Paul Simons

Now Ann of course you want to get well so you have to stay away from pie, right? Happy Thanksgiving!!
 

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

That pie looks incredible!  Fortunately, COVID didn't rob me of my taste and smell, so pie is still allowed.  However, I had planned on taking individual crustless pumpkin pies topped with homemade whipped cream to a family gathering.  Since that wasn't possible, I'll have to eat them all myself!

Jeff Daum

Good solution Ann 

Here are mine before having whipped cream topped and devoured by most (at leas the quick ones) at our T-day family reunion,

Brandy pumpkin pie and rip your-teeth-out pecan pie.  Admittedly I need some practice making the turkey image...

Bonnie Altman (Templeton)

Ann, I hope you are feeling better and can be with family soon. 

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

Wishing my my classmates a happy, healthy Hanukkah!!!!

Chag sameach!

Paul Simons

This is mainly in reply to Bruce's post 5808 from 11/22, but also for anyone interested. Today billions of people know what a Fender Stratocaster is. Jimi played one, so did SRV. And millions of others including me. The standard versions have single-coil pickups which pick up hum along with the signal produced by the vibrating steel strings, magnetized by the magnets in the pickups right under them. Gibson came out with humbucking pickups using a second coil, both electrically and magnetically of reversed phase, so there's 2X the music and zero hum. But they don't sound as good when you need some twang. So the answer is an electrically reverse phase coil to cancel the noise without affecting the tone.

I started making my own years ago. So have others. But they're still pretty rare.

This is a Strat pickguard:

And underneath, the homemade dummy coil:

Yes, the round copper thing is a thin bobbin wound with fine wire. I ususally use 42 or 43 gauge. Like hair. Breaks easily. No fun to wind. But what should I be doing? Watching the Philadelphia Eagles lose?

BTW Happy Holidays, whatever religion or none, it's the season for cheer, good will, peace on earth etc etc what a joke. As country after country falls to an autocrat and his goons. Any bets on who's next? As the polar ice melts. Saint Nick is gonna need air conditioning.

Also if Phil Spiess sees this, did you put up some research on The Incline? Your research papers are terrific, even if I'm too slow to "wrap my head around" - current lingo - all the details. So if there's one on The Incline, what post #, what date? The whole concept of Mt Adams is of interest from the Crohn Conservatory to the Art Museum to the City Tavern with that fabulous view of the Dolly Parton Building and back to the 60's when "bohemians" lived there and went to Mahogany Hall with the bookstore upstairs and the jazz bar in the basement.

Philip Spiess

Richard Winter. Concerning your post at # 5801:  Thank you for posting it; although I saw the arched highway bridge over the canal when I was ten (I take it that is what we're seeing in the upper picture), I was not aware of the railway bridge (which appears to be a different bridge entirely).  Although I have been involved in industrial archeology for many years (which includes bridges and railways), i did not know the bridge you depict and describe, one nearly unique, it appears.  Much thanks for bringing it to my attention. 

Bruce:  Otis elevators:  "Good to the last drop!"

Bruce and Paul:  My theory is that the oceans are rising because we're dumping so much damn garbage into them!

Dale:  I, too, was like a turkey at Thanksgiving:  at the family dinner, I went gobble, gobble, gobble -- and then I was stuffed!

Jeff Daum:  Do you share your recipe for brandy pumpkin pie?

Philip Spiess

Paul:

Concerning the Cincinnati inclines:  see Post #3332 (01-04-2018) on the inclines themselves, and Post #3341 (01-24-2018) on the inclines' resorts.  If you're interested, I can do more on the inclines' power houses and their engines.  I may do a piece soon on Cincinnati's cable car systems (yes, Cincinnati had them, possibly before San Francisco).

Paul Simons

Sure enough Phil - you did address the inclines - here's your write-up on the Mt Adams one:

"Mount Adams Incline:  Built 1874-1876, with cabs; rebuilt 1879, with platforms; engine house rebuilt 1891; in its last few years it carried automobiles (I rode on it, but was too young to remember); closed 1948; engine house demolished 1954 (I remember it); ascended Mount Adams from Lock Street, below 5th Street.  This was the longest running and most famous of Cincinnati's inclines; its passenger waiting station on Lock Street (by that time in ruins) was demolished about 1976; the incline's right-of-way was still visible below Rookwood Pottery last time I looked (circa 2003)."

