S. Berliner, III's sbiii.com Railroad Page
keywords =
rail road way model train Z HO scale Ztrack Western Fruit Express WFEX Great Northern GN LIRR
Long Island Baltimore Chesepeake Ohio B&O C&O steam diesel boxcab locomotive
restoration Pennsylvania Pennsy PRR Kiesel Horseshoe Muleshoe Curve Berlinerwerke Vest Pocket
Degnon Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal BEDT Marion River Carry Adirondack Raquette Lake New
York Boston Westchester Atlantic Cross Harbor Dock Beyer Garratt Peacock
"
Updated:
02 Mar 2011, 14:10
ET
[original AT&T Worldnet Website begun 30 May 1996.]
|
URL:
http://sbiii.com/rr.html
[was at "home.att.net/~Berliner-Ultrasonics/rr.html"]
|
|
S. Berliner, III
Consultant in Ultrasonic Processing
"changing materials with high-intensity sound"
|
[consultation is on a fee basis]
Technical and Historical Writer, Oral Historian
Popularizer of Science and Technology
Rail, Auto, Air, Ordnance, and Model Enthusiast
Light-weight Linguist, Lay Minister, and Putative Philosopher
- The vast bulk of my massive Web presence (over 485 pages) has
been hosted by AT&T's WorldNet service since 30 May 1996; they are dropping WorldNet effective
31 Mar 2010 and I have to scramble to transfer everything by then. Everything's saved but
all the links have to be changed, mostly by hand. See my
sbiii.com Transfer Page for any updates on this tedious process.
sbiii.com
Railroad Page
RAILROADING
Hal Carstens passed away 23 Jul 2009 - see my
main Model RR page.
Workers of the world, unite;
you have nothing to lose but your
trains!
Re ex-railroad personnel
records - few railroads maintain any old ex-railroad personnel records
in their archives (nor do the LIRR, the LIRRHS, or I - so please don't ask).
Those records are most likely lost. Contact the U.S. Railroad Retirement
Board, which you can contact at 844 North Rush, Chicago, Illinois 60611,
312-751-4500. They also have a Web page at
The U.S. Railroad Retirement Board, with suggestions on finding genealogical
information.
(My thanks to George P. Elwood for this lead;
he runs a massive Erie/DL&W/EL
RR PHOTO Website.)
INDEX:
On this page:
RR Personnel Records,
First Internal Combustion Loco.
Link to ALCo Love Song (moved 16 Dec 99 to it's own separate page)
EMD Paean
Standard Gauge
On the Railroad continuation page 1:
1941 Loco Prices
TRAIN SHED CYCLOPEDIA (the publication)
On the Railroad continuation page 2:
RR Miscellany, including:
A and B vs. F Ends.
Southern Railroad.
B&O and C&O.
Bering Strait Tunnel.
On Railroad page 3:
Oddities.
including a Staten Island Trackless Trolley!
Articulateds (and Duplexiii).
Degrees of Curvature.
Degrees of Curvature.
RR Questions (Help).
On Railroad Continuation Page 4:
Anhalter Bahnhof - world's largest trainshed.
New York, Westchester & Boston Railroad.
(moved from this page 09 Oct 2001)
On Railroad Continuation Page 5:
New York, Westchester & Boston Railroad - continued.
On Electric Railroads Page
GE E10b Electric Switcher.
On other pages:
ALCO-GE-IR Boxcabs,
ALCO-GE-IR Survivor Boxcabs continuation page, with roster, and
ALCO-GE-IR Survivor Boxcabs continuation page, with notes,
ALCO-GE-IR CNJ #1000 Survivor Boxcab (the first production unit sold),
ALCO-GE-IR Boxcabs Continuation Page, including LIRR #401,
the world's first production diesel road switcher, and
Ingersoll-Rand Boxcabs, with a 1929 I-R boxcab brochure,
and I-R and GE Instruction Sheets for a 1929 600HP, 100-ton unit.
Baldwin (and Westinghouse) Boxcabs.
Other Boxcabs, with a boxcabs bibliography.
