Numbers 2108 and 2109 ran out to supply a powerplant with steam to steam out new boilers. I've been told that this story ran in the Reading Eagle and the masses of people who went trackside to see them pass was partly responsible for the Reading Rambles.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=rx ... tive&hl=en

These are interesting articles, Tom. Please continue the links as you come across them. What a damn shame 2108 & 2109 weren't added to the preservation list.

The reaction of the Reading officers to bring back steam after watching the crowds follow these engines on a ferry move speaks once again to the generational factor that has been brought up here in other threads. It also emphasises that big corporations could and did act more humanly before because the management didn't seem to suffer from the paranoia that seems to grip so much of it today, and this is not limited to railroads by any means! And it also illustrates how wonderful it could be to have news writers who got the story right because they understood something about their subject matter.

I've said before, I'll repeat it again, I'm not as worried about alleged "bias" in the news media as much as I am that we are misinformed because the media doesn't know what it's talking about!

Makes telling our stories that much harder--or could it make the storytelling easier? Sounds like an idea for a new thread. . .

Tom, found a pic for this too!

Not to distract from Tom's wonderful research and posting of these fine articles. A strange story down below the T1s

Farmer cutting hay, runs over dog and cuts off dog's leg. Farmer gets shotgun to put dog out of misery and fires. Goes to check to see if dog is dead. Dog gets up lunges at farmer who swings the butt of the gun at dog. Gun discharges into farmer and kills him. WOW!

Tom P

Mike -

The photo of 2108 and 2109 being used "nose to nose" to supply steam is interesting. According to the newspaper article, the two Northerns were run under their own power to the power plant site. I wonder if this "nose to nose" configuration was also the way the two 4-8-4's were run in transit? Would there have been much room to manuever them around at the power plant? My guess is that there was probably not. If this IS the way that made the trip, it sure would have made for an interesting photograph!

Les

Here is a two for one! There is a story about the sale of the Strasburg Railroad and in the next column is a story about the returning T-1s. It mentions that thousands of people came trackside to see them run up to Portland.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Zh ... road&hl=en

On the side of "reporting" in newspapers, where reporting "just the facts" was at one time the rule, today, the reporters do NOT know most of the subject matter they're reporting on and tend to add to much personal opinion and other "fillers" just to make the article fit the layout requests. Most reporters today are schooled in a building, but not in real life. Whereas back in the times of these articles, most reporters were schooled on the street and just in general, people knew more about railroads than Interstate highways...today, you'd be sure to say that it is the other way around. We are only knowledgeable on what we see and do on a daily basis, which in todays world of working from home, educating at home, researching from home, all via computer, we tend to know less of the real world and the actual facts.

That said, I did find it funny with the Strasburg article - a gaff in the report saying "Before the purchase, the Strasburg Railroad consisted of a one-stall engine house and 4 miles of track extending from Lancaster to Leamon Place."

Can't say they reported everything proper back in those days either, but it was a tad better.

And yes, that was just S**t luck for the poor farmer.

Most of our interpreters in my experience are well versed in technical trivia but have no story to tell that connects them and puts them into anything like a meaningful context. It therefore won't matter........more is the pity.

Was the dogs name LUCKY?

dave

Newspapers are terrible at getting facts straight. One article in my collection from 1963 talking about a 6167 excursion, refers to the locomotive as 6171. In recent times, several times this year a Guelph newspaper kept reporting that 6167 is from Canadian NORTHERN. Or the time a few years ago, where the same paper interviewed me about the engine, and they mispelled my last name several times...

I hate to throw some cold water on this thread's theme about how much better the press was back in the day, but I have to say that I find the dog-bites/shoots-man story referenced above to be quite unbelieveable. Stories such as these would pop up occasionally back in the pre-Internet days and make their way into the newspapers. Today such a story would be called an "urban legend", back in the day they would be called "little red car" stories - one story that appear occasionally in small-town papers was of a woman who had a red car that was crushed by an elephant when the circus came to town as it was the same color as the stand used by the elephants at the circus. Another one was the invention of a car that ran on water.

I may do some research on the dog story to see if it falls into this category.

Chris.

A photo of 2108 and 2109 coupled tender to tender appeared a few months later in Trains magazine. I suspect they were set up pilot to pilot at the power plant to simplify piping. On another occasion a few years later, 2102 provided steam to Carpenter Steel in Reading.

The hit on news reporters is getting a bit tiresome. Having worked as a reporter for almost 15 years, I can tell you that, while reporters are expected to know everything about anything, we don't. In today's market, all that matters is how fast you turn your copy in and move on to the next story. In the old days, a copy editor or manager would have checked the story for accuracy, but those folks are also under the gun to turn out the copy and pages as fast as possible. There simply is no time to check facts. We do the best we can, but sometimes we fall down on the job.

I quick bit of google found the bit about the 2102 at Carpenter Steel. If you look to the left side of the page on the first story you will see the noon stock prices. I wonder how many of those companies still exist today.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=8g ... team&hl=en

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=sB ... team&hl=en

And again near Reading, another shot gun blast death. The 59 year old man fell in to a ditch and was using his shot gun as a cane when it discharged killing him.

What's with shot guns and T1 in stationary use?

Tom P

Another railway preservation related death......

dave