Intercity Passenger Rail

[Pericles]

That is a tram or trolley or streetcar.

Not a train since they cannot be coupled to or built into a consist to pull non powered cars, as a general rule.

Ive' see trams n Switzerland with non powered cars coupled to them.

[Anti Federalist]

Ive' see trams n Switzerland with non powered cars coupled to them.

As a general rule.

[acptulsa]

Imagine being at the throttle at that speed.

Like landing on the moon or doing a four second quarter mile or flying an F15.

[Anti Federalist]

Soaking Behemoth – The Mack Super Pumper Was A Locomotive Engined Fire Fighter That Could Extinguish Hell Itself (And Often Did)

http://bangshift.com/bangshiftxl/mac...sh-hell-often/

[Anti Federalist]

Random train image popped up on imgur.

[surf]

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-...o-expand-line/

On tour of UW station, Inslee backs $15 billion tax plan for more light rail

Originally published April 17, 2015 at 8:51 pm | Updated April 18, 2015 at 2:53 pm

Gov. Jay Inslee speaks at a news conference Friday at the University of Washington light-rail station. The governor supports Sound Transit’s request for $15 billion to expand the light-rail network. (Ellen M. Banner / The Seattle Times)

King County Executive Dow Constantine, who is chairman of the Sound Transit board of directors, also spoke at the site of the University of Washington light-rail station. (Ellen M. Banner / The Seattle Times)

The University of Washington Station features midnight-blue tiles. Gov. Jay Inslee, along with other state officials and politicians, took a tour Friday of the UW station, which will open early next year. (Ellen M. Banner / The Seattle Times)

Construction workers and the media, standing at the top of the escalators, were included in the tour of the University of Washington Station. (Ellen M. Banner / The Seattle Times)

Exterior shot of the University of Washington Sound Transit light-rail station. The governor and other officials toured the station, which will open next year, on Friday. (Ellen M. Banner / The Seattle Times).



1 of 5 Gov. Jay Inslee speaks at a news conference Friday at the University of Washington light-rail station. The governor supports Sound Transit’s request for... More 



Amid skepticism by some lawmakers, Gov. Jay Inslee makes a photo-op at UW Station, to insist on allowing Sound Transit the entire $15 billion it wants to send to the 2016 ballot.


By Mike Lindblom 

Seattle Times transportation reporter

Gov. Jay Inslee took his bully pulpit underground Friday into the future University of Washington Station, to send a message that nothing less than $15 billion is acceptable to expand the regional light-rail network.

That number has created a stumbling block in Olympia, as lawmakers try for a third year to agree on a massive transportation package.





The Senate, controlled by Republicans, approved an 11.7-cent gas-tax increase, predominantly for highways, while limiting Sound Transit to $11 billion in a separate tax measure that would go to voters in urban Snohomish, King and Pierce counties next year.
....

[acptulsa]

The Mercury! A Henry Dreyfus design.

Little prettier than most pics that pop up there.

[Anti Federalist]

The real story behind the demise of America's once-mighty streetcars

http://www.vox.com/2015/5/7/8562007/...history-demise

Back in the 1920s, most American city-dwellers took public transportation to work every day.

There were 17,000 miles of streetcar lines across the country, running through virtually every major American city. That included cities we don't think of as hubs for mass transit today: Atlanta, Raleigh, and Los Angeles.

Nowadays, by contrast, just 5 percent or so of workers commute via public transit, and they're disproportionately clustered in a handful of dense cities like New York, Boston, and Chicago. Just a handful of cities still have extensive streetcar systems — and several others are now spending millions trying to build new, smaller ones.

So whatever happened to all those streetcars?

More at link...

[acptulsa]

Anthrax in the news again bump.

[acptulsa]

Paul also went long on fiscal policy, saying that Amtrak would be better off in private hands. "You would think after having commercial railroads for over 100 years, we could do a better job than that," he said, referring to last week's derailment just miles north of Philadelphia.

"They've lost money every year they've been existent. I'm looking at the easement and thinking, 'Man, we should sell that.' [Imagine] if we could sell that and let a real company put up a fast train."

