Strasburg was running a special excursion yesterday with their Plymouth gasoline switcher, #1, yesterday. Apparently the slight grade, heavy rain, and two loaded passenger cars was a bit much for the tiny Plymouth 20-ton and stalled out. They had to hustle their EMD SW8 #8618 down to get #1 over the hump and then dumped a passenger car off.
Strasburg #1 posing during its day out.
They also painted Strasburg #90 back into it '60s livery, with red and yellow trim and the weird egg-shaped Strasburg logo on the tender for this weekend's special event, and did some night photo shoots, as well as sourcing a late '40s Cadillac and some period correct clothing for another.
In reply to NickD : That last photo is reminiscent of O. Winston Link's work. Looks great!
In reply to Recon1342 :
I didn't take the photo but weirdly the Strasburg Facebook page posts all its photos uncredited. Whoever takes them does a good job. Would have liked to go down there for that weekend but all the photo charter slots were sold out, and I was just down to PA last weekend and really didn't want to drive down again this weekend.
Strasburg #90 in its retro livery on Saturday. Friday was "Return Of The Plymouth" and Saturday was "Steam Strikes Back".
I was in Utica yesterday and swung by the train station yesterday. I caught Adirondack Railroad's pair of MLW RS-18Us hooked to a motley consist of passenger cars. In not sure if Adirondack is running trains from Utica to Thendara currently or not.
I also saw that New York Central #6721, a B-11k 0-6-0, looking much nicer than she has in a very long time.
I was also surprised to see that the Alco RSC-2 at the Children's Museum was still there, as it was supposed to be facing imminent scrapping.
#6721 is one of the few surviving NYC engines, having been sold off by NYC in '53 to an Illinois power company for industrial use, thus narrowly escaping the NYC steam purge. After retirement in 1963, it was sold to Mid-Continent Railroad Museum in Wisconsin. Then they sold it in 1980 to Carillon Historical Park in Dayton, Ohio. In 1997, it was sold again, to the Utica & Mohawk Valley chapter of the NRHS who moved it to Utica, NY and placed it on a siding owned by New York, Susquehanna & Western that served the old New York, Ontario & Western freight house. The engine got pretty rough looking over the years.
In early 2015, the U&MV chapter gave it a fresh coat of paint. But then in July of 2015, a 13 year old kid deliberately released the brakes on a covered hopper full of plastic pellets and it ran away down the NYS&W line. It clipped a car at a grade crossing (a C4 Vette actually) and then slammed into the #6721 and shoved it back into the corner of the station.
It severely damaged the #6721, bending the tender drawbar and shattering the cast pilot, and drove it 20 feet into the stairwell portion of the pedestrian walkover. At the time, people were on the east side of the platform waiting for Amtrak train #64 which is the eastbound Maple Leaf. Many beams, windows and brickwork collapsed into the tender which is now supporting the stairwell brickwork and steps. Structural engineers stated that if it weren’t for the steam locomotive, the hopper car would have sheared enough of the structure to bring the bridge down on the CSX Mohawk Subdivision and many people would have been killed. If the switch hadn't been lined up for that siding it would have continued down the CSX line and possibly hit an Amtrak train or CSX train head-on as well.
The engine and tender were pulled out of the station after the station was shored up and then pulled down the siding. The tender was restored first and the engine sat down under the highway bridge looking pretty sad. But finally this year, the pilot was welded back together and reattached to the engine, and the engine was given a fresh coat of paint. It looks good, although the tender has a nose-down rake from the bent frame, and supposedly the engine frame is also tweaked as well, which kills whatever chance it ever had of being restored to operation (there was talk of it, but nothing concrete I don't think). Still, the engine deserves a medal for saving lives.
Security camera footage of the other side of the platform during the impact.
A channel I follow on Youtube just posted some amazing footage of Steam Strikes Back. Not sure I care for the retro scheme on #90.
It would have been nice for them to have #31 (Canadian National #7312) operational for the event, since that was the first steam engine that Strasburg operated as a tourist-hauling operation. But I get Strasburg's position on #31 these days.
Looking at this photo, that tender is comically short. The two trucks almost touch each other.
In reply to NickD :
There's a kid who deserves to have his ass in a sling for a very, very long time.
Not sure if I should ask here or make a new thread, but uh. I've sorta got the itch to get a train set. Not that I have anywhere to set it up, but I'll figure something out. So uh, what's a good cheap starter set? I grew up with HO scale and I have some 1/87th scale automobiles I could decorate the scene with, but I'm open to suggestions on scale as well.
Oh and I want cool trains that are bright colors, because I'm still 5 years old mentally.
