Per the museum's website:
This family-friendly place is a 60 acre site filled with immersive exhibits & special events. Four exhibit buildings represent the remaining structures of historic Spencer Shops, once Southern Railroad's largest steam locomotive repair facility on the east coast. The massive, 90,000 square foot Back Shop features aviation and automotive exhibits. The Bob Julian Roundhouse, with 37 stalls, is the largest remaining roundhouse in North America and features steam and diesel locomotives, rail cars, & more!
When we arrived we picked up maps to familiarize ourselves with the facility and grounds. We planned to take the train ride that passed by the various areas of interest area, starting at A on the following map, near where we had parked.
A. Barber Junction (1898) (train ride start)
B. Back Shop (1905) (lots of transportation vehicles)
C. Master Mechanics Office (1911) (current gift shop)
D. Storehouse No. 3 (1896) (did not visit)
E. Flue Shop (1924) (did not visit)
F. Round House (1924) (turntable and large railcar displays)
But first things first. We visited a restroom and encountered our first educational poster in there.
Then we had a picnic lunch near one of the side tracks. Here are Carmen, Camilla, and Frank with the backdrop of an engine.
As interested in quilting and sewing as I am, it was coincidental that the first box car we encountered was for transporting fabrics!
We walked back toward the boarding platform for the train and passed a refurbished historic trolley car.
We had train tickets for a 1:30 pm departure...
... and waited patiently to board.
We admired the bunny wreath decorations on the depot doors. The Sunday after our visit would be Easter and the museum had lots of signage, trimmings, and games scattered throughout in preparation for the special event.
It was Carmen and Camilla's first ride ever on a real train. Note the spring/Easter decorations above the windows, also.
We sat across from Nishaan and Maxine.
The train did not do a loop but rather went up and back along the same track. Unless you switched seats, you rode backwards at least one direction.
On the return, the train traveled a bit further down the tracks beyond the boarding platform, passing an impressively high pile of discarded automobiles. I guess that mound still fits the museum theme. Automobiles are indeed one form of transportation.
After we disembarked, we began to explore the grounds, making our way eastward from the station area in the west toward the shops and roundhouse in the middle and on the right in the site map. We stopped to learn about signaling devices at railroad crossings. A staggering statistic quoted was that someone in the United States is hit by a train every 3 hours. Did you know the audible horn signal warning at a crossing is "L O N G... L O N G... short ... L O N G" ?
Before radio communication was widespread on the railway networks in the 1960s operators relayed information by telephones sheltered in concrete booths. Here is Frank in front of one such booth.
After the train ride we made our way toward the Back Shop (B), the large building with BE CAREFUL emblazoned on it. Per the captions on the museum map
The immense Back Shop structure was built in 1905 and served as the major overhaul facility for steam locomotives. The largest structure on the site and once the largest industrial building in North Carolina, two to three locomotives per week emerged as new from the Back Shop during its peak.
Before entering, we were greeted by its resident kitty who ambled over to be loved up.
It was an extremely large building, as advertised, stretching pretty much as far as the eye could see and lined with vehicles of all varieties.
This railway express truck was either in incredibly good shape or had been remarkably restored.
Nishaan was very impressed and fascinated with this early motorized vehicle. I offered to take her photo with it but she was reluctant to pose.
Aha! I got a candid shot anyway...
Intermittently scattered throughout the vehicle displays were some games. Ring toss was fun.
There was also a bean bag toss into two boards that displayed train engines as the target.
What fascinated me most in this building was the Gratitude Train for North Carolina. I had never heard of gratitude trains before. They were boxcars loaded with gifts from France as the French people's way of saying thank you to the United States for helping them during the World War II.
I captured the background story behind the Gratitude Train from the following signs.
This YouTube video about the NC Merci Car - WWII Era 40 & 8 Boxcar is about two minutes long and well worth watching, especially if you are unable to read the text in the preceding photos. The Merci Train for California is in Fresno and the one for Oklahoma is in Norman. Frank and I will plan to visit each of those when we are near the area. For the gratitude train location for your state, check out the the Merci Train Site tab at the link www.mercitrain.org.
After emerging from the far end of the Back Shop, we walked on to the Round House and Turntable (item F on the museum map). Per the museum map
The 37-bay Bob Julian Roundhouse (1924) was the second roundhouse built at the Spencer Shops. It replaces a smaller one built in 1896.
In 2011 the roundhouse and turntable were declared an Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
We entered the Roundhouse at the Orientation Room at the far left of the following orientation map at the star marked Main Entrance and walked straight out to the Turntable at the center.
On the way, in the Orientation Room, we passed these white statues depicting men at work as they would have been when the locomotive maintenance was at its peak.
We would be taking a ride on the turntable that rotated locomotive engines, aligning each with one of the 37 bays of the roundhouse.
We approached one of the two wooden walkways that flank the track on which a locomotive to be rotated into position would sit.
Note in the next photo that the rails are not aligned in preference to aligning the wooden walkway for the boarding passengers. Great precautionary care needed to be taken to assure that for locomotive loading and unloading the rails were aligned to prevent derailing. There were no fancy auto-align features. That major, major "detail" was handled manually, purely with observation by the rail yard operators.
Our operator stood on the other side and narrated while we rotated.
After we got off I took a peek at the large motor that had propelled us around. It is at the bottom left of the next photo, riding on a curved rail.
The following 1928 photo displays the variety of locomotives that once used the very turntable we rode as part of their process of being serviced in the Spencer Shops.
Here is Frank with Tyler, the turntable operator who not only controlled our ride but explained a lot of what we were seeing. He formerly was a fireman on a locomotive and seemed quite eager to share his knowledge and experiences as Frank peppered him with questions. Sharing a common love of trains, he and Frank became "Best Buds".
