Can't believe it's been nearly 5 years since I took these of Big Boy when he came to Denver.
Post your locomotive shots
- Thread starter Snagglefoot
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We had a small oil refinery in town that made gasoline and diesel. The Canadian National Railway line (CNR) went right by the refinery and a friend ( when he was a teenager) had the job to meet the train and fuel it up. Good pocket money.
The only surviving example of what I consider the finest steam locomotive class ever built, and yes I will die on that hill
Unfortunately, between overall condition, lack of general interest, and the suitability of this sort of locomotive for excursion service(built to haul 100+ car coal trains over the Blue Ridge Mountains at 25mph) I don't think this one will ever be under steam again. Never say never, though-this is one of maybe a half dozen true Mallets surviving in the US(front cylinders use low pressure steam exhausted from the rear cylinders) and I thought none would ever run again, but C&O 1309 was restored a few years ago and is currently running excursions
Unfortunately, between overall condition, lack of general interest, and the suitability of this sort of locomotive for excursion service(built to haul 100+ car coal trains over the Blue Ridge Mountains at 25mph) I don't think this one will ever be under steam again. Never say never, though-this is one of maybe a half dozen true Mallets surviving in the US(front cylinders use low pressure steam exhausted from the rear cylinders) and I thought none would ever run again, but C&O 1309 was restored a few years ago and is currently running excursions
Look at those cylinders. Good grief.
The front cylinders are 39" diameter(32" stroke). Rears are 25" diameter.
For comparison, the Big Boy uses 23.5"x32" cylinders(all 4).
A Y6b could manage 170,000lbs of starting tractive effort in simple mode(feeding high pressure steam to the front cylinders). Through the 1950s, when N&W would bring any Y5, Y6, or Y6a in for overhaul, they would add in as many Y6b improvements as they could, so that by retirement, most of these locomotives had similar performance. 2156 reportedly made 166,000lbs TE after its last shop visit in 1957. In compound mode this dropped to 125,000lbs. The Big Boy managed 135,000lbs of TE, but was also longer by ~20ft and over around 300,000lbs heavier. The Y6 class packed a lot of punch for what was actually a relatively small locomotive.
I love this video of a Y6b and Class A, with a Y6a pusher, getting a 175 car train over the "Blue Ridge Grade"(8 miles, 1.2% outside Bluefield, WV).
Tom NJ
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On tour in Oregon in 2010.
Well, not as big as the 2-8-8-2 Mallet, we have a compound articulated 2-6-6-2 Mallet (1 of 30 logging Mallets) at the Northwest Rail Museum in Snohomish, WA:
From my riding archives:
From my riding archives:
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Well…sorta
Dp
Do you know what kind of grade it was capable of pulling? That is very huge for logging work. Shay locomotives are generally far smaller, although I read one weighed 140 tons. Is anyone going to post pictures of their local Shays?
From last July. I miss seeing Conrail Blue here...
And soon the Pegasus is(probably) going away...
Funny how people used Conrail as a punching bag more often than not, but they turned into a fairly well run railroad. I didn't live near Conrail track when they were operating, but remember seeing plenty of Conrail equipment on both CSX and NS tracks in the late 90s/early 2000s
The SD80MAC was an absolute beast, and I was fortunate to catch one in CSX colors at one point(unfortunately haven't scanned that slide). There are mixed reports if any of them are still kicking around(I think KCS maybe bought a few as a source of SD70MAC parts?). It would be great if at least a rolling body could be saved, but I don't hold a lot of hope. I'm pretty sure Progress Rail has scrapped all the ones they bought.
Owen Lucas
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I understand the Army uses a lot of of vintage units for the local operations. CVS or whoever transports the long hauls.
IDK much about trains but those curved vents behind the bell make it look like a much older unit. I bet from the 70s or earlier.
It was built in the 1950s, then rebuilt in the 70s which is when they added those vents (there's filters inside there) and improved crew visibility by adding those extra front windows which it didn't have originally.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_GP10
Do you know if this particular one was ordered as high nose and chopped, or did it come out of EMD as a low nose? I don't know enough about IC to know how they ordered their Geeps(and I tend to like mountain roads that preferred high nose, long hood forward as delivered).
Owen Lucas
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Amazing it didn't have front windows when new! Is it true the bathroom is inside the nose?
This unit got its chopped short nose in a rebuild. EMD started offering a low short hood with the later GP models. The factory hoods sloped down towards the front, while the modified were flat.
Here is a picture of both factory and modified.
https://www.railpictures.net/photo/898700/
The first two units are GP20s with factory short hoods. The third unit is a GP7u that got it's front hood chopped in an upgrade. The cab was modified also.
All three are Ex AT&SF units.
Yes, the toilets were in the short nose. Many early Geeps were ordered with steam generators in the short hoods for passengers service when steam heat was still the norm.