The Railfans of Simtropolis

[Jazzmaster 716]

The Railfans of Simtropolis

I know there are definitely railfans in this community; I've seen some absolutely brilliant work being shown involving SimCity 4 railroads. So, I'd like to make this a thread where we can show all of our favorite and inspirational railroads/model railroads from real life. Pictures, videos, it doesn't matter! Also, discussions about railroading news like mergers is perfectly acceptable. Allow me to start off with some original photos from my Midwestern venture this past summer:

South Bend/Mishawaka, Indiana

This is the black horse territory now, but it was formerly an old Conrail Line. I've witnessed a lot of foreign power along this route, including Union Pacific, Canadian Pacific, SOO, and BNSF. I've also been told Amtrak uses the line, but it's a very abrupt passing through that I've yet been graced to see. It's also worth mentioning that because the line is so heavily used (I counted at least one train every hour), the town of Mishawaka ordered all crossing within limits to be silenced. Heavily guarded otherwise, but I definitely missed the horns and bells.

The South Shore Line, which is among two remaining interurban railroads in the country. It goes directly from South Bend Regional airport to Millennium Station in downtown Chicago, which is quite convenient:

Chicago, IL

A CTA train amongst a steel, glass and concrete jungle:

A classic Metra F40PH

And as a bonus, some videos from Mishawaka/South Bend. My apologies for the rather unprofessional quality of the first two. The first video I shot made it very hard to stay balanced; such a long, fast and powerful train!

  Edited December 4, 2011 by Yoshiisland  

[x493x 446]

It's about time that Simtropolis got a thread like this.

Here is a beautiful picture (not mine). I had the pleasure of staying in this area during a rafting trip, which I rafted the river seen on the picture which was awesome. The area is really cool with railway tracks on both sides of the river hosting trains (passenger but mostly freight) almost every half an hour. When we were rafting we had a passenger train pass by us and all of the windows were filled with people and their cameras. It is a really beautiful area and is a must see cool experience for any train lover. But if you have a hard time sleeping don't camp near the tracks like I did. We were very near to the tracks (great views) but even at night the roar of the engine and metalic squeak of wheels on rail curves isn't for the light sleeper. Location is Lytton, BC, Canada. I recommend going there.

  Edited December 3, 2011 by x493x  

[BIWDC 2,296]

Nice pics,This is a good idea.I really need to get some pictures of the NS trains

running past here,if i go down to the end of our road it's a great place for pictures

as the tracks are right there.I just have never done it yet but the trains run round the

clock every few hours.

[Cobraroll 138]

http://nrkbeta.no/2009/12/18/bergensbanen-eng/

Here's a recording of Bergensbanen, going between Bergen and Oslo. The trip takes some seven hours, and the Norwegian National Broadcaster covered it in its entirety. The file is some 246 GB, but hey, it's seven hours after all.

Apparently one third of the population watched some of the program the day it was broadcasted, and an estimated 300,000 watched the trip in its entirety. For those of you who have better things to spend half a day on, there's a ten-minute clip in that link too, which shows perhaps the most interesting stratch of the trip, over the mountain at Finse. Fun fact: That's where they recorded the Hoth scenes in Star Wars Episode V.

[Jazzmaster 716]

I'm glad to see some interest taken in this thread!

Here's one of my favorite locomotives; it's not my picture, but it can be found on DeviantArt here [link]. I think the dash-8's look wonderful in that BNSF 'Home Depot orange'.

  Edited December 6, 2011 by Yoshiisland  

[TekindusT 3,809]

Dash-8's look great in almost every livery...

[Duke87 1,070]

There are many great stations on the New York City subway that provide for interesting shots. Here's Whitlock Avenue on the (6) Train in the Bronx.

This is from Tottenville, the southern terminus of the Staten Island Railroad. I have a thing for these sort of single-point perspective pictures.

Metro-North's new M8 railcars are sexy.

This picture is from the Toronto Subway (a.k.a. "The Rocket"). I was just trying to take a picture of the signs, but then I went to do so and the train pulled into the station. And presto! Accidentally got something far more artistically interesting.

