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<DIV><FONT face="Century Gothic"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Century Gothic">Fred</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Century Gothic"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Century Gothic">A minor correction. The last British
steam locomotive built for main line service (prior to <EM>Tornado)</EM> was
<EM>Evening Star</EM>, a 2-10-0 and it was built in 1960. It is now at the
museum in York.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Century Gothic"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Century Gothic">Dwight</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT: 10pt arial; BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=fwschneider@comcast.net href="mailto:fwschneider@comcast.net">Fred
Schneider</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A
title=pittsburgh-railways@mailman.dementix.org
href="mailto:pittsburgh-railways@mailman.dementix.org">Western PA Trolley
discussion</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Monday, November 11, 2013 10:40
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [PRCo] More of London (2)</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>This is only for those who care. The others may delete
it. <BR><BR>One knows only who really loves the same thing he or
she does and also who despises the subject. Those who like it
might tell you. Those who violently disagree generally make sure
you know. Those who waver to either side
you sometimes know while the
masses in the middle will never say anything. This is for
those who might care. <BR><BR>There are two guys on his list whom
I know to be Anglophiles. I once told Derrick that I had done
something so crazy as having dashed off to London, England, with my wife
merely to attend the theater on Saturday night. Mr. Brashear advised me
that he had once done the same. The other one I know would be John
Swindler, whose Mum followed his Dad home from England at the end of World War
II. John still has cousins in Britain. Dwight Long has
been there a few times. And I've been there so many times
(18 at last count) that when I looked at a travel video of one town two weeks
ago, I got that same feeling we all get when we come home from vacation
the
"it's great to be home" feeling. By the way, I get that I'm home
feeling in many places ranging from where I live to Pittsburgh or Los Angeles
or some English or German or Swiss towns. It comes from
wandering. <BR><BR>Beside John and Derrick, some of the rest of
you might enjoy some of these videos and the attached narrative and this is
for you.<BR><BR>My first visit to Great Britain occurred in August 1959 when I
had a one day escape from an army troop ship docked at Southampton.<BR>Because
I knew from an American railfan friend that London Underground was still
running steam locomotives on the Metropolitan Division northwest of
Rickmansworth, I escaped from the tour and went searching for these 1896
teakettles. Back then the we could ride behind one of the electric
engines in this video from Baker St. out to Rickmansworth and behind steam
beyond. I sniffed soft coal smoke all afternoon. (To put it
into perspective, a few weeks before I had been to the opening of the
Riverside line in Boston.) <BR><BR>The original Circle Line tube was
opened by the Metropolitan as a steam underground railway. Can you
imagine all that dirt underground? Well, if you look at the
stations today, all the air vents that allowed the smoke to escape have been
bricked up. But early in 2013 they ran some steam excursions with
Metropolitan number 1 and one of those electric engines (the Sarah Siddons)
which I rode behind in 1959
the electric was doing most of the
work.<BR><BR>But there were not options when it opened. In 1868 steam
was modern. We would not have successful electric technology for another
22 years and MU operation for another 30 years. In fact it was
extend under steam multiple times until 1884 and was not electrified until
1905. (See for history: <A
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_line_(London_Underground">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_line_(London_Underground</A>)<BR><BR>And
here is the first video
.<BR><BR> <A
href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg4GY9aKfRE">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg4GY9aKfRE</A><BR><BR>Now
the punch line
I was standing at Baker Street the following year (1960) when
a Metropolitan guard came up and started to chat. When it came time for
him to leave, he grabbed me by the arm and pushed me up into the cab of one of
those old electric engines like Sarah Siddons and I had a free ride out to
Rickmansworth and back. Then I spent the rest of the evening with
him chatting in a local pub and trying to make like I enjoyed warm
ale. Turns out I think he was attracted to how I had mounted
two cameras side-by-side to take both slides and negatives. He had been
trained as a photographer in New York City but could not find job when
he returned to London so he wound up working for London Transport.
