Tuesday, May 17, 2022

The combined cab, boiler shell, and prow of T1 Trust locomotive 5550 is displayed in Harrisburg, Pa.

In the first public showing of the combined cab, boiler shell, and prow of its new streamlined steam engine, No. 5550, the Pennsylvania Railroad T1 Steam Locomotive Trust displayed its progress on a project whose backers hope to see it running by 2030.

The Trust trucked the 30-ton assembly 1,200 miles from its fabrication site in St. Louis to a Harrisburg hotel where the Pennsylvania Railroad Technical & Historical Society is holding its annual convention this weekend.

The Trust’s goal is to create a new member of the iconic 52-engine fleet of PRR T1-class 4-4-4-4 high-speed passenger locomotives, all of which were scrapped


The original PRR T1 fleet consisted of two prototypes, Nos. 6110-6111, built by Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1942, and 50 production engines built in 1945-46, half by Baldwin (Nos. 5500-5524) and half by PRR’s Altoona (Pa.) Works (Nos. 5525-5549). Thus the Trust’s decision to number its engine 5550, which would have been the next in the series. No. 5549 was the last locomotive completed at Altoona of about 6,800 steam and electric engines built there since 1866.

The styling, including a distinctive wind-splitter nose that presaged BLW’s sharknose road diesel design, was the creation of famed industrial designer Raymond Loewy.


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