I come from a railroad family, although I traveled a different path. My father was a civil engineer with the PRR and LIRR; his father was a civil engineer with the Reading and then the Altoona and Logan Valley Electric Railway (the streetcar); his father (my g-grandfather) was a master mechanic with the Reading, the Baldwin Locomotive Works, the Pittsburgh Locomotive Works and, finally, the Reading & Columbia where he died in a railroad accident. In 1883, he was riding in the cab of a locomotive near Ephrata, PA when a retarded 14-year old boy placed an oak timber across the tracks causing the engine and 24 cars to derail. He was pinned under the engine and “slowly roasted to death.” The boy was living in the woods with a gang of “notorious outlaws” and was eventually captured by the railroad police, put on trial, and convicted of involuntary manslaughter. However, sentence was deferred and a motion made for a new trial, but the outcome of the legal machinations is unknown. My g-grandfather (the one above) had three brothers, one of whom was a chief clerk for the Union Pacific’s passenger office for many years. Another, Frank K. Hain (1836-1896), is the subject of my recently-published book: Frank K. Hain and Manhattan Railway Company; The Elevated Railway (1875-1903), McFarland & Co., Jefferson, NC, April 2011. Col. Frank Hain was VP & Genl Mgr of the Manhattan Railway for 16 years, i.e., during most of its existence when it was the dominant form of public transportation in NYC. You’ll find a brief description of the book on the publisher’s website under Transportation Locomotive. Several early reviews are available by going to LibraryThing. The book is available from all major online book sellers. I am a retired operations and staff officer of the CIA's Clandestine Service. I served in Europe, Southeast Asia, and Washington, DC. I live at Smith Mountain Lake, VA.
Welcome aboard! Your recent book looks very interesting. I'm modeling a NYC harbor terminal switching layout and will feature an elevated line. Do you do any model railroading?
Thanks. I don't know anything about modeling, but my father (civil engr, PRR) was nuts about model trains and we always had a Lionel set up in our basement. Would like to have those model now, since they would be about 70 years old.
I can sure relate. Thankfully, I still have some of my dad's N-scale stuff (still runs, too!) and shortly I will have the O-scale train set that we used to have under our Christmas tree almost 40 years ago. Regardless, good to have you here! Maybe I'll bug you later about elevated train information when I get to the point of installing that part.
Hi, and Welcome to the TrainBoard, we're glad that you are on board. Your ancestoral background sounds fascinating, and nice that you have so much information about them. I think there was an active TB member a few years ago who had an elevated layout. I remember seeing photos of el trains in an urban environment. I have no idea what search keys to use for his posts and photos, but now that you're "retired to the mountains", you may have excess time on your hands.....:tb-wink:
Greeting elevatedrrman! We have a somewhat similar background. My parental grandfather was a locomotive engineer on one of the early Santa Fe subsidiaries. He was also a railroad inventor, holding a U.S.patent on a semi-automatic lubricating device for the locomotive air pumps. He also invented a coupling device for which he held a Canadian patent. My dad was a locomotive fireman while in his 20s but he lost his hearing from an accident and could no longer work on the railroad. I am a retired locomotive engineer off the BNSF. I am also a traction fan and that includes elevated railroads. In a further "6 degrees of separation" scenario, when I was in the Army, I was in the ASA. You undoubtedly know what they did,albeit under the canopy of a different intelligence gathering organization than yourself. I served just over a year in the CONUS and then about 2 years in Germany. It IS a small world!
PW&NJ and Hytec may be interested in the following: During one of my searches I came across a person in California who is building an elevated rr in his backyard. Mind you, I don't know anything about models, but his photos of the project were fascinating (at least to me). I think the site is either mylargescale.com or railblogs.com, but I'm inclined towards the former. Re freight (altho nobody asked): The Manhattan El was primarily a passenger railway that from 1880-1895 carried about 2.5 billion passengers. During Col. Frank K. Hain's 16 years at the helm, the el averaged well over 500,000 passengers per day. The el had contractural relationships to haul newspapers/mags and the U.S. Mail, but nothing more. Aside from potential weight issues involving the superstructure, the el was too heavily involved with passengers during the peak hours, and the (Forney) locomotives were dedicated to hauling ashes during the off hours at night. I think the el began a freight business after most of the passenger traffic switched to the subway after 1904. Have a good one!
For Charlie: It IS a small world. I'm well aware of ASA for reasons I won't go into here, but you may be interested to know that, early on, I took three correspondence courses from ASA during my "spare time." I was later informed that I was the only person (from my org) who had ever taken one of them, let alone three.
My small experienced in modeling elevated railroad also has to do with the world of international intrigue. I won a "news idea" contest from the Presse-und-information gesammt Lanes Berlin in 1971 and was one of three US local T V reporters flown to West Berlin. I built a do-it-myself souvenir of my trip that i called Berliner Bundesbahn. It had a non-operating double-track elevated line, based loosely on the S-Bahn, running diagonally across the top of a 34 by 27 inch layout. I made two trips to Europe and none to Medico City, and had a slide program for our local railfans group with the everyday commuter and nrapid transit trains of places that seem exotic and non-everyday to Soiuth Texans... Berlin, trains over the Berlin Wall, Vienna, Athens, Istanbul (last ten miles of the Orient Express route, past the sultan's Topkapi treasaure palace) , Amstedamm, Rotterdamm and Mexico City (human sacrifice pyramids found in the subway). My title for the slide presentation was "James Bonds' Electric Trains." Happy railroading and welcome to Trainboard.
