POD: B&M steam and diesel at Boston

[Penny Trains]

So the old heads of the roundhouse were sitting around one day taking a look at the young buck just hired-on and said...

Finish that sentence, just for fun!

I'll start off with "How's he going to get anything done without a tender?"

[Miningman]

"You know it takes 4 of those things to do what my Pacific here can do all by herself and they cost twice as much each! Must be some new kind of math they're using...I tell ya boys,  the N&W would never be this stupid". 

[Firelock76]

"I don't know about him, he don't smoke!"

"He ain't old enough to smoke, maybe he chews!"

[Miningman]

Just as an aside to the "conversation", this really is a very telling photo.

Those 4 locomotives, including a magnificient diminutive Mogul and those glorious Pacifics, really do seem to be shaking in their boots as they look upon the souless invader. They seem to convey that the end is very near for them, a thankless ending to years and years of tireless service, including winning a war. 

Now folks here will say "but that's progress". Well it sure as heck did not save not only the Boston and Maine but so so many others. The advent and invasion of Diesels went hand in hand with the demise of railroading all the way to the Penn Central fiasco, and beyond. 

I simply cannot image the railroads, especially in the East, would go downhill any quicker had they just stuck with what they had in steam and kept going. Sure the roundhouses and backshops were costly, water treatment was a pain, and on and on but Diesels were expensive and required other kinds of strict maintenance plus a lot of retraining.

Diesels would still come displacing steam. Lets say 1970. Doubt the railroads would have fared any worse.  

[BaltACD]

"How do they put coal and water in it?"

[Penny Trains]

Ugh!  Racing stripes went out ages ago!

[Firelock76]

And from the end of the turntable, let me borrow a line from a "Thomas the Tank Engine" storybook.

"Hell-o, my name is deeee-sel!", he said with an oily voice.