All steamed up

Two beauties together. York Railway Museum

I think some of you on here will follow Michael Portillo's "Railway journeys" series. This was featured on a recent European episode and shows the Wuppertal Schwebebahn in Germany. I had never heard of it before and it's now on my list of "must see's".

2 of our "local" locos:-

This is going to be a fun thread - I have probably a few thousand worth of electric trains packed away in boxes; regrettably they may never see the light of day ever again...

But a strong vote getter among American steam-heads is the 2-8-4 Berkshire:

In 2000 I had to go to Sacramento for a week for training on Nortel equipment, and quickly discovered that the California State Railroad Museum was located there.  It is a world-class facility and if you are into trains and out that way I highly recommend it.

They have one of these:

A Baldwin built 4-8-8-2 articulated cab-forward, used mainly by the Southern Pacific.  The design was to allow forward visibility in navigating the Sierra Nevada mountains.  Of the 256 of type of cab forward design ever built, this was the last, and the only one that didn't get scrapped.

Had one of these as Christmas present in the '60

And while not steam, I have fond memories of these 1920's vintage trains that were run on the Staten Island Rapid Transit into the 1970's.

What is funny is you can see the vestigial pilot (or "cow-catcher") on the front of these, since they were built in in the steam locomotive age.  They were electrically powered from a third rail.

And the interiors were cool too, with reversible back wicker seating, so they could face in either direction.  And concrete floors!  Long after every other NYC area rail system had upgraded, Staten Island was running these rolling time capsules.

And even into the 70's when you got on, the conductor would pass thought the car and give you a ticket that had a 6 or 7 digit number on it, and we would play "poker" with the numbers we were "dealt."

The new cars aren't nearly as cool as these were.

A well-named train!  ;-)

And thank you to Paul for starting these fun transportation pic threads! What's next...submersibles...spacecrafts?  

Here's the famous (in the NE USA) GG-1 electric (all cleaned up & pretty):

And here's one "in action":

I had a friend whose dad would take us train watching in NJ - we would stand on the platform and these would zoom by at about 60+ mph; pretty frightening for a 10 year old when you're only about 15 feet away and the wind from the train almost blows you over!  But I loved every minute of it.

duke of gloucester at oxford by winkyintheuk, on Flickr

Fabio,

   Thanks for this. Brings back memories of my childhood. Would love to get another one now

Super image red !

Hook,

   Happy to oblige. I think the next request is ships, so let his run for a while, them we can get wet.

Must be nice to have a personalised train !!

Nice one Debs.

We get steam trains going past occasionally on the way to Ribblehead etc. I like the sound and smell as much as anything but getting excited about any non-steam train does mystify me I'm afraid. I do like big stations though, always a sense of occasion and drama, especially St Pancras now.

Bruce

Hi

I took this at Ramsbottom station on the ELR in the late 80's, Canon EOS 1 and 70-200 F2.8 lens and those lovely days of B&W Ilford film printed with Agfa Record Rapid double weight paper.

Regards, Ian

Nice photo, Ian.

It looks like one of these:

4-6-0 'Manor Class'

ITS QUIZ TIME

Here's one for the real steam freaks  

What loco is this

The eagle eyed might be able to read the rail co name on the tender

The very small persons rear end is your truly with a very large rear end checking out the 4x4 bogey articulation

Great pic Ian.

Is it a Challenger Mike?

Looks like a 2-8-8-4 - Yellowstone?  Or a 2-8-8-2 Mallet, but the trailing set looks to be 4 from this angle.  Beautiful shot!

Should be submitted for the "rear of the year" award

Should have said its open everyone except rail freaks in the collonies

Well done DrMark

Its parked in a small town at the top of the hill outside Duluth

Any rail freak in that part of the world should checkout Lake Superior Railroad Museum in Duluth.

The museum has seven steam, fourteen diesel and two electric locomotives & over 40 other pieces of rolling stock.  Plus weekend/holiday steam days. 

The beast in the picture is a Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range Railway 2-8-8-4 "Yellowstone" which was among the largest steam engines to ever operate.  The engine alone weighed 695 tons & the tender 438 tons. 

They have loco #227 inside the museum that peeps can crawl all over.