I saw this over on Instagram, but N&W 475 will have her headlight mounted on the center of the smokebox door. This will be the first time since 1950 she has had this configuration!

For the M class, yes and no. I wouldn’t know the history of 475 having a centered headlight, but a comparison would be between Abingdon branch legends 382 and 429. 382 had a headlight in similar position to 475, while 429 had a headlight on the middle of the smoke box. Might’ve just been crew preference.

So I found the reason for headlights being lowered in this older interchange page. The more you know.

http://rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=20369

Steamguy73 -

Thanks for digging out this old thread. I found out that I had actually commented about N&W 475 having a middle of smokebox headlight over 13 years ago in that thread. The photo I mentioned was in J. David Conrad's "Steam Locomotive Directory" but I wasn't sure if I had remembered the photo correctly, so I looked it up. David's book does show the 475 on a mixed train back in July of 1954 with that centered headlight. What was REALLY striking to me though, is what was in that particular train that day. Behind 475's tender is a "Route of the 400 Streamliners" Chicago & North Western boxcar, of the type that was recently repainted at our museum. I can't quite see the road number of that particular car, so can't tell for sure that it isn't our particular car, C&NW 284. And, the second freight car in the short consist that day appears to be a N&W boxcar, of a similar type that we have at the museum (N&W # 54880). So, we could do a pretty good replication of that 1954 train, IF we had a combine for the rear...and of course a "Mollie" up at the front end. If only....!

Les Beckman (Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum/North Judson, Indiana)

Or.....it might mean we're going to see 429 during the fall photo event. :)

/Kevin Madore