Maeklong Railway Market

This is a little different. Kim Komando posted it recently and I had to share.

In Samut Songkhram, about an hour outside Bangkok, is Maeklong Railway Market, one of the largest produce and seafood markets in Thailand. But beyond the selection of fresh fruit and fish, the market has become infamous for one thing—the train that runs directly through it. In 1905, the Maeklong Railway built a commuter train line through the center of the popular market. But rather than move, the vendors adapted to the new conditions, working around the train that passes through eight times a day, seven days a week.

Engineer's Cap

Origin of the Blue and White Striped Engineer's Cap 

There is no sport that evokes more nostalgia among Americans than baseball. America's favorite pastime originated before the Civil War as a game called "rounders." Throughout the 1850s and 60s, the game evolved to include more mental judgment skills, and eventually involved scoring and record keeping. By 1871, just two years after the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, the professional baseball league was born.

By the time the early 20th century rolled around, most large cities in the eastern United States had professional baseball teams. Because of the sport's popularity, many famous ball players like Phil Rizzuto, Eddie Matthews, Harry "The Hat" Walker and the legendary Babe Ruth spent a significant amount of time riding the rails.

Employees of the railroads, with a desire for camaraderie and recreation, formed employee baseball teams. These teams were quite organized and even competed in leagues and championships.

One semi-famous railroader took time off to play semi-pro and professional baseball. George "Stormy" Kromer was an engineer for the Chicago and North Western. Kromer made a habit of wearing his baseball cap while at the controls of his engine, but it just wasn't quite what he needed while on the job.

Kromer came home one day and lamented his discomfort to to his wife, Ida. The Kromers put their heads together and came up the design of what we now call the railroad engineer's cap.

Ida Kromer, an expert seamstress, assembled George's new cap with what she had at hand: blue and white pinstripe pillow ticking. Their efforts were a hit. The cap became very popular among railroaders, and ultimately resulted in the beginning of a business that still exists today.

Source with a photo of the Kromers. 

I have two. One with no logo and one from Tweetsie Railroad. No, I am not going to post a photo of me wearing them. 

The Pan American - L & N Railroad

The Pan-American was a passenger train operated by the Louisville and Nashville Railroad (L&N) between Cincinnati, Ohio and New Orleans, Louisiana. It operated from 1921 until 1971. From 1921 to 1965 a section served Memphis, Tennessee via Bowling Green, Kentucky. The Pan-American was the L&N's flagship train until the introduction of the Humming Bird in 1946. Its name honored the substantial traffic the L&N carried to and from the seaports on the Gulf of Mexico. The Pan-American was one of many trains discontinued when Amtrak began operations in 1971.

Source

Postcard of the Pan-American as it passed the WSM transmitter in Nashville.

Another source with additional information and some more photos of different EMD locomotives used is at American-Rails

"The Pan-American" (1948) by Hank Williams

This song is one in the playlist from a previous post and was the reason for this post. 

More information on the WSM transmitter tower found at Wikipedia. I have seen it numerous times.

WSM's unusual diamond-shaped antenna (manufactured by Blaw-Knox) is visible from Interstate 65 just south of Nashville (in Brentwood) and is one of the area's landmarks. It is located near the I-65 exit 71 interchange with Concord Road (State Highway 253). When the 878-foot tower was built in 1932, it was the tallest antenna in North America. Its height was reduced to 808 feet (246 m) in 1939 when it was discovered that the taller tower was causing self-cancellation in the "fringe" areas of reception of the station (it is now known that 195 electrical degrees, about 810 feet, is the optimum height for a Class A station on that frequency). For a period during World War II it was designated to provide transmissions to submarines in the event that ship-to-shore communications were lost. It is now one of the oldest operating broadcast towers in the United States.
As a tribute to the station's centrality in country music history, the diamond antenna design was incorporated into the new Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum's design in 2001. The tower is listed as a National Engineering Landmark and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 15, 2011.

Casper Ghost Train

And another for Halloween Night.

Happy Halloween

Boo!

New Hope Valley Railroad 

North Carolina

Check out last year's Halloween Post for some videos of the ghost train at Tweetsie

Spooktacular Train Rides

As I was looking for something to post for tomorrow, I found this list of Halloween train rides. Many ended yesterday, some end today and a few go through tomorrow, Halloween day. The list is worldwide.

See Spooktacular Trains. 

Bookmark it for next year!

 Halloween Ghost Train Cake

Radio Telegraph

After I did the Railroad Telegraphy post I thought I would mention another type of key and keyers. The electronic fully automatic keyer that uses "paddles". Instead of just two wires with bugs and straight keys, paddles have three wires, one for dit, another for dah and ground. They go the keyer. Close the contact between the dit wire and ground and they keyer generates dits for as long as the connection is made. Dahs are generated the same way, continuity between the dah wire and ground. To my knowledge, these keyers were never used with the railroad.

