Living with Steam Podcast

09/12/2024

Hi listeners.

I’m sure many of you are wondering if Living with Steam has run its course and is finished or on hiatus since it’s been such a long time between episodes. This is embarrasing to say, but the Cove, PA episode is not quite ready for streaming yet. I’ve had to go back and rewrite sections of the script several times due to updated historical information that keeps arriving in my inbox. But honestly, the “day job” has kept me incredibly busy as has another project I’m working on; digitizing dozens of 8mm films featuring the B&O and other railroads that ran in Western New York, Canada, and the South-eastern United States.

For anyone who’s attempted to do that sort of thing, it’s a very tedious and time-consuming project IF you want to do it right. Sure, it’s easy just to point an iPhone or DSLR at a screen while the film is being projected… but to get a true hi-res digital capture, you need to snap a single picture for every individual frame of film. It can take up to three days to do this alone. Reassembling the film in an editor like Adobe Premiere Pro, then cleaning up and restoring the film takes hours of work as well. The process can’t be rushed… and, well… once I get started on it, I don’t have the ambition to do much else.

Also, I was very busy on a side project that involved one of John Prophet’s “lost” wire recordings. Yes… out of his entire catalog of wires, one was not to be found anywhere even though I had the page of notes saying John made these recordings and the wire SHOULD have been in the old black suitcase with the others. I’m happy to report that after five years of searching, the wire has been found and was delivered to me for digitizing. I’ll be featuring these recordings in a future episode of Living with Steam.

Once again, I can’t thank you enough for your patience. Living with Steam is alive and well and will continue to be for a long time. There just aren’t enough hours in the day.

Aaron

05/09/2024

Hello friends and listeners! The next episode of Living with Steam is in production and will be available for streaming as soon as it's finished. This episode will have you rejoining John Prophet on his July 1951 trip that started in Pennsylvania and ended in Trenton, New Jersey.

Many of you may be asking why I published these episodes backwards. It all comes down to the availability of archives and historical information needed for each script. John's notes for the Trenton recordings were much easier to understand, and the internet provided a wealth of information without having to rely heavily on the folks from the PRRTHS or the RMoP. So, rather than delaying the release of the episode featuring the recordings John made on his first stop in July of 1951, I felt it was best to publish the episode that was ready to go; Trenton, New Jersey.

Now it's time to listen to John's recordings made at Cove, PA. Cove is located between Marysville and Duncannon. There really isn't any particular claim to fame for Cove other than it once had an emergency pumping station that fed an overhead water bridge spanning the four-track PRR mainline. At one time, a small passenger station was located at Cove, but it was closed in 1950.

When John pulled into Cove on July 24, 1951, he hoped to catch PRR passenger and freight trains running at full speed as they ran between Duncannon and Marysville. However, what John recorded was, in his own words, a "horrible mix of trucks and trains... and very little trains." In other words, John hated the recordings he made at Cove and was very surprised to see the wire containing the recordings when I pulled it out back in 1995. He thought the wire had been recorded over.

Regardless of the merits of each recording, they offer a chance to hear PRR trains running at speed powered by steam and diesels engines. I'll leave it to you for judging the quality of the Cove recordings.

As always thank you for your patience and for listening.

16/06/2024

Hello friends and listeners. I'm happy to announce that the latest episode of Living with Steam has just been published and is now available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and many others.

As I said in my earlier post, "A Day in Palmyra, July 26, 1951" took months of work to complete due to the complexity of understanding how the Pennsylvania Railroad's trains moved through Palmyra, New Jersey in relation to what John wrote in his notes. The biggest stumbling block was trying to make everything coincide with the factual information for each PRR train written in a 1951 public timetable.

Regardless, these are some of the best railroad sound recordings John made. They capture PRR commuter trains and "through" trains that ran practically every minute of the day right down the middle of Palmyra's business district. You will also hear the ambience of small-town America that shared its neighborhoods with an extremely busy rail line. These are sounds that will never be heard again, and whether he realized it or not, John preserved a piece of history that I'm proud to share with everyone.

Be sure to check out the Living with Steam website at livingwithsteam.com for images, maps, historical information, and more details related to this and any other episode of Living with Steam.

Enjoy!

This is the second of a three part series documenting a road trip John M. Prophet III made back in July of 1951. In the last episode of Living with Steam, you heard the railroad sound recordings John made in Trenton, NJ; his last stop on the trip. Now, you'll hear the incredible recordings of many P...

10/06/2024

To everyone who is eagerly awaiting the next episode of Living with Steam... I sincerely appreciate your patience and apologize for the delay. Again.

