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.
I am not a fan of Dreyfuss styling (nor even of most Loewey designs,
Sharks excepted) but this Larry Grossman 32" x 24" poster came
in on the cover of Historic
Railfan's catalog (08 Feb 06), which was badly mangled, showing
"a trio of bullet-nosed J3a Hudsons - - - by a coal station in
Schenectady, New York", and I just HAD to repair it as as much as I
could and show it here:
{L. Grossman image from Historic Rail - all rights reserved)
TRAIN SHED CYCLOPEDIA
(the publication)
and moved here from the main RR page on 28 Apr 05.
On this site, especially in the BOXCABS section, I make
extensive reference to, and borrow liberally from, a publication of the mid-1970s put
out by by Newton K. Gregg, Publisher, of Novato, California. In
particular, volumes No. 15 of January 1974, No. 20 of June 1974,
and No. 43 of March 1976, covering "HEAVY TRACTION 1922-1941",
"DIESEL ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVES 1925-1938", and "DIESEL & OIL
ELECTRICS from Westinghouse (1930) and Ingersoll-Rand (1936)" have been
fabulous sources. As I state elsewhere, the material extracted from these
volumes is not of my origin but is from TRAIN SHED CYCLOPEDIA, for which Gregg did
not claim copyright; nevertheless I give full credit and provenance in each instance.
However, be advised that Karen Stephans, owner of
Stephans Railroad History of Talbott, Tennessee, a dealer in RR books, etc., has
purchased all stock and rights to the TRAIN SHED CYCLOPEDIA effective 09 July 2004
(or earlier). Click
here for a listing of available old issues and new reprints.
I met Karen at the NMRA National Train Show in Seattle 09-11 Jul 2004 and she had a
very large selection of TRAIN SHED CYCLOPEDIAs on display but if anyone has issues
not available through Stephans, please consider contacting
Karen re reproduction so we can all benefit.
Please note that many of these photos are builder's or owner's photos and rather
arty and so I have taken the liberty of cropping many to minimize the memory used;
this is a history of technology, not of the art of photography.
RECENT PRICES OF LOCOMOTIVES - 1941
(source - Marks' Mechanical Engineers' Handbook, Fourth Edition, 1941)
{moved from main RR page on 28 Apr 05)
WEIGHT in lbs. COST of COST/LB.
TYPE (loco only) Loco & Tender (loco only)
4-8-4 (passenger) 476,000 $151,000 31.8ó
2-10-4 520,000 133,000 25.6
0-8-0 279,000 73,000 26.2
4-6-6-4 625,000 181,650 29.0
2-8-4 436,500 122,900 27.9
4-8-4 (freight) 468,000 138,000 29.4
4-6-4 409,000 142,000 34.6
Diesel-electric streamliner
locomotive, two 1,800 hp units
semi-permanently connected $378,000;
same, single 1,800 hp unit 190,000;
Diesel-electric switcher, 600 hp, 70,000.
The handbook states that there were 795 electric locomotives in use in the U. S. at
the end of 1938, of which 36% were for passenger service and 40% for freight.
The handbook further states that there were 250 oil-electric locomotives in use in
1938, of which 225 were switchers. No prices were given for electrics or for rail
motorcars. You might compare these to current MP15AC or reworked FL9 costs.
Superior Diesel Engines (and Ingalls/GM&O #1900)
Will Davis, who has a
major site about locomotives, especially diesels, was quite lucky to acquire a
brochure, Bulletin No. 4707, "Superior LOCOMOTIVE DIESELS / ENGINE MODELS 40
and 65", published ca. 1947 by the Superior Engine Division of National Supply
Company in Springfield, Ohio. It is about the Superior Models 40 and 65 diesel
engines for application in diesel-electric locomotives and features the odd turret-cab,
one-off Ingalls Shipbuilding Company Model 4-S locomotive, which became Gulf, Mobile
& Ohio (GM&O) #1900 in mid-1946. Here is the cover of the brochure:
{Photo courtesy of W. B. Davis - all rights reserved)
Superior never made it into U. S. production diesel loco engines, although they did
power many export locos, especially Whitcombs. They also repowered a
number of engines, including these two boxcabs,
American Aggregates #638 and Chiriqui Land #6:
{Photos courtesy of W. B. Davis - all rights reserved)
American Aggregates #638 is rather odd looking because it was originally built as an
interurban freight motor, owned by the Cincinnati & Lake Erie. It was sold to
American Aggregates, which converted it from external (trolley wire) power to internal
diesel-electric power (American Aggregates made many other such conversions but
this is the only one known to have been equipped with a Superior engine.
