what is your favorite locomotive of all time diesel or steam and why?
Diesel…the SD40-2… I like the look and sound. Steam: CN Mikes… beautiful locomotives…
Diesel, E and F units…a sound I will always remember, second generation SD40-2. Steam, K4s of the PRR is my favorite, it tops my list of many that were all special.
The Niagaras / the Duplexii
- just why ?
oh , my …
= J =
The H24-66 Train Master for its speed in commuter service and pulling power in freight service and the H12-44 for shear pulling power. I watched while one pulled 150 cars out of a bowl yard, stopped on the main line and then pushed them back into the yard on another track. That little engine huffed and smoked but did not have any wheel slip.
Good choice! I watched the '66s when they were used as helpers on the mountain between Johnstown and Altoona, those beasts would make the house shake when going by.
Favorite locomotive? Hands-down, it’s Norfolk and Western’s Class J #611. We rode behind it several times during the NS steam program years. I have other steam favorites but Lady Firestorm and I will never love another like we love 611. The best of the best.
I was in the cabs of the H24-66’s too many times to count on both the commutr runs from San Jose to San Francisco and on freight runx at night. The would litterally pull the perverbial “tar paper off the wall” and we did 80 MPH on the commuter runs.
Hi Firelock
The Best of the best ?
Well , let Tina the Turner sing it out loud :
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xh20h_tina-turner-simply-the-best_music
( never mind Celine Dion’s version :
brave effort , yet there is only one who sings this way and that’s Tina )
Regards
Juniatha
Hi Juniatha! As per your suggestion I checked out Steamin’ Tina’s “Simply the Best”. Oh yeah, no-one did it better. Have you ever seen the film version of The Who’s rock opera “Tommy”? Kind of a lackluster film except for Tina Turners “Acid Queen”, the only decent part of the film, although Keith Moons “Uncle Ernie” had me laughing so hard I almost choked!
This thread is what this forum will look like, once the moderators, assisted by the more earnest forum participants, purge this forum of any and all topics of any controversy.
“My favorite locomotive is the Pennsy T1.”
“Oh, yeah, my favorite locomotive is the EMD E7.”
“My favorite locomotive is the AEM-7.”
“Well, my favorite locomotive is Thomas the Tank Engine, so there!”
“My favorite locomotive is a red one.”
“Oh, yeah, my favorite locomotive is blue.”
Actually, my favorite locomotive is Thomas the Tank Engine. In the Atrium of Engineering Hall not far from my office is a television lounge, where students and others can watch a limited selection of cable channels between classes. Lately and in the afternoon, it is tuned to Martin Bashir telling us one political side has it right and the other political side is completely stupid. A couple years ago, we were seeing Glenn Beck, doing pretty much the same thing only the political sides were reversed.
Some mornings, the TV is tuned to a PBS station showing Thomas and Friends. Yes, Thomas and the other locomotives are anthropomorphic and they have various adventures that are morality tales to indoctrinate young children into altruistic behavior.
But the train watching on that show is as good as outside the glass window-wall towards 1410 Engineering Drive in the direction of the Wisconsin and Southern tracks, only you don’t have to wait as long for the train to go by. The train action on whatever kind of computer animation they do is also as interesting as anything exhibited at the Mad City Model Railroad Show. Thomas and the
I’ts too hard to pick one favorite diesel or steam loco, however, my favorite electric is the New Haven EP-5. Double-ended streamline car-body, no pony wheels needed, and the paint job didn’t look bad either.
http://abpr.railfan.net/abprphoto.cgi?june05/06-26-05/NYNH+H378in10_58MacOwenColl.jpg
I’d have to go with E or F units, they were the engines that pulled the trains I rode with my parents or friends “back in the day”.
For steam-I like Mike-because of #4960 or Mountain-because of #1522. But I do like #3985, and #765 too. #844 is a great engine, but I’m not a big fan of the “elephant ears”.
Boy that’s a hard question! Since I consider myself a Southern Gentleman I would probably say my favorite all time locomotive is the Southern Railway PS4 #1401. I can only imagine what it would have been like to see that beautiful lady in action pulling the Crescent Limited at speed down the same tracks I run on everyday!
Tim
Locomotive Engineer
Piedmont Division - NS
Steam: 4-6-0
Old Diesel: plain GP-7/9s, F or E units on passenger trains
Modern Diesel: AC44CW
Electric: Milwaukee road ‘little joes’
Why: just like how they all look on a train!
For me…anything with a pantograph. My earliest recollections of the NEC was E-44s and the Metroliners zipping along.
The GG1, hands down!
VGN 2-10-10-2 and H16-44
Steam is a little before my time, so I don’t really have a favorite there.
When it comes to diesels, there are lots that I like. In the summer of 1988 I did a brief internship at a shortline railroad in south Louisiana. I got to spend a few days working with the train crews and was allowed to run a switcher on a run one afternoon. That was the highlight of my summer and the reason that my favorite is the EMD SW1200.
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=
Johnie
My favorite locomotive was built in the late 1920s, by Baldwin, for a railroad you probably never heard of. It’s a rear-tank 0-4-2T with a relatively huge wood bunker and (as rebuilt after WWII) an industrial cyclone stack bigger around than its boiler.
The railroad was the 762mm (2 foot 6 inch) gauge Kiso Forest Railway, which dieselized in 1960 with a grand collection of 4-wheel ‘critters’ and two eight-wheelers, one of which looked like a double rear end collision between two Volkswagen vans. The railroad closed in 1975, after roadbuilding made the woods accessible to self-loading trucks.
There is a much-butchered example in the collection of the California Railroad Museum - widened to 3 foot gauge, with a boiler tube pilot and class lights that the Kiso never used. It’s like seeing the high school prom queen at the 50th class reunion…
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)