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AL'S RAILINGS-

NEWS & NOTES ON RAILWAY PHILATELY

Volume 7 Number 4 ................ PRICE $1.50 (10 ISSUES FOR $12.00)............... January 1, 2002

Dear Fellow Rail Philatelist:

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope your new year has started off as well as mine. We (Sue, Sadie and I) had a great trip to Nova Scotia where I spoiled my granddaughter and made visits to other family members along the way both coming and going as detailed later. Also saw both "HARRY POTTER" and "LORD OF THE RINGS" -I enjoyed the latter more even without a Hogwarts Express (available in HO Scale for about $90). Came home to a box full of checks and orders that I am slowly working my way thru. So thanks to all of you who worked on your collections over the holidays. The only negative to the trip was that a herd of deer seems to have turned our backyard into a wild life sanctuary while Sadie wasn't home to protect it.

NEW ISSUES RE-VISITED: In preparing the enclosed "G" list, I have spent the better part of a frustrating day trying to reconcile the various "part sets" received from my new issue sources with listings in the Scott 2002 catalog and issues of SCOTT'S STAMP MONTHLY with only limited success. The Domfil Catalog (still available for$52.00 ppd) color photos helped quite a bit but weren't sufficient. The first problem encountered is that Scott seems to have lumped sets with clearly different designs and formats into the same "set". Thus Gabon #987-99 and #1024-39 should really be four sets based on the style and titles and Grenada #3037-46 should be two sets. These issues are overly expensive anyway without combining them into bigger sets. I have tried to keep the "sets" as the designers intended in my listings although this makes for some awkward numbering. The second problem encountered is that some of the items listed in Scott still haven't been issued (according to my new issue sources) - thus Gabon #995, 998-9 just aren't available yet. And the final frustration was finding that Scott hasn't updated some countries such as Guinea since 1999! Thus there are four sets I have to still label as "NI" - short for "new issue" even though I've had some of them for more than a year. Trying to get these multi-part sets together has become a serious time waster.

DECEMBER TRAVEL: You must have rocks in your head to plan a six thousand mile round trip to Nova Scotia in mid-winter! I'm sure that's what all our friends and acquaintances think and they are probably right. We probably shouldn't test St. Christopher and our guardian angels like that - thankfully they were up to the challenge! The first 100 miles were slick because of an over-night snow storm, there were cars off the road in all directions between Dayton and Columbus, OH on I-70 on the way east, and the last 10 miles into Berwick, NS were completed in near blizzard conditions, but the roads were clear and dry otherwise so we made good time. We missed the record seven feet of snow in Buffalo, NY by 20 miles - I-90 was closed at Exit 57, but we turned off at Exit 37 for a short but pleasant visit with my sister in Bradford, PA. Train watching was as spotty as the weather but I saw several interesting locomotives. Met three Kyle RR locos running light toward Burlington, CO at the CO-KS border - two wearing the Cascade green of their BN heritage, the other blue and white with a thin yellow stripe. Saw a short eastbound UP manifest with six locos stopped near Riga Rd in Kansas, then nothing until we passed the clogged Armour Yard in Kansas City. Heard a train blowing for a nearby crossing as I pumped gas in St. Louis but couldn't see it - that was it for the second day of travel. Spent a delightful Christmas at my Mother-in-law's in Ohio with my middle son and his wife from Pittsburgh and Sue's youngest sister and her family. Saw two Norfolk Southern manifests in the former Conrail yard as we turned from I-70 to I-270 on the west side of Columbus. About 50 miles south of Cleveland on I-71 I saw a black with orange lettering Geep that at first I thought was a Denver & Rio Grande (turned out to be Wheeling & Lake Erie!) lead a small manifest across an overpass in front of me. Didn't see any activity in the old Conrail yard that I-271 crosses over east of Cleveland. There were two Buffalo & Pittsburgh Geeps in their parent's Genesee & Wyoming Orange paint scheme at the NY-PA border switching some cars at the former Kendall refinery as we pulled into Bradford. (My sister gave me a G&W calendar that has some great photos of their lines, including Australia). Had tracks beside me most of the way from Bradford to Bangor, ME but only saw a pair of Canadian Pacific Geeps switching some cars at a cement plant north of Cooperstown, NY on the old Delaware & Hudson and a southbound TOFC a little further on. When we stopped for the night in Bangor, childhood memories of watching beautiful blue and gray with yellow trim Bangor & Aroostook Geeps pushing Pennsy ore trains to the summit just past our church in Kane, PA on summer Sunday mornings, then rolling back to Warren, PA light made me want to check out the B&A. (Evidently, the B&A only needed the Geeps during the potato harvest so they leased them to the power short Pennsy in the off season. They made a colorful contrast to the Pennsy's dull black freight diesels). Checking the telephone book, the city map didn't show any RR tracks and there weren't any listings for the B&A in Bangor. But there was a yellow page listing for the B&A "Diesel Shops, Iron Bridge Rd Mlkt", wherever "Mlkt" was. The phone number was 723 - so I looked in the white pages for other 723 listings and found one that not only had a "Mlkt" but also a Zip Code. Checking the Zip Code directory indicated "Mlkt" must be "Millinocket", a small town about 50 miles north of Bangor. If I were smart, I would probably do my research ahead of time so I would know where to look for trains in new territory, but I'm always right up to the wire getting ready for a trip (I had to pull an "almost all nighter" just to get the web pages updated and all the orders out before I left. Still didn't get stuff to two good stamp customers plus a couple magazine orders.) So Saturday morning when I saw an I-95 exit for Millinocket I had to take a slight detour, much to Sue and Sadies chagrin. Glad I did! At E. Millinocket, I met a gray with black stripes Chemin de Fer de Quebec (?) Geep switching some cars at the Great Northern paper mill. As we crossed Dolby Pond we saw the remnants of a train accident. B&A Geep #24 was on her side along with three boxcars and a pile of pulpwood (Photo courtesy Bangor Daily News by Bob Delong).

