Are there railroad buffs?

Discussion in 'History and Culture' started by Robert, May 8, 2017.

  1. Robert

    Robert Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    This steam engine was part of my growing up. I lived at Roseville, CA from 1944-47 I believe. Kids seldom take notice of time. My reason was WW2. Leaving Oakland, CA, WW2 was still being waged. The thing sticking out for me was my parents rented a two story house of not large size and the day WW2 ended, it sounded like a real emergency took place. This house was close to the round table then in Roseville. The steam locomotives in Roseville were sounding off. This is the only time I know of where something like this happened. It was not possible to say how many steam engines were blowing their whistles, but it seemed like many of them did. I guess the adults were thrilled the war ended. Sacramento railroad museum has the sole surviving steam engine of this type. This type was specifically built to conquer the mountains of Ca at all times of the year. The cab is forward due to the many tunnels. The smoke trails the engine which was a problem for the crew. Cab forward puts them all ahead of the danger.

    This is a new youtube I just discovered. What I like is you see it in the 1950s when I was jut out of high school and you see what that part of CA looks like. You see flatlands by Sacramento which has few trees. Further up, you start to see many oak trees. The Sierras have cedar trees I believe. Well, it has more than those trees and if you want, check out those using google.

    So this might lead you to look over other railroad sites you can get to. They have a plethora of sites.

    Now the engine. This engine was enormous. It weighs 657,900 pounds. This is 329 tons.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Pacific_class_AC-11

    So how heavy is your diesel electric engine? The E-9 locomotive weight is about half in round numbers. The weight is 315,000 pounds so you can see it is a much lighter engine.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_E9

    Were you to see one of the "Malley" engines, you would be shocked at how gigantic it is.

    Look at the driver wheels. 8 per side. Many steam engines might have 4 or 6 per side. This has two sets of 4 per side. It looks like two engines as one.

    Any comments are totally welcome. Especially if you have seen or ridden steam engine trains. We have some operational here in my city and there are more in the local bay area region. Notice too some wheel slippage. These engines were extremely powerful and it was common to hear them slipping the drivers though I am sure this is not what the engineers wanted. I saw these engines daily for at least 2 years. My dad operated an auto repair next to the SP railroad tracks. Like it or not, since they are very loud, I saw a lot more than one might hope to see.

     
  2. Moi621

    Moi621 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    At least the diesel, like the steam engine had a soul.
    The electric ones are oversized toy boxes on wheels.
    Nothing beautiful about them.

    Look at French or Brit or anyone else trains from the same era and they were just big, lumbering, ugly machines.
     
  3. Robert

    Robert Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I watched every moment of the video with the AC-11 which we called the Malley.

    Baldin built it. During WW2 until maybe 1955, they were very common to see from Sacramento north. It was fun for me since I know that route well. Still, back then, we followed the highway and Highway 80 did not always follow that path. A lake I did not know of shows up on the video. Forgot the name but can look it up on google maps. It shows up ahead of Donner Lake I think.

    It might be that steam was so tied to my childhood that I don't get excited over the Diesel engines. Still some of those in the old days were sleek and worth more discussion. The Army transported me from Fort Ord, CA to Ft. Benning and I believe we had 2 engines. One took us from CA to New Orleans. There were not far from NO and changed trains. The first train was a dream. I had my own room rather than the men's car where they had bunks. The next train did not give me my own room I believe. But we were not that far from Ft. Benning.

    Cassius Clay got on the train at Los Angeles and I lost track of him in TX. He was a new professional and ranked 8th I was told by one of my guys. I sat across the aisle from Clay as he played cards. I bet when he told others later, they did not believe him. I did not know him on sight. I was not keeping up with boxing.
     
  4. Deckel

    Deckel Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Not a buff, but we have a steam engine come through periodically. When it is coming north, I can usually hear it in enough time to zip to the tracks before it passes. I try to do that at least once a year. I am not sure its excursion schedule, but seems to be every weekend this year when it was only once a month in the past, so ridership must be way up.
     

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