Chiriqui Land Company #6 was a small
General Electric boxcab originally powered by a Winton / EMC 201 series diesel
engine; by inclusion in this brochure, one can logically prfesume it was later
repowered with a Superior engine.
Will has several pages on the Superior brochure,
Superior Diesels for Locomotive Service. There you can find
never-before published photos of Ingalls GM&O #1900, showing that it had a
clerestory roof behind the cab to accomodate the tall Superior engine and a
passenger car vestibule and steps at the rear.
NYC PACEMAKER WRECK - 1952-54
Here are hitherto(like that word?)-unpublished photos of the wreck of
the NYC's Pacemaker around Rensselaer, New York (south of Troy and
across the Hudson from Albany) ca. 1952-53 or 53-54(? - I can't find
a Web record of the wreck, with the exact date):
(24 Jul 08)
{1952-54 Photos by and © S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
[Click on thumbnailed images for larger pictures.]
I was cruising around Poestenkill or thereabouts with some of my
buddies from RPI when we heard of the wreck on the radio and spun
around and dashed for the river. A huge boulder had popped out
of the hillside, landed smack on the northbound track, and was
clobbered by the westbound Pacemaker, the lead engine of which vaulted
into the river on its left side, drowning the engineer. The
trailing unit (NOT a B unit as I originally thought - they were
back-to-back A-units) was crushed and the head-end car (baggage, as I
recall) had its nose pushed in.
[The above photos above show looking down on the trailing unit by
moonlight and work at night.]
I had climbed a tree and got the big hook rerailing the trailing unit
at night, illuminated only by its own {the hook's} lights. The
next morning, bright and early, I got the trailing unit and the
baggage car before a bull chased me off:
{1952-54 Photos by and © S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
[Click on thumbnailed images for larger pictures.]
These were taken with an old bellows Voightlander so must be on large
format 120 or 127 film.
I was too green and too techie to realize at the time that the
newspaper would have paid me for the photos.
I'll have to go dredge up the envelope with the original prints and
negatives. Most of my old photos are dated and annotated.
Not exactly current railnews, but perhaps of interest to rail
historians. It was covered in the local papers the next day.
Does anyone have more info. on this wreck?
EMD FL-9 Third Rail Pick-Ups - to detail some LIRR models I'm
working on, including an FL-9 and some apocryphal ones, I wanted color
pix of the mounted third rail pick-up equipment. Most of the
extant FL-9s have the gear removed and those few that still have the
beams in place have no shoes left. To the rescue came
Wayne Koch, rail photo source par excellence, with this old
postcard view of Penn Central FL-9 #5033 at Harmon, replete with full
pick-up gear:
(09 Dec 08)
{Postcard from W. Koch collection - all rights reserved)
[Click on thumbnailed image for larger picture.]
Wayne would dearly love to know who those guys might be.
To save you eyestrain, here are the rear and front trucks cropped out
and enlarged:
{Cropped from postcard from W. Koch collection - all rights reserved)
Thanks, Wayne!
Hot Time on the Old Bridge! - This is an Internet oldie which I
had posted at one time and which had since vanished, so here we go
again; it relates how a UP coal train was moving through Sharon
Springs, Kansas, towards Salina. After a few miles, a wheel
bearing overheated and melted, letting a metal support drop down and
grind on the rail, creating white hot molten metal droppings spewing
down to the rail. An alert crew noticed smoke about halfway back
in the train and immediately stopped the train in compliance with the
rules BUT - - - they stopped with the hot wheel over a wooden bridge
with creosote ties and trusses. In defense of the crew, they
tried to explain this to the higher-ups, but were instructed not to
move the train, with this magnificent result:
Gotta LOVE it!
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.
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© Copyright S. Berliner, III - 1999, 2001, 2002,
2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008,
2009
- All rights reserved.
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