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/ar...iminal-justice

Well, it only has rails in eight states, and it isn't profitable, so I doubt it would sell. But I still like the way he thinks.

Suppose we gave the rails and the electrically powered equipment to those eight (very wealthy) states and stop making Wyoming and Kansas and Mississippi subsidize the wealthy states? And suppose we reverse the process that created Amtrak and gave its other equipment to the real railroads can turn it into somewhat faster, considerably nicer, indubitably safer trains? The routes would not change--Amtrak forces the real railroads to run its trains as it is. Why shouldn't the real railroads be allowed to run their own trains?

[acptulsa]

Could it be possible that Nixon had a very Nixonian reason for creating Amtrak..?

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: None Are Safe from the State's Plundering Parasites

http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com...-none-are.html

“Is anyone present carrying more than ten marks, or planning to take out of the country any foreign money, gold, jewels, or other valuables?” demanded the German customs inspector after boarding the Innsbruck-bound train. “Any violation of the law will be punished with penal servitude --special cases by death.”

Freya Roth, a single woman in her 20s traveling with her mother and younger brother, produced her passport and handed it to the inspector. After the document was stamped, the truculent bureaucrat noticed the young lady’s luggage.

“Whose suitcase is that?” he snapped, his voice colored with an implied threat. “Take it down – open it.”

“It isn’t locked,” Freya said quietly, her brows drawn together in worried puzzlement. Before she had finished the sentence the inspector had torn open the luggage and started to paw through it. A comrade noticed a large bound volume on the shelf above Freya’s seat. He retrieved it and began to pore over its handwritten pages.

“What is that – code?” the policeman inquired of Freya.

“No – it’s a physiological treatise,” she replied, proudly explaining that it had been written by her late father, Professor Victor Roth.

Radiating hostile disapproval, the inspector handed the manuscript to a Gestapo officer who had been looming in the background, a silent monolith of murderous menace.

“Why are you taking this out of the country?” the officer barked at Freya. “You intend on publishing it abroad?”

Freya tried to explain that she kept the book with her because it was her father’s last work, which was enough to implicate her as an enemy of the State.

“I can’t take the responsibility of allowing you to cross the border with this document,” sniffed the officer as if he owned Freya and everything in her possession. “This is a matter that can only be decided by my superior.”

Freya was taken to a local police station where she was detained for five days for possession of contraband – “a seditious production sustaining a theory destructive to the new ideals.”

“You belong – in part – to the German race, but by your action you show yourself unworthy to represent that race abroad,” the police commander explained to Freya, alluding to her paternal Jewish ancestry. “You will report to the police daily. Let me warn you to be extremely careful in your conduct, and in your contacts. That is all.”

The traumatized woman was “released” to life as an inmate in an open-air prison. She had been condemned and dispossessed without a trial as the result of a warrantless search of her effects during a routine train trip.

Freya’s Nazi-era experience, depicted in the 1940 film The Mortal Storm, was a fictional parable intended to shock its American audience: Imagine what it would be like to live in a country where police could board a train, rifle through your luggage, confiscate anything of value they found, and detain you indefinitely if they found suspected contraband in your possession.

I don’t know if Aaron Heuser, a mathematician from Eugene, Oregon, is familiar with “The Mortal Storm.” He doesn’t need to see the movie – he has lived it.

As Heuser recounted to Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic magazine, during an Amtrak trip from Eugene to Washington, D.C. last fall, he received an unwelcome visit in his sleeper compartment by a DEA agent whose comportment was indistinguishable from that of the cinematic Nazi officials who terrorized Freya Roth.

The DEA agent addressed Heuser by name and claimed that his trip had raised numerous “red flags” – specifically, that “I had a sleeper car, was traveling alone, and did not check my luggage.”

When the officious pest demanded access to the sleeper compartment and Heuser’s personal effects, the traveler refused. Undeterred, the agent informed Heuser “that he was going to bring a dog, walk it by my room, and that if it alerted, my room would be searched. He told me that I could not argue this and that I was not allowed to be present for the search.”

