There was a link shared this morning on the Steam Era Freight Car Board to a video from 1951 of the Merchant Dispatch Car Shops in East Rochester, NY. I’ve seen this video a few years ago, but it is still enjoyable for any fans of freight cars.
The video documents the work of building freight cars in the early 1950’s. It goes all the way from stamping sheet metal for car sides and ends to the final painting of the cars being built.
Reading FT 256 at Tamaqua, PA. Photograph by Donald W. Furler, Center for Railroad Photography and Art.
This morning I was checking my email and looking at the few Facebook Groups I follow. I found an image embedded in a post on the of the Anthracite Railroads Historical Society. The photo that was embedded was part of a discussion about a location of of a different image.
But when I followed the link, I found a wonderful webpage.
The Center for Railroad Photography and Art has a page of 100 images of the Reading Railroad taken by Donald W. Furler. The images cover many different locations on the Reading Railroad from the early 1940’s into the mid-1950’s. A number of the images have appeared in print before in different publications.
Take a look, this is not your typical railman photography. I enjoyed exploring the page this morning. I hope other Reading fans will also.
Reading F3A 261 near Ringtown, PA, April 3, 1949. Photograph by Donald W. Furler, Center for Railroad Photography and Art.
Ever feel like something just isn’t right? This image sums up this whole year.
I saw this section of track on the old Camden and Amboy in Cranberry, NJ last year. It appears they took out a turnout on the branch, but they didn’t replace it with anything. There is also a lot fresh ballast for what could be thought of as an abandoned section of railroad.
Kind of reminds you of a model railroad before someone installs a new turnout. But model railroaders usually ballast after they install the turnout.
On a positive note, I’ve been decorating some hopper cars recently. I’ll try to post some progress images in a few days.
Have I ever mentioned that I have a love-hate relationship with dry transfers. Maybe if they were a little fresher, they would work better. That’s the trouble with manufacturers going out of business, you can’t buy new products from them anymore. When the transfers work, they are great. When they act up, they can really get under your skin.
I also have to finish up a number of posts that are sitting here half finished. Makes this site almost feel like another form of model building, too many projects half finished in a box.
Yesterday was a cold wet rainy day, but I was off from work and wanted to be on the road seeing something. I took the morning to explore a little more on the Reading’s line through New Jersey.
I took some time to explore this four track bridge which spans Stony Brook and Pennington-Hopewell Road. It has three arches over the brook and a steel girder/concrete through span over the road.
This is located between Pennington and Hopewell, NJ. The bridge is still used today, but the line no longer supports four tracks worth of traffic, only a single track remains today.
Also visible on under the bridge it appears that the span was two tracks at one time and widened with tracks on either side of the original abutment which was in the center.
Here is a shot from yesterday at one of my favorite lunchtime spots, the West Trenton station. This was the second freight to pass while I was there during my lunch-hour, the first was a North-bound train with a bunch of UPS trailers on it. There was one more South-bound train passing before I left. I’m not that into the modern look but they are still trains.
Not much has happened with the layout recently. The good news was I have been going into the basement 4 or 5 time a week since last Summer… just not to work on the layout. As I said to my brother this past week, I moved my film processor into the basement last Summer and have been processing a ton of film since.
I hope to have some new stuff to talk about soon as I have a couple of projects lined up after the processing gets caught up.
On Friday we drove out to Cleveland for the O Scale Show. After setting up our table we decided to take advantage of the tour that Sam Shumaker had added to the show.
In the afternoon we went over to the Midwest Railway Preservation Society to see their operation. They are set up in an old B&O Roundhouse in Cleveland. One of the stalls was occupied with the Reading T-1 2100. The MRPS is renting the stall space to the group that is restoring her.
We surprised them a little when we showed up, but we were treated to a tour of the round house and the grounds outside. Turned into a very nice visit.
Tamaqua, PA. Looks to date from the early 60’s but still very neat.
Here are some more images from my last trip into the coal regions.
Close up of the car wash sing.
The right end of the of the car wash.
They view of where the Mallet shed was located in Tamaqua. The gas station that was across the street from it is still there. On the left of the image.
Looking right down on what was the engine house in Tamaqua.
Coaldale, PA
Coaldale, PA
Mahanoy City, PA
Concrete curbing in front of the station area at Mahanoy City.
three bridges just past the Station area in Mahanoy City.
The steps that went up to the Station at Mahanoy City. This is behind the station.
Coal Township, PA with remains of the Glen Burn culm pile behind the town. Check out the single light traffic signal.
Coal Township, PA
Holiday Decorations in a Park in Coal Township, PA.
A plastic choir in Coal Township, PA
Looking up South Center Street in Coal Township, PA.
My wife and I took a nice ride up into Coal Country this past week. It was a nice warm Winter day, good for exploring the different towns that all too often are just names on an old map.
Tamaqua station looked nice decorated for the holidays. But it does seem a little empty in front of it with only one track left.
I’ve noticed a few folks on the web talking about their traffic on their sites. I usually don’t pay to much attention to that because in my day job I work on sites and there are too many people focused on the numbers. But I thought I’d take a look on my server and check to see what they were. In the last year, I had over 100,000 visits and over 270,000 page views. That’s not bad for a personal site without advertising. Thank you for visiting.
I had the chance today to take a drive up into the Schuylkill Haven area today. It was a nice day for a drive and I wanted to get some first hand information about what would be visible in the backgrounds for the two “town walls” for the layout.
Coming back from West Cressona I found this beauty today. I wish I had my tape measure with me, next time I will.
There is always talk about what size rail should be used to model prototype rail of different weights. Some time back, I picked up a document published by the AT&SF Railroad which had different sizes of rail for different manufacturers listed. It contains the dimensions and sizes of rail made by Illinois Steel Company, Carnegie Steel Company, Pennsylvania Steel Company, Bethlehem Steel Company, Lackawanna Steel Company, Cambria Steel Company Colorado Fuel & Iron Company and Dominion Iron & Steel Company.
In page 8 above, the sizes for rail from the Pennsylvania Steel Company are listed in the left hand table. There are eight different lines for 100 pound rail. The base width ranges from 5 inches to 5.5 inches, the height ranges from 5.5 inches to 6 inches and the tread width from 2.75 inches to 3 inches. The one listing for a 135 pound rail has it’s base at 6 inches, it’s height at 6 inches and it’s tread width at 3 5/32 inch.
So how is someone going to tell the difference between 100 pound rail and 135 pound rail when one sample has the same height (6 inches) only a quarter of an inch in base width difference, and 5/32 of an inch difference in tread width?
