STEAMday Sunday (9/8/2024 edition)

Good morning, StDaySun people!  Welcome to the second half of Boston & Maine weekend on the Steam Crazy Lines.

The SCL president can’t think of a better steam engine to represent the B&M than his ALCO P3 Pacific no. 3702.  The beautiful “speed lettering” paint job has to be one of the most attractive in all railroading.  No. 3702 is usually seen hauling varnish - which she was built for - but today she has been pressed into service on a local freight.  The location of the photo shoot is Princeton, MA, on B&M’s Worcester-Gardner branch line.

John

There is a steam engine in this

Arnold - thanks for keeping the boiler steamed up and getting us rolling this morning!   Your NYC Mohawk looks great, especially with those heavy weight car!

Steam crazy - John your B&M Pacific looks great as well!  I must agree the speed lettering is the most eye catching that I've ever seen on a steam locomotive

For today I'm showing my B&O beauty queens ... a 4-6-4 Hudson by WbB ( on the far track ) and a P7 4-6-2 Pacific  of the B&O's Presidential fleet  ... this one The President Harrison by Lionel.  The Lionel is equipped with TMCC and was my "big purchase" at this past April's York show.

I now have 4 B&O steam locos in my fleet.  I'll be posting a "family portrait" in an upcoming edition of Steam Sunday.  

From my archives……..a PS2 RailKing Decapod with a military consist……

Have a great and safe day, everyone!

Peter

Peter, “image not found”.

John

My Steamday steam locomotive for this week is Boston & Albany #53 - a Lionel model (6-28702) of a USRA 0-8-0 switcher with TMCC made in 2006 at MSRP $649.99. The USRA 0-8-0 design was developed by the United States Railroad Administration during World War 1. Lionel’s model of this engine is excellent and has a fully round boiler on the underside with a prototypical space between the boiler and the frame.

B&A #53 was a U-3b class switcher built by Lima in April 1921. The engine had 25-by-28 cylinders, 51-inch driving wheels, weighed 219,000 pounds (about 364,000 pounds with loaded tender), and produced 51,040 pounds of tractive effort at 175 pounds-per-square-inch boiler pressure. When the B&A dieselized in 1951, #53 was renumbered to New York Central #7725 and ran on the Harlem Division until retirement in January 1955.

Photos/video show #53 on my 10’-by-5’ layout pulling two boxcars – Maine Central single-sheathed car #36123 and PSRX refrigerated car #1006 - both by Atlas O. At the tail end is Boston & Albany wood caboose #1299 by MTH.

MELGAR

Here is another older video taken at the Black Diamond Society of Model Engineers in Bethlehem PA of my two Legacy K4 engines #s 1330 and 8330 which started its life as a Polar Railroad K4 pulling several express boxcars, refers, baggage cars, coaches and bringing up the rear a K-line business car.

JohnB

@trumpettrain posted:

Arnold - thanks for keeping the boiler steamed up and getting us rolling this morning!   Your NYC Mohawk looks great, especially with those heavy weight car!

Steam crazy - John your B&M Pacific looks great as well!  I must agree the speed lettering is the most eye catching that I've ever seen on a steam locomotive

For today I'm showing my B&O beauty queens ... a 4-6-4 Hudson by WbB ( on the far track ) and a P7 4-6-2 Pacific  of the B&O's Presidential fleet  ... this one The President Harrison by Lionel.  The Lionel is equipped with TMCC and was my "big purchase" at this past April's York show.

I now have 4 B&O steam locos in my fleet.  I'll be posting a "family portrait" in an upcoming edition of Steam Sunday.  

Good looking engines Trumpettrain. How did they ever keep that Pacific clean?

@Steam Crazy posted:

Peter, “image not found”.

John

Wow……and I can see it……I’ll do a reload.

Peter

It should be there now….

Peter

Currently on the layout is a C&O mallet with a heavy consist of die cast hoppers and caboose.

Thanks Arnold for stoking the fire this morning. That early MTH engine looks good.

John that B&M with the speed lettering and the red pin stripes is a nice looking engine.

