(The following Reuters story by Aleksandrs Rozens appears on Yahoo News.)
NEW YORK — You don’t have to be Paul Theroux to take a rail journey to exotic
locales these days. Web trawlers can board the Internet for a virtual ride as well as enjoy access to century-old railroad esoterica.
For rail buffs, also known as trainspotters, the Net has become a global repository for data and a photographic timeline of equipment, scenic rail lines and train station architecture.
“It has changed the way rail fans look at each other. The Net is used for a sense of community they never had before,” said Mark Hemphill, editor of the monthly Trains Magazine, the industry’s bible that is a source of general railroad news, history and information on the mechanics of railway equipment.
“I search the Web for real train material so I can incorporate it on my own little diorama I have at home. I consider my hobby a window to the world,” said Hubert Dorsainvil, a New York paralegal who is a model train hobbyist and relies on the Net for research.
Dorsainvil says he uses the Yahoo search engine to gain knowledge about paint schemes for locomotives and rolling stock.
“I look for particular types of trains and paint them to specifications in real life,” he said, adding that he’s now studying paint styles of Canadian Pacific equipment.
Among the types of disused rail equipment buffs find fascinating are cabooses and speeders, or gas-powered vehicles used by railway companies to inspect or maintain long stretches of track.
Also known as motor cars, speeders are best described as a successor to the hand-pumped car it once took two rail workers to operate. Usually painted a bright yellow, they are similar to amusement park bumper cars or go-carts built to run on tracks. They appear miniature in scale next to mammoth diesel engines.
Today, many speeders have been retired by the railways, which now use Hyrail trucks. Others have found their way into museums or into the hands of private collectors, and are the subject of memoirs and general Net chitchat.
To access collectors’ sites, photos and memoirs of rail workers who once used speeders, use Google (news – external web site) or another search engine, and type in the key word Speeder.
One collector’s photo chronicle showing a speeder being loaded on and off the tracks can be found at http://www.bowkera.com/speeders.htm. At another site, http://www.fedshra.org/skagit.htm, rail fans can access photos of a speeder that was used near Vail, Washington.
One of the better sites devoted to this particular type of esoterica is http://www.trainweb.org/screamingeagle/speeder.html, which focusses on rail equipment used by the Missouri Pacific Railroad Co. There are color photos of speeders and a brief history of a prominent speeder manufacturer, the Fairmont Gas Engine & Railway Motorcar Co. of Fairmont Minnesota.
USES FOR CABOOSES
The caboose is another favorite piece of equipment that has faded as rail companies adopt new technology.
Once the mobile field offices for rail personnel, cabooses were like tiny homes on wheels. Often equipped with bunks and iron stoves, they served as a place to rest for crews who had to endure long cross-country runs.
Today, on the last car of a freight train, instead of a caboose there is usually what appears to be simply a flickering light. It is known as the end of train device (EOTD).
Many cabooses have also entered the realm of museums and private collectors, though some have found other more innovative uses: The Red Caboose Lodge of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, allows visitors to spend a night in one of many cozy cabooses converted into motel suites. Others have been restored to be shown off in the backyards of rail aficionados.
Jeff Sumberg of Ringwood, N.J., has set up a Web site http://www.intac.com/~jsumberg/ with a variety of snapshots of rail equipment, focusing on the history of cabooses that were once part of the New York Ontario & Western Railway. To find out more about this now-defunct company, go to the Ontario & Western Railway Historical Society, Inc. at http://www.nyow.org/main.html.
A site devoted to the Chicago & North Western Railroad, http://www.angelfire.com/il/cnw/apr02.html, shows photos of bay-window steel cabooses in an Illinois railyard.
Another private collection of railroad equipment, entitled Jerry’s Railroad Photo Album, at http://www.jerryapp.com/photos_r.html, transports viewers to another era, Chicago’s Grand Central Station in 1969.
For a look into a leading U.S. rail museum and its extensive collection of railway equipment housed in a unique roundhouse, check out the B&O Railroad Museum at http://www.borail.org/.
If you need more help finding a rail site, there is a directory at http://www.raillinks.com/railfan/pages/museums/.
The fascination for railway equipment is, obviously, worldwide. European trains can be found at http://mercurio.iet.unipi.it/pix/gb/museum/NRM/pix.html. Here you’ll also see the British Deltic Class 55 locomotive and steam engine’s at the York railway museum in England.
“If you want specific details, it is ideal,” Trains Magazine’s Hemphill said of the Internet.
The editor admits to periodically trawling the Web for interesting story ideas and new talent, like photographers capturing memorable moments in train yards, on bridges or rugged mountainsides.
“People use the Net for ‘Here is the photo I took yesterday,”‘ said Hemphill.