Robert Pence

Nice touch in downtown! Do you know if there's any connection between the Piatt name on this park and the family that built the Piatt Castles near Bellefontaine?

Headed for Pennsylvania, I took a wrong exit in Akron and ended up in Canton, several miles out of my way. The event made me aware that I should take a break and exercise my legs, brain and camera. Dreary afternoon and all, here are the photos. Canton looks better than I expected; in fact, not so bad at all. My last previous visit was more than twenty years ago, and left me with a not-so-great impression, and I was pleased to see that the downtown is looking a little better. There are a lot of big holes in the downtown fabric, but that's fairly common in old midwestern industrial cities. The streets and sidewalks are clean, there's a decent amount of greenery, the remaining buildings seem mostly to be maintained, and it looks like there's some resurgence of business. All photos copyright © 2006 Robert E. Pence This place has character; the outside is newly-done contemporary design, but the inside is permeated with the musty smell of myriad old books on closely-packed shelves. Caged parakeets keep up a noisy chatter. St. John the Baptist Saint. Peter Saint Chocolate

Coolspring Power Museum is located off Pennsylvania 36, midway between Brookville and Punxsutawney. For anyone fascinated by the illustrations in old engineering books and Scientific American articles, it's paradise. You can see in operation the amazing machines you thought you would only ever see in pictures. Some museums have a few examples of early internal combustion engines on static display, gathering dust, with incomplete or inaccurate descriptions and no one on staff who really knows anything about them. A few have one or two examples that are run occasionally for brief periods. Coolspring Power Museum has the most complete collection you'll see anywhere in North America, and most are operable or under restoration. The volunteers know their engines; they have to have demonstrated understanding in order to be entrusted with the care of such valuable and increasingly rare machines. These machines are big and heavy and almost entirely made of iron. Many of them fell prey to scrap dealers during World War II, and not all were willingly sold by their owners. The engines used in the oil fields were set up to run mostly unattended in remote locations sometimes for days at a time, and the loud, sharp bark of their exhaust made them easy to locate. Many were stolen and broken for scrap. I'm pretty sure I'm the only self-avowed practicing engine nerd on the forum, but I think I can detect latent tendencies in a few others. I'm not here to "out" anyone, but if the pictures stir something in you, maybe we should talk. All photos copyright © 2006 Robert E. Pence Compare the crankshaft for this single-cylinder engine with the pickup truck to get an idea of the size of some of these machines. A 20-horsepower Klein engine, set up in a replica of the station where it once worked, complete with the geared piston pump that could move crude oil through pipelines at pressures in the hundreds of pounds per square inch. These engines were designed by engineer John Klein for National Transit Pump and Machinery Company, a subsidiary of Standard Oil, and used mostly in the company's pipeline facilities. They are readily identified by their massive construction and simple, reliable, long-wearing design. The gray building on the left, named in honor of a long-time benefactor and volunteer at the museum, the late Nathan Lillibridge, houses the recently-restored 300-horsepower four-cylinder opposed Miller engine and the Ingersoll-Rand air compressor driven by it, along with a smaller engine and generator that provide electric lighting. An open pavilion shelters a large collection of engines sometimes known as half-breeds. The earliest oil fields used steam power to run pumps, and as internal combustion became a safer, more reliable and more economical power source, several companies made cylinder kits for converting steam engines into gas engines. A few of these engines were built so that they could be configured to run either as steam engines or internal-combustion engines. Restoration in progress. In order to make an operating display, the largest engines require deep reinforced concrete foundations weighing many tons. 160-horsepower Bessemer engine, one of a pair installed in 1943 in the Brookville Water Works. This engine is being offered for sale by sealed bid to help finance the installation of its sister engine and pump at the museum. One of the largest internal combustion engines to be relocated to any operating museum, this 600-horspower 1917 Snow tandem engine will have its major components set in place before a building is erected over it. I'd guess the pipe trenches shown in the photos are about eight feet deep. The completed engine will be 65 feet long; the flywheel is 18 feet in diameter and weighs 20 tons. The New Era engine is one of many built in Ohio. This engine worked many years in a waterworks in a small city in Ohio. The big upright four-cylinder engine against the back wall is a Turner-Fricke. It has 10 x 18 bore and stroke and runs at 227 rpm. It's one of three that were direct coupled to electrical generators in a gas pipeline station. On the left, the Crossley Brothers engine was built in England before 1900. It uses a slide-valve mechanism for direct-flame ignition of the compressed fuel and air mixture in the cylinder. Another, larger Klein engine. This one went through a fire and was heavily damaged and has been restored to operable condition. A four-cylinder Bruce-McBeth engine. Very smooth and quiet, beautiful to see in motion. This Elyria engine, built in the Ohio city by the same name, powered an Amish millwright's shop for many years. Engines like this ran all the machines in a machine shop, carpenter shop, laundry, printing plant or small factory via a line shaft suspended from the ceiling or running beneath the floor; the engine drove the shaft with a flat belt, and the individual machines were driven in turn from the shaft by pulleys and belts. Each year in October, the museum hosts a swap meet where dealers and collectors can come together to buy and sell engines, parts and other engine-related materials and try to impress each other with outlandish tales of the one that got away. You gotta feed the people somehow, and the aroma from this place had my stomach growling the whole time. Top it off with real, old-fashioned home-made ice cream, made with real ingredients and dished up fresh from the freezer. Ice cream production has become a popular activity at a lot of engine collectors' events, and one show I attended several years ago near State College had a complete small ice cream factory in a permanent building and powered by a steam engine. They were really turning the stuff out, and they had a line waiting.