Evidently, the driver of a Canadian pulpwood truck tried to beat the train through the crossing Friday morning but didn't quite make it. His tractor made it but #24 clipped the trailer sending pulpwood flying and derailing the loco and first three cars of a 15-car train. Fortunately, the driver and train crew received only minor injuries. Making our way into Millinocket, we found the B&A yard and saw #24's sister, B&A #23 with Canadian American #516 in maroon and gray with yellow trim and lots of rusting cars and buildings - all giving evidence of former glory days. I couldn't take time to explore the area completely so I'll have to make a return trip. It was certainly worth the 24 mile detour. Talk about "the road less traveled" - I saw only two other northbound cars on the 110 miles of I-95 from Bangor to Houghton at the Canadian border. And not much traffic in Canada either so we made good time, even on the two lane sections.

Had a great visit with my youngest son William and his family in Nova Scotia - ate extremely well on Karyn's home cooking and finally finished reading Stephen E. Ambrose's "NOTHING LIKE IT IN THE WORLD - THE MEN WHO BUILT THE TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD 1863-1869". I was disappointed in the book. It contains a lot of interesting information but it is poorly edited - you read much of same stuff two or three times.[ED: I note Ambrose is cited for plagiarism for several of his books including this one.] Spent most of my time spoiling my 18 month old granddaughter Kathryn (see photo)

- she enjoyed watching the pink Precious Moments battery powered steam train run around the Christmas tree while sitting in Grandpa's lap. She also enjoyed pointing to pictures in the Thomas the Tank Engine Big Book and waving to the engineer on the cover! She was wearing her pink engineer's hat with the Chessie Cat patch on it the morning we left. And I even saw some real trains! On our shopping trip to Halifax, I wanted to see the train station and was elated to find the VIA RAIL "The Ocean" getting cleaned and stocked for its early afternoon departure to Montreal. Two FP-40s and four baggage and diner cars on one stub track and 14 more modern fluted side passenger cars on another, including a dome car and a dome observation car much like the Canadian Pacific ones on Cambodia #1513 (they might even be the same ones!). Advertised as "A ride on the tide of down-east friendliness - a B&B on rails between Montreal and Halifax", it certainly looked like a great way to go. I may have to take it if I make the trip again! The station itself wasn't nearly so impressive - probably not the original from the glory days of train travel. The Windsor & Hantsport RR didn't seem to be operating the first couple times I passed it in daylight. A string of 22 Ortner 100 ton gypsum hoppers sat idle while seven red Montreal Locomotive Works DS-15's and an S-1 sat near the engine house along with the extended vision caboose (both painted in maroon & gray passenger colors) and several miscellaneous freight and passenger cars. When we passed by at 9:30 AM Saturday morning Jan. 5 on our way home, three DS-15's were pulling an empty welded rail train toward the engine house. Since there were still seven locos parked there, they have at least 10 locos (another small railroad to model).

