Trans-Atlantic Rails. NRHS UK Diary. UK Chapter Officers. United Kingdom Chapter ewsletter Vol. 16 o. 5 September/October 2008.

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1 NRHS UK Diary This diary gives advance notice of NRHS UK Chapter meetings. Suggestions for meeting venues to any member of the committee, please. UK Chapter Officers United Kingdom Chapter ewsletter Vol. 16 o. 5 President and ational Director , Jillianclose@aol.com Secretary Ron Keevil Joan Keevil Vice President and ewsletter Editor Tim Bourne 1 St. David's Close, Leverstock Green, HEMEL HEMPSTEAD, Herts. HP3 8LU (Fax) nrhsuk@siam.co.uk Treasurer AndrewBiro@aol.com Andrew Biro Thames Valley Meetings Officer David Collins: davecollins68@hotmail.com Membership Secretary and London Meetings Officer 81 Mayow Road, LONDON, SE26 4AA David Elliot Overseas Liaison John White The Sidings, St Mary s Close, Hamstreet, ASHFORD, Kent, TN26 2DX When writing to any officer, please remember to supply a stamped addressed envelope if you expect a reply. From the Editor My stock of articles is again running low, particularly of visit reports from UK members. Something about the 2008 Convention would be especially welcome. Thanks for the contributions, but please keep them coming. For this issue, thanks to David Elliot for his account of the 2007 Convention Tim. In this issue A week at the 2 OTE: All photographs are by the author of the article unless stated otherwise. 12 1

2 ARRIVALS and DEPARTURES This is where we announce rail-related events of possible interest to members visiting the USA. If you hear of something of interest to other members, please tell the Editor A Week at the Choo Choo by David Elliot Pardon me, Boy is this the Chattanooga Choo Choo? We all know the song. Now I know the town a medium sized city on the Tennessee River, in the State of Tennessee and just north of the border with Georgia. And it was very hot the 2007 NRHS convention took place here in late August, in a heat wave that had most of the USA in its grip. Roadside thermometers gave out 100'F and over in mid afternoon thank Heaven for air conditioning. No wonder the Southern states had a reputation for taking life easy before a/c, who could blame them? The Choo Choo hotel that housed us all was once the city's Terminal Station. Opened in 1909 to serve the Southern Railway and the Central of Georgia, it saw its last passenger train leave in 1970, and was rebuilt as a hotel in Traces of its railroad past are very evident. The entrance is a fine red-brick arch, said to be the world's largest, leading into what was the concourse with ticket offices and is now the hotel foyer with check in desk. Above the foyer is a splendid painted dome which the hotel claims is the world's largest free suspended dome (thinks - St Paul's?), whence you can wander into bars, shops and a restaurant which looks out onto the tracks. On the six tracks are parked passenger cars, collected from all over, which are now hotel bedrooms with all the fixings. I didn't sleep in one of them - I was in one of the several blocks of rooms erectted in the old rail yard when the station was made into a hotel. (Continued on page 3) October 31 November 2 NRHS Fall Board Meeting, Chicago, IL 2009 May NRHS Spring Board Meeting, Norwalk, CT August NRHS Annual Convention, Duluth, MN October NRHS Fall Board Meeting, St Louis, MO 2010 June NRHS Annual Convention, Scranton PA There is usually a programme of events run in conjunction with the Board Meetings and when we get details we will pass them on. For more details of any of the above, please contact Tim Bourne, or visit the main NRHS web site. If you d like colour pictures... We re sorry that it now seems unlikely that we shall be able to locate a printer who will do colour printing of TAR at a sensible price for the small quantity we require. We d be pleased to hear from any member who can suggest one. In the meantime, for each issue a PDF file containing the whole issue in colour will be posted on the Chapter web site. 2 11

3 (Continued from page 2) #610 runs round at Summerville Two Northeastern Georgia diesels at Blue Ridge RHS Annual Convention 2009 Duluth, Minnesota Steam on the Range August, 2009 All the usual convention activities museum visits, steam and diesel excursions, banquet, etc. in an area seldom visited. The smoke box of a cosmetically restored , which once ran out of the station, looks into the restaurant, and next to it an ex Canal Street, New Orleans single deck trolley car sits on its track and trundles to and fro round the yards several times a day, at a dollar a ride, taking its 600 volts DC from a trolley wire. The hotel gets its publicity moneysworth from the song on top of the arch is a large sign, outlined in neon, with the word choo choo in big letters. For this year's convention goer, there were three day long train rides. On one day Richard Tapper paid a visit to the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum, while I took a Civil War battlefield tour. The first two rides were on tourist-only or rare mileage track; regular passen ger services are long gone. For the first ride we were bussed 30 miles to a wooded valley in rural Tennesse where we embarked on Above: a 12 car train with four GP diesels on the The brick arch entrance to the point. Two cars had benches and open sides, and I took a seat on one of these on days l and 2 hotel a bit hot, but always a breeze when we were moving,and I enjoyed watching the rural south Opposite: go by. There was the contrast between the old The and the New Orleans trolley car 'tobacco road' country, with rickety farm buildings and dozing hound dogs, and the new Tennessee and Georgia with modern houses, well paved roads, shiny cars and prosperous-looking people snapshotting the train with the latest cameras. En route we passed a number of dams, hydro power stations, pipes running down the sides of the wooded mountains all part of the Tennessee Valley Authority schemes put in hand by Roosevelt's New Deal government of the 1930s to make work in the Depression and supply power to Tennessee and Georgia. Duluth is the home of the Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range Railroad, celebrated as the origin of taconite traffic. (Continued on page 4) 10 3

