Robert Pence

Ditto for South Bend, and in my limited experience, I haven't seen enough cars on them to justify that much capacity in one direction. A pedestrian has to be fleet of foot to make it across some of them in the time that walk signals stay lit. They could put landscaped medians in the middle, make them two-way, and still have plenty of capacity and a more attractive downtown. Fort Wayne doesn't have quite so much a wide-street problem as Columbus, but most of the lights are timed for 35mph, and even at that most drivers don't comprehend that they can set a steady speed and drive clear across town without having to stop for very many lights. They sprint from one stoplight to the next, get there while it's still red, brake hard to a complete stop, and then lag before dashing for the next one. It increases aggression, pollution and traffic noise, jams up the traffic flow and wastes fuel. Some cross-streets in downtown have been cut by the expansion of the libary and the convention center, and on the advice of consultants the city council recently announced plans to make some of the downtown streets two-way instead of one-way to ease navigation. There was so much protest from the leadfoot drivers and the we've-always-done-it-this-way folks that they dropped the idea. I'd like to see them make my one-way street into a two-way, and perhaps even return parking to one side of it. I live on a one-way outbound street at the edge of downtown, and there are no stoplights downstream for more than a mile. Despite the 35mph speed limit, most drivers are running 45 or better, and accelerating, when they pass my place. Traffic enforcement is an unfamiliar concept in Fort Wayne.

gildone, I'm very aware of the political and economic realities facing high-speed rail; I don't expect dedicated right-of-way and any kind of advanced technology to come about quickly, especially in the midwestern states. I do like to explore the possibilities that are raised by existing and proposed technologies, though. One of the first things I learned in information systems is that, when planning to implement new technology in a business system, you don't just look for ways to do the same work with faster machines (typewriter vs. pencil); you look at the whole system -- inputs, process, outputs -- to identify and eliminate wasted and redundant activity while providing greater value. We have to start with incremental change, and it will take a lot of work to even get passenger rail on the public radar as a significant viable option. At some point, though, unless America annihilates itself militarily or economically, we'll reach a point where it make sense to stop patching and upgrading and build a whole new transportation system. Transportation is (or should be, at least) a system, and passenger rail should be a component or subset of the system. I like to indulge in reality-based fantasy sometimes as to what could be, compared with what is. I'll admit with some chagrin that this thread really isn't the right place for it; I wander off-topic pretty easily. A fine line distinguishes a creative mind from an undisciplined one. Let me mull things over a little more, and I'll launch a separate thread for those of us who, to indulge in hackneyed jargon, like to think outside the box and test new paradigms. :roll:

Fourteen 4-8-4 J-class locomotives were designed and built entirely by N&W employees in the railroad's Roanoke shops between 1941 and 1950. NW 611, one of three built in 1950, pretty much represents the apex of steam locomotive design in North America. The J-class engines could deliver a tractive effort of 80,000 pounds, making them the most powerful of all standard 4-8-4 locomotives. They were equipped with Timken roller bearings throughout and could run without servicing for longer distances at higher speeds than most other steam locomotives. They were designed to pull 10 heavyweight cars at 110mph. Even though I've seen lots of steam locomotives in operation, watching this one pass was an especially memorable experience. The sleek styling made it seem to almost glide along the rails, and it didn't have the sharp exhaust bark of many engines, probably because it had such a surplus of power that it didn't have to work hard to accelerate even a long train.

Neat shots! The horizontal board fence with the arched entryway is intriguing.

There's a notion I can't bring myself to give up, although I get shouted down most every time I mention it. In order to have a truly worthwhile passenger rail system that can compete in terms of performance and attractiveness to travelers, I think we have to create a system that is independent of the freight railroads. Passenger and freight rail share little other than the track gauge of their rolling stock; their business objectives and service needs are seldom compatible and often in conflict when they share rails and yards. It's reasonable to expect that the systems would share existing right-of-way corridors, both rural and urban, wherever feasible, but administratively and operationally they need to be independent of each other, and the only way I can see to achieve that independence is to not share tracks. I still like to bring up the idea of using interstate highway median space where rail rights-of-way are gone; an example of that would be the Columbus - Indianapolis route where tracks have been torn up. Unless I'm mistaken, the legislation that created the interstate highway system provided for such use, and although considerable cost would be involved, it would be nothing like the cost of acquiring entirely new right-of-way. Passenger trains could diverge from the highway median right-of-way using existing freight corridors in some cases to reach downtown stations. I realize that the national will doesn't yet exist to accomplish this, and whenever I mention it some folks suggest I smoke either less or more of whatever it was, but at my age I'm pretty set in my ways. I can't abandon the notion easily. :-P

