B&O and C&O.
Railroad Eagles - my/Dave Morrison's page about the Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal eagles.
Z-Scale (1:220) Model Railroading.
Z-Scale Page 3 with
Half-Z Scale - 1:440 Tiny Trains and even 1:900 Tiniest Trains!
HOW TO BOOT A STEAM LOCOMOTIVE or How to hostle without really tiring -
(Firing up a cold oil burner).
Give Credit Where Credit is Due Department
See the preceding page.
RAILROAD MISCELLANY
How's this for a REAL station sign?
(more at the Berlinerwerke-Z Saga and
Language pages):
(SB,III Photo)
LLANFAIRPWLLGWYNGYLLGOGERYCHWRYNDROBWLLLLANTYSILIOGOGOGOCH.
1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678
10 20 30 40 50 58
For the pronounciation and translation, turn to
Llanfair P G's own village page, which just may have the longest URL, as well!
This is so wonderful (and awful) that I'm putting it first:
FRA terminology took two giant steps backward, per a deliberately-unnamed Ringling
Bros.-Barnum & Bailey trainmaster; I mentioned to him evidence (grooved ties) of
equipment going on the ground at the Garden City freight yard as
the RBBBC circus* train was being assembled by the NY&A to pull to NYC. It
seems that such things, also formerly known as derailments, are
henceforth termed WHEEL RAIL RELATIONSHIP DISCREPANCIES!
Worse yet, a stripped screw situation is now a FASTENER
RELATIONSHIP DEBILITATION! I kid you not! Since I had the
feeling that my leg was getting longer than an RBBBC elephant's trunk, I cautiously
inquired about same of a NY&A freight trainmaster (also mercifully unnamed here)
who confirmed it as gospel. This led to a disheartening discussion amongst
both crews as to the sad state of our society and culture.
* - The word "circus" may have to be dropped because of the vociferous
clamor of animal rights activists!
Will "bread" follow?
Incidentally, the RBBBC train that day (24 Mar 98) was the Blue Train, with 55 cars
stretching 4,900' and weighing (coincidentally) 4,900 tons!
Now, I like a really handsome old-time steamer (The General) and I love the
Hell Gate Bridge so I have to show this old post card which Bernie Ente
turned up (shot by Walter Zulig ca. 1964 at the time of the unauthorized N. Y.
"World's" Fair):
This, of course, is on the viaduct; if you look carefully, you can make out the
Hell Gate arch over the right cylinder.
Bernie has asked Walter for details about this picture.
Because much information about railroads is in German, you might find Chris Ozdoba's
Eisenbahn- und Modellbahn-Wörterbuch - Deutsch-Englisch / Railroad and Model
Railroading Dictionary - German-English of value.
Ca. 1940, my dad took me to Washington on the Pennsy (we flew back in a
DC-2); I specifically remember riding almost the entire way on a circular plate
in the floor between two halves of an articulated dining car with a full-width
diaphragm between the halves, so that there was no restriction of passage between
them. Does anybody know what car (set) that was?
Hoorah! A new Penn Station (in NYC) has been authorized!
See my LIRR page.
I (07 Aug 99) put up a Pennsy page (another one?);
there's so much that doesn't appear (or belong) on my
Horseshoe Curve pages. The right-of-way of part of the Pennsylvania
Turnpike was the right-of-way of the still-born South Penn Railroad (abandoned 1885);
more on the old South Penn RR on my PRR page.
Speaking of handsome old-time steamers (the General, above), here's one my sister
snapped directly behind a cousin's house in Scottsdale, Arizona:
[Jul 02 photos by S. Berliner, III's sister - all rights reserved]
That's Magma Arizona Railroad's October 1907 Baldwin Locomotive Works 4-6-0 #6,
which hauled copper ore from Superior to Magma, Arizona for 38 years, owned by the
Scottsdale Railroad and
Mechanical Society, sitting at the
McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park.
The other two shots are of (very-)narrow-gauge mine equipment and a stack of
left-over Atlas Snap-Track (I never knew they made track for 12" = 1' scale!).
