highpeak

This might be getting into nit-picking territory but local variations also depended on the strength of dealership networks. I suppose you could try looking at dealerships for your location (edmunds.com has guides for that), though for historical data you would then have to look at websites to see if there was any clue as to how long the dealership had been in business. That fact is something long-lived dealerships tend to brag about a bit.
The curbside classics site does have a section on European imports if you want to see what made it to these shores and how they fared, e.g., http://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/turkey-week-kickoff-1968-1972-austin-america-yankee-doodle-disaster/

I remember seeing one of those at a British car show in the 80s, very tired looking, no idea whether it really had made it from CO to CT under its own power, but the car's plates suggested it hailed from far afield.

As Martyn points out, the assorment of cars in that mixture, while no doubt a very good value, isn't really very representative of what would be seen on American streets really at any point in time, some parts of, say, Southern CA excepted which would probably not have a railroad running through them. And the crux of the OP was to do with the mundane.

I am going to assume the vehicles are intended for the layout Tree Point, which is a thread the OP has that shows good progress on a reasonable switching layout. I would suggest that you aren't likely to see that many automobiles in the space where rail and industrial plant join together, most plants would have employee parking, and obviously the parking lot would be on the road side of the plant, not the rail side. There is a road running across the rails as I recall, but in an industrial area I don't think you'd have a big backup of traffic at the crossings.

And the other thing I'd point out is that your assessment of what is typical needs to take into account context, what's going on here. Grain elevator, corn syrup facility, these involve people who get their hands dirty to make a living. A lot of those folks like to drive pickup trucks to work, their wife will have the minivan or car. Heck, there was a time when I had a small pickup truck, and I'm an IT guy. Something about the utility of these vehicles appeals to a lot of guys. I'd guess you'll see more beat up pickups than nice cars in this location.

Now if you want an example of something that is typical as can be, and doesn't seem to be available, I'll offer these: the pickup truck with a cap (a cover usually fibreglass over the bed) and a pickup truck that is used for snow plowing, either with the plow (sets your layout firmly in the colder part of the year and in the snow belt) or without the plow but with the hydraulic apparatus that isn't usually removed from the vehicle (snow belt location, but warmer season). And if your season is winter, a  pickup truck especially a 2WD needs weight over the back axle to get any where, so a couple bags of sand would ride in the back if the owner wanted any sort of traction at all

For a somewhat tongue-in-cheek look at the splendor that is/was Detroit iron, this site is worth a browse: http://www.curbsideclassic.com/

If you can't tell a Gremlin from a Pacer, you will be enlightened. Lots of pictures of cars in their prime and not-so-prime years.

The cars you mentioned did stem the Japanese invasion but weren't good enough to reverse the trend.  Just as some consumers were loyal to Detroit's products, those who had bought Japanese developed their own loyalty and a K-car wasn't going to win them back. Then the Japanese opened US plants, US companies sent production outside the US and by 2005 the Big 3's share of the car market was just slightly ahead of the Japanese.

It's worth noting that in the early years of the Japanese invasion penetration of the US market by imports was not uniform. I would imagine you would be less likely to see imports in the mid-west, at least in the earlier years of the OP's period. In other regions, Japanese cars would be more common, Subaru established a strong presence in New England fairly early on for example.

Considering that a large proportion of the market ws busy buying V8 pickup trucks and the ones who wanted small cars were buying Japanese (or Chevettes), can you really blame them? Front-wheel-drive was a new voodoo technology.  They had TV ads of Citations with the backs chopped off to demonstrate it.

 

In 1975, our small, cheap car was a Plymouth Valiant with a 225cu.in.(3.7L) slant 6. In 1983 we replaced it with a 1.6L Honda Accord.

 

After the Citation/Omega/Skylark/Phoenix GM did produce (1982) the Citation/J2000/Cimmaron/Firenza/Skyhawk/Sunbird with a 1.8L engine. There was also the Chevette/Acadian which did sell reasonably well.

 

Adrian

The Citation was GM's third attempt to compete with imports, the first two being the Corvair (produced when the Beetle started to appeal to Americans) and the Vega (a response to the inroads being made by Toyota and Datsun).  All three were dreadful cars, regardless of whether they were front or rear wheel drive, and despite considerable investment failed to stem a precipitous loss of market share for cars (trucks were protected by tariffs and by the fact that nobody else really made pickup trucks that would appeal to US and Canadian consumers). In 1970 Japanese automobile sales in the US accounted for 3% of the market, by the end of the 80s it was up to 30%.

