Back in the 1920s, the New York Central advertised its passenger trains as being "The Great Steel Fleet." Some sand house wags called the nearly all-wood fleet of the New York, Ontario & Western "The Great Splinter Fleet."
Here is IRM's "Great Splinter Fleet" which has recently grown by two more cars. Here we see the 309, 308, and 319 at Schmidt Siding on July 4, 2010 as we awaited our orders for the IRM Trolley Pageant.
7 comments:
wishes this blog had a "like" button like Facebook when I see pictures like this one....
That's OK, Ben, we know you like us. You're a friend from way back.
I'm a reader of old "Trains" magazines from the 1960s and 1970s. I always liked how Editor David P. Morgan put the little photo and a reflection as an ad just above the renewal/subscription slip. I decided to copy it for the blog, photos and a short thought.
What's the plan with the induction coils in the lower right corner of this photo?
Actually I think those are what we call "impedance bonds" and they are necessary for proper operation of our signal system. The bond is placed between the rails to allow proper return of DC current when no train may be in the block, and yet not trigger a false occupied signal. The signal guys are responsible for placement and bonding of these and the ones in the photo likely removed during the track upgrades and maintenance at that location.
Bob Kutella
It is hard to tell in the photo, but the impedence bonds shown may actually be installed there. While a lot of interurbans placed them between the rails at Insulated joints, IRM practice is to place them off to the side of the tracks. As Randy mentioned, they allow the DC current to pass the insulated joints and return to the substation, while the AC signal circuits in the adjoining blocks cancel each other out.
Actually, it was Bob who said that. I would have said something like this: "An inductor introduces a reactive impedance which is proportional to the effective frequency of the impressed emf, and therefore attenuates the AC component..." but Bob's explanation is probably more easily understood.
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