huh... a caricature of a Countach, in the new Jumanji movie (part 3) pacing a cool old looking passenger train

Allentown PA

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=27421432630831488&set=gm.1726504361630596&idorvanity=352404969040549

102 year old flat car still MOW service! It was parked at Thermopolis, Wyoming on the BNSF.

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1965640704059529&set=pcb.901221605611074

I'm amazed that people are taking the time to make art this cool, on rail cars

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=27838395872411569&set=gm.36717856511161766&idorvanity=889066631134208

you've never heard of Ike Tigrett... but he was amazing, and his grandson did something you know a bit about, he founded the Hard Rock Cafe and the House of Blues (thank you George!)

Ike's 3rd private rail car, the 50, was found by his son, and restored

Architectural Digest ran a feature on it

and bought by DeJoria, the founder of Patron Tequila and Paul Mitchell hair products in 1996 

https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2011/10/patron-tequila-express-1927-railcar-of.html is the link to the story on the DeJoria railcar, where I had posted this photo in 2011  https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeslifestyle/2012/03/26/all-aboard-patron-billionaire-john-paul-dejorias-golden-era-railcar/

Yes, I actually recognized the room... you would too if you'd been as impressed as I was by the lavish and gaudy decor

https://vimeo.com/726168299?fl=pl&fe=sh  to watch the video

https://isaac-tigrett.com/

After 20 years of Hard Rock Cafe ownership, Tigrett sold his interest, and 4 years later he founded the House of the Blues, by partnering with Dan Ackroyd, Disney, Aerosmith, Chase and Harvard for funding

getting helium to the US Navy, probably for blimps, produced by Exell, in 1943

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=3348212208699705&set=gm.872289021837666&idorvanity=751896323876937

icing up the refrigerated rail cars in the 1950s

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=4608608436040918&set=gm.873697148363520&idorvanity=751896323876937

abandoned factory, abandoned box cars... it's amazing that millions of dollars of assets are walked away from, because corporations can write off losses. Ashuelot, NH

The box cars were not worth moving to a scrap yard, so they were abandoned, and the bearings and brakes aren't up to code, so they aren't worth moving, even if they could, for use on any rail line. Only a museum might be interested, and that's not likely unless they are loaded with cash. 

 

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=4284172101896105&set=pcb.27523515223921965

this is more than just graffiti, this is art. The artist put his name in the ribs design

 https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1957806548431688&set=gm.35805424829071610&idorvanity=889066631134208

incredible that some artist this talented is painting rail cars at their own expense, and not getting hired by a railroad company to make all their cars a publicity thing

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=27495375146716639&set=gm.35732199923060768&idorvanity=889066631134208

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=26848202548176402&set=pcb.35707676012179826

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=26368925916141915&set=pcb.35745589905055103

Western Union had a timekeepers railcar to maintain the massive telegraph infrastructure that ran along railroad tracks. Starting around 1914, Western Union established specialized cars, often converted from old Pullman coaches, to serve as foreman/bunk and kitchen/dining cars for their crews.

 A traveling watch repairman was using this rail car to travel the line stopping at stations and terminals to fix employee watches and station clocks.

In 1877 Western Union first received time signals via telegraph form the US. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. after  hiring a clockmaker to transmit U.S. Naval Observatory time on the hour over the company’s network.

 A system sent signals over the telegraph lines several minutes before each hour of the day, followed by a pause and finally a last “click” directly on the hour. Every hour, on the hour, minute hands on clocks across the nation would snap to “12”, ensuring accurate, standardized time everywhere.

Stations clocks received that signal from the railroad head quarters from the master telegraph clock, keeping station clocks on calibrated time for each time zone.

The station manager would make adjustments to the other clocks and watches as needed and document the adjustments. The traveling time piece keeper stopped to maintain the clocks to keep them oiled and running perfectly, and serviced railroad employee pocket watches as well.

Yard masters and station masters collected broken watches and got them fixed or exchanged  when the Western Union timekeepers car stopped. 

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1615346316358369&set=gm.850862937313608&idorvanity=751896323876937

https://www.facebook.com/northdakotarailroadmuseum/posts/the-railroad-use-to-operate-under-53-time-zones/1205369694317342/

https://smith-wessonforum.com/threads/of-time-trains-and-western-union-history-from-a-clock-collector.529848/

cool and unusual railcar from Nov 1958 was still in use in 1996

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=969688582273543&set=pcb.853453680387867

interesting Chrysler. And those are some FANCY rail adapters posing as wheels

https://forums.aaca.org/topic/341211-period-images-to-relieve-some-of-the-stress/page/125/

I wonder how the rich figured out how to get permission for specific times to use their cars on the railroads. Hmm, well, I suppose they met at parties and talked to the railroad owners, or the golf course.

Glidden made his fortune in the telephone industry before retiring in 1901. He was the millionaire sponsor of the Glidden Reliability Tours from 1905 to 1913.

 His 1902 circumnavigation of the globe with his wife Lucy and a "Motor Engineer" Charles Thomas covered over 48,000 miles, showcasing the endurance of early automobiles. 

His Napier was with flanged wheels to operate on railroads, as those were the only roads across most countries that carried the wealthy in comfort, from city to city, vs small country towns with no luxury hotels

Mr. and Mrs. Charles J. Glidden drove this 24hp Napier automobile during several notable journeys, in 1904 they completed the first crossing of the Canadian Rockies by automobile, arriving in Vancouver, Canada, after a 3,536-mile trip from Boston, Massachusetts. 

