Grassroots Railroad Sports?

NickD said:

...others jokingly called it the Eat Taters & Wear No Clothes due to the abject poverty of the locals. Others more fondly referred to it as the Every Time & With No Complaints or the Exquisite Trains & What Nice Conductors. 

Lots of railroads received amusing nicknames based off their acronym. Usually they were disparaging or insulting, and typically aimed at railroads that were in poor condition.

BNSF: Big New Santa Fe. Bye Now, Santa Fe. Been Nothing Since Frisco. Buy Norfolk Southern First. Buy Now, Sell Fast. Better Not Start A Family. Bigger Name Same Fine Railroad.

Boston & Maine: Busted & Maimed. Busted & Mangled. Bankrupt & Moribund. Broken & Maimed.

Bellaire, Zainesville & Cincinatti: Bent, Zig-zagged & Crooked.

Bridgton & Saco River: Broken & Still Running.

Chicago, Burlington & Quincy: Cheapest, Best & Quick. Cuss the Boss & Quit. Crash, Bang & Quake.

Chicago Great Western: Can't Go West. Chicago Great Weedy. Can Grow Weeds. Can't Get Worse.

Chicago & North Western: Can't & Never Will, Cheap & Nothing Works, Cheap & Nothing Wasted, Cardboard & No Wheels, Can Not Win, Coal & No Water. 

Chicago, Minneapolis, St Paul & Pacific = Crushed, Mauled, STampeded, Pushed and Pulled. Christ, Mary, St Paul and St Peter. C'mon, Stop Praying and Push. Cheapest, Meanest & Slowest to Pay.

Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific: Corroded, Rusty, Indigent & Pathetic. Couldn't Reach It's Peak. 

CSX: Chemical Spill eXperts. Can't Ship eXpress. Crash, Spill, eXplode. Chessie's Still eXperimenting.

D&RGW: Dangerous & Rapidly Getting Worse. Dirty, Ragged, Greasy & Wet.

DL&W: Delay, Linger & Wait.

D&H: Delay & Hesitate. Desperate & Hungry.

Detroit, Toledo & Hamilton: Damn Tired & Irritable. Delayed, Tardy & Inconsistent. Drunk, Tipsy & Intoxicated.

Elgin, Joliet & Eastern: Easy Jobs for Everyone.

Grand Trunk Western: Good Times Waning.

Green Bay & Western: Grab Bags & Walk.

Lake Erie & Western: Leave Early & Walk

Minneapolis & St. Louis: Misery & Short Life.

Montana Rail Link: Milwaukee Road Lives, Monkeys Running Loose.

New York, Ontario & Western/O&W: New, Young, Out & Working. Not Young, Old & Weary. Old Woman. Old & Wobbly. Old & Weary.

New York, Susquehanna & Western: Now You Sit & Wait.

Ohio River & Western: Old, Rusty & Wobbly.

Pacific Great Eastern: Puff, Gasp, Expire. Prince George, Eventually. Please Go Easy. Province's Greatest Expense. Past God's Endurance.

Penn Central: Penniless Central. Perfect Chaos. Permanently Corrupt.

Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac: Rich Folks & Pedigrees. Run Fast & Push.

Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg: Rotten Wood & Old Rusty Rails.

Southern Pacific: Surrendered Peacefully. Sufferin' Painfully. Slow Poke. Stand Proud. Sorry and Pathetic.

Southern Pacific Santa Fe: Shouldn't Paint So Fast

Toronton, Hamilton & Buffalo: To Here & Back. To Hell & Back. Tramps, Hobos & Bums. Thump, Hump & Bump.

Toledo, Peoria & Western: Take Parcels & Walk. Tired, Poor & Weak.

Union Pacific: Under Performing. Usually Pathetic. Usually Parked. Uncle Pete. Unlimited Power. Utterly Putrid. Un-Painted.

Wisconsin Central: Whiskey Central. We're Cheap. Wreck Central.

Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington: Weak, Wobbly & Frail.

