"BETHLEHEM STEEL"

Oh, wait......

Yes indeed Sperry still has its rail bound fleet of 14 "Big" cars currently in service in the US and Mexico, not including the mack rail bus that tests the subways. A few more cars are held as surplus and are slowly being used for replacement parts.

What year was that rail rolled?

I always think when I see rail dated 1940 or earlier still in use on mainlines....sure got your money's worth out of it! Heck I have even seen ties, still in good shape with dated nails from the 1950's too.

That only took me to an animated Google page with a bunch of links to stuff about Jeeves, but stopped short of actually clicking on any one of the links. : (

/Mitch

"Let Me Google That For You" is a host site that provides that exact interface you saw, whereas someone can sarcastically reply to someone with a question that can be easily answered with a quick and easy search via one of many Internet search engines, such as, oh, I dunno, GOOGLE.....

So, do you actually care where "Jeeves" came from or not? If so, click on the links! If not, well, your sarcasm didn't come through very well on that first post....

I laughed really hard at this hahaha

As if you didn't laugh really hard at Brother Gears' original suggestion? (I sure did.)

Alexander - it was my sarcasm in my second post that you missed. To that end, here's a special link for you: Click me!

All in good humor, BTW, and thanks - I was wondering where "Jeeves" came from, however, I'm much more interested in three questions posed earlier:

"And onto another topic, I noticed on TO's today that the diesel powered train brought the empties back to Leaman Place today. I thought I had heard that early on, this was typical; empties returned the day before the steam train picked up a new load. Then, it was mentioned that there would typically be a demurage charge on the cars and consequently, they were said to be returned as soon as possible - now, typically, the same day."

The other two were:

1) Is there is merit in putting the crane on display vs storing it out of site at Leaman Place - for instance, at the RR Museum of PA or a rarely used track once again back at Strasburg.

2) Was there in fact a freight moves during Thomas that were simply not announced nor ran with steam.

Just curiosities...

Thanks

/Mitch

And now on to the mixed freight!

October 2nd, 2013

Almost as fascinating as the chase itself was watching former CN 2-6-0 #89 switching in the yard. A very special thanks to the crew and management at the Strasburg Rail Road for keeping history alive and providing all of us with memories we otherwise would not have ever been able to have! I've probably have more memories of steam then my father.

/Mitch

And finally - the return over the "Pumpkinville Turnpike", lol.

/Mitch

Back at the yard...

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey has nothing like this!

/Mitch

Mitch -

When I first looked at your great photo, I thought that it was sad that Bossy didn't have an appreciation of what might arguably be the prettiest 2-6-0 currently in operation. But then I realized if she did stand her ground to admire the Mogul going by, she would have presented a "much less appealing" view to your camera! Run Bossy run! And the same to old number 89!

Les

112-pound RE rolled by Bethlehem Steel's Steelton mill in 1942. Let's see - open hearth bloom from a dark war year. We'll give them a pass ...

Ah, car hire, which robs my joy. It's hard to watch a freight roll by nowadays without calculating car hire, liability risks, maintenance cycles, etc. Car hire is what railroads pay daily on any given piece of equipment except for ---X marks, TTX, etc. Car hire is how the owner recovers the cost of capital, among other things. It doesn't represent true ROI, since that is factored on many other things. Some cars are more expensive than others. A centerbeam, for example, is an expensive piece of equipment to have sitting around.

Car hire tolls as soon as we tender custody over to NS. To that end, we'll spend the money to get a car or cars to interchange instead of having them sit around with the meter running ... As you can see, there's a built in incentive here that car owners require and enjoy. Utilization ratios require that their cars stay on the move. Car hire "helps" us to keep things moving.

---X marked equipment is called "private" equipment (as opposed to railroad-marked equipment), and is traditionally leased by a shipper. Shippers have their own incentives to keep things moving. There are other metrics than car hire involved with privately-marked equipment.

I saw in one of the pictures a switch off to the side, that ended at Leaman Place, I mean't to inquire about it when I was there in March, but forgot. Is this maybe the proposed turntable?
Thanks for any input.