2015

When CNL457 was cancelled, along with most other trains out of Koln Hbf on the evening of the 20th of May, the hotels were immediately filled in Koln, meaning that to get my hotel room, I had to go to Dortmund, again using a special ticket for a Regional Express there (if memory and subsequent research serves, it was RE10143 or RE10145). I didn't get any photos that night, but I did shoot this extremely early in the morning the next day. DB's solution to my problem was to put me on ICE513 first thing the next morning, at 0636, to be precise. Since this happened, my understanding is that this was not the most direct way to get me to Nurnberg (Nuremberg) Hbf, where I had to get the DB bus to Prague. The reason is that ICE513 skips Nurnberg, instead operating to Munchen (Munich) Hbf via Mannheim, rather than Hanau and Nurnberg. Therefore, I had to change in Mannheim for the bus, which actually originates in Strasbourg, and calls at Mannheim before Nurnberg, continuing direct to Prague from there. I presume this weird routing had something to do with the rail strike.

Essen Hbf is the second scheduled stop for ICE513. I can't recall if I ever had been here before, which is weird because I must have been. I've been over this route many, many times, so the question is whether I have any photos buried away.

This is the third stop on the ICE513 schedule, and hardcore rail simulation fans will now recognize this route from Jens Schubert's Railsim, arguably the best route that comes with it.

By this time of the morning, the DB stations were starting to fill up with commuters and other passengers. This stop is scheduled for a 0724 arrival and 0727 departure. Getting back to Railsim, this is where the Dortmund-Dusseldorf route terminates, although in real life, of course, it continues east.

This was the sixth stop on the route, and the last before Frankfurt. Bonn is more interesting in historic terms generally, rather than having much to do with railways. During the Cold War, Bonn was the capital of West Germany.

This sign is actually only the platform destination board showing what train is at the platform, so this wasn't taken in Munich at all. Instead, this was Mannheim, where I got my bus to Prague. This put my arrival time at 1618, hours behind the scheduled time of 0927. Controversially, however, CNL457 has since been withdrawn, as DB have decided to replace all their sleepers with ICE high speed trains. However, a number of sleeper trains operated by foreign companies will remain.

The Root Glen, on the grounds of Hamilton College in Clinton, NY, is named not for having a lot of roots (although it does due to the trees), but for Oren Root, a professor of Mathematics at Hamilton College who was the father of Elihu Root, who is usually the person more associated with the Glen. Elihu Root, was a Senator for New York (1909-1915), United States Secretary of War (1899-1904), and United States Secretary of State (1905-1909). Eventually he also studied at Hamilton College, as did his son, also named Elihu Root. According to this website: www.hamilton.edu/arboretum/root-glen/root-glen-history ...the Glen is officially named after the Root family, who maintained it until 1971, when it was fully transferred to Hamilton College

This is way back in the woods in the Root Glen. It isn't clear what it is, but the seat seems to indicate a piece of farming equipment of some kind. I'm fairly sure it isn't a tractor, but beyond that, any further information would be interesting.

During my 2015 visit to Central New York, I saw this Ford Model T woodie wagon numerous times, but I have very little idea of its history. This website seems to be about it: www.modeltcentral.com/1920s-ford-model-t-depot-hack.html However, I can't be sure, as the Model T on that website lacks a lot of this one's distinct custom features, like the cowbells hanging from the suspension. The spare tire also doesn't match the photo on the website. It occurs to me that they may have been part of the same fleet of taxis serving the Poughkeepsie railroad station. This was, in fact, the original purpose of all station wagons, hence the name. They became popular family transportation much later. The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan maintains a small fleet of these woodies so that visitors can ride in Ford's most famous and revolutionary product (the Mustang, after all, did not originate personal motoring).

