Good News! Viggo has another movie coming out, and it's set in 1962, it's a road trip, there will be cool cars, cool actors, and it's related to a post I did about the Green Book


Tony Lip (Mortensen), an Italian-American bouncer with a seventh-grade education, is hired to drive Dr. Don Shirley (Ali), a world-class African-American pianist on a concert tour from Manhattan to the Deep South, they must rely on the “Negro Motorist Green Book” to guide them to the few establishments that were then safe for Blacks. Confronted with racism, danger—as well as unexpected humanity and humor—they are forced to set aside differences to survive and thrive on the journey of a lifetime



"It's a true story in 1962, where this black concert pianist named Don Shirley had a tour of the South and he was afraid, as he should have been," Farrelly told IndieWire in June. "So he went down to the Copacabana and hired the toughest bouncer, played by Viggo Mortensen, to drive him. It's these two guys on the road for three months touring the South and all the (things) they run into. I'm really looking forward to it."

Farrelly co-wrote the script with Brian Currie and Nick Vallelonga. According to Variety, Vallelong's father was the real-life bouncer on whom the film is based.

This has resulted in a rearranging of film release dates, and Welcome To Marwen, the Steve Carrell movie I posted about is getting set a month later to Dec 21st, and Green Book gets the Nov 21 release date instead

http://www.comingsoon.net/movie/green-book-2018
https://www.nola.com/movies/index.ssf/2017/10/negro_motorist_green_book_movie_10312017.html

Lauchie McDougall (1896-1964) the human weatherstation was contracted by the Canadian National and Newfoundland Railway when he had determined, by "smelling the wind," that it was unsafe for trains to proceed. The thing is, he was never wrong


Fierce winds blow over the Gaff Topsail all year long. The winds at Wreckhouse in railway days were mostly known for a man who sensed them - Lauchie McDougall.

Lauchie lived in a low, wooden clapboard house on the plain near the railway track, right in the path of the wind.

 He gauged its force by how his house trembled when it blew. When he thought trains would be in danger, he informed the railway agent at Port aux Basques. The agent, playing it safe, would hold departing trains and notify the dispatcher at Bishops Falls to hold an arriving train at St. Andrews station.

 In 1950 this system of dispatching trains on the opinion of a non-railroader in a house by the tracks miles away struck the professional railroaders of Canadian National Railway as anachronistic. They decided to ignore Lauchie's advice.

 The train left Port aux Basques despite the warnings. The strong winds blew three cars over as the train made its way through Wreckhouse.


Later another, more scientific approach was attempted: an anemometer was installed on the plain between the base of the mountain and the track with a land line connection providing information to a gauge at Port aux Basques. However, when the south-east wind came across the plain it blew the anemometer away. Lauchie was definitely more resistant to the winds and so he held his job for some time.

http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/Exhibitions/Railway/en/p.php?id=42

trains, as heavy as they are, are still blown over, off the rails.... it's happened twice last year in Canada



https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/train-derailment-red-deer-three-hills-1.4359648

and in Virginia this spring



but back in 2015, the BNSF lost 3 engines... and I suspect it was the cursed SWIFT cargo containers... but, it may have been the wind.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/national/high-winds-derail-train-in-texas/2015/05/08/8ed7706c-f57c-11e4-bca5-21b51bbdf93e_video.html

thanks William!

Where cars are built has changed a LOT in the past 50 years... the traditionally located factories have become too expensive it seems, I suppose it's cheaper long term to find non-union workers, and lower tax rate countries

The Ford Eco-Sport was built in India. Well, making a car in India, and selling it in the USA is a pretty strange thing.

The Porsche Cayenne is built in Slovakia, and so is the Audi Q8

The Cadillac Hybrid CT6 is built in China

The Toyota CH R is built in Turkey

Jaguar, the car of England, ran out of production ability and so outsourced the build of the E-Pace and I-Pace to Magna Steyr in Austria

Mercedes Benz GLC class of crossovers are built in Finland

https://www.autoblog.com/photos/20-cars-built-in-unexpected-places/#slide-7386573

Thursday, August 09, 2018

a railbus for the Grasse River Railroad


Robert Mills walking through the snow towards a motor car (a converted highway bus) on the Grasse River Railroad at Childwold Station



GRR Speeder No. 11 ( on the right) on display at Rail City Museum in 1956. Both of these vehicles were constructed via the creative genius of Roy L. Sykes. The Speeder was converted from a former White bus



This little coach of the Grasse River R.R.was built with a discarded 1906 Thomas Flyer Model 31 chassis and engine, by Roy O. Sykes.