Odd Boxcabs, with air, steam, and gondola boxcabs!
Electric Boxcabs, with electric boixcabs, et seq.
Model Boxcabs.
S. Berliner, III's Pennsylvania Railroad Page
with THE SOUTH PENN RR
and PRR Modeling (Penn Line/Cary/Bowser)
Berlinerwerke Saga (HO-Scale, included with Horseshoe Curve information)
and continuation pages with prototype and HO/N/S scale dimensions,
satellite photo, pictures, description of the Horseshoe Curve.
PRR Track Charts:
Allegheny Div. - New Florence/Johnstown (MP 291) to
Duncannon (near Harrisburg, MP 113) - 2 pages.
Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal Railroad
EMD - Electro-Motive Division of GM - models, etc.,
including EMD engines EMD may never have dreamed of, such as
the great DDP45!
Railroads You can Model,
Marion River Carry Railroad* (now on its own page).
Vest Pocket Railroads You Can Model:
Degnon Terminal Railroad, plus
Murrer's Sidings,
Kearney Sidings, and
Blissville/Laurel Hill (and Maspeth and Fresh Pond).
Vest Pocket Railroads You Can Model - continued
Atlas Terminal RR
Schnabel and other Giant RR Cars, et seq..
The Whyte System of Classification (4-4-0, 4-6-2, B-B, etc.).
Long Island Rail Road
Victorian Stations Still Standing on the LIRR
(with dimensions).
LIRR Continuation Page 6, with
Nassau County Police 2nd Pct. Booth D/Locust (Interlocking) Tower.
Central RR of LI Page.
Brief History of the Central RR of LI.
Central RR of LI Continuation Page 1
Central RR Bridge.
Meadowbrook/Salisbury Plains Station.
Bethpage Branch.
Long Island Railroads
including:
Long Island Railroads (old and new flags)
[with a link to the NYCRR (Hell Gate)].
LIRR FIRSTS.
LI Railroads Bibliography Page
Long Island Rail Road Historical Society Home Page.
Brooklyn Historic Railway Association and the legendary LIRR Atlantic Avenue Tunnel.
(with debunking/definition of "TROLLEY").
New York & Atlantic Railway Courtesy Page (lessor of LIRR freight operations).
The closely-related New York Connecting RR now has a new URL and site.
Great Northern/Western Fruit Express (WFEX) Reefers
MODEL RAILROADING
plus Z-Scale (1:220) Model Railroading, and
Sub-Z-Scale with Z Meter Gauge,
Half-Z Scale - 1:440 Tiny Trains, and even 1:900 Tiniest Trains!
PRR Horseshoe and Muleshoe Curves
minor write up here; on separate page with Berlinerwerke Saga
Railroad Eagles - my/Dave Morrison's page about the Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal eagles.
HOW TO BOOT A STEAM LOCOMOTIVE or How to hostle without really tiring -
(Firing up a cold oil burner).
Juice-jackers (electric fans) {I really wrote that?} take heart, while not my favorite type of loco, they appear abundantly on my Odd Boxcabs page (of all places!) and scattered elsewhere throughout my RR and MRR pages; note also the D½, not only on my PRR page but also half-way down this page, and the DD3 on my Berlinerwerke Apocrypha page.
* - 31 Jan 02 - There is a comprehensive book about all
railroads, operating, disused, and abandoned within the Adirondack park
(and a few on the outskirts); it is Michael Kudish's Railroads of the Adirondacks.
While not about railroads, there is a book about the Fairchild Aerial Survey photos, "Cities from the Sky: An Aerial Portrait of America",
by Thomas J. Campanella, which shows an enormous amount of detail
around Boston's North Station (1946, page 16, and 1934, page 21), of
the 9th Avenue El yard next to the old Polo Grounds on the Harlem River
in 1940 (page 40), all Manhattan yards and the West Side freight line
in 1921 (endpapers), yards flanking the Brooklyn Bridge in 1931 (page
41), and many other pages with photos showing Somerville, Massachusetts
(1950, page 22), Washington's Union Station (1927, page 82,) Chicago's
Union Stockyards (1933, page 80), Gary, Indiana (USS Gary Works, 1950,
page 81), and many other cities; it is simply staggering.