A couple of engines in context, from photos I took in 1963 when they were still in regular use: Turner-Fricke engine at Coolspring Power Museum: Tuner-Fricke engine in generating plant at Van, PA in 1963 - Might even be the same engine: 600 horsepower Snow engine being reconstructed at Coolspring: 500 horsepower Snow engine at Ludlow, Pennsylvania in 1963: 375 horsepower Snow engine at Van, Pennsylvania 1963: Ludlow Compressor Station and engines in a row: Van Compressor Station and engines in a row: (The '56 Ford barely visible on the right was mine then)

You did a pretty good job of capturing the feel of Chicago, this time of year. I always enjoy the neighborhood up around Wrigley Field.

Powerful story.

Yep, Fostoria is indeed a good place for train watching. The woman's experience highlights what a lot of train enthusiasts understand, that non-enthusiasts don't. There's more to the fascination than just seeing trains; to fully experience them, you have to be up close and feel the vibration and hear the sounds and smell the smells. You can only get that at trackside; you can't even get it from the inside of a coach. The newer train cars have taken away the best part of train-riding, too. Some of my best memories are of riding in the vestibule with the dutch door open through the Sierras, or through canyons in full moonlight, with whitewater rushing alongside not far from the tracks. Most of the conductors on western lines didn't mind, so long as you weren't a danger to yourself and others. Even in the flatlands, standing in the open doorway and listening to the wheels hissing on welded rail at 80+mph was great. Can't do that any more.

< :type: >Regarding Amtrak's late trains, the chronic problems arise on certain freight railroads because of their operational priorities, but a significant delay to one train can cascade across Amtrak's entire system.</ :type: > < :speech: >Amtak operates with a pretty minimal pool of equipment to cover the trains that it runs, and equipment turnarounds at terminals, especially locomotives, are often tightly choreographed. The locomotives from an arriving train may be serviced and sent back out almost immediately on another train, and if those locomotives arrive late, there may not be any spares to used for the departing train. The train and its passengers have to wait, sometimes for hours, before even beginning the trip. Occasional delays can happen on any system, but when you try to run an underfunded, underequipped national passenger service over tracks controlled by freight railroads whose business analysts, with no understanding of operational realities or seasonal loading, stripped away every trace of redundancy, chronically late trains become more the rule than the exception.</ :speech: > < :bang: >So long as our national transportation policies are set by self-serving politicians who pander to an uninformed/misinformed electorate, we'll have to settle for congratulating ourselves that our rail service isn't worse than it is.</ :bang:> </ rant>

Thanks for posting those! I spent some time looking at them when I was in town for the meet last spring; they're wonderful!

Will they have an altar call?

Wow! With those first few photos, I was beginning to think that Saginaw was competing with Gary, Indiana for Worst in the Midwest. Pretty sad. The efforts at bringing back life are heartening; I wish them success!

