Switcher Saturday: 2019 Sept-25 (Memorial Day Weekend Edition)

Burnside's bridge, Sharpsville, Antietam, Maryland.  More American's died here, one day, than any other battle that has been fought. 

Another bridge over Antietam Creek, part of the C&O Canal Tow Path, where the creek enters the Potomac river.  There is an informational sign on the bridge. The water ran red with blood for three days.  Canal was still in use during the Civil War, the railroads would put the canal out of business after the war.   Today part of the Great Allegheny Passage/C&O Canal Tow Path trail, Pittsburgh, Pa, to Washington DC.  

Red

I'm ready for any train wrecks coming my way.

Tom,

Thanks for starting SWSAT today and remembering Memorial Day. My dad (kneeling at center) served with the U.S. Army in France and Germany during 1944 and '45. I was lucky. He came home without injury or harm and lived to age 98.

My dad served as a mechanic and repaired vehicles. I keep this Army Jeep on my layout as a remembrance. He bought me Lionel trains when I was four years of age and got to see the layout I completed in 2004.

Long Island Railroad 1553 is a K-Line model of an Alco RS-3 road switcher that I purchased about 15 years ago. K-Line also made LIRR passenger cars in the same color scheme. This locomotive has a version of Lionel TMCC which must be run at a minimum of 10 Volts for the sounds to operate properly. It is therefore running at about 43 scale miles-per-hour in the video. It runs more slowly at lower voltage but the sounds are intermittent. I still think it runs well.

MELGAR

Military switching duties for the 0-8-0 NP steamer.

Great pictures and stories everyone.

Mel/MELGAR, was your dad the Commanding Officer or did it just look that way? 98 is a long life, good for him!

Tom

we owe all we have to the men and women who worked in the factories, and on the front lines preserving our freedom.

I've always wondered about scenes like this, these young men, not far from watching their toy trains under the Christmas trees, riding a real train on their way to help defend the world, how many never came home.

MNCW posted:

Great pictures and stories everyone.

Mel/MELGAR, was your dad the Commanding Officer or did it just look that way? 98 is a long life, good for him!

Tom

He was a Technical Sergeant and landed in France in October 1944. In combat until Germany surrendered. I was eleven months old when he came home.

MELGAR

Have a great SWSAT! And, remember those who have served, and those who gave up their tomorrow's, for our today.  Rusty
Both photographs are mine.

A British shunter converted from “Diesel” from the Thomas series. 

Happy SWSat!

Thanks for getting us started this week Tom. Great posts and info from everyone so far.

Thanks to all who served and those who made the ultimate sacrifice on this Memorial Day Weekend.

Today also happens to be my birthday! Another year older and wiser - my wife tends to speculate about the second part of that statement.

I've been running my new BEEPS lately along with their respective rolling stock.

Enjoy the long weekend with friends and family.

Bob

MNCW posted:

Here is my own dad at the onset of WWII, stationed in the Hawaiian Islands for the US Army, soon after the Pearl Harbor attack, in early 1942. Sergeant Panettiere has the guitar in the first photo and is seen in "full combat mode" in the colorized second photo below. After WWII his friend got him a job on the New Haven Railroad. He was a fireman, trained on steam and diesels, but the railroading life was not for him. Dad still supported my train interests,  building my first Lionel layout for me back in the 1960's and would drive me to train clubs in the 1960's-early 1970's. Much of my enjoyment today can be traced back to him. 

So, in honor of Memorial Day, I took some new pictures of my prewar Lionel #228 (on my only 2 pieces of T-Rail track), al fresco!  The 228's were built from 1939 to 1942, a time when my dad and many others were already serving in WWII. Dad had enlisted before 1941 and his combined Army & National Guard service lasted until around 1980. 

Tom 

Tom,

Your dad served for a very long time... To be respected.

MELGAR

Bob/RSJB18,

 Happy Birthday! 

Tom 

MELGAR posted:

MNCW posted:

Here is my own dad at the onset of WWII, stationed in the Hawaiian Islands for the US Army, soon after the Pearl Harbor attack, in early 1942. Sergeant Panettiere has the guitar in the first photo and is seen in "full combat mode" in the colorized second photo below. After WWII his friend got him a job on the New Haven Railroad. He was a fireman, trained on steam and diesels, but the railroading life was not for him. Dad still supported my train interests,  building my first Lionel layout for me back in the 1960's and would drive me to train clubs in the 1960's-early 1970's. Much of my enjoyment today can be traced back to him. 

So, in honor of Memorial Day, I took some new pictures of my prewar Lionel #228 (on my only 2 pieces of T-Rail track), al fresco!  The 228's were built from 1939 to 1942, a time when my dad and many others were already serving in WWII. Dad had enlisted before 1941 and his combined Army & National Guard service lasted until around 1980. 