In reply to Duke :
If he were mine, I'd hike his ass up over his ears. The family didn't face any charges or have to pay any damages
In reply to slowbird :
HO Scale is nice because its large enough that the stuff is more detailed and its the most supported gauge, a lot of options for cars and engines to choose from. The price is sometimes lower than N Scale because they sell so much more. N Scales big advantage is that you can fit a ton of stuff in a small space and its still reasonably cheap. Its a little less detailed though, and manufacturers support it less in terms of rolling stock. Avoid O Scale unless you want to pay a new car down payment for a single engine. Seriously, some of them are $3500+.
Now, some of the flashier lines out there. These are popular lines too. Southern Pacific is tough to beat. They had the Daylight passenger scheme
And their early diesels used the super cool "Black Widow" scheme. The later "Bloody Nose" red and gray was a bit more subdued
Delaware & Hudson's blue, yellow and white/silver is a favorite of mine. And they owned some exotic stuff later on, like Alco PAs and Baldwin "Sharknoses"
L
ehigh Valley's Cornell Red with yellow and white accents is snazzy. The D&H and Lehigh Valley also crossed paths a lot, so if you wanted to be historically accurate, you could have both on a layout.
Chessie Systems: terrific livery, boring roster.
CB&Q kind of gets slept on, but they had EMD E-units with stainless steel skins
And a nice white with red accents
And whatever the hell this was called. EDIT: This livery was called "Blackbird" and had "Route Of The Zephyrs" on the other side of the long roof
And the final Chinese
Chinese Red with white and gray, the last look before the Burlington Northern merger.
Speaking of Burlington Northern, bright green, bright orange and white had no reason to look as good as they did.
Patrick McGinnis may have driven the New York, New Haven & Hartford into rack and ruin, but he had big style. The orange, white and black look with bold lettering is cool. New Haven also had at least 5 or 6 other schemes. Orange and white, black and gold, dark green and gold, orange and dark green, black with gray striping. It was a bit absurd.
Chicago & North Western went for a John Deere-esque green and yellow. They also never met a locomotive salesman they didn't like.
Cross town rival of the C&NW, Milwaukee Road, went with orange, red and black. They also had a "little of each" buying mentality. Alcos, Baldwins, EMDs, Fairbanks-Morse, GE, they had it all.
And finally, you have the Rock Island. Always sickly, they reinvented their corporate look frequently to try and stay relevant. It didn't work though.
slowbird said:Not sure if I should ask here or make a new thread, but uh. I've sorta got the itch to get a train set. Not that I have anywhere to set it up, but I'll figure something out. So uh, what's a good cheap starter set? I grew up with HO scale and I have some 1/87th scale automobiles I could decorate the scene with, but I'm open to suggestions on scale as well.
Oh and I want cool trains that are bright colors, because I'm still 5 years old mentally.
https://www.trainworld.com/manufacturers/model-train-starter-sets/
In reply to slowbird :
There's a lot of factors to consider when trying to pick a scale. Probably the biggest is how much space you have. We ended up going with N Scale because we're somewhat space limited. Our table is basically "L" shaped 10' x 5' and 3 1/2 feet deep. We were able to create a double loop with several sidings and a switch yard and about 2 1/2 scale miles of track. The same layout in HO is pretty much exactly twice that size .
Price is almost a non-factor. Some things are cheaper in HO scale, some in N scale. From what I've seen, if there's a price advantage, its probably a slight advantage favoring N Scale.
The availability of scenery products, engines, rolling stock, buildings, vehicles, lighting, etc favors HO scale, and it's not even close. HO is sort of a Jeep/Miata in terms of the "aftermarket" that's out there. N scale isn't too bad if you are modeling 1950's or older, but "modern" stuff is rare.
HO used to have a substantial advantage in ease of operation. N scale used to be somewhat "fiddly". I've found our Kato N scale stuff to be pretty close to HO as far as reliability. It always runs. If there's a drawback it's that N scale is slightly more prone to derailing and can be difficult to get re-railed, especially if your eyesight is as poor as mine.
I wouldn't even look at the larger scales unless you have cubic dollars you don't know what to do with and acres of open indoor space.
Another thing I was wondering is, is everything pretty much compatible across brands? Like, I assume track pieces don't mix across brands, but if I get X brand track can I use mostly any engines/cars on it? And is there any major advantage to different brands of controller/power system?
In reply to slowbird :
Everything should work with everything else. DC vs. DCC is a personal thing, and most of your starter sets will be DC powered. That being said, HO is very well standardized and everything plays well together.