Give Credit Where Credit is Due Department
I belong to other rail groups and subscribe to some rail magazines and read many more; here are some linked recommendations:
Pennsylvania Railroad Technical & Historical Society
publishes an outstanding quarterly, THE KEYSTONE
Kalmbach Publications
MODEL RAILROADER
TRAINS
Carstens Publications
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
RAILFAN & RAILROAD
RAILPACE Newsmagazine {railroading in the Northeast}
Long Island Sunrise-Trail Chapter
(National Railway Historical Society)
Sunrise Trail Division
(Northeastern Region)
(National Model Railroad Association)
Ztrack Magazine
The Newsletter for Z Scale Model Railroading
Z-Scale is only 1:220 with rails only ¼" apart!
It is about 2 times smaller than HO!
Steam Locomotive #35 Restoration Committee
(Friends OF LOCOMOTIVE #35 INCORPORATED)
Restoration of Pennsy Class G5 Long Island Rail Road 4-6-0 #35
PRR HORSESHOE and MULESHOE CURVES, with detailed descriptions of trackside features, dimensions, and elevations from New York to Pittsburgh.
BERLINERWERKE SAGA (the story of the Berlinerwerke layout in HO scale, included with Horseshoe Curve info.).
BERLINERWERKE-Z SAGA (the story of the Berlinerwerke layout in Z Scale),
which latter has had to be continued onto
six more pages!
including a Tour of
the Berlinerwerke-Z.
Berlinerwerke Apocrypha (tall tales of the BW and its equipment and such)
Berlinerwerke Apocrypha Continuation Page 1
Berlinerwerke Apocrypha Continuation Page 2 (more tall tales).
]and more and more!]
RSR (Ruhnian State Railways) Apocrypha Page 1
Berlinerwerke GG1 Apocrypha Page 1, et seq.
Berlinerwerke Guest Apocrypha (taller tales?):
NORTHEAST CORRIDOR FREIGHT ENGINES.
LEWELLEN NORTHERN GARRATTS.
CSXT AC100CBW and NSC CB100W-10 10,000 horsepower locos!
Kudos to Bill Russell; Bill has a RR site that is
unbelievable; I've never seen all of it, but there are zillions of
pages about NY metropolitan area railroading and rail-marine operations
(car floats, ferries, pocket terminals, BEDT, NYCH, LIRR and PRR, tugs)
etc. Take a look starting with his main PENNY BRIDGE (pennybridge.___) page {N.G.1}, or, better, his Penny Bridge page (now hosted at IPsoft.com) {O.K.}.
Note 1 - Oh, no, you won't! The "master link" that was there and tested and working is now a teen porn site!
Note that this is (was?) a "master" link; I am changing all other links to Bill's
on my site to lead here and I regret that you thereby lose all the carefully-crafted
special links to specific items that I had, but I am not about to recreate the many
occurrences.
One of his newsthreads is about the
Lower West Side Freight Line (the elevated trackage rotting away in
southwestern Manhattan, more properly the "West Side Elevated Freight
Line"); it reminded me of one or two rather bizarre features of NY City
railroading (the other is on the LIRR) page:
The West Side Elevated Freight Line runs through the former Bell Laboratories
building. In order to isolate the labs from the vibration of the trains, the entire
building is (or, at least, was) floating on giant pools of mercury! Really, truly.
Wonder what they'll do some day when that becomes an environmental hazard issue?
[Speaking of the New York Central, as an aside, I get e-mail from
someone whose e-address is nyc.rr so I inquired
but it stands for New York City @ Road Runner.com!]
Kudos also to Wes Barris, whose North
American Steam Locomotives is one of the finest RR sites in existence, covering
both original engines and survivors!
Metro NY area fans should visit Pierce Haviland's great
NJ, NY & CT Railroad Page.
Glenn Whitener has a great railroad
index.
