In reply to NickD :
I love Strasburg's "The Road To Paradise". Only thing there is the end of the line, but that's OK. This one might need explaining for folks with no map
In reply to NickD :
I love Strasburg's "The Road To Paradise". Only thing there is the end of the line, but that's OK. This one might need explaining for folks with no map
And, no, Northern Pacific's slogan of "Route of the Great Big Baked Potato" is no a joke. They genuinely plastered that on everything and sold all sorts of potato souvenirs for a while. the origin of that comes from 1908, when Hazen Hazen Titus, the newly installed dining superintendent of the Northern Pacific Railway, overheard two farmers from Washington, who were traveling aboard the NP, talking about the deficiencies in their potatoes. The potatoes growing in Washington were abnormally large, in the two to five pound range, as well as pretty thick-skinned, and they were practically unmarketable. They were too large to sell by the bag, and nobody could figure out how to cook the things. So the farmers were having to sell them for a pittance to be used as feed for pigs.
Since they were so cheap, Titus, who was a bit of an experimenter and loved bringing novelties to the NP dining car menu (which included Big Baked Apples and individually-sized lemon pies) bought as many as he could and set about trying to figure out how to make the damn things edible. It was discovered that slow-baking them at a low temperature would cook them to perfection, and since they were so big, there was more to enjoy. Also, at this time, the baked potato really was not a common or popular dish in the US. Baked potatoes were quite popular in the UK since the mid-1800s, but it hadn't really taken off in the US.
The Great Big Baked Potato was a great big hit for the NP. Offered as a side(!) for just 10 cents, and loaded with butter, people couldn't get enough of them. This lead to NP adopting the slogan "Route of the Great Big Baked Potato," and they marketed the daylights out of it. It was featured on the dining car menu cover, there were pictures of it with celebrities, and spoons, letter openers, inkwells, blotters, medallions, mechanical pencils, statuettes, aprons and postcards for sale. NP even wrote a four-verse song about it, and the ultimate publicity stunt was a 40-foot-long, three-dimensional Great Big Baked Potato on the roof of its commissary in Seattle, Washington. Electric lights caused the butter to glow and the potatoes eyes to wink.
While the slogan eventually faded away, the Great Big Baked Potato remained an NP dining car staple until the BN merger in 1970. The whole thing also made the baked potato become a more commonplace dish in the US, although with smaller potatoes. So, the next time you have a baked potato, think of the Northern Pacific, "The Route of the Great Big Baked Potato."
KC Hill has been railroading for 67 years. So far .... Was active in the Cuban Missile Crisis.
In reply to 914Driver :
Kind of crazy to think about how much the railroad scene has changed since then. When he started, not only was BNSF not a thing, BN wasn't even a thing, since he hired on with CB&Q.
Since it's St. Patrick's Day, here's some green equipment.
Burlington Northern Alco C636 #4368, EMD GP35 #2537 and Alco C424 #4240 making their way east in the Columbia River Gorge at Bingen, Washington on September 27th, 1978.
Technically a Conrail shot, but it's pure Reading yellow and green power, not even renumbered, with SD45 #7600 and GP35 #3632, with a coal train destined for Bethlehem Steel’s coke works near Hellertown, Pennsylvania, approaching JU interlocking on the former CNJ in Bethlehem. The #7600 was built with dual control stands, explaining the cab nose that was extended forward, and the #3632 was part of a late 1964 RDG renumbering to fit into the B&O and C&O numbering system in advance of a prospective merger that never occurred.
The later Reading green with yellow chevrons, applied to MP15s, GP39-2s and GP40-2s.
Green and yellow C&NW SD40-2s at the Proviso Yard engine house in Melrose Park, Illinois.
Northern Pacific F7s waiting for their trains at Seattle, wearing the gorgeous Loewy-designed tow-tone green passenger livery
Western Pacific GP20s in the later Perlmann era dark green and orange. They're stored at Salt Lake City, Utah, after WP’s merger into Union Pacific in 1982. Check out the gutted DDA40X "Centennial" behind it.
A fresh WP U23B getting washed at Stockton, CA.
A full 50% of Maine Central's RS-11 fleet in the dark green and gold that MEC applied when the company became a bit more independent of the B&M.
A sharply-dressed railroader rides the pilot of GP40 #607 as the three units show off the new, brighter green color scheme applied to the final Seaboard Air Line power.
The Central Railroad of New Jersey was one of those financially-frail railroads that seemed to think that reinventing their image every few years would save them. Quite a few of these schemes seemed to involve dark green with yellow chevrons, like these SD35s. Caught at the highest point (elevation: 1676 feet) on the Jersey Central, the SD35s with a westbound freight have just met a Lehigh Valley eastbound, and are beginning the steep descent to Ashley (elevation: 650 feet). The Lehigh Valley helper set, which cut off from the eastbound, will follow the CNJ freight west as far as Laurel Run, where they will regain LV rails to Coxton Yard in Pittston.
A CNJ H-24-66 "Train Master" in commuter service, also wearing the dark green with yellow chevrons.
Great Northern stands out for not only using dark green on their diesel paint schemes, but even a lot of their steam locomotives, like this hulking 2-8-8-0 with Cascade Green boiler jacket and cylinder jackets.
Illinois Terminal, the interurban turned freight railroad, also used vivid lime green with yellow stripes and lettering, and silver underframe details.
Chicago & Illinois Midland preferred dark green with red and white striping on their odd collection of switchers, road switchers and rare EMD RS1325s
And of course, you can't mention green, without mentioning Southern Railway and their green, gold, silver and red passenger steam locomotives, and their green, gold and white passenger diesels
Quitee obscure was the New York Central's short-lived usage of Jade Green/Century Green on their E-units. While NYC had used this paint color on boxcars and cabooses, they tried using it on some passenger locomotives, while transitioning from the lightning stripe livery to the simpler cigar band livery. It wasn't well received and they were all painted into gray or black cigar band, but one of the E8s originally painted in this color was preserved and restored to this unique scheme.
NickD said:Illinois Terminal, the interurban turned freight railroad, also used vivid lime green with yellow stripes and lettering, and silver underframe details.
I'm disappointed that I was too young to see IT's interurban lines in operation, but I was also unaware of their continuing freight operations, as they'd pulled up all their tracks on the east side of the state.
Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) said:NickD said:Illinois Terminal, the interurban turned freight railroad, also used vivid lime green with yellow stripes and lettering, and silver underframe details.
I'm disappointed that I was too young to see IT's interurban lines in operation, but I was also unaware of their continuing freight operations, as they'd pulled up all their tracks on the east side of the state.
When NS took over IT in 1982, a lot of the IT trackage bit the dust in a hurry. The problem was, as a former interurban, a lot of the system was plagued with sharp curves, tight clearances, light rail and street-running. It just wasn't very conducive to freight operaton. There are surviving remnants of the IT that include mostly the trackage in the St. Louis area and most of the Decatur Belt, and a portion of the original traction mainline exists to serve Exxon's Monterey Mine near Carlinville.
Illinois Terminal power gathered around the engine facilities, such as they are, at Springfield, Illinois in the summer of '58
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