I have to admit...the Palmyra New Jersey recordings have been the most challenging and time-consuming out of every other recording in John's catalog. The episode was finally finished and ready to be published when, during a final listen, some errors were found that I could not let go; one of which was a pretty big gaff that left me scratching my head wondering how it even got in there.

If something in the narrative is way off, or if a soundscape I created to enhance the natural ambience of a location John was making a recording is completely wrong for the time, then to me, the episode is not ready.

Please understand I'm not trying for "absolute perfection" because that would be impossible. As each episode of LwS is produced , I always try to remember everything John taught me about his recordings. More importantly, I always ask myself how much "enhancement" can I safely make without the thought of making John cringe if he were still able to sit with me and listen to any number of the "disco remixes" I made of his recordings.

If I can imagine John sitting across from me with a slight smile on his face saying "Yes... that's exactly how it was", then I know the episode is truly finished and he'd be proud to have it published.

I'm not quite there yet. A few more gaffs to address first.

Thanks for listening.

07/04/2024

The newest episode of Living with Steam is currently in production and will be released soon.

This time you’ll hear the recordings John Prophet made in Palmyra, NJ on July 26, 1951. Palmyra was John’s second stop on a three-day road trip he made beginning on July 25; his first stop being Cove, PA. John’s final destination would be Trenton, NJ to visit friends and the recordings he made in Trenton were featured in the last episode of LwS.

In my opinion, these recordings are some of John’s best work. Palmyra had a long history of being a very busy place for Pennsylvania Railroad traffic due to the dozens of commuter trains that ran daily and on a continuous basis. Sandwiched between Philadelphia and New York, Palmyra was one of many stops Pennsy trains had to make on a stretch of track where the stations were roughly a half-mile apart from each other. These movements were the very definition of “all-stops” trains and John captured every bit of it.

Palmyra was one of the best examples of John simply letting his wire-recorder run in order to catch the distant approach of a Pennsy commuter train far up the line, the arrival and departure of the train at Palmyra, and finally the fading of the train way in the distance as it approached the next station on its journey. In other words, he didn’t stop the recorder as soon as the engine went past his microphone.

The Palmyra recordings were perhaps the most difficult to produce into an episode of LwS because of John’s notes and what is actually heard in each of recordings. When trying to compare everything to a 1951 PRR timetable, nothing made sense. It was a challenge, but the results will be well worth it.

Thanks to everyone for their patience. I hope you enjoy the episode when it’s released. Stay tuned!

16/02/2024

The newest episode of Living with Steam has just been released. This time, you’ll hear the recordings John Prophet made at the Pennsylvania Railroad passenger station in Trenton, NJ in July 1951. As a bonus for this episode, you’ll hear several recordings John made in the southern tier of New York as John set out to record PRR passenger trains during the last week they were pulled by steam engines in and out of Buffalo, NY.

Enjoy!

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/living-with-steam/episodes/The-Pennsylvania-Railroad-Passenger-Station-at-Trenton--NJ-e2frn0n

08/01/2024

The newest episode of Living with Steam (EXTRA) is now streaming.

Enjoy!

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/living-with-steam/episodes/Lws-EXTRA-PRR-Diesels--1970-e2e5pkr

06/10/2023

While paying a visit to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania this past summer, I took the opportunity to take some pictures of Pennsylvania Railroad engine 1223, which John Prophet was especially fond of. Not only did he make extensive recordings of this engine when it was on the Strasburg Railroad back in the 1950s, but he also shot many 16mm movies of the engine in excursion service.

Sadly, 1223 is retired, but resting comfortably and protected in the museum’s wonderful indoor facilities. If you’ve never been to the RMoP (or Strasburg), you really should go. For us railfans, it’s like visiting “Mecca.”

Regardless, several recordings of 1223 will be featured in this season of Living with Steam.

30/09/2023

Creating this podcast is a labor of love for me... which is why I'm so happy to announce that the first episode of season 3 of Living with Steam is now available for streaming. Of course... you'll hear some pretty incredible sounds that John Prophet recorded during the week of July 24 in 1949 at BV Tower in Blasdell, NY, but you'll also learn about one of the boldest and most successful "land grabs" ever pulled off in Buffalo's history. The railroad industry in Buffalo in the mid to late 19th century was cut-throat... with little regard to the safety of the public or railroad employees. "The public be damned! We need to get to Lake Erie!"
Enjoy!
https://podcasters.spotify.com/.../Railroad-News--A-Week...