4 (Continued from page 8) A line of cars, now bedrooms On our way south we had an excellent lunch in the art deco dining car, professionally served by staff in white coats. At Summerville, now the end of the line, the two locos were turned on the turntable there. But I didn't see this - I wandered off into the little town, rightly named today, and looked at its domed courthouse, wide streets, not many people around in the heat of early afternoon. It took me right back to the small towns out on Long Island I remember from the 1940s. Much has changed since then; but not the look of an American small town in the afternoon heat. (Continued from page 3) I was intrigued by the grade crossing protection. Some main roads had the modern alternating red lights, which I dare say are only used three or four times a day at best; others had simple wooden crossbars on posts. There can't be much danger; the tourist trains do a maximum 25 mph and the odd freight probably less. In the hotel yards was a curio - a 'magnetic flagman' as it was called, in which a red light on a péndulum swung to and fro as a train approached. Right: The retired Magnetic flagman Our first day's trip on old Louisville and Nashville track took us round the Hiwassee Loop. Our train, deep in the woods, ran under a timber bridge; ten minutes later, after a stiff climb that stressed the diesels, we ran over the same bridge. Our first day's run ended at Blue Ridge, a former copper mining town in Georgia, some 40 miles south of our start-point, whence we were bussed back to the Choo Choo. Next day we were bussed to Blue Ridge, for a rare mileage run down another 40 miles to Tate, end of the line now. We rolled through a working cement works, covering us in white dust, and saw the new curse of the south, kudzu. This is a harmless looking ground-cover plant, imported some years ago but it has got out of hand, covers everything, and is impossible to get rid of. Like ivy it climbs everything it meets, making trees look like monsters from an SF film, and finally choking the life out of them. Northern states are so far protected by kudzu's inability to stand hard winters; but global warming may give it the green to spread north. Left: Dinner in the diner (Continued on page 5) 4 9

5 (Continued from page 4) My battlefield day started with a run up the 'Inclined Railway' which runs from Chattanooga up the side of Lookout Mountain, a big hill overlooking the city. The 'Inclined Railway' calls itself the steepest cable hauled balanced car line in the world, and I can believe it. The track runs on a gentle slope for 1/2 mile, then turns sharply uphill to the summit of Lookout Mountain, site of a Civil War battle in The line announces itself as 'The safest railway in the world: no passenger injured, much less losing his life, since the line was opened in At the top is a Civil War museum, with paintings and a diorama of the battle. We saw a demonstration by a volunteer dressed as a Rebel a Southerner, a Confederate soldier loading and firing his muzzle-loader rifle, discharging his round over the city hundreds of feet below by the curving Tennessee River. Next we bussed to Chickamauga, site of a fierce battle which preceded the one on Lookout Mountain. As often happened in the war, bravery and good generalship gained a tactical victory, but the South did not have the resources to turn it to strategic advantage, and Northern reinforcements soon pushed the 'rebs' out of Chattanooga and secured it for the North. The run-by, with TVR high-nose #1829 assisting (Continued from page 7) Once all are assembled, the train backs out of sight, toots its whistle, and charges madly past the photoline. Then it may back up and do it all again. You don't have to take part - you can sit on the train and wave to those standing below. Our put on a good show. Note the tall pile of coal in the bunker. No mechanical stoker on this machine; it must have been very hot for the crew on the footplate. (Continued on page 9) The battlefield, some 15 miles out of the city, now wooded parkland is, unlike most European byattlefields, studded with memorials to those who fought there - statues of generals, memorial stones to regiments from all over the country. One asked why the northern ones so outnumbered the southern; to which a southerner replied wryly "I guess the north had the money". On the way back we dropped in at Chickamauga station, built after the war but still a relic of the late 19th century. Inside was a small museum full of railroad oddities, including a battered copy of 'The Wonder Book of Railways' of which I had a copy when I was a boy. (Continued on page 6) Kudzu, the curse of the South. Chichamauga station, ex-central of Georgia 8 5

6 (Continued from page 6) Running past a TVA hydro plant (Continued from page 5) Next day we had the usual sesssions of lectures and meetings. Just before the evening banquet we watched (from indoors) the one thunderstrom of our visit. It tipped down for five minutes with flashes and bangs - then stopped - and it was as hot as ever ten minutes later. (Continued on page 7) Saturday's final trip was by steam and diesel. A 12-car train different cars this time - was backed gingerly onto one of the hotel tracks, and we piled on. On the point was a a small engine by US standards. Richard Tapper had ridden behind it earlier, and got its details. It was built in one of the last steamers to be built in the USA by Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton for the US army, and its cab was squeezed down to fit European loading gauge. But it never crossed the ocean. Acquired by the TVR museum, its cab waas enlarged to US loading gauge, and it has run in museum service since It has two four-axle tenders to solve the water problem. Backing it was a smart red high nose GP7 diesel, also belonging to the TVR. I took a seat in a stainless-steel 'Budd Car' that had once seen commuter service on the Baltimore and Ohio, and as the day passed I was glad of its not quite-perfect air-conditioning. We crept cautiously out of the hotel yards, past an old 'tower' (now used by gardeners) and onto the Norfolk Southern double track that runs nearby; after some manoeuvring we set off on the single-track of the former Central of Georgia. on our way south, 45 miles to Summerville. Once out of town, we stopped for the first of several 'photo run bys'. These ceremonies are peculiar to US railfan trips and are carried out with military discipline, often wifth a self appointed 'run bymaster' to act as sergeant-major. It makes me smile to see freedom loving Americans submit to being ordered around on the field of photobattle. A line of photographers forms, at an angle to the track so that everyone gets an uninterrupted view. Heaven help him or her who strays out of line; I was once ticked off for talking it interfered with someone's audio-record of the locomotive. (Continued on page 8) The elegant ex-l&n station at Ellijay, Georgia #610 does the run-by 7