A Night at the Museum

The night before the Strasburg charter a night session was held at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. ; Smoke bombs were used to make one of the static locomotive displays like it was under steam.

The classic polishing the headlight shot:



A scene like this could have played out between 1910 & 1937 at the Manhattan Transfer Station where steam locomotives handed off their trains to DD-1's like the one on the right for the trip under the Hudson River and into Manhattan. ; The lack of overhead wires would date the scene prior to 1935... we won't mention the lack of the third rail for the DD-1:



They seem to be having a little trouble with the running gear on the DD-1 this evening:



The crew refills & relights their lanterns before heading to their train:





A proud worker from the backshop poses in front of the latest rebuild:



The engineer:



Back inside we had the whole place to ourselves. ; The main shot was a well lit scene of the museum's GG-1 which I managed to not find a single angle I liked of it, so I won't share any of those failures here. ; Instead I'll share a shot of the #7002 & #1223, both of which are products of Pensy's own Juanita shops from 1902 & 1905 respectively:



And finally, a shot of the John Bull. ; Well, not the real John Bull, that one is in the Smithsonian. ; This replica was built by the Altoona shops in 1940 because the Smithsonian would no longer allow the real one to be steamed up. ; The workers at the Altoona shops faithfully replicated every detail of the original including some details that were not original. ; If you've seen the original in the Smithsonian you'll notice that the cab is missing, the tender is chopped down to half its original size and the bonnet stack was replaced with a serrated straight stack in 1876 thanks to the Penssylvania Railroad's Publicity Department's effort to "backdate" the locomotive prior to for a major exhibit they did that year. ; Fast forward to 1982 when the locomotive was being restored and the original drawings for the locomotive were located allowing them to return her to her original appearance. ; John H. White Jr. from the Smithsonian operated both the original John Bull when the Smithsonian ran it in 1981 on its 150th birthday and the replica after the restoration was complete in 1983 and declared that they both responded identically:

¬

 

Always love seeing your train photos.
So, what's the status of the Train-mania meet? ;
Erich

 

Thanks Erich! ; There isn't a status for train-mania... ; I'm currently studying for my Architecture Registration Exams[nb]Current Scorecard - Passed: 3. ; Tests Remaining: 4. ; Next test is scheduled for Tuesday[/nb] which is taking up all my time. ; I may be attending a fall charter at the WMSR if the operator is able to make it happen which isn't looking good at the moment, but that will be my only charter for the rest of the year. ;

 

Thanks guys!

I'll be sure to tell the museum they should add one.

 

And before I forget, it looks like the WMSR charter is going to happen this fall, but its on a Monday & Tuesday

 

As usual, great stuff Michael. ; I always love seeing this stuff and the "education" I sometimes get.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Thanks John!