NRHS
The other night (Thursday, March 18, 2010) I attended the regular monthly business meeting of the Rochester Chapter of the nationwide National Railway Historical Society (NRHS).
I'm a railfan, and have been since age two — I'm 66.
The National Railway Historical Society has been around since 1935, as has its Rochester Chapter, founded in 1937.
I just received my 25-year pin. I joined in 1985, primarily to receive their newsletter, in hopes of keeping track of any local railfan excursions.
I had just missed one behind restored Nickel Plate steam-locomotive #765 — at least two long mainline trips from Buffalo to Corning, NY, and back over a weekend.
How useful that newsletter has been is debatable.
Most times I never get to peruse the newsletter.
It comes every month and gets laid aside.
A year-or-two ago I joined chapter members on a bus-trip down into PA for a dinner-train excursion on Tioga Central (“Tie-OH-guh;” as in “oh”)
Tioga Central is a tourist-line that operates what remains of New York Central's old line to Williamsport.
It ends at Wellsboro, short (north) of Williamsport.
The railroad is also moving freight, a shortline operator.
For years I have been unable to attend Chapter meetings. They are the same night as the regular monthly business meetings of my old bus-union.
For 16&1/2 years I drove bus for Regional Transit Service in Rochester, NY, the supplier of transit-bus service in the Rochester area.
During that time I belonged to Local 282, the Rochester division of the nationwide Amalgamated Transit Union (“what's 'ATU?'”).
Despite my stroke long ago (October 26, 1993), which prompted my disability retirement from Transit, I continued to attend union meetings, partly because I could, and partly because there were always fireworks — blog material; yelling and screaming and noisy bellowing for order.
But mainly because during my final year of bus-driving, I started doing a voluntary union newsletter, and thereby became heavily involved in my union.
But our union local has been trusteed; headquarters in Washington DC has taken over and thrown out our local union officials.
This scotches the monthly local union business meeting — I can attend the meetings of the Rochester Chapter of the NRHS.
The meeting was announced for 7 p.m., which came and went.
Even past 7:30 old geezers kept tottering in.....
“Hiya, Fred; how ya doin'?”
“I'd lay track but my cardiologist won't let me,” said Fred.
It seemed to be a congregation of geezers. It was held at the Rochester 40&8 club, apparently a nationwide WWII veterans organization.
More and more geezers stumbled in, most carrying drinks they had purchased from the 40&8 bar. Old-fashioned brown-glass bottles of beer, usually “Honey-Brown.”
I was just sitting quietly with my hands folded.
I found myself surrounded by glaring laptop computers.
I wasn't paying much notice, when all-of-sudden “Ta-DAAAA;” the sound of an Apple Macintosh computer firing up.
“I hear a MAC,” I said, and noticed the young recording-secretary at the dias had a MAC.
He smiled.
My all-knowing blowhard brother-from-Boston, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, tells me I'm stupid, and disgusting, and reprehensible, and above-all of-the-Devil, because I prefer my MAC.
I should become a tub-thumping Conservative Republican and use the same PC Jesus uses, and worship Bill Gates. (Huzza-huzza!)
So whenever I notice a MAC, which is fairly often, I point it out.
(He has an Apple iPod, and loves it.)
Well, I've used plenty of PCs over time, and they appear to have become equal to MACs. Used to be they were bog-slow driving Photoshop®, but not any more.
I switched to MAC many years ago, when the mighty Mezz computerized with MACs.
Since then I have gotten used to Apple's OS-X operating-system, and prefer it over Microsoft Windows®.
It's probably equal, but OS-X is prettier. Windows-Seven seems an imitation.
So I stick with my MAC, despite the noisy blustering from Boston.
The meeting was finally called to order.
BORING.....
Various reports were trotted by — seconded, approved (“aye”).
A slew of committee reports had to entertained.
“One baggage-light in our Empire State Express coaches is now working; 26 more to go.
