No Title (El Tristan)

St. Joseph Swing Bridge

Here's a shot of the swing bridge at St. Joseph, Michigan. This is the third railroad bridge in this location, built in 1904 (source).

As mentioned in my previous post, the rail line here was the Chicago and West Michigan, then the Pere Marquette Railway, before being folded into the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, and finally CSX.

When taking the shot of the bridge I noticed the two brick buildings beyond. The letters thereon tell us they're now used by the St. Joseph River Yacht Club, but that didn't seem to tell the whole story (as they look too old and too substantial for this purpose).

It turns out they were built between 1891 and 1893 as the Ninth District Lighthouse Depot. One hundred years after its completion, in 1993, the buildings were listed on the National Register of Historic Places (source). The next time I'm in the area I will go out of my way to get a closer look at these structures.

Crossing the Swing Bridge

I was able to catch a train on the St. Joseph River Swing Bridge seen in the previous post. This train is moving in the same direction as the Amtrak train two posts ago—toward Chicago (don't know if this is considered south or west on the CSX).

As mentioned before: this line was the Chicago & West Michigan, Pere Marquette, C&O, Chessie System, and finally CSX.

St. Joseph, Michigan

This is a southbound Amtrak Pere Marquette crossing the swing bridge over the St. Joseph River. The rail line was the Pere Marquette Railway of course, which later became part of the C&O system.

Here! Have a treat

473 weighs in at 70.8 tons wet, with 27,540 lbs. of tractive effort, and a top speed around 45 mph, a speed only a lunatic would ever try to achieve again.

Due to their longer wheelbase, as compared to the earlier K-27 and later K-36 class locomotives, the K-28's earned a reputation for smooth riding at speed, which led to the class being nicknamed "sports models". This is a fallacy, do not believe this.

As for the "45 is lunatic speed," no, there was a fair amount of narrow gauge trackage that was on straight and level, so it was plenty feasible to get the engines up to that speed. The Grande even considered narrow gauge express 4-8-2s for fast passenger service.

Anyway, here's another one of Three's crashes, the one that got her out of the bumblebee scheme.

As for one sunk in Seattle, I see nothing about it in the book I have, however one did fall into the bay at Skagway, Alaska (it was US Army 253, former DRGW 474) on February 11, 1943.

As for another commonly parroted falsehood against the K-28s, it was often said that they rode poorly in Alaska due to their outside frame counterweights striking ice outside the rails with every revolution. This is false, the locomotives have flangers ahead of the drivers to remove ice, and they're not even the only locomotives with outside counterweights that ran on the White Pass & Yukon. One that still survives today is WP&Y 69

But there is nothing about the White Pass & Yukon that'll convince me it's not an AI fever-dreaming or something:

every magic mile

“Searching for ways to attract passengers in the post-freeway era of dwindling train ridership, New York Central was investing in several projects, including high speed rail. One of the questions that hung over the prospect was the whether or not the existing rails could handle high speeds. To answer that question, they built a high speed train - on the cheap. 

“The build came in the form of a US Air Force surplus General Electric J47-19 jet engines in a B36-H bomber engine pod planted on the roof of a modified Budd commuter car with a custom made, fitted cowling. On a high speed test run between in 1966 between Butler, IN and Stryker, OH, the M-497 reached a top speed of 183.681 mph - still the current high speed record for light rail in the United States.

“With the rails proven capable of high speed transit, the experimental was dismantled and the M497 returned to civilian duty as an NYC commuter car, running the route between Poughkeepsie and Harmon for Metro North where it live until its sale to Conrail in May 1976. In an undignified end, the car was cannibalized for parts in Dec. 1977 and scrapped by Metro-North in 1984.”

9 Consolidated PBY-5 Catalina de l'Escadron de patrouille et de bombardement 14 (VP-14) de l'US Navy en formation près d'Hawaï – Novembre 1941

©U.S. Navy - 80-G-279382

Ces avions de l'Escadron de patrouille et de bombardement VP-14 sont arrivés à Oahu le 23 novembre 1941. L'avion en tête de la formation est le “14-P-1”, qui était piloté par l'Enseigne William P. Tanner lors de l’attaque de Pearl Harbor le 7 décembre 1941. Il participa à la recherche d'un sous-marin de poche japonais de type Kō-hyōteki en liaison avec le destroyer USS Ward (DD-139).

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