For Casey Jones: When they made a sexy train
- Thread starter Unca Walt
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Viking
Ground Beetle
The streamlining attempts on the poor old steam locomotive...mostly, just didn't work out.
My eye and yours, apparently don't see on the same level. I take that as awkward and contrived.
Now this, here...is a slick steam locomotive:
The J Class.
Norfolk & Western designed it...built it in its own shops...a whole fleet of them. They were built in the mid-1950s, while other railroads were converting to diesel. N&W believed in steam, and built these to prove it.
That didn't last. The rail industry, after WWII, was and remains, chaos. Norfolk & Western found itself with a CEO, a lawyer named Stuart Saunders...not a very sharp lawyer. He was unduly influenced by the last guy he talked to. After hearing a sales presentation by GM EMD salesmen, he decided, overnight, to convert to diesel. Never mind the huge investment the N&W had in steam, coal handling, coal mines, and that they served coal country.
The decision was made in 1958 and N&W was converted by 1960. To do that, they also had to buy a lot of worn-out, secondhand diesels of first-generation manufacture.
And the amazing N&W fleet of steam locomotives was scrapped.
To their credit, they did save 611, and a few other specimens. Contrast that to the New York Central...Alfred Perlman was a great railroad manager, but he was stubborn in ways that mostly didn't matter. One thing he refused to budge on, was preserving any NYC steam power. He didn't want it; he wanted it gone and company archives wiped of records.
He almost succeeded - only two NYC steam specimens survived, because Selkirk Yard (Albany) hid two dead-line steam engines, until the company had become Penn Central and there was no longer the hysteria to scrap it all.
FWIW, Saunders, of the N&W and then Pennsylvania RR, became head of the Penn Central - and took it into bankruptcy.
Perlman, CEO of the NYC, became a top officer of the Penn Central before Saunders fired him. He went on to revitalize the Western Pacific, saving it from bankruptcy, before retiring as the Union Pacific bought it out.
My eye and yours, apparently don't see on the same level. I take that as awkward and contrived.
Now this, here...is a slick steam locomotive:
The J Class.
Norfolk & Western designed it...built it in its own shops...a whole fleet of them. They were built in the mid-1950s, while other railroads were converting to diesel. N&W believed in steam, and built these to prove it.
That didn't last. The rail industry, after WWII, was and remains, chaos. Norfolk & Western found itself with a CEO, a lawyer named Stuart Saunders...not a very sharp lawyer. He was unduly influenced by the last guy he talked to. After hearing a sales presentation by GM EMD salesmen, he decided, overnight, to convert to diesel. Never mind the huge investment the N&W had in steam, coal handling, coal mines, and that they served coal country.
The decision was made in 1958 and N&W was converted by 1960. To do that, they also had to buy a lot of worn-out, secondhand diesels of first-generation manufacture.
And the amazing N&W fleet of steam locomotives was scrapped.
To their credit, they did save 611, and a few other specimens. Contrast that to the New York Central...Alfred Perlman was a great railroad manager, but he was stubborn in ways that mostly didn't matter. One thing he refused to budge on, was preserving any NYC steam power. He didn't want it; he wanted it gone and company archives wiped of records.
He almost succeeded - only two NYC steam specimens survived, because Selkirk Yard (Albany) hid two dead-line steam engines, until the company had become Penn Central and there was no longer the hysteria to scrap it all.
FWIW, Saunders, of the N&W and then Pennsylvania RR, became head of the Penn Central - and took it into bankruptcy.
Perlman, CEO of the NYC, became a top officer of the Penn Central before Saunders fired him. He went on to revitalize the Western Pacific, saving it from bankruptcy, before retiring as the Union Pacific bought it out.
spinalcracker
Ground Beetle
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Art deco
Not what I think of when I think of Art Deco; but it does fit.
For a time, the main business office of the New York Central was off the concourse of Grand Central Station, and the facade, and the company signage, were all CLASSIC Art Deco.
I was just never a big admirer of the streamlining attempts, which often looked like putting a bathtub upside-down over a steam engine.