The Citation's initial sales were pretty good, if they had sorted out production problems they could have sold a million in the first year (actual sales were 811,000), so I don't think US consumers were that confused. A good number of them wanted an efficient vehicle, but the Citation was so bad that as soon as word got out, sales plummeted. There's an amusing tale at http://http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/12/curbside-classic-1980-chevrolet-citation-gms-deadliest-sin-ever/

All of the big three lost car sales, largely because they just didn't build energy-efficient cars very well, and with the various energy crises of the period an increasing number of consumers wanted that type of vehicle. It took the mania for minivans and SUVs to recapture market share.

Funnily enough in the late 80s I was given a Dodge Asspain with the slant 6, I quickly concluded that buying an Accord would pay for itself in fuel savings quite quickly!

The Big 3 have improved their game, but I haven't bought any of their products for 20 years because they still don't make anything that suits my needs (small, manual gearbox, wagon, preferably diesel)

I suspect the Lifelike rendition of the Citation may be no better than the 1:1 model, the model wasn't in Lifelike's selection of cars in the 2008 Walthers catalog.

UK residents will no doubt be surprised that the smallest engine was a 2.5L job, the Pontiac Iron Duke ("too much iron, not enough duke"), as others have noted, small is relative. GM in particular seemed not to quite get downsizing.

An outfit called Fresh Cherries makes some cars from the 70s and early 80s. Walthers seems to suggest they are not in stock, but they show up on eBay. Models included the AMC Gremlin, Pacer, Hornet, Ford Pinto, Escort, Tempo. If you google Fresh Cherries + one of those models you may find some. There's a green Pacer on Amazon for instance at http://http://www.amazon.com/Fresh-Cherries-1978-Green-Pacer/dp/B004HLU73I

Atlas also listed a 78 Fairmont, a 96 Taurus and an F150. Can't get much more mundane than those.

Lifelike made a car rack loaded with Chevy Citations, I have no idea how good the car was, but the Citation was another dull as ditchwater car from the early 80s. You can pick them up pretty cheap on eBay.

Classic Metal Works is mostly earlier vehicles but they do include a 78 Impala.

Busch has some American cars in their lineup, including police cars that could be civilianised. For later periods, they include a Chrysler minivan.

As Brian (BxMoore) noted, there are vehicles available, it just takes a bit of digging around.

Are you sure about that? E.g. - http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=96090 or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Pipeline_explosion

Given that the incident you reference happened in 1999, and while not wishing to downplay the seriousness of it, I hardly think it supports a case that pipelines are frequent incinerators of downtowns. Of course, neither are railroads for that matter.

The pipeline industry is trying to sell itself as a safer alternative to rail. There seems to have been a significant effort to keep the North Dakota spill quiet, and a lot of the stories pulled up by a google search seem to be focusing on that aspect of it rather than the environmental disaster it caused. A spill in Arkansas this year, while not as big as this one, was an environmental catastrophe but doesn't seem to have registered much in the public consciousness, though it did spawn local lawsuits.

Of course, nobody wants a pipeline in their backyard, and while the pipeline owners may be able to win the politicians over, as Dave1905 points out, there will be significant local opposition.

I'm sure they aren't perfect, either. But public opinion is probably getting a bit twitchy about oil etc on rail just now, so I'm sure there's a future in pipelines.

They aren't perfect, but they have the considerable advantage that failures don't tend to incinerate places. A pipeline dumps 20,000 barrels (equivalent to just under 900,000 gallons of the stuff) all over a few acres of farmland, you don't hear much about it really. Not even any pictures of dead birds or animals to get it on the headline news, no sinking tanker, no freight cars, no fires. Works well for the pipelines really, out of sight, out of mind.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/17/tesoro-spill-northdakota-idUSL1N0I71QW20131017

I can just about remember the old Beatties on Corporation Street, I bought a Peco Wonderful Wagon kit from them on a family Christmas Shopping expedition. The modern incarnation of it was a poor substitute, though they did carry Model Railroader magazine which was my introduction to North American railroads back in 1975.
I could never get my head around the Bradford Model Railway Centre being in Manchester, so the explanation is useful. It was a fairly decent shop as I recall.