Like nearly everything else that emerges from the tax-devouring skull cave of a DEA official, that claim was a lie. Heuser had every right to be present during the search, but the agent insisted that he absent himself because “the dog might bite me.” In retrospect, and perhaps at the time, that statement could be seen as a threat garbed in the unpersuasive disguise of solicitude.

As Heuser strode toward the dining car, he was stalked by a second DEA operative who tried to get him to leave the train, where he would be surrounded by other law enforcement officers.

“The officer followed me, telling me that they know I am transporting drugs, and if I have any for personal use, they do not care, and it would be easier if I just told them,” Heuser told The Atlantic. “I said that was nice to know, then kept walking.” Yet another DEA operative tried to gain access by pretending that “someone was hiding in my bathroom.”

When Heuser was finally allowed to return to his compartment, “I found my backpack moved and open, and my wallet, which was set down on the room table, had $60 missing.” He was told by a dining car attendant that “Amtrak is forced to give passenger info to the Feds, that the DEA comes on every trip, usually arresting someone in the sleeping car or taking all their money.”

That Amtrak employee did not engage in hyperbole, as Joseph Rivers can testify. The 22-year-old native of Romulus, Michigan, was robbed by DEA agents when his Los Angeles-bound train was stopped and searched in Albuquerque. Rivers, who entertained ambitions of becoming a music video producer, was carrying his life savings -- $16,000 in cash – in a bank envelope.

Behaving precisely like his fictional Nazi analogues from “The Mortal Storm,” the DEA agent confiscated every penny of Rivers’ life savings without arresting him or charging him with a crime. Under the Justice Department’s civil asset forfeiture program, possession of large sums of cash or other exceptional wealth – “gold, jewels, or other valuables,” as the customs inspector put it in the film – is sufficiently suspicious to justify confiscation.

“We don’t have to prove that the person is guilty,” gloated a DEA agent when asked about the incident by the Albuquerque Journal. “It’s that the money is presumed to be guilty.” Sean Waite, the DEA’s Ortsgruppenleiter for Albuquerque, bragged to the Albuquerque Free Press that his he and his squalid associates have harvested about $1 million from travelers passing through that city on Amtrak’s Southwest Chief.

Setting aside questions about the wisdom of carrying his entire life savings in cash, Joseph Rivers’ experience is especially poignant, given that he could just as easily have been robbed by his local police.

Between 2003 and 2007 – the years of Rivers’ adolescence – Romulus witnessed a 118 percent increase in forfeiture revenues despite the fact that there was no corresponding increase in criminal activity. A similar trend was seen on the part of law enforcement agencies throughout Wayne and Oakland counties. The forfeiture take by police in Novi went from $12,278 to $2.7 million. The Wayne County Sheriff's Office netted $8.69 million in 2007, four times the haul its banditti seized in 2001.

Sgt. Dave Schreiner, the head of Canton Township's forfeiture unit, was admirably forthright in defending civil forfeiture as his department’s chief cash conduit: "Police departments right now are looking for ways to generate revenue, and forfeiture is a way to offset the costs of doing business.... You'll find that departments are doing more forfeitures than they used to because they've got to -- they're running out of money and they've got to find it somewhere."

Bear in mind, once again, that this defense of forfeiture was offered at a time when the non-official crime rate was holding steady, and by some measurements in a modest decline. Acting with the irrepressible predatory instinct that guides all State institutions, the police responded to this state of affairs by carrying out a crime wave of their own.

For the privileged plunderers of Romulus and the surrounding towns, preying on the public was encouraged and rewarded – but holding back any of the loot from your cohorts was a grave offense. This is why former Romulus Police Chief Michael St. Andre, his wife, and several members of his Special Investigations Unit will spend time in prison.

Between 2006 and 2011, St. Andre and his underlings skimmed money from the city’s forfeiture fund and submitted fraudulent expense reports. Some of the pilfered proceeds were used by St. Andre and his wife to open a tanning salon. The Chief and his favored henchmen also used funds seized in counter-narcotics raids to purchase marijuana, alcohol, and the carnal services of prostitutes.

