Richard's American Train Adventures

[richard carr]

The next thing I came across was the "Railway Diorama"

It's pretty big and all in HO













Quite an impressive control panel


Then I came across this, not something you can normally get close to.



Then some old signals



Then I set off back to the main station and found the direct train back



It appears to be built on the sides of the Shinkansen tracks.

and one final photo from the other end of the platform at Omiya as I waited for a train back to Tokyo.



Hopefully I will get the video out later today.
As for freight trains, I did see 2 container trains as I arrived at Omiya, but unfortunately I was still on my train when I saw the first one and the second one was as I got off and I couldn't get my camera out fast enough to get a decent picture.
I also saw a couple of oil trains but again I just could not get a decent picture, there is one behind the train on the right, but it had gone by the time that train had cleared the platform !
There is one in the video, but no 2 mile long trains going past at 10mph.



Richard

 

[JasonD]

As you say Britain went through this strange diesel episode rather than look ahead and transition from steam to electric. We all have our views on this - not for discussion here though .

Good coverage of a fine looking museum, Richard. I was happy to take my late pal Ron Sebastian, owner of Des Plaines Hobbies, over to York Museum on a Pacer. The Shinkansen unit was there. We visited the Bluebell Railway just before he flew back to O'Hare ... we preferred it.

As Dave requested, no 'discussion', but:
- Britain had to recover from WWII as quickly as possible, so first save the mining industry
- Help Britain's engineering industry and the Empire/Commonwealth supplying industries without having to put up overhead wires all over the world first
- Try and stop the Americans stepping in everywhere with their diesels
- Come up with a way of replacing the old railways when we'd got a grip on coal-mining reduction and got a Transport Minister keen on diesel for road transport
- keep us kids interested in modelling railways without having to cover our layouts in supported wires or pay up for complicated steam engine valve gear

Anyway, I'd quite like a Dapol 66 whenever, but having to choose what single type of freight wagon will be needed to make up an authentic train will be difficult, so I'll stick with American manifest freights.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Then I set off back to the main station and found the direct train back

It appears to be built on the sides of the Shinkansen tracks.

These are rubber tyred trains.

 

[simond]

Perhaps this is not the right thread for it, and respecting the “no politics” approach of WT, I would be very interested to understand the (rail)road to here. There were clearly decisions taken in the post war years which are having impacts today. We can judge those decisions in the light of knowing what happened, which the decision makers could not perhaps foresee, though you‘d hope for some well informed and insightful decision making from those responsible. It’s part of our history, and, in my view, no more a subject to be avoided that discussions about Dr B.

We’d have been burning the coal to make the electricity anyway, so I doubt that was a factor. Importing oil was a necessity for the diesels.

 

[richard carr]

The video is now processing on YouTube, it should be finished in about 40 minutes, it's 14:50 now.

Here's the link

I also finished the video for my little trip to California in November, this one you can find here.

Richard

 

[JasonD]

FWIW I visited a cousin on the SF peninsula in Oct 74 and enjoyed H24-66 and GP9 locos pulling SP dbl-deck and Harriman sgl-deck cars. Of course American railroads are still fun...

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Nice video of the trains in Tokyo and Omiya. Really surprised to see the double deck stock in the sets albeit for first class passengers only.

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

FWIW I visited a cousin on the SF peninsula in Oct 74 and enjoyed H24-66 and GP9 locos pulling SP dbl-deck and Harriman sgl-deck cars. Of course American railroads are still fun...

Although the SP double deck stock were gallery cars rather than true double deck .

 

[JasonD]

As were most(/all?) other commuter dbl-deck cars around. The design meant the conductor and other ticket-staff could process upper deck tickets from the ground floor

 

[Stephen]

FWIW I visited a cousin on the SF peninsula in Oct 74 and enjoyed H24-66 and GP9 locos pulling SP dbl-deck and Harriman sgl-deck cars. Of course American railroads are still fun...

I've found some interesting photos in Signor's SP books of steam hauled double deck/gallery car consists at the tail end of the SP transition era - stuff modellers would probably baulk at if you dared run it on an exhibition layout!

Cheers,

Stephen

 

[Brian McKenzie]

From the Chicago area 2018:

Passengers and Conductor place tickets in clips along the edge of the balustrade.

Incidentally, the Conductor told me not to take photos, and a driver on Chicago's "L" came through from the driving compartment and said she would put me off the train if I continued to take photos.


Some cars also use fold-up seats facing inwards on the upper level.