The following 2015 aerial picture is from the book North Carolina Transportation Museum Hardcover (February 19, 2018) by Alan Coleman (Author), Kelly Alexander Brown (Introduction), Mark Brown (Introduction). It provides a good overview of where we had been during the day's visit, starting at the top of the photo and working our way down. While Frank and Tyler were engaged in an animated conversation, Maxine, Nishaan, Camilla, and Carmen turned back to explore a hands-on sand play pit and the gift shop area. Frank and I entered the far end of the roundhouse (lower portion of photo) and were surprised to realize the extent of the displays that populated the second floor. Per the Roundhouse Orientation Map, in counterclockwise order, Frank and I visited the following exhibits: "Riding the Rails", "Restoration Shop" through large glass viewing windows, "North Carolina Railroads and Spencer Shops", and a "Rolling Stock Display".
In the "Riding the Rails" portion we entered an acid tanker car and a hospital car. I was actually in this car but I am positive it had been purged before allowing museum visitors to tour it. Per Wikipedia
HCN is an extremely poisonous chemical, and is lethal in very small doses. A hydrogen cyanide concentration of a few hundred parts per million (ppm) in air can kill a human in less than one hour, and if ingested, it can cause almost immediate death. When high concentrations (of about 5.6%) of the HCN gas is exposed to air, it is also explosive.
A hospital car had been outfitted to carry wounded military personnel as efficiently as possible. I can't imagine being very ill or in pain while getting into or being on an upper bunk.
We looked down into the "Restoration Shop" area through a large viewing pane of glass. Though we were isolated from the shops we still noted the cautionary signage.
There were items of note along the hallways outside the "Spencer Shops". Remember the turntable? Just beyond its outermost diameter where the trains were rolled on to it, the rails from each bay were so close they intersected. This section of rail is called a frog. It was the design solution for dealing with the intersection of tracks at an angle.
The name frog does not have anything to do with the amphibian creature that croaks and hops. The word frog is thought to be influenced by synonymous Italian forchetta or French fourchette ‘small fork’, because of the shape. Rather the frog reference has to do with an alternate definition for similar shaped items such as closures for a coat or metal structures to hold flower stems.
Here is an ornamental clothing fastener (definition1)
In a garden design blog, https://fredgonsowskigardenhome.com, I found a picture of flower frogs (definition 2).
We were also told it could be so named because of its similarity to the anatomy of a horses hoof.
I guess(?) I can see the similarities... sort of. By this stretch of logic why couldn't a reference to the living breathing frog animal be relevant also, since it keeps trains from "hopping" the tracks? Bad joke... sorry.
We spent some time at displays for hand signaling devices and tools, also outside the "Spencer Shops".
We continued on to the "Rolling Stock " display. Frank was quite excited to see and stand by an actual crane car. Apparently they are a rarity, plus he had a model one he played with a lot as a kid.
This box car with its The Tobacco Route logo was a reminder that tobacco is a predominant crop and, in particular, the number one cash crop for North Carolina. North Carolina leads the top three states in acreage for tobacco agriculture with 170,083 acres. Kentucky comes in second with 87,641 acres and Virginia third with 20,881 acres.
I Googled the phrase from the side of the caboose, Hold Tight Til Footing's Right to see if there was a railroad-specific meaning.
What I was bemused to learn instead was that the Seaboard Air Line had nine other safety slogans for its cabooses. The associated website was http://www.trainweb.org/seaboard/cabooseslogans.htm. The caboose we saw had the eighth of ten slogans.
As an appropriate end to our information and fun packed day at the North Carolina Transportation Museum, I had Frank pose near this large poster with its emerging No. 3 engine.
Wednesday, April 17th was the day Frank and I would be flying back home to California. Maxine and I posed for a sister duo photo on the back deck of Dean and Nishaan's home.
Then Nishaan drove us to the Charlotte Douglas International airport, about a half-hour drive north west of Matthews.
We arrived in plenty of time for our 2:25 pm flight. We made our way toward the "A gates" looking for our particular departure gate. We were a bit befuddled when there was no A50.
Frank and I are not newbie travelers but I guess we were a tad worn out. We dutifully trotted down the long hallway designated Gates A but at the end could not find A50. We asked a passing airport personnel if we had gone down the wrong "A" corridor or in the wrong direction. He patiently explained that there was no gate numbered 50 and took the time to look at our boarding passes. He pointed out that our gate number was the small print A26 after the word GATE and that the large 50 was printed under our boarding POSITION of Southwest Boarding Group A. We must have looked like idiots, but he was gracious enough not to reveal if that was what he thought. By our twisted logic, Frank would have been leaving via "Gate A51" for the same destination.
We gazed out the windows on the corridor leading to the A gates, noting that CLT, like many other airports was under construction for expansion. The dig was interesting to watch as was the rising spiral ramp for the parking structure.
The waiting area at some of the gates was being revamped so the improved seats could contain USB ports or other support for electronics. In the interim, there were white rocking chairs scattered about for seating. The wooden rockers may have been neither efficient nor space saving, but they certainly felt less austere and more welcoming than standard airport seating. They give out a wistful vibe of wanting to be "home".
Frank and I would not touch down at our Oakland airport until after midnight Pacific Standard Time (3:00 am by our East Standard Time adjusted body clocks) early Thursday, April 17th. Though exhausted during the 45-minute drive from the airport, it sure felt good to be home. We may have been tired but we were still satisfied and happy we had made the trip. See? Maxine and I are smiling!
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