Here's a close-up - you can see there are 2 sets of tracks - the cars go in opposite directions so gravity helps the steam engine at the top power the upward-climbing car:

Jeff Daum

Phillip, per your ask here is the brandied pumpkin pie receipe:

-egg wash: 1 egg yoke + 1 tsp water

-2 cups canned solid-pack 'pure' pumpkin

-2/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

-2 tsps cinnamon

-1 tsp ground ginger

-1 cup heavy cream

-2/3 cup milk

-1/4 cup Cognac or other brandy

Wisk all ingredients except egg wash together until smooth and pour into unbaked pie crust/shell in a 10 inch pie plate.

Bake at 375 degrees for one hour until filling is set but center still shakes slightly.

My pie crust is a very simple one:

-1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

-6 tbsp cold butter cut into bits

-2 tbsp cold vegetable shortening

-1/4 tsp salt

-2 tbsp ice water + 1 tbsp chilled vodka.

In a large bowl blend everything except the water and vodka together using a pastry blender (I use  OXO Good Grips Stainless Steel Dough Blender) until it resembles meal.  Next add the water and vodka by hand tossing and mixing thoroughout and form a ball.    It should just barely hang together in a ball (ie: on the dry side).  Dust the ball lightly with flower. wrap with wax paper and put in the frig for an hour.

Lightly butter the pie dish and refrigerate it as well while the dough is chilling.  After an hour using a chilled rolling pin, roll the dough out between two lightly flowered sheets of was paper until it is slightly larger than the pie dish.  Again, the dough should be on the dry side.  Press the dough into the pie dish, flute or finish the edges with a fork and brush with the egg wash.

Philip Spiess

Paul:  The top picture you have posted is indeed the Mount Adams Incline; Rookwood Pottery is on the hilltop to the left and Holy Cross Monastery and Church is on the hilltop to the right.  The lower picture you have posted is the Mount Auburn Incline (a.k.a. Main Street Incline), the first built in Cincinnati.  It began at the head of Main Street and ascended Jackson Hill to where Jackson Hill Park now is on Eleanor Place (west of Christ Hospital at the southern end of Auburn Avenue).  The long two-story structure to the left at an angle on the hilltop is the Lookout House; it was a beer-garden and dance hall resort, much like the Highland House was next to the Mount Adams Incline's headhouse.  These resorts were famous for their orchestras and the hilltop cool breezes that could be enjoyed in summer.

Paul Simons

Thanks Phil. Obviously you have installed an apparatus like the one in the movie "The Matrix", linking your brain to a global information network. I saw that ad for it in "Popular Mechanics" too, but couldn't pull the trigger, partly because my trigger finger was sore from squirt-gun practice aiming at a picture of - what's that guy's name? Anyway of course I accept your correction and I will get even sometime, somehow. But tell me - was the Mt Adams incline dual track, like the Mt Auburn one, or single track? If dual it can be called "funicular", a fun word if I ever heard one.

Philip Spiess

Let's just say that, in the eight years I worked for the Cincinnati Historical Society, I developed a large frame of pictorial reference on Cincinnati history.  Yes, the two inclines were two-track and funicular in operation. By the way, the still popular Italian song "Funiculi, Funicula" is about a funicular railway.  It was written in 1880 (music by Luigi Denza; lyrics by Peppino Turco) to commemorate the first funicular railway climbing up to the crater of Mount Vesuvius; it has often been taken to be an Italian folk song (which it is not).  Edward Oxenford wrote the traditional English lyrics to the song (often called "A Merry Life"), which bear little relation to the original lyrics.  In 1933, Arthur Fields and Fred Hall wrote the parody "My High Silk Hat" ("Christopher Columbus, now what do you think of that!"), which many of us may recall from summer camp singalongs.  The funicular railway in question was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 1944.

Bruce Fette

Paul,

Great tear down pictures. But since I have never had the chance to operate one, please explain the uses of the two knobs, and the two switches.

