Steam & Excursion > St.L.S-W 819 in the employ of Southern Pacific

Nov 9, 1952 Cotton Belt 819 was in El Paso pulling trains for their daddy, the Espee.

D.S. Richter photo
 

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Neat.  Of course Daddy is gone, but would love to see this lady high stepping again.  One of those who's Excursion Life was too short.    And I know it's a very low probability of return to service.  

Any idea what SP men thought of her?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/21/24 18:03 by Tominde.

My understanding is when the Cotton Belt engines were used on the Commute trains in the Bay area, they were very poor performers, the boilers could not keep up with the steam demands of constant hard acceleration.  Neil Vodden once told me he was firing one, and slowly losing the battle.  His old hoghead across the cab kept tell him to "get her hot, I want to see that steam gauge needle pointing over at me..."  Neil's reply was 'If you want to see the .needle pointing at you, you had better come over and sit on this side..."

Earlk Wrote:
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> My understanding is when the Cotton Belt engines
> were used on the Commute trains in the Bay area,
> they were very poor performers, the boilers could
> not keep up with the steam demands of constant
> hard acceleration.  Neil Vodden once told me he
> was firing one, and slowly losing the battle. 
> His old hoghead across the cab kept tell him to
> "get her hot, I want to see that steam gauge
> needle pointing over at me..."  Neil's reply was
> 'If you want to see the .needle pointing at you,
> you had better come over and sit on this side..."

Reportedly, NONE of the SP 4-8-4s performed very well in Commute service either. Thus, the GS class locomotive didn't last very long in Commute service.

HotWater Wrote:

> Reportedly, NONE of the SP 4-8-4s performed very
> well in Commute service either. Thus, the GS class
> locomotive didn't last very long in Commute
> service.

It's often said that crews preferred the 4-8-2's, but the very last steam powered commute in January of 1957 had a GS-4 on the point (4430), and a number of other 4-8-4's were in use in the final weeks.  The 4-8-4's came to the commute assignments late in the game, when all steam was running was on borrowed time, so they wouldn't have lasted very long in any case.

THAT - is one handsome locomotive!! Thanks for posting.

Markus V.
“The Fort” in Indiana

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