ARRIVALS & DEPARTURES NEW RECORD: Longest through locomotive run its new GE U25B's. PIPE LINES, PLUS AND MINUS: emulating earlier SP action in the West, will tons and the products of mines business on North Island rose by 32,000 tons. Average load carried by each train increased from 144 to 151 tons. This, however, is not the complete story. Said the NZR about its varnish trade: "Passenger traffic also has been buoyant." HERE AND THERE: South Vietnam recently requested bids on 43 passenger and 21 freight cars for its State Railways. . . . In Japan it has been definitely decided to construct a 9-mile common-carrier monorail between downtown Tokyo (Shimbashi Station) and Haneda Airport. HitachiAlweg will supply the rolling stock. SHORT LINES WILLIAM S. YOUNG SPLIT SWITCHES: The issue of public versus private ownership remains as clouded as ever in Canada, if recent developments on two of its short lines are taken into account. In British Columbia the provincial government has moved to take over British Columbia Electric Company - including the former British Columbia Electric Railway with its 104 miles of freight lines. But in Ontario the city of London wants to sell its 25-mile London & Port Stanley Railway to private interests. L&PS has a long history of public ownership. Opened back in 1856, it was operated by the Great Western of Canada, then by Pere Marquette (and, through trackage rights, by Michigan Central), then-after electrification in 1915-by a city commission. LIKE OLD TIMES: The show's over now, but for a while this winter there was an unusual amount of steam activity among the logging industry short lines of East Texas. W. T. Carter & Brother's 7-mile Moscow, Camden & San Augustine Railroad used Carter 2-8-2 No. 14 on its mixed train during Christmas week, while MC&SA's 44-ton diesel was "getting her annual." Result: Vacationing Texas fans swelled passenger revenues—a windfall that the management can continue to count on as long as the diesel's annual inspections take place at Christmas. Nearby, the 21-mile Texas South-Eastern Railroad, sometimes unkindly known as the "Tattered, Shattered & Expired," did come near feeling that way when unexpected freezing weather caused heavy damage to its diesel. Filling in for about a month was Southern Pine Lumber Company 4-6-0 No. 13, which also saw use last year whenever the activities of Southern Pine's mill at Diboll on the TSE called for extra power. Not to be left out, the 31-mile Angelina & Neches River Railroad reportedly made a little extra use of its standby 2-6-0 No. 208- which usually is loaned to Southland Paper Company one day a month anyway while Southland's plant diesel is being serviced. and Lake Erie & Northern Railway. With SOUNDS OF STEAM the arrival of growlers, Grand River shifted its line near Waterloo, Ont., to include a short stretch of Canadian National Cincinnati 8, Ohio track.... Missouri Pacific has dropped RAILROADING passenger service on the former Houston North Shore interurban run from Houston to Baytown, Tex. Buses converted to run on rails had replaced trolleys after World War II. VERY MUCH IN BUSINESS: Although it was closed down and formally abandoned in 1958, the 2-mile Augusta Railroad of Arkansas has been quietly back in business for some months under new management. Steam-powered until '58, the line got going again with a small Plymouth gas locomotive and has now acquired a larger Vulcan-built unit. ON DISPLAY: Mogul No. 6 of East Jordan & Southern Railroad [page 22, January 1962 TRAINS] is now at rest in an East Jordan (Mich.) park. The abandoned line's venerable combine has been purchased by fan Mack Lowry, who is setting up a rail museum near Akron, O. I A 12" LP Recording 0. WINSTON LINK SEND CHECK OR MONEY ORDER ADD $1 For complete reviews of records in this series: Jan. 1962 P. 14 Dec. 1961 P. 14 Vol. 4 Trains Magazine Jan. 1962 P. 54-P.56 ● Big Boy digs in I WHAT a marvelous, exultant, unforgettable image of the world's mightiest steam locomotive this is! The date is April 1, 1957, and vehicular traffic through Cheyenne, Wyo., has been stalled by a springtime storm. Union Pacific hasn't even called out a plow, though, for what is 14 inches of snow to a 4-8-8-4? The slack runs out in Extra 4017 West and couplers go taut as 16 driving wheels take hold on cold, wet rail. Double stacks erupt with an unsyncopated roar, and the biggest of the big goes marching past the yard limit and onto the dispatcher's train sheet ... This photograph is far removed from the static builder broadside taken at Schenectady when Big Boy was new in 1941; it is also quite unlike the famous color publicity pose in Weber Canyon. Yet in terms of why UP purchased these epic $250,000 articulateds, is not this picture the more faithful representation of the engine and what she meant? -D.P.M. |