When Neil MacKenzie first began building miniature locomotives in the 1980s, he says he wanted to see if he could win a trophy.
The now 90-year-old won his first award in 1985 for a Queensland Railways A12 steam train he built from scratch and a second shortly after for a model of a B12.
More than 30 years later, Mr MacKenzie has today received his third award — a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for his service to the community through his passion for steam trains.

Neil MacKenzie receives Queen's Birthday honour for steam train displays

---

Grant
Darwin NT

RPO Days at the museum. Celebrating the history of the Railway Post Office. These cars didn't merely carry mail, they had Postal Service clerks sorting it en route. At every small town along the line, a bag of mail for local delivery would be put off and outgoing mail put on, then sorted by destination. And if the train didn't stop there, no problem. The clerk would kick the mailbag off the side of the train as it passed, and the outgoing bag would be suspended on a crane close to the track. An arm would be extended from the RPO car to catch the bag as the train sped by. The last active RPO route (with sorting on board) was Washington & New York on a late night Amtrak train, ending in 1977. Most RPO routes were terminated by the 1960s, and the Post Office switched the highly lucrative (for the railroads) bulk mail haulage to trucks in 1968 (this haulage had been the only reason for many passenger trains to continue to exist by then, and the loss of these contracts and the subsequent flood of discontinuance applications to the Interstate and many state Commerce Commissions led directly to the creation of Amtrak).

We had a number of retired RPO clerks on hand, catching our mailbags as the steam coach train passed the depot in both directions. To facilitate this, I had to dispatch the train in as unusual manner. The typical order was "1630, you have a 1:00 departure west to West Switch, east on the Main, meet [whichever electric train or more likely nothing] at Johnson, to the Grove. Westbound, meet [whichever electric] at Johnson, short turn West Switch, and return to 2." Saturday, we had two electrics, North Shore 749/251 and CTA 41/22. I was conductor on 41 in addition to dispatcher. To keep 1630 moving frequently, my plan was to send out one electric or the other at 20 minutes past the hour, meeting 1630 at Johnson. The next hour, the other electric would do it. However, there is an old saying that no plan, no matter how carefully formulated, ever survives first contact with reality (or something like that). Between wanting to get something moving before 1630 was ready, and 1630's crew wanting a lunch break, things tended to get out of sequence. On top of that, 749 returned from its end-of-the-day throttle puller trip with a hot box on 251. Also, somebody (not me) did something naughty and will likely be suspended.

Sunday, I went to a railroadiana show (where I bought yet another ticket punch, a switch key, and a book) on my way out and had scheduled myself to arrive at noon. 1630's conductor was only too happy to hand off dispatching to me and also had enough trainmen, so I just sat in front of the depot and dispatched all day. CA&E 431 had burned off a motor lead leaving the yard, so the North Shore train was substituted for it. However, it turned out the repair to 251 was unsuccessful and the journal was hot again by the time they got to Johnson westbound. I had them wait there while 1630 started another trip and I went to track down the Electric Car guys. When 749 limped in (through East Switch), they checked it with the infrared and said yup, it's hot again. It went back to the Pit and 431's erstwhile partner 409 was mated to 460 instead. This train also finished with a throttle puller trip, for which I went along for the ride. Then I went on the test trip for 251, which turned out to STILL not be fixed. It reached 284 degrees F by the time we crawled back in at sunset. Even with my late start, I only had ten minutes left on my Hours of Service as dispatcher when I got to the office to sign out.

I think I will be perfectly content to not dispatch next weekend. Saturday is Chicago Day. Four trains on the Main, plus a shuttle (if it gets a crew) and two streetcars. I signed up for conductor on the Green Hornet, but the motorman didn't pass the rules exam. I said if it was canceled, I was willing to be coach conductor instead. Student conductor can do all the hard work for me.

---

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

From DNA Info Chicago...

The CTA Made 'Then And Now' Videos Of Its Stations And Trains

THE LOOP — The CTA dusted off some old film footage of its trains and stations — and spliced in current video of the exact same spots.

The result? A very entertaining look back at how Chicago has changed since the 1950s.

Check out this video: https://youtu.be/onsiX0w28Qo

---

NKP 765 is on its way to Chicago today.

This weekend, it's running The Joliet Rocket.

I'm feeling too lazy to go chase it today on a line where I've chased it before, and I feel $109 is too much to ride such a short distance on a commuter line I can ride on a $9 weekend pass.

