OTHER In The Beginning: Streamliners 1932-1938

acptulsa Feb 1, 2023

  1. Hytec

    Hytec TrainBoard Member

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    The B&M Minute Man, nee Flying Yankee, may not have set any records. But she was my most memorable ride in the B-Car from Hoosick Falls, NY to Ayer, MA, October 1952. I hope she gets restored to operation. I'd even drive :eek: to NH to ride her again, She's the top of my bucket list. :love::love::love:
     
  2. acptulsa

    acptulsa TrainBoard Member

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    Big Alice the Goon

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  3. acptulsa

    acptulsa TrainBoard Member

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  4. acptulsa

    acptulsa TrainBoard Member

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    The pic of the T&P "Silver Slipper" in the OP isn't showing for me. Don't know what happened, but here's a better one.

    https://live.staticflickr.com/4417/37153067950_66ed7c7545_b.jpg

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    I read an account that misled me. It was the coach that rode the sixteen rubber tires for a time, and the power car was slippery from the start.
     
  5. acptulsa

    acptulsa TrainBoard Member

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  6. Hardcoaler

    Hardcoaler TrainBoard Member

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    Whoa, I have never seen that train before. I wonder who built it? Almost has a home shop appearance with only a small area of curved metal above the cab.
     
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  7. Hardcoaler

    Hardcoaler TrainBoard Member

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    Two years beyond our cutoff time was SAL 868 from 1940. The SAL streamlined two Class P 4-6-2s for use on the Wildwood <=> Tampa/St. Pete section of the Silver Meteor.

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  8. Hardcoaler

    Hardcoaler TrainBoard Member

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    A year later in 1941, Otto Kuhler streamlined Ps-4 1380 for the Tennessean. I may be overlooking something, but this is the only streamlined SOU steam locomotive I can think of.

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  9. Hardcoaler

    Hardcoaler TrainBoard Member

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    New Haven's Comet, right? Wow.
     
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  10. acptulsa

    acptulsa TrainBoard Member

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    I talk about it in the OP. That was Budd practicing to build the first Zephyr.

    In amongst the Lord and Lady Baltimore and the diesel number 50 was this beauty, good practice for the postwar P-7s Pacifics. The Royal Blue equipment was hard to keep up with during that period.

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    I didn't post it because I was aiming for the early days. But it's one of my favorites. Isn't it a shame she's not the one in the Smithsonian? She's the only Southern streamlined steamer I know about, though that was the only road besides the Santa Fe to own DL-108 boosters. Had the one and only DL-110, too.
     
    Last edited: Feb 2, 2023
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  11. acptulsa

    acptulsa TrainBoard Member

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    The women may be all about French fashion, but I sometimes have my doubts...

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  12. acptulsa

    acptulsa TrainBoard Member

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    The Soviets felt the need to dabble a bit.

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  13. acptulsa

    acptulsa TrainBoard Member

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    Near as I can tell, in 1935 a British Great Western Railway 4-6-0 rear-ended an Oscar Mayer Wienermobile.

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    But I might be wrong.
     
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  14. Point353

    Point353 TrainBoard Member

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    Delivered in 1937, the New Haven RR I-5:

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  15. r_i_straw

    r_i_straw Mostly N Scale Staff Member

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    The Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railroad had to join into the streamline dance. Pulling the City of Memphis train, locomotive 535 was a 4-6-2.
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  16. Hardcoaler

    Hardcoaler TrainBoard Member

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    SAL car 2028, built 1936 by St. Louis Car Co. for service in Florida.

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  17. r_i_straw

    r_i_straw Mostly N Scale Staff Member

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    And then there was the Illinois Central Green Tomato Worm...er Green Diamond. Officially debuted on May 17, 1936 departing Chicago Central Station at 5 P.M. and arrived at St. Louis Union Station nearly five hours later at 9:55 P.M. UP had a lot of input into this creature.
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  18. acptulsa

    acptulsa TrainBoard Member

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    Right. It was radical, arguably the most radical of all of these early efforts. Consider:

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    This is the perfect example of how the doodlebug birthed the streamliner. St. Louis Car clearly just took their same old doodlebug body, rounded the roof, and applied some heavy makeup to the face of it. It appeared to be as newfangled as the Comet, to the typical observer in the thirties, but was not radical in the least. It could haul the latest thing in aluminum streamlined creations, or a wooden 1895 combine with kerosene lamps, all with equal ease. The Comet sprang from a blank piece of paper, and spent its existence incompatible and outnumbered. It had no influence at all. At least one of these Seaboard cars (quite possibly that one) was still hauling connecting cars to Tampa on April 30, 1971, the Day Before Amtrak.
     
    Last edited: Feb 2, 2023
  19. acptulsa

    acptulsa TrainBoard Member

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    It's also remarkable in this age how many of these early efforts were victims of their own success. The Q was soon scrambling to find homes for their three car trainsets, as they drew more passengers than they could carry. This happened twice on the Chicago-Minneapolis route, as the three car Twin Zephyrs of 1935 gave way to articulated trains over twice as long and three times as powerful the very next year. These, too, were soon inadequate. Milwaukee's Atlantics were soon replaced by Hudsons. Both the M-10000 and M-10001 were scrapped during WWII, while the UP publicly patted itself on the back for sacrificing these wonders to the War Effort's insatiable appetite for aircraft-grade aluminum. And replaced them with trains that could be expanded to meet demand.

    Other equally innovative roads like the B&O and the Santa Fe were a couple of years late to the party for a reason. Neither ever fielded a streamlined train that couldn't grow or shrink to meet demand.

    In any case, today the government tries to shame people into riding its lackluster offerings. From this perspective, it's fun to look back on a time when competition led to innovation, and that led to more success than they could handle.
     
    Last edited: Feb 2, 2023
  20. Doug Gosha

    Doug Gosha TrainBoard Member

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    I think the French used de Gaulle's nose as an inspiration for theirs.

    Doug
     
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