Phil,

I look forward to hearing more about the inclines. Thanks, 

Paul Simons

Bruce I'm sure that like mine your head is spinning in a funicular spiral - in both directions - due to Phil's monumental display of possession of the facts, all the facts, and nothing but the facts so I don't know if I can explain much. He has so much information, I'll bet he even knows which toothpastes contain stannous fluoride, best for our teeth, and which contain sodium fluoride, not as good. But to get at your question - do you read schematics?

Dale Gieringer

      I know that Phil is  in fact knowledgable about fluoridated toothpaste.  This was evident from his role in our senior year Walnuts, where he played the part of Sen. Jung (or some similar homonym of Young), running against an inexperienced opponent, a dentist named Dr. Fest.   In his role, Phil sagely proclaimed, "Fest has been shown to be a defective, delay-intentive dentist when used in a sentenitously applied program of moral highness and regulatory presidential care."   

Philip Spiess

I did say that, Dale, as Senator Stephen Yunk [including saying the missing words "who can be of diminuitive valor" following the word "dentist"], and you can see me about to say it in Picture #10 (posted 6-17-2014) on my Profile page on this site (why the pictures have suddenly gotten so small, I don't know.)

As to fluorides, Paul, I'm not about to sink my teeth into that one!

Paul Simons

Thanks fellow GL-7, the psychotropic ingredient that got the management of the Gleem brand thrown into Alcatraz, addicts. By now we all have Braun/Oral B or Philips Sonicare microprocessor controlled oral hygiene maintenance appliances so the dentifrice itself might seem to be less important but NOOOO!!! The dentifrice is still of overriding importance. Why? Because there are so few individuals interested in using it in a conscientiously applied program of regular or even highly irregular oral activities which might or might not be hygienic. Of course present company excepted but in general there has been a gradual coarsening of society, the development of a culture of carelessness, and it is fluoride alone that has saved mankind from domination by Mr. Tooth Decay. 
 

Now we have Mr. Moral Decay and apparently there's no dentifrice, no anti fungal cream, no Covid-19 variant, no M-CAS equipped 737 Max, no transcendental meditation higher consciousness, no meeting with Jesus in a dream vision, nobody  and nothing that can touch Mr. Moral Decay.

Robert Redford knew it. He knew all along that All Is Lost.

Ann Shepard (Rueve)

Paul had some doubt that I could finish off my little pies. I had the last one last night!!

Bruce Fette

Thanks Ann.  Based on the most recent message, maybe we can get things going again. For everyone that has a puppy, lets see everyone's puppy picture(s)!

"Woof"

Philip Spiess

SEQUEL TO THE CINCINNATI INCLINES:  How the Mount Adams Incline Was Operated

Bruce:  You have asked for more on the Cincinnati inclines, and I will comply; my first post on them was, to be sure, very basic.

And because the Mount Adams Incline was the most famous, as well as the longest serving Cincinnati incline, and because for most readers it might be repetitive to go over the other inclines’ particulars, I will deal with it alone.  I will address its engineering and operational features, as that is what the recent posts seem to be focused on.  [My source is Richard M. Wagner and Roy J. Wright’s series of booklets on Cincinnati Streetcars, in this case No. 2:  The Inclines (1968).]

For seventy-two years the Mount Adams Incline hoisted people, streetcars, automobiles, and finally buses on a moving platform which remained level with the ground; its angular undercarriage had a raised stilted end which fit into a pocket at the foot of the hill, so that rails on the platform met tracks of the car line coming from downtown; eight wheels rode the rails, two pairs of axles in side frames.  At the top a streetcar could roll off from the lift directly onto the tracks in the station, and continue on its way along Ida Street to cross the upper level of the double-deck ornamental entrance gateway to Eden Park (now gone, but across from the D. H. Baldwin Piano Company on Gilbert Avenue); so could an automobile or truck, later in the incline’s career.  The platforms in later years were 54 feet long, 12 feet wide, and 30 feet high (having been lengthened in 1920 to carry double-truck streetcars).  They weighed not less than 20 tons empty and each platform was capable of carrying a live load of 25 tons.  (The incline received new lift platforms in 1936.)  In their heyday of operation, the platforms made about 133 round trips per day.

