@c.sam posted:I remember reading a terrific article in Trains magazine I think it was from back in the early 1970s. It told the fireman's story of he and the engineer being called to fire up one of the last PRR T1's to take over a mail train double headed by two K4s that were having difficulty in Crestview OH if I remember correctly. They hauled the train to Ft Wayne and twisted the speedometer over the top on the final stretch of perhaps 30+ miles. He said 'the telephone poles literally looked like a picket fence' and they estimate that they were traveling in excess of 130 mph!
Have loved that steamer ever since...
The folks doing the T1 project are doing so (at least in theory) to try and see if it can break the official record of 126MPH for a Mallard over in the UK. There are claims of faster engines but none that I am aware of that were backed up(the T1 supposedly hit 120, the S1 supposedly as much as 140mph). Whether the T1 actually can do that is unknown, and honestly I don't know if even the T1 project does what it is setting out to do, if they could find a place willing to let them try, I can't think of any railroad, mainstream or tourist, allowing that.
The telephone pole thing made me laugh. Michael Crichton told a story when they were filming the Great Train Robbery in Ireland, using vintage steam engines. There was a scene where Sean Connery is on top of the train with it in motion, and the train is supposed to be doing a max of like 25 mph. They filmed the scene and Connery (per Crichton), indicated they should stop, and he looked mad. He came down furious, saying he was nearly blown off the train, that they had to have been going like 50 or 60mph. He confronted the engineer about how he knew what speed to be going (the engine didn''t have a speedometer). The engineer said he and the fireman were counting the telegraph poles going by the cab per minute. Connery heard this and exploded, and said something like "you counted #*$&%& telegraph poles, put down by #*$&% workers, and expected them to be $**($! even? "
