{"id":20360,"date":"2018-10-03T08:58:33","date_gmt":"2018-10-03T12:58:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nicknormal.com\/normalblog\/?p=20360"},"modified":"2018-10-02T19:02:10","modified_gmt":"2018-10-02T23:02:10","slug":"train-troughs-used-to-be-a-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nicknormal.com\/normalblog\/train-troughs-used-to-be-a-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"Train Troughs Used to Be a Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spotted this scooper on the underbelly of a Central Railroad of NJ car # 592<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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I like to look at things in museums and galleries and figure them out for myself, but was eventually spoiled by one of the B&O Railroad Museum<\/a> attendants who informed me that the scooper was used for picking up water while the car was moving – without having to stop. I saw that scooper nearly two years ago, and still think about it from time to time, as both an engineering marvel and something lost to history.<\/p>\n

And with the recent launch of the National Screening Room<\/a> initiative by the Library of Congress sure enough here’s a video circa 1905 – shot by Thomas Edison no less – of an Empire State Express train scooping up water. It’s not highly detailed or close-up but you can see the trough, filled with still water, and rippling water after the train passes by. The video’s caption<\/a> reads,<\/p>\n

“The second Empire State Express, behind a 4-4-2 Atlantic locomotive, demonstrates how to take water on the fly by scooping it out of a pan set between the railroad tracks”–George Kleine Collection…catalog, p. 35.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n