Not sure if the link below and the embedded video's will work for everyone or only those in the USA...
From WTTW/Ch-11/Jay's Chicago WTTW:

On the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's Assassination, here's another look at my story about the Elgin Man who built, from scratch, a full size working replica of the Lincoln Funeral Car -- and the locomotive that pulled it.

Inside Lincoln’s Funeral Car

---

Works OK for me in the UK.
Stunning workmanship :-)

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Thanks for the link. WOW, Talk about passion for ones interests. He is a master craftsman for sure.

---

[/quote]

Old James

Absolutely amazing, & to think he had no working knowledge of trains when he started.

What would really be fantastic is for someone to video the event on May 2nd & post it here - Would love to see it.

Absolutely amazing, & to think he had no working knowledge of trains when he started.

What would really be fantastic is for someone to video the event on May 2nd & post it here - Would love to see it.

+1

---

Pluto will always be a planet to me.

Seti Ambassador
Not to late to order an Anni Shirt

Here is the text of the original post on Facebook: Amtrak # 3 on Thursday will have the following private cars on the rear: Birch Grove, Moonlight Dome, J. Pinckney Henderson, Cimarron River and Caritas rearmost, heading for ABQ and the AAPRCO Spring trip.

However, today he commented: Looks like a change in plans, with three cars going out of Thursday and two more on Friday!

Well it wasn't quite like that!!

The 3 yesterday had an extra loco. 145-146-142



Possibly 145 to be used as one of the locos to haul a possible train of 20+ PV cars over 1100 miles from Albuquerque NM - Lubbock TX - Houston TX - San Antonio TX.

For the AAPRCO Mid-Term event.

The AAPRCO is the American Association of Private Railroad Car Owners they hold "events" when it seems people from far and wide bring their privately owned railroad cars join them all onto a train and rent a couple of Amtrak locos to pull the train

So on the rear we had



No idea about the first two but the last one



Is PPCX 800045, Iowa Pacific SLRG Business Car - Caritas.

Then shortly after the 3 had left the arriving California Zephyr brings in these two



They seem to be a pair the rear one is Sierra Hotel and based in Chicago

So today the Southwest Chief heading for Albuquerque NM had this line up on the rear.



Either those plans David mentioned changed again or someone can't count!!

The first two I don't know, and number 3 is the Sierra Hotel from the previous day, the 4th one is



"Built by Pullman in 1956 as Union Pacific 11 double bedroom sleeper "Placid Lake". To Amtrak 2263. Rebuilt for American-European Express as AOEX 800255 Berlin.

Acquired by current owner in 2009. Reconfigured with kitchenette, 3 master bedrooms with full size beds, 1 single bedroom (crew x 2), 1 master bedroom with upper and lower berths, & 1 Presidential Suite (sleeps 4)."

And last but by no means least comes "Dearing"



"The Dearing, as she is now known, rolled out of the Pullman shops in 1925. She was originally named Thompson and was one of nearly 4,000 sleepers built and operated by the Pullman Company. The 12 section - 1 drawing room design was the single most popular Pullman floor plan.
The current owners purchased the car in Oct 2006 and re-designated it Dearing with the number 29. The name is in honor of the owner’s grandfather an Agent-Operator for the Georgia Railroad who lived in the town of Dearing and spent most of his career as the Agent at Dearing.

If you want to know more about the AAPRCO click the link, there are several pictures of the insides of some of these cars, and yes according to the website it IS an expensive hobby as they all have to be maintained to Amtrak standards before you can attach to an Amtrak train.

Unfortunately the APPRCO train will not come near any of the rail cameras I am aware of.

However the 2015 convention will be held in St Louis MI and on the website was this.

"On Tuesday, September, 29 our special train will depart Cincinnati and proceed south on the former Southern Railway's CNO&TP First Subdivision. We will cross the Ohio River and travel through scenic Northern Kentucky to Danville, KY. The special will then head west on the former Southern Railway's line through Kentucky into the historic city of Louisville, KY. Our special train will remain parked in Louisville for the evening and throughout the next day."

Now if Gordon had a spare hour or so perhaps he could pop down a take a couple of pictures. :-)

Then on the return "Following the convention activities the special train will depart St. Louis on Monday, October 5 and travel on the BNSF's former Burlington Route's line alongside the Mississippi River to Burlington, Iowa. The special will then take the Burlington Route's line through Galesburg, Illinois to Chicago where the special will terminate. PV's will depart on scheduled Amtrak trains."

