Two weeks ago,I received my Kato N scale GS4 and I’m thrilled about how nice this engine is and I’m thinking about getting one or two more.However,I believe one Daylight consist should be enough and would like to know if this loco has been used by other railways,like UP for instance.The only ones I’ve seen (models) so far were all SP owned.
Hi,
to my knowledge, it was only SP who had GS-4´s.
Here is a link:
No one.
Western Pacific owned some GS-6 copies that were piggybacked onto an SP order for the “War Babies”.
That’s right, the GS-4 (note hyphen) was unique to the Southern Pacific.
The SP GS-6 class, itself a copy of the SP GS-2 class of 1936, was copied for the Western Pacific GS-64-77 class 4-8-4s of 1943. However, the GS-6 differed significantly from the appearance of the GS-4. It had smaller drivers, 73-1/2 inches instead of 80 inches, lacked the wide running-board skirts (since the GS-6 engines were always painted black, also true of their WP sisters), and carried a single headlight in the cone-like smokebox door. The WP engines also had smoke-lifter wings applied on either side of the smokebox, in a somewhat unusual position inboard of the steps and running boards.
There’s a photo of one of the WP engines on page 221 of the Model Railroader Cyclopedia, Volume 1: Steam Locomotives, and the same photo is on page 429 of George Drury’s Guide to North American Steam Locomotives. Page 423 of George’s book shows an interesting comparison of builder photos of the SP GS-6, the WP GS-64-77 (before the smoke-lifters were installed by the railroad), and the Central of Georgia class K, another 4-8-4 based on the SP GS-2/6 design.
Keep on steaming,
Andy
Weren’t some delivered in black? If not other GS classes were and it is a plasuible paint scheme for some variation.
Some of them were painted black during WW2, and I think some were painted black after they were removed from passenger service in the 1950’s. Much later of course 4449 was used for the Freedom Train if you want to go red white and blue.
Many railroads used 4-8-4s of course, but the GS-4 was specifically an SP version. In steam days railroads generally designed their own unique engines. It wasn’t like diesels where you went to GM and bought basically the same SD-9 every one else would buy. One exception to an extent were the USRA designed engines, which were built from 1918-20 with copies being made into the early fifties.
The Southern Pacific’s GS-2, -3, -4, and -5 classes of 4-8-4s were all delivered in the orange and red Daylight streamliner paint scheme. The GS-1 (not streamlined), GS-6 (partially streamlined wartime engines), and GS-7 and -8 (ex-Cotton Belt, not streamlined) classes were all delivered in black.
Even before WWII, some GS-class streamliners assigned to service over the Sierra Nevadas or to lines in northern California and Oregon were painted black because the many tunnels on those routes made it difficult to keep the streamliner colors clean. As the SP dieselized after WWII, many of the streamlined GS locomotives that were re-assigned to freight service, used only in standby passenger service, or on “commute” trains had their running board skirts removed and were repainted black.
There were enough variations to make generalizations unreliable for specific engines, and reference to dated photographs is the best way to know how a particular engine appeared at a given time.
So long,
Andy