Good shots of the Comet. Some of the earliest attempts at streamlining applied shrouding to existing conventional locomotives, with matching styling and paint schemes applied to existing conventional coaches. On the other hand, outfits like the Comet were designed from the ground up as permanently-coupled trainsets using locomotives with the best available new technology. Note that adjacent cars on the Comet share a set of wheels (known as trucks) at the point where they're coupled together. That design eliminates one set of trucks per car, and trucks can weigh three to six tons per set. That's a significant reduction in overall weight, and eliminates nearly half the friction and rotating weight in the train set. Rotating weight is a major factor in acceleration and deceleration performance. I think the North Shore Electroliners were articulated trainsets.

^I'll second that. Get into the right (or wrong) neighborhoods, and you'll find so much grit you'll be trying to brush it out of your teeth for a week, and you don't have to go far from Monument Circle to find it. Indianapolis is developing a first-rate trail system; Monon Trail is one of the best and most heavily-used urban rail-trails in this part of the country.

... coming soon to a school cafeteria near you, deep-fried! :-P

That's what happens when an owner milks a building for cash flow and doesn't look after the roof and/or parapet caps. Several years ago, the parapet along the entire 80-foot length of an old brick four-story warehouse in downtown Fort Wayne let loose during evening rush hour and came crashing down onto the sidewalk and street. I don't think anyone was seriously injured (no one walks in Fort Wayne), but several cars were badly trashed.

They give the impression of speed, and it's not a misleading one. They were very fast, but I'll bet the shop crews hated them. A conventional steam locomotive is fairly straightforward to work on, if heavy and cumbersome; all the working parts are pretty much exposed. Those streamlined ones concealed all the functional components under acres of sheet metal that had to be removed to perform maintenance.

Sweet! Saline looks well-kept and tidy, and the buildings are great!

I guess my blue-collar roots are showing. I bought a <$20 Black & Decker, and it suits me fine so long as I don't forget to put the pot in place before I push the "auto" button and go to bed :-) I try not to be a complete Philistine; I buy good Nicaraguan dark roast beans at a neighborhood fair-trade shop and grind fresh daily

Beautiful photos. Those are some grand old neighborhoods.

Thanks for the reminder. I'm headed for Pennsylvania tomorrow. I don't have a life that anyone would want, and some say I'm soulless, too, but I need to pick up some o' them biscuits. :lol:

The day I visited the Cod, a WWII submarine veteran was among the visitors. He had some interesting tales. He said that they took their initial training on WWI-vintage subs that were no longer fit for combat service. They never left the harbor for deep water because when they submerged, there was no great assurance that they would be able to surface on their own. When they were running on diesel power, he said, the noise inside was deafening.