We cut our visit a couple days short to avoid a big snowstorm working its way up the coast. Saw a large freight yard on the East side of St. John, NB with a Canadian National manifest waiting to go east and another geep pulling a couple stackpacks west toward the dock area. In Maine I saw some beautiful Birch forests and several blueberry fields, but no moose! Did have a great lobster stew at the Blue Onion Family Restaurant near Freeport just off I-95. At Exit 8 in Portland, ME, I saw one of those brown "Point of Interest" signs that said "Narrow Gauge Railroad" but I didn't have time to stop - anyone who can tell me what I missed? We were making time trying to beat the storm so I didn't stop at Steamtown when we raced through Scranton, PA nor did I look for the APS's "Match Factory" as we drove through Bellefonte, PA in a light snow. The roads were treacherous when we reached Altoona so I didn't even consider taking the narrow mountain road around Horseshoe Curve. Got to my son Jeff's house east of Pittsburgh in time to help him & Binky shovel four inches of snow from the driveway. We had planned to take him out for a birthday dinner but decided, discretion was the better part of valor, so Binky whipped up a tasty, impromptu sweet & sour chicken dinner instead. After checking the weather reports, we decided to stay over another day and go out Monday evening. That gave me time to type this up and start reading the "Greatly Expanded Edition" of Rogers E. M. Whitaker and Tony Hiss "ALL ABOARD WITH E. M. FRIMBO - WORLD'S GREATEST RAILROAD BUFF" that I had bought at the Half-Price bookstore in Dayton the day after Christmas (and shovel a couple more inches of snow!). The only rail activity on the way back to my Mother-in-law's in Ohio was a black Alco S-2 at a grain elevator on the east side of Columbus, OH and a couple manifests in the former Conrail yard on the west side. After a restful day in Ohio reading and taking my Mother-in-law to the movies, we headed west. Saw two CSX manifests in the Terra Haute, IN yard and crossed over the tail ends of two NB manifests near St. Elmo and Granite City, IL so I'm not sure what railroads they were. Also saw a stopped EB autorack in central Missouri but it was dark when I got to Kansas City and the highway barrier blocked most of my view of the UP's Armour yard. Tied up for the night in Topeka, KS and learned from the TV news that the UP's Olympic Torch Train was coming thru town between 3-4 AM. Dedicated train nut that I am, I didn't get up to go see it so I was happy to see coverage of the event on the early morning news. They showed some good pictures of the "cauldron" car but didn't show the rest of the train. The UP has painted two SD-70 MACs bright blue to match the torch car and also has some of their passenger cars in the consist. Has anyone seen it? Maybe I can catch it when it comes thru the Springs on the 31st (if I get back from the Phoenix show in time). Saw a WB UP coal empty rolling just east of Hays, KS and the three Kyle locos I saw on the way east were working a string of grain hoppers in Genoa, CO as we neared home. A GREAT trip!

NOVEMBER TRAVEL: On my way to do a one day show in Denver Nov. 3, I met three SB coal trains, each powered differently - the first was a Public Service of Colorado headed for a power plant in Pueblo with two BNSF Heritage locos on the point and one on the rear with two pushers, the second had two red & silver Warbonnents and two blue & white Oakway Leasing locos on the point and two pushers while the third had three more traditional cream & Brunswick green SD-70 MACs on the point and two pushers. The show was over by noon although it lasted until five so I at least got a few mail orders filled while I sat there. On the way home I heard the dispatcher give a train clearance from Littleton to Palmer Lake as I headed west on Hampden Ave. When I got to Santa Fe Ave (US 85) south there was a SB BNSF manifest stopped with the same pusher set as my first coal train of the morning (probably with a different crew though). Saw a couple pairs of the Siemens SD-100 Light Rail Vehicles on the Southwest Extension. Didn't see any pusher pairs waiting at Big Lift in the dark [ED: Just read that they've moved the pusher base further north.] but I heard the dispatcher give a warrant for a train from Palmer Lake to Littleton so I hoped to meet it. Don't know how it slipped by me but the only thing I saw in the dark on the way home was a FRED SB near Palmer Lake.