---

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

Now when I saw Davids mention of NKP 765 and Chicago I immediately looked to see if it was going to pass any of the rail-cams.

Sadly it isn't. However not having looked at either site for several months I was surprised to find 2 new cameras on the Railstream site.

Shenandoah Junction West Virginia, looking east and west and what did I discover, the Capitol Ltd passes the camera, so with the "archive" feature I present today's 30 from Chicago to Washington.

(Blame David) :-)



206 leading, 152 in the shadow of the bridge.

(This thread has been without a boring grey American train for far too long)

PS. I may try and catch the 29 later (dad permitting)

As no one has posted I will add this.



Well I did see the 29 heading to Chicago, it was around 45 minutes late, but more interestingly this was right behind.



I should have guessed a MARC train
Not seen one of them on the cams before, this appears to be the "Brunswick Line" from Washington DC to Martinsburg WV.

A brief drone video (not mine) of where 765's trips will originate this weekend.

He launches from the southwest quadrant of the crossing. The single track going east-west is the former Rock Island, now owned and operated by Metra to the east and a Rock Island creditor to the west; this company leased it for 99 years to Baltimore & Ohio, now CSX. Iowa Interstate has overhead trackage rights (they can move freight from their own line, but can't serve local customers on CSX) into Chicago and both of them have rights on Metra to reach their respective yards. The Rock had four tracks here, but Metra found it only needed one for commuter service. The western pair of north-south tracks are BNSF, ex-Santa Fe, to Kansas City and California. The eastern pair were originally Chicago & Alton, going to St. Louis* and splitting at Springfield, Ill., to Kansas City; it merged in 1947 with Gulf Mobile & Northern to form Gulf Mobile & Ohio. The "Grease Mud & Oil" then merged in 1972 with Illinois Central to form Illinois Central Gulf. In 1985, ICG decided to downsize its railroad a bit** and sold the line (only from here south, keeping it into Chicago) to investors, who called it Chicago Missouri & Western. This company went bankrupt and sold the St. Louis route to St. Louis Southwestern, a subsidiary of Southern Pacific (the KC line became Gateway Western, which had some financial backing from the Santa Fe, but was later sold to Kansas City Southern, which still operates it). SP merged in 1996 with Union Pacific, which liked to say about its acquisitions "we kept our first name and their last name."*** Most of the way from Joliet to St. Louis, it has been upgraded over the last few years to support passenger trains at 110 MPH.

The big building is Joliet Union Depot, opened in 1912 to serve all three railroads and get their tracks above street level through downtown. At that time, and until very recently, C&A trains crossed over onto Santa Fe rails to work the station. In the last few years, the city of Joliet has been using (very tenuous) state grants to build a new platform east of the crossing for Metra Rock Island trains; this is where 765 will start. Temporary platforms are in place along the UP tracks north of the crossing and permanent ones are in progress, as is a new station building wrapping around the north and east sides of UD Tower. These platforms serve the five Amtrak trains each way daily, plus three Metra trains on the Heritage Corridor (ex-C&A)****. Once Metra was no longer going across the UP and BNSF, the diamonds were converted to a new-fangled type where one route has no gaps in the rails (greatly reducing maintenance costs) and trains on the other route ride over the top of the rails on their wheel flanges. In the process, UP and BNSF dispatchers gained direct control of the crossing from their offices in Omaha and Ft. Worth, respectively, and UD Tower was closed. Historians prevailed on the city to preserve the tower and make it a museum. Passenger trains no longer serve Union Depot or run on Santa Fe rails.

* The state legislature in the 1850s didn't want to promote a city in Missouri by granting a charter to a railroad from Chicago to St. Louis, but they were all for keeping the business in Illinois by having it go to Alton instead. Of course, Alton never developed the way St. Louis did and within a few years C&A was extended there.

** ICG had already sold the ex-IC Iowa Division. Then, in the 1990s, the whole railroad was sold off by the holding company it had created for itself. It dropped Gulf from its name and bought back the Iowa line, then merged with Canadian National, which still owns the tracks to Chicago and plays hardball whenever Metra or Amtrak wants to add trains.

*** UP had previously swallowed Western Pacific and Missouri Pacific.

**** The Metra Heritage trains use the curved connector you see in the southeast quadrant to get to the yard on the Rock just to the east. Once, in 1989, I think, I saw an Amtrak train detour over the connector.*****

***** A Metra engineer, running from the cab car on the east end of the train, backed his train westward past a red signal and across the diamonds, where the locomotive was struck by a Santa Fe freight. The Metra engine was flipped so far sideways that the crews that put it back on the rails put it facing south on the Santa Fe, from where it was towed around the connector and into the yard. During the rerailing operations, an Amtrak train arrived from St. Louis and was sent onto the Rock to Chicago.