  Edited December 18, 2011 by Duke87  

[Odainsaker 2,134]

I always had a romanticist fascination with the Ajia-gou, or "Asia Express," which Imperial Japan ran through their Manchukuo puppet state in Manchuria from the port of Dairen (Dalian) to the capital Hsinking (Changchun) during the 1930's and 1940's. As both Asia's and even one of the world's fastest luxury train, this was the streamlined project showcasing the industrial triumph of the New Order in East Asia under Japan's modernizing benevolence...or so the propaganda would tell us. Travellers on the Asia Express arriving at Hsinking would find a scratch-built imperial capital of broad boulevards and stately government palaces--a theater set for the so-called Great Manchu Empire.

Resource-rich Manchuria was turned into one of the world's most productive industrial powerhouses, tightly controlled as a military-industrical complex headed by the Japanese expeditionary Kwangtung Army and operated by Mantetsu, the South Manchurian Railway. Sadly, behind the veil of modernization was brutal colonization, first heralded by a railway bombing plot widely-believed staged by Japanese agents along the route and blamed on Chinese terrorism as a pretext to invade northern China. Like the famous Orient Express in Europe, the Asia Express and its Agatha Christie complement of celebrities, industrialists, politicians, military officers, war criminals, and foreign spies was a travelling hotspot of intrigue and conspiracy, all set amidst fashionable Art Deco styling.

Art Deco, traditional kimono, sparkling spectacles, and French waitress uniforms...it's a fetishist's fantasy on rails!

Just do not peer too carefully into the countryside outside the picture windows, for there are activities civilians were never supposed to see. Beyond the actual slave labor factories and chemical and biological weapons camps, fanciful cloak-n-dagger stories hint at rumored atomic weapons testing in the remote regions of Korea and Manchuria, dramatized by blinding flashes streaming through the coach windows as the train speeds through the tense nighttime darkness. Tom Clancy thrillers aside, there was always the real danger that any of the other passengers could be undercover agents of the dreaded Kempeitai--the Japanese secret police.

After the atomic bombings of Japan, the Soviet Union swiftly invaded and overran Manchukuo, prompting collaborationist officials, colonial courtiers, and the Last Emperor's family to flee Hsinking in desperate panic along the railways of Mantetsu. This mass exodus of the puppet government would be cut off and captured by the Red Army, and we can only imagine that some took to this doomed last escape aboard the super-streamlined later model Asia Express before being hauled off by Soviet and Chinese Communists to internment and trial.

The pre-bullet Asia Express and the Mantetsu system was dismantled and carted off as war spoils. What little remains are now museum relics.

Today we have the wonders of modern Japan and its astounding bullet trains, for which I always did like this series of YouTube videos by nailszz6 showing a Hikari 700 Shinkansen ride from Kyoto Station to Shin-Osaka Station. It's 16 minutes of Godzilla playground, a treat for urbanist fans...or perhaps it is really just a giant cardboard model:

Part 1 - leaving Kyoto

Part 2 - Kyoto-Osaka sprawl

For the sake of completion, here is the final arrival at Shin-Osaka uploaded by ichibanjp

Megasprawl is just too cool...here is a Nozomi Shinkansen arrival at Nagoya Station by ichibanjp, complete with smoothly decelerating engine hum and trick ending. Of couse, we must also see the Tokyo metropolis itself, part of which can be admired in this Shinkansen arrival into Tokyo Station video by cutehashi--we even got to see a monorail, Kenzo Tange's Shizuoka Press & Broadcasting Center, and the curve of the Tokyo International Forum. Too bad we also had to listen to that godawful music!

The classic Tokyo rail scene is the old-yet-infamous Crushing of the Commuters:

Omigod, how far we have come from the luxurious Asia Express!

  Edited December 10, 2011 by Odainsaker  

[Jazzmaster 716]

TekindusT: This is quite true!

Duke87: Cool shots, I really enjoy the infrastructure of the first one, as well as the snow melting off to the side...really adds a nice touch. And you're not alone with the one point perspectives...those somehow never cease to make interesting photography!