And that should bring it hopefully past the Chicago camera, I can but hope.

---

Wow. Been longer than I thought since I last looked at this thread. I'll try to answer all of Bernie's questions.

Let me start off by saying, however, that yesterday I got to run this. Just one trip because there were also other guys having a go at it, and maximum speed 25 because most of the signal system is turned off and we were running on manual block rules, but still fun.

Okay, off to the euphemism and then I'll try for some answers when I get in bed.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

So time for something non Amtrak

It's funny how sometimes you miss interesting things because you are looking at bigger and faster.

Metra have shunters, this one I see probably every other day. METX 3



It moves Metra coaches and Metras F40PH's, it is an EMD SW1200 of which over a thousand were built between 1954 and 1966. Believe it or not Metra 3 is a late 1954 build, yes it is over 60 years old!!

It started life as Milwaukee Road 2048, was renumbered in 1959 to 600 and then sold to NIRC in November 1982. NIRC is the Northeast Illinois Regional Commuter Railroad Corporation, the operating arm of Metra.

I won't post pictures here that are copyright so

Here is a link to pics of MILW 600 in 1978 and 1982

Here is a link to NIRC 3 in 1987

Now obviously is has not survived for 60 years without a few "repairs"

This is a picture during a rebuild in 2008.

(Sorry if the links are a bit slow seems to be RR Picture Archives end)

So it has been around. Apparently quite a lot of the SW1200's are still in service.

Now to a question, where does Metra 3 go with these coaches and engines.




I am sure David will know.

After crossing the river they will turn south on the Rock Island, most likely going to the Rocket House at 47th St.

Metra has several of those switchers. I am Facebook friends with a few Metra engineers and they either love or hate each one of them, for various reasons.

As I am having a "non Amtrak" post, because they were replacing the crossovers at Fostoria I was watching that camera more than normal, you couldn't actually see much as it was just at the edge of the east cam.

However I did get a couple of quite nice shots.

Here UP 8493 passes the west cam and you can see the on track plant machines on the other track.



Here the same train from the east camera and you can just see the yellow jackets of the track workers in the middle right who had stepped back to let 8493 pass.

I'm not at all familiar with Fostoria. I went there once, but I didn't take the time to explore. It was my starting point to chase NKP 765 back to its home in New Haven (Ft. Wayne), IN. I think I just saw a headline about Fostoria now being the biggest yard on NS.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

Another non Amtrak post!

Another great sky!!

Coal City IL around 8am CT

Hmm. I don't think I knew there was a camera there.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

Here is the text of the original post on Facebook: Amtrak # 3 on Thursday will have the following private cars on the rear: Birch Grove, Moonlight Dome, J. Pinckney Henderson, Cimarron River and Caritas rearmost, heading for ABQ and the AAPRCO Spring trip.

However, today he commented: Looks like a change in plans, with three cars going out of Thursday and two more on Friday!

Well it wasn't quite like that!!

The 3 yesterday had an extra loco. 145-146-142



Possibly 145 to be used as one of the locos to haul a possible train of 20+ PV cars over 1100 miles from Albuquerque NM - Lubbock TX - Houston TX - San Antonio TX.

Correct.

For the AAPRCO Mid-Term event.

The AAPRCO is the American Association of Private Railroad Car Owners they hold "events" when it seems people from far and wide bring their privately owned railroad cars join them all onto a train and rent a couple of Amtrak locos to pull the train

So on the rear we had



No idea about the first two but the last one



Is PPCX 800045, Iowa Pacific SLRG Business Car - Caritas.

J. Pinckney Henderson and Cimarron River. My friend (who worked as Caritas' car manager for a couple of years before switching to Pullman, and who really wishes he was on this trip) tells me all three of those cars were identical when built. Caritas did not have the open platform and large windows until it became a private car.

Then shortly after the 3 had left the arriving California Zephyr brings in these two



They seem to be a pair the rear one is Sierra Hotel and based in Chicago

Sierra Hotel was originally a California Zephyr dome-lounge-dorm. The current owner cut open the end to make the open platform; some fans consider it an abomination, but I'm okay with it. The other car is most likely Puget Sound.

