#random railways

[weirdowithaquill]

Random Trains I Found Part 1:

So, I've put off writing my myriad of WIPs for a bit to spend some time just... looking at trains. Reconnecting with them. Hunting out ideas for the future and being amazed by the past. And here's a few of my absolute favourite random, insane trains I've found so far:

NGR Class D1:

This right here was the first 4-8-2 ever built - and it's an absolutely massive tank engine from South Africa. It was built to the 3ft 6in Cape Gauge and it began running in 1888. Take a moment for that to settle in - 1888. The USA didn't run a 4-8-2 on it's network until 1911, a good 20+ years later!

Russian Class Kh:

It's a 2-8-0 class built in the USA for Russia that had examples sold to Japan with the last example preserved in China. I personally like these engines because they really do tell us so much about how much the world changed - they began life in 1895, and somehow (I would love to know how if anyone has any information) one ended up in a river in Jilin Province, China. It was probably WWII, but all the same, these engines went places!

Prussian P8 Class:

These engines started life in 1908 and weren't retired until 1981 in Poland at the latest - and if that isn't an opening to an epic class of locomotive, I don't know what is! Roughly 3900 of these machines were built, making it potentially the single largest class of passenger engine in the world and they ended up just about everywhere in Europe, from France to Norway to Romania, where a number (200) were built under license. And the reason they lived so long? They were simple, strong machines.

GWR 2600 'Aberdare' Class:

Honestly, I just like these because they look so odd. Like, these are GWR 2-6-0s that look like a City or a Bulldog class. They have the double frames and the coupling rods of a 4-4-0 - and that's because they were introduced in 1900. They did manage to make it to 1949 hauling coal trains, but the GWR had already been withdrawing them in the 1930s, as they did with their older stock. I wish one had been preserved, they'd be so cool to look at!

NGR Class C:

Last but certainly not least, these behemoths of South Africa once again prove that somehow, the former Cape Colony was at the forefront of wheel arrangement innovation. It's a 4-10-2T. It was built in 1899, alongside the GWR Bulldog class! These things were massive... and eventually rebuilt to 4-8-2T locomotives. But there were 137 of them built, making them the most numerous of the 4-10-2 type locomotive ever constructed.

I want all of these engines. I would love to know more about them, I would love to own one (in model form) and I am going to love continuing my journey through railway history to find more random, interesting locomotives to share.

And as usual, all images belong to their respective owners.

[chase-prairie]

Loving reminder from your land history auntie:

North American golf courses have had 50-100 years of arsenic and mercury based fungicide and herbicides applied to their soils.

Do not eat anything that has been grown on a golf course or downstream from a golf course. I know it sounds cool and radical, but you are too valuable to poison yourself with heavy metals.

Protect each other, turn your local golf course into a pollinator garden, not a sex forest or community garden.

[lordvonbunnyv]

Guys, look how smol he is!

[h-jini]

　⠀𑣿ྀིྀ⠀⠀⠀❀⠀⠀⠀;⠀⠀⠀𝓎eah,⠀⠀𝓉his⠀⠀𝓉rain

⠀⠀⠀⠀𝓃ever⠀⠀𝓈leeps⠀⠀━━╋━⠀

[thingsnpngs]

1967 rail ticket from Leeds Central Station

[idiotsyncratic0]

where do they come up with this shit

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

Abandoned train on a railway

[guzmasenbyboyfriend]

I absolutely love this gif so fucking much lol

Just Henry's Tender explored and killed a man

[larrquarrtrainspotting5]

Random captures over the months

[froggingthyme]

hello all!! I’d like to introduce you to my ERB inspired series - Uber Rap Battles of Randomness! (yeah, cuz who doesn’t have an ERB related series at this point?) anways, this is just a lighthearted rap battle series that I write in my free time, if you’d like to know more about any of the battles, feel free to ask!

WAVE 1

SpongeBob SquarePants vs. Jenny Wakeman (ft. Invader Zim, Arnold Shortman, Rocko)

Amy Rose vs Ramona Flowers

Brendon Small vs Preston Goodplay

Ed & Sid vs Lightning McQueen

Eric Cartman vs Jack Horner

Red vs. Red (ft. Chuck, Bomb & Blue)

Matpat vs. Sid The Science Kid

Finn & Jake vs Wallace & Gromit

Maggie Pesky vs Gregor Samsa

Mysterion vs. Cthulu (ft. Ridley, Marcy Wu, Grover Cleveland, Kratos & MintBerry Crunch)

[shadowcats4]

I went to a church flea market earlier and they had an Austrian railway bag?

