Back in the 1940’s or early 1950’s there was a Trains article on Bowie. Those of you with the retrspective CD can look this up. I believe from memory of the article:
The specials were powered to the racetrack by K4s.
They took turns backing into the wye to reverse to during the race; each consist in its turn.
There were specials from and to New York, and they changed engines at Wilmington, jsut like the through trains to Cape Charles that were still providing service at the time.
Looking at the battery boxes on the Baldwins I can’t help but wonder if the one closest to the camera is one of the Pennsy’s RS12s. The switchers most likely came from Baltimore, where a surprising amount of passenger switching was done. PRR also had some local trains that operated from there on a couple of branches. Washington Terminal handled PRR trains at Union Station.
Interesting tidbit about the RS12.
The locomotive could be ordered with either a steam generator for steam heat, or dynamic brakes contained within the short hood.
Is this the ah-ha moment?
If, if it’s an RS12 …thanks to rcdrye.
Looks to me like the trucks are different from the unit behind it as well…
Did any PRR Baldwin switchers have the train phone, or just the road units?
… then you have to posit a passenger steam line on the trailing Baldwin, which is end-cab and clearly has switcher trucks.
I have a copy of Hahn’s PRR Diesel Locomotive Pictorial volume 2. Now that I have access to a larger screen to look at the picture, not only is that an RS-12, it’s possible to assign it a number: 8776. This was the second RS-12 delivered to PRR, and it had roller bearings, and MU connection … oh yes, it was assigned to Baltimore. If you look carefully you can see the ATC box in its ‘recess’ ahead of the battery box.
The other RS-12 equipped with Trainphone was 8975.
Quite a few of the S-12s (17) that worked the DelMarVa peninsula had trainphone, some with distinctive antennas. These units also had roller bearings and MU for road service. Just to complicate things, ONE more had plain bearings, but trainphone, MU, and train control/cab signals, 8773 (later 8173)
Dang And Blast! You are right.
Well David Klepper has weighed in…now I do have the complete collection disk along with most of the late 40’s and all of the 50’s actual issues so that’s the next project.
When I saw Davids post come up I was hoping he was going to confess to a secret vice of horse racing and made many a trip to Bowie behind those K4’s and E’s to both ride the train and play the ponies. Then we could get a definitive eye witness account.
A picture is developing though and we will get to the bottom of this.
The Kentucky Derby coming up first Saturday in May. There used to be a huge railroad presence with that and I think still some private varnish but with the changes at Amtrak maybe thats over as well.
L&N was the huge player there with cars coming from all over the US.
No, if David wanted to play the ponies he had two perfectly good tracks available to him up in New York, Belmont and Aqueduct, just a short train ride away on the LIRR.
And they’re still there! Although latest word is developers are sniffing around the Aqueduct property like a pack of hyenas.
Very good information, Overmod.
If anyone would like to see a few photos of the steam generator, roller bearing equipped 8776 and her ilk, there is an issue of The Keystone Modeler (opens as a .pdf file) here:
Scroll down to page 7. It is a review of the Bowser HO model but there is some prototype information as well.
I have a few dates I can add to the discussion, gleaned from an excellent article by Frank A Wrabel, in the PRT&HS Keystone Vol. 49, No. 4, Winter 2016, titled To The Racetrack By Rail: PRR Race Train Service in Maryland.
In 1936 PRR “tepidly” looked at the former WB&A route into the racetrack. Further property negotiations were ongoing to purchase land from the Massaponax Gravel Corporation in order to build a wye connection at Arundel (MP 118) which was completed Nov. 6, 1936.
Light bridges, a steep grade and tight curves hampered the siding. Nothing heavier than H8 or H9s 2-8-0s could be used on the siding.
A three year struggle to get PRR to improve service to the track was realized 9-23-1938, when a new siding entered service. Racetrack Specials, now powered by the new GG1 motors would originate in NYC, Philly, Baltimore and Washington and run to Arundel (Del).
Upon arriving the motors would be cut and three or four H class 2-8-0s would take the trains to continue to the ra
http://govindaya.rrpicturearchives.net/
https://www.cityofbowie.org/2213/Horse-Racing
http://bowieliving.blogspot.com/2015/02/when-it-snows-bowie-goes-sometimes.html
The only PRR roster I can find doesn’t show a steam generator on PRR 8776, but Keystone Crossing’s model has S/G vents and stack. I doubt that the S12 had a steam line.
Hahn notes six DR-4-4-1000s and RS12s 8975 and 8776 all equipped with Vapor OK-4516s. He has no clear picture of 8776’s short hood, but I can see the exhaust stack in one (top of page 121).
As an aside, RS12 8110 was given a larger steam generator (OK-4625, the same size used on GG1s) in part precisely for use on long standing consists at events like the Army-Navy game. (I thought, a bit uncharitably, this ‘counted’ a bit more than the railbird service to Bowie!)
rcdrye-- So more mystery of sorts. Does the 8776 or doesn’t it? What is it doing there? The eyes say that train is lined up ready to take patrons back for the short 1/2 hour hop to Baltimore. No biggie,… right?
