12/4/22

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  Today's image goes back to the Strasburg Railroad Museum in Pennsylvania.  This is one of the locomotives that currently is stored outside and the weathering on it shows that so it made for a nice B&W subject.  The museum is currently raising money to build an addition to get all their pieces indoors, it will be great when it is accomplished.  This locomotive is Pennsylvania RR 3750 and was built in 1920 and retired in 1958.  It is a K-4 Pacific type 4-6-2 which was a very successful locomotive type for them due to it's speed and power.

8/28/22

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog.  Today's image goes back to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg.  This is locomotive 6765 Mountain type built in 1930 and retired in 1957 and was one that could scoop water into the tender on the fly.  I felt like a B&W treatment for this image today.  Steam locomotives make great B&W subjects I think.

7/17/22

 A year ago I was at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania which I have been sharing numerous photos from.  This is another locomotive on display there.  This 0-4-0 Switcher locomotive 94 built in 1917 and retired in 1956.  Switcher locomotives were built to move railroad cars around to assemble and disassemble trains.  They needed to be powerful, nimble and compact and have often been described as the railroad version of the Tug Boat.  No. 94 was one of the heaviest 0-4-0s ever built and has a sloped back tender for better rear visibility.

6/26/22

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog once again.  We are midway through the year already!  Today's image goes back to the Pennsylvania Railroad in Strasburg.  This is locomotive 520 which was built in 1916 and retired in 1957.  It's a Mikado (L1 in Penn RR terms) or a 2-8-2 wheel arrangement which were one of the most popular wheel arrangements.  They could pull heavier loads but also be light enough to pull lighter loads at 50 mph which made them very versatile.

5/15/22

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  I have shared this locomotive before in a couple shots from above.  This is Pennsylvania Railroad locomotive 1223 at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg.  It was built in 1905 and retired by the Pennsylvania railroad in 1950.  In 1960 the Strasburg RR borrowed it and ran steam excursions from 1965 to 1989.  This locomotive has appeared on screen several times, most notably in a couple of movies, The Broadway Limited (1941) and Hello Dolly (1969).  I love the museum's displays like this one that have it in a natural looking setting.

5/8/22

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  Once again we go back to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg.  Today's locomotive is a more unique and specialized one called a Climax.  The Climax Company made farm implements but were approached to build a locomotive for removing Lumber from mountain sides that was powerful, agile and cheap.  By making use of an offset bevel gear, they produced a locomotive that was very nimble and flexible.  It could climb steeper grades and navigate sharper turns than other types of geared locomotives of equal weight.  This locomotive was built in 1913 and retired in 1956.  In West Virginia I was able to ride behind one of these locomotives at the Durbin Rocket Railroad but I think it has been replaced currently by a different type.

5/1/22

 It's Steamy Sunday once again on the Blog!  Once again we go back to Strasburg and the Pennsylvania Railroad Museum.  This is locomotive 1187 which was built in 1888 in the Altoona, PA shops of the Pennsylvania Railroad and then retired in 1939.  It was an H3 Class Consolidation 2-8-0 type, used for freight.  By 1924, the railroad had over 3300 class H locomotives in service which was 44%  but the 1187 is the sole survivor.

4/24/22

 It's Steamy Sunday once again here on the Blog!  Once again we go back to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg.  This is Pennsylvania Railroad  locomotive 460 which was built in 1914 and retired in 1956.  This locomotive has the distinction of being the train to carry the first Theater film of Lindberg's historic flight over the Atlantic landing in Paris to an event in Washington DC.  The train reached speeds of 115 mph but was still beaten to DC by planes.  However, the film on the train was able to be processed en-route and so was the first one to be shown at the event.

4/17/22

 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.

3/20/22

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  Today's image goes back to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg.  This is Pennsylvania Railroad locomotive 3750, a K4s Pacific type.  The K4s was iconic to the PA RR as they were known for their speed and power and were the standard for their passenger trains.  This locomotive was built in 1920 and retired in 1958.  The museum is planning on building more indoor storage space.  I hope they do because this locomotive is deteriorating badly due to sitting out in the weather from the photo I saw on their site while researching it.  It did make for a nice B&W subject though.

11/14/21

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  Today's image goes back to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg.  This is Pennsylvania Railroad locomotive 1187 that was built in 1888 at their Altoona Shops.  It is a 2-8-0 Consolidation type and was used for freight.  It was retired in 1939.  It was the first locomotive to introduce the Belpaire firebox named after it's inventor Alfred Belpaire. This design allowed for more space for steam, more area for combustion while also providing greater strength.

10/10/21

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog and it is also a double digit day!  I recently watched a video on Youtube that was an interview with former Disney animator Ward Kimball who was in to trains quite a bit and even had some full size equipment.  While I was in Strasburg Pennsylvannia at the Pennsylvannia Railroad Museum, they had this locomotive that was visiting from the Smithsonian that was a locomotive that Kimball helped retore and ran on his railroad.  It was actually owned by Gerald Best.  Kind of a neat coincidence that I had just seen it in person, and then again in a video.  This was originally a sugar plantation locomotive.  They used small tank engines that were lightweight and easier to lay track for to move between fields.  It is named Olomana and was originally built in 1883 and retired in 1944.

9/5/21

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  We are once again at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg.  Today's locomotive is once again Pennsylvania 4-4-0 1223, this time seen from the other side.  I provided some additional details on this locomotive lat week if you missed it. I really like how things were displayed in this museum.

8/29/21

 It's another Steamy Sunday here on the Blog, we are heading into the last 3rd of the year already.  Today's image is still at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg.  This is Locomotive 1223 seen from above on the nice observation walkway they have.  It was built in 1905 and retired by the Pennsylvania railroad in 1950.  In 1960 the Strasburg RR borrowed it and ran steam excursions from 1965 to 1989.  This locomotive has appearedon screen several times, most notably in a couple of movies, The Broadway Limited (1941) and Hello Dolly (1969).

8/22/21

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  Today's image is from the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.  This locomotive can be seen a bit behind last week's loco.  This is Pennsylvania RR No. 7002, but not really.  7002 was the world's fastest locomotive in 1905 setting a speed record of 127.1 mph.  When they wanted to send the locomotive to the 1939 World's Fair, they found that it had been scrapped!  They substituted Locomotive 8063 which has been used as 7002 ever since.  For a time between 1983 and '89 it was leased to the Strasburg Railroad and operated there.

8/15/21

 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog!  While I was in Strasburg to see 611, I also went to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania there.  It's a beautiful museum with their collection very nicely displayed.  This is a replica of the John Bull locomotive.  Off to the side of it is an original wheel.  The Pennsylvannia Railroad aquired the original John Bull in 1871 when it absorbed the Camden and Amboy RR.  In 1884, it was donated to the Smithsonian but they were still allowed to operate it for special excursions up until 1940 when preservation concerns arose.  This replica was built in 1940 to use at various events instead up until approximately 1999.