Likewise a tough decision for me but I think I would settle on the original SP Daylight for a streamliner and the GN’s Oriental Limited for a heavyweight.[8D]
It’s really not a streamliner, but if I had the money I would restore a H20-44 in the Pittsburgh & WestVirginia R.R. paint job. I would run it on the old lines that the Wheeling & Lake Erie use now.
Electroliner on the Skokie Valley Route.
NYC 20th Century Limited or any Pennsy GG1 passenger train.
I would like to see a SP AC9 pulling a long Golden State consist in its red&silver scheme.[:D][:p]
I would want to turn back the Hands Of Time and take a tour of all the Railroad Towers. I’d like to see how the switches were hand-thrown from inside those long towers. To see the way the dispatchers and tower operators communicated with each other. If I could only go back to the days “I” was a tower operator, and lined up the trains as I was told to. To remember the snow storms that knocked everone’s power out, but mine. To watch from a distance, the Smoke bellowing from another tower that caught fire…and hope that the operator got out okay. Those were some of the Good Old Days as a Tower Operator, watching all those beautiful trains and crews going passed me. Ralph Zimmer
I’d like to see the old Rock Island Rocket come back to life. I saw it once or twice when it first appeared and the next thing I knew it was gone. I’d love to get a look at the controls in that engine. I have ridden in many engines (usually IHB or the old B & O which is now the CSX)! The good old days have come and gone, but I can still dream! Ralph Zimmer Alsip, Il
Mine would be the Union Pacific’s CIty of Los Angles with a whisle stop at Kelso California so I could visit my parents in 1947! That would be fun!
Of course a PRR headed by a T1!
Well, that’s a piece of cake for me. By far the Southern Pacific Daylight train with a beutiful GS4 running with 16 daylight cars. At least for me, it wouldn’t get any better than that. Living here in California, the Daylight train was the most famous by far and after watching videos of them steam by at 80 mph is a sight unparalleled in today’s world (with the exception of the 4449 which is still operational).
I would pick two; the Twin Cities Zephyr on its original schedule and with its windshield washers and stewardess. And the GN Red River - a neat five car streamliner running between the Twin Cities and Grand Forks.
I would pick the class J because of the engine,the Hiawatha because of the scheme and a couple of the British Loco`s since they had some of the best out there.
For Tarwheel38: In Union, Il (I think that’s the name of the town), there is a “covered wagon” style engine. If that;s the one you are referring to. I’m not sure of the engine manufacturer or model number, but if you have ever seen the movie “A League Of Their Own,” based on the women’s baseball league during and after Worl War II,
the scene where the 2 sisters are running to catch up to the train pulling out of the station…that is the train used for the movie! Ralph Zimmer Alsip, Il
NYC Niagra and Hudson; PRR T1, J1, BP60, Keystone Tubular Train. Somebody please ask Bill Gates!
Either the 400 or the Broadway Limited, probably the latter.
Go back in time I would go to Horseshoe curve back in 1944 with a case of Bud Light and a lounge chair…
ride in the cab of an E or F unit on the old B & O between Deshler, OH and Cincinnati, OH.
…reconstruct ANYTHING, it would be the 1938 version of the NYC 20th Century Limited. Imagine how wonderful it would be to have a NYC 4-6-4 again! I’d be ecstatic to just have a “plain” J-3a with a consist of Budd stainless and smooth-side cars and a heavyweight or two mixed in.
Maybe get my hands on a small 2 footer to ride around
on the lower forty.
The Frisco MKT Texas Special is my choice any day