narrow gauge Baldwin on the Catskill Route

Catskill and Tannersville Railway's 2-6-0 No. 2, a  3 ft gauge Baldwin-built from April 1901 seen soon after its delivery from Baldwin. The Catskill Mountain system lasted until 1919.

The C&T was nicknamed the "Huckleberry" and was known for making unscheduled stops to let the passengers view the scenery, pick flowers, etc. A total 5.2 miles (8.3 km) long, it connected to the outside world via the Otis Elevating Railway, a funicular that descended the face of the Catskill Escarpment, 1,600 feet (488 metres) in a 7000 foot (2134 metres) run, to the 3-ft gauge Catskill Mountain Railway. A 16 mile (26 km) trip on the Catskill Mountain Railway brought you to the West Shore (NYCRR) depot or to the Hudson River Day Line and Evening Line steamers at Catskill, NY.   (shorpy.com)

pusher tug + barge, San Pablo Bay, California

on the road

This next week will see only sporadic posts as we do the annual pre-Christmas sales road trip thing.

early Madagascar railways

An undated map. The railway lines today total 875 km.

Antananarivo station (La Gare de Soarano)

"the first railcar built at Tananarive"

The then French colony off the coast of mainland Africa began building railways in metre gauge in 1901 and Tananarive (Antananarivo) to Brickaville (Ampasimanolotra) was officially opened on 1 April 1909. A year later la Gare de Soarano in the capital was inaugurated.  Tananarive and Antsirabe were connected on 4 March 1912. Eventually a network of three railways became known as Réseau Nord.

Between 1926 and 1936, an isolated line, the Fianarantsoa-Côte Est railway (FCE), was built, again in metre gauge, in the south east of the island. The FCE was known as Réseau Sud.

The railways were nationalised in 1974 and privatised about 10 years ago.  More info here

SJ D series electric

Seen at Göteborg (Gothenburg) in August 1986. (Geoff Churchman pic)

NZ Post F-27-500 Fokker Friendship

Built in 1984, seen at Christchurch airport.

1957 International pickup truck

first of the 'The Hobbit' movie trilogy premiers in Wellington

Air NZ's Hobbit themed 777-300 which will stay in this livery for at least a year. Source

Last night saw the red-carpet World Premier of the first of Peter Jackson's The Hobbit movies, originally intended to be a single movie, like the source book by JRR Tolkien, then expanded to two and now three movies.  The NZ Government contributed $94 million of the movies' approximately $670 million budget, although GST on some of that expenditure will recoup some of it and the payoff from increased foreign tourism should recoup the rest.

The movies have been shot in 48 frames per second, double the normal speed, although apparently only about 1,000 cinemas worldwide are capable of actually screening them at that speed.

We wish the movie(s) every success.

former Great Western Railway railcar no. 22 from 1940

Powered by two AEC 9.6 litre engines of 105 hp/78 kW output; 48 seats; 36.2 tonnes weight. Now preserved operational at the Didcot Railway Centre. Webpage

A Saudi prince's custom built Airbus A380

What to do with all that oil money that pours in... This custom Airbus A380 is the world's largest private jet, ordered by Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud at a cost of $485 million.

Steam room, concert hall, garage for the Rolls Royce, four-poster beds, a Turkish bath for four, a boardroom with holographic screens...

 

 

 

 

and no ridiculous Islamic burqas here

Oamaru based 0-4-0 tank locomotive

B10, as it is named, is seen here with a train of the Oamaru Steam and Rail Group museum operation.

It was built by Hudswell Clarke in 1924 for Armstrong, Whitworth of Tauranga for the construction of the Waihi to Tauranga section of the East Coast Main Trunk. In 1930 it was was sold to Milburn Lime and Cement, south of Dunedin, where it worked until 1967 when it was sold to Waitaki NZ Refrigerating’s Pukeuri Freezing Works.

In 1989 Oamaru Steam and Rail swapped ex-NZR Dsa diesels 234 and 218 for B10.  (Oamaru Mail pic)

Danish cruiser 'Hekla', 1890

Hekla was built at the Naval Dockyard in Copenhagen with machinery from Burmeister & Wain which provided 3,000 hp. Hekla was designed as a smaller version of the previous cross Valkyrie and was followed by the two almost identical cruisers Geiser and Heimda. They were not intended to be actual combat ships, but would instead replace the ships which had become too old and slow for hard service as patrol vessels in the North Atlantic. Hekla was the only one of the three that had 15 cm guns of the same model as on the Valkyria, with a firing rate of only about one shot per minute.

Her service as a cruiser ceased in 1913, the armament was removed and Hekla was rebuilt into depot and accommodation ship for submarines. In 1915 the machinery was removed, but Hekla remained in use up until 1955, when she was sold for scrap

Length: 72.3 metres
Width: 10.4 metres
Depth: 3.5 metres
Deplacement: 1,322 tons
Speed 17.1 knots
Crew: 156

"I love to read a transpress nz book when spending time at the beach"

Kowloon to Lo Wu electric trains, Hong Kong

Just north of University Station, old and new electric multiple units pass in December 2006. If the pic is familiar it may be because it appeared on the cover of Cook's Overseas Timetable for March-April 2007. Source

Neuchatel trams, Switzerland, 1950s

The first urban tramway in Neuchâtel, to Saint-Blaise, went into operation on 16 September 1893; the vehicles were originally powered by gas engines, but in December 1894, due to technical problems with them, the line was converted to horse drawn, using six small lightweight trams, each of which was hauled by one horse. In 1897, the first urban line was finally electrified.  The system is metre-gauge.  One also notes the trolleybus in this view.

traffic on the West Boston Bridge, Massachussets, a century ago

Trolleys and an occasional 'horseless carriage', otherwise horse carriages. The Cambridge Subway (Red Line) tracks on the bridge have yet to be connected to anything.  The bridge itself, often called the "Salt-and-Pepper-Shaker Bridge", was opened in 1906 and is 1,768 feet (539 metres) long between the abutments and 105 ft (32 metres) wide.

Barcelona, Spain, trolleybuses, 1950s

one of 3 single-decker buses from 1942

Cruce de Plaza Victoria

Some info on the system and buses on this webpage

Spanish oil truck comic card 1930s

The empty lighter

leisure motoring in Norway, circa 1960

At the Geiranger Fjord with an Opel Kapitan and a Volvo 544.

Norway motorsport winter rally stamps 2007

railway accident in 1875 that led to occupational color blindness testing

Although more recent analyses dispute color blindness as the main cause of this railway accident, in which 9 were killed, the origins of occupational screening for color blindness are often traced to to this head-on crash in Lagerlunda, Sweden, on the night of 14--15 November 1875.

red-green detection is actually the most common form of color blindness

model cars made from aluminium drink cans

 

 

Albert (Tapper) Torney (1912-1998) used to go to all the public functions... especially the picture theaters and always carried a sugar bag to collect empty bottles and cans.

After he died his large collection of model cars he made from the aluminum cans was discovered. Some of his collection is above (thanks to Bert for sending this in).

1929 Ford pickup truck

The V8 logo on the grille may not be original.

traffic at State Street and Madison, Chicago, 1904

full steam through the woods, Denmark, circa 1910

Whatever speed that may be is probably not as fast as it looks.  Kohaveskoven near Nykøbing Falster.