Monthly Archives: July 2009
Goodbye Pennsylvania, Hello New York…
We left Gap, PA about 10:30 am heading north to Florida, NY, a small town about 45 miles northwest of New York City.
We will be here until at least the 26th of July. We’re staying here that long because our daughter, Brandi, and our granddaughter, Piper, will be flying up from Houston on Saturday, the 18th, to spend a week with us, exploring New York City.
Leaving Gap, we passed more of the neat farms that dot the Pennsylvania countryside.
Farm 1
Farm 2
And of course, the obligatory “Amish Buggy Crossing” sign.
We stopped in Flemington, NJ for about 114 gallons of diesel and I’m glad we did. We paid $2.37 a gallon, the best price we’ve seen in several months. But when we got here to New York, the best price we’ve seen has been $2.79 and the highest was $3.03.
We last filled up in North Carolina on June 20th and we went almost 900 miles on this last tank, not quite as good as usual, but we’ve been in a lot of hills since we filled up last, and that really cuts down on mileage.
Normally, we get about 9 to 9.5 mpg driving on the flat, but this time we got about 7.8 mpg.
We took a lot of back roads this trip and consequently spent more time going thru a lot of small towns, so our 190 mile trip took us about 5 and a half hours, but it was great scenery.
We pulled into Black Bear Campground about 4 pm. The office is at the bottom of a hill, and the campground is at the top of a hill…a very steep hill.
They told me to get a running start, but even then I wondered if I wasn’t going to have to coast back down and try it again. But we finally made it OK.
More tomorrow…
Independance Hall, the Liberty Bell, and more trains…
Continued from yesterday…
The indoor part of the Railroad Museum resembles a large railroad station, with multiple tracks full of trains.
Museum 1
This is the John Bull. It’s a replica of the first locomotive to run on a railroad in America.
In 1831 the first railroad was built between Philadelphia and New York and the John Bull was the engine. It’s hard to think now of how this revolutionized travel in the US.
It cut the travel time from Philadelphia to New York from 2 days by coach to 5 HOURS!. It’s hard to do that by car now.
I saw this same locomotive last week in the Smithsonian, but wasn’t able to get close enough to read the display due to the crowds. I was surprised to learn here that the one I had seen in the Smithsonian was the REAL John Bull, from 1831.
It ran a regular route until 1866, then traveled around the US on exhibitions until it was donated to the Smithsonian in 1884.
This beautiful example of a 2-6-0 Mogul locomotive carried silver ore on the Virginian & Truckee railroad in Nevada from 1875 to 1944.
2-6-0 Mogul
The ‘2-6-0’ type of nomenclature describes the layout of a locomotive’s wheels, and only applies to steam type locomotives.
The Mogul above has 2 small wheels up front, 6 drive wheels in the middle, and no small wheels in the rear. Thus, it is a 2-6-0.
This locomotive #7002, dates from 1902 and was the first one in regular service to exceed 100 mph.
Loco 7002
Note that this one is a 4-4-2, although you can just barely see the 2 wheels under the tender at the far right of the photo.
Arguably the largest locomotive ever built was the ‘Big Boy’ built for the Union Pacific to pull large coal trains up and down the Rockies out West.
Big Boy 4-8-8-4
Note that this one is a 4-8-8-4. That’s a lot of wheels.
Below is a type of locomotive I’d never heard of.
Fireless Loco
This one is unusual in that it doesn’t have a boiler or generate its own steam. It’s basically just a big thermos bottle. It’s filled up with live steam from a stationary boiler and then operated, usually in the rail yard, until it needed to be refilled.
Outside was even better.
Rail Yard
It was a rail yard full of more trains. And it has a real operating roundtable, used to move locomotives in and out of the yard.
Round Table
Even more locomotives…
Locomotives
And a rail crane used to lift derailed engines and cars back on the track.
Rail Crane
I’ve always been fascinated by the big steam engines and this was a great chance to see them up close.
Today was our last full day in Pennsylvania so we headed into Philadelphia to see some sights.
We started off with another duck tour with Ride The Ducks. Here we are hitting the Delaware River on our trip.
Philly Duck 1
We saw Betsy Ross’ house, the site where William Penn first landed in Pennsylvania, and more.
After our tour, we had a Philly Cheesesteak from a street vendor before visiting Independance Hall,
Independance Hall
And the Liberty Bell.
Liberty Bell
Finally, we headed home, stopping by Wal-mart on the way.
For dinner we did the smorgasbord at Miller’s again.
And then home to get ready to leave for NY tomorrow.