This was at North Bennington on the second to last day of the 2015 NRHS National Convention, the first such convention when I didn't have a working conventional camera. This was not deliberate, as I had brough the Pentax MZ-10 out of retirement, only to see it die on the 19th of June, which was the third to last day of the Convention. I still had the cameraphone, which I shot this with, but I mostly compensated by shooting video, something I had never done at an NRHS Convention before. This was at the North Bennington end of an excursion operated by Vermont Railway diesels, both of them GP40's, which are now so old as to be almost heritage units. The lead unit is #301, which looks roughly like any other GP40, but the trailing unit is a GP40-2LW, which has a safety cab and other modifications for service on the Canadian National. www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=465198 Another spotting feature that it has is a lowered center radiator fan, making it look a bit like a GP35, which had me confused at first. In general, EMD diesels sold in Canada had a number of special features, both from the factory and through later rebuilds, including some of the earlier safety cabs. Today, these features are less noticeable, as during the 1990's most of the Canadian features were adopted by American railroads. In addition, many Canadian variants have ended up in service in the U.S., as here. The passenger stock was the same mix as that used for the Omya excursion on the previous day, being a mix of heavyweight and streamline stock, but all of it being owned (operated?) by the Green Mountain Railroad. As one final aside, this excursion was technically to Hoosic Junction, but North Bennington was the last station on the route, and it was here that this photo runby was done. My video camera battery also died at about this point.

This was on the final day of the 2015 NRHS Convention, which happened to fall on Father's Day. As a result, a special Father's Day excursion was run on the Green Mountain Railroad to Ludlow, Vermont from Rutland. The only motive power was Green Mountain #405, an Alco RS-1, which was behind me when I shot this. The coaching stock was the same that had been used for the previous excursions that I had been on.

Here's Green Mountain #405. This actually wasn't my first time riding behind this unit, as I had also ridden the entire length of the Green Mountain Railroad behind it in 1990.

I took this photo on the way to a car show in Josefuv Dul. We spotted the first antique car ahead of us on a local street. This is a Tatra 57, which would mean the model year would be between 1932 and 1936, but I wasn't able to learn the precise year. It would be an early production model (1937 or earlier), as it doesn't have the grille that later Tatra 57's had (not visible in this photo).

Here's a much better look at the grilless front end of the Tatra 57. Although this design was changed for the 1937 model year (Tatra 57's stayed in production until 1949), the initial omission was probably down to the 1932-1936 Tatra 57's 1155cc flat-4 engine, that like many flat or "boxer" engines, was air cooled. Presumably, the grille was added from 1937 onwards because air-cooled engines can still benefit from the improved airflow that a grille provides, even if there isn't a radiator. For a comparison, think of a laptop, and the need to provide adequate airflow. Generally, laptops with a lot of grilles should cool better than ones that don't have any ventilation (and we all know which manufacturers I'm referring to).

When I first saw this car, I assumed it was a Fiat 500, but Fiat, in fact, also built a Fiat 600, which looked very similar, as this one does. The 600 actually predated the second generation of the 500 (which is the one everyone knows) by 2 years. The 500 was actually a scaled-down 600 intended as one of the world's first "city cars" designed to be as small as possible. The Fiat 600, like the 500, always came with an air-cooled I-4 engine, in a rear/rear layout. The engine was longitudinally mounted behind the rear axle, showing the influence of the Volkswagen Beetle in the design process. Displacement of the engine varied, but was always less than a liter, being available, in various years, at 633cc, 767cc, and 843cc displacement. Predictably, it was a very slow car for 1955, with a top speed of only 95Km/h (59 m.p.h.), much slower than every variant of the Volkswagen Beetle, as well as most other economy cars at the time. For that matter, it was slower than a Ford Model A. Its other numbers are similarly bad, except for that its small size does make it ideal of a city. As this photo illustrates, the Fiat 600 does have enough of a fan following to be found in preservation, possibly being due to it's somewhat unusual design (although, as I said, the better-known Fiat 500 is based on it).

