A proud Icon from America's railroading past, are the colorful and eventually underpowered steam locomotives from the Victorian era of the mid to late 1800's.
With their polished Russian Iron boiler jackets, Crimson driving wheels, wooden cabs,ornate trim, Kerosene box headlights, and those all much too dangerous Link and Pin coupling sytems...These locomotives were unique. This locomotive from the 1870's era, has an early single pump air brake cylinder just ahead of the cab.
Stylish as they were, maintenance costs eventually found many of these pained a basic black color scheme by the 1890's and early 1900's. Longer and heavier freight and passenger trains eventually doomed their existance. many were cup up fpr scrap during World War 1 scrap drives. Others found new work on shortline railroads hauling branchline switching trains or even logging trains.
Luckilly, a small handfull of these locomotives from this era have been preserved at various railroad museums around America today.
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