 

[simond]

What’s with the “no photos” business? Not exactly a strategic installation…

 

[Rob R]

An ideal situation for "playing tetris" on your phone ...

best thing since sliced bread for covert operations

 

[richard carr]

Brian

Those coaches are still in use by Metra today, and people still clip their tickets for the train staff to see.
There's no sign of that changing for years yet.

Richard

 

[Yorkshire Dave]

Those coaches are still in use by Metra today, and people still clip their tickets for the train staff to see.
There's no sign of that changing for years yet.

Not until they update their fleet with the Stadler KISS EMUs as Caltrain are doing.

 

[richard carr]

Dave

Where are they going to find the billions needed to electrify the network. They still haven't found the money to buy the rest of the SD70s.

Richard

 

[richard carr]

After a week in Tokyo I only got a week at home before here I am in the US again. So I flew in on Thursday, picked up a car and was in Elkhart by 5:30pm, just in time to check out the Elkhart and Western interchange siding (thats passing loop in US railway language). There wasn't anything happening, but there were 6 freight cars waiting to be collected by NS.



AOK is Arkansas and Oklahoma

This looks ot be an almost new boxcar for UP





Unfortunately there is too much grafitti to see the build date.

The plan for Friday was to go and explore the Indiana North Eastern Railroad. It operates in north eastern Indiana, quite a bit in Michigan and interchanges with NS at Montpelier Ohio. In total over 130 miles of track in a kind of H shaped layout. I was going to start in COldwater Michigan about 60 miles from Elkhart and then head to Hillsdale, the lines operating HQ.

First thing in the morning I did go down to the station in ELkhart just in case NS were sending out a loco to pickup those freight cars from the evening before and if they were taking anything with them then the E and W now has 2 GP9 style locos to deal with them and nothing else.
However nothing had happened by 9:30 do I set off for Coldwater planning to stop off at Sturgis, about half way there. NS does occasionally take a trainload of hopper cars there and there is still quite a bit of track according to google maps.

I got there and found this



It's lettered PREX, which is pioneer rail, but I'm not sure who is operating it, the ELkhart and Western doesn't run to here, or maybe they do ?



FOrtunately it tells you on the side of the loco that it's a GP16, it was originally a Seaboard Airlines GP9 from 1955, it's even older than me.



This is the eastern end of the yard, the tracks do run through to Coldwater, but I've read that the ties are too rotten to operate anything.

This is the western end, a fairly complex track layout



The track straight ahead leads back to Elkhart joining the Grand Elk route at White Pigeon. The track crossing this runs south (to the left) through the town serving a few customers along the route and ends after about 5 miles. To the right is another customer that appears to take the tanks a few hundred yards away.

 

[richard carr]

After this I drove on to Coldwater, I saw a sign for a road I had seen on the map and turned off along it as I remembered it crossed the railroad a bit further along. To my surprise as I drove on I saw two of their locomotives, the lights were on but they weren't moving. They were also well away from the road with no access.

I carried on exploring and came across this.



Again nothing was happening and there were no trespassing signs everywhere around the old rolling stock.

Looking down the tracks you could see these, that's a GP30 down there



I carried on into the town and found the depot



Again nothing was happening so I was going to head back to where the locos were.

As I made my way I saw crossing lights start flashing, so I quickly pulled over and got my camera out.









This line loops down the hill past where the old rolling stock was, so I headed back there.

The GP9 then started switching the spurs there. pulling cars out and leaving new ones behind. I have all this on video, to follow later.




Eventually they had finished here and headed off down the line towards Coldwater.

I found them again about a mile down the line at Jay Street.

Here they were switching more hopper cars in and out of a factory.



This carried on for about an hour, then they parked the loco up and the crew got in their car and left.







By this time it had started to snow




With all the action over I headed for Hillsdale

It's about 25 miles from COldwater so it didn't take too long. Nothing was happening. There is a bit of a yard here and a triangle of track,

I di find these freight cars parked up, I don't think 2 of them are going anwhere.






And this switch thing ?



The railway takes an L shaped route to Montpelier, running south west to Steubenville before heading east to Montpelier. The rout also runs east from Steubenville to SOuth Milford to serve a large grain elevator there.

I stopped off in MOntpelier but there wasn't a lot to see, so carried on to Toledo to meet up with Jim today.

There is a bit of snow about an inch and it's not going t melt as the temperature is minus 5 centigrade with a forecast high of minus 2.

 

[Jordan]

I got there and found this

That sort of 'really simple but full of atmosphere' view is what I've tried to capture on my layout.
Who says American trains are all a mile long with 5 engines on the point??

 

[Scale7JB]

Excellent stuff. Proper old skool railroad, especially with the switch stand.

So… did you get to see the GP30?!!

JB.