Nostalgia & History > NYC Steam Fans, Need Locations Please.

Here are a couple of picture that I picked up at the OKC Train Show this weekend.

1. NYC 6006, Niagra, at Bellefontaine (Ohio?). Note on back says it is pulling Train 473 Express. I'm not sure if the word Express is part of the train name or describing the type of train.

2. NYC 3000 (Mohawk?), F unit 1655, and Hudson 5326. Is the coaling tower in the background unique enough that anyone could hazard a guess at the location?

Appreciate any information that anyone might have.

Yardclerk

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Yardclerk, Bellefontaine is indeed in Ohio. I'm a Mohawk Division "kid" so can't help you with the midwest coal tower, but I'm sure someone will. 3000 is an L-3a Mohawk, Alco product. I LOVE that second photo! 5326 would be a J-1e and the fourth engine is another Mohawk. I can't find train no. 473 on any of my old timetables. Could it be 437, which the Royal Palm was numbered at one time?

I wonder if these are the work of Simon "Si" Herring, an NYC employee who worked out of Bellefontaine. Al Staufer used a lot of Herring photos in his NYC steam books.

My best guess is that photo no. 2 was taken at either Bellefontaine or Galion, in the early-mid fifties. The pic certainly has the Si Herring "aura" about it. Si passed away a couple of years ago, IIRC. His letter quoted in the book the "Mohawk That Refused To Abdicate", concerning engineer Hitchko and Mohawk 3005, is worth the price of the book all by itself. Those of you who are enamored of the railroad culture in the last great years before it was swept aside by the ^^%$W#@^%$#&^% stuff that replaced it should obtain a copy.

Jim, in Galion, Ohio.

Thanks for posting those. They are great shots of NYC steam. Since I was brought up in New England, the NYC is one of my Favorite roads............... C.C.Chas.

Thanks for all the info, guys. I will get those scans labeled.

Yardclerk

I can't find a train 473 in old NYC schedules either. And, the more I look at the 2nd shot, the more nearly sure I become that it was taken at the engine terminal at BN yard, on the n. side of Bellefontaine. There was a very similar pic in a TRAINS article about Bf back in 1963, a piece that Si Herring put together. Even in '63, there wasn't a whole lot remaining in Bf. The demise of steam and varnish, truck competition, changing traffic patterns and the pre-blocking of trains at other terminals pretty much did Bf in as a "railroad town." And, sadly, the same could be said about Galion and Xenia and Bradford and Delphos and far too many other places where today just a little or nothing at all remains of the railroad age.

Great stuff, both, and thanks a lot!

What's that strange streamlined steamer between the L-3 and the J? Very strange, obviously they're puttin up some new train and wanted a updated version of the old Mercury "bathtub" look!

John

That thing 'tween the Mohawk and the Hudson is known as a "Dizmal." Odd contraption, ain't it? Have no idea what ever became of it........As this thread will now vanish, I will probably never know, either. Siiiggghhh...