Tom 

Tom,

Your dad served for a very long time... To be respected.

MELGAR

Thank you Mel.

Tom

MNCW posted:

Bob/RSJB18,

 Happy Birthday! 

Tom 

Thanks Tom.

Yay! SWSat is “on”!

I am posting some images of my biggest piece of rolling stock. I am looking for a switcher to pull it but first I’ll have to put back the rails which were pulled up about 60 years ago. That is to say that 60 years ago this would have been sitting on the supply track for the highest capacity double bandsaw mill on the east coast.

I built this starting about 15 years ago from scaling up an O scale craftsman kit. Someday I guess I will actually build the kit. 

Here is what the real one looks like. The GRR had 4 of these. 71-74. #71 was the longest lived and supposedly still exists in a private collection in Vermont. Three had end cupolas and 74 was centered. I built mine as #75 and it is an end cupola.

The Grasse River RR had mostly Rod Engines as their “run in” common carrier engines. The lumber or North tram was mostly worked with the Shays but here were home built geared engines and a Climax.  #’s 42 and 43 were matching Brooks small 0-6-0s. Here is 43 with the single combine passenger train.

In later years #64 and #68 2-6-0’s were the “big” rod engines.

The last engine was this GE #1. By then the trackage was severely cut back from 100 miles plus on the North Tram and 16 miles on the Common carrier to about 5 or 6.

Have a great weekend. I can’t wait to see what you guys post. 

Happy Birthday 🎉 Bob @RSJB18

                              have Happy Memorial Day weekend everyone !

The Union Pacific runs a daily local out of the Klamath Falls, Oregon rail yard on a section of the old Southern Pacific Modoc Line. The distance from Klamath Falls is approximately 54 miles heading southeast. Before much of the Modoc was abandoned, the end-of-the-line was Fernley, Nevada. Nowadays, the local runs to a small interchange in California where cars are dropped off by UP and picked up by the Goose Lake shortline railroad. There isn’t a “Y” so the two SD70 locomotives are back-to-back. The condition of the track limits the speed to 10 or 20 mph--the crew consists of the engineer, conductor and a brakeman. The local also services several agricultural accounts along this lonely high desert route. I too am remembering my dad, a China Marine. Have a safe holiday, everyone.

Happy Switcher Saturday.

RSJB18 posted:

Happy SWSat!

Thanks for getting us started this week Tom. Great posts and info from everyone so far.

Thanks to all who served and those who made the ultimate sacrifice on this Memorial Day Weekend.

Today also happens to be my birthday! Another year older and wiser - my wife tends to speculate about the second part of that statement.

I've been running my new BEEPS lately along with their respective rolling stock.

Enjoy the long weekend with friends and family.

Bob

Bob. Happy Birthday. I like those BEEPS. 

Johan

Good morning fellow SWsat friends!!  Wonderful photos/video and stories today!  

Thanks Tom for sitting in at the engineer's seat, notching out the throttle, and getting us rolling this morning.  Love the photos and story about your father!  Thanks for sharing. 

Best wishes to Rich wherever you are.  Hope you get some train running in

Happy Birthday Bob RJSB18!!  Enjoy your special day to the max! 

Today, I have some photos of a Baltimore and Annapolis SW9 pushing some flat car loads of US Army combat equipment, as well as the C&O  0-8-0 and Pennsy 0-4-0 going about their duties.  Also photos of Freedom Park which is part of my layout.  

In remembering those who served, I certainly remember my own father who landed on Omaha Beach with the Big Red One on June 6, 1944 and who pushed all the way through France and into Germany before he returned home.  I visited Normandy France and Omaha Beach with my dad back in 1998.  As we walked the beach I picked up a stone, put it in my pocket, and brought it home with me.  When I built my layout, some years later, I created a park, Freedom Park, which I dedicated to my dad.  That stone I brought back from Omaha Beach sits in Freedom Park.  My dad got to see the layout ( and Freedom Park ) before he passed in 2014.   So with having Freedom Park on my layout, there is a Memorial Day every day I walk into my train room.  See second photo from top.

Have a wonderful, fun, and safe weekend everyone!!  Enjoy your time  with friends and family and remember those who are serving and those who have served.  

MNCW, Great Thread, and Yes, we are all Grateful for those brave men and women that served and do serve our great USA....We truly are blessed. Although I did not join the armed services, I applaud every one of them for allowing us the Freedom to enjoy our lives. The trains pictured above are Fantastic.