As there are no switching components in a simple diamond like this there cannot be any interlocking.  However there may be provision to prevent both balls being raised at the same time!

There is a useful description of the location at [ulr]http://www.signalbox.org/overseas/usa/whitefield.htm[/url], although the notion that the interchange tracks were out of use by 1966 is incorrect.

The Maine Central passenger trains between Portland ME and St Johnsbury VT called at the B&M depot in Whitefield. Maine Central abandoned their depot during the period of joint management of the two roads as an economy measure. Train 162 would head into the B&M depot and then reverse back out on to the MEC, coming back from St J in the afternoon train 163 would run over the diamond, then back down the B&M. A brake stand was set up in the rear vestibule of the coach (the train generally had a couple of cars for mail and baggage, a milk car on its run to Portland and a single coach was more than sufficient for the passenger traffic) to give the conductor control of the train in an emergency.

I went to my local hobby shop today (Hobby Gallery in Wolcott, CT) and was saddened to see a sign outside notifying customers that the shop will be closing 12/31/13. Steve is retiring though he will continue to do shows and some internet sales.

Hobby Gallery carried a decent line of bits and pieces, a lot of Cal-Scale and other detail parts (though the pegboard was becoming a bit sparse of late as he ran the stocks down). He also had a lot of older products, plenty of Roundhouse and older Athearn acquired over the years as other stores went out of business. I needed an Athearn caboose for parts, he had one minus its trucks and couplers for $3.

I will miss dropping in for drill bits, glue, styrene and so on, all of it no doubt available on line, but without the cheery conversation.

I was trying to point out that the signal is not connected in any way to any of the track components.

Another signalling arrangement for crossings was the ball signal. Ball signals protected the crossing of the Maine Central/Sandy River at Farmington, ME and MEC and Wiscasset, Waterville and Farmington at Wiscasset, ME among plenty of Northern New England examples.

This ball crossing at Whitefield NH is perhaps the most well-known and I think was the last one in use, keeping the MEC and the B&M out of each other's way: http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=288071

No interlocking at all at this crossing, even in the days of passenger trains. MEC passenger trains had to call at the B&M depot as MEC closed their own depot. This involved a reversal in either direction, the coach had a brake stand rigged up in the vestibule for the conductor to assist in the operation.

Meanwhile, oil traffic by rail to St. John appears to have declined as Irving shifts to overseas crude due to price changes:

http://http://www.pressherald.com/news/idle-tank-cars-signal-slowing-oil-by-rail-trend_2013-09-14.html

This illustrates the problems facing railroads in investing in their infrastructure to deal with a traffic that can disappear at short notice.

Railway Age is reporting that arrests are anticipated: http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/freight/short-lines/arrests-anticipated-in-lac-megantics-wake.html

Chatter on railroad.net includes a couple of related items: the MM&A engines off the wreck train are in the NBSR shops in St. John so the TSB can continue their investigation, preserve evidence etc with the power out of the weather.

A PAR watcher is seeing more traffic between Waterville and Portland and an uptick in drops at Danville Jct for the SLR. Speculation is that some of this is MM&A traffic being detoured.

Pan Am came away with nothing the last time Maine was looking for operators for the lines that MM&A sold off. Pan Am wasn't flavour of the month, and JD Irving got the nod. This is a bit different as at least for now MM&A is presumably looking for the highest bidder so the state may not end up doing anything more than keeping an eye on it.

I can't see Pan Am being interested in anything beyond the Searsport branch and maybe Northern Maine Jct to Brownville, especially if they could go to Millinocket too. If they got that, I would expect the line to Mattawamkeag to go as they don't need two interchanges with NBSR/EMRY.

I don't think the Moosehead Sub's chances are very good unless JD Irving gets involved and runs the whole line from St John through to Montreal. Irving Oil would like that as it would continue to give CN some competition out of St John. The other possibility is for an operation from Megantic west and abandonment east to Brownville Jct.

Interesting, and in light of CTA's move, likely to happen sooner rather than later I would have thought.

Article in the Portland Press Herald did have a statement from Ed Burkhardt (on page 2 of the article) acknowledging that the decision would probably complicate the process of finding a buyer for the railroad: http://http://www.pressherald.com/news/Montreal-Maine--Atlantic-Railway-loses-Canadian-license-.html?pagenum=2

It isn't completely clear but since the main theme of the article is about the petition filed by the US company I would imagine "the company" in the statement about the insurance would refer to the US entity.