Odainsaker: That was a lot of interesting information in your post, and it was all very enjoyable to read! I honestly had no idea that Asia had its own equivalent to the Orient Express, but it's really cool to read about old steamers like that. There is quite a bit about them to be fascinated by.

And as for the Shinkansen, that's definitely one of the coolest trains in the world. I loved watching your videos! It did sort of remind me of what happened in the Land of the Rising Sun not too long ago...I hope that things have gotten much better since then.

The other day when I just got out of a class, I was able to race down to the tracks and catch a nice little gem. Here's a lashup of a couple CSX units, GP38-2 #6060 and GP39-2 #2617 getting ready to do some switching work at Brenntag Chemical Plant in Clearwater, Florida. (P.S., the locomotives were not moving when I stood in front of them to take a photograph. I understand how terrifying it is when engineers see people doing dumb things like that, and I would never add to such a burden):

[Odainsaker 2,134]

I'll have to post some San Antonio trains, but first, courtesy of kaki3939...

...Omigosh, they are crazy...Runaway Trains! That's the same speed the "Silver Streak" went in smashing into Chicago Central Station.

I often dangle the idea of the future "Texas Tokaido," put I am going to have to suppress that video lest it scare off the more conservative public investors. It's hard to convince state officials to invest billions of dollars on proven technology when they are just too afraid that the freakily hissing air will suck passengers off the platforms and into the tracks where they will be creamed by multiple speeding bullet trains.

  Edited December 10, 2011 by Odainsaker  

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

To be honest, the first time I stood on a platform whilst a high-spped train flew past express, it scare the bejesus out of me.

I live in a country where there is poor railroads, and my Germany trip was an eye-opener.

[Jazzmaster 716]

Very nice video, Odainsaker! The Silver Streak clip brings me back to childhood; that exact same train was in a children's book that I still own!

ROFLyoshi: I've always wanted to see the ICE up close and personal, as well as other German trains.

Anyways, never get tired of watching the Shinkansen, I love listening to the sounds of streamlined trains with pantograph technology. The X60's in Sweden sound like spaceships, I swear...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_WiEsEFXEI&feature=related

And only the American side of the pond, here's a CSX train doing a fantastic horn salute in the otherwise silent twilight air of Selma, NC. The intersection is really taking a pounding; you can hear how noisy the equipment is as it rattles over the perpendicular crossing showed in the beginning:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UQbd5yxQJ8&list=FLgfzAmunL2x99ATQgHZhnVw&index=29&feature=plpp_video

  Edited December 15, 2011 by Yoshiisland  

[Alejandro24 575]

Yeah, I'm a railfan. I like the rails and the trains. Surely is the future. But my inspirations for the railroads at SC4 are this:

The two pictures above are the railyards in the industrial zone Cruz del Sur in Guadalajara. At the horizon, Chapultepec-Lafayette skyline, a growing cluster of skycrappers.

I really like the machines of Ferromex, I want to do the automata for SC4, but I don't know what to do.

  Edited December 15, 2011 by Alejandro24  

[hamsterTK 93]

Neat

My parent's house is a few houses down from the tracks, so I'd basically have seen trains every day (up to 30 per day, in fact) from the kitchen window. I think it is technically the UP Bryan subdivision, lots of stuff rolls through. Lots and lots of those gray hopper cars, but occasionally a train carrying autos or a long string of gondolas full of metal beams and pipe going to a local steel company. Sometimes more interesting things show up, I once saw a train consisting of 3 locomotives, a tank car, and a humongous articulated flatcar hauling some kind of heavy power transformer. It was so big it almost clipped the various signals and trees along the tracks. Now you know why those electrical transformer stations have rail spurs!

Then moving to a dorm and apartment for college, I ended up by the tracks again in the center of a town with big rail junction. This time much more interesting train traffic-everything from Amtrak to heavy equipment and military tanks and humvees on flatcars. If in some unlikely event the aforementioned "Texas Tokaido" dream mentioned by Odainsaker ever came true the line would pass right through the area. Of course it was never fun being late for class when a mile long cement train rolling onto a siding at 10 mph decides to basically cut the entire town in half.

Ah well, where I will probably move next doesn't have any operational railroad tracks

I really like the machines of Ferromex, I want to do the automata for SC4, but I don't know what to do.