19/06/2023

With the Living with Steam podcast on hiatus for a few months, I’m taking the “time off” to get other projects ready for release. In the works are a video on the historic run of NYC’s Engine 999 along with a video featuring ffootage of a baseball championship game between the Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central in October of 1927. Scripts for the upcoming season of LwS are currently being written as well.

More exciting is the discovery of a film showing actual footage captured at Boulder Park amusement park of Sam Herrington’s steam train. John Prophet was the engineer of this train on many occasions, and he is clearly seen in the film. Boulder Park was featured in an episode of Season 1 of Living with Steam since Sam was a NYC tower man and one of John’s best friends. Sam was John’s way into Tower 49-A on many occasions.

I’m also thrilled to report that after a year of dotting the “I’s” and crossing the “T’s”, I have come into possession of John’s “lost” open-reel tapes. These tapes feature recordings of PRR operations in the very last days of steam from 1955-1956. In fact, John was so desperate to hang on to his precious Pennsy that he broke ranks and actually went out to record PRR diesels just prior to them being painted over by Penn Central. The diesels were either reused or scrapped depending on what was redundant and not needed. John had a feeling things were going to drastically change.

John also made many recordings of PRR engine 1223 at the Strasburg Railroad Museum along with trains of the Western Maryland in its final days of steam.

The tapes are being meticulously digitized and restored at this very moment.

Along with the tapes, John’s collection of 16mm films have likewise been sent to me for digitizing. Look for new video content on the LwS YouTube channel featuring these incredible films; several of which have never been seen.

Living with Steam will return soon. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for listening.

20/03/2023

It has taken close to three months of work, but the season finale for Living with Steam is now available for streaming on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and others.

This one features several recordings John M. Prophet III made at the Village of Angola NY on Sunday, July 22, 1951. Even though the old depot of the Nickel Plate Road was no longer being used for passenger service when John was there, he still managed to record passenger and freight trains pulled by both steam end diesel engines of the NKP and PRR running at full speed past his location.
When John first let me hear these recordings back in 1993, he wanted to be sure I knew about the disaster that occurred in Angola back on December 18, 1867. Not only had I never heard of what came to be known as “The Angola Horror”… I didn’t even know where Angola was.

There’s no doubt trains are fascinating machines; ask anyone who is a railfan (like John was) or deeply into model railroading as a hobby (like Rod Stewart). However, trains can kill and/or cause suffering beyond comprehension. This is the story of one such deadly incident.

As a final note… there’s no way to sugarcoat the story of what happened to the New York Express as it made its way from Cleveland, Ohio to Buffalo on that frigid day back in December of 1867. Many lives were lost and hundreds more were forever changed by what they witnessed as they tried to help with rescue efforts. To that end, listener discretion is advised for this one especially if you’re going to be listening with a youngster.

“About half-past three o’clock yesterday afternoon, the telegraph flashed the news to this city that an accident had occurred near the Village of Angola, to the New York Express train, on the Lake Shore Road, due at Buffalo at 1:30 pm, and that there was a fearful loss of life.” 84 years later...

11/03/2023

The next episode of Living with Steam tells the story of the horrific train derailment that occurred in Angola, NY on December 18, 1867. The wheels on the last car in the New York Express derailed just as the train was about to pass Angola and cross over the Big Sister Creek bridge which was about a mile or so away from the station.

The car began tearing up the ties and ballast as the passengers inside the car began to frantically pull on the emergency signal cord to try to get the engineer to stop the train before it reached the bridge since the car was also bouncing and violently rocking back and forth. Even though he had no idea what was going on in the car 400 feet back from his engine, the engineer lowered the throttle and applied the brakes to his engine to try and stop the train. A loud and continuous blast from the engine’s whistle signaled the brakemen stationed on the train to set the handbrakes on the cars immediately.

However, even though the train had slowed considerably, the constant moving of the car was exasperated by the panic-stricken passengers who were frantically moving around inside the car trying to determine what was going on as the car followed the train out onto the Big Sister Creek bridge.

However, the momentum of the train didn’t slow to the point of stopping the car from rocking and tipping . Once the car reached a 45-degree angle to the track, however, it toppled… right off the bridge and straight down 50 feet into the ravine below. The passengers were crushed together inside the wreckage of the car, but to add insult to horrific injury, the two pot-bellied wood burning stoves at either end of the car exploded and sprayed hot coals all over the interior of the car. Anything and everything flammable caught fire and began to burn; including the 50 or so people trapped in the remains of the car.

Yet the ordeal wasn’t over.