Even if you assume both entities had equal coverage, the insurance cover still falls well short of the company's own estimate of the cost to settle the affair and likely also exceeds the value of the assets even before you begin to figure in the company's other liabilities.

The debt to Uncle Sam is the amount outstanding on an FRA loan used for track rehab.

The Canadian part of MM&A has been granted bankruptcy protection by the Canadian court, the US company will have its petition considered in federal court in Bangor this afternoon.

An interesting piece of information to emerge is the limit of their insurance protection ($25 million).
http://http://www.pressherald.com/news/Montreal-Maine--Atlantic-Railway-granted-bankruptcy-protection.html

Maine DOT looking at contingency plans should MM&A go under:

http://bangordailynews.com/2013/07/30/news/state/state-making-preparations-should-montreal-maine-and-atlantic-railway-fold

Edit: correct problem with url

I have to say I don't know anyone from Yale. In rant mode, having lived in Windsor, I'd say the same about Etonians, and we have one for a Prime Minister. But we should not tar everyone with the same brush. Nor do I know Ed Burkhardt, although I did meet him socially a couple of times when he was in charge of EWS. He struck me as a nice guy and an absolute enthusiast of rail transport. Not an enthusiast in quite the same sense as most of us are, but one who needed to own and run the railway as a business - to make it work and earn money. We should be careful about what we say in criticism lest we libel him, but I was pretty saddened by his handling of this disaster. It shows, more than anything else, why railways large and small - and preserved railways, too - need a clear 'disaster plan' which they hope they will never need. It's like the safety measures themselves, it costs money and because 99.9% of the time you'll never need it, it looks like wasted money. But if you do need it, it helps prevent PR disasters of this scale. It should be specific about who speaks to the press and when, and what they are allowed to say. It sounds callous, but had it existed in this case it might well have gone a little way to soothe the people of that town and stop EB from making himself public enemy No. 1.

You're quite right, I should not apply tar to all, and it was just a rant. There is though something about Yale as an institution that grates on a lot of people in the New Haven area, they display a quite remarkable sense of entitlement in their dealings with the city of New Haven when it comes to getting planning permission, being able to buy and then close streets and so on. That often seems to be passed on to many of its graduates. But not all.

Ed Burkhardt was completely unprepared for that trip to Lac-Megantic. He seemed to be trying hard to express sympathy but then a little lawyerly voice in his head told him to be careful, and the end-result was the second disaster to befall MM&A. I think you are quite right in the need for clear disaster planning.

That's the Hanlon accident I referenced many posts ago, and while it's not a carbon copy of the Megantic accident it does share some features in common and provides insight into operating rules and shortcomings.

One issue was that despite being familiar with the territory the conductor believed the cars were not actually on the grade which probably contributed to the inadequate provision of handbrakes since he followed (not accurately in fact) the guidelines for level track instead of the guidelines for the grade. This supports Stationmaster's case that stating numbers of brakes to apply can be misleading. Dave1905 has a different view, and I can see having guidelines as a useful STARTING point but that should be clearly stressed in the rules and in training. The other part was the report didn't think the sufficiency test was carried out well since the crew shoved against the train (i.e., uphill) but did not try to pull the train downhill. That may be relevant to the Megantic accident, presumably the data on the recorder would give some insight into how the test was carried out in Nantes.

One thing I found odd about the format of the report is that while it did a thorough job of investigation, analysis and so on, there is no section dedicated to any kind of recommendations.

Long piece on Ed Burkhardt here: http://www.pressherald.com/news/my-mission-failed-rail-chief-admits-mistakes-in-disasters-wake_2013-07-28.html

[rant mode]

I'll declare my prejudice right here: I have lived next door to New Haven for 30 years and I have yet to meet a Yale graduate (and I've interacted with more than a few)  who had the sense to come in out of the rain. I wouldn't hire one to shuck corn. Nothing Ed Burkhardt say surprises me, it's an institutional thing.

[/rant]

Meanwhile, the Montreal Gazette steps back and ponders how we regulate industries: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Opinion+M%C3%A9gantic+disaster+caused+series+failures/8712833/story.html Of course, if we think TSB/Transport Canada (or NTSB/pick your US regulatory body) are doing a bang-up job, then it's just journalists seeking axes to grind.