cment4u
January 6th, 2007, 02:19 PM
This is my first post so don't expect the professionalism you are used to seeing on these pages.
I was raised in Warren, Ohio along the B&O track that went to Fairport Harbor. Several times a day, usually while Warren was asleep, huge coal trains passed by my house. These trains from somewhere in PA or WV would carry their eight thousand tons of coal to Lake Erie to be loaded on freighters. In the early fifties huge steam engines would pull these trains up the grade to Painesville. I believe these monsters were EM-1 locomotives. When I was a kid they filled me with terror and wonder. I think they were 2-8-8-4's but I could be wrong. Everything looks bigger to a kid. I am sure they were some type of articulated mallot engines with two sets of drive pistons on each side. Usually there were two engines pulling the train. Sometime there would be a helper at the rear or even in the middle of the train. I usually never missed a train, even in the middle of the night. Nobody along that track missed the passing of these trains as they were building speed to make the climb. They sure spent a lot of steam on that whistle. In those days that was the most excitement any ten year old would find in Warren, Ohio.
Can anyone tell me more about these engines, where they were made, and where I can see one, or two.
Thank you,
Joe
I was raised in Warren, Ohio along the B&O track that went to Fairport Harbor. Several times a day, usually while Warren was asleep, huge coal trains passed by my house. These trains from somewhere in PA or WV would carry their eight thousand tons of coal to Lake Erie to be loaded on freighters. In the early fifties huge steam engines would pull these trains up the grade to Painesville. I believe these monsters were EM-1 locomotives. When I was a kid they filled me with terror and wonder. I think they were 2-8-8-4's but I could be wrong. Everything looks bigger to a kid. I am sure they were some type of articulated mallot engines with two sets of drive pistons on each side. Usually there were two engines pulling the train. Sometime there would be a helper at the rear or even in the middle of the train. I usually never missed a train, even in the middle of the night. Nobody along that track missed the passing of these trains as they were building speed to make the climb. They sure spent a lot of steam on that whistle. In those days that was the most excitement any ten year old would find in Warren, Ohio.
Can anyone tell me more about these engines, where they were made, and where I can see one, or two.
Thank you,
Joe