After knocking an inch of snow off the van to finish loading Nov. 8, my Sunnyvale, CA trip started slowly with just one SB coal train on the way to Denver with another two in Denver waiting to go south. Passed a BNSF stackpack stopped just north of Fort Collins, so I hoped to meet a SB train but all I saw was a string of empty TOFCs on a siding just north of Wellington, CO. At Cheyenne, WY, I crossed over an EB UP stackpack as I switched from I-25 to I-80 and met an EB autorack a couple miles further west. I was surprised to see a string of ATSF hoppers at the UP ballast quarry along with two EB locos and a dozen loaded side dump cars on a siding. I descended into the fog approaching Laramie but could see that the east end of the yard was empty. Crossed over an EB autorack as I headed for US 30 after refueling on the west edge of Laramie. Met an EB trona train a few miles down the road, then passed a WB manifest stopped on the main, probably for the work equipment I passed at Bosler a couple miles further on. Then I met an EB manifest passing a stopped EB stackpack - since when do "pickers" pass "hot shots"? I saw a WB stackpack racing around the sweeping curve at Rock River but it was 20 minutes before I caught up to it stopped on the east edge of Medicine Bow with another WB stackpack stopped on the west edge! Caught up with a WB grain train in Hanna just about the time I heard the dispatcher asking a rail defect detector car where he was planning to tie up for the day. He replied he "hoped to get at least to Walcott and possibly Hanna by 1600"(4 PM) - it was about 2:30. The detector car (which I didn't see) explains why a double track raceway was running like a single track branchline with trains stopped everywhere. The fog had rolled in again as I crossed over a WB manifest at Sinclair but lifted enough to see that the east end of the Rawlins yard was empty. There were two EB stackpacks at the Rawlins refueling racks. I caught up with the locos of a WB grain train just as they met an EB manifest - that's the way a double track line should run! Met an EB autorack just east of Wamsutter and a WB taconite train passing a WB manifest on the west edge. Met an EB manifest and Intermodal before passing the longest strings of covered hoppers I've ever seen on the storage tracks at I-80 mile post 123 (The trona business must be slow too). Caught glimpses of an EB manifest in the setting sun at Rock Springs and passed an EB autorack and WB stackpack on the way to Green River. There an SD-40 was switching a string of trona cars on the east end as an EB stackpack pulled out. A WB manifest was stopped at the station as a WB TOFC rolled by and the west end SD-40 worked a long string of trona cars. There were only two locos on the ready track and none in the refueling area. There were 10 loaded double stacks on the north track and a string of empty stackpack cars on the south track in the van yard. Because of the cold weather there weren't any cars sticking out the shop doors, but there were cars being worked on inside. The biggest disappointment of the day was finding that the Embers Restaurant is no more! The building still says "EMBERS" but the menu now says "Game Day Restaurant and Sports Bar". The train pictures are gone along with the familiar entrees - only the track view remains. New owners took over about a month ago. Nothing on the menu jumped out at me so I had the Greek Gyro and a cup of bean soup. The prices are still reasonable and the food okay, but the ambiance is gone - time will tell. An EB stackpack and manifest rolled by while I ate and the WB manifest also departed. The WB stackpack I had passed earlier was at the station when I left. I hate traveling thru prime train territory in the dark but sometimes it can't be helped. Didn't see or hear anything until I saw an EB manifest in Evanston and then caught up with a WB Intermodal as we started our descent into Echo Canyon. Met an EB stackpack just east of Weber Canyon and saw the lights of another EB as I approached Riverdale. There was just one manifest waiting to go north in the Riverdale Yard as I headed for my Ogden motel. Somehow my notes have vanished and my memory faded, so that's it for this trip unless I get desperate for material in the future.

RAIL THOUGHT OF THE MONTH: "Railway termini...are our gates to the glorious and the unknown. Through them we pass out into adventure and sunshine, to them alas! we return" E. M. Forster, HOWARDS END

RAIL FACTS AND FEATS: The CANADIAN transcontinental trains on Canadian Pacific Rail were inaugurated on 24 April 1955. It was the longest vista dome train ride in the world, 2904.8 miles, from Montreal, QC to Vancouver, BC. The trains required the purchase of 173 new stainless steel cars from the Budd Co., Philadelphia, PA.

STAMP OF THE MONTH: Cambodia #1513 shows a classic Canadian Pacific passenger train in the Rocky Mountains. This train is a sister, if not identical, to the VIA RAIL train I saw in Halifax, NS

May all the Joys of the Holiday Season be yours,

 

AL PETERSON

AL PETERSON

THE RAIL PHILATELIST

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