Scenery from 1939 worlds fair

The Fair was all about the vision and hope for a bright..   More astute people probably recognized that the future was likely to be dismal - according to Maury Klein's book A Call to Arms the US was already quietly taking steps to enable fast ramp up for wartime production as early as 1937.  But the Fair was a good idea.  As my grandfather always said" "Never take a person's hopes away from them.  It may be all they have."

 

That's right, Mr. Willis..

 

As Alexander Scourby, the narrator of the documentary film "Life in the Thirties", said at the end of the film, which showed the 1939 World's Fair:

 

"Amid the fun and frolic of the Fair, a voice kept whispering....."

 

"It is later than you think." 

 

RIP TRACK

 

A couple more Futurama...

 

Harrison & Fouiloux were the architects of this building of the Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc., and Affiliated Companies. The constantly changing fountain display, or water ballet, was designed by the sculptor and illustrator Alexander Calder. It was floodlighted at night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The major exhibit inside the Con Ed Building was the City of light, designed by Walter Teague and Frank J. Roorda. It was "the world's largest diorama," a city-block-long, three-story-high, colored, lighted and animated model of the New Your metropolitan area

 

 

There were moving subways and elevators and busy factories.

 

 

A full city day passed by in 12 minutes, climaxed by a sky-darkening thunderstorm

 

 

The animated model used music, sound effects, and a synchronized narration, to show visitors the role Con Edison played in supplying the city with steam, gas, and electricity during a 24-hour period.

 

It remains an enigma why Nicola Tesla, the creator of Alternating Current, was not even mentioned or given credit for the illumination and powering of all the exhibits in the 1939 World's Fair.

 

Rip Track (I was 3 years old at the time)

 

Hal, no enigma. In 1939, Nikola Tesla was enjoying his 83rd year, and the acceptance of alternating current had been long established. Tesla's notoriety came in 1893 when George Westinghouse won the bid over Thomas Edison to electrify the  Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

In the photo of the 1939-40 GM exhibit, we see the companies first E-6 locomotive. It was originally ordered by the Seaboard Air Line Railroad as there #3014  and delivered to the railroad in 1940 after its fair duties were done. It was repainted into the Citrus scheme prior to delivery to the Seaboard.

 

 

I believe your correct, LIRR Steamer. Here is as a found color photo as displayed at the fair in 1939....

The Eastern Railroads had a large O gauge layout with equipment manufactured by Walthers and other 2 rail suppliers of the times.The freight cars had the Eastern Railroads lettering only on one side since only one side of the car was seen in the show.

Which meant, of course, that they had to make sure to put every car on the track with the correct side out and showing.  Some poor soul probably cursed that small amount of cost savings on the part of the graphics painters as they set up those trains, checking each car carefully.

The whole display is astonishing.

Great thread. Thanks to all that shared.

 

There are pictures online of the Railroads on Parade layout and it must have been spectacular to see. I believe that Clark Dunham may have recreated parts of this layout but I am not certain of this. Its funny but nearly all of the 1939 great Worlds fair was torn up and scrapped and very little remains of the 1964 Worlds fair. I saw the 1964 worlds fair as a young man and it was breathtaking to say the least.

We will never see something like this again as pressure from the financiers on Wall Street on corporate profits would prevent the expense of building a fair ever again. We also don't manufacture much here anymore.

 

HEY JON,

 

Yes, I know.

 

I have a Hollywood movie (and a documentary), both of which show Tesla illuminating the Chicago Exposition.

 

It also shows Edison electrocuting a stray dog at a public display to show how "unsafe" alternating current can be.

 

He used to pay neighborhood boys to round up strays so he could continue this gruesome practice of discrediting Tesla's invention of power generaton and distribution.

 

If Tesla had that good old American sense of marketing, presentation, and drive, we'd be paying our electric bills to the Tesla Company today, but alas, Nikola was no businessman!

 

RIP TRACK

www.trainsarefun.com/lirr/lirr...ir/lirrworldfair.htm Recent World's Fair 50 year celebration with modeling.

www.trainsarefun.com/lirr/lirr...ir/lirrworldfair.htm My New York World's Fair page.

You forgot Topsy the Elephant , Hal.

 

Yes, Owen...I know that an elephant was electrocuted in public just so Edison could further "prove his point".

 

I saw the short film clip of that electrocution, and it always saddens me to recall it.

 

RIP TRACK

 

 

 

 

I believe it was Westinghouse not Tesla that had the conflict with Edison.

In lower Manhattan well into the 1980's there was still DC power that was actively powering old elevators in a few buildings around Edison's first Pearl Street DC plant near Canal Street.

 

Westinghouse bought up Tesla's patents cheap...for only a million dollars.  He also believed in the superiority of Alternating Current.  He was the one that was Edison's adversary from that point on. 

 

As we know...Westinghouse invented the Air Brake for railroads...he was an innovator like Tesla, only he knew how to profit from his ideas. Tesla knew nothing about the American way of doing business.  This is why he died penniless.

 

Rip Track

 

 

 

 

Silver Lake

 

The Manhattan DC network actually lasted longer than the late 1980s. Although it is gone now, there still are DC customers in Manhattan and Brooklyn that have DC supplied from conversion equipment fed from the AC networks.

 

In the early days, Thomas Edison and General Electric were proponents of DC systems whereas The Westinghouse Corporation was a proponent of AC . We know that both companies soon began supplying equipment and services for both technologies since it was business. Interestingly, one of the last big DC projects that had Thomas Edison's personal touch and involvement was railroad related, being the electrification of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western commuter lines in New Jersey in the early 1930s . The system was 3000volts DC overhead catenary .

