Titled "The Locomotive of Tomorrow", but tomorrow never came-

A great, high definition, shot of the Pennsy S1 at the World's Fair, on Shorpey's

http://www.shorpy.com/node/19628

That is the best picture of her I've ever seen. Thanks for sharing. It is quite interesting that they all thought she was the train of tomorrow but in fact she was the train of yesterday.

she sure was a beauty,shame they didn't keep her for display.

Found most interesting the sign reading "This Locomotive will be operated" and then the times of that "daily" operation. Was this strictly firing her up, or was she on some type of rollers where she actually could perform? If the later, are there any movies of that operation existing?

Les

I believe the locomotive was placed on rollers. I assume the rollers were powered and simply rotated the drivers rather than the locomotive being operated on air.

The engine was on rollers and operated on her own steam, as God and Altoona intended.

One of the things that I find most interesting (and puzzling) about the railroad exhibits at the 1939 and 1964 New York World's Fairs is that all of the equipment on display arrived on its own wheels. This would presumably have meant moving on the PRR to Greenville Yard in New Jersey, then by carfloat across New York Harbor and up the East River to Long Island City, staging in either Sunnyside Yard or Yard A, and then out through Harold interlocking on the LIRR to the fair grounds at Flushing Meadows. It would have been quite the spectacle, but no one appears to have taken any pictures! Did it all happen quietly at night, under cover of darkness? How else could no one notice a PRR S1 floating by? :)

(The one exception to this lack of photographs that I'm aware of is the General, whose arrival under her own power for the 1964 World's Fair appears to have been known ahead of time by at least some New York-area railfans.)

-Philip Marshall

A number of locomotives, including the DL&W 4-6-4 and PRR 6100, made the trip via the New Haven and Hell Gate Bridge. I recall reading about 6100 being moved dead-in-tow over the Lehigh & Hudson River to Maybrook, NY, for NYNH&H interchange. While a photo of 6100 crossing NY Harbor on a car float would be remarkable, so would a shot of it on the Poughkeepsie Bridge!

Howard P.

Here is one of those rare shots of the General en route to the 1964 World's Fair, taken at Woodside on the LIRR:

There has been movie footage available of "the Big Engine" at the World's Fair. Some of the footage supposedly was with the S1 under steam, but this footage makes me wonder about that. It's just a short segment, between 1:37 and 1:46, but around it are other images of "Railroads on Parade," which was put together by Edward Hungerford, who also was the choreographer (for lack of a better term) for the rail show at the 1949 Chicago exhibit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQQL6h37nTE

Take note that the tender wheels are rolling, too!

I know there's other movie footage of "Railroads on Parade" and the 1939-1940 World's Fair, and it seems likely there's more of the S1--it's just a matter of finding it. . .

Yeah, it's pretty clear that those are motorized rollers in that film.

Hmmm. . .motorized yes, certainly driven by something under the tender--but what?

The reason I ask this is this other footage of the S1 (in color, by the way)--with a portable coaling conveyor! Now, why would they need something like that for an engine on powered rollers?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NySKJczYKUQ

Could it be that those rollers under the tender are driven from the rollers under the locomotive?

And of course, a lot of other cool exhibits in Flushing in 1939. . .

I believe the locomotive was operated exclusively on electric rollers.

For me at age ten by far the best part of the 1939 World’s Fair was the Hungerford rail pageant. For the grand finale, a Dreyfus streamlined New York Central Hudson and a Loewy streamlined Pennsy locomotive, I think a K-4 Pacific, steamed slowly toward each other and met at center stage.

I was very impressed with the S-1 on rollers, but no longer remember whether the locomotive drove the rollers or vice versa.

Some of you might find this article interesting
http://www.dieselpunks.org/m/blogpost?i ... st%3A53924