This journey was part of the AAA Glidden Tour, a reliability run that aimed to prove the viability of automobiles for long-distance travel. The couple had previously participated in the 1904 St. Louis Tour, where they arrived in Albany, New York.

The couple’s 24hp Napier was a symbol of early automotive exploration and reliability testing, and their journeys helped establish the automobile as a practical tool for travel and commerce.

Mr and Mrs Charles J Glidden in 24hp Napier which they toured for 8 years, beginning in 1901, covering over 46000 miles, here travelling on rails with a railway official.

https://forums.aaca.org/topic/341211-period-images-to-relieve-some-of-the-stress/page/389/

I'd forgotten that I'd posted these two magazine clippings in 2019, http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2019/04/this-is-first-ive-learned-that-glidden.html

Glidden's professional career began at the age of 15. At 20, he was Branch Manager for the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company.

 He recognized early the potential of the phone together and experimented together with Alexander Graham Bell with telephone connections over the telegraph lines. 

Glidden funded the construction of telephone lines in Manchester, New Hampshire and was the first to recognize that the female voice was more suitable for the early telephones than the male. Accordingly, he hired women as telephone operators. 

The telephone exchange, which he had initiated, grew to a syndicate, which, amongst others, covered the U.S. states of Ohio, Minnesota, Arkansas, and Texas. The first long-distance telephone connection (from Lowell, Massachusetts to Boston) was established on his initiative.

In 1901, he sold his company to Bell and hit the road for adventure, with a successful trip to the Arctic Circle. 

He and his wife Lucy, stopped into all the major cities of the world, seen here in London in 1902

In 1902, his world tour took him over 46,528 miles through 39 countries and ultimately around the world twice.

The Glidden Tour trophy originally sported a sterling silver 1901 Napier automobile perched atop the porcelain enameled globe. That priceless little objet d'art vanished long ago.

 

The 1911 "Anderson, South Carolina Perpetual Automobile Touring Trophy" also known as, "The Anderson Trophy" was presented to AAA by the citizens of Anderson, SC to be awarded perpetually to the individual winner of the Glidden Tours, and was first won by the Governor of Georgia, who was chauffeured on the 1911 Glidden Tour in his 1912 Maxwell. The tour ran from New York City to Jacksonville, FL covering 1,460 miles on the then-new National Highway.

Anderson was visited by the 1909 and 1910 Good Roads Tour, (New York Herald and Atlanta Journal) the 1911 Glidden Tour, and the 1912 Army Road Test. 7 decades later, Bosch, BMW, and Michelin USA would take residence there, as well as the ICAR, Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research

For an example of what a luxury tour it was to be a part of, read https://steamboatminnehaha.org/the-glidden-tour-of-1909/ which goes into detail of how the wealthy on tour were treated to all the best each city on the tour had to offer, such as in Minneapolis.

The contestants were treated like celebrities with streetcar rides to Minnehaha Falls and spent the afternoon at Fort Snelling, where military troops met them with a full-out dress parade, including mounted cavalry and artillery men. A reception was held shortly after at the Officer’s Club before the party moved on to an afternoon horse race featuring World Champion pacer Dan Patch.

the Glidden contestants enjoyed Sunday at the Tonka Bay Hotel on Lake Minnetonka. The TCRT excursion boats Plymouth and Puritan were hired for the afternoon to give tours of the lake before the drivers retired to the Lake Minnetonka Automobile Country Club for drinks and dinner.

From 1905 to 1910, Glidden was the first president of the Aero Club of America. From 1908, he began to promote aviation. He praised the lighter than air technology (balloon flight) and was of the opinion that private planes would be similarly ubiquitous as motorcycles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Jasper_Glidden

https://steamboatminnehaha.org/the-glidden-tour-of-1909/

https://robtnar.wordpress.com/2011/09/19/1911-glidden-pathfinder-flanders-20-down-the-dixie-trail-new-york-to-jacksonville-the-studebaker-corporation-e-m-f-companies-factories-detroit-michigan/

For dozens more photos of the Gliddens on their many years of explorations, see https://digitalcollections.detroitpubliclibrary.org/islandora/search?f%5B0%5D=mods_subject_topic_ms%3A%22Glidden%2C%20Charles%20J.%20%28Charles%20Jasper%29%2C%201857-1927%22

Mill Valley, CA,1920s - Combination automobile and rail engine KisselKar of the Mount Tamalpais & Muir Woods Railway on a turn table

https://forums.aaca.org/topic/341211-period-images-to-relieve-some-of-the-stress/page/432/

interesting railcar

So, why does the line end just in front of this, and without a wheel chock? 

https://forums.aaca.org/topic/341211-period-images-to-relieve-some-of-the-stress/page/646/

I'm a little familiar with Tourist brand, brass era, shows up in museums... but this is the 1st I've seen that a car maker was making railroad speedsters

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=122188128614905122&set=p.122188128614905122&type=3

an Amtrak baggage train ended up in SoCal as a bridge

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100067811412084

In San Fran at the foot of Potrero Hill, an old loading dock and hidden behind it was an old spur track that had two stainless steel passenger cars behind it. At one time, long ago, they were going to be rented out for studios or offices

I've never seen these two images together... San Fran's railcar, now restored for the annual cool old rail car day