Mystery Photo (Erie Motorcar on Moodna Viaduct)

Does anyone know where this is, about when it was taken, the model and make of the rail car, etc?

Full view:

Zooming in:

TMNY Collection, catalog #369

It looks very much like this...

http://www.dallasrailwaymuseum.com/m160.html

Is it a Brill M160?

The limb I like to go out on tells me it might be Kinzua Viaduct...but I will turn to Stauffer's for details.

Ok...it is a Standard Steel Co of Hammond, Indiana June 1930 gas electric used in commuter routes in New Jersey for the most part. But without a broader look at the scene, and without pics of all such bridges near, I can only guess still that to be Kinzua. Stauffer only shows pics in NJ service.

Based on the other picture of a Standard Steel car, I concur this would seem to be the same model. As for the bridge, notice in the picture there is a guardrail on only one side. Was Kinzua like that back then?

n2xjk wrote:Based on the other picture of a Standard Steel car, I concur this would seem to be the same model. As for the bridge, notice in the picture there is a guardrail on only one side. Was Kinzua like that back then?

That's my question, too...

Kinzua appears to be correct. Note the alternating criss-cross steel and the alternative deck steel sizes.

BUT...what does TMNY Collection Catalog 369 with stand for? Could be a clue when TMNY is defined. What bothers me is in the foreground right under the bridge there seems to be a roof of a building or something which indicates very little height. Kinzua was (is) a sharp drop on both ends so such a roof would not be seen so easily. At least in my mind. I don't think it is Moodna, but could be Woodbury (or is Woodbury too short?), or maybe something on the Cuba Cut Off or "low grade line" as there were one or two such bridges on that line, too. NO,it was not the first Portage Bridge either!

I'm the acting archivist for the Trolley Museum of New York. When I come across unlabeled photos that seem to have more of a story to tell, I put them out in discussion groups like this to see what people can add. We have lots of photos from around Pennsylvania, mostly traction, but some railroad stuff like this. Once we have everything cataloged (and we still have boxes and boxes of stuff to go through donated over the decades), we might asses what should stay in the collection and what is surplus. Does TMNY need a collection of Erie Railroad photos? I don't know. It will be quite a while before we're ready to make assessments like that. Everything we've cataloged (if its a postcard, photo or book) is on our web site at http://www.tmny.org.

TMNY: Trolley Museum of New York! DUH! I didn't get it. Ok, that helps. Since you have the pic in Kingston, NY, and without any further identification based on what else in in the collection surrounding this pic, I will lean toward a more local bridge than Kinzua. Like Woodbury. But you probably have bettter access to local histories than I do, so you might check them out, even early pics of Moodna. I am not familiar enough with the histories and rebuilds to difinitively commment. Were there any other similar bridges on the any of the other Erie branches? OR how 'bout a NYSW or WBE bridge in the Poconos? I will see if I have time over this weekend to look through a couple of books. But I am now being led away from Kinzua for the moment.

Though its hard to be certain in the mystery photo, under the bridge there seems to be a snow covered hill, with trees further in the distance, and Moodna does span a hill; a somewhat W-shaped valley. Kinzua on the other hand spans terrain that is much more V-shaped. Moodna also has the alternating girder plate size that Kinzua has. So, I'm leaning toward Moodna as the photo location.

AdamCKach wrote:Kinzua appears to be correct. Note the alternating criss-cross steel and the alternative deck steel sizes.

If you look at how the railing on the side is built they don't match.

That doesn't matter as there were so many alterations to the bridge over the years, including an early replacement, that location of railings actually become ways to determine age of photos. But, because the car was used in the NY commuter area and because the picture is in a collection of the Kingston, NY museum, the location more than likely is not Kinzua but Woodbury or Moodna. Just have to find the right picture of the right bridge at the right time to verify.

More than just the railing (which could have been added at any time) What hasn't changed much is the valley that the bridge was built. If you look at the picture from the tmny the valley is relatively flat, where in the Kinzua Viaduct none of the ground is that flat. I know because I have walked the valley and over the bridge over a dozen times growing up. Also if you look at the bridge construction there is cross member structure in a X from the left to right side. In the Kinzua Viaduct there is no such structure, if you look at any pictures of the viaduct you can see there there is no X'ing cross members going from the left hand side of the bridge to the right hand side of the bridge.

Chris
Lancaster, CA

Isn't that a body of water that the original photo shows the trestle is over ?

There are several reasons to discount Kinzua. Plus another "expert" viewed the picture here at my place this morning and immediately called out Moodna. He noted that at that time there was a Saturday only doodlbug over the line and that pic could be of it. Yeah, me and several others have noted the valley is not as deep or as wide as Kinzua. And Stauffer's Erie Power pictutres those cars in that area and at that time.