Skoda built the 1000MB from 1964 to 1969 as their main sedan sold to Czechoslovak workers (orders had to be arranged through the Communist Party, as with most things). It usually came as a four-door, but from 1966 onward a two-door model was also available. Like the Fiat shown earlier, the original design specification demanded a car that weighed less than 700 kilograms (a very low weight) to achieve maximum fuel economy, but the 1000MB was much larger than most cars considered compact at the time. This goal was actually achieved, as a Skoda 1000MB can achieve about 33-38 mpg, which is generally comparable to the Volkswagen Beetle, for example, which is a considerably smaller car (but heavier than the 1000MB, at 800-840 kilograms). The Skoda 1000MB was also rear/rear layout, an arrangement that was inspired more by the Chevy Corvair than the Volkswagen Beetle or the Fiat 500. You can see the resemblence to the Corvair in both the 1000MB, and even more so in the later Skoda 100 (built 1969-1977). However, unlike the Beetle and the Corvair, the 1000MB used an inline four-cylinder engine, rather than a flat four, initially in 1.0L displacement, but later offered in 1.1L displacement for the 1100MB model. In spite of some Czechs and Poles saying that the MB stands for "little pains" for "1000 little pains" in Polish and Czech, these cars actually had such a long service life that when I arrived in the Czech Republic in 2005, they were still in general use. It's a similar story to the Lada 1200, which was introduced in the Soviet Union in 1970. The Lada 1200 (as with Ladas generally) has drawn negative reviews ever since it was new, in spite of remaining common on Eastern European streets up to the present day, 35 years after the end of Lada 1200/1300 production. Today, Skoda 1000MB's are less common outside of preservation, but this is as much due to heavier taxation (on cars without modern emissions controls) than age.

The Skoda Felicia nameplate has been revived many times by Skoda, but the original production run was in 1959 to 1964. Rather than being a direct predecessor to the 1000MB sedan, the original Felicia was effectively a sports car, something very unusual in the Communist Bloc. It isn't so much that it was fast, of course, as there have been a number of "fake" sports cars made over the years that were slower than normal cars. The 1959 Skoda Felicia (it wasn't clear whether this one was a real 1959, or a later one) originally came with only a 1.1L I-4, with a front-rear layout and water cooling (in contrast to Skodas made from 1964 to 1987, which were largely air-cooled with a rear/rear layout). The 1.1L engine produced only 50 horsepower (although a 1.2L was introduced in 1961), which resulted in a 24.5 second 0-60 time, very slow, but faster than some Western economy cars of the time, like the Citroen 2CV or the Morris Minor. Whether a Volkswagen Beetle would be faster would depend on the year and engine, but it's clear that a Karmann Ghia would be much faster than a Felicia. Sports cars are often an image thing, although I'm not sure if I would have wanted to make my only car under Communism a fake sports car without a real, metal roof. On the other hand, public transportation was free in Communist Czechoslovakia, and more extensive than today, so it may not have been for "transportation" to have a sports car, or any car at all. These cars, like other Communist-era Skodas, have survived very well over the years, although many Felicias have ended up serving in the fleets of antique cars used for tours in Prague, being among the newest cars used. Many 1920's-era Skodas, Tatras, and Fords (mostly Model A's rather than Model T's) make up the bulk of the real antique cars (many of the cars used in the Prague tours are easily-identified fakes), so this makes the Felicias into outliers.

The Morgan Plus Four Plus (a.k.a. the +4+) was introduced in 1963, but only 26 were built, making this car one of the rarest ones at the Josefuv Dul show. In spite of Morgan usually building cars deliberately designed to look pre-World War II, this one featured more or less modern styling for 1963, arguably copying a bit from Jaguar. The engine was only a 2138cc I-4 with 110 horsepower, which had actually been sourced from Triumph, rather than built in-house. In fact, many Morgans over the years had Triumph engines before Truimph got out of car building. In spite of Triumphs and Morgans of that era not being very fast (more recent Morgans, in spite of their appearance, have often been very fast, with 0-60 times under 5 seconds), the +4+ was considered good for its day (I haven't been able to find specific data for the +4+ specifically, though). Its low production (due to low sales, rather than a deliberate limit) remains a mystery to automotive historians. It may have been that Morgan buyers specifically wanted a retro car, and the +4+ wasn't it.