Those are neat. Here north of the border I have seen Ferromex, KCS Mexico, ex-TFM, and even some former NdeM units wearing their old paint. No Ferrosur sightings yet, but then if FerroMex merges with them I'm sure a few locomotives that haven't been repainted will be running around up here.

Also, you know that failed railway upgrade/electrification project around Mexico City from the early 1990s, the locomotives that were bought for it ended up being used here in Texas on the lignite coal heavy haul lines up around the towns of Longview and Marshall.

I'll have to post some San Antonio trains,

Do you have any recollection of that interurban trolley engine that ran on the spur to the now closed/redeveloped Pearl Brewery? Its on display in a park now.

AFAIK it was operating up into the 90s? my old rail atlas shows it and it was revised in like 2001. I remember seeing it at that big rusty depot among the mothballed passenger cars and other cool things, but I don't know if was still hauling cars.

  Edited December 16, 2011 by hamsterTK  

[Jazzmaster 716]

Here's a great article [link] about one New York Times reporter's thoughts about the Silver Star, which runs from my hometown to Manhattan. I was going to take this train this weekend because it stops in Orlando, but it runs too late in the day for our plans, and the only earlier travel Amtrak offers is by bus (which is not nearly as cool as riding in a train, IMHO).

Instead, I'll be driving on Interstate 4, which is the same exact right of way that was going to contain the rejected HSR project from Tampa to Orlando. I swear I get a little sad everytime I see the would-be rail carrying median..

  Edited December 17, 2011 by Yoshiisland  

[Duke87 1,070]

America will never see true high speed rail unless construction costs drop to be more on par with those seen in Europe and Asia. It will never be affordable otherwise.

The first segment of the second avenue subway in New York City, for three new stations along less than two miles of two-track subway, is going to cost over $3 billion... nearly seven times the cost of similar projects in Europe.

If you wonder why we're not building stuff, that's why.

[Jazzmaster 716]

America will never see true high speed rail unless construction costs drop to be more on par with those seen in Europe and Asia. It will never be affordable otherwise.

The first segment of the second avenue subway in New York City, for three new stations along less than two miles of two-track subway, is going to cost over $3 billion... nearly seven times the cost of similar projects in Europe.

If you wonder why we're not building stuff, that's why.

It's no wonder why. Spending is an incredibly big subject when money feels so rare these days. I think it would've been 'cool' to have a train from Tampa to Orlando, but I honestly wouldn't still live here when it finished construction (probably). If I did, though, I'd definitely use it, and it would make Orlando feel much more accessible than that 2-3 hour Interstate jaunt (in good traffic). We all have to make sacrifices somehow, though.

Other countries construct their high speed rail networks from subsidization. This is a very socialist concept to the citizenry of the US, and the majority of us simply don't care for it.

I think, however, that if we aren't going to make use of high speed rail or other methods of transportation, we should be fixing our current infrastructure. That of course comes with a high price tag, but so would waiting for even more bridges to collapse and levees to fail.

  Edited December 18, 2011 by Yoshiisland  

[Alejandro24 575]

I really like the machines of Ferromex, I want to do the automata for SC4, but I don't know what to do.

Those are neat. Here north of the border I have seen Ferromex, KCS Mexico, ex-TFM, and even some former NdeM units wearing their old paint. No Ferrosur sightings yet, but then if FerroMex merges with them I'm sure a few locomotives that haven't been repainted will be running around up here.

Also, you know that failed railway upgrade/electrification project around Mexico City from the early 1990s, the locomotives that were bought for it ended up being used here in Texas on the lignite coal heavy haul lines up around the towns of Longview and Marshall.

No, I didn't know about the upgrade around Mexico City, I will search more about it.

More trains from Mexico:

Paseo en tren por los alrededores de México is a paint by José María Velasco, this paint shows a Train crossing the mountains. Shows the boom of the railways in Mexico during the governments of Porfirio Diaz.

In the Mexican Revolution (Revolución Mexicana) the railways were important for the spreading of armed struggle against Porfirio Diaz.

