Steam's Lost Empire II

Welcome to STEAM’S LOST EMPIRE II, our second celebration of the vanished world of great locomotives. Like its predecessor in 2018, this issue is composed of classic articles from the pages of TRAINS magazine, with all-new layouts and a fresh selection of photographs. In these pages you’ll find recollections from fireman making their first trips on big articulated locomotives; studies of significant engine classes by leading authorities on locomotive design; and memories and photos from a railfan’s highly satisfying day along the tracks of two railroads. You’ll ride almost 2,000 miles the engine cabs of the premier trains on the nation’s two leading railroads, and tag along with an ace train-timer at nearly 100 mph. And we’ve included two stories by the author who for more than 40 years so…

Back in 1931, I had the rare privilege of riding the cabs of Pacific and Hudson locomotives hauling the crack Broadway Limited of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the 20th Century Limited of the New York Central from New York to Chicago. So far as I know, no other person has ever made these two continuous trips in locomotive cabs. Broadway to Chicago The first adventure came about after I met Fred W. Hankins, PRR’s chief of motive power, at the annual dinner of the New York Railroad Club at the Hotel Commodore in December 1930. During a conversation with Hankins about Pennsy motive power, I mentioned that I had long admired his road’s K4 4-6-2s and that I hoped someday to ride in the cab of one of them. Hankins…

Befitting its progressive motive power policy, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe was among the first three railroads to install the 4-6-4 Hudson type in passenger service in America. Delivery of locomotives 3450–3459 from Baldwin in May 1927 made Santa Fe the majority owner of 4-6-4s until New York Central — which took delivery on Alco prototype J-1a 5200 on February 14, 1927 — received 49 additional Hudsons during September–November 1927. Nickel Plate was close behind with four light 4-6-4s, built by Alco in March 1927. The 3450-class AT&SF 4-6-4s were originally assigned to heavy through trains between Kansas City, Mo., and La Junta, Colo., either 540 or 570 miles, depending on the choice of two routes in Kansas. They had 25 x 28-inch cylinders, 73-inch drivers, 220 psi boiler…

Here is an excerpt from a June 21, 1982, letter to author Lloyd Stagner from the late J. T. “Tuck” Smith, who served as the Santa Fe’s master mechanic at Amarillo from 1941 to 1964: “On arriving at the office one morning I found a ‘pink’ telegram on my desk advising all concerned that five late eastbound passenger trains would be detoured off their usual route via La Junta because of high water. The message instructed me to protect each train over the Plains Division [Clovis, N.Mex.–Waynoka, Okla.] with a road foreman of engines or airbrake supervisor to ensure that the best possible time, consistent with safety, was achieved. With only four supervisors available it appeared that the fifth train, with the 3460, would have to come unsupervised. I told…

HAVE A GOOD DAY. What does that phrase mean to you? If taken in the railfan sense, to me it means November 14, 1948. Not that I have anything like total recall of that day, but I do have photos to jog my fading memory. Reconstructing that long-ago day was fun, sort of a mixture of fact and fantasy. The locale of that “good day” was a relatively short stretch of the Schuylkill River valley between Norristown and Reading, Pa. My files do not contain timetables of the Reading Company for that era, so the order of events may be a little out of sequence, being approximated by the angle of the sun. A little sleuth work determined that the day was a Sunday — quite logical, but open to…

It is entirely possible that all 29 owners of 4-8-4s (including 2 owners of duplex 4-4-4-4s) which rolled on North American rails believed that they possessed “super” locomotives. This belief would be difficult to dispute; in their time, 4-8-4s were a big improvement over their immediate predecessors. However, such opinions would have been of local dimension and wholly unrelated to a super, or ultimate, machine whose performance would have astounded many motive-power superintendents across the industry. On the other hand, none of the 1,119 4-8-4s (and 53 4-4-4-4s) built for North American service embodied all of the super features incorporated in contemporary locomotive construction. Even more surprising, one device which could have elevated a few of the best North American 4-8-4s to super status — a multiple-jet exhaust system —…