Naturally I had to buy it.. FOR 1 EURO? (0.84 pounds Mr./Mrs. Google says)

Slightly worn, yes, but really?

AND MADE OF PURE LEATHER?!

And best thing is that it had an Austrian railway usb stick in it. Sadly all that's on it is adverts for railway tickets...

There's also a Christmas card to a "Steve Massiv" wishing him luck with his Pokémon Go from Vincent

I can now be a real railway kid:)

[weirdowithaquill]

Random Trains I Found Part 2:

So, I did a Part 1, and now I'm doing a Part 2 because there are many trains, and I enjoy procrastinating on just about everything. With this in mind, here's what I have in store:

Southern Pacific MC-1:

Ok, so these things were behemoths - 2-8-8-2 American giants which were built in 1908. And while they weren't the most useful engines built on this earth, they lived surprisingly long... as rebuilt cab-forward engines. Yup, the Southern Pacific swapped them around and turned them into Cab-Forward locomotives in the 1920s, having been the basis for the MC-2 and later AC models of Cab-Forward. Not a bad legacy!

SNCB Type 36:

Big Belgians! This 1909 class of 2-10-0 was built to work heavy freight trains over hilly terrain. And if you know anything about European history, then you'll know this class got caught up in WWI - only, for some reason they ended up in Russia, Poland and Ukraine? The reason for that is that they were sold to Russia to work lines in occupied, standard gauge Austrian territory (and Ukraine?) Five of them were eventually returned by the Poles. The type also influenced the L&YR to design their own 2-10-0... that wasn't built because of the same war.

Royal Bavarian State Railways S 3/6:

I like these purely because they look fabulous - and they were the second Pacific type in Germany, after their Baden brethren. See, prior to 1920, Germany wasn't served by one single railway, but rather a number of railways built by the nations that preceded the German Empire (which was only founded in 1870). So while Prussia was busy building the P8 class, the Bavarians built this! And annoyingly, I cannot find a model of one anyone, because Marklin won't ship to where I live.

JNR 9700 Type:

These engines are where we get the nickname 'Mikado' for the 2-8-2 wheel arrangement. They weren't the first 2-8-2's built, but were instead heavily promoted by Baldwin at a time when Japan was very interesting to the Western nations - a Savoy Opera of the same name had premiered in England in 1885, and Emperor Meiji was known in the US as 'the Mikado'. As for the engines? Apart from their part in wheel arrangement history, they were the most powerful engines in Japan when they arrived... but very little is actually known about their careers, only that they were scrapped in 1922.

LNWR DX Goods class:

For a class built in the 1850's, these engines sure are modern! By which I mean, they built 943 of them, making it one of the largest locomotive classes in Britain and also one of the first examples of standardisation and mass-production. They were also 0-6-0s, had an equivalent tank engine class (the LNWR Special Tanks) and were all gone by 1930, with none surviving. However, considering the first was built in 1858, that is still a 72-year working life. They were rebuilt several times, caused an injunction by private companies when the L&YR bought 86 fresh from Crewe, and were the LNWR's go-to goods engine.

I still want these engines - and I have more I want to talk about in the future. Unfortunately, it's not easy to discover much about engines from outside the Anglosphere due to the lack of translations out there (I have resorted to Wikipedia in other languages, and then google translate). But it makes finding those oddities that much more fun!

And as usual, all images belong to their respective owners.

[ezmameow]

I decided to try to do something but got lazy. Used rbg noise since I did not feel like dealing with the janky interface to manually place each pixel. It is too noisy, but I do not feel like fixing it. everything is in layers so I could fix it fast lol just no reason to. Also cheating with the lighting by blocking out the area in different layers can be an easy way to fix mistakes. I used to do that but stopped due to color pallet limitations. My mind can be silly meow.

[keendaanmaa]

The combination of a three-quarter moon, thin but present cloud cover, and full snow cover made for a very bright night tonight. Even my shitty phone camera could pick up the landscape, albeit poorly, with no extra illumination and I could see as far cross-country as I can during the day

[ladychandraofthemoone]

Narrow Gauge Nia

Was chatting with some folks on discord about aus and engines basis and saw some takes on Nia so it got me thinking about if she was built in the Nairobi Central Workshops around the 1910s cause she’s still a British exported locomotive and maybe other railways take inspiration from others and bulit their own also some folks on Twitter and discord make her another basis like a NG6 from South Africa so I was wondering on others folks thoughts on this if that’s cool

[joraszinhaz]