Conmemorative bill showing a revolucionary train.

Before the revolution the railways companies were merged in one company managed by the government: FNM, Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México.

The story of the railways didn't changed too much untill the 90's, when the privatization of the railways conducive the appearing of another companies, as Ferromex, KCS and Ferrosur.

A classical NdeM.

Ferromex.

KCS de México.

Ferrosur

These companies are only for cargo. There are not passenger rails in Mexico, only there are 2 companies for touristical purpuoses: Chihuahua-Pacífico (or Chepe) and Tequila Express.

Both above: Chihuahua-Pacífico.

Both above: Tequila Express.

I'm looking for all the urban rails in Mexico, so that will be the next post.

[Jazzmaster 716]

I don't want this thread to die completely, especially since all of the posts above me have been wonderful high quality stuff!

The picture above me is something I took this past summer, and I really liked this shot and how it was aligned and wanted to share it after finding a long-lost SD card. From DeviantArt:

Taken at the same place, about an hour or two after the photo for A Chicago Classic [link] was taken.

For those who don't know of the technology, this is actually the front of the train. It's operated in a small cab inside of the car (the widest used name for this is cab car). From there, the engineer has complete control over the locomotive, which is pushing from the rear. This is very time effective because the entire train is free to move forward and backward and the engineer can change positions very easily. In Chicago this may be beneficial to those without a strong sense of direction; a train headed locomotive forward is heading for the suburbs, and a train headed cab car forward is chugging back to the city.

[DavidB_ 83]

Just come across this thread, it's good. My hometown (I live near Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, England) has had quite a rich railway history, with the modern day ECML (I hear the InterCity 225 sets within 2 miles!) running right past. We've had LNER and their record-breaking steam trains, Deltics, HSTs (InterCity 125, officially the fastest diesel trains in the world), and our current IC225s (descended from the Advanced Passenger [tilting] Train). We will soon be recieving new OHLE/Diesel high-speed trains with Japanese technology (IEP), accompanied soon by Chinese Polaris trains. We also have three types of 1980s-1990s suburban commuter EMUs, soon to be consolidated and replaced by brand-new (controversially chosen) german-manufactured Siemens 'Desiro City' Thameslink trains. We also have the oldest EMUs in operation on the British railway, the first dual-voltage OHLE/third-rail trains in Britain, for inner suburban services to Moorgate. Plus, the Kings Cross redevelopment will be complete soon! Talk about a history...

[T Wrecks 10,209]

To be honest, the first time I stood on a platform whilst a high-spped train flew past express, it scare the bejesus out of me.

I live in a country where there is poor railroads, and my Germany trip was an eye-opener.

You probably witnessed a scene like this? This video was taken from a little station alongside an express rail line I have travelled myself many times. For a long time, it runs parallel to a motorway without speed limit, and it's an odd feeling when you sit in that train leaning back and reading a book and think to yourself "That BMW on the left lane is probably doing some 200 km/h, and we're overtaking it effortlessly". You can even see the Autobahn in the background in this video.

This one is also quite nice.

From the driver's perspective, it looks like this.

And finally, here's a nice video of an ICE high-speed train entering a tunnel.

[Alejandro24 575]

I don't want this thread to die completely, especially since all of the posts above me have been wonderful high quality stuff!

...

Thank's for revive this thread. I don't know how I forgget it.

Continue with rails in Mexico... Urban Rails. Unfotunately there are not too much to show .

Metro of Mexico City

Suburban of Mexico Valley

Metro of Guadalajara

Metro of Monterrey

In the country there are many projects of Metropolitan and Urban Railways, for Acapulco, Cancún, Mérida, Tijuana, etc... but the problem is the the federal government don't want to take out investments from Mexico City, the metro system of Mexico City is builded with federal money, with the money of all the country. This really dislike too much, they're going for the line number 12, while the others cities can't build another lines because the state and municipality can't put all the resources, they need help from the federal government. But this is not a obstacle, another cities like León, Chihuahua, Ciudad Juárez, Tuxtla Gutierrez, etc... So this is all, there are not more to show, hope so in the future the main cities could build his metro systems.

