Vocapedia > Transport > Railroads

Steam locomotives

Title
 

[Train in station]

Created / Published

[between 1909 and 1923]

Headings

Glass negatives.

Genre

Glass negatives

Medium

1 negative : glass ; 4 x 5 in. or smaller

Call Number/Physical Location

LC-F8- 44107 [P&P]

Source Collection

National Photo Company Collection (Library of Congress)

Repository

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

Digital Id

npcc 18527 //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/npcc.18527

Library of Congress Control Number
2016820305

Reproduction Number

LC-DIG-npcc-18527 (digital file from original)

https://www.loc.gov/resource/npcc.18527/

4-8-8-4 steam locomotive        USA

— Union Pacific 4014

 the largest operating steam locomotive

in the world —

Union Pacific 4014

was one of 25 4-8-8-4 steam locomotives,

dubbed Big Boys,

manufactured by

the American Locomotive Company

between 1941 and 1944.

(The 4-8-8-4 designation refers

to the locomotives’ wheel arrangement,

which consists of a four-wheel leading truck,

two sets of eight driving wheels

and a four-wheel trailing truck.)

Weighing a staggering 600 tons,

the 132-foot-long behemoth

is a living, breathing testament

to the mechanical genius of its era.

Unlike passenger locomotives

belonging to competing railroads,

Union Pacific’s steam engines

would forgo streamlining,

instead roaming the rails

with their jumble of gears,

steam hoses and boiler rivets

exposed to the public eye.

As a result, the Big Boy broadcasts

an aesthetic of efficiency, toughness

and sheer brutality.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/02/
travel/steam-locomotive-union-pacific-4014.html

the locomotive’s whistle        USA

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/02/
travel/steam-locomotive-union-pacific-4014.html

cast iron valves        USA

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/02/
travel/steam-locomotive-union-pacific-4014.html

driving rods > chug back and forth        USA

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/02/
travel/steam-locomotive-union-pacific-4014.html

the locomotive’s tender        USA

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/02/
travel/steam-locomotive-union-pacific-4014.html

passenger cars        USA

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/02/
travel/steam-locomotive-union-pacific-4014.html

Britain's most iconic steam engine > Flying Scotsman        USA

The Flying Scotsman

— the first train

to reach 100 miles per hour,

back in 1934 —

was pulled out of service in 1963.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/08/
462412473/flying-scotsman-hits-the-rails-once-more

Thomas the Tank Engine        UK

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/jul/07/
thomas-tank-engine-danger-fear

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2007/jul/26/
bookscomment.books

engineer        USA

http://www.npr.org/2015/05/17/
407447315/train-engineer-you-have-to-be-ready-to-act

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/05/13/
406380166/ntsb-team-on-its-way-to-investigate-amtrak-derailment

Corpus of news articles

March 16 1899

The Great Central Railway

From The Guardian archive

March 16 1899

The Guardian

The Great Central Railway was opened to-day to passenger traffic, though the goods traffic — apart from coals — will not commence until after Easter.

Judging by the experiment of this, the opening day, the auguries for passenger traffic are of the most promising kind. For the present only eight trains are to be despatched daily from Marylebone — five of them through to Manchester — and the first of these started this morning at 5 15, being due at its destination at 10 25.

Among those who gathered on the platform at this early hour — which was rendered anything but pleasant by a continuance of the thick November-like fog which has been enshrouding London for the last few days — was Mr. Harry Pollitt, locomotive engineer and son of the general manager, and a cheer was raised as the five-vehicled corridor train, drawn by a very powerful bogie-wheeled engine, decorated with the Royal arms as well as with those of the Company, steamed out of the station with its four solitary passengers.

Yes, these were all the travellers by the first train, with its five cars, reminding one of Macpherson's "four-and-thirty men and five-and-thirty pipers." A craving for immortality or a wish to accomplish a feat may have been the main motive which induced this early rising, and in any case somebody must have been the first travellers from London to Manchester by Great Central Railway. All the other seven outward trains, on the other hand, were pretty full, especially the 1 15 special express, which was timed to reach Manchester at 6 15, or in five hours.

By and by, when the road becomes hard and settled, the new Company promises to reduce the time of transit to the same limit as the competing lines. Among those who watched the departure of some of the other trains were Lord Cross and Colonel Hutton, directors, and Mr. Haig-Brown, super intendent of the line, while throughout the day the station was thronged with a crowd of sightseers.

There were also two [through trains] to Leicester and one to York, while from Nottingham there were no fewer than four special trains, carrying the employees of the Corporation of that city on a trip to London, which, starting at intervals of a quarter of an hour, commencing with noon, steamed into Marylebone only about a quarter of an hour behind their time. This was a most gratifying commencement.

Travellers and spectators were loud in their admiration of the corridor trains, with their three first-class and two third-class. The Nottingham trippers were whisked to London in four hours all but nine minutes.

From The Guardian archive > March 16 1899 >
The Great Central Railway,
G,
Republished 16.3.2007, p. 40,
http://digital.guardian.co.uk/guardian/2007/03/16/
pages/ber40.shtml

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