Coffin preheater - coffeine, coffee preheater - and the whole posting.
I remember it was understood as a fun story back then.
Frying on the shovel blade: I had one crew of an Ol49 (no, not old 49er) doing the same during a turn around at Sulechóv (near Zielona Gora - former Grünstadt, Schlesien): they fried meat and sausages on the shovel in the fire hole. Then they offered me some with high hopes. I managed to negotiate it down to a tiny piece and pretended to bite into it, turned around and - woosh - spent it to the mice and craws out there. Sorry, but it just wasn’t the right thing for me - przepraszam! (speak~ psheprasham - excuse me)
Did someone on the Model Railroader Forum pick up on my annoyance (and run with it) that the “Long Black Train” in the Josh Turner video was pulled by a steam locomotive and not a diesel?
Not yet. There is a young ‘railroader’ who has an interest in the SCP mythos who is now adding to his AWVR locomotive collection (yes, it includes HAL tribute unit 777) with a black appropriately-lettered diesel which I assume is intended to couple to SCP 5850 (and recover 5850A anomalies Williams and Raines?).
Now as SCP5850 is often described as “That Hell-Bound Train”, and as having been reported since 1924 but now its advent is usually presaged by a ‘horn’, it has had some spectral power switch over the years…
To my knowledge, none of the classical tropes on this (from the Celestial Railroad and Freud’s association of black, fire-filled locomotives with death and Hell through all the metaphors for separation that trains used to provide) are involved in that thread. (Or in the SCP community, where perhaps they are badly needed.)
Someone who appreciated the Bridge of San Luis Rey could probably work up a proper story of the Long Black Train and how its passengers choose to ride it. Whether it is Hawthorne’s or Durrenmatt’s or Van Allsburg’s needs to be decided… and do the passengers have the choice, or does the spectral equivalent of Amtrak’s personnel by now thoroughly tired of, well, working and deadheading at the same time, much like Vanderdecken’s poor crew, make their trip a misery with uncertain prospects of reaching the destination?
Since a camelback thread is inherently about suffering, misery, and sudden death… well, one wonders if a Long Black Diamond Train would be pulled by one. Perhaps the suggestion ought to be made over there in MR. Certainly he won’t get far with either 4-axle dynamic or independent…!
Forgive me for misunderstanding the purpose of this forum. I will try to lighten up as recommended and try not to believe everything I read here. I promise that in the furure I will assume what I read could be written to make me laugh and not inform. I may have the weakness of sometimes being too serious and sometimes fail to see that nonsense is really humor. I think I have been around long enough to recognize when my leg is being pulled but I am serious when I say that there are probably readers who can’t tell fact from fiction and you have to be careful about not misleading. The tall story about the engineer and fireman falling out the cab window to see Perlman dining was nonsense but it was written in a way that could lead some readers to think the writer was serious. Not all readers are as smart as the “experts”. Maybe I’m being a prig but there are a lot of gullible people out there. And nonsense takes on a life of its own – I wouldn’t be surprised if in a future issue of Trains there is a story that claims the downfall of the NYC Niagara was due to an engineer falling out the cab window. [:D][:D][:D]
Meeiinnee Güüüteee! I am sorry to say, but nhrand you are such a dreary head, no insult intented, but: unbelievable!
Now Juni for one time invented a tall story to pick up on that one the other user had told before (why don’t you attack him?) and I have read it now and I found it both humorous and also quite clearly a story from which not to draw the date of this and that and other historical data. Then there was this remark about the driver weighing as much as the boiler pressure is, now this was obviously making fun of the habitual growing fat of men when they get elder? Ok, perhaps you didn’t like it, sorry then. But it is also well written, readable and flowing - do you criticise this? If someone does think this is dead ernest he should get the wake-up ringing when he reads the closing lines, no?
But, ok, if it is not your thing, why don’t you just go on and read something else? There are so many postings … The forum is very informative, I believe it will stand a little fun from an otherwise really knowing and wise person. It also brought up some interesting details, like the gabarit vehicle profile is so closely approached that things standing next to the line may come within inches to a moving locomotive - something that is not at all acceptable in Europe because of the dangers described by some members. That you cannot see a passenger behind his window glass in a curve also points towards this is not a fully serious a story. Interesting again, at least to me, was to learn the cuttings of the curves on the Hudson river banks are also left to stand so close to the train that you cannot look back and see the cars. Again: on European railways you could! Even on the Brenner Pass in most curves you can see at least half of the train or more. It makes me think that if railways over here would fill their free space so closely as did the NYC then they could perhaps have an equally large profile or an even larger one. It is only the safety margin is so much wider!
Juniatha’s tall tale about the enginemen falling out the cab window of a fast moving passenger train did not reveal the full story. The following may provide readers with insights into the results of an unfortunate accident. The first response of the NYC was to appoint a task force to counter the possible bad publicity of a NYC train runing for some distance with no one at the controls. It turned out to be a moot point since the story was carried on the back page of a local news paper and no one seemed to question why a train was delayed for so long because an engineer had to be found. The NYC’s explanation that the enginemen probably leaned out the window and door a bit too far to investigate an odd sound in the running gear was accepted without question. The Central representative said that “those big engines often lurch unexpectedly even on the ultra-smooth roadbed of the New York Central”.
The family of the engineer and fireman who broke their necks were generously compensated after signing a non-disclosure agreement. The lawyers convinced them that there were no witnesses or evidence to prove negligence on the part of anyone other than the engine crew. The police and coroner who investigated the deaths also agreed that it was accidental and consequently little attention was given to the matter since railroading is known to be dangerous. Weeks later the NYC CEO was asked in an interview about the event and he responded, “It was just one of those things. Steam is dead on the Central and my men don’t fall out of cab windows on diesels.”
The only problem for the NYC was the Brotherhoods. In contract negotiations they used the event as a wedge to obtain concessions. The threat was that they demanded that all steam locomotives should be equipped with a "
Sara – I hope you don’t believe I would attack women during National Women’s History Month. I have faults but thinking badly about women is not one of them. Some of my favorite engineers are women, not to mention the CEO of the BNSF who I admire greatly. I admit I think women should behave but I think men are the ones who mainly need to behave. ------ your friend — Ed
going over the country roads in France in a Renault 4 on a nice sunny day - looking for the last of steam …
Yet for the camelback: this is about as much as can be threaded on it’s back? No more camels, no more backs up? Next maybe the camelbag, an entirely unexplored, so far rarely known species of the mystery of early steam for shopping, or was it ?