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| Help Wanted https://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=20436 |
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| Author: | Hume Kading [ Tue Apr 18, 2006 12:22 am ] |
| Post subject: | Help Wanted |
No, I'm not looking for volunteers to help with the site this time, but we can always use more of those..... We had two different parties, one from the US, and the other from over seas write articles detailing their projects and asking for help getting information for restorations. The MB&CS article didn't get any response that I saw and I'm sure we have knowledge that would benefit that group. See the article at http://www.rypn.org/RyPN/articles/viewa ... 002334.txt Ditto the STIBANS group from Holland. See their news brief at http://rypn.org/RyPN/briefs/viewbriefs. ... 221014.txt. Let's show them what the Interchange can do! |
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| Author: | Stephen S. Syfrett [ Tue Apr 18, 2006 11:24 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Help Wanted |
Hume, Hopefully there have been others that have responded by e-mail to Hans regarding the USATC boxcars. I wanted you to know I just e-mailed him about some of these cars (or similar) that may still exist as storage sheds (sans trucks) in west central Georgia. I'm curious to know it any intact examples survive in any railroad or other museums in the US. Thronateeska considered trying to acquire one of the cars for a WW II exhibit we were working on several years ago, but as I told Hans, it never proceeded beyond the "idea" stage. Anyone know of any survivors? |
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| Author: | Dave [ Tue Apr 18, 2006 12:41 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Help Wanted |
Hume, i don't find it odd that the provenence of a coach from a little known tiny railroad wouldn't elicit a response - i thought that railroad was an April Fool when I read it. Chances are they will learn more about the car from examining it than from any documented history. USATC hardware ought to be more easily documented, especially from any readers who have job related access to government files. I am surprised to know that any are still around in this country, even as chicken coops in Georgia. We sent so many of them overseas, surely there are more closer to Holland than on our shores. dave |
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| Author: | Dennis Storzek [ Tue Apr 18, 2006 6:35 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Help Wanted |
Hume Kading wrote: The MB&CS article didn't get any response that I saw and I'm sure we have knowledge that would benefit that group. See the article at http://www.rypn.org/RyPN/articles/viewa ... 002334.txt Well, I normally follow the edict that if you can't add something constructive to the discussion, don't clutter up the band width, although some may disagree. As far as the MB&CS goes, the author seems to have found as much as there is to find by looking in the records of the local newspaper. One comment I'll make is that this was very likely a "steam dummy" line; the "light rail" of the day. If it would have been built a dozen years later it likely would have been promoted, and possibly built as an electric line, but that technology hadn't quite arrived in 1889. I base this on the quote from the newspaper, “...... one steam dummy engine, a 30 hp coal burner and two passenger cars.” Thirty HP is hardly larger than a large steam traction engine. Steam dummies were typically tiny little 0-4-0, 0-4-2, or 0-4-4 tank engines, arranged to run equally well in either direction. The name comes from the practice of, when the dummy line was going to share street trackage with a horsecar line, building a false "dummy" horsecar body over the locomotive, it thought that this would be less likely to scare the horses that it was sharing the street with. I'm not sure why it was thought that a horse would be any less scared seeing what appeared to be a run-away horsecar without its horse, and indeed, if the horses were perceptive, they should have been fearful for their jobs, but that was the theory, anyway. Dummy lines were built to both standard and narrow gauge, in either case the passenger equipment tended to be small, like narrow gauge equipment, as the author mentions. Since part of the business plan was to haul cars of quarried stone, I would suspect that standard gauge was most likely. The best hope of finding further information might be searching the archives of car and locomotive builders, in hopes that the equipment was purchased new, rather than used. From the time frame and the fact that the construction was financed by a bond issue, it very likely could have been new. H.K. Porter built a lot of these little engines, and I believe the Porter company records still exist, but I'm not sure exactly where. Likewise for the builder of the cars. If they're lucky, they were built by Pullman, and a record of the purchase exists in the Pullman Library of the Illinois Railway Museum. Pullman did build dummy line cars; they built some for a line somewhat local to me, the Chicago Harlem & Batavia, in 1885. They may also have been built by Jackson & Sharpe; some of that concern's materials are in the Delaware State Archives. Of course, they could have just as well been built by one of dozens of other concerns where no company material survives, but from the photos of the carbody and its interior finish, I'm certain it was built by a car building firm, and not home built. I wish them luck. |
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| Author: | Tom Cornillie [ Tue Apr 18, 2006 7:17 pm ] |
| Post subject: | USTAC Cars |
These discussion groups may provide some useful leads: http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewforum.php?f=20 And: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/militaryrails/ You also may wish to contact the National Railway Museum research center at : Research Centre National Railway Museum Leeman Road York YO26 4XJ Fax 01904 611112 nrm.researchcentre@nmsi.ac.uk as they may be able to point you toward a source/group that has documented USTAC operations. Tom Cornillie |
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