This is the last of my railroad pictures. I have done countless others but it was a long time ago and I failed to keep a record of them. The locomotive is Norfolk & Western 2-6-6-2, number 1218. This was the strongest locomotive for tractive effort ever built for American rails. With a top speed of 70 mph, it was used for fast freights, limited passenger service and coal drags where the grades weren't steep. Like the Big Boy, it is an articulated locomotive, technically known as a Mallet (named after the person who created this type). All articulated locomotives have two independent sets of drivers with the rear set rigid to the frame and the lead set allowed to follow the track curvature. It is fascinating to watch these locomotive on tight radius curves because the boiler swings out overhanging the outside bend in the track. 1218 is still around; in the late eighties she saw quite a bit of use hauling excursion trains, of which I was fortunate enough to ride behind. Currently, she is housed in the Virginia Transportation Museum in Roanoke, Virginia, alongside N&W 611.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Last one; N&W 1218
This is the last of my railroad pictures. I have done countless others but it was a long time ago and I failed to keep a record of them. The locomotive is Norfolk & Western 2-6-6-2, number 1218. This was the strongest locomotive for tractive effort ever built for American rails. With a top speed of 70 mph, it was used for fast freights, limited passenger service and coal drags where the grades weren't steep. Like the Big Boy, it is an articulated locomotive, technically known as a Mallet (named after the person who created this type). All articulated locomotives have two independent sets of drivers with the rear set rigid to the frame and the lead set allowed to follow the track curvature. It is fascinating to watch these locomotive on tight radius curves because the boiler swings out overhanging the outside bend in the track. 1218 is still around; in the late eighties she saw quite a bit of use hauling excursion trains, of which I was fortunate enough to ride behind. Currently, she is housed in the Virginia Transportation Museum in Roanoke, Virginia, alongside N&W 611.
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Fascinating, as usual. We had a few American-built steam locomotives here, and they were among the biggest and most powerful engines in the Portuguese railways, their weight not allowing them to cross the Douro river by the Eiffel bridge... And yet they looked tiny compared to this model!
ReplyDeleteWhat a fabulous series! I'd love to own every one. If they ever make it to a book, perhaps I may! I have a younger brother who was always fanatical about trains. We'd be on a drive and he'd be pointing and hollering. He was the one person who loved to be stopped at a railway crossing. He would deliver a soliloquy on the type, origination and destination of each locomotive and its cabooses.
ReplyDeleteThe trains are so beautifully rendered - and your skies make me take deep breaths every time.
Hi Stephen
ReplyDeleteGreat series of trains, Arthur is fascinated with your trains and the information you carefully give to each painting. Thanks
This is a beauty, Stephen. The sky is just spectacular, as is the billow of smoke and the locomotive.
ReplyDeleteDespite my rather rude comment the other day, I have enjoyed these posts. It is always interesting to see where we have come from and your well written descriptions are always interesting. On the whole though I prefer your more recent work. Your abstracts and wonderfully loose plein air landscapes are more appealing to me, "chacun à son goût".
ReplyDeleteThanks Paolo, 1218 is truly a locomotive that has to be seen to appreciate how large it is.
ReplyDeleteThank you Patrice, if I had any of these left I would definitely make them available to you, unfortunately they've all been sold a long time ago.
Thank you Simoart, tell Arthur thanks.
Thanks Nancy, it was in the backgrounds where I had the greatest latitude to invent stuff even thought all but one of the backgrounds I sort of took from another artist. In this particular painting I invented all of the scene.
Thanks Sarah, I did not take your remark to be rude in the least. I felt it was straight forward and well received.
Your train series are quite marvelous.
ReplyDeleteThere is really something so appealing about trains., like monsters perhaps.