I just like to ask weird questions but the only dumb questions are the ones that aren’t asked I always say.
A 4-4-0 slowly puttin my way across the country enjoying the sights.
This could be a Filosophy Phriday question.[(-D]
My idea of a really handsome steam locomotive is a modern steam era Atlantic.
But myself? I’d be a GP7. Strong, reliable, and good for most anything.
I would want to be this one.
-Photograph by Kevin Parson
I would be well cared for, loved, and every day I could pull happy people through scenery like this.
-Photograph by Kevin Parson
As far as locomotive lifes go, this would have to be a pretty good one.
-Kevin
The GG-1
You can see the strong family resemblance!
I’d have to say a 0-8-0 yard goat: No fanfare or glory…Faithfully doing its job and doing it well…
Tom
Okay. can I change my mind? I just had a major workout and I was pathetic. This is more like me.
I’m on the same page as The Lion. It’s a GG-1 for me. A true classic, and nobody has to tell me my ash is dirty.
Even now, a GG-1 would look appropriate pulling the Acela.
I had one over 60 years ago when I modeled O-scale and had Lionels. Now I’ve got one in HO.
I guess for me it would have to be a PRR I1sa 2-10-0 hippo. Me and my 597 brothers dragging and pushing long strings of hoppers full of black rocks. Unsung heroes of the drag freight era. The original headlight version.
Or a handsome looking Q2 high stepping with a long mixed freight.
Pete.
Well, if I was going to be a freight engine, it would a GP38, kinda like this one I was running on the upper Harlem line back in 1984, just north of Dover Plains, NY:
Then again, if I could be a passenger engine, it would be this one, my favorite AEM-7, with train 175 “The Minute Man” (they had names back then) in June 1981, when both the engine and the engineman were kinda new…
A Shay!
I believe I still have plenty of power to keep going up hill[oX)]…or maybe I don’t want to believe I’m over the hill…or it could be I don’t want to start going down hill yet[(-D][(-D]
TF
The engine I’m most intimate with was a 1918 USRA Mikado and after mulling this over for a while I think I’d like to be reincarnated as one of these. They started out with a clean, railroady look:
Alco_USRA_0002 by Edmund, on Flickr
These guys could pull heavy drag freight but, in a pinch, haul passenger trains with the best of 'em. Maybe not a speedster like an Atlantic, but for something like commuter train use they were quick on their feet.
4070_9-21 by Edmund, on Flickr
If I were to kick it up a notch I’d choose the original New York Central Hudson. A quite stylish and capable locomotive.
NYC_Hudson-5297J by Edmund, on Flickr
Happy Steaming — Ed
Agree on the Hudson 4-6-4 and the GG1, back in my 0-27 days I had an MTH Rail King Hudson and MTH GGI in Tuscan Red, the other engine i didn’t have but always wanted was the Milwaukee Road Hiawatha,all classics. Bayway Terminal NJ
Well, my new favorite engine would be the Santa Fe U23B. Not especially flashy, but did any and all chores asked of them, and they lasted beyond the 15 year typical lease period of the day, some of them to 18 years of service on Santa Fe. I like the engine idle sound of the GE locos. They also had the same AAR Type B trucks of the Alco Centuries, but were at least more reliable than the Alcos, thus enabling GE to eventually become the #1 loco builder, at least for awhile.
Of course I know the GP35 lasted more than twice as long on ATSF, but they aren’t quite as interesting sound-wise, etc.
John
SD40-2. I like a lot of cousins.
Whatever the oldest one is so I would be around longer.
A GE 44 tonner, fitting into tiny spaces and shoving things around.
Thinking beyond North America, I would like to be the French BB 15000.
First, I like Paul Arzens’ “nez cassee” (“broken nose”) design with the inverted windshield position, which converts a pretty utilitarian 4-axle electric locomotive into something which stands out. In addition, the BB 15000 class was/is famous for their reliability. Of the 59 locos built in the early-to-mid seventies more than 50 are still in use. I do not know how the French define “defects” (I assume it is something severe, which prevents the loco from running), but supposedly the BB 15000 class had less than 2 defects per million km (~ less than 3 defects per million miles).