So today the Southwest Chief heading for Albuquerque NM had this line up on the rear.



Either those plans David mentioned changed again or someone can't count!!

The first one should be the aforementioned Birch Grove. Don't know the second.

The first two I don't know, and number 3 is the Sierra Hotel from the previous day, the 4th one is



"Built by Pullman in 1956 as Union Pacific 11 double bedroom sleeper "Placid Lake". To Amtrak 2263. Rebuilt for American-European Express as AOEX 800255 Berlin.

Acquired by current owner in 2009. Reconfigured with kitchenette, 3 master bedrooms with full size beds, 1 single bedroom (crew x 2), 1 master bedroom with upper and lower berths, & 1 Presidential Suite (sleeps 4)."

And last but by no means least comes "Dearing"



"The Dearing, as she is now known, rolled out of the Pullman shops in 1925. She was originally named Thompson and was one of nearly 4,000 sleepers built and operated by the Pullman Company. The 12 section - 1 drawing room design was the single most popular Pullman floor plan.
The current owners purchased the car in Oct 2006 and re-designated it Dearing with the number 29. The name is in honor of the owner’s grandfather an Agent-Operator for the Georgia Railroad who lived in the town of Dearing and spent most of his career as the Agent at Dearing.

If you want to know more about the AAPRCO click the link, there are several pictures of the insides of some of these cars, and yes according to the website it IS an expensive hobby as they all have to be maintained to Amtrak standards before you can attach to an Amtrak train.

Unfortunately the APPRCO train will not come near any of the rail cameras I am aware of.

You might find it on youtube.

However the 2015 convention will be held in St Louis MI and on the website was this.

"On Tuesday, September, 29 our special train will depart Cincinnati and proceed south on the former Southern Railway's CNO&TP First Subdivision. We will cross the Ohio River and travel through scenic Northern Kentucky to Danville, KY. The special will then head west on the former Southern Railway's line through Kentucky into the historic city of Louisville, KY. Our special train will remain parked in Louisville for the evening and throughout the next day."

Now if Gordon had a spare hour or so perhaps he could pop down a take a couple of pictures. :-)

Then on the return "Following the convention activities the special train will depart St. Louis on Monday, October 5 and travel on the BNSF's former Burlington Route's line alongside the Mississippi River to Burlington, Iowa. The special will then take the Burlington Route's line through Galesburg, Illinois to Chicago where the special will terminate. PV's will depart on scheduled Amtrak trains."

And that should bring it hopefully past the Chicago camera, I can but hope.

Yes, that will go by the camera, and I am going to try to get a ticket for it. I would love to ride up that line from St. Louis to Burlington.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

Well things are not good on the Chicago camera front.

Apparently on Sunday evening somebody knocked down a power pole, this apparently caused all sorts of problems with the local electricity supply.

The upshot being that once all power was restored, the router and encoder are working fine however the camera has failed. The guy who runs the site lives in Trenton MI which is about 278 miles or 4 and a half hours away.

He is hoping to get there tomorrow, in the mean time I am getting "Amtrak withdrawal" :-(

Of course this just means I have been watching the other cameras!!

Coal City IL always seems to have very interesting skies with or without a train, more releveant with!!

I know railfans all over like to the the "older" paint on units so here is one from yesterday.



I call that "Old paint dark clouds"

Another Fostoria OH picture, it was quite dark as this train approached then right at the last minute the sun broke through.



Here is one from a couple of weeks back. This is from Berea OH, now normally all 4 Amtraks pass here in the early hours local time so it is too dark to see much, however this particular day the Lake Shore 49 was so late it was daylight.



Just for a comparison, this was the 49 today.

---

Not sure if the link below and the embedded video's will work for everyone or only those in the USA...
From WTTW/Ch-11/Jay's Chicago WTTW:

On the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's Assassination, here's another look at my story about the Elgin Man who built, from scratch, a full size working replica of the Lincoln Funeral Car -- and the locomotive that pulled it.

Inside Lincoln’s Funeral Car

I'd like to clear up one misconception: the original Leviathan was built in 1868 for Union Pacific, which started at Omaha and went west, so could not have pulled Lincoln's funeral train. Leviathan was one of an order of four locomotives that also included Jupiter, the one UP used for the golden spike ceremony at Promontory, Utah, in 1869. Kloke built his replica using the same plans as the replica Jupiter the National Park Service uses to re-enact the golden spike. While the originals burned wood, the replicas burn oil.