The French have restored some really big electric
boxcabs (and other locos) down in Savoy (near the Swiss and Italian borders);
take a look at APMFS (l'Association pour la
Préservation du Matériel Ferroviaire Savoyard - the Association for the
Preservation of Railroad Equipment of Savoy - seulement en Français);
note also the immense roundhouse at Chambéry!
MAJOR REFERENCE LINK!
Jeff Scherb's great
"The Model Train Magazine Index
(new URL) - An index to Model Railroad magazines from 1933 to the
present", formerly sponsored/hosted by Accurail and now by Kalmbach.
Accurail produces among the finest HO and N freight car models, Kalmbach is one of
the two top RR publishers, and Jeff gives us an unparalled access to old articles on
models and prototypes; I strongly recommend Jeff's great work to you.
Adtranz, formed Jan 1996, merging rail
transportation activities of ABB Ltd. and Daimler-Benz AG took
DaimlerChrysler into the railroad business and the sale of the venture to
Bombardier, announced 04 Aug 2000, apparently takes them right out again!
FIRST I.C. LOCOS! - Gottlieb Daimler built an
internal-combustion-powered locomotive ca. 1890! Actually, according to the
DaimlerChrysler archives, it is quite hard to give exact dates, because Daimler's old
commission book entries do not reveal the date of delivery (or production) in some
cases and, moreover, it is sometimes very hard to tell what kind of vehicle is
described in these tramway- or railway-related commission book entries.
It is quite clear, however, that Daimler operated his first miniature railway waggonet
on 27 September 1887 on the occasion of the Cannstatt People's Festival.
A bigger tramway waggonet with a track of 600 mm (~2') was operated in 1889 in
Bremen in Northern Germany and in 1890 in the Prater Festival Park in Vienna.
In 1892, a different construction was used in the Prater Park: a two-axle miniature
tramway locomotive with a two-cylinder V-engine and non-motorised tramway wagons.
Daimler's commission book seems to indicate that the Prater tramway locomotive was
delivered on 18 January 1892. There are, however, two earlier
entries - one of 22 December 1888 and one of 05 August 1891,
both of them delivered within Germany. Unfortunately, DaimlerChrysler does
not know if these locomotives are the same as the one for the Prater tramway, and
this is the reason they used the phrase "about 1890" as the date for the first
motorized locomotive. I have long known of, and had a copy of (but misplaced),
an 1896 display poster from Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft of Cannstatt
which illustrates all the products of the company at the time, a stationary motor,
several boats, many road vehicles, and four rail vehicles, including a tiny boxcab
Locomotive, a Draisine (like an open section car), a Waggonnet (a motorized open car
with two benches back-to-back), and a Trambahnwagen (a streetcar). Here,
enlarged from that poster, "Bauprogamme im Jahre 1896" (1896 Product
Catalog) is the tiny boxcab locomotive:
(Detail of 1896 poster image #30 534 courtesy of DaimlerChrysler Classic Konzernarchiv,
by special permission - all rights reserved to DaimlerChrysler.
A scan of the entire poster will follow.)
Concerning the tramway waggonets as used in Bremen and Vienna, Daimler applied
for a German Patent for a "device for braking and accelerating of petrol-engined
locomotives" on 14 June 1890. The Patent (No. 57203) was granted
on 25 June 1891. It is also interesting to note the French spelling of
"locomotive", changed to "lokomotiv" in the Third Reich.
[The foregoing information is provided through the great courtesy of the
DaimlerChrysler Archives, to whom sincere appreciation has already been expressed
and is seconded here!]
RR QUESTIONS (HELP!) - moved to Continuation
Page 2.
- We moved from Long Island, New York, to the Boston, Massachusetts, area (West Medford) in Jul 2010 and our house backs
catty-corner on the MBTA's Lowell Line; that is the old Boston & Lowell RR, the nation's second oldest (1830) railroad. It's only a few miles
across Boston to the oldest (common carrier), the 1826 Granite Railway in Quincy. The leaves have fallen and, to my great surprise (not that
we didn't know it would be so), I looked out my rear window 22 Nov 2010 and there are the tracks of the Lowell Line across my neighbor's rear fence:
(22 Nov 2010)
(22 Nov 2010 photo by and © 2010 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
[click on thumbnailed image for a larger picture]
That's still West Medford across the RoW, the Grove Street bridge is about a ¼-mile to the south (left) and the West Medford station another ¼-mile
further south (Arlington is actually beyond the far trees, across Lower Mystic Lake).