I could have sworn I wrote up a trip ca. 1950 to Cornell (Ithaca, NY) as the sole
occupant of a NYC (?) sleeper somehere but can't find it. Odd! Anyway,
on the return trip - - - nope! It had to have been on a later trip when this
would have been remarkable; probably on a D&H train from Montréal ca. 1975,
passing through Albany station southbound, there was an old NYC Mohawk tender
sitting facing south on a spur track directly against the eastern wall of the south end
of the station building. Anyone remember this or know what it was all about?
A and B vs. F Ends
(and 1 and 2 Ends).
A lot of railfans and modelers have no idea what the small letters "A",
"B", and "F", stenciled on the far ends of the sides of locomotives
and cars represent. Taking them in reverse order, "F", logically
enough, means the "FRONT" end, the end facing the normal or preferred
direction of travel. "B" designates, again logically enough, the end
with the "BRAKE" wheel or staff, leaving the "A" end to be the end
away from the brake wheel or staff. Simple enough?
BUT, what about locos labelled "1" and "2" at the ends?
As far as I can tell, "1" = "F", and "2" must therefore be
the other end (clever, eh?).
OVERWIDTH (FAT) AMTRAKKERS?
The AP put out a release that hit my paper (NEWSDAY) 08 Jan 99 to the effect that
Bombardier
made the 20 new Amtrak high-speed tilting trainsets too "fat" (4" too wide) to take
the curves of the Metro Corridor at speed at 6.5 degrees of tilt without being thrown
outwards. Amtrak's VP David Carol is quoted as saying that the extra width
limits them to 4.2 degrees of tilt while Bombardier maintains that they can meet the
scheduled run times at trip-speed requirements at 4.2 degrees tilt. OK, guys,
who're gonna be the suckers who find out the hard way?
Bernie Ente is a gold mine of RR info; he sent me this gem from Eastern Rail News:
The Snow-Jet went out of control while blowing out the west departure yard of BRC's
Barr Yard {Belt Railway of Chicago - formerly B&O's major yard there - SB,III},
running into the side of CN T347 which was doubled up trying to leave. The
Snow-Jet was estimated to be moving 70mph at the time of impact sending it's two
operators to the hospital and derailing the car that was hit.
Bernie also sent this shot of four old Trakker drunks elbowed up to the bar (well - - - ,
these appear to be "A" ends and "F" and they're NOT overwidth, anyway); it
was February 1998 at Sunnyside Yard and he caught Genesis #707, AEM-7 #948,
FL-9 #485 with #486 behind it, and a Stealth Genesis [that's what it looks like to me],
"Northeast Corridor" unit #103. I stuck this shot here because it's not PRR
(not any longer) and it's not LIRR (not really) but I liked the shot too much (will you
look at all that spaghetti overhead!) to can it {canned spaghetti? high
overhead? too much wry whiskey?}:
[Feb 98 photo courtesy of B. Ente - 1998 - all rights reserved]
Lazybones, settin' in the sun - how they gonna get their days work done?
A perfect segué to the Southern (and southern rails):
SOUTHERN
A friend was born and raised in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where she was thrilled by the
Southern and especally by its streamliners; she remembers with great joy the day the
first one came to town. Her brother sent up a page from the Business News
(apparently from the Hattiesburg "News") of 11 Nov 98 about a book on sawmills and
logging railroads in Forrest and Lamar counties, "Steam Whistles in the Piney
Woods" (that's yellow pine). The author, Gilbert H. Hoffmann, was
Bill, the younger brother of one of her best friends. One of the outfits
described in great detail is the Tatum Lumber Co., which ran a 60-ton Shay, #5.
Tatum aquired the Bonhomie & Hattiesburg Southern Railroad to carry logs from its
63,000 acres of timber in Forrest, Lamar, and Green Counties to its sawmill south of
town. Old man Tatum, W. S. F. (Willie Slon {or Sion} Franklin) Tatum, was well
known to the local kids. Little did my friend's brother know to whose attention
the article would fall! Looks like a super book for those of you who like southern
railroading and logging operations, heavily and well illustrated; there will shortly be a
sequel. The publisher is Hoffmann's own Longleaf Press, P. O. Box 15723,
Hattiesburg, Mississippi 39404
(not to be confused with the Longleaf Press at Methodist College in
Fayetteville, North Carolina).
