It ain't prototype!

[edwardsutorik]

I happened upon this photo on the big ole internet:





Stating the obvious, on the right we have a classic vinegar tank car. On the left, a Centurion Mark 3.


I thought I'd suggest people post their own photos of stuff that "just doesn't happen".





Ed

[canrailfan]

According to a 2019 thread in the Classic Trains forum the last wooden vinegar tank car was built in 1964! This was actually a new wooden tank on an older frame but indicates these cars were still in service until at least a year after the date for the photo.

Wooden tank car.. built 1964

One of these cars is preserved at the TRHA Museum in the John Street Roundhouse in Toronto.

Also interesting is the amount of blocking used to secure the Centurion tank.

[edwardsutorik]

Strictly speaking, these cars aren't actually "wooden vinegar tank cars". They are steel cars carrying/equipped with a wooden vinegar tank. And since vinegar still has to be transported, I would think that some kind of fancy lining on a steel tank finally replaced the classic design, not long after 1964.


Hooray, hooray. I found the companion photo to the earlier one, showing the full vinegar car:

www.trainweb.org/oldtimetrains/photos/private/SBIX_1582_vinegar.jpg


I am developing quite a fondness for the vinegar cars, definitely.



Ed

[kmaster]

I happen to be the master of photos that look very odd 

[lvrr325]

New York State seems to have funded a grade crossing elimination project in the 1950s plus paid to build overpasses for railroads that crossed the Thruway with a distinctive plate girder bridge with horizontal rather than vertical web.

This in itself is not that unusual, however outside of Utica NY they widened some overpasses for the Arterial project that added basically a second highway with it's lanes on each side of the Thruway. So they had to widen the bridge used by MA&N and Adirondack RR, which was built in around 1955.

So the new bridge sections are vertical web plate girder and they transition mid-span on each side. Readily viewable in Google Street View images.

Another one of these bridges was used to cross the Lehigh Valley west of Manchester Yard and as a highway bridge the salt did a number on it. For some years before it's removal, but post LVRR, it had concrete posts added mid-span to help support it.

[edwardsutorik]

I am not seeing how you can have a plate girder bridge with a horizontal web.


Posts added mid-span of a bridge are surely rare. But I suppose it could be done, and apparently is. It'd be REALLY fun on a truss bridge.


Ed

[bridge2nowhere]

They're horizontal web stiffeners, instead of the more common vrrticsl stiffeners. They are only on the outside of the girders, the inside still has vertical stiffeners.

The girders on tbe bridge near Utica are really interesting to me, since they are continuous over piers 1 and 3, yet the end spans mostly use vertical stiffeners vs. The horizontal stiffeners on the middle span. It looks to me like that's original, with only the abutments modified when the access roads were added.

[edwardsutorik]

Mar 2, 2021 20:29:25 GMT -8 bridge2nowhere said:

They're horizontal web stiffeners, instead of the more common vrrticsl stiffeners. They are only on the outside of the girders, the inside still has vertical stiffeners.

Ah. Interesting, for sure. I hadn't thought about it, but you don't need vertical stiffeners on BOTH sides of the web--one side is adequate.

I found this article which mentions longitudinal (horizontal) stiffeners.



Ed

[lvrr325]

Yes, the main bridge dates to ~1954, but around 2005 they widened it on each end for the additional lanes of what at that point is NY-49 (it becomes combined NY-49/NY-5/I-790 a bit further east).

For an idea what the original bridge looked like a similar one exists across US-20 east of NY-166 near Cherry Valley, built to carry the D&H Cherry Valley branch. There was another across I-90 at Weedsport for the LV branch then to Cato. Shorter ones exist former LV across NY-63 west of Batavia, former LV across NY-224 in Odessa, there are some others around Buffalo. Just off the top of my head, I'm sure there's more.

[kmaster]

Heres one, UP FEF-1 with skyline casing

[kmaster]

Uh oh 

[edwardsutorik]

OK.

We've got a photo of the model. Let's see a picture of the prototype!



Here, by the way, is a picture of a prototype aquarium car:





Haven't found a giraffe car, yet.




Ed

[kmaster]

Ha ha! sadly there isnt a prototype for the one I posted

[edwardsutorik]

Mar 3, 2021 8:10:26 GMT -8 kmaster said:

Ha ha! sadly there isnt a prototype for the one I posted

It's audacious, I'll give ya that!

And a conversation starter, for sure.



Ed

[lvrr325]

Here's a good one. Alco DL420, an RS3 in end cab configuration and with switcher trucks:

www.thedieselshop.us/alco6JMech.jpg

One SP C628 got a GE cab and nose in 1973. Meanwhile on the MoPac they put EMD cabs on three U23Bs.

And then there's FCP 521, which has bits of RS11, F-unit, and home-made additions

www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=5485847

While the SP Cab Forward has no prototype, GN did rebuild a wrecked boxcab electric with EMD supplied cabs.  

[edwardsutorik]

That FCP loco sure reminds me of an Ingalls.

The GN electric (same class, Y-1, different engine), before:






And after (now a new class, Y-1a):







Ed

[kmaster]

PRR P5 had the same thing going for it, before:


After

[bridge2nowhere]

Mar 3, 2021 7:54:12 GMT -8 edwardsutorik said:

Haven't found a giraffe car, yet.




Ed

[edwardsutorik]

Mar 6, 2021 6:52:02 GMT -8 bridge2nowhere said:

Mar 3, 2021 7:54:12 GMT -8 edwardsutorik said:

Haven't found a giraffe car, yet.




Ed

static.wikia.nocookie.net/indianajones/images/b/b0/Circus_train.jpg

[Colin 't Hart]

Plate G.

[gevohogger]

Mar 3, 2021 5:35:44 GMT -8 kmaster said:

Uh oh 

Save that photo, and be sure to post it every time Rapido or Scale Trains teases us with their secret new locomotive announcement.  That way you'll be sure to fit right in here.

[kmaster]

Haha, i may