Chapter Notes: Centralia (Destination Unknown) · 12:46am Mar 4th, 2022
Heading west out of Seattle is kinda complicated . . . just like getting from Michigan to Chicago, there’s a lake in the way and you have to go south first. Plus, a lot of trains is a lot of opportunities, but not necessarily a lot of speed.
Special thanks to AlwaysDressesInStyle for pre-reading and penguincascadia for sightseeing advice in the greater Seattle area!
The caboose with no windows and big porches that Sweetsong saw was what’s known as a ‘shoving platform’ (among other terms). Similar to this one:
Here’s a link to a reddit thread talking about a UP version.
While I could (and maybe one day will) write a whole blog post about cabooses and the functions they had, what matters here is that they were on the opposite end of the train as the engine. You see, when you’re doing a pushing move with a train, you need to have somebody watching where it’s going. That could be somebody on the ground with a radio, or for a longer move the conductor (usually) might be riding on the end car. That’s not ideal; he’s got very little protection.
For some switching-intensive locations, or where the train is expected to have to back a lot, sometimes railroads use shoving platforms for the conductor to ride when the train is moving with the locomotive on the wrong end. Some of those cars are purpose-built (often from obsolete flat cars), typically with large end platforms for better visibility. Others are old cabooses, often with the windows covered over since the inside of the car doesn’t really need to be used any more. Sometimes they have lights and a horn on them, and sometimes they use a whistle that hooks on to the train’s air line (Amtrak does this for some backing moves).
They’re not as glamourous as the cabooses of old, and likely will only be seen in industrial areas. At a guess, many of them were last painted in the 80s.
The Chihuly Bridge of Glass is a footbridge across I-705 and the railroad tracks; one end of it is connected to the Museum of Glass. The part of it that Sweetsong noticed is the “Venetian Wall,” which has 109 showcases of glass artwork. The bridge and museum are located on the Foss Waterway, a former Superfund site which Tacoma got cheap . . . and then paid a lot of money to clean up. Pity there weren’t any unicorns to help with the soil contamination issues.
Y’all might remember Silver Glow seeing the stained glass museum at the foot of the Space Needle . . . it’s the same Dave Chihuly’s artwork at both locations.
One interesting note: according to Wikipeida, Tacoma wanted the Museum of Glass to feature Chihuly’s artwork exclusively; he was opposed to that idea and suggested that they should get glass art from around the world.
The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus is an endangered cephalopod that makes its home in the coniferous Olympic raniforests. Logging and urban encroachment have cut into its natural range, and back in the 20s, they were hunted for fashion.
During WWI and WWII, when steel was in short supply, ships were sometimes constructed out of other materials. Wood was an obvious choice, and had been used for centuries before steel was invented (and in fact some war emergency railroad cars were built with wooden sides that were intended to be replaced with steel after the war was over). Cement was a less obvious choice, but was in fact used in a multitude of ships. Even after the war, some pleasure boats were built out of cement.
This wreck is located south of Stellacoom, and can be walked to at low tide. Presumably it can be swum to or boated to during high tide, although I don’t know how much of it would be under the water then (one website says it’s completely underwater). By photos, it appears that the entire ship is high and dry during low tide.
Locally, it’s just known as “The Cement Ship,” but I was curious if it had a name, or if there was any more information about it online. There are a few wrecks in Michigan that are visible near shore and every one that I know of has a name; some of them are just a keel and some ribs (such as the Sweepstakes in Whitehall).
Thanks to some internet sleuths on a boat forum, I did find an answer. Assuming they’re correct, she was the Captain Barker built by the Great Norther Concrete Shipping Company in Vancouver, WA in 1919. Her sisters, the Captain Colquhoun, Captain French, and Captain Hammond were lost in tow on their way to San Fransisco.
She was later used by Foss Maritime, and another internet sleuth found a mention of her in the 1953-1954 Merchant Vessel of the United States register, so she was still afloat then. The article also suggests she was sunk as a breakwater in the 70s, although given her location, that seems like an odd place to want a breakwater. [Another source suggests that they used to ship dynamite near where the wreck is located, and that’s the kind of cargo you don’t want to be loading in a populated area. Pilings from what could be an old dock are visible nearby in the satellite image, so this is a possibility.]
Here’s a video of somebody cruising up to it in a motorboat (when the tide is in):
Strangely, I’d never heard of Pure Prairie League, despite them having been around since the 60s and kind of local (Ohio is next to Michigan, even if we wish it wasn’t). AlwaysDressesInStyle called me out in the comments for not using the song Kansas City Southern, since Sweetsong was riding a KCS grainer. So here you go:
The Kansas City Southern started in 1890 as a belt line in the Kansas City area, but its founder was not happy with just that. Instead of trying to find a new route, he instead bought other railroads until he made it down to Beaumont, TX in 1897.
