What engine did I drive?

Gee, from your description, it almost sounds like the prototype for Lionel's 520 box cab.

This switch engine was black, built by GE around 1911, the cab was in the center. It had 2 pantographs. It looked like a shrunken 44 ton switcher.

In the U.S., railroad locomotives are NOT "driven". You may have "run" or "operated" that switch engine, but you didn't "drive" it.

The New York Central Railroad had 47 S-type electric locomotives (S-1, S-2, S-2a and S-3) produced by ALCO-GE between 1904 and 1909. They had 2 small rooftop pantographs to go between small gaps in the 3rd rail in Grand Central Terminal. Picture below is my Lionel S-2. There were also 36 ALCO-GE T-Motors (T-1a, T-1b, T-2a, T-2b, T-3a) built between 1913 and 1926. Both types lasted into the Penn Central era in the 1970s.

MELGAR

Lionel's 150 series is patterned after the S motors.  The T motors were represented by the  248 and 251 series and the Standard Guage No. 8.  The 253 and 256 series were patterned after NH box cabs.  The 252 and 254 series and the Standard Gauge No. 10 were patterened after the Milwaukee Road bi-polar electrics.

Bingo!  That's the engine. The engineer let me take the engine and switch some cars. The brakeman was on the ground and hooked up and released cars and I got signals from the back of the train by a series of "toots" from the conductor. That's what I remember from 40+ years ago.  Now I need to find that engine. Thanks, Jerry

P.S. Did either of you work for a RR?

Get ready because using the word "drive" in reference to trains brings out some emotional responses.

Thanks for the lesson. It was 40+ years ago. In October I "operated" a Cessna 172. I always wanted to fly in a small plane.

Hot Water posted:

In the U.S., railroad locomotives are NOT "driven". You may have "run" or "operated" that switch engine, but you didn't "drive" it.

He drove a lash-up of engines, and now takes vertical videos with his cell phone, standing right before a grade crossing.

Newisold posted:

Bingo!  That's the engine. The engineer let me take the engine and switch some cars. The brakeman was on the ground and hooked up and released cars and I got signals from the back of the train by a series of "toots" from the conductor. That's what I remember from 40+ years ago.  Now I need to find that engine. Thanks, Jerry

P.S. Did either of you work for a RR?

mlaughlinnyc posted:

Newisold posted:

Bingo!  That's the engine. The engineer let me take the engine and switch some cars. The brakeman was on the ground and hooked up and released cars and I got signals from the back of the train by a series of "toots" from the conductor. That's what I remember from 40+ years ago.  Now I need to find that engine. Thanks, Jerry

P.S. Did either of you work for a RR?

Yes, NYC.  My pass was endorsed "Good on freight trains locomotives and rear platforms.  I worked most of the timem in NEw York and have ridden on T an P motors.  One day I went down to GCT and rode an S motor for a while.

You didn't mention it, but you ust have been switching passenger trains.  By that time, it had to have been cars for Poughkeepsie and Brewster traisn or the LAke Shore or Empire Service.

Newisold posted:

Bingo!  That's the engine. The engineer let me take the engine and switch some cars. The brakeman was on the ground and hooked up and released cars and I got signals from the back of the train by a series of "toots" from the conductor. That's what I remember from 40+ years ago.  Now I need to find that engine. Thanks, Jerry

P.S. Did either of you work for a RR?

Jerry, here is one on the bay

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lione...2:g:mX8AAOSwxwRatVsa

I think one can drive a train.  In the UK.  On in the minds of news trportes in this country!

English is a funny language; American English even more so.  You can drive a mule, drive a bargain, drive a wedge, even drive someone crazy.  You can drive your car on the parkway and park your car on the driveway! 

English is a flexible, diverse, and complex language, BUT it does have quite specific idioms.  In American English, one does NOT "drive" a train or a locomotive any more than one "drives" a computer, a fork, or a toothbrush.  One does not "drive" a train any more than one "flies," "conns,", or "steers" a train.

I do hope the NEWISOLD doesn't get turned off by this recurrent conversation, but we all come here to learn, and this is one of the pieces of information that many need to learn.

As to driving on a parkway and parking on a driveway:

A parkway has nothing to do with parking a car:  it is (in origin) a path through a park area, park as in recreational or preserved (often enhanced) natural area.

A driveway was not in origin a place to park cars.  Only in suburban sprawl amid crackerbox houses do people have a short piece of concrete or asphalt for parking on, often in front of the garage (which has been appropriated by sporting gear or a train layout and therefore inaccessible to the car for parking).  A driveway was a fairly long lane leading to a house standing off the road leading to/past it.  One drives along that way to get to the house from the road.  And, at the time the term was coined, one drove ones horses/equipage there (the term predates the automobile).

mlaughlinnyc posted:

mlaughlinnyc posted:

Newisold posted:

Bingo!  That's the engine. The engineer let me take the engine and switch some cars. The brakeman was on the ground and hooked up and released cars and I got signals from the back of the train by a series of "toots" from the conductor. That's what I remember from 40+ years ago.  Now I need to find that engine. Thanks, Jerry

P.S. Did either of you work for a RR?