The Southern had connections at Washington with the Pennsy and, in the glory days
of steam, must have had occasions when Pennsy K4 Pacifics met Southern PS-4
Pacifics to swap trains. Two of the grandest locomotives of all time! A
Southern PS-4 is enshrined for all to admire, in all her gorgeous Crescent Limited
green-and-gold livery, in the
Smithsonian's
National Museum of American History; I couldn't readily find a picture but here is
Jim Jordan's beautiful painting
of a PS-4, the "Queen" as he calls it (though why he shows a heavy industrial
background for one of the world's most beautiful steam passenger consists, which
traversed magnificent southern scenery, is beyond me):
Louisville & Nashville fans can go to Bryan Turner's
L&NRR e-Group and to
Louisville & Nashville and Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railroads page.
Bryan Turner also documents the
LIRR HEP ALCo FA-1 and -2 cabs, many of which were ex-L&N units.
If you like railroads (obvious) and ordnance (esoteric), take a look at my
ordnance page; there's a huge railroad gun there and
a commercial model of it at the end of my model railroad
page. It's the biggest ever, the German 80cm (31½") D1 "Dora" or "Schwere
Gustav"; she spanned TWO tracks when set up to fire!
Wow, plans show both a roadable version of
Dora/Schwere Gustav and one to hide in a tunnel!
There is also a 14" railway gun at the U.S.
Naval Historical Center at the Navy Yard in SE Washington, D.C.; it was one of
eight built for service in Europe in WWI.
Speaking of railway guns, a Dutchman, Henk Timmerman, has a site featuring the
"Great Patriotic War
Museum" in Kiëv, Ukraïne, with a Soviet railcar with two huge 122mm heavy tank
turrets.
B&O and C&O
= = = · = = =
DISASTER!
The snow load on the roof of the B&O museum caused fully one-half of the roof to
collapse early in the morning of 17 Feb 03!
See the
CNJ #1000 Boxcab Locomotive page 2 for more!
= = = · = = =
I'm not terribly "into" these two great old flags, except for (off hand) these items:
The B&O was one of the very first customers for boxcabs
(#1-cum-#95-cum-#8000, the second production
60-ton switcher, which survives), and B&O #50, the
world's first high-speed road passenger diesel (which also survives).
It had one of the sexiest (if not biggest) Yellowstone 2-8-8-4s ever built:
Baldwin-built B&O 2-8-8-4 Class EM-1 {Photo by Robert L. Hundman}
(image Challenger Imports's site.
B&O 2-8-8-4 Class EM-1 #659 shown at Butler PA 5/28/61 {Bob Rathke Photo}
detail of image excerpted from
George Elwood's site.
Major spotting feature - a small skirt, only about 3' long and 6" deep at the bottom
rear of the tender sides. Why?
Here's a classic view of an EM-1 from Wayner Publications's undated "Giants of the
Rails - An Articulated Steam Pictorial", page 22:
(Bert Pennypacker photo - no other provenance given)
On 20 Oct 2009, I found three 8" x 10" glossy B&W photos which I
acquired ca. 2005 and for which I have absolutely no provenance, other
than what's written on the back, as noted:
(20 Oct 09)
(S. Berliner, III collection - all rights reserved)
On back: "B&O 7605 / photo by J Colias / Newcastle 6/56"
(S. Berliner, III collection - all rights reserved)
On back: "EM-1 / B&O 7604 / Newcastle 9/13/56"
(S. Berliner, III collection - all rights reserved)
On back: "B&O 7629 / Newcastle 4/14/56"
- I need an HO tender for an
original Akane EM-1 - has anyone got one to spare?
See the Articulateds section on RR page 3.