A year ago, St. Andre pleaded guilty to three felonies, including embezzlement and conducting a criminal enterprise. Last October he was sentenced to a term of up to 20 years in prison, a punishment forcefully underscoring the State’s determination that its plunderers act with only the purest of motives – like the ascetic, disciplined Nazi inspectors portrayed in “The Mortal Storm,” for example.

The Nazis’ reputation for self-denial was largely unearned. Their version of totalitarianism is as dead as their Fuhrer, but their tactics are widely employed by the enforcement caste in America’s Homeland Security State – a fact that either is or soon will be apparent to anybody seeking to exercise the right to travel unmolested.

Recall the question asked by the Nazi customs inspector in “The Mortal Storm”: “Is anyone present carrying more than ten marks, or … any foreign money, gold, jewels, or other valuables?” That same question was posed – almost verbatim – by Idaho State Trooper Justin Klitch following a pretext stop of Colorado resident Darien Roseen a few miles from my home in January 2013.

“How much cash is in the vehicle?” asked Klitch after bullying the elderly man into opening the trunk of his vehicle and pretending to detect a “strong odor of marijuana” emanating from the interior. “Do you have any gold, any high-value items in this vehicle?” That question provided a good and sufficient demonstration of Klitch’s true motive in making the stop: He was looking for loot, rather than contraband.

Like the fictional Freya Roth, Roseen endured a lengthy and entirely unwarranted detention after Klitch hijacked his SUV. A thorough search of the vehicle yielded neither gold, nor jewels, nor marijuana.

A growing number of Americans who need to travel but want to avoid molestation or irradiation at airports have taken to the roads or the tracks, only to find that the TSA and its comrades will not leave them alone.

In the film, Freya and her family were interrogated and subject to detention by Nazi customs officials at a border crossing. Americans can have that experience – which can quickly escalate to threats of arrest and a life-threatening assault with a deadly weapon – up to 100 miles inside the national border.

Travelers aren't free from such potentially lethal harassment if they use routes deep within the country’s interior. Multi-jurisdictional task forces called Visual Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) teams swarm bus and train stations, and even conduct highway checkpoints.

As the redoubtable James Bovard points out, the attitude of our rulers toward travelers “is best summarized by the motto posted at the headquarters of the TSA air marshal training center: `Dominate. Intimidate. Control.’”

Whatever their native tongue, totalitarians from every culture speak the same language.

[acptulsa]

[Anti Federalist]

Stopped by Essex RR for the first time, had a great time.

http://essexsteamtrain.com/

[Anti Federalist]

acptulsa, have you been following any of the UP steam program fiasco?

http://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic...38018&start=45

[Anti Federalist]

[Anti Federalist]

Better pic

[Danke]

[Anti Federalist]

Oh man, how did I miss this???

Following the lead of the UK's "Peppercorn Trust", we now have the Pennsylvania Rail Road T1 Trust.

What is a T1 you ask?

Only one of the fastest, most powerful, advanced and gorgeous steam locomotives ever built.



Not a single one escaped scrapping, just like A-1 Peppercorns in the UK.

This outfit intends to change that, and build a new one from scratch, number 5550, that will not only provide mainline, coast to coast steam excursion service but also set the land speed record for steam powered locomotives.



Dream Becomes Reality…

https://prrt1steamlocomotivetrust.org/

The Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) T1 Steam Locomotive Trust is a non-profit organization that believes in thinking differently about preservation. Through hard work, dedicated volunteers and the financial support of many generous donors from around the globe, the T1 Trust is constructing PRR T1 5550. Slated to become the fifty-third locomotive of its class when complete, 5550 combines stunning art deco design with a unique 4-4-4-4 wheel arrangement.

The goal is simple; to provide mainline steam excursion service, and to set the World Speed Record for a steam locomotive.