In reply to Recon1342 :
Cool, thanks!
DC vs. DCC seems, based on some brief reading, a lot like the "analog vs. digital" divide in slot car racing. The traditional, simpler system, versus the more expensive and complicated system with advanced features. Both have pros and cons, and fervent debates will rage until the end of time with no winner 
In reply to slowbird :
It's a bit different. DCC is amazing when you have a club-size layout, as you can run a lot of different trains at one time without having a bunch of crazy wiring to make everything play nice...
I've got the itch to get back in. I live near the BNSF Racetrack between Chicago and Aurora now, and that seems like really fun inspiration for a layout. I could get some Metra, BNSF Freight and Amtrak.
In reply to Mike (Forum Supporter) :
If you wanted to go for a more historical bent, you had CB&Q, with run-through trains from Great Northern, Denver & Rio Grande Western, and Union Pacific.
Kind of a weird one here. You have EMD E8s running "elephant style" (nose-to-tail) pulling GN equipment. GN lacked access to Chicago and had to interchange with CB&Q.
An E8 with a single commuter coach. Seems like a money-losing operation.
The Morning Zephyr. Silver E-units, stainless Budds and dome cars, this was the CB&Q way
D&RGW GP30s headed home on the CB&Q
GN F-units with a freight. I also like that multi-colored Pontiac wagon. Seems like she's had an accident at some point and been band-aided back together.
A Union Pacific GP30 leads two of the UP's unique cabless GP30 B-units. Uncle Pete was the only line to pursue the concept of road switcher B-units
CB&Q 2-8-2 #4960 hauling an excursion on the race track. It's weird to see a steam engine towing double-decker commuter cars
CB&Q O-5a Northern #5632 storming down the Racetrack. Poor #5632, gone too soon.
The GP30B I referenced was a concept that never truly took hold. The carbody B-unit, like an F7B or a FB-1, were designed to head off labor demands that every locomotive have a crew. If a unit didn't have a cab, it didn't need a crew.
But as the diesel locomotive evolved, the wasted potential of all those B-units was realized. They had hostler controls for moving them around the yard, but couldn't be operated independently over the road. That meant if you were running a bunch of light trains that could be handled by a single unit, you either had a yard full of B-units not being used, or you were using an A-B pair that you didn't really need to use on the train and burning extra fuel. So as the labor laws were ironed out and the industry shifted towards the road switcher, all of those had cabs, which greatly increased flexibility. Now, you didn't have to worry about pairing up certain units in a certain order with each other. You just added road switchers to a consist until you had sufficient power and then the crew ran them from the lead unit.
But then the lines with more rugged territory that ran M.U. heavy trains began to come full circle on the thinking and asked the question: Why build and maintain expensive cabs on all units when they're used only a small fraction of the time? By cutting out the control stands, windows, cab structure and crew accommodations, they could save pretty significant amounts of money on a locomotive order. So in 1953, Santa Fe ordered 5 GP7s from EMD sans cabs. They were referred to as GP7Bs.
Then a few years later, Union Pacific and Pennsylvania Railroad decided they liked the idea and split an order of 165 GP9Bs. Again, identical to a GP9, just without a cab or controls.
While ATSF was on a B-unit hiatus, and PRR would never order another again, Union Pacific, who was running trains through the mountains with 4, 5 or 6 units loved the concept. And so they returned for 40 GP30Bs
UP also took 45 SD24Bs, which was the 6-axle companion to the GP30.
Power hungry UP wanted a 15,000hp 3-unit locomotive set and EMD responded with the DD35, a 5000hp 8-axle (two D-trucks) B-unit that was essentially two GP35 powertrains on a single frame with no cab, which was designed to be sandwiched between a pair of GP35s. UP would grab up 27 of these ridiculous booster units between 1963 and 1964, while SP would sample just 3.
Union Pacific would also convince Alco to build a single B-unit of their outrageous C855, an 8-axle, 5500hp Century series. It was very short-lived, as were the 2 C855 A-units and is hard to even find photos of
And then the idea went dormant for a while. For about 15 years, no one offered or demanded a road switcher booster unit. But everything old becomes new again and in the early 1980s, Burlington Northern, which had rebuilt a few wrecked units into cabless boosters (a common practive), placed an order for 120 GE B30-7ABs, which was a B30-7 (3000hp, B-trucks) with no cab.
Around the same time, Santa Fe rebuilt a handful of EMD SD45-2s into cabless SD45-2Bs.
And in 1991, Santa Fe would purchase 23 GP60Bs
These would be the last road switcher B-units produced. But, you have to wonder, if we are due for them to make another resurgence.
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