A few CVRR pictures and some other related pictures....

[J. S. Bach]

You are welcome.Details
]

That roof is really what caught my eye. Not sure I've seen a pitched clerestory roof like that before on any car. Now I can make use of that prototype info to build one onto a model someday,

I am wondering if it was not so much "peaked" as pulled up by the upward force of the hooked down trolley pole. the vertically mounted board under it (I do not know the proper name for it) seems to have a curved top and there appears to be a little gap right under the pole hook and the top of said board. I know, time to go to the Belmont hotel and get some sleep.

[J. S. Bach]

Look at the stairs on the Belmont Hotel.

Fire escape? Although I do not see a way down off of the porch roof.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Look at the stairs on the Belmont Hotel.

Fire escape? Although I do not see a way down off of the porch roof.

It looks to me like they would be accessed from those porch-like features that seem part of that "tower" . I concluded they were fire-escapes, too, since they reminded me of a similar feature on the outside of my elementary school, back in the 50's, built long before that.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I am wondering if it was not so much "peaked" as pulled up by the upward force of the hooked down trolley pole.

With your expanded view I'm now thinking it curved and the peak is just an optical illusion/artifact of the photo.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Got work if you need it....

[webenda]

Interesting page (postcard) out of our past Rufus.
A breaker boy was a coal-mining worker in the United States and United Kingdom whose job was to separate impurities from coal by hand in a coal breaker.
I wonder if they could still hear after a day inside a coal breaker? Image of a coal breaker plant => http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... reaker.jpg

Although breaker boys were primarily children, elderly coal miners who could no longer work in the mines because of age, disease, or accident were also sometimes employed as breaker boys.
Reference:=> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaker_boy

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Those poor little breaker-boys! Can you imagine the condition of their hands?! Have you ever seen coal and felt it? Not smooth. And not a one of them turned to look at the camera. What child doesn't turn to face a camera when they know a photo is about to be taken. They all seem downcast (no pun or play-on-words intended.) And what's the sumbich with the stick, standing over them, supposed to be doing?

[webenda]

And not a one of them turned to look at the camera. ... And what's the sumbich with the stick, standing over them, supposed to be doing?

Him? He is there to make sure they never goof off, like looking at the camera. (Sorta like a nun and her ruler in catechism class.) Child discipline was different back then.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

And not a one of them turned to look at the camera. ... And what's the sumbich with the stick, standing over them, supposed to be doing?

Him? He is there to make sure they never goof off, like looking at the camera. (Sorta like a nun and her ruler in catechism class.) Child discipline was different back then.

I'd love to have been there to discipline him if I ever saw him lift that stick. \

Nowadays, the lawsuits would fly!

[Rufus T. Firefly]

And not a one of them turned to look at the camera. ... And what's the sumbich with the stick, standing over them, supposed to be doing?

Him? He is there to make sure they never goof off, like looking at the camera. (Sorta like a nun and her ruler in catechism class.) Child discipline was different back then.

I'd love to have been there to discipline him if I ever saw him lift that stick. \

Nowadays, the lawsuits would fly!

Things were different then - I have a copy of the apprentice // indenture agreement for the CVRR from ~1895. Not quite a rung up from slavery; minimal wages and longest of hours and anything you did wrong was all on you and any injuries were also all on you.

Life was different then and you'd be lucky to not be under the coal load in the hopper after crossing that overseer.

Sort of puts a few things into perspective now.....

[webenda]

A breaker boy earns from fifty to seventy cents for ten hours' work.

The reference (below) says, "The ambition of every breaker boy is to enter the mines."
Here is a photo of a breaker boy who is now a "driver boy" in the mine.


Reference: http://www.tngenweb.org/campbell/hist-b ... miner.html

[rogruth]

My grandfather went to work in a coal mine when he was 10 or 11 years old because his father died
and he was the oldest of four children and it fell to him to support the family. Later he got a job in a
factory that made enameled pots and pans. He worked in "the factory" for 50 years. He said the
factory work was a breeze compared to the mine work.

My grandmother, his wife, dropped out of school when she was 9 to "keep house" for her father and
four older brothers when her mother died. After they married she raised her four girls and me.These
were the only jobs she ever had.

It has always been hard for me to understand how both grandparents were school dropouts but could
read, write and cypher as Jethro called it, not always perfectly but understandable and today we have
students [I use the term loosely] that with pre-school and kindergarten can't do as well with @20 years
of school.

Sorry for the diversion.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

My grandfather went to work in a coal mine when he was 10 ..
...Sorry for the diversion.

That was certainly no diversion, Roger, and certainly nothing for which to be sorry; rather, it was entirely pertinent to what had been shared about the breaker-boys and entirely pertinent to a MTrainJ. I found it very interesting.

[ChipR]

My Father also started in the coal mines at Herrin IL at 16. He was an orphan and worked his way through high school. Three months after graduating from high school, he received a scholarship to a university and never looked back.

ChipR

[healey36]

I have visited the former working shaft-mine that's open to the public in Ashland, Pa. twice...once just to see what it was like and a second time years later to assure myself I hadn't imagined it. It is an amazing, humbling experience. My hat is off to anyone who made their living doing that work.

Healey