Nostalgia & History > GTW 4-6-0 in amazing detail!

1955 is generally considered to be “the year that steam died”. It also happens to be the year I was born. For a life-long railfan like me I don’t know if this is significant or just a coincidence. Maybe it’s a significant coincidence... ;^) In any case, I have to cheerfully admit to knowing next to nothing about steam era stats, facts & figures. So I’ll just do here what I’ve done so many times before: I’ll celebrate the photography and happily let the experts feast on this engine’s details. Bon Appétit!

1. GTW 4-6-0 1579 at Pontiac, MI on September 28, 1940. This fully side-lit shot gives off some amazing detail!
2¾ x 4½ reprint by Len Hillyard, from the late Art Gibson collection.
Now in the James T. Wilson collection.

Thanks for looking back!
Lance Garrels (santafe199)
Jim Wilson (jtwlunch)

---

That's the way the "Dean" of engine picture photographers, R. J. Foster used to like them.  Low morning  light. 
He used a Kodak folding 122 (Postcard) camera and a big wooden tripod.  If need be, he'd give the hostler a cigar to spot the engine with the rods down and shut off anything blowing steam and stand back in the cab out of the picture.
He owned a pharmacy in O'Fallon, IL and was famous for traveling the middle of the country taking engine pictures.   Trading negs was big time back in the '30s-'50s.  He would find his prey, plop down the tripod and fire off 6 shots of the subject in rapid order.  He had a wood box that, when it got full of rolls of film he would ship to Hollywood to Gerald Best (?) who worked at one of the film studios and would get them all developed, keep one for himself and ship them back.  Foster would keep one for himself and the remainder would be trade bait.
His work was beautiful and fortunately for me, one of his frequent hangouts was Lindenwood on the Frisco.  He would catch a good one on the inbound track, low light and clear background.  Fog or haze in the background even made it better. 
Unfortunately I came along a little late to the party and was busy chasing girls and driving loud cars by the time steam left.

---

---

Three "A+" roster photos.
Bob



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/23 07:55 by refarkas.

Frisco1522 Wrote: >  ... Trading negs was big time back in the '30s-'50s ...

As I spent my time scanning & archiving the Gibson Collection (mostly the slides) I gradually became aware that trading B/W negatives a was regular thing within the railfan community. It must have taken a lot more organization & pre-planning to trade negs. Especially when trying to insure that proper information such as date / location / train number, etc accompanied each neg. What a boon slide shooting must have been to traders when it more or less took over the "hobby" in the 50s! Info could be easily attache to each slide. And this fact makes wonder why so many photographers let their slides get out into circulation without any information at all, not to mention proper photo credit. And I can easily see how much more beneficial "low sunshine" was for steam roster shots over diesel rosters. The main reason I picked this latest reprint for posting was purely because of the visible detail available... 

Lance

BTW: Thanks for the Frisco steam stuff. You're making me more of a Frisco fan all the time... ;^)

1044 is a "chunky" good looking pacific.

A wonderful thread - thanks to everyone.

On that very comely Grand Trunk Western Ten-Wheeler: it's a Class I-7-a (GTW hyphenated its engine classes, just like parent Canadian National), with 22x26 cylinders, 60-inch drivers, 200 psi boiler pressure, 198,100 lbs weight, 31,000 lbs tractive effort. Built by Alco Schenectady in 1904. This data is from the excellent Richard Leonard's Steam Locomotive Archive website (Richard Leonard's Steam Locomotive Archive -- Home Page (railarchive.net), which has a particular emphasis on GTW power. It's always a go-to site for anything related to GTW steam, and is one of the better sites on the Web, particularly for steam.

The Trunk maintained its power very well, and that this sharp 4-6-0 would still be in service and looking good all those years later is not the least bit surprising. The 60-inch drivers suggest a dual-service engine, but with only 31,000 pounds tractive effort and 198,100 pounds weight, she would have been on the light side for freight service in the heavily industrialized Pontiac area, home to several big General Motors plants served by GTW. By comparison, Grand Trunk Western ran its K-4-b Pacifics, with their 73-inch drivers (like Richard Jensen's famous excursion-service 5629), in freight as well as passenger service. That included both passenger and sometimes freight trains all the way across Michigan from Detroit to Muskegon, and the Lake Michigan car ferry there over to Milwaukee. The former car ferry dock is a few blocks from my retirement home. But those Pacifics were much heftier engines, weighing in at 293,500 pounds, and with 43,800 pounds tractive effort, and 215 psi boiler pressure.

The fact that the photographer found this Ten-Wheeler in Pontiac, Mich. suggests that she might have run in GTW's Pontiac - Detroit (Brush St. Station) commuter service. That service lasted - with steam through the '50s!! - and on through the 1960s until after the inception of Amtrak in 1971. The Southeastern Michigan Transportation Authority (SEMTA) then ran the service until 1983. Amtrak brought passenger service back to the route in 1994 when Wolverine-service trains to and from Chicago were extended from Detroit out to Pontiac, which is as they operate today.

[Later edit]: But on further reflection, this engine might have run not so much on the suburban trains, but on an all-stops, thrice-weekly mixed train from / to Pontiac. It ran up through the middle of Michigan's "Thumb" to Caseville, Mich., located right on Lake Huron's Saginaw Bay, a geographical feature which so defines the Thumb of Michigan's "mitten" shape in its Lower Peninsula. The lighter rail on that long secondary line would probably be well suited for an engine of this size working on lighter mixed trains, as contrasted to the heavier mainline freights and switch runs working out of Pontiac.

Here's a link to a Sept. 30, 1951 GTW passenger services timtetable, including an excellent map and timetable for the Detroit - Pontiac suburban service, and the mixed train service up the Thumb between Pontiac and Caseville: gtw_timetable_9-30-1951.pdf (railarchive.net)

In any case, this image is a real gem, and a wonderful, detailed photo that really allows you to study the engine and appreciate it. As Don Wirth pointed out, it's also a shot very much in the R.J Foster roster-shot tradition.

A great story too, Don, about Bob Foster and his shooting and trading style. I may have heard that story or read it before either in your book or Joe Collias', but if so I had forgotten it. What a debt we and history owe to guys like Len Hillyard, who is responsible for this GTW image; or to the Gibsons and their many fine images that Lance has shared with us; or to others like Bob Foster and Gerry Best. (I had no idea that Best had done Foster's darkroom work for him). All of whom who built terrific collections not only of their own work, but from the work of other great photographers in their era with whom they traded images.

And thanks, Don, for two beauties of Frisco power. Glad that you're helping to make Lance more of a Frisco fan. He'll join us in the persuasion without too much trouble if you keep working on him with images like those.

It's always great to see GTW material. Thanks again to all for a wonderful thread.

MC



Edited 7 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/23 19:48 by ironmtn.