Best Of Railwire Travelling Baggage Car - Photo Thread

[Ed Kapuscinski]

LOL Ed!  Was that black load scratchbuilt? You had me in stitches!

Yep, made out of Sugru: https://sugru.com/
I had gotten some of the stuff because it seemed handy, but I needed to do something to try it out. And, because I'm actually a 14 year old boy...

[Dave V]

Good lord! Poor Jim. I fear he will never be the same after this journey!

Also, I guess the baggage car is bigger on the inside...

They don't call him "Big Jim and the Twins" for nothing!

[chicken45]

The photos of the consist coming through Prince Gallitzin tunnel (read: fleshlight).
Clearance will be tight.

On a non related note, does anybody know when KY Jelly was developed?

Ah...found it. 1904, so we're good!

[DeltaBravo]

I like how the Tardis managed to show up.

[mu26aeh]

A strange car was found this weekend in Spring Grove in a seldom used siding at the PH Glatfelter paper mill, but wasn't noticed until after an open house ended at the plant.  Along with it, an outhouse seemed to show up out of no where as well.  A waybill was found with the car that mentioned being delivered to the Maryland & Ohio Railroad.  In order to get this accomplished though, it's going to have to roll across the CSX Hanover Subdivision.  With HH in charge, I'm wondering how this is going to happen as there is problems moving freight much less some private varnish car that came out of nowhere.  Hopefully someone will be around to capture the movement.

[mu26aeh]

On the first trip back to the mill after the open house, crews had to figure out how to get this mystery car to where it needs to go.  And why or how did it get here in the first place ?  Nah, no need to no the details, the crew needs to get this out of here and back to work.


After the crew backed in and grabbed the car, they checked the paper work and it said to be delivered to the Maryland & Ohio.  Well, guess we need to get it down to Porters so the 795 can grab it on the Hanover Sub.  So with no haste, they took off for the interchange.



With the car set off, they made their way back to finish work at the mill.  Soon after, 795 pulled into town to pick up the car.  " Hmm, check out the weight on this car.  Not sure what it's loaded with, but heavy car, it goes on the front."  So they cut off the first car and backed into the siding.




While the crew did not know what the secret cargo was, there was someone on the sub that did.  EHH.  Under most circumstances, he would have refused to move such a car but he had heard rumors of its load and knew he must have it for his residence on the Florida coast.  "It's artwork, and speaks to my history and decisions I've made in my career."  He was waiting in his private limo in Hagerstown Yard.  The crew dropped the car and were ordered to get back to work.



After a few minutes of silence, Jim slid the door open just enough to get out.  Seeing the car there, and a silhouette, he made is way over and asked " What's going on here ?"  EHH was stunned to find out someone traveling in the car.  "I'm not sure who you are, but I order you off this property immediately !"  "I can't do that sir.  I need to stay with the car to make sure it's package gets delivered."  EHH thinks for a minute and says," it just was, and by the way, I think your companion is running away."  Jim turned to find his pet sheep had slid the door a little further and jumped out of the car.  Just as he started to chase after it, a loud sound came from behind.  The package had made it's way out the door too.  "Damn industrial strength lube.  Not sure why that Ed guy didn't keep the barrel.  It fell over in the car and slicked everything up."  But he had to track his sheep down...



EHH sees his chance to move while Jim is chasing his sheep.  He had a couple of cranes on standby and they moved into position.  The yard crew moved a depressed center flat into place.  " Go ahead boys, lift that monster and secure it to the flat.  We need to move !" 



In the meantime, Jim is running all over Hagerstown Yard running after his sheep.  He finally has him cornered, yet still not secured.  " Damn it Bourbon, get down here !"  All the while, crews had loaded EHH's prized package and were tying it down.



Before he knew it, everything went dark.  EHH had ordered the yard bull to apprehend the trespassers (Jim and Bourbon) and get them back into the car.  The bull knocked Jim in the head with his billy club, lassoed Bourbon and threw them back in the car by which they came.  EHH relayed to the yard office to get that car back in the direction it came on the next train out of town.  Meanwhile, a high and wide extra was heading west out of Hagerstown Yard on it's way to Florida.



Jim awoke the next morning, with Bourbon at his side.  "Where are we, and what is that, that beautiful odor ?  He looked out the door and saw the Utz Potato chip factory, in Hanover, PA.  But wondered, " what am I going to do now ?  The package is gone......"

[John]

I was railfanning a few weeks ago .. an AMTRAK train came by, but when I got the Kodak film developed, I saw a strange looking car, and what appears to be a giant snail sitting on the signal mast ..  weird .. The photo lab must have accidentally superimposed another negative over the top of mine ..

[peteski]

The color light signal head was augmented with a fat-black semaphore blade?  That is weird. 

[chicken45]

The color light signal head was augmented with a fat-black semaphore blade?  That is weird. 

I laughed. +1 for you!

