The Gondola as Beast of Burden

Running east through Wyomissing PA, this heavy laden gondola brings pictures to my mind of a burro or horse carrying a heavy load and sagging under the weight. The load here is three big ingot casting molds for a steel mill. This is equivalent to three drop center trailers on the highway marked "Wide Load".

The Hopper Gets Heavier

Hopper cars, the big movers of heavy loads like coal and aggregate have gotten a lot bigger over time. Above is PRR 33164 class G1 hopper built by the Pressed Steel Car Company in 1898. It will carry a load of 50 Tons.

Below, Conrail 477577 was built at the PRR's Samuel Rea Car Shops in 1965. The capacity has doubled to 100 Tons.

Hoppers come in many varieties with closed tops as well as the open top types shown here. Modern hoppers have increased load capacity with both aluminum and stainless steel construction.

Getting a Piece of The Stimulus Package

My October series on transportation policy almost collapsed like the stock markets. Now we are hearing of plans for a major national infrastructure investment by the federal government. I hope this goes beyond just repairing highway bridges. It would be good national fiscal policy to invest in building up the national freight rail network.

We, as a nation, should help our freight railroads build up all the major routes until they all are double-tracked at least. This means BNSF's Transcon and Great Northern, UP's Overland and Sunset and key routes in the East like CSX Chicago to Georgia, and former SCL routes. Not only will this increase transportation efficiency but will also remove the bottlenecks affecting Amtrak schedules.

Contact the American Association of Railroads and ask them how you can help. I'm sure they will ask you to contact your representatives in Congress.

Tank Car - Big

PRR type TP-1 #500001 also known as the "Rail Whale" was a design attempt to put a very large tank car on the rails. The PRR expected their shippers would save money because they could have smaller storage facilities. The railroad hoped to encourage private tank car owners to develop fleets of high capacity cars like this one and its sister #500000. The two cars were completed in 1966 at the PRR Samuel Rea shops in Hollidaysburg, PA (close to Altoona). This car at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, was designed for high pressure loads like vinyl chloride. The safety valve setting was 340 psig. It's capacity was 38,040 Gal. The other car was for low pressure loads like vegetable oils and petroleum derivatives. The total weight of 394,000 pounds was carried on two 3-axle trucks.

Tank Car - Small

ACFX #4556, with a capacity of 4,551 Gal. divided into three tanks, was built in 1939 by American Car & Foundry for lease to Witco Chemical Co. It has a rated capacity of 88,000 Lbs. The safety valves were set to 25 psig. The little tank car was a 1997 gift to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania from a private party.

Extreme Trains

Appearing on TV's History Channel this season is a great show: Extreme Trains". Episodes shown each Tuesday evening at 10 PM ET. Go to their website for an episode guide and video clips like a look at the Station Inn in Cresson, PA.

Program host Matt Bown (not Brown) is a Maine native and a conductor on Pan Am Railways, formerly the Maine Central. Both a railroader and a rail fan he brings a lot of enthusiasm and hands-on participation to the show.

On episodes seen so far the viewer gets to follow a coal train from Southwestern Pennsylvania around Horseshoe Curve to a Pennsylvania Power & Light power plant in the Northeastern part of that state. On this week's episode "freight train" we go with Matt on a 7,000 foot BNSF double-stack train from Terminal Island in Los Angeles through the "trench", over Cajon Pass, across the deserts, thread through New Mexico's Abo Canyon to Alliance Yard in Fort Worth, Texas. Matt rides the whole 48 hour high-speed trip.

Gondolas Part 5

Gondolas had a very modest appearing beginning. This is Pittsburgh, Youngstown and Ashtabula No. 1818. Built by Barney & Smith in 1895, it is the oldest PRR freight car survivor. Part of the PRR Historic Collection, it can be seen at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania who received the car as a donation from Conrail in 1979.

Gondolas Part 4

Gondolas have been the plainest looking railroad cars for a long time. This is Pennsylvania Railroad class GS #800264 built in 1902 by the Pressed Steel Car Co. Resting in the railyard of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania it doesn't look too different from gondolas you will see in service out on the main line.

Gondolas Part 3

Richland, PA on the Norfolk Southern main line finds this big gondola rolling west. The owner, Brandenburg Industrial Service Company, is a major demolition contractor. Their projects include such as Comiskey Park in Chicago, Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia and the Armstrong flooring plant in Lancaster, PA. This high top gondola with additional structural steel for strength is ideal for loads of heavy structural steel scrap, or heavy machine scrap. Gondolas, with their open tops are well suited to loading and unloading with electromagnet cranes.

Gondolas Part 2

Here in Norfolk Southern country, Temple, Pennsylvania is a very typical gondola. The load is rather typical as well: shredded steel scrap. It could be old cars, or appliances, or I just don't know. Gondolas are good for this type of load that can be loaded and unloaded with an electromagent equipped crane.

It's Pronounced Gon-DOH-la

I learned late in life that the word pronounced GON-do-la is a type of Italian boat. If it's an open top railroad freight car it's pronounced as above. The one above is PRR class G39A oar genny, a gondola dedicated to ore service such as Taconite pellets, the raw material for iron-making.