What happens if you close both contacts at the same time? Glad you asked. From Wikipedia:
"Iambic keying or squeeze keying creates alternating dits and dahs. This makes sending some characters easier, like the letter C, by merely squeezing the two paddles together. In single-paddle, non-iambic keying, the hand motion would require alternating four times for C (dah-dit-dah-dit).
Iambic keyers function in one of at least two major modes: Mode A and Mode B."

See the wiki article for the differences in modes. 

My newer ham radios have keyers built in.

Photos of my iambic paddles:

MFJ-564 similar to Bencher BY-1/2

Brown Bros Model BTL-A

dit dit

Some Railroad Memorbilla

My very small collection of railroad collectables.

And a big Thank You to Ken Lane for adding to it.

Ashtray

Clinchfield Railroad Company
Enlarge to see the name. 

Playing cards from the Southern Pacific Lines.

I want to thank Ken Lane (Wirecutter) for giving these to me. And to Miss Lisa for coordinating everything. They belonged to one of his grandparents and have never been shuffled.

 The face of each card has a different picture.

Paperweight made from railroad track.

Approx 7" high, 6" across the foot and 1/2 " thick.

Weight 2 pounds

Track is graded by its linear density. This is at the highest

range of the usual pounds per yard at 141 lb/yd.

Track installation hardware. 

Spike, square head sleeper spike, e clip, railway anchor (top to bottom, left to right)

I don't have an original railroad lantern. This is close. It is a W. T. Kirkman #100 Watchman that is new. Red and green glass globes are available.

Sheet music from 1940.
See previous post here.

Railroad Telegraphy

Something a little different, no train photographs. For the hardcore, there are some pics in the links. :)

The first ever railroad telegraph message was send and received in Orange County, NY in January, 1851.

Samuel Morse invented his telegraphic code in 1832. Originally magnets were used to mark the dits and dahs on paper tape with ink. The telegraphers discovered they could decode the letters by the sound made by the machine, later to be called the sounder.

Sounder with resonator. Note the tobacco tin to give it a distinctive sound.

The first ever railroad telegraph message was send and received in Orange County, NY in January, 1851. There is an interesting website with a nice telegraph page here.

In addition to the sounder the telegraph key was essential. There are numerous styles but basically there are two kinds. The manual "straight key" and the semi automatic key or bug. Descriptions follow.

This is called a straight key. It is a Speed-X model J-38. J-38 is the military designation from WW II.  Note the shorting lever, required for land line keys. No one mentions that the shorting lever was also required for some older ham radios that used cathode keying. It was closed when you wanted to use voice.

Next is the Vibroplex "bug". It is a semi automatic telegraph key which automatically sends "dits" but the "dahs" must be made individually. Vibroplex was founded in 1905 by Horace Martin and the basic design has remained unchanged.

I am also an amateur radio operator (ham). My straight key is pictured above.  Here is my Vibroplex Original Standard. It is not very old, the serial no. is 108708.

Close up of the nameplate and "dit" contacts. 

There are several versions of Morse code but the two that are important for this post. American and international Morse

American Morse Code — also known as Railroad Morse—is the latter-day name for the original version of the Morse Code developed in the mid-1840s, by Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail for their electric telegraph. The "American" qualifier was added because, after most of the rest of the world adopted "International Morse Code," the companies that continued to use the original Morse Code were mainly located in the United States. American Morse is now nearly extinct—it is most frequently seen in American railroad museums — and "Morse Code" today virtually always means the International Morse which supplanted American Morse.

 Another excellent article with some great photos found here.

Ever wonder what all the wires on the poles that used to be next to the tracks were for?
- Carried telegraph communication, both railroad and public
- Dispatcher's voice communication
- Teletype communication
- Electrical power to run signals, switch machines, wayside detectors
- Wayside detector communication
- Vital signal information
Some of the lines were leased to companies like Western Union.
It has all been replaced by radio, satellite and buried cable / fiber.

EDIT: An article by Jim Thompson, a retired Frisco telegrapher. Long but really interesting. Some history plus personal experiences.(Moved here from my comment below)

Station Wagons

Found at Woodpile Report number 414.

1948 was also the last year for their legendary-to-be "woodies"—station wagons with classy wooden bodywork —the wartime scarcity of steel finally in the past. Far from the pre-minivan they became, station wagons were a niche vehicle marketed to upscale households. Their putative purpose was to deliver and pick up their owners, or their guests, at the railroad station. Hence the name. The van-style body was to accommodate the outsize pile of baggage required by the fashionable traveler, or to suggest it.