Alain
Member
Don't need to say much more, really. A 4-8-8-4, 7,000 H.P. Could pull a load 5 miles long on level ground!
I find it astounding that this steamer, built in November, 1941 just took weeks to build, from blueprint, to forging/casting, to fill up the boiler and run 'er. Just remarkable; all built in the good ole U.S.A and Yankee know-how! It really is an engineering (no pun intended) marvel.
How the mighty have fallen; all estimates are that we probably could NOT build this engine today...quite sad, really.
I recall the first time I saw my first steamer. It was 1954; I was 5 years old, but I still remember. The place? Newark, New Jersey's Pennsylvania Station, Track #4. My dad used to take me to Penn Station at least one a month, in the summer---more(!), just to watch the trains. What fun that was; the Hudson "Tubes" running the old lead car with an enormous spot light on the top of the cab. I'd always stand up next to the engineer's cab, off to the r/h side of the car. Just to watch the train pass by my old neighborhood into Journal Square, in Jersey City.
Just a scant 70 years later, still finds me in love with trains.
My favorite? Oh, the GG-1, hands down. Great things, trains!
I find it astounding that this steamer, built in November, 1941 just took weeks to build, from blueprint, to forging/casting, to fill up the boiler and run 'er. Just remarkable; all built in the good ole U.S.A and Yankee know-how! It really is an engineering (no pun intended) marvel.
How the mighty have fallen; all estimates are that we probably could NOT build this engine today...quite sad, really.
I recall the first time I saw my first steamer. It was 1954; I was 5 years old, but I still remember. The place? Newark, New Jersey's Pennsylvania Station, Track #4. My dad used to take me to Penn Station at least one a month, in the summer---more(!), just to watch the trains. What fun that was; the Hudson "Tubes" running the old lead car with an enormous spot light on the top of the cab. I'd always stand up next to the engineer's cab, off to the r/h side of the car. Just to watch the train pass by my old neighborhood into Journal Square, in Jersey City.
Just a scant 70 years later, still finds me in love with trains.
My favorite? Oh, the GG-1, hands down. Great things, trains!