I went to an open house at Kloke's shop once. Besides the funeral car, he was also building two other locomotives for tourist lines, York 17 and Lyon. His site has pages about these.

Leviathan travels on a pair of truck trailers. Last year, I watched them begin the process of packing it up. One truck has a small crane on it that they use to remove the headlight, the bell, the steam dome cover, the pilot, even the coupler. These are all stored in boxes inside the truck (well, not the pilot). At that point, however, they all got in another truck and drove away, probably waiting for the boiler to cool down. It was dark and getting late, so I started the 3-hour drive home. (The smaller truck pulls another trailer, the type a landscaping or construction company would carry its large collection of tools in. This opens up as a store where they sell shirts, hats, models, pictures, key rings, and other souvenir stuff. All profits go to the Lincoln car.)

I don't seem to have any plans for May 2, so maybe I'll go down there. (I'm running the streetcar for the first time this year on the 3rd, so I have to be home in time for enough sleep.) Probably be a huge crowd, though. ... Well, I don't think I'll spend the $75 for dinner with them and a tour of the car. One of our museum guys is also a civil War re-enactor, though, so I wouldn't be surprised if he goes, in uniform.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

Well things are not good on the Chicago camera front.

Apparently on Sunday evening somebody knocked down a power pole, this apparently caused all sorts of problems with the local electricity supply.

The upshot being that once all power was restored, the router and encoder are working fine however the camera has failed. The guy who runs the site lives in Trenton MI which is about 278 miles or 4 and a half hours away.

He is hoping to get there tomorrow, in the mean time I am getting "Amtrak withdrawal" :-(

I'm surprised the host isn't able to take care of it himself.

One other thing I forgot to comment on: American View. Several railroads have these inspection cars with picture windows. They all, including American View, have roll-up garage doors to protect the window when it's not in use. A Facebook friend who works in the Amtrak yard in Chicago said it arrived the other day with the door open and the window facing the power. Apparently, the door was stuck.

Also, someone posted a video not on Youtube but on Facebook of the AAPRCO special going by him at a crossing in Texas. The power was 145 and 817. It's hard to see the cars, but it looks like

Birch Grove
the blue one in your picture that I didn't know
Henderson
Cimarron River
Caritas
Sierra Hotel
Berlin
I think Dearing
Silver Iris
I don't know the name, but it's a domeless round end obs; comments on the FB post suggest it might be New York Central Babbling Brook

I'll see if I can download the video for you (I won't post it in public outside of its FB permissions, though).

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

New Maglev record

Impressive, 174 miles in 40 minutes at about 313mph.. For regular service, for the record: 374mph..

There's a lot of energy being used to do that I suspect.

---

The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

I'm surprised the host isn't able to take care of it himself.

The host is out of town till tomorrow. Typical.

---

I'm surprised the host isn't able to take care of it himself.

The host is out of town till tomorrow. Typical.

Ah. Then it could just be a matter of turning it on.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

Let me start off by saying, however, that yesterday I got to run this. Just one trip because there were also other guys having a go at it, and maximum speed 25 because most of the signal system is turned off and we were running on manual block rules, but still fun.

Let me expand on this a bit.

Some time in the last week or so, the head of the DC Line Department asked the Signal Department to shut off the signals east of the depot area so he could change out some broken poles. Then he landed in the hospital. (Not an injury from doing the poles.) Someone decided that we were expecting tree trimmers to come out in the next couple of weeks, so we'd leave the signals off on the theory that IF they knock down any wires, it will do less damage than if the system is on.

We have a procedure for this in the rulebook. It's called manual block. So on Sunday, the dispatcher (who was also the official motorman of the train) gave each of us trainees this train order: "749 has authority for a x:00 departure to Kishwaukee Grove. You have authority to occupy the Bend Block, the Karstens Block, and the Grove Block in both directions. Coming back, you have authority to occupy the Karstens Block and the Bend Block. Proceed to Jefferson Street and return to Station Track One." Whoever was running that trip had to repeat it back to him, and he had to say "that is correct." The speed limit under manual block rules is "able to stop within half your range of vision, not exceeding 25 MPH." He did point out to us the landmarks we would use when operating normally for where to take power, where to kill power, where to take air, etc. We also had to slow down prepared to stop short of all facing point switches until sure that they were properly aligned.

