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Messages - Philip Marshall

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1
I'm excited about this development, and also gratified to hear that the EBT couplers we got from Mount Union may finally find a use.

As an aside, I've noticed that caboose 554 is on SAR trucks. I'm curious, was there a previous purchase of South African equipment by Edaville?

2
Volunteers / Re: Printed Rulebook Pledges
« on: February 10, 2024, 11:42:52 PM »
Are these available to members who aren't currently involved in train operations but just want a nice hardbound rulebook?

3
The Honduras road may have been organized by McConnico, but George Mansfield was definitely involved. It's discussed on pp. 84-85 of Donald Ball's book, George Mansfield and the Billerica & Bedford Railroad. According to Ball, the line was supposed to be 115 miles long, linking the port of Trujillo with Puerto Cortez. Mansfield traveled to Honduras with McConnico in 1888 to plan construction, but the financing fell through and it was never built.

4
Thank you, Graham. My 1990 snapshot of the Albion depot seems to have achieved online immortality.

5
The Original W&Q and WW&F: 1894-1933 / Re: WW&F Hand car
« on: June 20, 2023, 08:08:22 PM »
Thank you James for the history of the handcar at BRV. I remember seeing it there in the 1980s and always wondered how it had survived.

6
General Discussion / Re: Swiss lake steamer operations
« on: May 09, 2023, 08:15:02 PM »
What a great video, thanks for sharing it.

I'm reminded of this classic Fox Movietone film footage from 1930, filmed on a steam ferryboat in New York (engine room sequence begins around 5:20): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlPir688cDc

-Philip Marshall


7
The Original W&Q and WW&F: 1894-1933 / Re: Historic Photos
« on: March 09, 2023, 12:31:11 PM »
"The Lightning Freight taking a rest after 15 minutes"?

This is just a hunch, but where on the railroad was 15 minutes north of Wiscasset? Maybe along the Sheepscot River between Wiscasset and Sheepscot, south of the first 218 crossing?

8
Whimsical Weirdness and Foolery / Re: Half an idea
« on: March 03, 2023, 07:54:14 PM »
Here is some more information on the Boynton Bicycle railroad line on Long Island (including drawings of proposed freight cars), from Art Huneke's LIRR archive:

http://arrts-arrchives.com/LIBRR.html

To be clear, there were two different Boynton Bicycle railroads. The Coney Island line of 1890 was the original and used steam. This was followed by the electrified East Patchogue-Hagerman-Bellport line described above, built in 1894.

9
General Discussion / Re: Unfinished Railroads
« on: September 22, 2022, 12:09:27 AM »
Thank you, Russ. This is an impressive compilation. I will admit I was confused at first by the distinction you make between proposed "paper" railroads with no actual construction, and "unfinished" railroads that were surveyed and graded (so leaving an archaeological record) but never saw a train, but now I think it's a useful concept.

Your Maine list should of course include the FS&K in addition to the W&Q north of Albion.

In your New York list, I was especially interested to see the LIDAR image of the Suffolk Traction Co. grade north and west of College Road in Selden. I grew up in the area and never knew that was there! The Suffolk Traction Co. was an interesting operation in that they never bothered with overhead trolley wire but instead used battery storage cars. The context for the story of the steam crane/wrecker using the unfinished street trackage in Port Jefferson is supposed to have been that the crane was delivered by rail for use in the Bayles shipyard during WWI and this was the only way to move it the last mile (literally) between the LIRR yard and the waterfront, but this may just be local legend. It was wartime after all, so there were no photographs!

With regard to the Hicksville & Cold Spring Branch RR, I've also hiked the section of grade in Stillwell Woods mentioned in the railroad.net discussion thread, though it had been unclear to me if it was really the H&CSB (circa 1854) or from the much later (circa 1910) LIRR Port Jefferson branch relocation and associated gravel mining which the LIRR called the "Cold Spring Cutoff" and that produced the fill material used for the Jamaica grade crossing elimination project. I'm now quite certain it is indeed the H&CSB. One nit I will pick however is that the junction at Hicksville was with the original LIRR Greenport main line, not the Montauk line.

10
We have a couple of those in the basement, but our house was built in the 1700s so we have an excuse. :) They're located directly under the refrigerator and bathtub. (The kitchen and bathroom are on either side of a shared wall.)

11
Two Footers outside of the US / Re: Two-footers traveling home
« on: April 12, 2022, 06:59:51 PM »
The two locomotves have been sold to the Beamish Open Air Museum at Durham, UK. They are the oldest and largest restoration village in the UK; and have both a standard gauge railroad and a 24-inch quarry railroad. Over the April 9-10, 2022 weekend they held their annual Steam Festival; with steam cars, steam traction engines a steam crane and of course steam locos running over their two railroads. The #12 Glyder looks very nice!   

A nice video of the 2022 Beamish Steam Gala has already been posted on their Youtube channel. The rail portion of the program begins around 3:19.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdoGTk5luJI

12
General Discussion / Re: Private owner 2 footer
« on: December 04, 2021, 01:51:53 AM »
I don't know anything, but I've been watching the same video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHIyZrlPWrk). While Keith implies the engine is somehow connected to the Maine Two Footers, that obviously can't be correct even if the owner bought the running gear in Maine. He shows several photos submitted by the owner. I see plate frames which to my mind mean European construction, and the slanted tops of the valve chests plus five bolts on the cylinder heads look specifically like an Orenstein & Koppel design.

13
Other Narrow Gauge / Re: Rockport Lime Company
« on: September 18, 2021, 05:39:50 PM »
The original owner of the engine in Rockport was an obscure construction company in New York City with the colorful name of Queens Subway Apartment & Loft Building Corp., which in a weirdly backward way is now remembered less for its actual business than for its  surviving locomotives. (There is another one reported to be in Alabama.) However, it does merit a page on Philip Goldstein's website on the industrial and terminal railroads of NYC: http://members.trainweb.com/bedt/indloco/qsalb.html

14
A formal archaeological dig would be a great thing to do. (Is there any risk of the property being redeveloped in the future? It's prime waterfront land after all.)

When the SR&RL was being scrapped, various small items of railroad property without scrap value were reportedly dumped in the Phillips turntable pit before it was filled in, and I can imagine something similar happened in Wiscasset.

There could be some really interesting artifacts buried there!

15
Yes, that's what I was thinking. Donald Ball argues that Mansfield most likely did not visit the Ffestiniog Railway as has often been claimed, though Matthias Forney and General Palmer (of the D&RG) certainly did make the trip.

Thank you, Bill for digging up Parker's report as well. This is great stuff.

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