  Edited January 24, 2012 by Alejandro24  

[Odainsaker 2,134]

Omigod! Squeal!!!

We're Not Worthy!!!

L'Arc~en~Ciel, Our Favorite Japanese Rock Band, will play in New York's Madison Square Garden arena on March 25 in what will be the band's 20th L'Anniversary World Tour. It will be only the second time they have played in the U.S. during their 20 year. My friends and I must make the pilgrimage from San Antonio, and some of them have phobias against flying!

Flying and airport coaches would be the swiftest and least epxensive means of travel, but for amusement, I have been floating the idea of...

The Great American Rail Adventure

San Antonio to New York City via Chicago

("Sunset at Sunset Station" by Doug Ohlemeier on RailroadForums.com)

We would have to take Amtrak's Texas Eagle from San Antonio's Sunset Station north thru Dallas and St. Louis to Chicago's Union Station, and then after a few hours in waiting in Chicago, connect to the Lake Shore Limited, which delivers us directly into New York's Penn Station, right under Madison Square Garden and within walking distance of our hotels. It is $832 per person for the round-trip fare and likely 5-days total travel time, daunting when you consider these are not for sleeper compartments or roomettes.

The alternate route is the Sunset Limited from San Antonio to New Orleans, and then the Crescent from New Orleans to New York, which would be 4 days round-trip travel time at $424 per person, not including the requisite overnight hotel stays between trains in New Orleans. We can begin to see the failing of American long-haul passenger rail service. Greyhound can do the round-trip more directly without connection changes in 4 days for only $220 per person, while round-trip airfare (without including airport commutes) could be $291 per person and take some 12 hours. The Great American Rail Adventure is looking mighty costly and very slow!

We will all no doubt fly, but I am a romantic and had been looking forward to the train ride. Alas, kidnapping the superstar members of a Japanese rock band and dragging them back to Texas is difficult when you have to pass through TSA airport security scanners. Oh well.

__________

In the great bygone era of American railroads, the Texas Eagle connected San Antonio to St. Louis, with arrivals and departures in San Antonio handled at the Missouri Pacific Station, which is still better known as the old International & Great Northern Railroad Passenger Station.

In 1906 I&GN constructed on the western edge of downtown on Cattleman Square a charmingly postcard perfect "Taj Mahal" in the popular Mission Revival style, topped by a giant "Indian Warrior" statue. Under Missouri Pacific, the station was the connecting point for the Texas Eagle, heading north to the gateway hub of St. Louis, and the Aztec Eagle, which continued south and across the border to Mexico City in partnership with Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México.

Sadly, as passenger rail decline after World War II in the U.S., so did the fortunes of the domed station, and after its closure in 1979 it sat as a harrowingly deteriorated and pillaged ruin.

At one point, the Indian Warrior statue was stolen and later found to have been used by gun crazy drunkards for target practice. Fortunately, a local city government credit union carefully restored the building to use as its banking headquarters, and was artistically foresighted enough to preserve rather than rework the stained glass windows colorfully displaying the I&GN logos. The re-utilized station remains a small, little-known gem.

More interestingly, the track right-of-ways remain behind the station, and the city's VIA Metropolitan Transit agency has been planning to remake the building once again into a passenger station as the centerpiece of its intended Westside Multimodal Center combining both light rail and and "VIA Primo" bus rabid transit hubs.

This remains a long way off, but they better at least ditch the "Westside Multimodal" moniker and call it once again "International & Great Northern Station."

Nowadays, the Texas Eagle leaves from besides Sunset Station at downtown's eastern edge in St. Paul's Square Historic District.

Originally the Southern Pacific Railroad Station, the Mission Revival buildng opened in 1902 as the San Antonio stop for the Sunset Limited, the Southern Pacific's luxurious long-haul from San Francisco to New Orleans. San Antonio was already long a provincial tourist town for those doing the American tour, and the picturesque Southern Pacific depot would be billed on postcards as the most beautiful station in the South.

By the 1970s and into th 1980s, the decrepitude that set in upon the U.S. could be seen in the historic station, now under the ownership of Amtrak.