Yes, NYC.  My pass was endorsed "Good on freight trains locomotives and rear platforms.  I worked most of the timem in NEw York and have ridden on T an P motors.  One day I went down to GCT and rode an S motor for a while.

You didn't mention it, but you ust have been switching passenger trains.  By that time, it had to have been cars for Poughkeepsie and Brewster traisn or the LAke Shore or Empire Service.

 

You are correct. The coaches were brought in by diesel and the out bound trains were made up with the switch engines.  Some cars were brought to the "car wash" and others to the repair shops. I don't mind being corrected. I enjoy learning and I ain't finished learning yet.  Jerry

PALLALIN: FYI: FARMER Bill's comment about the parkway/driveway originated as a JOKE by the watermelon-smashing comedian, Gallagher. It was a standard in his routine, and it was most likely written for him. Thus, it was NOT intended to be an etymological conundrum! LOL! 

Yeah, I know that, Art.  The problem is that most people look at those jokes and think, "Hey, this is stupid.  English is screwed up!" 

My profession (literally) is to clear up such misconceptions, so I tend to do so whenever such subjects come up.

I fired and operated ex-Southern Railway 2-8-0 722 for 11 weeks in 1984 at the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum in Chattanooga, TN. I worked with two memorable experienced former steam engineers: Billy Byrd and Bill Chandler. Billy was a retired Traveling Engineer on the Seaboard System, while Mr. Chandler was a retired Road Foreman on the Southern Railway. Both of these fine gentlemen had 43 years each on their respective roads and I learned much from these experienced steam men! Billy also owned and operated a steam driven thresher machine, and the late Charles Kuralt once interviewed him for his On the Road series. I also ran (and fired) ex-Southern Railway 630 and operated ALCO RS-1 8669 on TVRM property. I once briefly fired 4501 on a mainline trip back in the late 1970's.

PALALLIN: I am a retired English professor and teacher of English. I taught on the university/college level for three-years and in the Nashville public schools for twenty-one years. As you know, any language is very fluid and new idioms evolve, so the definition of "precise" is also constantly changing. I agree that the correct use of terminolgy is important, but modern English usage is perhaps more fluid than ever. My former, and very traditional Adanced Grammer instructor, at my undergraduate university would definitely be amazed (shocked?) at many aspects of modern usage! Finally, may I inquire as to your profession?

From the time I began to be in/around railroading here in the USA (about 1970), 99%  of the time the term was "running" an engine/etc. (I honestly can't recall it being called anything else, but it may have been possible, thus the 99%.)

I began to see a blurring of the lines on the internet beginning back in the early 2000's as train enthusiasts from around the globe began to frequent train simulation oriented forums. The train simulations in discussion were developed by two primary groups: One was a group of developers (KUJU) commissioned by Microsoft to develop their "Microsoft Train Simulator". The other was "Trainz" which is based in Australia (as I recall) and developed in-house by their developers.

Seeing as these simulators were/are non-USA developed, it was only natural that the definitions, terms, measurements, et al, within the end result were terms the developers spoke, familiar with, and used. i.e. Those of Europe and Australia. Thus, within the simulators mentioned, the use of the term "Driver" for what the USA would call an "Engineer", and "drive" for the term the USA would call "running", or "operating" a engine/train began to become intermixed, along with many, many other terms that were not USA railroading terminology.

Such blurring of the USA railroading terms, and the result of slowly losing of our (USA) traditional railroading terms, has since spread to model train forums, etc. I've even heard the term "driving" on the 1:1 prototype toward the last few years.

At the first (back in the early 2000's on), I attempted to preserve the use of USA terms in regards to USA railroading, but it eventually proved to be futile, and a point of frustration for me. Even USA non-railroading train enthusiasts would argue/take offense/etc.

So be it.

Simply put: The Globalists win this one, too.

Andre

Art, I have studied English and taught it at the college/university level (from Freshman Comp to Senior Seminar) for 32 years this August.  The history and development of the language (along with Old English Lit) is my area.  I am well aware of the way the language changes.  I am well aware that every feature of our usage that we consider correct was once a mistake; when the mistake was made often enough, a new "correct" emerged.

In other words, some day, the idiom might indeed be that we drive trains.  Until that time, I will join Cnut sweeping back the tide.

hige sceal þe heardra   heorte þe cenre

mod sceal þe mare   þe ure mægen lytleþ

And we'd probably better unhijack the thread!

AGREED, but love your Anglo Saxon - is it the West Saxon dialect by any chance? I took a graduate course in Old English and also Beowulf, where we were required to read the entire poem in the West Saxon dialect. I also have a copy of the EETS facsimile edition of Beowulf in my personal library. Waes hal, my friend! 

Back to your original post, Jerry . . . how nice it was of that crew to let you operate the electric locomotive, (Under supervision, I'm sure).  It was an experience that is no longer possible on a Class 1 railroad.  Yes, there are modern electrics, but the operation is completely different.

Thanks Tom for bringing in the big hook and rerailing this thread! 

LOL!  ☺ THAT was a derailment! In the immortal words of Maxwell Smart, "Sorry about that!".