Just staying ahead of the game here.

So no post about how 1218 was sold to the R&N?

Interesting you mention 1218, N&W Class A. P&R (RDG) was supposed to get USRA 2-8-8-2's in 1918 (N&W Y-3) but the N&W design couldn't go where P&R needed them to go. So USRA went with P&R's design with a wide firebox.

N&W wanted more grate area but not a longer engine so Y-5 and Y-6 got wide fireboxes as did classes A and J.

There were two big 4-8-4's in Eastern PA about 100 miles apart but one never took a train to Jim Thorpe while the other took it back, both with wide fireboxes deep in anthracite country.

Phil Mulligan

Yes I know there's a small anthracite field near Blacksburg VA.

If the participants and witnesses to such deliberations weren't certainly long gone and any paperwork that might have existed also be either long gone or in minute quantities in private possession unseen somewhere, inquiries about the decisions about proposed power at or near the end steam would have been fascinating.

I'm sure you've heard that all of the DL&W's power choices were dictated by the modest turntables in Scranton. I know for fact that post World War II, there was some preliminary plans for a Duplex sketched up by the Lehigh Valley (no doubt scuttled with the arrival of Cecil Major as President).and I've been told that the CNJ considered Challengers.

It would be really fascinating to know why the PRR, seeing the gathering storm in the late 30's, worked with Baldwin as to how to effectively and efficiently upgrade the roster-and started looking for an update-they apparently tested the N&W A's and J's and then proceeded to-design and order quixotic engineering exercises rather than more practical and proven designs, with the S-1 and Turbine engines in particular being largely wastes of shareholder money.

The USRA, I think was the regulatory prototype of we know best- top-down state command and control. Unfortunately, Wilson, McAdoo and company couldn't acknowledge the problems of the railroads were the ongoing product of the ICC's economic strangulations, not from a limited number of standardized locomotive designs. When you really dig down into the industial economics of steam, you realize how much the engineering was trial and error and heuristics and how specialized a machine an individua design really is-think od something like the Erie Triplex, known ab initio that it could not sustain working pressure indefinitely, but long enough to make it up one hill.

I do always look forward to the WW&F's April Fool's Day posts, they're usually pretty amusing.

Back in the 1930's the Pennsylvania Railroad was rich enough to build a one off showcase locomotive for the World's Fair.

It was a very popular exhibit and garnered a lot of favorable publicity. Perhaps the S-1 should have been paid for out of the advertising budget.

Then, after the Fair, they managed to get some use out of it in the Chicago to Crestline speedway.

Within a decade, it became obvious that diesel locomotives were the wave of the future.

Brian Helfrich

Thanks! Although this year's post was not as dramatic as prior years, mostly because the principal author of the annual posts (me) needed to take a break this year. Thus, no lengthy missive filled with inside jokes and photoshopped images about how the WW&F is converting to HO-style horn hook couplers in a project sponsored by Tyco.

I guess, then I can't share this here?



.............mld

There is an amusing one on the RYPN FB page about all 70 Horizon cars being donated to IRM. Just a 4/1 joke but I did some quick figuring and concluded that IRM is so huge that it would barely be a blip on the radar: Stash some in the “south pasture” and the rest at the east end of the main. Maybe rides would be a minute or two shorter.

There was a 2:17 AM report on the heritage units site from someone claiming they’d seen Amtrak 301 in the Chicago yard. Bogusness confirmed when it was reported this afternoon on the southbound Palmetto. The post has been removed. I thought the point of 4/1 jokes is to see how many get fooled. This person would not have any means to know so not sure what they gained with the fake post.

Actually makes total sense to me.

East Broad Top had one of the best ones...

In somewhat related news, I posted an April Fool's Joke to the fan page for the Ren Faire I work with. I mentioned we'd been inspired by King Richard's Faire buying Edaville and were going to add "Steampunk Jousting" with a photo of 2 knights on a live steam railroad.

The result, so far, is 1,250+ likes, 340 shares and 100,000 views and counting.

At the end of April last season 4 zebras got loose during transport in Washington state. Mt Rainier Scenic Railroad was inspired by some joking memes I and other folks were making about the missing zebras in unlikely places. In my case, I photoshopped one into the joust. Bethan created one of her own, saying that there was a very slight chance you might actually see a zebra during the train ride that weekend (technically true) and it got 992 shares, reached 373K people and resulted in $50K in sales that week. You can find that info in the annual report.

Moral of the story? Don't disregard humor as a way of getting way more reach on your social media. There's a reason there are so many shop cat posts out there.