I don't know that I'd go that far; this is Indiana, you know. The downtown has a fairly solid core of good 19th century buildings, and a number of them house galleries and antique shops. Some of the blank spaces are being filled in, and there's residential rehab going on in some old commercial buildings. As in a lot of midwestern towns, much of the prime real estate near the courthouse is occupied by law offices. Not a bad thing, as the lawyers usually spend money tastefully on their buildings. The college stuff, I think, is mostly on the other side of the river in West Lafayette. In my college era (fifty years ago), most of the businesses along the hill up to the campus were auto parts, auto salvage, low-end used cars, pretty gritty. That stuff is all gone now, replaced by multi-story apartment blocks, fast-food chains, college hangouts. It's all newer construction, mostly pretty bland and car-centric. Over the past 15 - 20 years Lafayette has spent major bucks on well-planned and well-executed infrastructure improvements. Thirty or so railroad grade crossings were eliminated by consolidating the various railroads on one corridor that runs along the Wabash River, and providing adequate street overpasses and noise barriers so that the freight trains no longer roar through the middle of the business district. The old Big Four single-storey brick railroad depot was moved about two blocks and positioned atop a lower level that accomodates local transit services, an Amtrak ticket office and Greyhound. The railroad is below grade level, and a covered walkway and elevator provide access to passenger boarding areas. The original waiting room is beautifully restored and available for public and private events. It seemed to me that for a city its size, it's fairly swarming with public transit, and the key points on the system have shelters and digital reader boards that display next-bus info. Most other Indiana cities could learn a lot from a visit to Lafayette.

exurbkid, I think you'll be comfortable here; there's some good-natured kidding/teasing, and civility is pretty good on urbanohio. Age doesn't seem to be an issue with anyone, at least on my end of the spectrum (I'm a geezer).

Huge machine! They probably have to lay timbers and several feet of dirt on the road to protect it, before crossing with one of these. I know they have to do that with the big draglines used in the open-pit mines. Some pretty big bucket-wheel excavators have been around since the late 1800s, but I've never seen a picture of anything even close to this in size. I wonder how long it took to assemble it.

I'm just speculating, grasping at straws, and I don't know how the scheduling would work, but ... There's the daily Pennsylvanian between New York and Pittsburgh, and the daily Hoosier State between Chicago and Indianapolis. How about some resurrection of part of the old National Limited routing to bridge the gap between Pittsburgh and Indianapolis via Columbus and Dayton? As a start, running two trains daily in each direction might provide reasonable service times at both end points and the intermediate cities.

Wonderful stuff. Cincinnati is a fascinating place.

KJP, are you sure about Fort Wayne? I had a long-time impression that all PRR trains through Fort Wayne stopped here; it was a division point (first one west of Chicago) where crews changed, and in the steam era, locomotives were serviced/swapped here. Crew changes took place right through the Amtrak era until the end of service in 1990. My aunt said she took the Broadway between Fort Wayne and Chicago weekly in the fifties, and that the running time was around 2:15 from Fort Wayne's Baker Street to Union Station with one intermediate stop (Englewood, I think).

Beautiful!

Beautiful shots. Downtown Lafayette is one of the most remarkable cities in Indiana for its intact blocks of old buildings occupied and in good condition, and for the wonderful historic homes in the surrounding neighborhoods. Its transit system is very effective, and the handsome relocated Big Four station, now the transportation center, anchors the downtown nicely along the river.

In a way, congested transit would be a problem some systems would envy. It's important to deal with it, though, because where people have alternatives it's a disincentive to use it. South Shore hopes to add 14 new cars, bi-level, I think, to enable them to add two more trains to rush-hour service. They're much needed because existing rush-hour service is almost always standing-room-only over at least the western half of the line. Some people may find that tolerable for a short ride, but when it's 45 minutes or an hour, it probably keeps some commuters in their cars.

Does anyone else remember the original name of the proposal that gave birth to a national railroad passenger service? It was Railpax, and was changed to Amtrak shortly before inauguration of service in 1971.

MTS, I was about to pull up some of those images from my site to illustrate your comments, but you beat me to it. The Shaker Rapid was pretty archaic in those days, but it was sort of a treat for trolley enthusiasts, too. It was one of the last U.S. holdouts for unmodified PCC cars, along with Pittsburgh, and the private right-of-way provided a place where the cars could show what they were capable of. I was impressed with the surge of power they'd put on when coming up out of the Termnal Tower station headed for Shaker Square, and sometimes they could really get rolling, too. It was the transportation of choice for fashionable folk ...

Gotta be careful about Michiganders; they may be spies plotting to take back Toledo. I, on the other hand, am plotting to have the Indiana portion of the Maumee River basin, including Fort Wayne, annexed onto Ohio.