[wm3798]

As dawn broke on Halloween, it became clear that stranger things were happening along the rails of the Canton, Highlandtown and Fells Point.  Ever since the appearance of an other-worldly conductor aboard a memorial excursion train from Canada, a series of mysterious incidents had been reported around the Queen City of the Patapsco Drainage Basin.
Not the usual Baltimore disturbances of folklore either.  Sure, a shadowy figure left behind a bottle of cognac and a single red rose at the grave of Edgar Allan Poe, and the eyes of the Black Aggie glowed to the horror of trespassers in Loudoun Park Cemetery, that was nothing new…
But these days, it was more than that.  For instance, last Wednesday, the famous ball of string displayed in the dining room at Haussner’s Restaurant suddenly unraveled into the street, literally tying up traffic on Eastern Avenue for hours.


Patrons of the Lyric Opera House were sent pouring into the streets as a pulsating blob oozed through the air vents and onto the stage, creeping noiselessly into the orchestra pit.
And startled engineers on the Baltimore and Ohio reported a gathering of hazy apparitions on the long abandoned platform of the gloomy station built as part of the Howard Street Tunnel, but never opened or used.
Now that it was Halloween, the city waited in anxious anticipation of what would happen next.    Mayor D’Alesandro made sure there were extra foot patrols and squad cars available, and Governor Agnew had the National Guard at the ready, should any further disturbances occur.   From the Basilica on Cathedral Street, Archbishop Mardaga issued a prayer for the dearly departed, and implored them to please stay that way.
By mid-afternoon, there was no sign of anything out of the ordinary.  Children put on their costumes in anticipation of a glorious haul as they would ply block after block of rowhouses… a piece of candy dropped into their pillow case every eighteen feet…  Grown ups festooned as Dracula, Cat Woman, or Mr. Boh headed to the hundreds of corner saloons to mark the occasion, and at Fulton Junction, the Western Maryland traveling switcher picked up an unusual interchange car that had been left overnight by the Pennsylvania Railroad.


“Must be bad ordered” said George Myers, the erstwhile conductor of the peddler freight.  “Guess we better drag it down to Hillen to see what the deal is.”  As he flipped through the paperwork, he could see that it did indeed have a destination in Canton, but the lading to be picked up was marked as Classified, and that it should be handled with extreme caution.  The bill was addressed to a Dr. Peter Venkman.
As the consist approached Canton on the industrial trackage of the CH&FP, there was an increase in unusual occurrences. 

At O’Donnell and Conkling Streets, in front of the National Brewing Company, traffic became snarled as four men continually walked back and forth across the street.  The first and last man were misty apparitions, the two in the middle were locals, but walked as if they were possessed, or in a trance.




At the Canton Station, a train made up of 19th century equipment appeared more or less out of nowhere, shrouded in steam, and was boarded by dozens of ghastly figures.  As soon as the ghoulish conductor moaned “All Abooooooard”  the ghostly train evaporated into its own mist.
This happened just moments before WM64 leaned into the final turn from Collington Avenue into the Canton’s yard at Penn Mary.  The engineer could see the dim oil-fired headlamp of the old 0-4-0 and reached to put the train into emergency, but then froze as the opposing train vanished.  Stunned, he applied the brakes and glided to a stop on the very same track the ghost train had just occupied.


As the crew climbed down to the platform, the door of the old baggage car slid open, and down jumped a beleaguered looking man, Jim, our express agent across time and space.  Jim presented his orders to the station agent, who looked over his reading glasses and said, “Oh yes.  Dr. Venkman.  Got a call from him this morning.  He said his parcel isn’t quite ready yet.  Apparently there’s a bit more work to do on it.”
Jim was crestfallen, he hadn’t planned on a layover in the bowels of industrial Baltimore.  “Well, it is what it is, I suppose.”
Conductor Myers advised Jim that he’d set the car out on the team track next to the station, where he would have to wait until the important, and apparently quite dangerous package arrived.


Meanwhile, in nearby Highlandtown, after another string of bizarre phenomena, a phone rang in an old firehouse.  "Thank you for calling the Ghostbusters.  We can't come to the phone right now as we are currently out investigating a Class 3 Full Torso Apparition.  Please leave your name and number, and the nature of your haunting, and we'll get back to you as soon as we can..."


Who you gonna call?

[peteski]

What a creative bunch we have here on TRW!  Great story Lee!  And you kept it G-rated too. 

[seusscaboose]

Not Sirly at all

Very nice

[DeltaBravo]

Lee, you roped me in with the ball of string.

[wm3798]

Well, to make a long story short, the Ghostbusters successfully rounded up all the discontented spirits, and they were all transferred into the new Turbo Steam Punk Spectral Sub Thermal Reactor Containment Unit.  And this was the highly sensitive cargo that Dr. Venkman was putting into Jim's care aboard the Railwire Express car.


Not long after it was loaded, the train pulled out of Canton on its way to its next destination.  Up Collington Avenue, around the tight curve and off to Bayview to be transferred west.


Back at the firehouse, the crew congratulated each other on a job well done, ridding the city of a sinister wave of evil.  All was well, until they received a panicked call from the railroad office.  It seemed there might be one little bit of unfinished business...



Dr. Spengler said, "Well, it's not the Sta-Puff Marshmallow Man, but I suppose it will do in a pinch!"
With that, the Ghostbusters switched on their proton packs, aimed the energy streams, and let loose on the giant entity.
"Let's show them how we do things downtown, Hon!" shouted Dr. Venkman...

[peteski]

LOL Lee, well done!