I had to buy a new fluorescent ballast, plus remove paint and shielding; but it works,” reported a spark-plug.
Most there were in their 70s, but two were in their early 40s, and appeared to be the mover-and-shakers.
The recording-secretary looked about 27; MAC-user means young hipster.
Another dude was in his early 30s. Another in his late 40s.
Some of the committee heads were in their early 70s, but seemed pretty spry.
And that includes bull-work, like laying track, and carrying heavy items.
The Rochester Chapter has built its own railroad, although it's rather rudimentary.
They also built a large maintenance shed, and have a small collection of operable railroad equipment — including locomotives,
If a local locomotive gets retired, the Rochester Chapter snags it.
As such, they can operate tourist trains over their small railroad, usually just cabooses.
A full scale Lionel set.
Plus they're near a transportation museum, which has trolley-cars.
Trolley-wire has been strung to operate the trolleys over the railroad.
The Rochester Chapter bought an old Erie Railroad station in 1971 on Erie's Rochester branch, partly abandoned, but what remains is owned and operated by the Livonia, Avon & Lakeville shortline.
That station has been restored, and is the Rochester Chapter's main stomping grounds.
The LA&L is still active next to it.
“We currently have almost 200 members,” the Chairman said. “If each one became a docent every eight years, we'd have enough,”.
“How come we never get any docents?” a member asked.
A docent is one who interfaces with the visiting public. The Rochester-Chapter is also a museum.
It's because our lives are so full, we can't chance the time.
Docents are an unpaid voluntary position.
Nice idea; chew the fat with Johnny and Stew, but I got errands to pursue.
Finally the business portion of the meeting adjourned. Next was a 20-minute intermission, a chance to go to the bathroom and reload at the bar.
Amidst all the quiet milling around, an ancient movie-screen from the '50s was set up on its collapsable tripod legs.
One of the 40-year-old movers-and-shakers was gonna display all his old black-and-white train-photos from the '70s and '80s.
The whole reason I had gone; pictures from north Jersey.
Room-lights extinguished, the show began — although there was a bit of new technology at play.
It appeared to be a PowerPoint presentation; the mover-and-shaker was displaying items from his laptop.
Still boring, somewhat. Diesels upon diesels, and I never can make sense of north Jersey railroading.
89 bazilyun railroads are accessing the Hudson across from New York City, although only Pennsy crossed the river, but with tunnels too small to pass freight.
Just about every railroad from the west accessed the Hudson: Erie, Lackawanna, Jersey Central, others by trackage rights, and a slew of fairly obscure railroads.
Even New York Central accessed the western shore of the Hudson when it got the West Shore.
An example of an obscure railroad is Susquehanna, one I was unfamiliar with.
But apparently Susquey was the first to offer doublestack service into the New York area, plus it could run through all the way to Buffalo on the old Erie, which had originally been built to a six-foot gauge.
89 bazilyun pictures of Susquehanna power, and everything seemed distorted.
Height was probably right, but all the pictures seemed squished horizontally; not obnoxious, but noticeable.
So that a six-axle SD40-2 looked as short as a Geep, and the Geeps looked weird.
“What we have here is a U-34B on the Erie boot-line,” he'd say.
“Huh?” I'd think. “How many lines did Erie have into the area, and what were they?”
“This is where the old Lackawanna Railroad electrified commuter-line ended, or was abandoned to the north,” he said. “North of here the railroad was crossed over to a parellel railroad and that was electrified.
This poor thing left a two-foot rail-burn.” —A tiny 70-ton locomotive was shunting 89 bazilyun loaded stack-cars in a railroad yard. It was so small, it had spun its drive-wheels trying to move the cars.
“Tread in here now, and ya get arrested,” he said, depicting the locomotive shops of Susquehanna. “Back then they didn't care.
Those are silent ex-BN E8s; they were being prepped for Chicago,” He said. You could tell by the plywood over the windows.
