The shot at left was sent to me by Fred Ripley, former WKNRHS member now living in Columbus, OH. Fred has done a great deal of photography on the C&O as mentioned in my editorial. There’s a lot of Chessie heritage in this shot at Levisa Jct. 4070 et. al. is entering Coon Creek SD with empties for Johns Creek, May 7, 1978. Fred has scanned many of his slides for the book, Chesapeake & Ohio – The Decades of Change – 1961-1981. Several of his shots were used.
Your editor, Bill Thomas, is at left with Darryl Whitworth and Max Ringwalt (deceased), watching a Chessie System work train pass by on the Logan Sub, at Rum Junction, West Virginia, just outside of Logan. See reference to this location in “Picking the Points” editorial. Thank goodness our chaperone and my high school math teacher and annual staff advisor Tom Ottinger was shooting for memories sake.
Greetings NRHS Western Kentucky Chapter members and welcome to September! My how this year is flying by. But I personally love September so all is well. Our normal routine for September is a fish fry provided by Jim and Thomas Bryan. This years meeting date is in conflict with their family travel plans. So in place of fish we will be grilling hot dogs at the home of Bill and Angela Thomas. Bill will have trains running out doors on his garden layout. We will keep the meeting to a minimum all while gorging on back yard cousin!!!
We have a function coming up this month. On September 30th we should find ourselves in Crofton KY. for our annual Chapter Picnic. We will meet at the Veterans Park located behind the Crofton Volunteer Fire Department, adjacent to the CSX mainline. Bring a picnic lunch, a significant other and/or a friend. If you like, patronize one of the local eateries or the Amish Store for a fresh deli sandwich. This is our signature event and is always enjoyed.
Also this month we will hear from Jim Pearson regarding the most recent photo contest winners.
Bill Farrell will have a “plan of attack” regarding the Christmas Show. We will need to move on this topic as we will have only two meetings between this meeting and “show time”!!!
Looking ahead to next month, nominations for officers will receive a first call in October! Yup, it will soon be election time.
And there will be a few changes this year!
On the list for discussion is/are Chapter Trips. I asked for a committee to address this but no action has been taken. We need to take this up in discussion, perhaps next month for plans to approach in 2018.
Again this month we will gather at Bill Thomas’ house for food, fun and a little business. Please make an attempt to attend…the word “HOT DOG” is the key word here. More to follow!
Ricky Bivins, President
The classic curves of an EMD GP30 are always a crowd pleasing addition to any train, especially when its chrome (or in this case, nickel) – plated. On September 10, 2017, the Allen County, Ohio Historical Society hosted its annual Riding the Rails excursion from Lima, OH to Jackson Center, OH over the Indiana & Ohio Railway. The trackage is the former Detroit Toledo & Ironton mainline; power was Cincinnati Railway Company’s NKP GP30 number 901. Photo by Chris Dees.
A scene such as this is bound to bring tears to the eyes of any lover of steam locomotives. Scrapping of the steam fleet provided steady employment for many years in the 50s and 60s.
This picture provides a rare view to their inner workings. Pennsylvania Railroad L1s 2-8-2 No. 8280 is being scrapped at Port Newark, N.J. in 1958. With part of its boiler shell cut away, several major internal components are visible, permitting an unintended lesson in the workings of a steam locomotive.
The burning of coal in the firebox (1) produces hot gases. The gases pass through dozens of tubes and flues (2), which are surrounded by water in the boiler. The heat from the gases is transferred to the water, which turned to steam and is collected in the steam dome (3). The throttle valve in the dome regulates the flow of steam to the dry pipe (4), which feeds steam to the superheater (5).
From the superheater, steam delivery pipes (6) lead to the valves (7), which control the admission of steam to the cylinders, it along with the combustion gases from the tubes and flues is exhausted through the petticoat pipe (9) in the smokebox and up the stack (10).
So I guess we could call this “steam locomotive 101.” Thousands of locomotives met such fate as the railroads transitioned to the less labor-intensive diesel. A good many of those scrapped locos were only into the infancy of their working potential. Submitted by Gary O. Ostlund.