The one below is a gondola for coal with a 120 Ton capacity. Unlike a hooper car that is divided into hoppers each with a bottom dumping door, this gondola will be turned over by a rotary dumper to dump the whole load at once. The one seen here is in Northeast New Mexico, part of a load of empties headed north to the Powder River Basin coal region. The line is the old Fort Worth and Denver City. BNSF runs empties on this line because of the multiple horseshoe curves between Dalhart, Texas and Trinidad, Colorado. They run coal loads south on the former Santa Fe line from Pueblo, Colorado to Amarillo, Texas. The reporting mark TUKX denotes these cars belong to Tuco, a Texas coal supplier to power plants. As seen here the cars are at the end of the train with two SD70MACs pushing.

Milepost 65

Milepost 65 on the Norfolk Southern mainline near Reading, Pennsylvania is another one of those small, but inviting photo spots for rail fans. At this signal there is a small crossroad named Krick Lane, just south of US highway 422. For those who are GPS enabled it's 40 19 22.8 N and 76 03 07.19 W. You too, may spot a nice EMD SD70M heading an auto rack load like NS No. 2759 below. I snapped this guy and 3 other Westbound on Aug. 22, 2008 using track 2, which is normally for Eastbound trains.

Take the Train to the Plane

Stop worrying about airport parking and crowded roads. Take the train to the plane. Of course that depends on where you live. For Philadelphia International Airport there is fast, comfortable service on Southeast Pennsylvania Transit Authority Regional Rail. The R1 Airport route runs from Glenside, just north of the City, through downtown to four platforms next to the airport departure service road. My pictures were taken at the train platform servicing PHL terminal B. The trip takes about 20 minutes from 30th Street Station and the service operates about every 30 minutes from 5 AM to midnight weekdays. Parking is available at most SEPTA suburban stations for $1 a day (weekends free). The fare from Center City stations is $6 ($7 peak times) one way. For riders 65 years old and older the fare is $1 at all times. All Airport service uses electric Silverliner multiple unit cars. Later this year or early next year new Silverliner V cars will be joining the SEPTA car stable. Final assembly of these cars will be at the site of the Philadelphia Naval Yard. A mockup of the new cars was on display in Suburban Station last month.

A Climactic Steam Design

The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania ended a 30 year search for a Climax geared steam locomotive in 1992 when it added this class B No. 4 of the W. H. Mason Lumber Company. The Climax was born in the mind of Northwest Pennsylvania lumberman Charles Scott. He took his idea for getting logs out of tough country to the mill he owned along with Daniel Aiken to the Climax Manufacturing Co. of Corry, PA. The first Climax geared locomotive was built in 1888. No. 4 was built in 1913. It weighs 72,700 lbs. and provides a tractive effort of 22,200 lbs. Over 40 years Climax built between 1,000 and 1,200 locomotives.

Movie review - W

I don't know what I expecting when I went to see "W" last Sunday. Maybe some kind of hatchet job from a far-left director (Oliver Stone).

Boy, was I surprised! Josh Brolin did a wonderful acting job. The treatment of George W. Bush was both sensitive and sympathetic. I confess as a native Texan I sometimes felt offended by my President's good 'ol boy thing since I regarded him as a rich kid from Connecticut. No longer. The relationship between W and his father (James Cromwell) was very well done. Cromwell played GHW Bush as a cold father, difficult (impossible?) to satisfy. In one revealing scene you learn that Bush 41 had, in turn, a similar father in Senator Prescott Bush. I and I'm sure some of my men friends can easily relate. It gives real context for the scenes of young W, the hell-raiser.

I have to admit I was very moved by the portrayal of W's religious conversion with Rev. Earle Hudd (Stacey Keach). His conquering of a drinking habit and acceptance of Jesus as Lord and Savior was portrayed as genuine and without any hint of Hollywood snickering.

Stone saves his sharp pen for the people around the President who served him poorly. Whether accurate or not you have to remember that movie dramas are fiction. Anyway: CIA Director George Tenet (Bruce McGill) a wishy-washy guy unwilling to commit to anything; Condoleezza Rice (Thandie Newton), a very smart kiss-ass willing to tell the President anything she thought he wanted to hear. Same for Rumsfeld. VP Cheney well done by Richard Dreyfuss as a guy that sometimes is genuinely surprised that he is not the man in charge. Karl Rove came across as brilliant, totally committed to politics, and a closeted gay. I did not like the portrayal of Secty. of State Colin Powell. He was pictured as a timid guy, marginalized by the rest of the cabinet, who gave in to pressure to go to war in Iraq. I think General Powell must be more complicated and stronger than what he looked like in this flick.

Final verdict: thumbs-up on this one.

A Tribute to Baldwin Diesels

A good design never gets ugly. So says the article in the journal of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania describing its Baldwin class S-12 B-B diesel locomotive. Actually built for the Department of Defense in 1952, it was originally assigned to the Marietta Transportation Depot in Marietta, PA. The unit was later sent to the U.S. Navy Ordnance Depot in Earle, NJ. The museum obtained it from there in 1991 with the original intent of using it as the museum yard switcher. Its age and declining supply of Baldwin parts changed those plans and it was re-lettered to represent the whole family of postwar Baldwin diesel switchers.

Strasburg RR Meets and Runarounds

The Strasburg Railroad has two meets each trip during the Summer at Groff's grove and the locomotive runs around to the other end of the train at Leaman Place, the halfway point of the trip, and at Strasburg Station. My video is from July, 2008. When you visit Strasburg look for the two turntable bridges sitting on the siding behind Isaac's Restaurant, and you will get a hint of the SRC's future plans that do away with the runarounds.