Steam & Excursion > Steam Files - Southern Railway #9

Keeping with the Ps-4 theme from Friday, here is the streamlined 1380 at Washington Union Station in 1941 with the Tennessean, Train 45.
This train was inaugurated on May 17, 1941; was this an image made that day ? Attributed to noted Southern engineer, photographer and railfan Frank Clodfelter (1911 - 1984) who began his railroad career in 1931.

It is said the famed industrial designer Otto Kuhler came up with this streamlined art-deco look on the 1380, and it was one of his favorites, although it has also been said he was never paid for it. Reasoning why ? Truth or folklore ? I guess I like it and I don't. I really like the look of the 1404 in our last post, functional and a bit brutish, although the art-deco space rocket styling of the 1380 can be appreciated for what it represented in those times.

So whatever happened to the 1380 as WWII came ?

Was this the way to go back in 1941 for a trip from Washington, D.C. to Dallas ?



 

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train1275 Wrote:
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>
> So whatever happened to the 1380 as WWII came ?
>
I believe it retained its streamlining until the end, or very close to it. After being bumped off of the Tennesseean, it ended up running out of Atlanta for a while. I knew an old engineer, who died in 2003, that ran it many times after returning from WWII and it was still streamlined.

train1275 Wrote:
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> It is said the famed industrial designer Otto
> Kuhler came up with this streamlined art-deco look
> on the 1380, and it was one of his favorites,
> although it has also been said he was never paid
> for it. Reasoning why ? Truth or folklore ?

It is true. I have a copy of a letter Otto Kuhler wrote in reply to an inquiry from the late Marvin Black, a Southern Railway expert.

Kuhler was working for Alco in trying to get the diesel order for The Tennessean between Bristol VA and Memphis. He thought the design for a streamlined steam locomotive for the Monroe Va to DC would help Alco. Alco did not get the order so he did not feel like billing them. He was very satisfied how well the Southern shop people implemented his design even though he got nothing.

One interesting item from the letter was that Kuhler preferred bullet noses over shovel noses, but one has to do what the client wants.

If my memory is correct, Kuhler stated that Southern 1380 was his favorite design.
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/02/25 07:02 by ts1457.

A great example of photographic time travel. This images makes this time come alive.
Bob

Postwar, when Ps-4 pooling and deliveries of E7 and F3 passenger diesels knocked the 1380 off it's assignment, eminent SOU chief clerk and photographer Shelby Lowe asked president Ernest Norris if the 1380 could be sent to Atlanta so he could get some pics and slides of it. The Eastern Lines motive power department was headquartered in Charlotte NC, so the 1380 was sent to work the Charlotte Division (Atlanta -Spencer NC) for a while. It worked the remaining Ps-4 assignments on mail trains, local passenger trains, secondary passenger trains, extras, second sections, double-heading, and diesel failures. The oldhead engineers and firemen on the North Charlotte district (Greenville SC - Spencer NC) gave the 1380 an enduring nickname - "The Dressed Up Whore". The "Whore" didn't steam well. One of the guys told me one night they had to use the 1380 on no. 47 - the original Southerner coach streamliner. The single E6 diesels on the Southerner were high mileage and occasionally failed. I'm sure the the 1380 looked good on the point of a streamliner again, even if it was the dead of night.

As for the streamlining - the only change that I know of was losing one of the three aluminum stripes on the pilot. It kept it's Tennessean name. In the last days, it's said that Spencer master mechanic Hill Trexler liked to keep the 1380 on display on a track outside his office building, which still stands. Later the repainted and polished 1393, once intended for preservation sat there too. Local Charlotte railfan Bobby Thompson took slides of steam funeral trains passing the big coal chute at Charlotte. From what I remember of the slides, the 1380 didn't have it's special tender attached, but the tender was with another engine.

For a DC-Dallas trip in 41, I think the Tennessean would be a fun start. You would have had RI, SSW, and maybe MP connections at Memphis. As a 10 year old railfan making my second trip riding a SOU passenger train, I enjoyed riding in the original Tennessean coach "Sweetwater". Still nice, it was then assigned to the combined Augusta Special-Crescent. I think it still exists.

Posted from Android

Notch7 Wrote:
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>
> For a DC-Dallas trip in 41, I think the Tennessean
> would be a fun start. You would have had RI, SSW,
> and maybe MP connections at Memphis. As a 10 year
> old railfan making my second trip riding a SOU
> passenger train, I enjoyed riding in the original
> Tennessean coach "Sweetwater". Still nice, it was
> then assigned to the combined Augusta
> Special-Crescent. I think it still exists.
>
> Posted from Android

Yes, in...wait for it....Sweetwater (Tennessee)...

srfreer Wrote:
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> Yes, in...wait for it....Sweetwater (Tennessee)...

That is awesome. Thanks.

Posted from Android

I always get a kick out of nicknames that railroaders gave locomotives. Often they were right on. This one is a classic. Do you think Trains magazine would publish something like that comment? <G>

Victor Baird

Notch7 Wrote:
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>  The oldhead
> engineers and firemen on the North Charlotte
> district (Greenville SC - Spencer NC) gave the
> 1380 an enduring nickname - "The Dressed Up
> Whore". The "Whore" didn't steam well. 

wabash2800 Wrote:
--------------------------------------Do you think
> Trains magazine would publish something like that
> comment?

I still don't think so, and certainly not in 1973 when I first was told the story about the 1380. I do think Freeman Hubbard would have printed it in Railroad Magazine. That magazine spoke on a railroaders level.

Posted from Android

train1275 Wrote:
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> So whatever happened to the 1380 as WWII came ?

One other thing. Though Southern Railway was extremely disappointed with its two DL-107 / DL108 A-B pairs (later factory upgraded to spec's DL-109 / DL-110) built for Cincinnati-Macon service, in August 1942 Alco persuaded Southern to take another pair to dieselize The Tennessean between DC and Monroe, VA. At that time Southern also transferred the original two pairs to mainline DC - Atlanta service. 

The time that the 1380 spent being assigned to The Tennessean was actually very short.