None surpasses..... but i think there is a close tie between the SP Gs4 and the N and W class J

 

Ditto the post above! However, I do currently live in Roanoke, VA, and the J is returning under her own steam from Spencer, NC in just s few months. There is a possibility I could be just a wee bit prejudiced!

Regards,
David Meashey

 

Like this one...

But it does need a rake of correct coaches!

 

Quite frankly, I could never understand why so many people attribute Daylight with beauty. Personally, I think this streamlined locomotive should deserve a lot more praise

 

I think that to really understand the beauty of a locomotive you also have to take into account its natural habitat. If you have ever traveled or lived in California, then this is the memory the SP Daylight invokes for many of us.

and this

Scott (and yes..the first photo was taken in what was my backyard in my early years)

 

So that's where they got the colors?

 

Scott, that is a beautiful photo and it explains the context to me. Best wishes from Tokyo, Zubi

 

OK, now I get the colors! I thought it looked like it went express through a paint factory.

Andrew

 

Here is My Choice Penn.T 1

 

What engine can you think of that surpasses the sheer lines and beauty of the Southern Pacific Daylight

Quite a few - that Daylight is pretty but has too much clutter. Here's my favorite:

And then there's the Gresley P2 if you must have 8 driving axles:

 

Daylight with a stream of coaches at Stavers!

The streamline A4 is no too shabby either

 

Beauty in a locomotive can be defined in many ways, sleek lines, colors, etc. One of the things that appeal to me as beauty is uniqueness, like a Garratt, of perhaps this one...

 

UGH! What totally UGLY locomotives some folk like! hee hee hee... to each his own.

To me, they gotta be BLACK all over and not wearing a "cloak" (streamlining -- BLEAH!). Gimme a "Mike" or a "Berk" any day. (Like the NKP 765 or Pere Marquette 1225... DELICIOUS!)

 

Jim Overland photo

Follow up to Jim's prior post:

Also some considerations given to:

 

Well, my personal favorite is the Reading Crusader, but it has a rather small following these days.

At least the J will soon be in steam again. Plus it is my current "home town girl."

Regards,
David Meashey

 

Actually, I prefer the NORD hudsons to the 2-3-2 U1 especially in their original condition with long skirts, Buggatti or A4 inspired front end, complete with the streamlined Nord Cinema on one side and the headlight on the other giving it an assymetric look yet so sleek like a bowie knife. The T1, the NYC, streamlined Hudsons and the N&W J class would also be prefered to the "Flying Toothpaste Tube". Ditto the B&O P7 of the Cincinatian, those beautiful C&NW 4-8-4, were pretty exciting things also, the stirling single and the NORD Atlantic perhaps are the most beautiful of them all.

 

Somebody remarked that streamlining was originally intended to improve efficiency by reducing wind resistance but quickly was adapted to increasing revenue by reducing ticket sales resistance. The first American streamlined steam locomotive was NYC 5344, the Commodore Vanderbilt, called the Flying Bathtub, designed in a wind tunnel at the Case Institute of Technology. It was followed by Henry Dreyfuss' Mercury Pacifics and Century Hudsons, which were purely styling excercises.

Raymond Loewy did Pacifics, the S1, and T1 for the Pennsylvania. Otto Kuhler did the Atlantics and Baltics for the Milwaukee Road and other jobs for various lines plus becoming the Alco stylist for some years. My favorite of his jobs was the Pacific for the Royal Blue.

The SP Daylight streamlining was an in-house job and looks it, as was Burlington's Aeolus (Big Alice the Goon). Who did Santa Fe's Blue Goose I don't know. And there were several other home-brews.

The LNER A4 was styled by Sir Nigel Gresley after looking carefully at a dirigible. Again it was an attempt at reducing wind resistance. As for the French, Belgian, and German streamlined steam, can anyone enlighten us? And indeed there was a Mongolian streamliner....

 

I have both the Daylight and the Penn.T1 Think that they are Great,But the A4 Mallard With the rake of Coaches that Berry Harper Made,Well to Me What a Train

 

I submit that some locomotives are so ugly, they are beautiful. Case in point, although not steam, a New Haven RR boxcab...

 

While on the subject of streamlining. The Lehigh Valley 2101 is pretty nifty.

Andrew

 

Since Tom bright up Electrics, how about the very stylish PRR GG1. I believe that was a Loewy design also.
Later came the E44, boxy but beautiful in it's own way.

 

I was going to mention the beautiful Lowey PRR GG1, but I didn't want to include it in the same post as the ugly boxcab.

 

Andrew;

I believe that Otto Kuhler was the designer for the Lehigh Valley streamliner, but the Star Trek fan in me thinks it looks like a Klingon design.

Regards,
David Meashey

 

Andrew;

I believe that Otto Kuhler was the designer for the Lehigh Valley streamliner, but the Star Trek fan in me thinks it looks like a Klingon design.

Regards,
David Meashey

Then you are not old enough to remember Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon.

 

How about

...

"Glasses on! Sharp focus!"

 

Tom, Captain Video, since way back then I've only heard that on old re-runs of the Honey Mooners, wonderful times.
In my eyes, just like animals, nothing that runs on rails is ugly. LG