Nostalgia & History > Alco S2 and steam locos?

What small steamers (2-8-0, 2-8-2 and such) would have been around still when the S2 was around? Also what era freight cars would be appropriate for modeling an era with the S2 and steamers? Would it be 40' and 50' steel cars primarily with roof walks or wooden cars still?

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S2 production ran from 1940 to 1950, and the S4, upgraded from the S2, from 1949 to 1958. Smack in the heart of the late steam era.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/05/16 09:14 by CPR_4000.

From Wikipedia:  "The S-2 was built between August 1940 and June 1950, with a total of 1502 completed."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALCO_S-2_and_S-4

S2's lasted in class 1 RR service into the 1970's so running them with late steam is perfectly OK.  It seems you are asking during what era would you see them both workng together.  Given the above dates, that would be anytime from 1940 thru the end of steam.  The majority of roads fully dieselized between 1955 and 1960, steam switchers being the first type of steam locos to be totally replaced by diesels.

Switch engines like the S2 were some of the first diesel purchases for most railroads, since diesels were such an effective replacement for steam switchers.  Often a single diesel switcher could replace a couple of steam locos, due to the diesel's high availability.  Given that, it would be prototypical to see S2's working the yard while steam power handled the road trains.  It was less lilkely to see an S2 and a steam switcher working the same yard.   RRs also tended to focus their early freight diesel purchases on particular divisions where the diesel had big advantages over steam (mountain grades, bad water districts, etc.).  Completely dieselizing an operating district also meant the RR wouldn't have to maintain the extensive steam maintenance and fueling facilities and the significant costs in both fuel and labor.  As the 1950's wore on steam tended to retrench back to a few locations where the volume of steam operations could leverage the servicing facilities before complete dieselization retired the last of steam. 

During the steam era the vast majority of freight cars were 40ft with maybe 20-30% being 50ft, with a few exceptions, like longer gons for hauling steel mill products, etc.  Wood-sided cars tended to decline in numbers along with steam, although not as suddenly - they did last into the 1960's.  Cars constructed after WW2 were steel bodied and there was a lot of new equipment being purchased in this time frame.  The Depression held down new equipment purchases due to lean finances, then WW2 came along and wore the on-hand equipment out as war production restrictions kept new addtions to the minimum.  Wood sided boxcars, open hopper and gons were produced during WW2 to minimize steel usage. 

Do some research to figure out what era suits your interest and concentrate on the equipment in service at the time.  The tighter the timeframe you can narrow things down to, the more prototypical your railroad will look.  And the easier it will be to determine what equipment fits into your scheme.

- Norm

 

SP had Consols along side the Santa Fe S-2 switchers in the Valley in California for some time, wasn't all
that uncommon in the West.

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