Is there anyone out there that can tell me if the Norfolk & Western 4-8-4 J class ever pulled freight, or was it strictly a passenger puller ?.
The reason I’m asking is because I recently saw a 1950s era picture of a J pulling freight, and it made me wonder what was going on there…
trainluver1
Bachmann Spectrum HO released a ‘freight version J’ not too long ago.
So I assume that they did pull freight ocassionally.
In the twilight of steam, the J’s were assigned to freight duty, sad to say…
The J’s were built for passenger duty, but used for freight after passenger service was discontinued. The J’s were some of the finest locomotives ever produced, so it would really have been a waste to just scrap them after passenger service died off. Nearly every railroad that ran passenger service had relatively new locomotives when passenger service was done away with, so they used their locos for freight until they were replaced.
There were the streamlined and non-streamlined versions and even when new they did freight.
The N&W didn’t discontinue passenger service, they dieselized it, at first with leased ACL E units, and then with their own fleet of steam generator equipped GP9s (or GP18s).
All GP9 ; 500-521; aka the Redbirds. Unique GP9’s, they had air tanks and the large fuel tanks in common with the GP20.
I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a non-streamlined J class. What did they look like ?.
trainluver1
trying to track down a photo, its in the N&W Giant of steam book, looks pretty much like a Santa Fe 4-8-4 with the J siderods and looks, but no streamlined sheeting, its an addon over the standard loco.
They were built during the war, and there were wartime restrictions of materials, and the N&W had to report to the War Emergency board about their construction details,
and were desiganted General Service-freight and passenger.
Streamlining got applied to them after the war.
Thanks for the quick response dinwitty, and for the info. I guess I’ve seen the engines before, but didn’t make the connection.
trainluver1
The larger siderods proved hard on the bearings and the war production board allowed N&W to replace the rods and add the streamlining in 1944.
The wartime J’s originally were slated just for passenger service, because the N&W had a large increase in passenger requirements during the war (Hampton Roads had the largest concentration of military bases anywhere), but because of the lack of reliability due to the bearing failures they were bumped to freight, and they ran a lot of larger sections using Class A’s for motive power. The Class K’s were also used almost exclusively on passenger consists.