PRR Mifflin Tower

Hardcoaler Feb 21, 2018

  1. Hardcoaler

    Hardcoaler TrainBoard Member

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    This is the Mifflin Tower at Mifflin, PA, a legacy of the PRR as photographed in May 1981. Looks like a PRR pneumatic air supply tank to the left. Sorry about the poor scan quality. It's likely that Mifflin is gone today, but I'm not certain.

    1981-05 Mifflin PA Tower - for upload.jpg
     
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  2. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    I was just looking at my notes. In researching where this tower is/was, I came up with a place named Mifflinburg. Is this possibly correct? My notes show I do have a PRR order copied here.
     
  3. Hardcoaler

    Hardcoaler TrainBoard Member

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    This confused me for a long time, but they're actually two different places both once served by the PRR. Mifflinburg, PA was on a secondary through line and is now at the end of a branch. The tower location at Mifflin, PA is 40 Miles south of Mifflinburg and is on the mainline east of Lewistown.

    I wonder how many freight cars were misrouted between these stations over the years? o_O
     
  4. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    It seems that I need to recover the rest of my collection, from storage. Scan and post my order, to see where it was actually (originated) copied. If the weather will improve.....
     
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  5. Hardcoaler

    Hardcoaler TrainBoard Member

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    I'd say that a Mifflinburg order would be the rarer of the two, but either would be mighty cool and fun to see.
     
  6. Point353

    Point353 TrainBoard Member

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    The tower was repainted the following month and looked like this:
    https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/VbUAAOSwLI1aYVif/s-l1600.jpg
    It was torn down about five years later.
     
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  7. Hardcoaler

    Hardcoaler TrainBoard Member

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    I was just wondering, why were train orders (aka flimsies) written on a light, tissue-like paper? I'm guessing that the thin paper transferred better using carbon paper?
     
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  8. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Exactly. There were uncountable times when they needed many, many copies. So-called "onion skin" paper and later the more tissue-like paper allowed more to be done in that one copying.
     
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  9. Hardcoaler

    Hardcoaler TrainBoard Member

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    Thanks Boxcab. I'd forgotten about the high number of multiple copies sometimes. When I was a kid, I'd find discarded TOs along the ROW. They'd be weatherbeaten,, but still legible. As I look back, the paper stock seemed to be more durable than might be expected.
     

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