Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, October 17, 1943. The Burma Railway completed.

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, October 17, 1943. The Burma Railway comple...: 

Sunday, October 17, 1943. The Burma Railway completed.

The German surface raider Michel was torpedoed and sunk off of Japan by the USS Tarpon.  On the same day the German's lost the U-540, U-631 and U-841 in the Atlantic.

The Burma Railway, constructed with Asian slave labor and Allied POWs, was completed.

Tamils working on the bridge.

The railway may be best remembered today due to the fairly inaccurate movie, The Bridge On the River Kwai, which is nonetheless a great movie.

POW illustration of the construction of Bridge 227 across the Kwai.

A second concrete bridge replaced the original wooden bridge shortly after its construction. It was destroyed by the RAF in February 1945.  Shortly after the war, most of the original railway was dismantled and only the original 81 miles remains in use.

Chicago began running its subway for the first time.

Towns and Nature: Chugwater, WY: Lost/CB&Q Depot and Three Wood Grai...

Towns and Nature: Chugwater, WY: Lost/CB&Q Depot and Three Wood Grai...: ( Satellite ) Michael Pannel commented on his share of his post Here is the original depot and order board before demolition by train in 195...

Kingston's Hanley Spur: Locomotives of the Hanley Spur

Kingston's Hanley Spur: Locomotives of the Hanley Spur: I've endeavoured to compile a list of locomotives that served CN and CP's waterfront trackage, based on photos I've seen. These...

Towns and Nature: Lapeer, MI: Amtrak/GTW Depot and 3 Preserved Cabooses

Towns and Nature: Lapeer, MI: Amtrak/GTW Depot and 3 Preserved Cabooses: ( Satellite ) For once, Amtrak uses the cute little depot that was already in the town. Street View , Jun 2022 Street View , Jun 2022 Charli...

Towns and Nature: Laramie, WY: UP Depot, Roundhouse and Water Tower

Towns and Nature: Laramie, WY: UP Depot, Roundhouse and Water Tower: Depot: ( Satellite , 436 photos) Roundhouses: ( Satellite , the roundhouses were south and southeast of the preserved smokestack) Rick Shill...

Lex Anteinternet: September 27, 1923. Disaster at Cole Creek.

Lex Anteinternet: September 27, 1923. Disaster at Cole Creek.: 

September 27, 1923. Disaster at Cole Creek.

Today In Wyoming's History: September 27: 1923  Thirty railroad passengers were killed when a CB&Q train wrecked at the Cole Creek Bridge, which had been washed out due to a flood, in Natrona County.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

It was a horrific event.

Flooding had taken out the railroad bridge over Cole Creek near Casper Wyoming, which was unknown to the railroad.   The night train to Denver approached the bridge on a blind curve, and the headlights detected its absence too late to stop the train.  Half of the people on the train were killed.

It's the worst disaster in Wyoming's railroad history.

Friday, September 28, 1923. The terrible news.

The news of the prior day was in the paper, much of it horrific locally.

Saturday, September 29, 1923. Mandates and Floods.

The British Mandate for Palestine went into effect, as did the French Mandate for Syria and Lebanon.

With this, the British Empire, and I'd guess French Empire reached their maximum territorial extents.

The grim news kept coming in on the recent Cole Creek disaster.

Apparently the floods occured almost everywhere in Wyoming, and into Nebraska.

Towns and Nature: Mandan, ND: NP Roundhouse

Towns and Nature: Mandan, ND: NP Roundhouse: ( Satellite ) Rick Shilling posted c1940's Northern Pacific Railway Roundhouse, Turntable, Shops and Yard, Mandan, North Dakota. Nancy H...

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, August 30, 1943. The Lackawanna Limited wreck

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, August 30, 1943. Hornets: 

The Lackawanna Limited wreck occurred when a Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad passenger train, the New York-Buffalo Lackawanna Limited collided with a freight train. Twenty-seven people were killed in the collision, and about twice that number injured, many from steam that poured into the railroad cars.

Blog Mirror: One Of Only 2 Known Rare Union Pacific Buses Coming To Cheyenne

 

One Of Only 2 Known Rare Union Pacific Buses Coming To Cheyenne

Towns and Nature: Ishpeming, MI: C&NW Depot

Towns and Nature: Ishpeming, MI: C&NW Depot: Depot: ( Satellite , Hematte Drive is over the footprint.) Roundhouse: ( Satellite , all traces of it are gone.) Cliffs Shaft Mine Museum: (...

Towns and Nature: Gillette, WY: 1907 CB&Q Roundhouse and Water Tower

Towns and Nature: Gillette, WY: 1907 CB&Q Roundhouse and Water Tower: ( Satellite , the roundhouse was removed by 1970. There are no obvious remnants.) Note the water tower on the left. The building with the de...

Blog Mirror: C&NW: Chicago & North Western Overview

 

C&NW: Chicago & North Western Overview

Rail Features. Thyra Thompson Building, Casper Wyoming.

The State of Wyoming recently completed the construction of a massive new state office building, the Thyra Thompson Building, in Casper.  All of the state's administrative bodies, except for the district and circuit courts, are housed there.

The building does house, however, the Chancery Court for the entire state, a new court that's only recently been established.

The building is built right over what had been the Great Northwest rail yard in Casper, which was still an active, although not too active, rail yard into my teens.  I can't really recall when they abandoned the line, but it was abandoned.

In putting the building in, and extending the Platte River Parkway through it, the State did a nice job of incorporating some rail features so that there's a memory of what the location had been.

They also put in some historical plaques, which are nice. The curved arch at this location, moreover, is the location of the old turntable.  It was a small one, which I hate to admit that I crossed over when I was a teenager, a dangerous thing to do.

 

Painted Bricks: Train mural, Casper Wyoming

Painted Bricks: Train mural, Casper Wyoming: 

Train mural, Casper Wyoming

This train mural is on the Platte River Parkway that runs through downtown Casper along a rails to trails easement.   The building is the 321 Art Works building, formerly an industrial warehouse.

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, July 15, 2023. Harding drives a golden spike.

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, July 15, 2023. Harding drives a golden sp...: 

Sunday, July 15, 2023. Harding drives a golden spike.

Harding drove in a golden spike on the Alaska Railroad at Nenana, a town near Fairbanks.

Harding was really putting in the miles, and saw a great deal of Alaska during his trip, at a point in time at which it was fairly difficult to do so.

The most dangerous major airline in the world, Aeroflot, saw its birth when its predecessor, Dobrolet, began operations with a flight from Moscow to Nizhny.

Egypt banned its citizens from making the Hajj in reaction to the King of Hejaz barring an Egyptian medical mission which was part of it.  The latter was done as an assertion of sovereignty by the Kingdom, which was not long to remain.

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, July 2, 1923: Harding at the controls.

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, July 2, 1923: Officers behind bars, Frenc...: 

Monday, July 2, 1923: Officers behind bars, French seize Krupp factory

President Harding, continuing his Voyage of Understanding, was allowed to take the controls of a locomotive, fulfilling a boyhood ambition.  It was an early electric locomotive.

U.S. President Harding in the cab of a Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad ("Milwaukee Road") boxcab electric locomotive, July 2, 1923. 

The trip took Harding to Spokane, where he addressed a crowd on public lands.  In his address, acknowledging the growing conservation movement that had received a large boost during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, he argued that use of public resources from public lands, rather than locking them up, preserved them.  He also more or less correctly anticipated the size of the US population in 2023.