Idle master steam group
The Van Sweringen Berks re-join the M.T.H.
#Idle master steam group movie
Nickel Plate 765, fresh from a 12-year restoration by the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society, appeared last summer at Train Festival 2009 alongside sister Pere Marquette 1225 - the prototype for the locomotive in the movie Polar Express. Six of the Nickel Plate engines and two Pere Marquette Berks have survived into preservation. Louis, the road offered the shortest route between the Chicago area and Buffalo, with lots of flat, straight track where the Berks could just buckle down and run. Officially known as the New York, Chicago, and St. After the war, the eighty S-Class steamers played a major role in transforming the Nickel Plate into a highly efficient railroad known for fast speeds and high traffic density. As one engineer recalled, "It was a thrill to operate them." Intended for fast freight, they could also take off with an 18-20 car WWII troop train. ľngineers as well as railfans loved the 700-series Berkshires for their looks, speed, power, and wonderful sound. 779, would also prove to be the last Lima-built steamer. Delivered in 1949, the final engine in the group, No. But the Pere Marquette's 1937 order for near-identical engines went to Lima, which also built subsequent orders in the 1940s for 65 more Nickel Plate 2-8-4s, classes S-1 through S-3. The group turned out some of the finest locomotives of the super power era, and perhaps its crowning achievement was the "Nickel Plate Berk," a 2-8-4 introduced in 1934 and called by steam historian Eugene Huddleston "the greatest 2-8-4 ever to take to the rails." Alco won the bid to construct the initial 15 S-Class Berks in 1934. Under the leadership of talented designer John Black, an Advisory Mechanical Committee was formed to design engines for the Van Sweringen roads. ĺt about the same time, the Van Sweringen brothers of Cleveland, Ohio assembled a group of railroads under their control, including the Chesapeake & Ohio, the Nickel Plate Road, the Pere Marquette, and the Erie Railroad. Initially tested on the Boston and Albany Railroad, the new wheel arrangement was dubbed the Berkshire after the mountain range it conquered on the B&A. A four-wheel trailing truck allowed the A-1 to have a larger firebox and boiler, producing a combination of power and speed never seen before in a steam locomotive. The first 2-8-4, Lima Locomotive Works A-1, inaugurated the superpower era in 1925. The Nickel Plate's 2-8-4 Berkshires belonged to one of steam's finest family trees.