“I just needed to take a picture, and here we have a parked Jordan spreader, another case of something to shoot at.
I always carried two cameras; one black-and-white, and one color slides,” he said. “The magazines always told us only black-and-white prints; they never printed color, just the cover back then. I'd buy black-and-white film in bulk, rolled it myself, and developed it myself.”
I did the same; in fact, the very first picture I had published nationally was in Trains Magazine back in 1971.
It was okay, and it wasn't distorted.
Something was wrong with the presentation.
Not worth worrying about, except to a perfectionist.
I'da dickered with it. It ain't right. That thing better look right because it reflects me.
Them pictures better display right, or there'll be hell to pay.
Meeting over, we all paraded to the parking-lot.
“Time to get my sportscar,” said someone.
“Wha'dja get this time, Vern?” another asked.
“Nuthin' special; just a Mazda Miata” (“mee-AH-duh”), a two-seat roadster like sportscars were in the '60s.
In the parking-lot the chairman, probably in his 70s, fired up his GT Mustang.
Two gold racing stripes on the hood, each about a foot wide.
A really butch-looking car.
Hooray for him.
That someone in his 70s would get such a car makes my getting something similar plausible.
Only trouble is such a car, attractive as it is, ain't All-Wheel-Drive.
In fact, a Mustang is Rear-Wheel-Drive. Such a car would get stuck in the snow.
Buy a Mustang, and I gotta blow my driveway out.
With All-Wheel-Drive I can let it go.
I guess I gotta keep riding motorcycle; my two-wheeled sportscar — that'll dispatch just about anything.
“So was it worth going to?” my wife asked, as I pulled in our garage.
“No,” I answered.
“Wouldja go again?”
“Maybe at 8 o'clock or so, after the business meeting; if the topic is interesting.
Not as good as rammin' around with Faudi ('FOW-dee;' as in 'wow').”
• “What’s ‘ah-two?’” is something my mother asked seeing my ATU (Amalgamated Transit Union) button.
• “Lionel” is a supplier of inexpensive toy model-trains. They were very popular in the late '40s and '50s, and are still in business,
• “Photoshop” is a computer software application for processing photographs and bit-map art.
• The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over four years ago. Best job I ever had. (“Canandaigua” [“cannon-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 15 miles away.)
• The “Empire State Express” was a New York Central Railroad train from Buffalo to New York City (across the “Empire State”). It used fluted stainless-steel streamlined equipment, and the Rochester Chapter has gotten a few of the coaches. They are for excursion service. —The so-called “baggage light” was a fluorescent fixture in the brackets that held the baggage rack. The Empire State Express was significant for having fluorescent fixtures.
• “Pennsy” is the Pennsylvania Railroad, no longer in existence. It merged with New York Central Railroad in 1968 as Penn-Central, and that tanked in about eight years. “Pennsy” was once the largest railroad in the world.
• The “West Shore” was a line financed by the Pennsylvania Railroad built to compete directly with the New York Central Railroad in New York state in the late 1800s. It was merged with NYC at the behest of J.P. Morgan, who got all the warring parties together on his yacht in Long Island Sound. The NYC got the West Shore for no longer financing the proposed South Pennsylvania Railroad (which was graded but never built, including tunnels, which were incorporated into the Pennsylvania Turnpike). It was called the “West Shore” because it went up the west shore of the Hudson River. It’s been largely abandoned west of the Hudson, although the segment around Rochester became a bypass around Rochester.
• “Double-stack” is two trailer containers stacked two high without wheels in so-called “wellcars.” —It’s much more efficient than single containers (or trailers) on flatcars, since it’s two containers per car. It’s often the same shipping containers shipped overseas; where they may be stacked three or four high, or even higher if a support deck is under a stack. But “double-stacks” require very high clearance; over 20 feet. Bridges had to be raised, and tunnels made larger.
