PRR T1s On The Scrap-Line In Blawnox, Pa

Cool pictures, too bad they didn't save at least one of them.

Very cool!!!!!  Thanks for sharing them.

George

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Cool pictures, too bad they didn't save at least one of them.

I know. The T1s were arguably the most advanced steam power ever built and they are lost to History. I guess everyone at PRR just wanted to forget they ever existed.

Wonderful, yet bittersweet, photographs. Got a big kick out of the two little guys peeking out of the nose cone. What superb machines - built just a little too late in the steam era, and without sufficient time to work out the kinks in the design.  

In my younger days (the 1950's), the T1's were just too far out for my taste. About 1980 saw a Sunnyside Shop O Scale T1 at Bill's Hobby Shop in Park Ridge, IL (predecessor of Hill's Hobbies), and became a life-long fan.

Lew, those are great photographs, sad as it is none were saved.  You are just enough older than me to have seen steam, though you were pretty little.  I believe the Mallets were still running on the B&O through Valencia and Mars at that time.  I would have been too little to have noticed.

Today if your dad didn't get in trouble for trespassing, he certainly would have been in trouble for letting kids climb all over them!!  

geysergazer posted 

The T1s were arguably the most advanced steam power ever built... 

Well, no. But they were indeed outstanding, if rather poor performers, on balance. They looked wonderful, though, like they were from Mars. NYC Niagaras they were not, but they might have been, without all that slipperiness.

Scrapping T-1's and Niagaras and Hudsons and SP AC-9's and all the rest (not just RR-related) amounts to cultural crime. GM demolished the home of the modern diesel-electric locomotive, too, probably to make room for a Chevrolet Chevette assembly line in the 80's. In the US, this passes for "progress". It is not.

D500 posted:

geysergazer posted 

The T1s were arguably the most advanced steam power ever built... 

Well, no.

I agree, i.e. "no". I'll vote for the N&W J Class and N&W A Class locomotives as the "most advanced steam power ever built, in AMERICA. The South African Rwys "Red Devel" 4-8-4 was arguably the "most Advanced" steam locomotive.

But they were indeed outstanding, if rather poor performers, on balance. They looked wonderful, though, like they were from Mars. NYC Niagaras they were not, but they might have been, without all that slipperiness.

Scrapping T-1's and Niagaras and Hudsons and SP AC-9's and all the rest (not just RR-related) amounts to cultural crime. GM demolished the home of the modern diesel-electric locomotive, too, probably to make room for a Chevrolet Chevette assembly line in the 80's.

Now just what is THAT supposed to mean???

In the US, this passes for "progress". It is not.

D500 posted:

geysergazer posted 

The T1s were arguably the most advanced steam power ever built... 

Well, no. But they were indeed outstanding, if rather poor performers, on balance. They looked wonderful, though, like they were from Mars. NYC Niagaras they were not, but they might have been, without all that slipperiness.

Scrapping T-1's and Niagaras and Hudsons and SP AC-9's and all the rest (not just RR-related) amounts to cultural crime. GM demolished the home of the modern diesel-electric locomotive, too, probably to make room for a Chevrolet Chevette assembly line in the 80's. In the US, this passes for "progress". It is not.

It is my understanding that much or even most of the poor performance was because of poor training. Those things would produce 6,000HP and would go into wheel-slip at nearly any speed if the throttle was not handled correctly. Also, at speeds over 100mph the poppet-valves hammered themselves to death and more than a few Hoggers habitually ran them well over that speed out Warsaw-way. I guess you could call it poor performance to design a locomotive capable of such speeds but with certain components not capable. I wish I still had my collection of Trains magazines because they did an article on the T1s and interviewed people who ran them and worked on them. IIRC the writer's take was that no one ever learned how fast this things would actually go.

The truth is that yes, of course they were poorly designed poor performers as was any steam locomotive designed/built after the nation-wide testing and blooding of the EMD FT set. The fate of steam in yard service was already decided and the FT doomed steam in any kind of road service as well.

Mark Boyce posted:

Lew, those are great photographs, sad as it is none were saved.  You are just enough older than me to have seen steam, though you were pretty little.  I believe the Mallets were still running on the B&O through Valencia and Mars at that time.  I would have been too little to have noticed.

Today if your dad didn't get in trouble for trespassing, he certainly would have been in trouble for letting kids climb all over them!!  

Mark, I do remember riding behind those big articulated B&O EM1s on excursion trips out of Pittsburgh. Sooner or later I'll put up a topic with the pics Dad took on those trips.

Ya, those were different times when being on railroad property was much more OK than it is today.

Oh, I found a couple more pics of the scrap-line.

In this one you can clearly see how the Main Rod was torched:

My Brother must have taken this pic of Dad and me.

With more skirting gone you can see some of the automatic lubricator plumbing.

Great photos and an important part of history preserved for all to remember.  Thank you!

Lew, I worked in the industrial park on the hill above Blawnox in the late '70s.  Occasionally I went down to the store on Freeport Road at lunch time.  I knew the PRR followed the river, well Conrail by then.  I never knew there had been a scrap yard there.  I wonder what was there at that time.

Wonderful photos - thank you! The pic of you climbing aboard with your brother in the cab is a classic.

Mark Boyce posted:

Lew, I worked in the industrial park on the hill above Blawnox in the late '70s.  Occasionally I went down to the store on Freeport Road at lunch time.  I knew the PRR followed the river, well Conrail by then.  I never knew there had been a scrap yard there.  I wonder what was there at that time.

Mark, Roomie's Dad was from Blawnox and her Mom was from Aspinwall.

Having spent a good portion of my career in historic restoration, it pains me to look at these photos and think about the amazing marvels we once had.  They're lifespan was certainly short, in the big picture. 

The cover of my 1947 PRR Timetable:

When this timetable was printed the decision had already been made to convert all PRR Varnish to Diesel Electric power.

ON EDIT: This is the 1947 timetable, not 1949, which explains the T1 on the front cover. In '47 the T1 was first-line power. The decision to go Diesel for the varnish came in 1948. 

Amazing pictures of the seldom seen demise of esteemed Pennsy steam. Thanks for posting.

Great photo's THX for sharing, Sad that one was not preserved and it would have sat real well in the PRR museum in Lancaster.

The front cover of my 1947 PRR Timetable:

Spread inside the front cover is this artwork depicting a row of T1s:

And a couple pages later is this gem:

The back cover: