Tag: locomotive

Steamtown National Historic Site

Folks my age love steam locomotives.  I think it’s because they were still pulling trains and generating revenue when I was a kid.  The Lionel thing probably figures into the equation, too.   Most guys my age had a Lionel train set when they were boys.  I did, and I loved it.  Some guys are still into it, like good buddy Steve.  Anyway, the point is when I’m traveling, I never miss an opportunity to visit a railroad museum.

A few months ago when we were back east, our travels allowed us to swing by Scranton, Pennsylvania, and visit the Steamtown National Historic Site.  It’s part of the US National Park network, but if you don’t have the senior discount card, don’t worry about it.  Admission is free.

The tour started with a movie, and it was great.  It told a lot about the early days of railroad travel in America, and it had an interesting section on mail cars.  I’ll get to that in a second.

The free movie that starts every tour of the Steamtown National Historic Site.

After the movie, you follow the marked path and see several locomotives and a mail car.  Some of those photos are coming up (I used my Nikon D810 and the 24-120 Nikon lens for all the photos you see here).  After that, the path takes you outside again to see the roundtable.  That’s what locomotive repair facilities used to rotate locomotives and put them on the right tracks.  Here’s a photo of the roundtable.

A locomotive maintenance yard roundtable.

It might seem mundane, but the movie told an interesting story about this aspect of railroad history and seeing an actual mail car immediately after was a nice touch.

The mail car interior.
Another mail car photo. The trains didn’t stop to pick up the mail. Mail bags were hung in each small town, and the mail cars snatched them as the train rolled across America. Interesting stuff.

The locomotives in the maintenance shop were interesting.  Photographing these would ordinarily be a challenge because of the dimly-lit buildings and the black locomotives, but the Nikon 810 and the 24-120 lens vibration reduction technology handled it well.  That combo has superior low-light capabilities.  All of these photos are hand-held shots with no flash.

The locomotives were huge. As a mechanical engineer, it was a real treat to see what the state of the art was a century ago.
Another interesting shot.

The displays included a cutaway locomotive that showed a steam locomotive’s innards.  I had studied steam generation as an undergraduate engineering student and like I said, I was a Lionel guy when I was a kid, but I had no idea.  This stuff is fascinating.

There was a lot going on inside these things.

We walked around outside and I grabbed photos of some of the locomotives in the yard.  This one was obviously unrestored.  It was pretty cool.

It’s only original once.

The rail yard had a Reading Lines diesel electric locomotive on display, too.  Most folks just call these diesels, but propulsion was actually via electric motors in the trucks (a truck is the subchassis that carries the wheels, the axles, and the electric motors).  The diesel engine is used to turn a generator that provides electricity to the motors.   If this sounds suspiciously like a modern hybrid automobile, it’s because it is.

A diesel electric locomotive: The worlds’ first hybrid.

As we left, it was just starting to rain.  It was overcast the entire time we visited Steamtown National Historic Site.  I was okay with that, because overcast days are best for good photography.  I stopped to grab a few photos of the Big Boy parked at the entrance to the site.

Big Boy 4012, one of only 25 ever built.

These Big Boy locomotives are a story all by themselves.  They were the largest steam locomotives ever built, designed specifically for the the Union Pacific Railroad by the American Locomotive Works.  They are articulated, which means their 4-8-8-4 wheel set (4 little wheels, 8 big drive wheels, 8 more big drive wheels, and then 4 more little wheels) are hinged underneath the locomotive so the thing can negotiate curves.   The Big Boys were created for the specific purpose of pulling long trains up and over the Rocky Mountains.  They only made 25 of them.  We had one here in my neighborhood a few years ago and we wrote about it on the blog.

Which brings me to my next point.  I started this blog by saying that folks my age love steam locomotives.  I guess that pertains to Gresh and me, as it seems we’ve done a number of ExNotes blogs that include railroad stuff. Here you go, boys and girls.

The California State Railroad Museum
Big Boy!
The Nevada Northern
Golden Spike National Historic Park
Going Nowhere, Slowly
Santa Rosalia’s Hotel Frances
A TT250 Ride

Pennsylvania is a beautiful state.  I grew up one state over (in New Jersey), and a lot of the folks I knew in New Jersey relocated to Pennsylvania because of the more rational tax structure.  There are beautiful motorcycle roads in Pennsylvania, too, once you get off the freeways and start exploring. If you make it to Scranton, the place has great restaurants, and like most east coast locales, the Italian food is the best in the world (even better than Italy, in my opinion).  Try Vincenzo’s for pizza.  It was awesome.