• The standard gauge between rails is four feet eight and one-half inches, what most railroads are nowadays. Erie was built to a six foot gauge, but eventually went standard-gauge. Narrow-gauge is three feet between railheads. Most narrow-gauge railroads were built where extensive grading needed to be avoided, e.g. Colorado. Narrow-gauge could have tighter curves. Few narrow-gauge railroads are left. —Six-foot gauge had more side-clearance, and Erie had higher bridge clearances, and no tunnels; which allowed doublestacks without modification.
• The “ SD40-2” is a six-axle (Special-Duty) diesel-electric locomotive. A “Geep” is a four-axle diesel-electric locomotive (“GP”). All were built by Electromotive Division (EMD) of General Motors, and are quite common.
• A “ U-34B” is a model of General Electric's Utility (“U”) series (a road-switcher), “B” indicating four-axles (two-axle trucks).
• RE: “BN E8s.....” —BN is Burlington-Northern railroad, which has since merged with Santa Fe (BNSF). The E8 series were double-engine passenger locomotives built by EMD. They had three-axle power trucks, but only two axles each were powered. 2,000 horsepower, 1,000 horsepower per engine; but two engines. The ex BN E8s eventually went into service in Chicago's transit district.
• A “ Jordan spreader” is a snow-plow, but with extendable wings to clear a path much wider than the actual railroad; wide enough for a train. Jordan spreaders are unpowered, and are pushed by locomotives.
• Phil Faudi is the railfan extraordinaire from Altoona (“al-TUNE-uh”), PA, who supplies all-day train-chases for $125 around the Altoona area, location of Horseshoe Curve. I’ve done three. Faudi has his rail-scanner along, tuned to 160.8, the Norfolk Southern operating channel, and knows the whereabouts of every train, as the engineers call out the signals, and various lineside defect-detectors fire off. He knows each train by symbol, and knows all the back-roads, and how long it takes to get to various photo locations — and also what makes a successful photo — lighting, drama, etc. Railfan overload. —
Horseshoe Curve (the “mighty Curve”), west of Altoona, PA, is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is now a national historic site. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. I’ve been there hundreds of times, since it’s only about five hours away.
I'm a railfan, and have been since age two — I'm 66.
The National Railway Historical Society has been around since 1935, as has its Rochester Chapter, founded in 1937.
I just received my 25-year pin. I joined in 1985, primarily to receive their newsletter, in hopes of keeping track of any local railfan excursions.
I had just missed one behind restored Nickel Plate steam-locomotive #765 — at least two long mainline trips from Buffalo to Corning, NY, and back over a weekend.
How useful that newsletter has been is debatable.
Most times I never get to peruse the newsletter.
It comes every month and gets laid aside.
A year-or-two ago I joined chapter members on a bus-trip down into PA for a dinner-train excursion on Tioga Central (“Tie-OH-guh;” as in “oh”)
Tioga Central is a tourist-line that operates what remains of New York Central's old line to Williamsport.
It ends at Wellsboro, short (north) of Williamsport.
The railroad is also moving freight, a shortline operator.
For years I have been unable to attend Chapter meetings. They are the same night as the regular monthly business meetings of my old bus-union.
For 16&1/2 years I drove bus for Regional Transit Service in Rochester, NY, the supplier of transit-bus service in the Rochester area.
During that time I belonged to Local 282, the Rochester division of the nationwide Amalgamated Transit Union (“what's 'ATU?'”).
Despite my stroke long ago (October 26, 1993), which prompted my disability retirement from Transit, I continued to attend union meetings, partly because I could, and partly because there were always fireworks — blog material; yelling and screaming and noisy bellowing for order.
But mainly because during my final year of bus-driving, I started doing a voluntary union newsletter, and thereby became heavily involved in my union.
But our union local has been trusteed; headquarters in Washington DC has taken over and thrown out our local union officials.
This scotches the monthly local union business meeting — I can attend the meetings of the Rochester Chapter of the NRHS.
