It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog! Today's image is another from the Pennsylvania Railroad Museum in Strasburg. This is Pennsylvania Railroad locomotive 6755. It was built in 1930 and retired in 1957. It has an M1 designation or "Mountain" type meaning it was heavy and powerful and versatile for both passenger and freight service. An M1's tender is fairly large to keep the engine moving. They held 31.5 tons of coal and 22,090 gallons of water and had a scoop to collect water on the fly. Here is link to a video on Youtube from the Library of Congress that shows an example of how this worked. Scooping Link will open a new window.
Good sized locomotive Shelly
ReplyDelete- only 27 years in service?
- 31.5 tons of coal - I hope there was an mechanical means of getting the coal from the tender to the firebox
- neat scooping mechanism
Built close to the time diesels came in so relatively short service. Probably had an auger, many large locomotives did.
DeleteHere's a video I found with some descriptions of the downsides of the scooping....😊 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up96HiQyUVs
ReplyDeleteYes, people got wet :-) Neat video, thanks Jim
DeleteGreat shot. I was not aware of this method for scooping water on the fly. Very interesting!
ReplyDeleteGlad you found it interesting. Thanks much Tom!
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