http://www.sambush.com/





I noticed the photo in this month's "Oxford American," and am simply curious. This isn't an endorsement of the album, and if the mods think this is inappropriate, delete away.

JAC

John:

A rail preservation mystery is always welcome in my estimation. The car in the background includes EASTERN in the letterboard. Not much to go on, that's true. If lettered for a "real" railroad, that might narrow it down somewhat, but it could also be for a "fictitious" line.

Les

Looks like the subject is sitting in th evestibule of an adjacent car.

Wesley

That vestibule striker plate is on an ex-Amtrak Heritage fleet Budd-built car.

Maybe this was shot at the Tennesee Central RR Museum in Nashville. Host RR is the Nashville and EASTERN.

I should have thought of that. Thanks.

JAC

Why "Eastern?" How about "Disaster?" Certainly applicable to a lot of locales mentioned on various threads. Or, perhaps an Aster car built to live steamer scale, having the photo enlarged? Builders photo from Master Car Builders?

Let's not jump to the obvious conclusion here.

dave

Yes Dave, it could be "disaster". But, I seem to remember that the Nashville & Eastern has an ex N&W, ex-Wabash baggage-RPO power car, that looked kinda like that red thing in the background.

It could also be Lancaster. Maybe Lancaster and Chester? Or a long lost car off the Lancaster, Oxford, and Southern?

Never underestimate the capabilities of Photoshop and other graphics-editing programs.

That said, I thought we were starting up another line of the infamous David P. Morgan "impossible" photo quizzes in Trains........... remember "By Their Driving Wheels Ye Shall Know Them"?

Hey, maybe we could make this into a quiz! See how many REAL and FICTITIOUS railroad names we can come up with that would fit the letters on the car in photo. Of course, RyPN would, I'm sure, come up with a great prize for the winner.

Les

Of course the brute force method is to search a list
(such as http://www.pwrr.org/rrm/index.html) of railroad reporting marks for roads whose name contains "ASTER"

There are lots of matches, I gave up somewhere in the letter "C"...

Just remember:

It's not impossible (although highly improbable, given that the singer has been ID'ed as sitting on the end of another rail car) that this could be either a modified photograph of a real car (it only takes a few seconds to replace blue with red in Photoshop, for example), or a photograph of a model of a car dropped in the proper place. (The very first thing I thought of when I saw the red and the lettering was an HO model I have stashed somewhere of a circus train observation in just that shade of red and that lettering style!)

As a "detective" the first thing I'd do is figure out the lettering font AND the probable placement of that "EASTER" on the rolling stock AND the probable proportions involved--for example, would the size and length fit "EASTERN OHIO" or "Pittsburgh, Chartiers, Youghiogheny & Eastern"?

It is highly likely that the photo has been modified in several ways, either simply for marketing/design reasons or to simply avoid any problems with permission, implied promotion/endorsement, etc.

Of course, I second the motion of starting in Nashville and working outwards--or seeing if Mr. Bush is a shareholder in any excursion line or PV......

That's it. I took some shots of that very car a month or so ago and they match. The N&E at one point had an executive train of sorts, including this power car and a stadium obs (which is long gone to destination unknown).

I don't care a lot for "modern" bluegrass, but Sam Bush does a real nice job on Grandpa Jones' "Eight More Miles to Louisville".

From the TCRY Museum Website...



http://www.tcry.org/equipmnt.htm