The meeting was announced for 7 p.m., which came and went.
Even past 7:30 old geezers kept tottering in.....
“Hiya, Fred; how ya doin'?”
“I'd lay track but my cardiologist won't let me,” said Fred.
It seemed to be a congregation of geezers. It was held at the Rochester 40&8 club, apparently a nationwide WWII veterans organization.
More and more geezers stumbled in, most carrying drinks they had purchased from the 40&8 bar. Old-fashioned brown-glass bottles of beer, usually “Honey-Brown.”
I was just sitting quietly with my hands folded.
I found myself surrounded by glaring laptop computers.
I wasn't paying much notice, when all-of-sudden “Ta-DAAAA;” the sound of an Apple Macintosh computer firing up.
“I hear a MAC,” I said, and noticed the young recording-secretary at the dias had a MAC.
He smiled.
My all-knowing blowhard brother-from-Boston, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, tells me I'm stupid, and disgusting, and reprehensible, and above-all of-the-Devil, because I prefer my MAC.
I should become a tub-thumping Conservative Republican and use the same PC Jesus uses, and worship Bill Gates. (Huzza-huzza!)
So whenever I notice a MAC, which is fairly often, I point it out.
(He has an Apple iPod, and loves it.)
Well, I've used plenty of PCs over time, and they appear to have become equal to MACs. Used to be they were bog-slow driving Photoshop®, but not any more.
I switched to MAC many years ago, when the mighty Mezz computerized with MACs.
Since then I have gotten used to Apple's OS-X operating-system, and prefer it over Microsoft Windows®.
It's probably equal, but OS-X is prettier. Windows-Seven seems an imitation.
So I stick with my MAC, despite the noisy blustering from Boston.
The meeting was finally called to order.
BORING.....
Various reports were trotted by — seconded, approved (“aye”).
A slew of committee reports had to entertained.
“One baggage-light in our Empire State Express coaches is now working; 26 more to go.
I had to buy a new fluorescent ballast, plus remove paint and shielding; but it works,” reported a spark-plug.
Most there were in their 70s, but two were in their early 40s, and appeared to be the mover-and-shakers.
The recording-secretary looked about 27; MAC-user means young hipster.
Another dude was in his early 30s. Another in his late 40s.
Some of the committee heads were in their early 70s, but seemed pretty spry.
And that includes bull-work, like laying track, and carrying heavy items.
The Rochester Chapter has built its own railroad, although it's rather rudimentary.
They also built a large maintenance shed, and have a small collection of operable railroad equipment — including locomotives,
If a local locomotive gets retired, the Rochester Chapter snags it.
As such, they can operate tourist trains over their small railroad, usually just cabooses.
A full scale Lionel set.
Plus they're near a transportation museum, which has trolley-cars.
Trolley-wire has been strung to operate the trolleys over the railroad.
The Rochester Chapter bought an old Erie Railroad station in 1971 on Erie's Rochester branch, partly abandoned, but what remains is owned and operated by the Livonia, Avon & Lakeville shortline.
That station has been restored, and is the Rochester Chapter's main stomping grounds.
The LA&L is still active next to it.
“We currently have almost 200 members,” the Chairman said. “If each one became a docent every eight years, we'd have enough,”.
“How come we never get any docents?” a member asked.
A docent is one who interfaces with the visiting public. The Rochester-Chapter is also a museum.
It's because our lives are so full, we can't chance the time.
Docents are an unpaid voluntary position.
Nice idea; chew the fat with Johnny and Stew, but I got errands to pursue.
Finally the business portion of the meeting adjourned. Next was a 20-minute intermission, a chance to go to the bathroom and reload at the bar.
Amidst all the quiet milling around, an ancient movie-screen from the '50s was set up on its collapsable tripod legs.
One of the 40-year-old movers-and-shakers was gonna display all his old black-and-white train-photos from the '70s and '80s.
