New Hope & Ivyland Railroad

The New Hope & Ivyland Railroad is another piece of living history. It is a tourist train that carries passengers from New Hope, Pennsylvania to Lhaska, several miles away. I’m not positive, but I think the line was originally part of the old Reading Railroad.

This isn’t my greatest photo of No. 4, which was built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works many years ago. I actually have some very nice black and white photos of this engine and her tender in both black and white and color. I took them back when I used Hasselbalds and large format cameras. The prints hang on the walls of my house. Take a look at the engineer; he certainly looks the part. I have to get a hat like that.

The last few weeks the train has been running steadily, giving people great views of the fall foliage and pumpkin patches set up for children. New Hope itself is a fun town with plenty of good restaurants, odd shops, and dinner theaters. It gets crowded on the weekends.

Published in: on October 30, 2008 at 12:56 am  Leave a Comment  
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Strasburg, Pennsylvania, USA

Strasburg, Pennsylvania is not far from all the outlet shopping near Lancaster. The town is well known for its railroad which thrills children and adults alike. On the day I took these shots, Thomas the Train was on site, much to my disappointment. However, kids love that character. I prefer the regular steam engines which make for great photography. The tower at the left was moved to this location. The view from up there is fantastic. Although only two stories tall, the surrounding countryside opens up because it is the gentle, rolling farmland of the Amish. It also gives you the perspective of the yard master in days gone by.

Across the street is the Pennsylvania Railroad Museum, which hosts literally dozens of steam engines and cars of all description. At the height of its operations, the Pennsylvania Railroad was known as “the standard railroad of the world.” It controlled much of the passenger traffic between, Philadelphia, New York, DC, and Chicago, not to mention the freight business. Using the type of engines shown below, the “Pennsy” connected the eastern half of the country with the west.

It’s hard to imagine the smoke and soot of steam locomotives. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing some of them in action here at Strasburg as well as in New Hope, PA. They may be majestic, but they’re also dirty. Nonetheless, it’s important to see such machines in action. They are a form of living history that helps us keep things in perspective. Of course, there’s fun to be had in Strasburg, such as this little steam locomotive.

This post begins a new category here at The Bent Page. Years ago I used to take many photographs of trains and industrial sights. Some of them were published in the magazines that focus on those subjects. So TRAINS becomes a category here starting today.

Published in: on September 14, 2008 at 2:51 pm  Leave a Comment  
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Working on the Railroad

In the previous post, I mentioned my short story Big Iron Holiday. It takes place in December of 1918, just after the end of World War I. Thanks to another blog, I found a link to the Library of Congress site, which has now digitized a number of panoramic photographs. I found these two that were relevant to the story. The first one shows Mauch Chunk, PA, USA, which is just up the tracks from the Central Lunch shown in the previous post. The town is now called Jim Thorpe, named after the famous athlete. This view shows the railroad tracks, canal, and a little piece of the town. If you look closely, you can see the clock tower on the courthouse, the same courthouse where the Molly Maguires were convicted. (Sean Connery was in the movie of the same name for those who remember.)

The next photo is not from Pennsylvania, but it does show a train wreck and the salvage crew at work. This is the type of job supervised by the character Ellsworth Botcher.

This was quite a violent wreck. The locomotive on the right side of the frame has its cab crushed. No doubt the engineer did not survive. Luckily, it appears that nothing exploded. Steam explosions are among the worst.

People forget how many train wrecks there used to be as well as how many people died in them. These days it’s more likely that a plane crash makes the news. However, in general, traveling is a thousand times more safe than it was in the days of Ellsworth Botcher and his pal, Ned Fry. Nonetheless, be careful out there. Or there will be a crowd around like this one shown below:

Another big THANK YOU to the Library of Congress for keeping track of all the books, photos, and paperwork that they do. If I worked there, I would never leave.

Published in: on July 1, 2008 at 12:25 pm  Comments (4)  
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