In reply to NickD :
Makes good sense to keep the steamers in good running condition; the addition of diesels will make MoW work easier and more efficient as well.
In reply to NickD :
Makes good sense to keep the steamers in good running condition; the addition of diesels will make MoW work easier and more efficient as well.
In reply to Recon1342 :
Steamtown NHS learned the hard way about that. Because they they were overhauling the small engine they used for the short yard hop that they did 7 days a week, they were using their big CP Pacific and CN Mikado to haul those as well (previously they were used just the long weekend runs) and they burned through the certification time on the flues really fast and ended up parking them both and being without a steam engine for a couple years.
I can't wait for Steamtown to get their Boston & Maine heavy Pacific, #3713, up and running. She's one of the last Pacifics built by Lima, the last steam engine operated by Boston & Maine, and damn big and heavy for a Pacific (290 tons compared to Reading & Northern's 110 tons or Steamtown's CP #2317's 158 tons). They've been working on it since I visited there as a kid (restoration ongoing since 1998).
I really just want to go to Steamtown and actually get to ride behind a mainline engine and actually get to leave Scranton. Three times I've been there and never got to ride behind #2317 or #3254. The first time was before Memorial Day, so they weren't doing the trips to Moscow, and we rode the Scranton Limited behind their Nickel Plate GP7. The second time, the two of them were up to Moscow for some sort of festival., didn't ride the train at all that time. The third time, in 2015, both #2317 and #3254 were out of operation due to expired certifications, so I rode the Scranton Limited behind their Baldwin 0-6-0 #26.
The one issue they are going to have is before they can make runs to Moscow again, they are going to have to do major trackwork. From what I've heard, since they can't run trips to Moscow, the Steamtown crew has essentially not done any maintenance to the line since #2317 went out of service in 2012. When they hosted Nickel Plate 2-8-4 #765 for a summer a couple years ago, the #765 team said that basically the whole trip to Moscow and back was done at 10 miles an hour or less for safety concerns. You can't fix up an 80" drivered heavy Pacific and then restrict her to only 10mph.
In reply to NickD :
She's a looker!
In reply to Recon1342 :
She's America's Locomotive. No, seriously, that's her nickname. The B&M named all ten of their P-4a Pacifics, or rather had school children choose names for them. And #3713's is Constitution. So she's always been called America's Locomotive.
Also, as delivered, not such a great-looking locomotive. It had small smoke deflectors like would be found on a German or Polish steam locomotive and a skyline casing that went from the steam dome rearwards. It was a pretty strange look. Sometime in the '30s they stripped all that off of all of the P-4 Pacifics and greatly improved their looks.
I'm glad that #3713 was the one that they saved and not, say, #3719. It'd be pretty weird for the National Park Service to announce that they were restoring Camel's Hump. This is the full list of names for the P-4s
P-4a 3710 Peter Cooper
P-4a 3711 Allagash
P-4a 3712 East Wind
P-4a 3713 The Constitution
P-4a 3714 Greylock
P-4b 3715 Kwasind
P-4b 3716 Rogers' Rangers
P-4b 3717 Old North Bridge
P-4b 3718 Ye Salem Witch
P-4b 3719 Camel's Hump
In reply to NickD :
Abilene and Smokey Valley in Kansas runs ex-Santa Fe Pacific 3415, 79 inch drivers at about 10 mph or less.
In reply to LS_BC8 :
I mean, you can do it, but you lose part of the experience of riding behind a high-drivered passenger locomotive. Not saying they have to do the trip at 75mph, but they used to run #3254 and #2317 along at 30mph. Reading & Northern runs their 68" driver Pacific along at a pretty good clip.
NickD said:In reply to LS_BC8 :
I mean, you can do it, but you lose part of the experience of riding behind a high-drivered passenger locomotive. Not saying they ahve to do the trip at 75mph, but they used to run #3254 and #2317 along at 30mph. Reading & Northern runs their 68" driver Pacific along at a pretty good clip.
Kinda like taking your racehorse out for a walk...
While we are on the subject of Pacifics, I really am in love with the Raymond Loewy designed K4-s Pacific that PRR ran in the '30s. #3768 is a stunning example of Loewy's design skills.
Recon1342 said:NickD said:In reply to LS_BC8 :
I mean, you can do it, but you lose part of the experience of riding behind a high-drivered passenger locomotive. Not saying they ahve to do the trip at 75mph, but they used to run #3254 and #2317 along at 30mph. Reading & Northern runs their 68" driver Pacific along at a pretty good clip.
Kinda like taking your racehorse out for a walk...
While we are on the subject of Pacifics, I really am in love with the Raymond Loewy designed K4-s Pacific that PRR ran in the '30s. #3768 is a stunning example of Loewy's design skills.
I think B&O's streamlined P-7ds for the Cincinattian is criminally underrated.
In reply to NickD :
I've not seen that one before, but I'd be inclined to agree.