Im posting my very first Steam Engine, a Lionel 1666 with a whistle tender and a 2472 N5 tin caboose. I’m not sure if the other cars were the original ones. It wasn’t a set, it was what my Dad could cobble together. The gondola is definitely original because it has the green paint stripe on the bottom that I put there when I brought it to a Boy Scout event.

The arrival of the "619 Greenbrier" adds to the excitement of the car rallyers on North Main across from the station...

Peter, I see it now.  Maybe I looked at your post immediately after you posted it and the picture hadn't loaded yet.

Paul, great photo!  It appeals to me not only as a train fan, but a car guy too!

John

Another fine start Arnold Have a good STEAMday Sunday all! Picture of Utica, NY rail yard back in the day.

@pennsyfan posted:

Good looking engines Trumpettrain. How did they ever keep that Pacific clean?

Bob - That's a great question.  Here on the Free State Junction Railway our locomotive maintenance crew expertly steam clean the 5308 and our engine wipers are top notch!  They keep number 5308 as clean as a hospital operating room .. lol!

In reality, I believe the Lionel paint scheme, as beautiful as it looks, is actually a fantasy paint scheme.  I could be wrong, however as a student of B&O history, I've never read any text or viewed  photos of the President Harrison being painted in the paint scheme Lionel has chosen.   In its' later years the 5308 was painted all blue, as it headed passenger trains.  Eventually though, like many steam locomotives during the 1950s, the 5308 was relegated to freight trains.  The 5308  was retired by the B&O in 1957 and scrapped in 1958.  

The B&O's P7 class of Pacifics built by Baldwin honored the first 20 presidents of the US.  The locomotives were number 5300 - 5319.  They were the power for all of B&O's name passenger trains back in the steam era.  Top end speed of 85 mph.  Over the life span of the P7 class,  some were given streamlined shrouding but not the 5308.  These shrouded locomotives were assigned to certain passenger trains.  Four of these streamlined shrouded P7 locos were assigned to B&O's Cincinnatian which ran daylight hours between Baltimore and Cincinnati.  

@pennsyfan posted:

Good looking engines Trumpettrain. How did they ever keep that Pacific clean?

@trumpettrain posted:

The B&O's P7 class of Pacifics built by Baldwin honored the first 20 presidents of the US.  The locomotives were number 5300 - 5319.  They were the power for all of B&O's name passenger trains back in the steam era.  Top end speed of 85 mph.  Over the life span of the P7 class,  some were given streamlined shrouding but not the 5308.  These shrouded locomotives were assigned to certain passenger trains.  Four of these streamlined shrouded P7 locos were assigned to B&O's Cincinnatian which ran daylight hours between Baltimore and Cincinnati.  

The Lionel scheme is a fantasy scheme but it's still a nice scheme.  Your 1:48 workers don't know any better about it anyway.  B&O P7Es and P7Ds were indeed painted all blue and basic locomotive black. 

Here is the streamlined Lionel #238E from 1936-1938  She has a tinplate whistling tender.  She is quite powerful for a pre-war workhorse and I love the streamlining that does resemble the PRR prototype.

Here she is exiting the "mountains" on my little layout, just coming out of the pine forest.

Happy Sunday everyone, hope your upcoming week goes well

Don

What a great image sitka - One wonders when some enterprising locomotive 'imagineer' will customize a steamer like that ESE Hudson with all 3 smoke functions!

Moderators - if this is not a 'legal' photo, please feel free to delete my post. :-)

@c.sam posted:

What a great image sitka - One wonders when some enterprising locomotive 'imagineer' will customize a steamer like that ESE Hudson with all 3 smoke functions!

Moderators - if this is not a 'legal' photo, please feel free to delete my post. :-)

Thanks Sam we came across that buying some rustic outdoor moose and bear pictures for the home, top left hand corner is a Utica Club Beer Tractor trailer. another reason we bought since my dad and family member retired or worked at the brewery as for that Hudson now that would be pretty sharp on a layout. Thanks Mark