---

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

Copied from my post at Einstein, with one addition in the middle of Saturday:

Weekend at the museum:

Saturday: conductor of record on the steam coach train. Let the student conductor do pretty much everything. He knows what he's doing and expects to qualify next Sunday. After the first trip, I sat back and watched him on the tailhose, until he had to leave after the 2:30 trip. Steam engineer came back and rode a trip with us to see how his student was doing; he qualified Sunday. It was Chicago Day, so A-Sup was in the tower dispatching four trains. The previous week's equipment problems had not been fixed, but no new ones arose. We had a diesel throttle puller, so I was all alone in the last car for that run. I was hiding from rain as much as I could behind the end wall of the car during that trip and missed a radio call, but my engineer answered and I heard him. I stepped out in the open and heard the dispatcher give an order.

Sunday: Gorgeous weather, upper 70s F, bright sun with lots of fast-moving white clouds (some thick enough to have dark bottoms), and a brisk breeze. Just like last week (minus the late arrival*), I had signed up for coach trainman, but there were enough others that I just sat in front of the depot and dispatched. The electric train was supposed to be CA&E woods, but they decided to imitate their steel brothers last week and develop a problem before getting out of the yard. The woods were also supposed to operate Saturday, but they're not supposed to go out in the rain, so the operable steels ran, and had to run again Sunday. The woods were fixed during the day and brought out to do the last three trips. All this meant that 1630 was the first train out, remarkably early at 11:10. For a day when I was just sitting in front of the depot and dispatching, I did an awful lot of walking. Early on, I picked a tiny scab on my face and couldn't get it to stop bleeding (it finally did). Then someone came and said there was a medical emergency (I can't give details, other than to say it did not involve a train). Suffice it to say several of us did what we could to expedite an ambulance's entry into the grounds. Then I got to fill out an incident report -- fun! Later, we had to wrestle the wheelchair lift from one platform to the other, which somehow resulted in me scratching my hand a bit at the base of my thumb; it has now stopped hurting. Thus endeth the medical report. I sent 1630 to bed after its 3:45 trip so we could get 411 on for another throttle puller. The great weather had visitors hanging around a lot longer than I expected, so the CA&E train did two more trips after that. This throttle puller had TWELVE people with him. One rode the cab and the rest at the back of the train. They applauded their guy when he got off the engine. Then it was time for something special. One of 1630's trainmen was the designated qualifier for Milwaukee Electric 972, which has been rehabilitated enough to serve as the backup to 415 on weekdays, and he was going to qualify a bunch of people on it. EVERYONE who was on any train during the day (except the steam guys) went over and climbed on board. A-Sup had been on 3142 all day and was the first to go to bed (except he had to leave it out because 972 is parked behind it), so he got the full lecture on getting it ready for service, but he and three others took turns running it around the car line. I'd handed over Dispatcher to the 411 engineer when he came on board (15 minutes before I died), so he authorized himself out onto the Main so everyone could get a feel for its top speed (about 30 MPH) and how much brake to use to stop it from there. Then they also gave us who weren't qualifying a shot at it. It has VERY sensitive brakes. On most electric cars, you go to Apply until you start to feel it, then go to Lap; on 972, if you wait until you feel it, you will make a hard slam stop. Even the new guy got a turn, probably the first time he's run anything. Other than the brakes (and the fact that the end windows don't open, so the motorman will broil on a hot day), it operates just like 415. Has a nice seat, though. By the time we put it back in the barn, and brought in 3142 behind it, and had to pump up 972's air again to move it another 18 inches to get 3142's other end half way clear of the walkway, it was dark out.

* Late arrival: I woke up at 5:55, but the next thing I knew it was 7:10. Oh s#!^. Quickly checked my blood sugar, then headed right for the euphemism. Skipping the details of my morning ablutions, my low fuel light came on still a good ten miles out. I decided to press on, hope I made it, and worry about getting gas later. I made it and signed in at 10:00, a bit later than I like to**. End of the day, I asked someone to follow me to make sure I got to the gas station, a quarter mile past the restaurant. I made it there too, and put in 21.3 gallons. Then I checked my owner's manual. Stated capacity of my tank is 22 gallons.