The C&O had many great features, such as their one-of-a-kind
2-6-6-6s (a design shared with the Virginian) but the hairiest thing I recalled,
and couldn't find, was their gigantic THREE-truck Vanderbilt tender!
(13 Dec 05)
I couldn't find any such because it's a B&O tender! Thanks to
Hal Carstens, publisher of Railroad Model Craftsman, I now know that
this monster was 53' long, held 28 tons of coal and 20,000 gallons of
water, and was used behind Class EL-6a 2-8-8-0 articulateds. The
overall truck wheelbase was 35', with the third truck centered between the
outboard pair.
____
|B&O/___________
|_______________)
o-o o-o o-o
The steamlocomotive.com
tenders page states: "The B&O - - - had some very odd ones which had three
four-wheel trucks, rather than two six-wheel."
Here, thanks to the personal courtesy of Hal Carstens, are the photo and drawing
from page 13 of the Nov 1943 issue of RMC's predecessor magazine,
Model Craftsman:
(both images from Model Craftsman Magazine, © 1943 Carstens
Publications, Inc., by special written permission - all rights reserved)
NOTE: These two images are the exclusive property of Carstens Publications,
Inc., and may not be reproduced for any purpose whatsoever without the express,
prior, written permission of Carstens Publications, Inc.
The photograph suffers from an extreme moiré pattern caused by the scanning and
copying procedures picking up and emphasizing the printing screen. I tried
taking out the pattern but it coarsened the image too much; please bear with the
pattern.
Larry Sagle is quoted as saying the center truck was used to avoid having to build a
heavy frame for so long a tender; guess the tender was NOT intended for use on
rough track!
The article was also published in The Model Craftsman Locomotive Plan Package,
Book 2, page 58.
The B&O RR Historical Society Archivist advised that the photo I remember seeing was
in the book "B&O Power: 1829-1964", which turns out to be by Lawrence W.
(Larry) Sagle and Alvin (Al) Staufer, Wayner Publications, Dec 1964, ISBN: 0944513069,
and the photo was apparently taken by (or from the collection of) Charles S. Roberts.
Incidentally, the Milwaukee Road's Hiawatha streamliners had an odd tender trailing
their 4-4-2 steamers; it had a SIX-wheel truck in front and a FOUR-
wheel truck in the rear! Ref: TRAINS, July 1973, "Would you
believe it? - Slip from Glory", page 39.
Actually, the C&O/VGN 2-6-6-6 Allegheny had a tender with a six-wheel truck in front
and an eight-wheel truck behind.
If you are a B&O or C&O buff, you should especially see the write up about the
B&O Railroad Museum on my dedicated
CNJ #1000 Survivor Boxcab page.
FYI, the B&O has an Historical Society, as does
the C&O.
See also Staten Island RR on page 4.
Bering Strait Tunnel
When President Clinton was first inaugurated, I sent him a proposal for a Bering Strait
Tunnel, which he or his staff ignored (of course). It included gauge changing,
on the Alaska side (for our economic benefit), and is an easy engineering feat
(vis-à-vis the Chunnel).
More on this follows on a separate Strunnel page.
Oddities, including a Staten Island Trackless Trolley! -
moved to Railroad Page 3 on 21 Apr 00.
NEW YORK, BOSTON & WESTCHESTER RAILROAD - moved to Railroad Page 4
on 17 Mar 03.
Degrees of Curvature - moved to Railroad Page 3
on 21 Apr 00.
RR Questions (Help) - moved to Railroad Page 3 on
21 Apr 00.
Steam lovers, see my Science and
Technology page! Ah, the power of steam!
There is an incredible simulation program by Charlie Dockstadter on steam valve gear
available on the Alaska Live Steamers
VALVE GEAR ON THE COMPUTER page.
THUMBS UP!
THUMBS UP! - Support your local police, fire, and emergency personnel!
S. Berliner, III
To contact S. Berliner, III, please click here.
of this series of Railroad pages.
© Copyright S. Berliner, III - 1999, 2001, 2002,
2003, 2004, 2005,
2009
- All rights reserved.
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