Under Amtrak, the Sunset Limited runs between Los Angeles and New Orleans, and for a time even ran to Orlando, Florida, making it for a time the last truly trans-continental train in the U.S. Sadly, the New Orleans to Orlando route was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, and while the track has since been repaired, Amtrak has yet bow to widespread pressure to restore service.

San Antonio Sation is also where the Sunset Limited and the Texas Eagle are combined for the long journey west to Los Angeles and separated for the legs heading to Chicago and New Orleans. This means long layover times in San Antonio as both long-distance trains, which by nature acquire compounded time delays, must be coordinated so that the appropriate cars can be combined or detached. This makes for some railcar juggling at a very small station.

Amtrak would admit that in the era of decimated passenger rail, they could no longer afford to properly maintain the historic landmark and moved operations to a smaller auxiliary building on the site, now loftily called the "San Antonio Station."

Ooooo...Aaaawwweeee!!!

Somewhere, we have sacrificed too much of the delicate flowerbeds once greeting our arrivals.

This much smaller station sits adjacent to both the Alamodome arena and what VIA calls their Eastside Multimodal Transit Hub, of which finally approved plans would have become the easternmost station of a now in-development streetcar system and connect to the IG&N hub with bus rabid transit circulators. Should the LSTAR project ever move forward, San Antonio Station would also be the connecting point for the San Antonio-Austin commuter rail, making the eastside station the locus for intracity trips and the westside station the locus for innercity trips, with downtown stretching between the two.

Meanwhile, the old Sunset Station was restored and redeveloped into an entertainment and restaurant venue, popular now for wedddings, and St. Paul's Square is slowly emerging with new hotels and apartment towers. It even has a photogenic Mikado on display.

A stumbling block to development is the I-37 highway, which starkly separates the district from the downtown proper, but it is envisioned that the new streetcar line connecting St. Paul's Square to downtown through mixed-use/high-density redevelopment of Hemisfair Park would spur further growth.

One last station deserves mention, the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railway's Katy Station, built in 1916 on the city's south side in photogenic Mission Revival style loosely based on the local Mission Concepcion and boasting a handsome Spanish/Moorish interior.

This was the endpoint of M-K-T's first-class Texas Special, run in conjunction with the St. Louis - San Francisco Railway alongside the Katy Flyer and Laty Limited and from St. Louis to San Antonio. At its height, M-K-T ran 20-car streamliner trains of the famous Texas Special from Katy Station directly to Grand Central Station in New York City in cooperation with the Pennsylvania Railroad. An interesting feature was that the depot did not have thru-tracks, thus, requiring trains to back into the station.

Several tracks extended past the depot and across several streets and blocks to allow service for longer trains, creating havoc for local motorists as backing trains cut off streets for hours. Sadly, the M-K-T service could not survive the general collapse of American passenger rail, and the Katy Station was demolished in 1969 and later replaced by a bland budget hotel. Though the depot is gone, decorative architectural pieces of the station can be found reused by other buildings throughout the city.

For a ride into yesteryear, here is vintage video of the last Texas Special before service was fully discontinued in 1965.

Rats, I could have used the "Texas Special" for my trip direct to New York!

Ah well, here is what the journey might be like:

Riding the Sunset Limited to New Orleans

For long fun, here is the Sunset Limited leaving Los Angeles.

Texas Eagle leaving San Antonio Station:

Texas Eagle arrives at Austin.

Dallas to Chicago on the Texas Eagle:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J7FkKTleww

Wow...the Chicago railyards are gritty cool...

Leaving Chicago Union Station on the Texas Eagle.

Then there is riding the Lake Shore Limited.

Here is a great tour of the accomodations by HWY287Productions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-ol40r6GJs

Gosh, do we really have to fly? Waaah!

Hope this was all interesting!

  Edited January 27, 2012 by Odainsaker  

[Duke87 1,070]

You know, there are far better reasons to come to New York than to see Japan's most seriously overrated band. Ah well, to each his own. Hopefully you'll get to do other stuff while here. Plenty of railfanning to be had, certainly. We only have the world's largest subway system.

And hey, if you fly into JFK, you can take the AirTrain, which is nifty.