Mike CT posted:

Burnside's bridge, Sharpsville, Antietam, Maryland.  More American's died here, one day, than any other battle that has been fought. 

Another bridge over Antietam Creek, part of the C&O Canal Tow Path, where the creek enters the Potomac river.  There is an informational sign on the bridge. The water ran red with blood for three days.  Canal was still in use during the Civil War, the railroads would put the canal out of business after the war.   Today part of the Great Allegheny Passage/C&O Canal Tow Path trail, Pittsburgh, Pa, to Washington DC.  

Red

Antietam/Sharpesburg: September 17, 1862. The bloodiest day in American history. I have stood there and pondered that savage sacrifice. Sobering.

My dad served in the Army’s “Persian Gulf Command” from 1942-45. 

They shipped out aboard several converted passenger liners from the west coast, stopping at Pearl Harbor, Perth, Australia, and Calcutta before arriving at southern Iran. 

Their task and generally never much known was to build and operate a railroad from the Gulf up to the northern border of Iran with the USSR. Working jointly with the Brits and the Russians, they supplied huge amounts of war material from the allied factories to the Russian Army. The Russians then took it west to use against the Germans in defending their country.

while the PGC never gained notariety, it was vital to the war effort in supplying Russia with the tanks, artillery, airplanes and ammunition it needed to repel the Germans.

My dad was a supply sargaent stationed in Tehran. They suffered from tropical diseases, 125 degree temps w/o air conditioning snd a lot more. He came home with his health compromised and never really recovered, dying in 1992.

He did get to see the pyramids and Jerusalem while on leave and worked at the Tehran Conference in 1944 so he got to see Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill there.

My Uncle Roy, his younger brother, landed at Normandy and was killed in action two month later in France. 

That is our family service story. May God bless them and all veterans.

Here one more add on. Found this behind a drawer today in the sawmill office.

This post card dates from the 1920’s and is extremely fragile. This one was never used but has provisions for documenting who cut the wood, who skid it, loaded it, and plenty of other information.

No doubt these would have been among the items filled out on site and later in the caboose to keep the office informed of who was doing what work when payouts were due. 

Emporium Forestry Company is the parent company of the Grasse River RR. As a common carrier GRR could take foreign cars in and send them off into the world while EFCo as an industrial railroad could not, they were also much less regulated.

The name Emporium is from their founding period in PA. They were started in Emporium, PA as Emporium Lumber Co. They moved many of the buildings from PA when they moved to the Adirondacks. The name change to “Forestry” from “Lumber” reflects a philosophy shift to the idea of sustainable wood harvesting and replanting. The reason they left PA was that they had logged out the woods there completely. They wanted to stay longer in one location in the future.

Interesting then new idea for 100 years ago. 

Andy,

Frame it and hang in your train room - whenever it gets built...

MELGAR

Andy,

  Nice find. Get that caboose done so you can build a locomotive to haul it around! 

Tom

Great pictures and stories everyone. Keep posting through the long weekend.

I found this video of a neat TrackMobile which you may like in Pennsylvania.

Tom 

#1 Switcher of All Time:

Also, the ultimate Little Engine That Could

Arnold

MELGAR posted:

Andy,

Frame it and hang in your train room - whenever it gets built...

MELGAR

Haha yes. 

As for your comment Tom @PRR8976

baby steps....

Here is a link to a nice old Video of the GRR. 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=55xKWcJshHA

Arnold D. Cribari posted:

#1 Switcher of All Time:

Also, the ultimate Little Engine That Could

Arnold

Arnold,

  Great little loco. Nice to see you posting.

Tom 

In honor of Memorial Day, 

I'm posting a pic of my Uncle, who is still around and 94 yrs. old.          He is a survivor of Iwo Jima, 3rd Marine Division, receiving  a purple heart.

RayKay posted:

In honor of Memorial Day, 

I'm posting a pic of my Uncle, who is still around and 94 yrs. old. He is a survivor of Iwo Jima, 3rd Marine Division, receiving  a purple heart.

Great picture.

MELGAR

Very nice...Oorah!

Tom

Ray please than your Uncle for his service!!

MELGAR posted:

RayKay posted:

In honor of Memorial Day, 

I'm posting a pic of my Uncle, who is still around and 94 yrs. old. He is a survivor of Iwo Jima, 3rd Marine Division, receiving  a purple heart.

Great picture.

MELGAR

Thank you

Switcher Workhorse Extraordinaire:

A ball of train muscle that goes ding, ding, ding . . . 

Arnold

Sorry guys no pics this weekend. My daughter graduated this weekend and I’ve been so busy. 

Thank you for all the great photos and post  dedicated to the ones who served to keep us free. 

Happy Birthday Bob!