Steam & Excursion > Frisco 1500 blasphemy.

In 1949 the SP (T&NO) leased I think 4 Frisco 1500s for use in TX.  These two are seen in Denison, TX and the 1510 has been brutalized with SP number boards and the silver smokebox door.  Oh the humanities.
Back in 1988 wife and I went on vacation in CO and stopped at the Georgetown Loop RR.  The engineer on the the shay was a retired SP guy from Denison and when he saw my 1522 cap, he talked about the 1500s running out of Denison.
He said that everyone in town knew when one of them was taking a freight train out because of the window rattling.
Photos by RF Plummer.

---

---

Wow, that is a new story to me. Thanks for sharing.

How long do you think the locomotives stayed under lease?

Blasphemy. ???  I think the SP improved the looks of these engines. 

The train number boards do look odd for sure.  The oversized smokebox door on 1510 however... the front end on the 1502 is perfectly balanced.  The locomotives with the large doors always looked odd to me.  Add on that silver paint and it just screams out, doesn't it?

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions

The SP should have gone the rest of the way and given it a Vanderbuilt (cylindrical) tender;-)
I am sure that the people doing the conversion work were more concerned about the SP Rulebook (which requires the display of train identity) than the asthetics judged 70 years later.

Talk about blasphemy!  Was there ever an uiglier steam locomotive to bear SP lrttering and numbers?  This undated shot from the Nolan Black collection shows a leased engine from the Boston & Maine that the SP picked up during a power shortage.  It was not a success on the SP.  No one could figure out how to run or fire it, and it had a tendency to derail while making a backing move.
Bakersfield. Calif.

Brian Black
Castle Rock, CO

---

You're right!  Those B&A engines are homely enough to be designed by Amtrak.
The silver door on the 1510 takes the tin whistle!!

Trainman41 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Blasphemy. ???  I think the SP improved the looks
> of these engines. 

Go to your room.

Frisco1522 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Trainman41 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Blasphemy. ???  I think the SP improved the
> looks
> > of these engines. 
>
> Go to your room.

Guess I'd better take my chair to the corner.  Being an SP brat, I always favored the SP look.  That said, I've always liked the Frisco look too.  For me, any steam engine without train number indicator boards looks undressed.

AA

Stanford White
Carmel Valley, CA

Frisco1522 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You're right!  Those B&A engines are homely
> enough to be designed by Amtrak.
> The silver door on the 1510 takes the tin
> whistle!!

The B&A engines were purchased by the SP;  ATSF got a few too.  They were always odd looking, both with and without the Coffin feedwater heaters protruding from the smokebox front.  SP just removed the device and ran them as in the photo.  I recall they were all off the roster by 1951 or so.

They are ex B&M (Boston & Maine) locomotives, not B&A, Boston & Albany.

Qty - 25
1928, Lima
28x30 cylinders,  63" drivers, 66,640 # T.E. with added 12,000 # with booster.
Factor of Adhesion - 3.93

Total Engine & Tender Weight - 623,300



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/17/24 15:04 by train1275.

Any time you backed a locomotive with the Lima Articulated Trailing truck, you took your chances derailing it.

Re: ex-B&M 2-8-4 locos:

An aggravating factor was that the drawbar pin for these locos  was at the
trailer-truck's rear cross-member.

Shoving anything using the tender, meant near certain derailment of trailer truck.
Any reverse shoving put great force on the flanges of the two trailer truck wheels.
Right or left side.... the drawbars tended to kink to one side or the other --- more-so
on curves & switches.

On conventional loco design, two spherical-section buffers, between engine-frame and tender 
handle the buff-forces.  
The drawbars do not play any part in shoving cars, or any other buff-forces...
You get buff-forces, also, when when going down hills and the cars "bunch-against"
the locomotive(s).

Modern loco  buffers use a double-concave steel casting between the 2, convex buffer plates 
on the loco and tender.  The curved-faces' casting has the center-pins of the 
drawbars as the center of the curves of the buffer plates.  ( spherical-sections).
Keep them well-greased!

It was common on British locos and cars to have buffers at the outer 
corners.   They used oblong-links and up-facing hooks for couplers.
But, links do not do any good when shoving---- so, all their rolling-stock 
used to have big, round buffers at the corners.

The American knuckle-couplers handle both buff and draft forces -- 
transmittited to the cars' frames, via the draft-gears, and related cushioning 
devices ..

​W.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/24 02:02 by wcamp1472.

1510 looks like it got some of Don's favorite water!!  Ha.

In the 'that just ain't right' competition with a finalist for 'it worked for them but we cut them up as a POS' category

ATSF's 3 1945 PRR L-1's, which really look like a model maker's fooby.  Lasted 3 years.

https://static.pwrs.ca/product_images/200163_1.jpg?186166&1330040804

I think PRR made out a lot better with the ATSF 2-10-4's.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/24 05:51 by randgust.

This #3507 is "buck ugly"!  
Reminds me of a redhead female classmate that I collided head-on with while riding our bicycles in the 4th grade.  T'was due to a 4' dia. Maple tree trunk blinding both our visions while I accelerated uphill on a sidewalk and she deciding to divert from the street to the same sidewalk.  We both survived, first her riding off on her bike and me with a bloody nose and a crippled bent fork that I got the privilege of walking 3 blocks home in my "bloody" T-shirt.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/24 16:34 by rrman6.