In reply to Recon1342 :
The Cincinattian is one of the more forgotten passenger trains, compared to others like The 20th Century Limited, Broadway Limited, Hiawathas or Chieftain. Even amongst B&O's other trains, the Cincinattian was kind of the runt of the litter. It went from Baltimore to Cincinatti, but and was basically a truncated version of B&O's Capitol Limited but missed most population centers and had very poor ridership, even despite the unique streamlined locomotives and dedicated equipment. In 1950 they changed the route to Detroit-Cincinatti, which instantly improved ridership, and it continued until 1971, when Amtrak took over. Amtrak dropped all of the B&O's passenger routes.
Friend of mine sent me these pics from Coopersville, MI. Got any info on them Nickd?
In reply to kazoospec :
#2394 is an Alco RS-1 with what appears to be a rather unattractive nose chop. Perhaps a modification later in life to improve visibility...
#1395 follows the classic 4-6-0 configuration, with uneven spacing between the drivers. I don't see any builder's plates, and she's missing a bunch of valve gear linkage.
It'll be interesting to see if their stories can be uncovered.
#1395 is currently on display at the Coopersville and Marne Rwy. with an eye towards possible restoration. https://www.coopersvilleandmarne.org/equipmentroster.php
She's a CN H-6-g Class built by the Montreal Locomotive works in late 1912.
#2394 was built in 1951 for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe. She eventually passed into the hands of the Atlanta & St Andrews Bay, which is where her unfortunate nose job occurred. She was then sold to the Tuscola & Saginaw Bay, where she lived out the rest of her service life working around Ann Arbor.
I'm so glad to have access to this many steam buffs! Love the knowledge, and keep it up!
I've made it to several of the smaller cool azz museums in my travels around theses United States, and road a few of the modern ones. Can't travel much now, but I hope to get back to it before the " keep the people locked down" folks have there way!
Why would bus headlights be enough for traffic at higher speeds, but not enough for slow speed & no traffic?
Recon1342 said:#2394 was built in 1951 for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe. She eventually passed into the hands of the Atlanta & St Andrews Bay, which is where her unfortunate nose job occurred. She was then sold to the Tuscola & Saginaw Bay, where she lived out the rest of her service life working around Ann Arbor.
It is unique in being a chop-nose RS1s. That's an oddity. I don't think I've ever seen an RS-1 with a chopped front hood. I've seen photos of a few RS-3s with chopped hoods, and plenty of GP7s and GP9s.
Homebrew chopnoses aren't necessarily terrible. D&H's RS-3u looked pretty good.
Most chop-nose GP/SD7/9s looked pretty normal
But then you had some abominations, like Western Maryland's homemade low-nose GPs.
So, you know that old yarn about the old railcar sitting on a specially-built spur under Grand Central that supposedly was FDR's private car to get in and out of Grand Central and the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel without anyone seeing him in a wheelchair? Turns out, that's not true at all. It was just an old Pullman baggage car that was used by New York Central, then Penn Central, and then Metro North as a tool car. Track 61, where it sat since at least 1954, actually predated both FDR's presidency and the Waldorf-Astoria.
Still, it's a pretty interesting piece for preservation, because there are, at least according to the article, no other preserved Pullman baggage cars.
FDR's personal passenger car was actually a B&O Pullman car, named the Ferdinand Magellan.
Also, as someone on RYPN pointed out, its unlikely that FDR frequently went into GCT, at least from the Washington end, as it's difficult to get there from Washington. It involves crossing the Hell Gate Bridge from Penn Station to Oak Point in the Bronx, then a pull backward along the Harlem River to the NYC.
NickD said:Also, as someone on RYPN pointed out, its unlikely that FDR rarely went into GCT, at least from the Washington end, as it's difficult to get there from Washington. It involves crossing the Hell Gate Bridge from Penn Station to Oak Point in the Bronx, then a pull backward along the Harlem River to the NYC.
But it's very easy to get there from Hyde Park, which is on the Hudson Line and had it's own small station (now a museum that never seems to be open) just north of the presidential estate (and just south of the Vanderbilt estate). And FDR spent a lot of time in Hyde Park.
02Pilot said:NickD said:Also, as someone on RYPN pointed out, its unlikely that FDR rarely went into GCT, at least from the Washington end, as it's difficult to get there from Washington. It involves crossing the Hell Gate Bridge from Penn Station to Oak Point in the Bronx, then a pull backward along the Harlem River to the NYC.
But it's very easy to get there from Hyde Park, which is on the Hudson Line and had it's own small station (now a museum that never seems to be open) just north of the presidential estate (and just south of the Vanderbilt estate). And FDR spent a lot of time in Hyde Park.
Someone did say that while many of his trips from Hyde Park to NYC were by automobile, he did frequently board Magellan from a siding alongside his property as well.
In reply to NickD :
I agree that most "nose jobs" really aren't bad. There are some other photos of #2394 from the nose end out there... they really didn't do her any favors. Doesn't help that the RS-1 is probably my favorite early diesel.
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