It was good to experience running this way once, since it happens so rarely.

They say that whether the tree trimmers come or not, the signals will be turned on by the first weekend in May, when we start running more than one train at a time on the mainline.

---

David
Sitting on my butt while others boldly go,
Waiting for a message from a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri.

Well now for something completely different.

After my visit last year I have been meant to keep tabs on the Bluebell Railway which is not too far south from me.

However after they ignored my application to volunteer I sort of forgot about them, so it was with mild surprise that as I was walking across the bridge above the main London Brighton line yesterday, I looked down (as I always do) and thought I saw the shape of a Deltic coming towards me.

Well I did not however one but two



The front one D9009 (55 009) Alycidon and



D9019 (55 019) Royal Highland Fusilier on the rear.

They had been at the diesel gala at the Bluebell Railway and were now on their way to the Seven Valley railway for the rest of the summer.

Because there were only every 22 built and 6 remain preserved and in service they are a rare sight, but are held in high regard by diesel enthusiasts.

You can read about the Deltics (class 55) here

Also the Deltic Preservation Society which owns 3 of the 6 still running.

---

What is the HP of the average UK diesel loco as compared to the USA ones? As in

UK Intercity 225/Acelas for passengers
BR Class 70/SNCF for freight

I guess the USA ones are hugely more powerful?

In the USA I think the top HP ratings are at or near 4400hp for Diesel Electrics and that is for each locomotive, pure Electrics can be in the 10,000hp range I've read, there was talk of 6,000hp for Diesel Electrics, but I don't know if that was reached or not, maybe David would know. And they have to be, since some trains can be around 10,000 tons and the terrain can get pretty steep at times in the US.

---

The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Well there are a LOT of different freight locos operating in the USA

If we take a sample

The EMD SD90MAC:

The EMD SD90MAC is a 6,000 hp (4,470 kW) C-C diesel-electric hood unit locomotive produced by General Motors Electro-Motive Division

Wheras the GE- AC6000CW

is a 6,000 horsepower (4,500 kW) diesel electric locomotive that is built by GE Transportation. This locomotive, along with the EMD SD90MAC, is the most powerful single-engined diesel locomotive in the world, surpassed in power by only the dual-engine EMD DDA40X.

Which makes the Class 70:

The locomotives utilize a GE PowerHaul P616 diesel engine rated at 2,750 kW (3,690 hp), look a bit small.

Remember it is of course and American built loco, designed for the UK
(A little aside: while delivering 70012 it was being lifted out of the ship when the lifting gear failed and it fell 20 feet back into the hold of the ship, and bent the frame, it was returned to GE, I wonder what they did with it?

However there are a lot of SD70's and Dash 9-44CW's around with more modest outputs

Early SD70ACe models are rated at 4,300 horsepower (3,200 kW), while later units are rated at 4,500 horsepower (3,400 kW).

Dash-9 4,400 hp (3,281 kW).

Also it is unusual to see a freight train with just one loco in the USA.

Here it is the opposite, it is unusual to see a double headed freight.

With the passenger service it is more complicated.

The Acela has 2 power cars giving

1,150 kW (1,540 hp) (Per Motor)
4,600 kW (6,200 hp) (Per Power Car)

Whereas the 225 has just one class 91 loco and a driving van trailer (DVT)

Power output 6,300 horsepower (4.7 MW)

Compare speeds:

Acela 165 mph (266 km/h) (150 mph or 240 km/h max operating speed)

IC 225 125 mph (201 km/h) (Service) 161.7 mph (260.2 km/h) (Record)

Also the Acela is treated as "all first class"

The latest locos for the north east corridor are the ACS 64:

6,400 kW (8,600 hp) Maximum (Short-Time)
5,000 kW (6,700 hp) Continuous

Speed 125 mph (200 km/h) Service - 135 mph (220 km/h) Design.

These will pull the normal trains in the north east corridor and are so new that all 70 are not yet in service.

One comment, having ridden Amtrak on the north east corridor from New York to Washington and New York to Boston, the seats are more comfortable than comparative trains in the UK. However on 3 out of the 6 occasions I traveled I was delayed for more than an hour.

Our two countries are so different in many ways the distances so vast that to try and compare the rail systems is possibly a futile exercise.

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