Credits: Pix & text in part verbatim from Classic Trains, Summer 2017, Photo by Paul Stephanus
Due to some conflicting schedules with the 611 excursions, we are revising our Kanawha River trip schedule. This update is shown in the attached. The BNSF trip has been removed for rescheduling. Information on ticketing for the Piedmont & Northern trips will be available shortly. Sorry for any confusion!
September 14-22, 2017: AAPRCO Convention in Burlington, VT
The Special Train will start in Albany/Renssalaer, NY on a route not yet finalized but
including major portions of the Vermont Rail System. The actual convention dates are
September 19-22. We will be participating with the Caritas and Cimarron River.
Clark Johnson Today, 9:07 AM
Greetings fellow NRHS members. My what a busy summer. I’m sure yours has been as busy as mine. If you have one blade of grass there’s another million and all of them need to be cut!
Our meeting last month at the Hopkins County Government Center was very productive. We had visitors from Nashville Steam on hand with an excellent program and “questions and answers” session. After which we reconvene and voted to donate $500 to their effort from the Chapter treasury. An additional $200 was donated from members. I look forward to seeing and hearing the Yellow Jacket in operation.
National has a full set of articles covering the convention in Nashville Tennessee. There was a lot of enjoyable trip’s and everything was well patronized. In those articles lies some information pertaining to the National organization. You can go to the NRHS national website and access them via the administrative tab on the lower area of the homepage for the National Organization. Along with those articles are serval additional subjects and many photographs. All very good reading and very good quality.
Our August meeting I’m sure we’ll have a few stories of the upcoming eclipse which would have been over a few hours by meeting time. Additionally, we will review the program Bill Ferrall was going to present two months ago. Due to technical difficulties we were unable to view his program at that time.
We will also confirm the date and time for the annual Chapter picnic at the veterans grounds in Crofton Kentucky. This is always an enjoyable event.
Additionally, we will be discussing the Christmas dinner at the home of Steve and Marilyn Miller a top Billy Goat Hill Road in Hopkinsville Kentucky. This was the most enjoyable venue last year for those that attended. And speaking of Christmas, Bill Ferrall and Jim Kemp will have a precursor to our Christmas show this year. The show last year was very well received and this year promises to have even more impact.
We will touch base with Jim Pearson on the upcoming photo contest and ideas for the Chapter calendar as well.
Please make an effort to attend the meeting on Monday, August 21, 2017 at the Hopkins County Justice Center on North Main St., Madisonville, KY.. Bring a friend, a show and tell item and a raffle item as well. I hope to see you there.
Opinions and Stories by Bill Thomas, Editor
Here today, gone tomorrow! We’ve all heard this saying at some point. There are so many railroad related things I wish I had taken pictures of when I was carrying around my 35mm Yashica FR camera in the late 70s and early 80s. I was fortunate to get a couple of photos of the Family Lines/L&N GP40 I claim as my first cab ride. But, oh, the things I missed within 100 miles of me; two train stations in Chattanooga, my native city. The yard at Elizabeth (Marietta) GA, where the Hook & Eye line diverged from the main Atlanta/Chattanooga/Knoxville line. Etowah, TN, former division point and offices. Atlanta and its variety of railroads – Family Lines, Southern, Central of Georgia, West Point Route – back when you could run around the yards without being chased out.
My “point” is, take as many photos as you can of current railroad things. Those SD40-2s have only so many years although they seem immortal. Have you noticed how many RR crossing lights and gates now have electronic bells instead of the “gas station” bells we’ve heard for so long? Remember journal boxes? Cabooses, section flags, wig wags, roof walks, stock cars, not to mention steam locomotives? Looking at Don’s picture, above left, I wonder how much longer we can ride public passenger trains. At one time these were items that we took for granted. In a day of nearly unlimited photo storage and easy access to digital cameras, we should have plenty of visual records. So get out there and shoot!