The PRR T1 represents the pinnacle of steam locomotive design in the United States. These locomotives had the capability of achieving speeds in excess of 120 mph, and anecdotal reports indicate that speeds of up to 140 mph were attained. In all, 52 class T1 locomotives were produced, 25 at the PRR's Altoona shops and 27 at the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia.

Sadly, not a single example of this magnificent machine escaped the scrapper's torch.

The production of PRR T1 5550 will fill a large gap in historical locomotive preservation. Perhaps more importantly, this locomotive will inject new life blood into an aging heritage fleet. Most US built steam locomotives operating today are over 60 years old. Wear and tear are taking their toll. Efforts such as this one, to create a powerful new machine, will become increasingly important if steam excursion service is to be present in another 60 years.

The die has already been cast for this project.

In 2008 a group of railway enthusiasts in Great Britain completed LNER Peppercorn Class A1 60163 Tornado, the first mainline steam locomotive built in the United Kingdom since 1960. Posted here is a link to the Tornado video. This video provides inspiration, and describes the framework we'll rely on for the PRR T1 5550 project.

Experience has shown that in a project such as this, a large number of small donations, which recur monthly, can achieve success. If you would like to see this project come to fruition, please consider using the Donate Button below to make a contribution. Some supporters will wish to make a $20 per month recurring pledge. The regular donation was the driving force behind Tornado. For less than one dollar per day, we can all marvel at the sight of 5550, phoenix-like, arising from the molten metal of the foundry to fly at 140 mph, shrouded in Vulcan's billowing cape.

[acptulsa]

Interesting.

The T-1 was an impressive and extraordinarily handsome locomotive. But they had problems. An engine that big and with eight drive wheels should have been able to haul freight, not just passenger trains. But the first four drive wheels weren't connected to the last four drive wheels. This made it hard to get a heavy train moving without the drive wheels slipping. In a normal Northern type where the eight drive wheels were all forced by the connecting rods to turn the same speed, you didn't slip trying to get a heavy freight moving unless all the drive wheels lost traction. In the case of the T-1, only half of the wheels had to slip to force the engineer to cut back the throttle, as seen at about the 1:21 mark.



It was like hauling a train with two little Atlantic types, not one big Northern, except that if you double-head two Atlantics each has a separate throttle and separate engineer, and the one with traction doesn't have to stop pulling hard while the other backs off and stops the wheels from slipping. With a T-1, if either pair of drive axles slips, you have to back off the throttle, and the same throttle feeds all four cylinders. I've heard of a film made of a T-1 trying to start a particularly heavy freight, where you see first one pair of drive axles slip, then just as soon as the engineer gets it settled down and pulling again, the other pair starts slipping.

But that didn't make it a less beautiful engine, or a less able engine in passenger service. It's going to be fun if and when they get it done. But I don't think they're going to ever make more than one of the behemoths.

Actually, it's ironic that the duplex design led to them being retired early, as that was supposed to allow them to last longer. By the time steam locomotives got this powerful, the fact that the best designs utilized only two cylinders was getting to be a problem. Those two cylinders produced, in the case of the best of the lot like the C&O's and the Santa Fe's 2-10-4 Texas types, the strongest piston thrust ever produced by any piston. They tended to shake themselves to pieces, eventually. The whole idea of the duplex was to allow the use of smaller cylinders.

It's a pity they aren't experimenting with a different duplex, like the single B&O engine, which could easily be modified to connect the four axles together. This would prevent half the wheels from slipping at a time. That would accomplish something that hasn't been done in some seventy years--it would advance the state of the art of steam locomotive design.

[acptulsa]

A Pennsy T-1! Brand new!



I believe this is the first Raymond Loewy original design built from steel in over forty years.

[Anti Federalist]

Gorgeous fall day on the WW&F on Saturday.

[Brian4Liberty]

[Anti Federalist]

#9 at WW&F nearing completion.

Cab, running boards, tender installed.

[Anti Federalist]

More Maine narrow gauge news:

Monson Engine #3 back in steam for the first time in 8 years, slated to haul "Polar Express" trains in Portland.

https://www.facebook.com/BridgtonSac...21800834522880

Bridgton & Saco River Engine 7 added 5 new photos — with Jay Monty.