** However, since a dispatcher can only work nine hours, you have to carefully balance how early you start against how late you think you might need to go, so 10:00 is actually a good time if nobody needs to be dispatched any earlier.

---

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

Bernie, were you watching the MH camera on Monday? Mark himself posted some pictures of a Metra switcher bringing a bunch of cars over the St. Charles Air Line. Hickory Creek, Tioga Pass, whichever IPH full dome, and a couple other private cars were returned to Amtrak, plus a couple of bilevels and F40 181 going who knows where.

---

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

Bernie, were you watching the MH camera on Monday? Mark himself posted some pictures of a Metra switcher bringing a bunch of cars over the St. Charles Air Line. Hickory Creek, Tioga Pass, whichever IPH full dome, and a couple other private cars were returned to Amtrak, plus a couple of bilevels and F40 181 going who knows where.

I would have liked to have seen that.

However with my dad being in hospital I spend most of my day either at the hospital or travelling to or from same.

I haven't even switched on the PC I use for watching the cameras since last Thursday :-(

Bernie, were you watching the MH camera on Monday? Mark himself posted some pictures of a Metra switcher bringing a bunch of cars over the St. Charles Air Line. Hickory Creek, Tioga Pass, whichever IPH full dome, and a couple other private cars were returned to Amtrak, plus a couple of bilevels and F40 181 going who knows where.

I would have liked to have seen that.

However with my dad being in hospital I spend most of my day either at the hospital or travelling to or from same.

I haven't even switched on the PC I use for watching the cameras since last Thursday :-(

You should be able to see this even without a Facebook account. https://www.facebook.com/mark.hinsdale.5/posts/1321253247929655?pnref=story.unseen-section

(Sorry about your dad.)

---

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

Bernie, if you didn't hear (and if you have time to look), Galesburg Railroad Days started Thursday and goes through Sunday. I haven't heard of anything particularly special being on display.

I've been planning to drive down for the swap meet, but I may skip it and go to IRM instead.

---

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

Today I went out and did my last day of penance for breaking 415 last year. I'm now clear to run it by myself again. However, I also confirmed that I'm just not physically up to running it by myself all day. It was a gorgeous day in the 70s with a good breeze, and the regular Friday guy did some of the work, but I'm still exhausted.

---

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

A different day. Went to Railfan Day at the East Troy Electric Railroad in Wisconsin. It's the last remaining remnant of The Milwaukee Electric Railway & Light Company, seven miles bought for $10,000 by the Village of East Troy to preserve freight service. After several years, the village allowed the Wisconsin Railway Museum to use the tracks on weekends. Some years later, all the freight business was gone, either closed or switched to trucks, and the village sold the railroad to the museum for the same $10,000.

For Railfan Day, they ran their regular weekend schedule, but each trip was with a different car, with some they don't usually use. I missed the first trip, but the second was better anyway. It had Minneapolis streetcar 1583. On the way out, we were delayed a few minutes at the passing siding because the train coming the other way encountered a branch on the wire and waited for someone to come and deal with it. They got it clear enough for trains to pass, but kept working on it. I rode this car all the way to Indian Head Park and back to the Elegant Farmer, where I decided to wait for the next train out. I hadn't quite figured out their schedule yet, so I didn't realize I had time to walk across the road and visit their new maintenance facility. I sat on a bench for a while, being annoyed by recordings of Frank Sinatra. When the next train (South Shore 13, I think) finally came, they stayed put because the crew dealing with the branch wanted to shut off the 600V power. By the time they turned it on again (which they can do by keying a DTMF code on their radios, far advanced over us), it was too late for this car to go to the Park and back to leave the Elegant Farmer on time. More than half the passengers got off to wait for the next one, which caused a ripple effect all day. When the next car arrived, there were more passengers than it could handle, so a car that had already run was sent out as an extra. It came back virtually on the tail of the car that was already there. More cars continued to run in that fashion all day.

I next rode Sheboygan 26, a very nicely restored car (with a lot of details similar to some of our cars) which had for many years been someone's summer cabin on the shore of Lake Michigan. I rode it all the way out and back. The conductor mentioned what they really should be running here is a TMER&L 1100-series car, but they don't have any. Those guys at Illinois Railway Museum have two, but they won'y give us one. I said it's not MY fault. Then I looked them up on my phone to see what he was talking about.

