March 1st at the USDA and North German Lloyd Docks

A 1942 photograph of the United States Department of Agriculture building on the Hoboken Shore Railroad. (collection of author)

The USDA building in this Baltimore Sun photograph from March 1, 1942. As stated on the reverse, this is where plant and plant products are inspected and fumigated before making their way deeper into the continent.  The building was completed in 1940 at 209 Hudson Street. More photos can be found at the Library of Congress. At right in the photo is a Pennsy boxcar delivered by the HBS and at left is the entrance to the North German Lloyd docks.

 

Located near the end of the line.

The reverse of this postcard states that it "may be used for correspondence after March 1st 1907." (collection of author)

A postcard more clearly shows the entrance gate seen in the USDA photograph above. I have a pretty strong feeling that this gate is gone by the late 1950s when the Port Authority was occupying the head house. There is a different level of care about the built environment as we move towards modernity. Somehow with all the advances of manufacturing, business and general enlightenment, we can no longer afford nice things. Is that really advancement? Perhaps it is really that the advancement in society is that we have chosen extreme financial concentration over a well-financed built environment.

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March happenings

Well everything is pretty much at a standstill on when it comes to model railroading here lately. The reason, track season has started and these later afternoons are not conclusive to anything model railroading.  I literally have not spend a penny on anything model railroading. I actual need to work on that more!  Well I did get a few items done and ran the railroad.a little. That helps in this busy time. So if you don't see regular posts for the next 2 months, don't be alarmed. Spring break is in 3 weeks so that will be probably my next post time. 

The above are 2 exactrail 5200 boxcars that were BNSF. They were patched and lettered for VMID. Gotta still weather them. 

And here's a shot on some switching in Battlefield Yard. 

Until next time. 

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Throwback Thursday 26 CN Plow Run at Hamilton ON March 1984

A late-winter storm has called for a plow extra on the Grimsby sub. Here CN RS-18 #3624 pushes plow #55219 eastbound near Parkdale on March 1, 1984. Reg Button photo, author's collection.

Tonight’s Throwback Thursday takes us back to March 1984. We’re at Hamilton, ON on the first day of the month, where we find an eastbound plow run on the CN Grimsby sub near Parkdale. As if that’s not interesting enough, the power for this plow run is RS-18 #3624. Plow runs on the CN in Ontario were synonymous with CN’s bastion of F7Au’s, some of which specially modified for this purpose. As the F’s aged, however, backup snow-fighting power was facilitated by modifying a number of RS18’s and GP9’s with distinctive “snow shields” which stymied snow incursion into the fans and radiators. Interestingly enough, CN 3624 wasn’t one of them. Even more unusual is a plow run on the Grimsby sub – far more typical on CN’s branchline network north of London, the sight of a snowplow on the double track Grimsby sub mainline is indeed unusual (I wonder if CN had any double-track plows left in 1984?). Hamilton is not typically affected by winter storms to the same degree as the Toronto area or southwestern Ontario, but the Niagara peninsula does have a habit of attracting some pretty major snowfalls. So it was likely that somewhere farther east this unusual movement would encounter a bit more resistance than the trip has already dealt the plow. Any way one looks at it, however, it is quite an interesting occurrence – one of “if it hadn’t been photographed, I wouldn’t believe it” trains! Interestingly, the photographer noted “first time on the Grimsby sub” on the slide mount. I don’t know whether that’s accurate or not, but it almost certainly hasn’t been repeated since. CN 3624 itself had a fairly long career, having been built in 1957 by MLW. Aside from a repaint from the CN noodle scheme to the zebra-stripe scheme, it seems that the unit lead a generally uneventful life, reaching the Moncton deadlines by 1990, and likely scrapped shortly thereafter. But for a least one day, it must have been pretty exciting to have been at the throttle in that engine…

‘Til next time,

Cheers,

Peter.

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