A Vincenzo’s delight. Thin crust, the right toppings, and wow, was it ever goood!

Never miss an ExNotes blog!

California State Railroad Museum

Sacramento is a cool town.  I’ve lived in California for more than 40 years now, but until recently, I’d never visited Sacramento other than for quick “in and out” business trips.  All that changed last year, when we spent a weekend in town to take in the Capitol, the restaurants, Old Town, the American River, and more.  That “and more” part included a real gem:  The California State Railroad Museum.

There are only about 45 steam locomotives built before 1880 still in existence here in the United States.  The California State Railroad Museum has eight of them.  The one you see below is the Virginia and Truckee Railroad No. 12 Genoa.  It was a wood-burning locomotive that was shipped by the Baldwin Locomotive Company of Philadelphia in 1873.   This was a popular steam locomotive configuration back in the day.  In its day, more than half the locomotives in the United States were of this design.

The locomotive below is an unusual one, and a configuration that I had never heard of or seen before:  It’s the Southern Pacific’s No. 4294 cab forward articulated locomotive.  This one has the engineer’s cab on the front of the locomotive.  You’ve got to look at it for a moment to realize what’s going on.

It’s easy to see why this locomotive weighs a cool one million pounds.

The photo below is the Virginia and Truckee Railroad’s No. 13, originally ordered in October of 1872 and delivered in 1873.  Somewhere along the trajectory of its life the railroad changed it to No. 15 (you know, 13 being an unlucky number).   This one was once torn down to the bones for salvage, but the team at the California Railroad Museum resurrected it to the  condition you see here using period photographs as their guide.   It’s brilliantly displaced with a mirror underneath so you can catch all the details.

Here’s another cool old steam locomotive, also designated as No. 12. It’s the North Pacific Coast Railroad’s called the Sonoma.  This one ran in service from the 1870s all the way to 1938, and then in 1939 it was restyled to look like the Central Pacific’s Jupiter (one of the two locomotives that met at Promontory Point upon completion of the Transcontinental Railroad; see Golden Spike National Historic Site) at the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco.  It was later restored to its original condition and colors, and ultimately donated to the California State Railroad Museum.

Here’s the inside of a mail carrier.  This is cool stuff.

The museum also had a cool cutaway of a diesel locomotive, a configuration we’ve all seen.  A few years ago I had a consulting gig at a locomotive manufacturer in Idaho, and I was surprised to learn that “diesel” locomotives are hybrids.  The diesel engine turns a generator, which keeps a huge battery bank charged.  The batteries power electric motors located at the wheels, which drive the locomotive.  You could see all that in this cutaway locomotive.

The California State Railroad Museum had several cars on display that you could enter.  The one below is a dining car.  Back in the day, the railroads had their own fancy china with each railroad’s logo in the dishes.  It was pretty cool.  The guy you see on the left is one of the museum’s docents.

Here’s the kitchen in that same dining car.  Many of the old “diners” (popular roadside restaurants in the eastern US) started their lives as dining cars.  When they reached the end of their service as rolling rail cars, they were moved to highway locations and became restaurants.  Then the architectural style caught on and new restaurants were constructed to resemble dining cars.

In the early days in the American West and elsewhere, the snowdrifts could get quite deep across the tracks.  We saw this dramatic photo of one actually in service, and then we saw the real thing.

The California State Railroad Museum has a pretty cool Lionel train exhibit, too, including a wall full of collectibles.  One was the Pennsylvania Railroad GG-1 electric locomotive.  The Pennsy mainline ran about a half mile away from where I grew up, and when I was a kid, we used to spend a lot of time playing around those tracks and watching the trains fly by.  I remember seeing the GG-1 locomotives and they were really something.  The GG-1 was a sort of an art deco design from the 1930s, and they were still in service when I was a youngster in the ’50s and ’60s.  The Lionel version is a real collectible.  My buddy Steve has one that is new in the box.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time at the California State Railroad Museum.   If you’re a gearhead or a history buff, I think you will, too. While we were in Sacramento, we stayed at a hotel right at the base of the drawbridge that brings you into the downtown area (see the photo at the top of this blog), and the museum was within walking distance.  You can easily spend a half a day or more in the California State Railroad Museum.  It’s worth a visit.

All of the photos in this blog were shot handheld with available light (no flash), and Nikon’s 16-35 lens on a Nikon D810.  It’s a heavy rig and it’s tough lugging it around, but it sure does a good job.

Want more rail stuff?  Hey, we’re here for you!  Check these out:

Golden Spike National Historic Site
Old No. 463
The Nevada Northern
The Chattanooga Choo Choo