An added bonus was a speeder car and trailer. Each hour, they followed the train out of the depot for a mile or so, then backed down the freight spur for as far as the museum owns it (half a mile or so). Being a rare mileage collector, I really wanted to ride this. I went into the depot to buy a hat, a bottle of water, and a speeder ticket ($1). They said they were sold out. Well, wait and see, maybe there will be room. Okay, yes, there's room, I can just take your dollar. Oops, sorry, this man already had a ticket, but he wasn't standing here so we didn't know the space was taken. Here's your dollar back. Oh look, the people shuffled around and now there's room after all, I'll take your dollar again. Interesting ride.

There were no more departures, so I wandered into the ice cream shop across the tracks. I would have liked to sit there and savor a hot fudge sundae or maybe a variant on a banana split, but I got a chocolate shake with crushed maraschino cherries in it to go. I drove around the block and took some pictures of cars heading for the barn. Then I headed to IRM (not too far out of my way home) to have dinner with the guys who'd been operating. I never did see the maintenance shop. It's just as well that I didn't go into the Elegant Farmer; I would have bought a lot of carbohydrates.

East Troy's entire line is considered yard limits, so the maximum speed is "able to stop in half your range of vision." There was a guy coordinating train movements, at least between the depot and the barn, but I'm not sure if he was functioning as the dispatcher for the whole railroad. Each car announced its departure from the three passenger stops, and the crews knew what they were supposed meet at the passing siding. It seems to work for them.


[Mostly written Saturday night, but then I decided I should review when I was more than 3% awake. A few extra details added Sunday morning.]

---

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

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2017/06/28/Two-killed-by-Amtrak-train-in-Washington-DC/3411498645926/?utm_source=fp&utm_campaign=ls&utm_medium=3

June 28 (UPI) -- Two people were struck and killed by an Amtrak train near Union Station in Washington, D.C., the city's fire department reported.

Amtrak Train 175 was approaching the train station late Tuesday as it traveled from Boston and New York. It struck two unidentified people at 11:20 p.m. who appeared to be trespassing on the track, Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said.

A third person was hospitalized, D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services said, without explaining his or her connection to the incident. The accident occurred about 1 1/2 miles northeast of Union Station, near Gallaudet University.

---

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2017/06/28/Two-killed-by-Amtrak-train-in-Washington-DC/3411498645926/?utm_source=fp&utm_campaign=ls&utm_medium=3

June 28 (UPI) -- Two people were struck and killed by an Amtrak train near Union Station in Washington, D.C., the city's fire department reported.

Amtrak Train 175 was approaching the train station late Tuesday as it traveled from Boston and New York. It struck two unidentified people at 11:20 p.m. who appeared to be trespassing on the track, Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said.

A third person was hospitalized, D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services said, without explaining his or her connection to the incident. The accident occurred about 1 1/2 miles northeast of Union Station, near Gallaudet University.

People will insist on being stupid.

---

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

People will insist on being stupid.

Darwin awards are in line for them.

---

People will insist on being stupid.

Darwin awards are in line for them.

It turns out they were apparently crew off a freight train on the parallel CSX tracks.

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Two-Struck-by-Amtrak-Killed-in-Northeast-DC-431225783.html

---

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

By the time they turned it on again (which they can do by keying a DTMF code on their radios, far advanced over us)

I'm sure from you Ham side you have seen Raspberry Pi's interfaced to radios, add some DTMF decode, the GPIO pins and you can drive relays to do it. Of course the IRM has to have relays not knife switches for the power. With a bit of programming you likely could put the entire tower control on the radio, and have it answer back with a wav file indicating the state of switches, signals, power, etc.

---

IRM had some flooding overnight. Someone posted pics on Facebook of water up to the bus barn doors (and inside, I bet). He also said the tail track was flooded.

Looking at the web cams this morning, I see this




and this




The latter looks like you can't get in from the public entrance gate. Also, the CTC board camera shows occupancy lights only on the west station lead and not changing, so I'm thinking the weekday train is not out today.

Okay, I just checked Facebook again. Someone else just posted some daylight pics. The employee/volunteer parking area west of the steam shop is flooded, as is the whole area east of barn 9 where the roundhouse is supposed to be built someday. The track is under water around Central Ave. The water you see in my car line shot goes all the way across the playground and inside of barn 3, over the rails inside. I was right about the public entrance. Some of the picnic tables at Electric Park are up to their bench seats. Most worrisome, Boot Creek is currently almost up to the bottom of the bridge and was probably higher overnight. The bridge will have to be inspected before anything goes over it.

---

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