<BR><BR>And another nice flick of the Tube in London. Unlike New
York, Chicago, Boston and Philadelphia, London has had a zone fare system for
as long as I've going over there and that goes back to the pounds, shillings
and pence days. Can you imagine looking at the change in your hand
and telling if its correct
12 pence to the shillings, 20 shillings to the
pound? They also had half pence. (A
quarter pence was called a farthing so that a haypenny was two
farthings.) They actually had some children's tickets on the tube that
ended in half pence back then. It only took a few weeks
before that came naturally but I was 20 then. It probably wouldn't be
that easy at 73. <BR><BR> <A
href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_olfhN3elog">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_olfhN3elog</A><BR><BR>In
case you are confused by the multiple rails, LT has separate positive and
negative power rails in addition to the two running rails. I think
they have the ability to switch polarity so do not assume either one is the
hot rail. You might have a standard but if the insulation fails on
one, you could easily reverse polarity. The national railroad
network, on the other hand, uses only one power rail.<BR><BR>My next thought
was to remind people of what it was like in World War II, when the tubes were
used as bomb shelters. I started looking to see what might have
been on line. Here is a great 1941 educational film on keeping the
system running in war time. You say, 1941 and wartime? Yes,
they were at war long before we were
England and Germany were at war since
Sept., 1939. Much of the equipment in this film was still
running when I first got there in 1959. By the way
you see buses in the heart of the city. London never had trams in
the heart of the city. They came only to the
perimeter. All the northern tram routes were gone by the time this
film was made in 1941. <BR><BR> <A
href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH2ZC9rbxSw">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH2ZC9rbxSw</A><BR><BR>Perhaps
the best tram film I ever saw from London was this commercial film made in the
last week of service in 1952. It was once pulled for copyright
infringement and now I found it again buried under the heading "British
Transport Films." Before it gets yanked again, enjoy, if you will, "The
Elephant Never Forgets." It's a reference to an intersection in the
south of London
think Elephant and Castle. I love the
older couple riding the top deck, maybe because I have fond memories of
viewing downtown Glasgow from the top deck of a tram. And John
Krish, the man who photographed this, was fired for taking it
he was
told only to photograph the chairman of London Transport shaking hands with
the last tram driver. He was told not to make a 10 minute film.
<BR><BR> <A
href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc9gtJndKE4">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc9gtJndKE4</A><BR><BR>Unfortunately,
there is no easy way to find videos that show people camped in the underground
stations to avoid the Blitzkrieg in 1940 or 1941. We didn't have
high speed movie films or digital cameras then. There are still
pictures out there. Can you imagine thousands upon thousands of
people who survived because the slept on the concrete station platforms
underground? There are many films of the bombing of London on
YouTube under keywords like Blitzkrieg or Blitz of London or Battle of London
but nothing that really shows how the transit system was damaged.