The whole reason I had gone; pictures from north Jersey.
Room-lights extinguished, the show began — although there was a bit of new technology at play.
It appeared to be a PowerPoint presentation; the mover-and-shaker was displaying items from his laptop.
Still boring, somewhat. Diesels upon diesels, and I never can make sense of north Jersey railroading.
89 bazilyun railroads are accessing the Hudson across from New York City, although only Pennsy crossed the river, but with tunnels too small to pass freight.
Just about every railroad from the west accessed the Hudson: Erie, Lackawanna, Jersey Central, others by trackage rights, and a slew of fairly obscure railroads.
Even New York Central accessed the western shore of the Hudson when it got the West Shore.
An example of an obscure railroad is Susquehanna, one I was unfamiliar with.
But apparently Susquey was the first to offer doublestack service into the New York area, plus it could run through all the way to Buffalo on the old Erie, which had originally been built to a six-foot gauge.
89 bazilyun pictures of Susquehanna power, and everything seemed distorted.
Height was probably right, but all the pictures seemed squished horizontally; not obnoxious, but noticeable.
So that a six-axle SD40-2 looked as short as a Geep, and the Geeps looked weird.
“What we have here is a U-34B on the Erie boot-line,” he'd say.
“Huh?” I'd think. “How many lines did Erie have into the area, and what were they?”
“This is where the old Lackawanna Railroad electrified commuter-line ended, or was abandoned to the north,” he said. “North of here the railroad was crossed over to a parellel railroad and that was electrified.
This poor thing left a two-foot rail-burn.” —A tiny 70-ton locomotive was shunting 89 bazilyun loaded stack-cars in a railroad yard. It was so small, it had spun its drive-wheels trying to move the cars.
“Tread in here now, and ya get arrested,” he said, depicting the locomotive shops of Susquehanna. “Back then they didn't care.
Those are silent ex-BN E8s; they were being prepped for Chicago,” He said. You could tell by the plywood over the windows.
“I just needed to take a picture, and here we have a parked Jordan spreader, another case of something to shoot at.
I always carried two cameras; one black-and-white, and one color slides,” he said. “The magazines always told us only black-and-white prints; they never printed color, just the cover back then. I'd buy black-and-white film in bulk, rolled it myself, and developed it myself.”
I did the same; in fact, the very first picture I had published nationally was in Trains Magazine back in 1971.
It was okay, and it wasn't distorted.
Something was wrong with the presentation.
Not worth worrying about, except to a perfectionist.
I'da dickered with it. It ain't right. That thing better look right because it reflects me.
Them pictures better display right, or there'll be hell to pay.
Meeting over, we all paraded to the parking-lot.
“Time to get my sportscar,” said someone.
“Wha'dja get this time, Vern?” another asked.
“Nuthin' special; just a Mazda Miata” (“mee-AH-duh”), a two-seat roadster like sportscars were in the '60s.
In the parking-lot the chairman, probably in his 70s, fired up his GT Mustang.
Two gold racing stripes on the hood, each about a foot wide.
A really butch-looking car.
Hooray for him.
That someone in his 70s would get such a car makes my getting something similar plausible.
Only trouble is such a car, attractive as it is, ain't All-Wheel-Drive.
In fact, a Mustang is Rear-Wheel-Drive. Such a car would get stuck in the snow.
Buy a Mustang, and I gotta blow my driveway out.
With All-Wheel-Drive I can let it go.
I guess I gotta keep riding motorcycle; my two-wheeled sportscar — that'll dispatch just about anything.
“So was it worth going to?” my wife asked, as I pulled in our garage.
“No,” I answered.
“Wouldja go again?”
“Maybe at 8 o'clock or so, after the business meeting; if the topic is interesting.
Not as good as rammin' around with Faudi ('FOW-dee;' as in 'wow').”
• “What’s ‘ah-two?’” is something my mother asked seeing my ATU (Amalgamated Transit Union) button.
