FINE ART MODELS, CA.1993

The Pennsylvania Railroads T1 4-4-4-4 was an attempt to improve on the 4-8-4, the premiere steam design for passenger service. The idea was to divide individual piston thrust, thus reducing reciprocating weight and the resulting stresses on crank pins by forty percent. Together with its sister Q2 4-4-6-4 for freight service, the T1 was the Pennsys last new steam design before the diesel took over. In 1937, the Pennsylvania Railroad decided it needed a new passenger locomotive to replace its venerable K4 4-6-2s, designed way back in 1914. It started by departing from its tradition of standardized, proven designs with a spectacular 6-4-4-6, the largest rigid frame passenger locomotive ever built. It hoped this S1 could haul 1,000 tons at 100 miles per hour, but its length limited its use and its axle loading was undesirably high. So in July, 1940, the Pennsy ordered two revised locomotives, numbers 6110 and 6111 the first T1s with styling by Raymond Loewy, they were modern in every respect. On test in 1944, no. 6110 produced an impressive 6,110 drawbar horsepower and 6,552 indicated horsepower at 85 miles per hour, the highest figure ever recorded for any steam locomotive. The two locomotives ran between Harrisburg and Chicago, 713 miles, and although they spent much time in the shop, the Pennsylvania ordered fifty more locomotives without waiting for their teething problems to be resolved. Numbers 5500-5549 arrived in 1945-46, with the first twenty-five coming from the Pennsys own shops at Altoona, Pennsylvania, and the remainder from the Baldwin Locomotive Works. The T1s were magnificent when they ran and could run as fast as the engineers nerves permitted. They rode smoothly and could average over 100 miles per hour with a train of 1,000 tons. They might have pointed the way but their complexity worked against them. They never supplanted the simpler, more reliable K4s before diesels intervened. As early as 1949, most T1s were out of service. None were preserved.