October 30 at 4:58pm · Edited ·

Today, another huge milestone was reached on the path to rehabilitating the Maine Narrow Gauge Steam fleet. Monson Railroad #3 moved under its own power again for the first time in 8 years following a major boiler overhaul. This accomplishment reflects a strengthening partnership between the Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad, Sandy River and Rangley Lakes Railroad and Maine Locomotive and Machine Works. Over the next couple of weeks, final reassembly will take place and the locomotive will be transported to Portland for FRA inspection and placement into service for Polar Express. In the spring #3 will be returned to Phillips, Maine where it will operate at the Sandy River and Rangeley Lakes Railroad Museum through an ongoing lease agreement with the Maine Narrow Gauge. We hope you will celebrate this major milestone with us by riding behind #3 during Polar Express or in Phillips next season.

[acptulsa]

A Forney come back to life!

Now if we could just run it over the heads of New Yorkers on the elevated tracks, like they were designed to do. That would wake those jaded Manhattanites up.

It was fun to see a story on the original diesel EMC-Budd Flying Yankee on Tracks Ahead this morning. Hope they get the old thing running. Vermont will be an odd home for it, but handy to you.

[Anti Federalist]

A Forney come back to life!

I hate to see Monson #4 sidelined, but other projects take precedence.

There are three "new" (meaning complete top to bottom rebuild and new boilers) 2 foot Maine Forneys back in steam, or close to it:

Monson #3

Wiscasset #9

Bridgton and Saco #7 (should be done early 2016)

(Happy to report that I played a small part in every one of these projects)

Now if we could just run it over the heads of New Yorkers on the elevated tracks, like they were designed to do. That would wake those jaded Manhattanites up.

Had to go pull a pic of that:

It was fun to see a story on the original diesel EMC-Budd Flying Yankee on Tracks Ahead this morning. Hope they get the old thing running. Vermont will be an odd home for it, but handy to you.

Vermont?

Last I heard, she was at the Hobo RR in Lincoln NH, under restoration funded by donation and owned by the State of NH.

They planning on running it over Blount's old Steamtown network in VT?

http://www.hoborr.com/equipnew.html

THE FLYING YANKEE Boston and Maine/Maine Central #6000

The streamliner FLYING YANKEE provided service between Boston, Portland and Bangor (750 miles per day-six days per week). The unit was built by the Budd Company in 1934 and saw service in the Boston, New Hampshire and Maine corridor until 1957. The trainset was unique because of the type of custom car configuration the unit employed. The train was powered by a Winton 201 A Diesel Electric (the first type of longer distance train not powered by steam). The train was the first with fixed windows, providing air conditioning for the first time. The train had no diner, and food was prepared in a galley and served on trays to passengers which were affixed to the seat in front. The Yankee was delivered February 10, 1935 and on April 1, 1935 the Yankee was christened with a bottle of water from Sebago Lake in Maine and began service. The Yankee's service was discontinued on May 7, 1957. The trainset was donated by the B & M Railroad to the Edaville RR in Carver, Massachusetts. It sat there for almost 40 years until Bob Morrell purchased the train and brought it to New Hampshire. It was moved to the shops of the Hobo Railroad in 2005 to complete its restoration. The train set is now owned by the State of New Hampshire, and is being restored with donated funds.

I'm certainly happy to see all the New England equipment come back from Edaville.

[acptulsa]

Well, they distinctly said Vermont. Put Tracks Ahead has never been the world's most reliable source.

[Anti Federalist]

Only 25 years ago.

Rich Trethewey travels to (West) Germany to visit a home heating boiler factory.

Nary a hard hat or safety glasses to be seen.

[pcosmar]

[Anti Federalist]

#9 lives.

First time in steam under her own power since 1933.

I know this doesn't interest many folks, but the effort by WW & F RR Museum staff has been heroic to get this project done.

A round of applause.



If you are in Central Maine on the 19th of December, stop by for the WW and F's annual Christmas function.

It is free.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Wisca...m/147279126870