The Adirondack Railroad just cannot seem to catch a break this year. First, after years of bitter court battles which initially went in favor of the Adirondack only for the state to start changing the rules in order to win, the state of New York finally made them tear up the tracks from Saranac Lake back to Tupper Lake to be converted into hiking and snowmobile trails, depriving them of what was supposedly some of their best scenery. The railroad has continued to press on, purchasing an MLW M420W that is due to ship up from NJ any day now, and embarking in a massive track renovation project north of Thendara to Tupper Lake, all while fighting off the local NIMBYs and snowmobilers who want the rails pulled up all the way back to Remsen (the state doesn't own the stretch of tracks from Utica to Remsen and so has no say over that portion). Two weeks ago, one of the ballast trains was headed north to Sabattis and derailed on a switch in the hamlet of Beaver Lake Station, putting seven cars on the gravel. No major damage was done and they were rerailed without effecting passenger service the next weekend. New York State Departmwent of Transportation investigators were sent to look into the derailment though and determined that the derailment was not due to mechanical failure nor was it due to human error. 

Per Northern New York 360 "According to a letter sent from town of Webb Police Chief Ronald W. Johnston to the Beaver River Property Owners Association, authorities from the state Department of Transportation Investigations Bureau and railroad inspection program have analyzed all damage to the rails and have found no signs of mechanical or human error. The experts have concluded that the only likely explanation is that someone purposely manipulated the switch.
Authorities have been advised that sometime during the week before, security padlocks on the switch that stand on both ends of the rail sidings had been forcefully removed."

So, at the moment, it sounds like someone who is peeved at the railroad, either a snowmobiler or a landowner or an environmentalist or one of their political enemies, broke the locks off the switch. On high mast switches, even if you only remove the lock the vibration from the train can cause the handle to rise up and out of its slot, and the points can then open under the train. This is why switches without locks always have 'keepers', little metal hooks that you leave in the hole on the top of the handle. VIA had a similar derailment from a similar situation in the 1990s, and the Heber Valley also had a similar act of vandalism that put Southern Pacific 2-6-0 #1477 on the ground.

It's not that absurd an accusation either. Years ago, when Adirondack had their GP9, someone got in the cab one night and cut all the wires to control stands. There have also been numerous incidents where crews have discovered suspiciously large amounts of water in the crankcase of engines while doing their pre-startup checks, as well as finding journal boxes on passenger cars filled with sand. 

The only good thing about the situation is that they caught one of the ballast trains, which due to the weight of the load and the line grade, operate at pretty low speeds. The passenger trains whip right along at 50mph in sections, sometimes higher if they are behind schedule, and if it was a passenger train that had hit that switch and derailed, there very likely could have been loss of life.

Still, pretty despicable.

In reply to NickD :

Those are some great nicknames!

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

The fact that the NYO&W themselves pushed the New, Young, Out & Working was particularly absurd. By that point it was in ramshackle condition with finances looking worse by the day and everyone knew it. Exactly zero people were fooled.

Narrow gauge engines of Argent Lumber, 2-6-2 No. 5 , a 1910 Lima product, and 2-6-0 No. 2, a 1906 Baldwin, at the  Bear Creek transfer point.

In reply to NickD :

What's the purpose of those type of stacks, spark arrestors?

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

Yeah, that's why all your old wood-burning engines and a lot of your logging Shays/Heislers/Climaxes had those huge diamond stacks, was because they had all sorts of spark arrestors. The cabbage stacks, also called a Rushton or Radley & Hunter stack for their manufacturers, were more localized, largely appearing in the southeast, although some saw use in the PNW. They had screens and then a number of cast-iron baffles that were designed to generate a vortex and separate the cinders with centrifugal action.

The narrow gauge Lima 2-6-2s are intriguing as well. Lima made a fair amount of narrow gauge Shays, Lima had the rights to Ephraim Shay's design after all, but Lima side-rod narrow gauge engines aren't very common. Of the Big Three of steam, Baldwin was the big producer of narrow gauge engines, along with Vulcan and H.K. Porter and the rest of the little builders

Isn't there an Argent locomotive at the "Old Threshers Reunion" in Mt Pleasant, IA ?

In reply to LS_BC8 :

There is actually three at Mount Pleasant at the Midwest Central Railroad, with one operational. All three are Baldwin 2-6-0s, #2, #6 and #7, with #6 the operational one.

There is a second Argent Lumber #7, an H.K. Porter 2-8-0, at Hardeeville, SC, which is where Argent Lumber headquarters were.

