For the railroad folks, like me....

[cneil]

Sounds like a Union Pacific Fan

Yeah, that's a big time drag! It does help if you fix up a heavy car with sand paper under it and push it with a nice 4-8-4 or maybe a 4-8-8-4. Yeah, a Big Boy could push a few track boys around real well! Let the rail road work for you!

=WR=

Sounds like a Union Pacific Fan
Big Boy 4-8-8-4 and Challanger 4-6-6-4.
I have seen Challanger many times on Oroville and in Sacromento.
You can Feel the power in the air.

844 is also nice.

but I grew up in Southern Pacific teratory so it is it is San Joquine Daylight 4449 and P-8 Pacifics.
and Cab Forwards for Big hauling jobs

 

[Absinthe_1900]

What no other Lionel people out there?

"Real Electric Trains" have three rails.

 

[locobuster]

I really don't have much to add except a couple of shots I found going through the National Archives online:

:cheers1:

 

[Michaelson]

I let my HO layout go due partly to the neverending need to clean the rails for electrical contact......

That's why they introduced nickel/silver rail. The oxidation on that rail material conducts electricity.

Regards! Michaelson

 

[Twitch]

On a side note, China is still producing steam-powered locomotives.

 

[Michaelson]

China has the most fascinating 'make work' program I've ever seen, regarding locomotive construction. Their shops have a lifetime job (many families have been employed for generations), and what they do is build locomotives in HUGE erecting shops. The brand new locomotives are eventually pushed out to storage yards at the end of the line. These locomotives are pushed further and further out as the new engines are pushed from the back....then the oldest engines are pulled off the end of the line, scrapped, remelted in the foundary, then the cycle starts again. Of, say, 100 locomotives built in a month, maybe 5 are placed in service. The remaining 95 will eventually be scrapped out to re-enter the cycle of locomotive construction. They're never out of a job....constantly producing product, and little is being used.

Unreal.

Regards! Michaelson

 

[ronjohn55]

Wow! Count me in as another that has the spirit of 76 tyco train, although mine doesn't work anymore. :cry:

For a "real" train fix though, I just bounc down the block to thh Henry Ford (Still can't get used to that new name). Both the Henry Ford Museum, and especially Greenfield Village have some amazing trains. The village also has a recently constructed replica of the old roundhouse in Marshall, MI and there are always several steam engines in there to look at. These's even a display to go underneath one of those monsters!

John