(01 Sep 2003 photos by and © 2003, 2004 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
(01 Sep 2003 photos by and © 2003, 2004 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
The damage to the smokebox can be better seen on this blown-up detail from picture 8:
(Enlargement of 01 Sep 2003 photo by and © 2003, 2004 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
The Whitcomb at work:
(01 Sep 2003 photo by and © 2003, 2004 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
PRR Modeling
(including Penn Line and Cary) {moved from main page on 25 Nov 04}
Looking something up on the PRR J1 and N1, I found my ca.-1970 catalog for Cary
details and antimony-lead conversion boilers (no longer available) for (among others)
Penn Line (now Bowser) and Mantua chassis. The big "Hippo" boiler for the I1
Decapod 2-10-0, a monster boiler for the N1 Santa Fe 2-10-2, and a (relatively) small
boiler for the K2 and K3 Pacific 4-6-2 predecessors of the famed K4s. They were
designed to fit, respectively, the following mechanisms:
Big "Hippo" boiler for the I1 Decapod 2-10-0 to convert Penn Line (Bowser) I1
Decapod, PL (B) K4 Pacific, PL (B) L1 Mikado, PL (B) H-9 Consoliddation (with frame
extension) and Varney "Old Lady" Consolidation (with frame extension).
{This big boiler was also sometimes used to make a K5.}
Boiler for the N1 Santa Fe 2-10-2 to convert Penn Line (Bowser) I1 Decapod (no
frame extension required).
Boiler for the K2 and K3 Pacific 4-6-2 to convert Penn Line (Bowser) K4 Pacific, Mantua
Pacific, and (on special order) to convert the Mantua Mikado, PL (B) Mikado, and
Varney Pacific or Mikado.
I completely forgot to note here that I picked up an unfinished, yet complete,
Cary-and-Penn Line K2 kit ca. mid-2001 for a whopping $10!
Here, for comparison, are the Cary K2 (not K3, as previously stated)
boiler and an ancient Penn Line K4 boiler:
(21 Jan 02 photo by and © 2002 S. Berliner, III - All rights reserved)
Perspective prevents your seeing that the K2 is 1/8"
(3.2mm) shorter (from the boiler front to the cab) than the K4; note also the
dramatically smaller Belpaire firebox and ashpan.
This same K2/K3 boiler could make a Mikado 2-8-2 out of a Consolidation 2-8-0 (with
frame extension): Varney "Old Lady", or PL (B) H9.
Just for the record, it was Don Stromberg's Cary Locomotive Works of Cary,
Illinois, which was sold out to Bowser ca. 1980-85.
Incidentally, just so you dedicated collectors and fellow nit-pickers know, here's what
the Penn Line and Cary "builder's plates" and the equivalent area on a new Bowser
G5 look like up close:
(21 Jan 02 photos by and © 2002 S. Berliner, III - All rights reserved)
Penn Line's "PL", Cary Locomotive
Works's "CLW", and Bowser's " " (no plate!).
Here, courtesy of Harry Quirk in Pennsylvania, is his Cary K3 on an old Bowser K4
chassis, backdated to 1913, "just before the K4":
(23 Nov 04)
(cropped and doctored from photo by © 2004 H. Quirk - All rights reserved)
Harry got me off my duff and down to the cellar where I found the old cigar box in
which I'd gotten the K2, labelled "L.I.R.R. (PENNSY) K-2" (not by me). Since all
LIRR K2 and K3 locos were worn-out PRR locos foisted off on the LIRR, that shouldn't
make any difference. Inside was the Cary boiler shown above, a strange
chassis that sure as hell isn't a Penn Line or Bowser (perhaps a Mantua?), a
lightweight, fabricated K2/3-style trailing truck in lieu of the heavy KW truck of the
E6/K4/L1, and a Bowser low-side tender with Kiesel trucks instead of Dolphin trucks,
as well as a "K-2" {sic} tearsheet from a Cary booklet. The latter is
reproduced herewith:
(25 Nov 2004 scans by S. Berliner, III - All rights reserved)
[Thumbnailed images - click on pictures for larger images]
Note that there is no mention of swapping trailing or tender trucks, that, together
with the detailing parts, such as electric headlight and generator, cross-compound
air pumps, and a power reverse date the conversion to a very late K2, very near the
end of its service life (quite appropriate for an LIRR loco, except for the KW trailing
truck).
Odd HO AF15½ (FA-1½) Tuscan Shell - here's an oddity;
it's a well-detailed but unidentified Tuscan Red FA-1/AF-15 shell (possibly Model
Power or Life-Like), five-striped and numbered for PRR #5772, but too long for
an FA-1. I picked it out of the junk box at the Model Power in
Farmingdale, LI, NY. It's more like an FA-2/AF16 but lacks the
additional grille behind the air cleaner louvres; I show it here opposed to an
also unidentifed UP FA-1 #1506A:
(28 Feb 2005 photos by and © 2005 S. Berliner, III - All rights reserved)
That UP unit has the number 98801 and an illegible logo in a "C" cast on the
bottom of its fuel tank; there is no ID of any kind on the Tuscan shell.
I initially thought that the long Tuscan shell could make a reasonable facsimile
of an FA-2/AF16 simply by blanking off the last four louvre vanes, keeping the
louvre length of the UP unit (left), but the proportion of louvre to grille is 'way
off, so I tried blanking seven vanes and scribing in the regular grille lines and
that looks fairly convincing (right):
(28 Feb 2005 photos doctored by and © 2005 S. Berliner, III - All rights reserved)
Of course, there never were any Tuscan AF15 or AF16 freighters, so the shell
would have to be stripped and repainted DGLE.
Because of page size limitations, some of the material from the main
PRR Page and the Continuation Page 1 is now continued
on this Continuation Page 0; see also Continuation Page 2
and Continuation Page 3.
THUMBS UP!
THUMBS UP! - Support your local police, fire, and emergency personnel!
S. Berliner, III
To contact S. Berliner, III, please click here.
© Copyright S. Berliner, III - 2000, 2001, 2002,
2003, 2004, 2005,
2006
- All rights reserved.
Return to Top of Page
times since the counter was installed.