Wanswheel-- Beat me to it. Would have to have done this from work, not the greatest idea, as you cannot put a disk into an iPad. Good old E. A. Behr…he did a lot of ‘photojournalism’ write ups for Trains Magazine in those days. Now people say ‘things were much more simple in those days’ but I do not think so! That is quite an operation by Pennsy and to think they made money at it, enough so to be worth the effort, is mind boggling. Just look at all those employees, conductors, engineers, fireman, brakeman, having a little get together in front of all those K4’s. All on Special Trains, probably some extra overtime involved.
Todays activist investors would have shut this down in 2 minutes. Oh the horrors! Saunders, far away yet, thinking, “what a buch of rubes, I could put this in my pocket”.
I was a big pony guy for a long time. Woodbine, Fort Erie, Mohawk, Flamboro, I was there. Fancied myself as a pretty astute handicapper. Best I ever did on a single ticket was $34,000 and something on a win 4 ticket. Cashed it in at the same teller window I placed the bet and gave the gal a $500 tip and she started crying, bought a round for the bar, after the meet stopped at St. John’s Church in Burlington near my home, knocked on the Rectory door and gave the Priest $700 bucks and said this was Gods money. He looked stunned. That was that and I went home. Why $700, I dunno.
Had many good days at the track, and my share of failures. Everything went south when the Casinos came in and horse racing went downhill. All those tracks got Casinos and the wide open spaces were gone leaving the racing fans little room and outside. Then they banned smoking anywhere and everywhere at all the tracks. That was the end of that for me. Now y
Note a couple of details in the Trains article wanswheel linked.
I was right, as it turns out, about having two trains lay over in the tail of the wye. Not every day, but days when 10 trains were run for 8 tracks…
There is a considerable upgrade to the ‘terminal’ tracks, and the sharp approach curve means that loaded trains can stall easily and will need pushing. That would be the most likely job for a couple of MUed Baldwins; the usual operation was that the road power would push the train downgrade and then through the wye, then back up to one of the tracks – I see little difference between K4s and E units in ability to perform that operation with empty consists, but if a little additional ‘kick’ were required to get back uphill, we would expect to see the coupler doors on the fronts of the E units open and ready…
LIRR probably was earliest to run race trains.
https://archive.org/stream/frankforestersho11herb#page/288/mode/2up
https://archive.org/stream/Long_Island_Forum_Volume_29_/LIF_29_8_1966#page/n5/mode/2up
Actually Brooklyn & Jamaica, before it became part of the LIRR, which built both the line and station to Union Course, opened April 1836.
This is getting more and more interesting. It’s almost like archaeology with you boys digging up a lost world!
Yeah. A bit like Raiders of the Lost Arc.
Well I for one would just love to do a day at Bowie on a fine crisp sunny day and enjoying beyond measure a fine ride behind K4’s. I’ll take the extended trip as advertised from Pennsylvania Station making the connection at Baltimore. A working mans track suits me just fine, as being a underground Mining guy at the root of it all, smokin’ and cursin’ and gamblin’ is a natural thing in my world.
Here’s a tidbit for you all. Having played the horses at several American tracks, Chicago ( Arlington and Hawthorne) and Columbus (Scioto…they have a ton of my money left behind), Santa Anita out West in Arcadia ( oh! the backdrop of the mountains!) and the old Tropical in Florida there is a slight different terminology in language for types of bets…We have the Triactor and Exactor but in the USA it’s Trifecta and Exacta.
I sort of like the somewhat pretentious sound of ‘ta’ at the end. Our ‘tor’ is too harsh and unromantic. It’s manly though.
The Quinella was common to both countries but no one has offered Quinella bets in Canada in many years. It’s just gone. Daily Double, Win, Place, Show is the same. Other exotic bets are simply obvious such as Win 4, Pick 6, Super7, that sort of thing and up to the track to offer them.
For about a ten year period I had to remember where I was. Ta or Tor.
So who wants to come along? Hope Firelock comes because we can swap smokes, my John Players or McDonalds Export for Marlboros or Camels. Plus I know he can curse.
Rockingham Park in Salem NH has been knocked down for some depressing mixed retail/business/condo development, after a period of years as a “simulcast” racing facility with no live racing. Boston and Maine ran racetrack specials there from Boston for almost 10 years after the regular doodlebug (between Manchester NH and Lawrence MA) was discontinued. RDCs made turning the trains easy…
Yeah but just think of the huge increased tax revenue from multi-use development…name of the game for the politicians.
Sorry to hear because Rockingham Park was legendary.
The way New Hampshire does things all of the tax revenue from the devlopment goes to the town (Salem). The revenue from horse and dog racing made up a substantial part of the state’s budget in the days before the lottery.