Greetings,

Just looking at my calender which sports and NYC streamlined hudson for January. I don't consider myself an "artsy" person, but that design is truly a work of art. I guess what surprises me, is that none were saved. Can anyone answer why? Are there any remnants still in existance (i.e. there's the former tender from a non-streamlined hudson, etc)?

God Bless,
Gerald Kopiasz

hrrhs@aol.com

You must have the same calendar that I have. Is February's picture seven C&NW Northerns lines up in a row?

Tod Engine Foundation
todengine@woh.rr.com

> You must have the same calendar that I have.
> Is February's picture seven C&NW
> Northerns lines up in a row?

Rick,

You have my calendar! I like February cause that's the birth month of this old man. Hint: it's the same day the B&O was born.

God Bless,
Gerald Kopiasz

hrrhs@aol.com

The reason there are no NYC Hudsons (or much else NYC for that matter) is the same reason there is no D&RGW standard gauge steam presrved: Al Perlman was president of both. He didn't want that kind of stuff preserved.

earlk489@hotmail.com

> The reason there are no NYC Hudsons (or much
> else NYC for that matter) is the same reason
> there is no D&RGW standard gauge steam
> presrved: Al Perlman was president of both.
> He didn't want that kind of stuff preserved.

I seem to think there is a D&RGW std gauge 2-8-0 at the Colorado Museum. Not a big articulated, but it is std gauge.

Smokebox

Correct you are Mr. Smokebox. However the D&RGW 583/683 came into CRM's possession from the San Luis Valley Southern where it had worked as thier 106. The SLV had another locomotive - 105 which had been DRGW 688. It managed to last in stripped condition into the 1970's befoe some evil person had it scrapped.

The point being because of upper management, no D&RGW or NYC steam was preseved. I am no expert on NYC, but it seems to me the only NYC engine left was rescued from a scrap yard.

earlk489@hotmail.com

> The point being because of upper management,
> no D&RGW or NYC steam was preseved. I am
> no expert on NYC, but it seems to me the
> only NYC engine left was rescued from a
> scrap yard.

NYC freight Mohawk 2933, now at St. Louis, hung around the NYC property (last at Selkirk with 4-4-0 999) until it's 1960 donation to the St. Louis museum. I have heard that Hudson 5433, which had been painted up for a display at Grand Central Terminal in 1953 (yes, it did get towed in there!!) was supposed to be set aside for preservation, but was scrapped due to clerical error. 2933 was substituted. It certainly sounds possible, or perhaps 2933 was simply "stashed" by sympathetic railroaders (like the PRR E-7 at Harrisburg).

The Elkhart Mohawk, 3002, was sold to Texas & Pacific in 1955 to replace a vandalized and scrapped T&P 2-10-4 at Dallas. It came to Elkhart in trade for a PRR GG-1 in the mid-1980s.

Perlman had a well-deserved reputation for being a "modern" railroad man, and in the 1950s, any sympathy for steam and the past was seen as very bad form in the railroad buisness.

hpincus@mindspring.com

Still a profitable railroad at the end of steam, one would have to be skeptical about the upper management of NYC having any "heart" about the great steam fleet. There is no excuse for cutting up every Hudson and every Niagara while leaving two Mohawks and #999 as representatives of the era. Railroads like the NYC and the PRR should have sound it possible to skip $5000 in scrap steel in order to place locomotives in both New York City and Chicago. The Mohawks are a treasure today, but they represent little about their remarkable sisters.
If a Mohawk was preserved due to the effort of some wiley Foreman, then more power to him. Diesels may have represented a new era of cleaner (?) and more economical service, but to forget a heritage so rich that it was immortalized in movies and by the Lionel Company seems narrow minded and frankly, stupid.


glueck@saturn.caps.maine.edu

The Mohawk at the Museum of Transportation in St. Louis was last used as a snow melter. I don't know if that was a ploy by someone to keep it from scrap but as a result it was the only modern engine that the NYC directly donated to anyone. The 999 was already a relic and in no way modern, and the story of the "Texas & Pacific" engine has already been covered. A few other small engines did survive after being on short lines.

Museum of Transportation
rdgoldfede@aol.com

One of our nations more prominant steam mechanics(you all know him) and I had this conversation ten years ago, and we both remain firmly convinced that Perlman is yet today keeping very close company with Atilla the Hun, Hitler, Stalin, and other destroyers of humanity and civilization.

Many of the "new management" types runnning things today who subscribe to the "abandon your way to prosperity" are deserved of a like fate.

lorija799@aol.com

> Still a profitable railroad at the end of
> steam,

The NYC of 1955 was a hollow, money-hemmoraging shell of it's former glory. Read some contemporary (1952-58) copies of Dave Morgan's commentary in Trains. Yes, it was technically solvent, but had a passenger loss that exceeded its overall net profit.

Railroads like the NYC and the PRR
> should have sound it possible to skip $5000
> in scrap steel in order to place locomotives
> in both New York City and Chicago.

Will all due respect, just what are those Belpaire-boilered, keystone-fronted things across the street from the Strasburg Rail Road? The PRR probably has the BEST record among eastern roads for preservation of the past, including not just steam power, but vintage coaches and freight cars.

In 2002, we all "know" that historic preservation and such is "right". But, 45 years ago, it was just old junk, and rightly or wrongly, railroads wanted to distance themselves from all that old stuff.

At least there are two Mohawks (and those L-3s were not plain freight power!-- more like a stretched J-3a), a couple of 0-6-0s and 999. There's nothing from the Erie, the Lehigh Valley, the D&H, Rutland, and plenty of other roads.


hpincus@mindspring.com

> The NYC of 1955 was a hollow,
> money-hemmoraging shell of it's former
> glory. Read some contemporary (1952-58)
> copies of Dave Morgan's commentary in
> Trains. Yes, it was technically solvent, but
> had a passenger loss that exceeded its
> overall net profit.

> Railroads like the NYC and the PRR

> Will all due respect, just what are those
> Belpaire-boilered, keystone-fronted things
> across the street from the Strasburg Rail
> Road? The PRR probably has the BEST record
> among eastern roads for preservation of the
> past, including not just steam power, but
> vintage coaches and freight cars.

> In 2002, we all "know" that
> historic preservation and such is
> "right". But, 45 years ago, it was
> just old junk, and rightly or wrongly,
> railroads wanted to distance themselves from
> all that old stuff.

> At least there are two Mohawks (and those
> L-3s were not plain freight power!-- more
> like a stretched J-3a), a couple of 0-6-0s
> and 999. There's nothing from the Erie, the
> Lehigh Valley, the D&H, Rutland, and
> plenty of other roads.

Howard: PLUS there is an ex-NYC 2-8-0 that was sold to the KCM&O (which was acquired by the Santa Fe) which is preserved as a Santa Fe engine.


midlandblb@cs.com

> Howard: PLUS there is an ex-NYC 2-8-0 that
> was sold to the KCM&O (which was
> acquired by the Santa Fe) which is preserved
> as a Santa Fe engine.

You boys also left out the NYC consolidation that has been marooned since the '30s at Eagle Lake, Maine. Until the early 1970s it sat inside a metal shed on the island with an even older ten wheeler.


lorija799@aol.com