There is another H.K. Porter 2-8-0, #4, at the Connecticut Antique Machinery Association in Kent, Connecticut.

The #3, an H.K. Porter 2-6-0, is at Southern Forests World Museum, Waycross, GA.

And #5, the Lima 2-6-2 in the photo, is at Nevada County Narrow Gauge Museum in Nevada City, Nevada.

They'd make neat little engines for a small museum or an amusement park, but I imagine that they are all pretty used-up. Logging railroads were notoriously hard on equipment, between derailments from rapidly-constructed track, general abuse and neglect. And they usually patched them back together with some very questionable repairs.

Question? Today I saw a double engine CSX with a baggage and one passenger car that were white with red and blue graphics/script. I am deep in Norfolk Southern territory, south of Atlanta north of Macon. What did I see?

In reply to demnted :

Was it this?

The googles says it's an FRA train

06, not that train, engine looks close but the two cars, one was baggage type the rear was passenger. Body of both cars were mainly white like the last one in pic, but the graphics are different and text is completely missing. Thanks for the effort.

There are a few different ones, how about this one:

No sir, not that one either, middle car could have been a derivative of that but rear car was a multi windowed passenger car with aft platform.

In reply to demnted :

CSX has an ex-B&O platform observation car, Baltimore.

It was likely an FRA inspection train. That blue, white and red thing has a bunch of onboard sensors and computers that can check the condition of the track

Nick, the passenger car was some what similar, with a baggage/sensor car maybe. It looked like something that would have been part of a political "whistle stop" tour to me though. If the foilage was just a little thinner I would have a better idea.

Bruce Sterzing, president of the D&H from 1972-1977, passed away at the age of 88. Sterzing was responsible for the most fondly-remembered era of the D&H. He purchased the last two Baldwin RF-16s from GE and overhauled them and put them in general service in 1974 (funny that the D&H rostered their first Baldwin diesels some 18 years after Baldwin went out of business). He also pressured Amtrak into restoring NYC-Montreal service in 1974, the route of the old D&H Montreal Limited. Because Amtrak was still trying to find its footing, Sterzing sweet-talked the state of New York and the federal government into paying for rehabilitating the tracks and overhauling the last four Alco PA-1s (purchased in 1967) at Morrison-Knudsen with new electrical gear and the 2000hp 244s replaced with 2400hp 251s, so that the D&H could run it until Amtrak could take over. Sterzing also presided over the D&H essentially doubling in length on Conveyance Day, when it went from a 900 mile railroad to 1400 miles via various Conrail trackage rights. Sterzing’s run as D&H president ended in August 1977, when he was forced out by the United State Railroad Association during its reorganization efforts in the Northeast. He moved on to the bankrupt Rock Island, where he served as general manager and later as chief operating officer until just before that railroad’s liquidation in 1980. He came back to railroading in 1983 at Norfolk Southern, working in transportation planning, personnel, and labor relations. He retired from NS in 2000.

“Mr. Sterzing’s influence on the history of the D&H cannot be overstate. It’s rare that in just five short years, a single individual will have the opportunity to preside over so many course-altering events as occurred at the D&H between 1972 and 1977. He was a thoughtful leader, well-liked by his peers and co-workers, and his legacy is perhaps best remembered today every time a Norfolk Southern or Canadian Pacific rolls over the former D&H rails he fought so voraciously to keep from the scrapper’s torch," said Rudy Garbely of Garbely Publishing

Shown at the controls of Alco Pa-4u #18 in March 30th, 1974.

Amtrak isn't having great luck. At least there were no serious injuries. 
 

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

I'm impressed with how relatively unscathed that Hummer looks after it's impromptu flying lesson.

In reply to NickD :

No doubt!

I'm curious about the location. The way the engineer hit the horn at the last second makes me think they didn't have a view of the crossing until then?

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

Near Thackerville, OK on 77. From what I can see on the map, there's only one crossing and the engineer would have had a clear view of it. I wonder if he didn't hit the horn to get the driver - who was wildly waving at the train from either on or very close to the tracks (see the video) - to get clear before the inevitable impact.

Wow, that train just blasted right through that hauler. I've seen a few vidoes of such but never anything quite like that. 

Lou Manglass