(Now, a lot of the items out there are copyrighted
someone puts it on
YouTube illegally and it disappears a few months later when it is discovered
the good stuff might have been there and is gone.) <BR><BR>How
many of us even know today that the song lyrics, "and Jimmy will go to sleep
in his own little room again" referred to all the English kids who were sent
to the country or even to other nations to get away from the bombs during the
war? By the way, the "Forces Sweetheart," Vera Lynn, is still
alive at age 96.<BR><BR> <A
href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwtW2Lx5Vwc">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwtW2Lx5Vwc</A>
<BR><BR>Southwest of "The City" is a place called Clapham Junction where two
railroads, the one that built Victoria Station and the one whose home was
Waterloo Station crossed. It is still one of those places where you can
commonly photograph two or three or four trains all moving at the same
time. This should give you some idea what I meant in the previous
e-mail that the Underground isn't important south of the Thames; instead its
the national network rail that fills the void. I've
been to both places and Clapham actually makes Jamaica on the Long Island dull
by comparison. <BR><BR> <A
href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjgoL0TryA8">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjgoL0TryA8</A><BR><BR>And,
as of 2012, there is a second circle line called the London Overground
sort
of like we might have a second Beltway around a city. The London
Overground is made up of national railroad network
lines:<BR><BR> <A
href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YqsdXXbwOI">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YqsdXXbwOI</A><BR><BR>This
link is specifically for John Swindler, who did sail with his Mum on the Queen
Elizabeth (or maybe it was the Queen Mary) to see Grandmum. It has
a great picture of a boat train leaving the dock at Southampton with a "Battle
of Britain" class Pacific up front and the Queen sitting at
anchor. That particular locomotive was erected in December 1948
and ran until 1967; RMS Queen Mary made its final crossing the following
year. <BR><BR> <A
href="http://cruiselinehistory.com/boat-trains-to-southampton-from-cunard-lines-to-the-rms-titanic-and-the-ss-united-states/">http://cruiselinehistory.com/boat-trains-to-southampton-from-cunard-lines-to-the-rms-titanic-and-the-ss-united-states/</A><BR><BR>Most
of you remember Chicago as a city with almost more mainline train stations
than you could count
Union, Central, LaSalle, Dearborn, Northwestern, Grand
Central. Well, London was the same kind of place but with even
more stations. The railroads were not unified into British
Railways until 1948 and some of them were merged earlier. But most
of the stations remain today. Paddington was Great Western's
station in 1854 and Isambard Kingdom Brunnel's statue is still prominent
there. Euston dates back to 1837 and served the London and
Birmingham Railway originally and eventually the London, Midland and
Scottish. St. Pancras, right next to King's Cross, was built in
1866 and served trains to the Midlands. Today it also handles the
Eurostar services to Paris and Brussels which circle the city on new
track. King's Cross goes back to 1852 and is home today to the
East Coast mainline to Scotland. Victoria opened in 1860 and
served four companies on the south. Waterloo dates to 1848 for
trains to the southwest. Charing Cross opened in the financial district
in 1864 and allowed trains ending at London Bridge to cross the river into the
City. Liverpool Street in the east handles trains going out
into the Fen country
if you take a boat train to Holland, you use it and it
goes back to 1875. And all these places are still open. And there
are a few minor places like Marylebone. There are five
terminals in about two miles along Euston St / Marylebone Road across the
north side of the city! <BR><BR>And when Mr. Swindler and I were
first there, the southern ones were mostly third rail or steam and the
northern stations were almost all steam. Great
memories. <BR><BR>My arrival in London in 1959 was a Waterloo
Station. Here is a stop motion film of Waterloo Station in the
rush hour 40 years ago. What's happened since then? The
traffic has gotten heavier and the old compartmented stock is
gone. You want that last phrase in American English?
British Railways had a lot of rolling stock with ten seat compartments, each
with doors on both sides. It has all been scrapped due to the
inherent hazards of being mugged or robbed or assaulted (sexually or
otherwise) if you wound up in a compartment with the wrong
person.<BR><BR> <A
href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPIaG644jsI">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPIaG644jsI</A><BR><BR>And
a cluster of high definition scenes in King's Cross, Euston, St. Pancras and
Paddington<BR><BR> <A
href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnFuaDntIbw">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnFuaDntIbw</A><BR><BR>And
if anyone has the time waste, here is an hour-long film of steam in Britain,
remastered from 8 mm films taken in the early 1960s
the time I
remember. The last steam engines were delivered in 1958, a year
before I first went there. The last fires were dropped about eight
years later (maybe nine) except for more tourist railroads than you will
anywhere else. Yes, it was a different world from here
vacuum
brakes back then. Most trains were so light that very few engines
had stokers. A fitted freight had brakes on all
cars. They had compartmented carriages (not coaches).
The engines didn't need headlights because, except for one grade crossing, the
entire network was fenced and gated. But the steam engines still sounded
like steam engines.<BR><BR> <A
href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXw_cQbr6Do">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXw_cQbr6Do</A><BR>
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