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 Post subject: Re: Strasburg Rail Road names new general manager
PostPosted: Sun Oct 09, 2022 10:48 pm 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 1:51 pm
Posts: 11481
Location: Somewhere east of Prescott, AZ along the old Santa Fe "Prescott & Eastern"
Linn W. Moedinger wrote:
Regarding 7002. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. While the evidence of fresh shopping was of archival significance, the fact that the boiler slides were stuck, the firebox leaked like a sieve, and the newly machined pop valves barely functioned, points to an educational moment regarding the quality of work turned out. It took two years to get the firebox tight, only to have a roof sheet patch crack through on the third leg of a weld. In the end she was a great locomotive above 40 mph. On Strasburg, she was a dog.

You, sir, have just been excommunicated from the "The Standard Railroad Of The World Could Do No Wrong!" Chapter of the PRR Technical & Historical Society.

You know, the same guys that plug their ears and shout "NA-NA-NA-NA-NA, CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!!" when you point out all the "flaws" of the PRR K4s design necessitating 1361's extensive rebuild, the flaws in MP54 design that pretty much guarantee their eventual extinction unless kept under cover, the problems with lack of diesel standardization, etc.


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 Post subject: Re: Strasburg Rail Road names new general manager
PostPosted: Mon Oct 10, 2022 7:20 am 

Joined: Thu Sep 22, 2011 4:29 pm
Posts: 1899
Location: Youngstown, OH
Well only the PRR had to proclaim that they were the "standard railroad", as if they were trying to deflect attention from something!

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inside Conrail caboose 21747


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 Post subject: Re: Strasburg Rail Road names new general manager
PostPosted: Mon Oct 10, 2022 7:45 am 

Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 7:52 am
Posts: 2560
Location: Strasburg, PA
As Huber told me once, "PRR was the standard RR of the world, but all of the others were premium RR's."


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 Post subject: Re: Strasburg Rail Road names new general manager
PostPosted: Mon Oct 10, 2022 1:34 pm 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 8:53 pm
Posts: 200
H. C. Crouch, Mechanical Engineer for NYC / PC / CR, once said to me, "If those guys knew so much, how come nobody ever copied them?"


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 Post subject: Re: Strasburg Rail Road names new general manager
PostPosted: Mon Oct 10, 2022 8:56 pm 

Joined: Mon Aug 23, 2004 2:14 pm
Posts: 613
Location: Essex, Connecticut, USA
Greetings:

Sorry to contribute to "thread drift"...

What I still want to know is why PRR steam locomotives were/are left hand lead? The only other locomotives in this hemisphere that I have worked on with left hand lead were some H.K.Porters.

J.David


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 Post subject: Re: Strasburg Rail Road names new general manager
PostPosted: Mon Oct 10, 2022 9:13 pm 

Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 7:52 am
Posts: 2560
Location: Strasburg, PA
J.David wrote:
What I still want to know is why PRR steam locomotives were/are left hand lead? The only other locomotives in this hemisphere that I have worked on with left hand lead were some H.K.Porters.
The original V&T Lyon was left hand lead, you can see through the frame to the other side in one of the photos.

My theory is that PRR bought their first quartering machine way back in the mid-19th century, way before the industry standardized on anything, and that machine just happened to be left handed, so it set the standard in Altoona, and all following quartering machines were ordered left handed to match.

Regarding Pittsburgh based Porter, my theory is that they bought their first quartering machine used from PRR.


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 Post subject: Re: Strasburg Rail Road names new general manager
PostPosted: Tue Oct 11, 2022 3:04 pm 

Joined: Thu May 24, 2012 1:37 pm
Posts: 2213
I was told it had to do with operation on multiple tracks, keeping the sharpest part of any augment as far toward the 'center' of the subgrade as possible.

Like so much else, this might have been, well, embellished a bit in the telling.

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 Post subject: Re: Strasburg Rail Road names new general manager
PostPosted: Tue Oct 11, 2022 6:35 pm 

Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 7:52 am
Posts: 2560
Location: Strasburg, PA
I read that as well but don't buy it in that PRR locomotives were being built with left hand leading way before I believe that roadbed engineering ever reached that level of sophistication. Plus, back when left hand leading became PRR's standard, I believe that most of its lines were single track.


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 Post subject: Re: Strasburg Rail Road names new general manager
PostPosted: Tue Oct 11, 2022 7:34 pm 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 11:54 pm
Posts: 2367
I think we often believe that industrial decisions are the result of careful consideration.

Often they are the result of simple circumstance. Occam's Razor...

The Eberhard Faber Company (now Faber Castell AG) used to make a pencil the Blackwing 602 that enjoyed a celebrity following, including such famous cartoonists, composers and writers.

It had a signature oblong ferrule made by a specialized machine. When the machine broke down, they continued producing the pencil until the ferrule inventory was exhausted.

Despite now being reproduced by a new company, Palomino-originals fetch up to $100.00 each on Ebay.

If you are riding Eastbound on the R&N on one of their Penobscot trips, just East of the Glen Summit Water Company is the road where the Eberhard Faber factor was located from 1956 until being razed a few years back. It was once a premier employer and a flagship/anchor of the Crestwood Industrial Park.

I really should buy a dozen, but I can't part with a for a grand for something that dare not be used. even though my Mom worked their briefly as young woman and I grew up a bicycle ride away.

https://www.hamiltonpens.com/blogs/arti ... creativity


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