Grassroots Railroad Sports?

In reply to NickD :

I'm really surprised that oversized-load carriers don't have to coordinate with the railroads before crossing grades. 

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

I just don't get why a truck driver handling an oversized load thought it was a good idea to stop blocking a crossing

My first thought when watching the video was that the truck driver is very likely to be unemployed in the near future. 134' concrete bridge girders aren't cheap, and that was an easily preventable incident.

Pulled up google earth because I'm curious. Imagery is about 2 years old, so the traffic light doesn't appear to be there yet. I circled the grade crossing. The train was westbound, and the red arrow shows approximately where the engineer would've first seen the bridge girder. The distance between the two is about 650 ft, just over one-tenth of a mile. They never had a chance to stop.

Recon1342 said:

My first thought when watching the video was that the truck driver is very likely to be unemployed in the near future. 134' concrete bridge girders aren't cheap, and that was an easily preventable incident.

I imagine there's also quite a bit of lead time on 134' concrete girders as well, so whatever construction project that was headed to likely just got handed a hefty delay.

Not sure that I'll ever act on it, but I'd like to build a model railroad of the Delaware & Hudson in the early Conrail era. In addition to the wealth of unusual power on the D&H (RS-3s in both original and upgraded form, RF-16s, RS-11s, RS-32s, C628s, U23Bs, U30Cs, U33Cs) you also had the new power in LV and RDG colors, there were the leased Long Island Rail Road high-hood C420s, there was frequent run-through power from the Norfolk & Western, and you had nearby Conrail with it's wealth of different liveries that you could incorporate.

Where mine would make a departure from reality would be the presence of M420Rs. It's not that outrageous a concept: the D&H liked Alco power, the D&H really liked the 1800-2000hp Alco 251F package (the RS-11s and RS-36s were some of the last Alcos on the T&H, they upgraded RS-3s to this engine, and also had Alco C424s downgraded to this engine package), they needed horsepower in the early Conrail days, MLW was clearly willing to sell the M420 to USA railroads as evidenced by the five on the Providence & Worcester, the D&H probably would have traded in RS-3s or RS-11s on them (So they would be M420Rs will the old Alco trucks instead of the M420W's Dofasco ZWT trucks), and the D&H actually served Canada through their Napier Junction Railway, so they could have purchased them under the Napier Junction to avoid import tax and then transferred them to D&H ownership.

Also, I just think they would look awesome. Imagine these...

In either the earlier classic D&H "lightning stripe"...

or the later Altschul Blue (also known as Austerity Blue or "the Blue Dip") with the yellow striped nose.

Or, in my dreams, I win the lottery, become a multi-millionaire, go buy an actual M420W, paint it in D&H colors and lease it to Saratoga, Corinth & Hudson.

The Altschul Blue livery, named after D&H president Selig Altschul, was rolled out in 1977 with solid yellow noses. The D&H lightning stripe livery too three paint colors and 7 days to paint (Erie-Lackawanna's livery also used three colors but took 3 days to paint due to simpler masking) and the railroad was bleeding cash. The new livery used two colors and saved $600 per locomotive, but Chief Mechanical Officer Fred Cheney loathed the solid yellow noses. He couldn't figure out how to make it better without adding considerable expense though. The solution came when the ex-Reading GP39-2s began to show up in force and he took one look at the chevroned noses and realized that was it.

D&H #2311 "The Grey Ghost". Shortly after the Guilford buyout, U23B #2311 was run through the Colonie Diesel Shops ("Where Big Things Happen") and completely overhauled. The problem was the Altschul Blue was prone to fading and poor adhesion, and the #2311 still looked like a total junker. Guilford said "There's no money for paint, deal with it" but CMO Fred Cheney couldn't stomach sending the #2311 out looking that rough. They dug around the Colonie Diesel Shops and found a bunch of leftover grey paint from the original livery and shot the #2311 in this unique grey livery 

Before the Altschul Blue l, there was whatever you would call this experimental livery on RS-36 #5015, which was the first attempt at a simpler, easier, cheaper livery.

Chris Macdermot, who designed the livery, actually wanted to do D&RGW-style "speed lettering" but it got axed in favor of the dorky block print due to taking more time to mask and paint. Supposedly the first time D&H President Bruce Sterzing saw the #5015 at Oneonta, he told the shop crews to "hide it" because he hated it that much.

There's a certain irony to the fact that 50 years later #5015 was just repainted into that same hated livery, although with Batten Kill Railroad lettering. And the Batten Kill lettering is similar to D&RGW speed lettering. Itdoes look much better that way.

On the subject of the D&H and old Alcos, Hal Raven has moved his ex-D&H Alco S-2, #3021, down from the Batten Kill Railroad to his Saratoga, Corinth & Hudson operation to joing Alco #5.

He has also announced the purchase of an Alco RS-1 that he will be moving up sometime in the future. He's already had it photoshopped into SC&H colors to match Alco #5.

Interesting how all the old ads stress that the trains will be running and on time, no matter the weather. Now a light rain causes Amtrak to run 2 hours late.

Merry Christmas Nick, thanks for those old ads.  My Dad’s room at my Grandmother’s house had a closet full of old National Geographic and Popular Science magazines from the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s and I loved going through them on sleepovers.  The ads with the 2nd deck observation cars were my favorites. 

Edited for a pic!

11GTCS said:

Merry Christmas Nick, thanks for those old ads.  My Dad’s room at my Grandmother’s house had a closet full of old National Geographic and Popular Science magazines from the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s and I loved going through them on sleepovers.  The ads with the 2nd deck observation cars were my favorites. 

Edited for a pic!

I wish we would go back to that Rockwellian style of advertisement. 

A little #1225 for 12/25