(22 Nov 2010)
All day and much of the night, the "Purple People Pusher" rumbles by N/B (or "Puller S/B), with an occasional Amtrakker and a rare
03:00 freight; happily both my wife and I like the sounds. We can see them up close and personal by going out our rear fence gate and one day there was a great
roaring sound and I rushed out back to retreat in haste as a giant weed whacker threw big branches and loose ballast at me. There are no horns, except when a
person or animal ventures onto the tracks. The purple (and some parti-colored Wi-Fi) cars are hauled by a collection of wide-cab GP40MCs, F40PH variations,
and an odd GE U-boat (I think); the Trakkers by P42s; and the freights by Guilford/Maine Central GP40s [strangely, there was one S/B with a string of cylindrical
hoppers waiting to cross High Street at the West Medford station today (22 Nov 2010) at around 16:00 - most unusual (for me, at any rate)].
In the early afternoon of 23 Nov 2010, I waited for trains to run by and caught these two grab shots by pure luck; left, a N/B GP40MC at 13:25 and, right, a pair of
"Purple People Packers" with the orange overpaint of Wi-Fi equipped cars S/B at 13:50:
(22 Nov 2010)
(23 Nov 2010 photos by and © 2010 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
[click on thumbnailed images for larger pictures]
That N/B train seemed to have a bi-level or double decker behind the loco; I can't be sure as I was squinting through the viewfinder as it whizzed by before
the previous picture cleared (I'm using an old Olympus D-500L SLR).
Yup! Turns out I DID thee a puddy tat - I mean I saw a double-decker behind the loco of a north-bound train; the MBTA has 107 of them, Kawasaki "K" cars,
which Kawasaki calls "bi-level", with 75 more on order. Not only that, but I just saw a streamliner that looked a lot like an F59PH! O.K., no dream that,
either; it's one of two (#010 and #011, ex UTAX #13 and #14) MP36PH-3C Motive Power Inc. (in Boise) units brought in from Utah Transit, also with more to follow new
from MPI.
(22 Nov 2010)
A total stranger mailed me a clip from a deceased ancestor's photo album; it is undated and
shows the "R. I. Depot Rock Island" (Illinois. presumably); I've trimmed the
image but here it is in its entirety:
(30 Mar 2010)
(from the collection of S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
[click on thumbnailed image for a HIGH-resolution (1.3Mb) picture]
It must greatly predate the huge, "new", 13-14-story 1903 building; I'll donate the original
to an appropriate museum or historical society.
If you are a Pennsy fan, go to my PRR page, et seq.
Pennsy and NYC fans, visit my/Dave Morrison's RAILROAD
EAGLES page about the
Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal eagles.
Northeast railfans might also wish to visit Clint Chamberlain's
Railroading in the North East
(Northeast Railfan) site.
NOTE: There is now The
New York Connecting Railroad Society, an all-volunteer organization started in
1993 and recently incorporated to preserve the history of the joint venture between
the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New Haven (NYCRR and the Hell Gate Bridge); they
publish a newsletter, "The Connecting".
New York metro area railfans should also be aware of Pierce Havilland's
NJ, NY & CT Railroad Page.
No, I'm NOT related to the NYC's 19-car fleet of Beeliner
RDCs!
ALCo Love Song - The world doesn't rise and set on
PAs and RS-1s alone, but I love 'em and the material got out of hand and overloaded
this page, so please click ALCo to be magically transported
to the new page.
Incidentally, to see ALCo-built UP 4-8-4 #833 being picked up and carried like a toy,
see my Road Loads page.
