Santa Fe 3751: Across Home Rails (2012)

[ProRailProducions]

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c1YxGBFNYw

 

With 3751 returning to steam in 2020, we could not have thought of a better way to celebrate! Patrick Baca takes us on a desert jounery west across the BNSF Needles Sub, along the home rails of 3751 from Cadiz, California to Cajon Pass! We hope you enjoy our first video of 3751! Video by Patrick Baca Edited and Produced by David McDougall Don't forget to subscribe and turn on the notification bell! Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/prorailprodu... Pro Rail Productions 2020

[kgbw49]

Those big-barreled Baldwins are always great to watch, expecially when they get the opportunity to "pick 'em up and lay 'em down"!

[BaltACD]

Saw a picture of one of the ATSF 4-8-4's being car floated across Baltimore Harbor on the B&O - engines were too big for the Howard Street Tunnel to go all rail.

[Flintlock76]

And weren't those the biggest Northerns ever built?

[Overmod]

Flintlock76

And weren't those the biggest Northerns ever built?

The 2900 class was, by most measurements.  The 3765 class (of which one survives) is less heavy but a bit more sophisticated.

The NP A5 might have been close in a couple of respects if it had comparable boiler pressure -- it had marginally more weight on drivers.  

Note that a 2900 had greater tractive effort than an N&W J -- with 80" drivers.  Both classes demonstrably ran faster than 110mph, something the nominally much faster 3460 class couldn't manage.

3751 is class leader of something quite different.  As built these were little better than 'heavy Mountains' with 73" drivers and track-pounding augment.  They were rebuilt not once, but twice, to be fully modern high-speed 80" drivered locomotives, and 3751 is still one of the largest Northerns in existence.

It's going to be fun to see what 2926 does now, though.  That is a world's biggest operable 4-8-4.

[Murphy Siding]

      Why was a steam ATSF locomotive on B&O tracks in Baltimore?

[Miningman]

It was built by Baldwin, Eddystone Works and had to be shipped out West.

[BaltACD]

Murphy Siding

      Why was a steam ATSF locomotive on B&O tracks in Baltimore?

In a word - Clearances.  B&O from Eddystone, PA (suburb of Philadelphia) had the clearances that would permit movement of the locomotives to the ATSF, the PRR did not.

While the Howard Street Tunnel of the B&O would not clear the locomotives, the car float service the company operated in Baltimore Harbor (serving several company owned warehouses on both sides of the Harbor) allowed a means to get the locomotive through town and the balance of the route allowed delivery to the ATSF, most likely in Chicago, however, since the B&O controlled the Alton at the time it could have been Kansas City.

[tree68]

Clearances were a problem with several northeastern "old timers."  The NYC fought with that problem as locomotives such as the Niagara (also a Northern) were built.

[Overmod]

BaltACD

... the balance of the route allowed delivery to the ATSF, most likely in Chicago, however, since the B&O controlled the Alton at the time it could have been Kansas City.

We've had a couple of threads about this specific issue in the past.  One amusing thing about ATSF was that it carefully took 'delivery' in states charging minimum tax; as I recall the 4-8-4s and 3460s were both delivered via Shopton (Ft. Madison, IA), across the river from Illinois.  I'd find B&O/Alton a reasonable routing, but well south of the Chicago area.

At least some of the SP cab-forwards went via KC, probably getting there by a further-south routing from the east.  AC-9s from Lima went that same way.

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Fe_2926 

https://www.abqjournal.com/1409913/behemoth-locomotive-restored-to-former-glory.html - as of January 15, 2020.  It's in Albuquerque, NM - wish I'd known when I was there last fall.

- PDN.