They spent the next century both buying more railroads to get a larger network—all the way north into Illinois, and south into Mexico; they also own the Panama Canal Railway.
Possibly this year, KCS is going to be merged with Canadian Pacific; the new railroad will likely be called the Canadian Pacific Kansas City.*
*in my opinion, this is a stupid name. Also the reporting marks will be a handful; try saying CPKC. Imagine seeing that on the side of locomotives.
i.ytimg.com/vi/IjSsH2oo4FA/maxresdefault.jpg
(artist’s rendition, not an official paint scheme AFAIK)
I should also mention that the “Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus” website is old; it’s been around since 1998. According to Geekwire, it was also one of the websites chosen for the Library of Congress’ Web Cultures Web Archive.
Interestingly, another website some of us may be quite familiar with made the cut as well.
Nice to see this chapter posted, and great writing (as usual)!
Minor error:
"one end of it is connected to the Tacoma Art Museum."
It would actually be the Museum of Glass.
Golly gosh! What website could that be?
Poniverse?
Thank you!
There's another grounded concrete ship in California just south of Santa Cruz. It was pushed bow-in to make a fishing jetty and connected to the shore by a pier. After a particularly bad storm it cracked in two and the bow and stern listed in different directions making it too dangerous for people to fish from. It has slowly broken apart over the decades, but he pier is still there as far as I know.
Ferro-concrete is a pretty good material for small boats, and there are a couple of places on the West Coast that build them.
Wouldve thought Ferrocrete was only good for the super heavies, given its extreme weakness in tension relative. Difficult to make a prestressed concrete hull when it has an open top, unless its an enclosed form like a sub or carrier?
Except I seem to remember concrete barges on canals. Sort of like the Mythbusters thin walled newspaper reinforced iceboat, but without the melting?
The world is full of coincidences.
One of my colleagues who has just retired is looking at a 42’ ferrocement hulled yacht and is heading to Sydney this weekend to inspect it. Apparently built in ‘72 and has spent the last decade as a moored home but is supposedly only in need of a tidy up and some engine work to be ready to sail. Seems ferro hulls are still a bit of a thing today. Who’d a thunk it?
Never heard of a concrete rail car though, that’s a newie to me.
Mind you, you know what they say... owning a boat is basically standing on the dock and throwing wads of cash into the ocean... same as owning a plane means you throw the same cash into the wind.
Thank you, as usual, for writing, chapter and blog post both. :)
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"Never heard of a concrete rail car though, that’s a newie to me."
As far as I know, it was actually pretty common for passenger cars in the heavyweight era to have poured concrete floors. It's my guess that this practice and it being the heavyweight era are somewhat related. :D
Ah, here's a forum thread about it:
https://cs.trains.com/trn/f/740/p/269436/3054783.aspx
...Huh. From which I have now learned about the paper passenger car wheels which were apparently widespread at one point.
Well, learn something new every day, as the saying goes. [shrugs]
5641636
You folks over there had some interesting rail stock. Over here our rail stock were far more utilitarian and I do not believe concrete floor were used commonly, let alone a paper wheel set. I had been thinking of built handlers with concrete walls like a boat hull, possibly even a tank style for liquid transport as an alternative to the steel which had been diverted to war efforts but it seems over here the railways just kept using what they had for the most part.
As they say, any day you learn something new is not wasted,
5641303
Apologies for a late reply notification, but just in case you did not know, the site is Equestria Daily
5641797
I know. It was meant as a joke.
5641658
I don't think we ever had any railway cars with more than the floor made out of concrete. I do recall concrete sometimes being used as ballast in locomotives, though.
(And I'm afraid I'm not sure where "Over here" is for you, sorry.)
"As they say, any day you learn something new is not wasted,"
:)
Thanks for the opportunity for learning!
5641300
Thank you!
Fixed, thank you!
5641303
TVtropes, of course.
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As I recall, I came across pictures of that one as I was trying to learn more about the one in Washington.
Here on the Great Lakes, we’ve got a number of old lake freighters that got re-purposed into jetties or breakwaters. The closest to home I know of is the breakwater for St. Mary’s Cement in Charevoix; their breakwater is made up of the Amasa Stone and Charles S. Hebard. There’s an amusement park in Ontario that also has two ships as jetties, but I can’t remember which one or where it is.
