Nostalgia & History > Racing across (when the train is coming) is nothing new

This Detroit Publishing photograph, found on the Shorpy website, shows a westbound New York Central passenger train on East Washington Street in Syracuse, NY. The date is 1905. The Locomotive is NYC Atlantic (4-4-2) 3847.

The slightly annoyed looking flagman (with the bushy beard and mustache) is no doubt not thinking kind thoughts about the cyclist who has clearly zoomed right across the tracks in front of the train.

Ray



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/24/18 04:11 by Ray_Murphy.

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Ray  

From the angle of his cap, I think he’s looking to his right, down the track.  Perhaps the bicyclist was the last guy that bothered him, but I think he’s looking at the next guy that’s about to bother him. 

My dad had a job like that once.  He moonlighted as a security guard at a steel mill.  He also had to play flag man, except at night he was to use an old steel lantern.  He said it was quite heavy.  Once a guy just couldn’t wait and almost hit my dad in the process of beating the train, so my dad swung the lantern as hard as he could and hit the car as it drove by.  He felt bad afterwards since he knew that he could have been fired, but he never heard a word about it.  

ʎɹɹɐ˥



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/23/18 19:21 by Larry020.

That wire web over the tracks is intriguing. I'm assuming those are trolley tracks crossing the NYC and that's sort of an inverted V shaped pan instead of trolley wire? Also there only seems to be one wire but two trolley tracks.

Can anyone explain what appears to be a guard on one of the trolley wires?  (To prevent the trolley pole from dewiring?  But then why over only one of the two trolley tracks?)

I checked a Google Streetview of this location.  The stone building with the turret in the left side of the photo is currently the Syracuse City Hall. 

Thanks for posting this very interesting picture.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/24/18 08:27 by RuleG.

I see two wires.
 

I love this nice crisp image. A real winner.

There’s always something interesting at Shorpy.   It’s proof that there was High Def photography long before the computer revolution came along.  Try searching for trains or railroad to see the really interesting stuff. 
http://www.shorpy.com/
Caution May Contain Nuts =13ptʎɹɹɐ˥

Just sad even back then you had idiots that didn't care about waiting a few seconds to a few minutes for a train!

Posted from Android

ProAmtrak Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Just sad even back then you had idiots that didn't
> care about waiting a few seconds to a few minutes
> for a train!
>
> Posted from Android

It's not clear from the photo that the bicyclist crossed in front of the train.  It is very possible that he was cycling on the same street in the opposite direction of and to the right of train and then turned right on the angled street.

LTCerny Wrote:
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> Can anyone explain what appears to be a guard on
> one of the trolley wires?  (To prevent the
> trolley pole from dewiring?  But then why over
> only one of the two trolley tracks?)

It certainly is an unusual arrangement where the 'near' contact wire is a single wire and a channel over the 'far' track.  

My first thought was that the channel was some kind of rigid support for the 'far' track trolley wire.  But upon closer inspection, seeing the insulators on each connecting wire an inch or two on the far side of the channel, the channel is, indeed, the contact and the farthest away wire is actually a 'backbone' wire with 'pull offs' to keep the channel and 'near' trolley wire properly positioned horizontally.

As the trolley wires go over the railroad track, there's always 'overkill' to keep the wires sufficiently high enough above the top of the railroad rail head to prevent any load on the train from coming in contact with the wires.  Growing up in Milwaukee 60-70 years ago, I remember multiple locations where the trolley bus wires crossed over railroad tracks, most notably, just east of the Milwaukee Road train station.  I wonder if the railroad had 'tell-tales' to let brakemen know to lay flat or get zapped?   As I recall, when crossing RR tracks, instead of 'simple' single wire for the trolley cars, and later trolley buses, they resorted to simple catenary construction (one suspension wire with drops to the contact wire) to ensure the contact wire was perfectly positioned.   Not only did the trolley (bus) company not want the train to come in contact with their wires, they also wanted  to ensure that the trolley would not become dewired and the car stop in the middle of the train track.  So, the channel was the solution. 

If I recall, street car wires were typically 16 feet above the rail, and raised up an extra foot of so when crossing railroad tracks.  That would change the angle of the pole contacting the overhead and require care in positioning the wire as the 'wings' of the brass trolley shoe (the part that slides along the wire) would have less contact-area with the wire to keep it from slipping off/dewiring...think of it as a 'D' shape (when viewed from the  side) and as the 'D' gets tilted more vertically, a smaller amount of the 'D' sidewall is in contact with the wire. 

Alternatively, perhaps it was a test installation to see if the channel performed better than the wire in terms of reliable operation, lower maintenance, etc.     


 

I showed that photo to a guy at the model train club.  He’s been a member for over 53 years, and he’s been in traction the entire time.  

Here’s his answer;

From Phil Gale:  The line has an energized wire cage around the trolley wire.  It was constructed as such so if the trolley pole disconnected from the wire, it will stay connected to the wire cage and the trolley will make it across the intersections.  He is unsure why there wasn't two.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/24/18 21:27 by Larry020.

The trolley safety net is exactly as was stated in the previous post - it's there so that if there is a dewirement, the trolley will still get current to keep the streetcar moving across the tracks and not have the streetcar stall right across the NYC tracks.  I suspect there was a similar guard on the other trolley wire just out of view to the left.  If you think about it, the wire guard only has to extend about to the middle of the crossing.  Once the streetcar gets clear of the crossing, and with any momentum going across the railroad, there's no need for the guard on past the railroad tracks - the streetcar would just coast into the clear.

ProAmtrak Wrote: > ...  Just sad even back then   >>>you had idiots<<<  .......
The only sad part is the AUTOMATIC assumption the guy on the bike is an idiot!

RuleG Wrote:  > ... very possible that he was .................
This is a very plausible idea, but I'll go a step further. Besides the so-called idiot on the bike I count at least 4 pedestrians (flagman included) plus the horse-drawn wagon in the immediate area of this Railroad Crossing. No matter that it's trolley tracks, it's still a Railroad Crossing. If the train is even moving at all, it's probably no more than 5 MPH. Even 10 MPH in such a close setting would be a safety hazard. But I'm betting the train is stopped at this Railroad Crossing. Especially since the flagman is apparently still walking up to the actual physical crossing of tracks. I'll paraphrase an operating rule I participated in several times during my career: 

"When approaching a RR crossing at grade your train will stop. A flagman (on the ground) will physically precede your train to the crossing. Your train will not proceed until it is known there is no conflicting movement." (As I said, I'm just paraphrasing the actual wording of the rule.) 

This is a time-honored rule that every operating department railroader here on TO will concur with. So my read is the train is stopped and will not move until the flagman has performed his job within the operating rule. Sure, that steam plume is trailing back over the train, giving the impression of semi-high speed motion. But then, why would the flagman be walking right into the path of the train? Besides, there's no reason a stiff breeze couldn't have produced this visual impression. And as for the "idiot" on the bike: It's 1905 and I'll bet film speed technology was still so slow that any motion lateral to the camera will tend to blur. Further: I've seen numerous Shorpy photographs both here on TO and on the website. And they tell me 2 things right away. 1) The photographer had top-of-the-line photographic equipment in use, and 2) the photographer was very professional with choreography & composition. Who's to say the so-called "idiot on the bike" wasn't a photo prop staged by the photographer...

Lance/199



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/25/18 09:01 by santafe199.