• “Lionel” is a supplier of inexpensive toy model-trains. They were very popular in the late '40s and '50s, and are still in business,
• “Photoshop” is a computer software application for processing photographs and bit-map art.
• The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over four years ago. Best job I ever had. (“Canandaigua” [“cannon-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 15 miles away.)
• The “Empire State Express” was a New York Central Railroad train from Buffalo to New York City (across the “Empire State”). It used fluted stainless-steel streamlined equipment, and the Rochester Chapter has gotten a few of the coaches. They are for excursion service. —The so-called “baggage light” was a fluorescent fixture in the brackets that held the baggage rack. The Empire State Express was significant for having fluorescent fixtures.
• “Pennsy” is the Pennsylvania Railroad, no longer in existence. It merged with New York Central Railroad in 1968 as Penn-Central, and that tanked in about eight years. “Pennsy” was once the largest railroad in the world.
• The “West Shore” was a line financed by the Pennsylvania Railroad built to compete directly with the New York Central Railroad in New York state in the late 1800s. It was merged with NYC at the behest of J.P. Morgan, who got all the warring parties together on his yacht in Long Island Sound. The NYC got the West Shore for no longer financing the proposed South Pennsylvania Railroad (which was graded but never built, including tunnels, which were incorporated into the Pennsylvania Turnpike). It was called the “West Shore” because it went up the west shore of the Hudson River. It’s been largely abandoned west of the Hudson, although the segment around Rochester became a bypass around Rochester.
• “Double-stack” is two trailer containers stacked two high without wheels in so-called “wellcars.” —It’s much more efficient than single containers (or trailers) on flatcars, since it’s two containers per car. It’s often the same shipping containers shipped overseas; where they may be stacked three or four high, or even higher if a support deck is under a stack. But “double-stacks” require very high clearance; over 20 feet. Bridges had to be raised, and tunnels made larger.
• The standard gauge between rails is four feet eight and one-half inches, what most railroads are nowadays. Erie was built to a six foot gauge, but eventually went standard-gauge. Narrow-gauge is three feet between railheads. Most narrow-gauge railroads were built where extensive grading needed to be avoided, e.g. Colorado. Narrow-gauge could have tighter curves. Few narrow-gauge railroads are left. —Six-foot gauge had more side-clearance, and Erie had higher bridge clearances, and no tunnels; which allowed doublestacks without modification.
• The “ SD40-2” is a six-axle (Special-Duty) diesel-electric locomotive. A “Geep” is a four-axle diesel-electric locomotive (“GP”). All were built by Electromotive Division (EMD) of General Motors, and are quite common.
• A “ U-34B” is a model of General Electric's Utility (“U”) series (a road-switcher), “B” indicating four-axles (two-axle trucks).
• RE: “BN E8s.....” —BN is Burlington-Northern railroad, which has since merged with Santa Fe (BNSF). The E8 series were double-engine passenger locomotives built by EMD. They had three-axle power trucks, but only two axles each were powered. 2,000 horsepower, 1,000 horsepower per engine; but two engines. The ex BN E8s eventually went into service in Chicago's transit district.
• A “ Jordan spreader” is a snow-plow, but with extendable wings to clear a path much wider than the actual railroad; wide enough for a train. Jordan spreaders are unpowered, and are pushed by locomotives.
• Phil Faudi is the railfan extraordinaire from Altoona (“al-TUNE-uh”), PA, who supplies all-day train-chases for $125 around the Altoona area, location of Horseshoe Curve. I’ve done three. Faudi has his rail-scanner along, tuned to 160.8, the Norfolk Southern operating channel, and knows the whereabouts of every train, as the engineers call out the signals, and various lineside defect-detectors fire off. He knows each train by symbol, and knows all the back-roads, and how long it takes to get to various photo locations — and also what makes a successful photo — lighting, drama, etc. Railfan overload. —
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