There were a number of sailboats built like that back in the day, I don’t know if that’s still done for sailboats but it wouldn’t surprise me.
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As I recall, for the smaller boats the hull was made up of wire mesh and concrete, I don’t know what they did with the bigger ones. Basically the same idea as a fiberglass boat, just different materials.
I was unfamiliar with concrete barges, but that would work. Yeah, just like the Mythbusters iceboat (more or less) but it doesn’t melt.
5641418
I knew they were a thing due to boating books my dad had which I read as a kid, although I’ve never seen one (that I know of). But they’re out there, as you recently found out.
And as weird as it is to think of something as un-floaty as concrete used to make a boat, steel doesn’t float, either.
Neither had I until Reese commented about it.
Yeah, that’s pretty much how it goes. My brother owns several boats and used to own an airplane, I have no idea how he managed to afford a house, too.
5641636
You’re welcome!
I did not know that.
Mind = blown.
I knew about some locomotives having concrete ballast (I think the Train-Masters were infamous for it, you could get tens of tons of ballast on those if you wanted it.)
Another thing I did not know.
You and me both!
5643225
:)
Ah, glad it came up then.
Yeah, it's not one one would expect, is it? :D
Right. The more weight on the drivers, the more traction. Up until the track breaks, at least.
It does make one wonder what else we don't know, doesn't it? What things used to be fairly common and common knowledge, that are obscure and nearly forgotten today?
:)
5643880
You probably know that some railroads used six-axle locomotives to get around axle loading problems, and I think it was C&NW that had some special EMDs (I think GP-39s) that were six-axle with one idler axle per truck in order to work on some of their branches with light rail.
I’ve found a few examples online (can’t remember any specifically) where archeologists couldn’t figure out what a tool was in a dig site, or why something was built the way it was built, and then someone told them (one I can vaguely remember was a tool for working leather that’s basically been the same for thousands of years, although now it’s made of plastic instead of bone; the other had to do with keeping chickens in the house IIRC). Some years ago I was watching a documentary on trebuchets, and the guy building one wondered why it had wheels, since all the records indicated that trebuchets were built on site, not transported to a siege. He discovered the wheels were to take out the dangerous rocking when it flung, and they let it fling further. I bet anyone who’d built a trebuchet back in the day would have known what the wheels were for, but apparently that was never documented in any surviving records of sieges/campaigns.
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Oh, A1A-A1A was actually fairly common back in the day; I don't know about GP-39s (and Wikipedia doesn't appear to have their wheel configuration), but as far as I know it's what all the E units used, at least (and that link appears to confirm that, or at least that that's the case as far as Wikipedia knows at the moment too).
Though, also, I believe another advantage C-C locomotives have over B-B locomotives with the same prime movers is more motors for the available power, allowing more of it to be used at low speed (with DC traction motors, at least). That's what slugs do, after all, add more powered axles. Of course, the same weight of locomotive on more axles does have a lower axle load, as you say, for better and worse, so if doing it for traction rather than axle load reduction, there's a tradeoff to be worked out, I'd expect.
Aye, I think I've heard of that sort of thing too, though the example I only vaguely recall was I think something to do with a knitting tool.
(And I think I remember the thing with trebuchet wheels, too, though I don't know if the documentary I think I recall seeing it in was the same one you did.)
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As it happens, Model Railroader in their most current issue (which I got two days ago) reviewed a model of the GP-39, and of course it contains fun locomotive facts! The first of which was that it was called the SDL39, which is probably why you couldn’t find it on Wikipedia.
There’s not much in Wikipedia about it (nor much in Model Railroader); they were all built for the Milwaukee RD (got that wrong, too
) Soo got them when they bought the Milwuakee, and then WC had them until they got bought out by CN, who sold them in 2001 to FEPASA (I don’t know what that is) in Chile.
The proportions are kinda weird, since it’s SD trucks on what looks like a GP frame--the fuel tank got shortened to make up the difference, it looks like.
I was also wrong about the motors; they were C-C instead of A1A-A1A like I thought.
I guess the two lessons to be learned is that my memory isn’t the best, and sometimes happy coincidences happen.
5644254
also:
static.wikia.nocookie.net/locomotive/images/0/07/EMD_SDL39.jpg
I believe that you mean "WikiPedia".
5659291
Well, if we’re going to get weird with capitals, why not do it the way that their logo does?
WIKIPEDIA
5661250
Either way, it is misspelled.
5661262
Eh, you can do that with brand names or personal names. Heck, depending on who you ask, my name is misspelled.
5661550
I suppose that "Wikipeida" can join "Pubic".
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