April 2020

#2630 “G.I.” 2-8-0 United States Army Transportation Corps (USATC)

Photo: #612 under steam at Fort Eustis, Virginia in 1957 with a silver-painted smokebox and yellow pilot and footboards. #2630 “G.I.” 2-8-0 United States Army Transportation Corps (USATC) By John B. Corns As a naive teen-ager I was not enthralled with the flat sandbox, European-style buffers and somewhat awkward appearance of the U.S. Army’s 2-8-0 …

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The “Fireless Cooker” — Columbus & Southern Ohio Electric Company #2

The “Fireless Cooker” — Columbus & Southern Ohio Electric Company #2 By John B. Corns In its basic form, a steam locomotive was a railroad machine that burned fuel with fire to heat water contained in a boiler to make steam, and that pressurized steam pushed against pistons that were connected to cranks on the …

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Queen of the NKP and Queen of the Age of Steam Roundhouse Museum

Nickel Plate 2-8-4 #763 — Queen of the NKP and Queen of the Age of Steam Roundhouse Museum By John B. Corns They were 80 of America’s finest steam locomotives, designed and built in Ohio to race—at passenger train speeds—freight trains filled with perishable meat and vegetables from Western suppliers to East Coast markets. They …

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