I only know about the Mannhattan DC electrification lasting into the 80's because a friend had a artist loft in SOHO on Canal Street and learned that the DC power to the building was unmetered. He moved out in the late 80's and I have heard that since then the power distribution was ended completely. I don't know exactly when it ended. But that loft would have been in the area originally covered by Edison's test Pearl Street power station.

that last time I actually worked on some was some DC from a Houston Light and Power substation to a couple of buildings in downtown Houston in the late '70s.  It had been there who-knows how long, and served the building's DC elevator motors.  Dc motors were used a lot up in early elevators and utilities at one time provides power to feed them without rectification.  I think ithat DC was all removed in the mid 80s.  

 

There was some DC in use in use for that same purpose feeding some old skyscrapers in downtown Buenos Ares up through at least 2002, when I was there last. Ghe utility's equipment was all new, solid state stuff, too.  I was told the service had been there since the '30s and the equipment had been renewed in the late 90s.

The manhattan DC network was removed from service and retired within the last 10 years. The company still has DC customers to provide service to run Elevators for example where it was powered from the DC network previously. Conversion equipment fed from the AC network serves these loads.

 

It may also be of interest to Know that that there was also a  25Hz system which served the Subway system and in its final years , the signal system . These facilities are also retired in a similar time frame as well.

Yeah, 25 Hz.  I remember that, too.  Amazing how long some of that really old stuff stayed in service, isn't it?

yes Lee Amazing. It was a tribute to those who designed the system and equipment and those who maintained it. The Transit authority was very slow to give up dependence on this supply system. Traction power went to unit substations must faster.

Kiline made a boxcar with the Eastern Railroads graphics, except that they are on both sides.  I still see that car now and then on ebay.

Here are a few images of the "Railroads at Work" O-gauge exhibit of the 1939 World's Fair.

>

Pennsylvania S1 6-4-4-6 at the '39 World's Fair.

Folks, I'm enjoying the material posted here concerning the LIRR, etc. It's a pleasure. I have this LIRR website:  http://www.trainsarefun.com/lirr/lirrcontents.htm and a modeling section:  http://www.trainsarefun.com/modeling/modelingmain.htm

I would sure like to expand the LIONEL area and add an O Gauge LIRR Modeling section with your help.

Mill City posted earlier and I have stitched the material together:

 

Best,
Steve

 

 

 

Thanks for fixing my post, Steve. The drawing and rendering are wonderful, but neither adequately convey the enormity of this 160-foot by 40-foot layout housed in a 3000-seat auditorium. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find any good photography of this exhibit.  

 

I briefly looked at your LIRR website, what a wealth of information. I'll need to carve-out several weekends to fully investigate.

Not really a post fix at all, just a larger version! If anyone needs specifics about my site, ask rather than surf all over.

 

Also, here's a Google search technique: For example you want to see what LIONEL is on the site: http://www.trainsarefun.com

 

at Google type   site:trainsarefun.com/ LIONEL  you get 32 results

Interesting - I am waiting on the new MTH Premier PS3 model of this.  I've been told it has been shipped.  I really want this model . . . 

Lee, would love to see some pictures when she arrives.

 

This has been a fabulous post. And you touched on a subject I've wondered about, the old electrical standards that lingered in NYC. The old Lionel catalogs still mentioned transformers and train power supply from electrical systems other than our now-standard 60 Hz. Some of those items were for an export market, but also for some USA localities that didn't yet have 60 Hz power. I recall reading that Los Angeles did not have 60 Hz power until after the construction of Hoover Dam. Excuse me for digressing ...

I found this program from the Railroads on Parade in my collection. As well as the Playbill from the Edward Hungerford produced play with music by Kurt Weill. It is the 1940 version. Also tucked in was a newspaper clipping showing what the owner had been to already checked off. I think it is interesting that the historic engines displayed are still around while the modern engines are all gone.

 

I have several Hungerford books. I really like the books by these early rail fans like Hertz, Staufer, Alexander,Beebe and Clegg.

Oh, that is cool.  Priceless.

 

Hey Silver Lake,

 

Lucius Beebe and Charles Clegg were a couple of dandies, who always liked to show off their affluence and snub those beneath them.

 

At least they were railroad all the way, with Beebe's magnificent private car, "Virginia City".           

 

Rip Track

Hey Rip Track,

 I don't judge people I don't know or speak ill of the dead.

 

Beebe was wealthy and he and Clegg traveled to many obscure Railroads documenting and photographing them during the time of the transition away from steam. A lot of the railroads they documented were about to close up shop or change forever. As a rail fan it appreciate what they documented for posterity. They made some of the very few published images of many obscure RR's and captured a way of life that was changing.

 

Rich people can spend money how they want if it doesn't hurt people. It is their money. The money Beebe  spent chartering trains helped some of these struggling RR's hold on a little longer. Rich people of today have private cars and engines they ride in and as rail fans we can appreciate their restored presence on trains without jealous feelings.

 

As for whatever relationship Beebe and Clegg had I could not care less. If nobody was hurt who cares? They have both been dead for what 30 years, 40?

 

I still like their books.

 

Hey Silver Lake,

 

Those comments and feelings are not mine...I'm only stating the late Humphrey Bogart's views on Beebe, and to a lesser extent on Clegg.

 

Life Magazine had Beebe on the cover, and if there was ever a dandy, he was one!

 

I'm certainly not impugning his admiration and support of the railroading era you spoke of. 

 

There!

 

Rip Track

 

 

Beebe and Clegg were cool in their own ways, and creatures of their time - we shouldn't be too hard judging them by the standards of our time.