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[harryc]

Bedhead fantastic shots - variety is good.

RP - yes my bike, more in danger of being thrown away than stolen.

[Robert Pence]

Great photos, Beadhead! You refer to London Paddington as filthy, but compared with most US stations its vaulted roof makes it spacious and its floors gleam. Most of our trainsheds are like caves, low-ceilinged with grimy concrete platforms and bad lighting - the ones that aren't at trackside with no shelter at all, that is.

Waterloo, Indiana, nearest station to Fort Wayne, a city of 200,000 population. It's about half an hour's drive away, in a village of about 2,000, where no businesses are open during the late night/early morning hours when the two daily trains in each direction stop here.


srperrycgy, those Calgary LRT cars are huge! I was last in Calgary in 1995 and was impressed by the clean system and modern stations, and it looks like they keep moving forward.

[Robert Pence]

South Shore Train 109 at Chicago's Millennium Park Station awaiting passenger boarding for 2:35p.m. departure to Michigan City, Indiana, Carroll Avenue:


At Michigan City Carroll Avenue, location of South Shore's storage yard and maintenance shops:






Train 109 moves to a storage track to allow Chicago-bound Train 20 from South Bend to approach the boarding platform:




$3,398,000 each. Nicer ride, more comfortable seats, hot-rod acceleration. Bigger windows than on the older single-level cars provide a wider view forward and back, and the upper level lets a rider see above the trackside brush, clutter, and structures for a longer view of the urban and rural scenery.

Information on the acquisition and funding of these cars is in the Transportation section in this thread.

Currently, the new cars operate on westbound trains 102, 212, 114, and 116, and eastbound trains 203, 107, 109, and 211. Schedules are on the South Shore web site

[Bedhead]

Harry, Robert - thanks! srperrycgy - love the reflections on the Calgary station.

The ultimate steam enthusiast: down the road from me, in the town of Box, this steam (tractor?) has been a feature of one man's front garden for ever. At Christmas it is festooned with Christmas lights.

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[Robert Pence]

Bedhead, what you've pictured there is the boiler for a portable steam engine of the type used for powering belt-driven machinery, typically threshing machines used in separating grain from straw and chaff.

The wheels indicate that it was pulled from place to place by horses, and not self-propelled. The engine is gone, too; all that remains is the boiler that generated steam to drive the engine.

Have you been to the Great Dorset Steam Fair? I haven't been there, but know someone who has. It's reputed to be one of the world's greatest gatherings of steam power.

Antique agricultural machinery is one of my interests; I have many photos of shows in the US on my web sites here and here. There's stuff like this as well as some steam railroad museums.

[theWatusi]

Former Reading Railroad Valley Forge Park station on the current Norfolk Southern Harrisburg line.

[ItsConanOBrien]

Just a shot of the Amtrak Downeaster leaving Boston for Portland, ME

[Bedhead]

Rob, thanks for the background. That picture you linked of agricultural machinery looked insane!

I've never been to Dorset for the steam fair, though it is in my part of the world. Looks like it's worth a trip some time.

I do, however, work across the road from a steam museum. The town I work in, Swindon, was built around a railway works that used to employ 14,000 people. It all closed now, but they've used some of the old buildings to house the museum. There are cool bits where you can go inside and underneath trains:












The 'Evening Star' at the very top was the last steam train to be built in Swindon. The 'North Star' in the bottom set is a life-size replica of one of the first.

[Robert Pence]

Although British railway museums set the bar very high, and definitely outdo the rest of the world for mainline excursions at speed with historic rolling stock, we do have a few respectable collections and displays in the US. Pennsylvania seems to be the mother lode.

The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, at Strasburg:


Across the road at the Strasburg Railroad, a high-quality operating facility in the heart of Amish country:


East Broad Top, an operating preserved 3-foot gauge coal company railroad, and Rockhill Trolley Museum, at Orbisonia:
]

Steamtown, at Scranton, is a National Park Service property and has static displays, operating locomotives, and a working shop where heavy repairs and restorations in progress can be viewed by visitors. The Electric City Trolley Museum, with operating streetcars, is adjacent, and the Lackawanna Mine Museum, an intact but inactive anthracite coal mine, offers museum displays and a mine tour:


Washington, Pennsylvania, a few miles south of Pittsburgh, is home to the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum. There are operating cars, static displays, and restorations in progress:


There's lots more in Pennsylvania, and many other states and towns have museums ranging from busy operating facilities to rusty stuff enclosed in barbed-wire fences behind dusty, long-vacant depots.

[Bedhead]

/\

Fantastic stuff - love it.

I'm so used to seeing those trains with lamps and cowcatchers in cartoons - it's a bit of a jolt to see a real live one.

[electricron]

Fort Worth Trains.

Amtrak's Texas Eagle at ITC


Amtrak's Heartland Flyer


Trinity Railway Express




Grapevine Vintage Railroad

[Bedhead]

Originally Posted by More steam, you say? Check this out. It gives me chills, in a very good way:
[url

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/7865518.stm[/url]
-

There's just been a show on this train in the UK - if anyone is interested, you can see it four parts, here, here, here and here

[Bedhead]

Electricron, I love that picture of the red and white train with the art deco building in the background. Monumental.

[Robert Pence]

To keep this thread from fading into oblivion, here are a few not-so-spectacular photos taken during a lull last Sunday in Chicago. On weekends and holidays, trains run every two hours and there are times when no trains are at the platforms. The South Shore platforms are beneath Millennium Park.

A South Shore platform on Millennium Station's upper level, looking toward the station area from near the outer end of the platform. The painted numbers indicate the door locations for the cars making up the trains (up to 8 cars). Outbound trains may drop excess cars at Gary or Michigan City, so passengers must choose the right cars. Typically, only the first four cars might run beyond Gary, and only the first two cars might run beyond Michigan City to South Bend.




Looking in the opposite direction (westward) toward the place where trains exit the subterranean area and enter the Metra Electric line that they will use as far as Kensington/115th Street (Pullman).

[TAZ4ate0]

Not a train, but I guess this railroad bridge qualifies for this thread? I didn't get a wider view of the bridge because I was focusing on the date.

Crossing the Salt River in Tempe:



Same bridge different view:




edit: Sorry about the size. Next time I'll try resizing the photo(s). I'm open to suggestions as to what dimensions work best on the forum.

[Minato Ku]

MS61 refurbished in Reuil Malmaison station


Installation of PSD at Pont de Neuilly


Map of the smallest metro line


Gambetta southern end of the smallest line of Paris metro

[Robert Pence]

Originally Posted by TAZ4ate0

edit: Sorry about the size. Next time I'll try resizing the photo(s). I'm open to suggestions as to what dimensions work best on the forum.

Nice work!

For my web site and for SSP forums, I typically size to horizontal photos to 960 pixels wide and vertical photos to 800 pixels high, and let the other dimension fall where it may. 72 pixels per inch is all the resolution you need for on-screen viewing; on most monitors, anything above that is superfluous.

[TAZ4ate0]

Originally Posted by Robert Pence

Nice work!

For my web site and for SSP forums, I typically size to horizontal photos to 960 pixels wide and vertical photos to 800 pixels high, and let the other dimension fall where it may. 72 pixels per inch is all the resolution you need for on-screen viewing; on most monitors, anything above that is superfluous.

Thanks for the comment and thanks again for the advice. I'm still learning the ropes on this whole photography thing. Kind words are always appreciated.

[harryc]

I think that this is to provide extra braking - the outer trucks activate the brakes on the innter trucks variably (?)

[SpawnOfVulcan]

This is one of my favorite pics that I've taken...


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