Elephant Ears on a K4s

[kelticsylk]

This photo is for sale on E-Bay...



No date, but the seller thinks it's the 1950's

[Dave V]

Pre-war...  Late 30s to early 40s.  That's the era they tried all those whackadoodle mods to the K4s.

[nkalanaga]

My first thought was that it was something built for Europe after WW II.  So much for being the "Standard Railroad of the World".

[pjm20]

So much for being the "Standard Railroad of the World".

The PRR only ever modified a few K4s to see if the modification was beneficial and cost effective. The other 400+ K4s remained the same. At least it looks better on a K4 than on a Bigboy. 

[Dave V]

The PRR only ever modified a few K4s to see if the modification was beneficial and cost effective. The other 400+ K4s remained the same. At least it looks better on a K4 than on a Bigboy. 

This.   Roughly 20 of the 425 member fleet had experimental mods of some sort from streamlining to poppet valves and most were returned to their "standard" configuration following the experiment.

What makes the PRR so "standard" is the fact that so many common components were shared among all the major locomotive classes of the era such as the 425 K4s, the 593 I1s 2-10-0s, the 301 M1/a/b class and the 574 of the L1s Mikados.

Standard indeed!

[kelticsylk]

My first thought was that it was something built for Europe after WW II.  So much for being the "Standard Railroad of the World".

I was thinking almost along the same lines...The mods give it a French appearance. Didn't they also try a British "look"? I know they did WAY back on the D class.

I remember a "capped" stack on a modern locomotive, but it was probably a D&H steamer.

[kelticsylk]

This.   Roughly 20 of the 425 member fleet had experimental mods of some sort from streamlining to poppet valves and most were returned to their "standard" configuration following the experiment.

What makes the PRR so "standard" is the fact that so many common components were shared among all the major locomotive classes of the era such as the 425 K4s, the 593 I1s 2-10-0s, the 301 M1/a/b class and the 574 of the L1s Mikados.

Standard indeed!

One of us should make one model of a K4s that combines all 20 mods into one locomotive

[chicken45]

One of us should make one model of a K4s that combines all 20 mods into one locomotive

Ha! Streamline/skyline/elephant ears.

[nkalanaga]

Dave Vollmer:  Thank you.  Not being a Pennsy fan, I always assumed that it was because they were so big.  In many cases they had more cars or locos of a single class than most roads had total, and their main lines were so well engineered, that I assumed it meant that other roads looked to see how they did things, then copied them.  In other words, they set the standard for railroading in North America.

I model the BN, but with a strong GN influence, and it's interesting that the GN was, to my knowledge, the only other major railroad to regularly use the Belpaire firebox.  Also, the GN tested at least one class of PRR electrics, then sold the PRR some of theirs when they dieselized.  No corporate relationship, or interchange points, or even much in common, but some odd connections.

[chicken45]

Dave Vollmer:  Thank you.  Not being a Pennsy fan, I always assumed that it was because they were so big.  In many cases they had more cars or locos of a single class than most roads had total, and their main lines were so well engineered, that I assumed it meant that other roads looked to see how they did things, then copied them.  In other words, they set the standard for railroading in North America.

I'm sure it meant that, too. The PRR set the standard. Not in standardizing parts and tools, but also procedures and how to run a railroad.

...then they were late to adopt diesels combined with decreasing passengers, and increasing truck traffic, and the interstates, and merged.

I'd love to hear about the how the western railroads were structured. UP has been around forever, right? Did they have the same struggles as the eastern railroads?

[mmagliaro]

The slatted pilot (as opposed to the modern heavy cast one) gives it away as being from much earlier than the 1950s.
I agree, I'd say 1930s or 40s.    Carleton's Pennsy Steam A to T has another photo of a K4 with a full skyline casing and those "elephant ear" smoke lifters.  But alas, no date on that photo either.

[nkalanaga]

Josh:  Most of the western railroads didn't have the competition that the Pennsy had.  In the East, there seemed to be multiple railroads almost everywhere.  In the West, many areas only had one, and even when towns had more than one, they often went to different places. 

Washington state, othe r than the Portland-Seattle route, was basically NP/GN along with their SP&S subsidiary.  The UP served Seattle, and had a line through Spokane from Oregon to Canada, but wasn't really a factor in most of the state.  The MILW really should never have been built, as most of its route was either too near the NP, or through the middle of nowhere.

Southern Idaho was UP country, Montana was basically NP/GN/CB&Q, again the Hill Lines, although the MILW did manage to carve out a territory in eastern MT, Colorado was largely D&RGW west of the Front Range, and California for years belonged to the SP. 

Western Oregon was SP, northern and eastern was UP, and the SP&S/GN had a line from Washington to California through the middle.

So, most of the West was one-railroad-country, and much of the traffic was long haul, as even the next big town may have been a hundred miles away, unlike the East.

[chicken45]

Thank you for posting that!
 

[Bob Bufkin]

One thing most railroads in the East, West and even the South wanted was a connection with either Chcago or St Louis.  Also have to remember that in the early days most of the population was on the Eastern Seaboard.  Coal was another big reason for so many Eastern lines.  The Reading was, at one time, the Microsoft of its day.

[nkalanaga]

"One thing most railroads in the East, West and even the South wanted was a connection with either Chcago or St Louis. "

Very true.  That's why JJ Hill bought the CB&Q, and why the UP had ties to both the C&NW and MILW at various times.  Now, of course, they OWN the C&NW.  And, if one looks at an old railroad map, both the SP and AT&SF basically ignored most of Texas, turning northeast to St. Louis and Chicago. 

An old saying was that pigs could go from California to New York without going through Chicago, but people couldn't.  There were passenger trains that crossed the Mississippi without going through Chicago, but almost all of the famous east-west trains ended up there.

For years St. Louis was the last major land crossing of the Mississippi, until bridges were built in New Orleans.  Below there the banks were too low, and boats too tall, for easy grades to the bridge.  Look at the approaches to the Huey P. Long bridge in NO.