[Attachment(s) from LZadnichek@aol.com included below]
November 4, 2015
Mike - I don't know if I would go so far as to say the Q's long boilered
4-8-2 types were "ugly," but they certainly were "homely" and the lignite
burners on Lines West had a look about them that only a mother could
love.... Whereas the later Baldwin built Class B-1-A locomotives were
modernized during their service lives with disc drivers and heat treated
alloy steel running gear with some even receiving roller bearings on their valve
linkage and main drivers, let's not forget their earlier "less sophisticated"
sisters, the almost forgotten Lima 1922 built Class B-1 locomotives. Now, to me,
the B-1s were the Q's true wall flowers and the lignite burners' smoke
boxes compared favorably to a camel's snout. I just can't visualize a
beautiful S-4 "cozying-up" to a camel nose lignite burning B-1 in some darkened
roundhouse on Lines West..... I'm attaching an undated image of Class B-1 7001
at an unknown location, but from the grain elevators in
the background the location almost certainly is the Gibson Yard roundhouse
in Omaha, NE. The date is prior to July 1953 when 7001 was sold for scrap (the
entire B-1 class of eight locomotives were purged during 1953). In
the image, 7001 appears to be stored serviceable alongside the roundhouse. I
like to think this spinster 4-8-2 type was dreaming at the time of a long lost
suitor.... Best Regards - Louis
Louis Zadnichek II
Fairhope, AL
In a message dated 10/26/2015 10:03:36 A.M. Central Standard Time,
CBQ@yahoogroups.com writes:
Yeah, I know the Q
already had heavy Pacifics in the form of S3s but a reworked model of a
Southern Railway 4-6-2 would be so much more handsome than an S3. I've
wondered for a long time why the styling of the Q locomotives suddenly got
much better when the Hudsons, M4as, and O5s came along in the late '20s.
Maybe there was a change in the motive power department. Maybe somebody
finally said to Baldwin... "ya know... we're paying all this money for these
Hudsons and 2-10-4s and we want to actually sort of make them good looking to
the eye and not just good steaming engines." Baldwin's response was
probably something along the lines of... "what, you finally noticed that we
can make good looking engines for the other railroads? We just thought
you guys out on the prairies liked 'em ugly!!".
Ugliest Q engine... the
B1a with the extended smokebox! Just awkward... so homely you have to
take pity on it and like it. Looks much better with the regular smokebox
and a Box-Pok though. Kinda like a hog with make-up!
Mike Martin
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