Well…if we’re talking about something that’s 100% original to Ohio (at least as far as being the first company anywhere to build one) you have to go with Ephraim’s Shay (he himself was a Michigander). The prototype was built by Lima in 1880. It has 45 years on the Berk.
Calling Hoosiers buckeyes, is somewhat of an insult, Mr Lock.[:)]
What is wrong with NKP779? Last steam locomotive built by Lima. It sits literally yards from her birthplace. It ran in and through Ohio on the NKP. It checks all the boxes, except it’s not operational.
Beg pardon, you’ll have to forgive my ignorance of the nuances of Midwestern “relationships.”
Growing up in New Jersey and having to deal with New York on one side and Pennsylvania on the other was enough of a challenge.
I do know what people from Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut call people from Massachusetts but don’t dare say it, I’d been banned from here for 100 years! [:$]
I believe the current ‘going rate’ is just under 152 years.
I wonder how many demerits that translates into?
I have to think that one is pointed at me, not you, and I acknowledge the point. I do tend to be a bit chauvinistic when it comes to steam engineering and Ohio – the ‘problem’ with extension to Indiana is that the neighbor state itself has great steam ‘cred’, starting with the association words like ‘Crestline’ and ‘Fort Wayne’ have on PRR steam fans, and extending to the now-fabulous organization in Fort Wayne that has made 765 first into a powerhouse and then into a brand. While it was, indeed, more than a bit cheeky to associate the Fort Wayne organization with ‘Ohio values’ it was intended with the greatest respect for precisely the sorts of concerted effort that have made the whole “experience” with 765 so awesome.
And yes, it’s ironic that Indiana effort is what makes 765 head-and-shoulders the leading candidate for canonical Ohio Steam Locomotive.
Crestline is in Ohio.
Crestline is in Ohio.
Yes. Yes, of course it is, now that you remind me of it. [D)]
But still, the raceway is to the ‘left’ of there and much of the magic, too… blah blah blah and stuff. I just don’t want to be left looking like I’m dissing Indiana…
I remember in one of John Crosby’s stories that Crestline was the dividing line between the “ridgerunners” and the “flatlander” crews. That was right before longer crew districts were implemented IIRC.
Crestline had a massive roundhouse. It was sold to a man that owned an auto scrapyard. I met him once when I was taking pictures of it from what I thought was railroad property. This was well before 9-11. He (not very nicely) informed me that it wasn’t. I never made that mistake again…
I never made that mistake again…
…and now he’ll never have to correct anyone about it again, either.
I suppose it’s just as well. As with Lima, or Alco in Schenectady, or Baldwin in Philadelphia … or Budd on Red Lion Road … or EMD in LaGrange. When it’s over and all that’s left is perpetual embarrassment… perhaps remembering the past only in memories might be better.
Another couple of “Ohio Berkshires” that no one has mentioned are C&O #2700 in Dennison and 2776 in Washington Court House.
Another couple of “Ohio Berkshires” that no one has mentioned are C&O #2700 in Dennison and 2776 in Washington Court House.
But of course those are not Berkshires. And not from Ohio.
And of them, technically the most important by far is another Indiana sojourner, 2789 – which I now find actually was supposed to have a public outing in mid-October – pandemic or no pandemic, I’d have gone if I had known! What a pity I can’t strrrrrrrrretch out enough excuse to put that Kanawha in the august running for SLOO.
Perhaps not among the well-known Berkshires, but my favourites of the type were the two that Montreal built for the TH&B, after they had tested one of the B&A’s early Berks on the grade, out of Hamilton, up the Niagara Escarpment.
I probably saw them (as a very young child) as the TH&B tracks, on an elevated right-of-way, ran right past our front porch on Hunter Street, a couple blocks east of the main TH&B station.
They had Coffin feedwater heaters, too, but they were barely visible unless you knew they were there.
My other favourites were the Central’s Hudsons (the New York Central was a part owner, along with the CPR, of the TH&B). The TH&B bought two Hudsons from the Central, but they were gone before I was old enough to fully appreciate them. They too were scrapped at Stelco, in Hamilton, where I later spent my working life.
Wayne
… my favourites of the type were the two that Montreal built for the TH&B …
Two of the most significant locomotives in Canada … and two of the very nicest.
I believe there is a movie showing these being constructed.
Not a Berk, and not a Lima grad, but C & O Kanawha 2707 (a Van Sweringen loco at least) was here in the C-L-E from 1955 to 1981. Unfortunately she was so abused (tagged) that she had tyo be given up. I do however remember seeing her in 1976 in Brookside Park when we rode the Cuyahoga Valley Line down to Hale Farm and back.
Pics of 2707 at the park may be heartbreaking to view. But here are a few at IRM: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/locoPicture.aspx?id=35169
- Wow. Yikes and yuck!
Well, at least it’s at the IRM and away from any further vandalism. I hope. At least that’s something.
I prefer Hudsons to Berkshires. To me it looks a bit off when an engine has fewer pilot wheels than trailing wheels.
I prefer Hudsons to Berkshires. To me it looks a bit off when an engine has fewer pilot wheels than trailing wheels.
One’s a fast passenger engine and the other is for freight. Apples and oranges.
One’s a fast passenger engine and the other is for freight.
Almost every Berkshire in Europe was a passenger engine. The Russians even streamlined one and seem to have claimed to get it to the equivalent of 110mph (I think they’re mixing it up with their streamlined penile Hudson, but don’t know for sure…)
Many later Berkshires were perfectly capable of passenger-train speed for the railroads that used them – Emmas being one case in point. (I’ll grant you that Hudsons were supposed to be much, much faster.)
Bet Lithonia doesn’t like Prairies, the fastest conventional locomotives in the country at one time…
Lima had a proposal to update older bershires with new frames and 69" drivers also to convert convert older bershires to 2-8-6s. Gary
… also to convert older Berkshires to 2-8-6s
Was that in Hirsimaki? It might make a kind of convoluted sense, if they rebuilt the running gear to low-inertial-mass and put poppet valve gear on after the cast-frame conversion. Judging (again) by what Frisco did in the late '40s to create locomotives like 1351, there would have been ‘incentives’ to rebuild older locomotives, starting along the lines of what T&P did to the 600s but extending, perhaps, to the suite of improvements C&NW made on the second go-round with the H engines, in 1948…