 It was called “Rolliam” for Roy and William Sykes of the family who owned the railroad, with the first two letters of Roy and "lliam" for the two Williams who founded the Emporium Lumber corporations (William Sykes and William Caflisch

https://cdm16694.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16694coll65/id/3508/rec/40
http://www.railcitymuseum.com/RAI_CITY_v_04_02_2011/Grasse_River_RR.html
http://cnymod.blogspot.com/2018/03/grasse-river-railroad-no-43.html

It was a real bad way for things to go, but in the end, the lemonade stand kid was given a $1100 riding lawn mower by Lowes! (your feel good news story of the day)


A 9 year old boy was earning, and saving his money, in order to buy a lawnmower. He only had $17 dollars when he was robbed at gunpoint.

A business card that one customer collected from the lemonade stand said Mark also works as a lawn mower, dog walker and professional ring bearer.

North Carolina authorities arrested a juvenile Wednesday they say robbed a the lemonade vendor of $17 at gunpoint, a stickup that prompted an outpouring of sympathy and donations for the young entrepreneur.

Detectives said they obtained security camera footage of a person matching the suspect’s description near where the robbery happened.

The suspect, identified as a male, was arrested without incident, charged as a juvenile with robbery with a dangerous weapon and possession of drug paraphernalia, authorities said.

Mooresville-based Lowe's heard about the story and donated a new Troy Built riding lawnmower to him. “It's pretty cool what you're trying to do at such a young age, and tell you what, it's pretty awesome to be a part of it," Lowe’s store manager Chris Beatty.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/police-make-arrest-in-north-carolina-lemonade-vendor-robbery/2018/08/08/1745a55a-9b5f-11e8-a8d8-9b4c13286d6b_story.html
https://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/national/deputies-make-arrest-days-after-year-old-robbed-lemonade-stand/5gtmkoAVrHbTXT7q4063aK/
https://www.snopes.com/ap/2018/08/08/deputies-arrest-made-lemonade-stand-stickup/

Well it's not everyday you hit a water main!


With that being said it's not everyday you see a naked man come out of his house screaming and cussing saying "I was in the fucking shower" then comes off the porch and finishes taking his shower where the excavator hit the line
*North High Street Columbus Ohio*

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=295876577813263&set=a.119387412128848.1073741828.100021727687551&type=3

Lehigh Valley Depot at Rushville, N.Y. with an interesting wagon


http://cnymod.blogspot.com/2017/08/lehigh-valley-depot-at-rushville-ny.html

According to "Horse-Drawn Commercial Vehicles" by Don H. Berkebile, this style vehicle is known as a wagonette-omnibus. It was very popular with railroads and hotels:

"By the end of the nineteenth century, as it came to be considered more practical for the purpose, the wagonette had nearly supplanted the hotel coach."

Thanks Steve!

Perry's Pride, a mighty small caboose, home made. (thanks Andy!)


Caboose No. 71 of the Grasse River Railroad (owned by the Emporium Forestry Company) as it appeared at Conifer, N.Y., deep in the Adirondacks, in 1953. Eventually this odd-looking two-truck home-made "bobber" caboose made its way to Rail City Museum at Sandy Pond, N.Y. where it was put on display until the museum closed in the 1970s.


http://cnymod.blogspot.com/2018/03/perrys-pride-at-conifer.html

So I got to wondering about the Grasse River RR.

It was an interesting shortline in upstate New York and it ran from Childwold on the New York Central's Adirondack Division, from about 1914 until the early 1950s. It had an array of motive power and rolling stock purchased second hand from Class 1 railroads and other shortlines.

The Emporium Lumber Company was originally formed in 1892 in Pennsylvania. The success of the company led to expansion in New York State. The sawmill in Conifer, New York opened in 1911 and the Grasse River Railroad, a primary means of transportation for the logging business, followed soon after in 1913. The railroad was used to haul cut lumber and traveled between New York Central Station at Childwold, New York and the Emporium Forestry Company operation at Cranberry Lake, New York. The Emporium Forestry Company was dissolved in 1950.



thanks to Andy for the video!



https://cdm16694.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16694coll65/search/searchterm/Emporium%20Lumber%20Company%20Photograph%20Collection/field/relatig/mode/exact/conn/and/order/date

teeny tiny little streetcars





For the first half of the 20th century, the Toronto Railway Company and the Toronto Transportation Commission responded to heavy ridership on certain lines by attaching a trailer to large streetcars, creating two-car trains that plied routes like Kingston Road, and, especially, Yonge.

As these trailers were unpowered, there needed to be a way to move these trailers through a carhouse and couple them to streetcars. These powered yard shunters were the answer. Y-4 was built by the TTC in 1922, while Y-10 and Y-12 were built in 1923, to pull trailers through the carhouse and assemble trailer-trains.

https://transit.toronto.on.ca/streetcar/4510.shtml