Astoria Oregon...2002?3? This little trolly runs up and down the waterfront in town on weekends. It pulls a generator car to provide power. At the time of this picture, this PNWR track was out of service since there had been a landslide on the line further back. This is former NP track I believe, but could be wrong. I'm not sure if PNWR still serves all the way to Astoria...though certainly not to the waterfront anymore. The Lewis and Clark train ran to here.
Cool trolley... they might be on to something there... having an engine and generator power the traction motors... next step, someone should combine the whole thing in a single vehicle... someday that might just catch on... Here's a fallen flag time traveler: S4046_PRR_Boxcar_111939_AU79 by Mike VE2TRV posted Feb 2, 2017 at 8:00 PM My Dad, Roger, snapped this photo back in August of 1979, eleven years after the Penn Central merger, nearly ten years after the Penn Central debacle... Even the reporting marks are still PRR. A bit worse for wear, but stll unpatched despite it being the Conrail era for a number of years. At Ste-Therese, Quebec depot, part of a CPR train led by two MLW RS-18s (8787 and 8791). They had just left a cut of cars next to the freight depot and were on their way west, either toward Lachute or Mont-Laurier.
Now those are some big honking disk break rotors just inboard of the wheels. The bottoms of the brake cylinders that power the calipers are visible in the upper corners of the image. The castle nuts are part of the linkage from the cylinders to the calipers. We have been rebuilding the cylinders and replacing all the air hoses to get this puppy ready to roll to Chandler, Arizona.
Impressive structure. Even more impressive is that you apparently wriggled your body under that vehicle to take this photo. Well done, Sir.
Have not cleaned anything. It is still pretty grimy under there. It has been many years since this car was in service so a lot of crud may have just fallen off.
Made me think of a Classic '70 Pontiac LeMans I had recently when underneath cakes your finger nails with grease...eyeballs too if you looked too long.
That's one of the laws of mechanics - no matter how clean it looks, the second you touch it, even with one finger, you're caked in dirt, grease and grime up to your elbows. One famous specialist in the matter is Mike Rowe. It's like that stuff is some kind of life form that migrates on its own. Natural habitat is mechanical devices, especially self-propelled vehicles like automobiles, locomotives (steam and diesel), ships, etc,. It feeds off the lubricants used by the devices, and uses dust and dirt from the environment the vehicle exists or travels in. Even if cleaned off, it will rapidly multiply and cover any exposed surface back up again.
I volunteered on a tourist/freight shortline in the early '80s and my mentor advised me that "everything on the railroad is big, heavy and dirty" and he was right!
The trackage is ex-Spokane, Portland, & Seattle RR. I've been on this trolley, it's a great ride, and the volunteer's that run it are very knowledgeable on the area and point out lot's of interesting things.
