[quote="ge44tonner"]There are some current "conspiracy buffs" gossiping on the Internet about American railroads. The theory seems to be that the Federal FEMA agency is setting up "death camps" and is accumulating a large number of "prison cars" on the American rail system. The "prison cars" are described as multideck completely closed in with louvered sides and shackles welded to the floor to restrain the prisoners. Here's a link to a "conspiracy video" showing some of these cars:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7zR7NEzopw
Other videos or Internet chatter can be found by entering "FEMA Death Trains" as a search term into Google.

A mainstream train enthusiast would recognize these cars as Automobile carriers, with louvered sides to protect the automobiles from vandalism and shackles to secure them during transport. I suppose this mentality perhaps says something about how little the general public actually knows or understands about railroads.

Dan Rohrback

Not to open up old wounds here, but I'd like to post a comment. My Sister is one of these wacko conspiricist followers (Alex Jones being their leader) and she runs in these circles listening to everything she hears on the internet and never learning for herself and drawing her own conclusions. She is so involved with the coming of the US Holocaust as she puts it it has caused a rift between the two of us and between our Parents and her. She constantly yells at me because "They" are coming. Who? Like I care!! She is, like I said, a wacko when it comes to this. What REALLY bothers me is that while she is listening to all this BS she is actually trying to tell ME what these rail cars are all about! "OH! They have chains on them to hold you down to the benches!" Well Sister dear! I have SEEN your video and the 'benches' are to keep the cars in place and properly separated. What happens when you have a truck on the highway carrying cars? How do you keep the cars from falling off the truck onto the highway? You chain them to the truck right? Same thing here! You chain them to the inside of the car to prevent them from moving! The chains are WAY TOO short to shackle PEOPLE to and far too few to hold the amount of people you are talking about!
I can't even talk to her about this because it makes me sick. In closing I agree with Mr. Rohrback. These 'people' (And I use that term VERY loosely!) know NOTHING about these auto racks and it makes me sick when someone confronts, belittles, berates and degrades ME when trying to tell ME what they are. This is MY hobby! Get a life and get your facts straight! You're trying to tell ME!? I don't think so!!
As Mr. Paul W Woodring commented about Amtrak's Beech Grove Shops...what is the REAL reason there! What is REALLY happening with the closing of these shops? If someone says FEMA Concentration Camp, I will have to laugh until I wet myself!!!

I recently had the acquaintance of a mechanical engineer who swore up and down that the "coal hauling railroads" in Virginia and Kentucky "were stilling using steam locomotives because of their superior tractive effort". He further stated that the steamers were kept "hush-hush" by the railroads so the EPA and tree-huggers in general would not find out about them. (I smack my forehead in disbelief).

This guy was a real, working professional engineer and capable of reproducing. It made me worried for America's future. By the way...I didn't argue with him but instead asked him to take up there so I could see the coal-hauling choo choos hidden deep in the mountains. The phone has not rung yet. I will keep you posted.

T7

In the book Steam Through London, Ian Wilson mentions that initially CN planned to keep a reserve of steam locomotives at its Mimico Yard to accommodate any surges in traffic. Origionally it was planned that steam would survive into the late 60's or 70's. Of course dieselization occcured at a much faster rate then management anticipated, and there you have it.

Interesting Joe I never knew this. CN had a peculiar habit especially in Stratford in the late 50s of giving steam locomotives complete overhauls then shoving them into deadlines never to run again I recall visiting steam deadlines with my dad at the age of 4 or 5 at Stratford and Allendale My favorite early childhood memory is of being in our 56 Buick pacing alongside a CN 6000 class 4-8-2 on a passenger train headed for Toronto Too bad they didnt have video then

Off topic, but still in the transportation-related urban legend category: Back in the 60's I car-pooled with a fellow who told me (with a straight face) that Ford Motor Co. still had all the dies and jigs for building Model "A" Fords. He said that they built 100 each year and if you went to Dearborn MI with $1200 cash, on one specific day a year, you could buy a brand new "A". I didn't want to lose my ride home from work, so I didn't tell him that this was utter hogwash, malarkey and baloney, but I sure didn't see any new Model "A"s cruising around. Getting back to rail related stories--did you hear about the PE 1200-class interurban car that's hidden somewhere on the former Kaiser Steel property?