The Mount Adams Incline was built in 1874-1876 with cabs; it was rebuilt in 1879 with platforms, and the engine house at the top was rebuilt in 1891.  The incline was 976 feet long, with a vertical height of 261 feet, on a 29.47 per cent grade.  It operated 19 hours a day, 6 trips per hour, 2 minutes and 20 seconds a trip.  The costs to ride (these are typical over time) were as follows:  pedestrians, 5 cents; 7-ton truck, 95 cents; automobile with driver, 25 cents (but additional passengers were 5 cents each) – and I’m assuming that if you were on a streetcar, your already-paid-for streetcar ride included going up the incline to wherever your hilltop destination might be.

The driving mechanism for the incline consisted of two Corliss 20” by 36” steam engines at 125 lbs. pressure (plus the counterbalancing of the two moving platforms, i.e., Paul Simons’ “funicular railway,” although the platforms could operate unbalanced -- one platform could be loaded and the other empty); the cable operated at 700 feet per minute.  This operation used a coal consumption of 815 tons of coal per year.  The signals for incline operation were thus:  the top platform ready first, the top rings two bells and the bottom four, then the incline moves; the bottom platform ready first, the bottom rings two bells and the top four, the bottom then answers with four bells, and the incline moves.  If one bell rings, the incline stops.  (When the button for the bell system is pushed, it rings once, either in the engine room at the top or in the cab at the bottom.)

The Mount Adams Incline closed in 1948 and began to be dismantled on March 1, 1952.  The engine house at the top of the incline was demolished in 1954.  The passenger station at the bottom of the incline on Lock Street (which gradually deteriorated into ruins) was demolished about 1976 (if I recall), although the incline’s right-of-way up the hill was still visible circa 2004.

Paul Simons

Thanks Phil. This motivates me to find a photo of the inside of one of the engine houses. These photos aren't that but might add a bit.

More info: https://www.cincinnatimagazine.com/article/16-curious-facts-about-cincinnatis-lost-inclines/

Bruce Fette

If only my parents were still alive. I would ask them to tell me about their experiences on the inclines, and show them the photos to remind them.

Philip Spiess

Paul:  A few additional notes (relative to the interior of the powerhouse):  You can find pictures of the interior in the source I mentioned on pages 63 and 64, and engineering drawings of the interior machinery on page 66.  In sum, the incline cables passed over the (vertical) wheels (the winding drums) just above and under the floor of the powerhouse at the top of the incline, after passing through the (horizontal) wheels of the balance sheaves (also under the floor of the powerhouse), which held the safety brakes.  The pilot's control tower was just inside the powerhouse at the top of the incline, elevated so that he could see the operation each time he pulled the lever that controlled the cable.

Three other things I should mention:  (1) in case it wasn't clear, the vehicles (streetcars, autos, trucks, buses) raised by the incline passed through the engine house at the top to exit onto Mount Adams; (2) over night the platforms were stored opposite each other midway on the incline, thereby balancing the weight and causing the least amount of strain on the cables; and (3) trackwork at the top, as well as at the bottom, of the Mount Adams Incline was arranged so that a streetcar could mount whichever side of the lift was ready, and still choose the proper operating track when dismounting.

[N.B.:  Mount Adams, formerly known as Mount Ida, was named after President John Quincy Adams, who in 1843 dedicated the Cincinnati Astronomical Observatory on Mount Adams and laid its cornerstone; he called it "the Lighthouse of the Sky."  (He had been an advocate of using James Smithson's bequest to the United States to form a "Smithsonian Institution" to found a national astronomical observatory, but he was overruled in Congress.)  It was Adams' last public speech, given at Wesley Chapel on Fifth Street (a magnificent Greek Revival ediface, torn down by Procter & Gamble in the early 1970s).  Adams died in 1848.]

Paul Simons

Thanks Phil and Bruce. Just a quick note- this has reminded me that there's an observatory on the road leading to Ault Park - on Observatory Place. Probably most people in Cincinnati drive right past it, in a sweat to get to the park for one reason or another.