  Edited January 29, 2012 by Duke87  

[Odainsaker 2,134]

You know, there are far better reasons to come to New York than to see Japan's most seriously overrated band. Ah well, to each his own. Hopefully you'll get to do other stuff while here. Plenty of railfanning to be had, certainly. We only have the world's largest subway system.

And hey, if you fly into JFK, you can take the AirTrain, which is nifty.

Awww, I keep hearing about a certain giant statue or something, hehe. Actually, I'm trying to juggle everyone's time and budgets such that we will get several days with a hotel in Midtown within walking distance of Penn Station so that we can at least pretend to do some of the typical tourist spree.

Oh, in researching another subject, I came across a new cool train set I like, the JR Kyushu 787 Series. It served the limited express runs from Kitakyushu to Kagoshima by way of Fukuoka, Saga, Oita, and Kumamoto, often as the "Ariake Limited" and the "Relay Tsubame." My understanding is that the 787 Relay Tsubame service has been discontinued now that the Kyushu Shinkansen has finally been completed. Though the new Kyushu Shinkansen runs the hyper-aerodynamic 800 Series, the 787 simply wins in the visual design department for its Gundam assault vehicle appearance.

It's not a train...its an attack helicopter! This thing could be hauling a rain gun, and it would not look out of place.

Granted, it is a little stern and kinda cold...

...but it will serve for delivering the battalion of shock troops or the travelling special headquarters of the Führersonderzug. We are just missing some stylish Art Deco imperial eagles emblazoned in silver against the black metal.

Let's see Darth Vader's train, the JR 787, in full gun-metal action!

As Relay Tsubame, this was the only non-Shinkansen set allowed to share platform levels with actual Shinkansen, as it was covering connection gaps for then-under-construction Kyushu Shinkansen routes:

From that last video, it also apparently has a host of fans! Perhaps someone out there will be able to make a train skin so we can have this sexy black train in our SimCities.

They should have used the same black-metal color scheme for the funkily retro JR Kyushu 783...

Eep...grasshopper green with yellow window trim and bubble glass!

[hamsterTK 93]

To me the front looks like this:

From a 3/4s or side view its much more appealing. The all-black paint job really makes it.

  Edited February 11, 2012 by hamsterTK  

[Terribletown USA 18]

I used to be a conductor for the Big New Super Frisco. This is from a crew comfort/operating perspective:

Clunkers:

Dash-8: don't ride good but at least have a/c. Rattle traps for sure.

SD70MAC: actually not that bad of an engine but kind of ragged out inside, also no sidewall heaters. Holds the rail good.

SD70ACE: hope you brought earplugs (even with an isolated cab they're ridiculous). Uncomfortable cab. Performs well enough.

Any CSX, NS, or KCS unit. Especially CSX units, they're always disgusting inside, even new ones.

Any 4-axle unit should be a yard engine only, they all ride pretty bad.

Any actual switch engine (like SW1500s): can't start and can't stop, give us an SD40.

SD90 series:

Solid:

Dash-9: most of them are still in reasonably good shape but can become rattle traps over time.

ES44: quiet, pulls good, very warm in the winter. The DC version is a little quieter than AC.

SD40-2: can-do unit. It can move tonnage, it can switch, and is fairly comfortable for a decades-old motor.

SD60: same story as the SD40, just more powerful. The wide-cab units are crap inside though.

Any CN unit: they have microwaves, hot plates, and percolators. The seats lay down flat. Bad part is usually no a/c.

[Jazzmaster 716]

Got lucky tonight with this. And FYI, I was not standing in front of an oncoming train; the locomotives had just passed the crossing and were pushing in the opposite direction.

[Jazzmaster 716]

A little relic of the past...

[+Guest damerell]

It's also worth mentioning that because the line is so heavily used (I counted at least one train every hour), the town of Mishawaka ordered all crossing within limits to be silenced.

One every hour, eh? It must be truly a bustling metropolis. :-)

[Fairly regular visitor to the North York Moors Railway here, so basically an LNER man, although if pushed I would admit the unstreamlined Princess Coronations in LMS Crimson Lake are probably the best looking locomotives we ever built.]