Speaking of ALCo, how about this fantastic Jun 79 "David and Goliath"
shot [by "TAD" (Tim Darnell)] of LIRR GE 25-tonner #398 towing dead
FA-2m #600 (probably in the Morris Park yard) -
unless, of course, the FA is pushing the GE:
(cropped and enhanced by SB,III from 6/79 photo by "TAD", courtesy of A.
Inserra, - all rights reserved)
This is from Andy Inserra's Alcos in the
USA and Canada and Beyond site! That teen covered a lot of ground!
EMD Paean - As I wrote above, the world
doesn't rise and set on ALCo PAs and RS-1s alone; there are damn few "modern"
diesels I love.
There is something about the super-power wide-cab EMD SD-series, which
goes even further back for me to the original regular-cab DD-35 (there never actually
was any DD-40!), the cowl-unit F-45 and FP-45 [and my own DDP-45 model and
multiple derivations thereof (deviations therefrom?)] and really hit me with the
wide-cab DDA-40X, culminating in the current SD80MAC and SD90MAC (and my own
FP90MAC, abornin'). I shall dwell on these beasties on a separate page:
EMD - Electro-Motive Division of GM - models, etc.
06 Feb 99 - BEDT #16 stays on Long Island - - - BUT!
It had supposedly been given to the Union (New Jersey)
Railway Historical Society instead of to the Locomotive 35 group
for the Oyster Bay museum. It was confirmed; #35 was to get #16.
Now, it's at the Railway Museum of LI
in Riverhead (see my BEDT page)!
Now, lets keep the Expressway information car from the torch - well,
that didn't work!
RECENT PRICES OF LOCOMOTIVES - 1941 (moved to
RR Cont. Page 1 on 28 Apr 05)
If you enjoy history, especially that of Long Island, visit:
The Oyster Bay Historical Society
site.
We also had, here in Oyster Bay, a still-operable 1866
DUDGEON steam automobile; it is now in the Transportation section of the
Division of the History of Technology at the
Smithsonian's
National Museum of American History.
NEW YORK, BOSTON & WESTCHESTER RAILROAD
(moved from this page 09 Oct 2001)
A last gasp for 2001:
C&W RR? - I THOUGHT I heard that the "CNW" was not
running in NY City (!) after the terrorist attack
on 11 Sep 01 but it was a slurred announcement that the "C" and "W"
subway lines were down.
Standard Gauge (NOT "guage") - the distance between railheads on railroad
track, specifically 4' 8½" is the Standard Gauge used around most of the world
(5' in Russia). This was determined by the ruts left in the paving of Roman army
roads from the passing of standardized Roman army chariots, with their iron-tired
wheels. The width of the chariot was determined by the breadth of the
hindquarters of the Roman army chariot horses. Thus, Standard Gauge was
determined by Roman army horses' asses! Oh, 'tis true, 'tis true!
Note also that scale refers to reduction, such as 1:220 for Z or
1:87.08571428571428571428571428571428571---- for HO, while Z gauge is
only 6.5mm (~¼") and HO gauge is 16.5mm (0.650").
[More on "gauge" vs. "scale" at Scale and
Gauge under Z-scale.]
Anent nothing in particular, have a gander at this EMD SW-8{?},
modified for remote control for ArcelorMittal, the world's number one
steel company (probably for Chicago-based Mittal Steel USA) and
sitting on a McHugh rig:
(Image © McHugh - all rights reserved)
{click on thumbnailed image for larger, sharper picture.}
(Excerpted from above image © McHugh - all rights reserved)
TRAIN SHED CYCLOPEDIA - (the publication) -
moved to
RR Cont. Page 1 on 28 Apr 05)
You may wish to visit the Railroad Continuation Page, et seq.
of this series of Railroad pages.
LEGACY
What happens to all this when I DIE or (heaven forfend!)
lose interest? See LEGACY.
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
See Copyright Notice on primary home page.
THUMBS UP!
THUMBS UP! - Support your local police, fire, and emergency personnel!
Contact S. Berliner, III
(Junk and unsigned e-mail and blind telephone messages will NOT be answered)
© Copyright S. Berliner, III -
1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009,
2010
- all rights reserved.
Return to Top of Page