I was up there in the 80s, I think. I don't recall that it was surrounded by glass then. Spectacular views!

Natchez is huge. I made a reservation once in New Orleans for an evening cruise, but when the time came they made some lame excuse like channel dredging for cancelling the trip. I think they probably didn't sell enough tickets for that evening to justify the cost of operating her. I've seen her on the river, and she's magnificent. Delta Queen and Belle of Louisville are real, too, although Delta Queen was built for operation on the Scramento River in California, and differs in design from the boats that were built on the Ohio and Mississippi. When I rode the Belle some years ago, she was highly authentic except for a rather obnoxious diesel generator that provided electricity. The engineer controlled the engines with the original manual/mechanical controls and got his instructions from the bridge via the traditional telegraph. I'll stop now. </babble>

I've heard a lot of wonderful things about Providence. Now, I know they're all true! Wonderful photos. Thanks.

'Til the day I die! Even then, I'm going to try to negotiate taking it with me. Seems appropriate; not long ago, someone said to me, "Man, you're all over hell on that thing!" :lol:

Looks like a grand old neighborhood maybe on the verge of a comeback. Nice shots.

Great shots! I love real steamboats, and there are precious few of them still around. There are some diesel-powered riverboats that actually use paddle wheels for propulsion, because they're better-suited to shallow water than propellers. Most day-tourist boats, though, are diesel-powered and propeller-driven, with fake paddle wheels that sort of drag along behind. With a real sternwheeler you get a sense of the power at work when you stand at the stern above the wheel and look down. Paddle wheels are less efficient than propellers, but they sure are impressive to watch at work.

Starting out in Hyde Park, on the University of Chicago campus Headed for Metra Electric at 56th Street, I saw this amazing car. Cultural Pigeons Time to catch my South Shore train. 'Bye for now!

Before that, I drove an E-250 cargo van. Talk about a handful in heavy winds! Never fear. I've heard from three different Nigerian lawyers, so the money should start rolling in any day now. :roll: There should be enough to buy my own trainset, so when they privatize passenger service, I'll be ready. I thought I'd start out with a locomotive, a couple of sleepers, a parlor-lounge, a diner, and a business car equipped to transport my personal automobile. That's why I bought a compact car. :wink:

I wonder if he's a descendant of pioneering environmental activist Aldo Leopold.

Yes. :-D I got to see some cities, especially in the Northeast and in Texas, when I was a young whippersnapper in the USAF, and then there was an interruption until near retirement, because I worked a series of jobs where I often wasn't allowed to take big enough blocks of contiguous vacation days to travel much. I got in some good business travel when I worked for Lincoln Financial and for IBM, but that was 10 - 15 years ago. There are some cities in the Inland West and Great Plains that I need to see, and I'd like to see more of Europe and Canada, too. The only Canadian cities I've visited are Toronto, Calgary and Windsor (briefly).

I don't think I'm losing much in the way of visibility. For the past two years, my pickup has been a Ranger, and it was overshadowed by the ubiquitous big pickups and hulking SUVs. I'd been wishing for something more comfortable and economical than the Ranger, with enough room to carry my canopy tent, folding tables, etc.. The hatchbacks that I looked at all came up wanting just a little in that respect. I saw the wagon on the dealer's lot when I took the Ranger in for service, and after doing my homework for a couple of days, I went back Friday afternoon and took a test drive. It's the first test drive I've taken in years that felt just exactly right from the first moment; it's nimble and surprisingly quick for a 2.0L four-cylinder, and although Friday was very windy, the wagon was steady even when I took it on I-69 in an elevated, open area. I ended up laying out a little more difference than I had hoped to pay, but the deal was still good so I took it home that afternoon. This one is probably a keeper, so I bought the extended warranty. Today I drove it to Bluffton and back, about 60 miles, and came home quite pleased. It's no luxury car, but it has a decent ride and the road and engine noise are at very acceptable levels.

I like! I rode the Belle of Louisville in 1973. Pleasant memory.