St Louis 24th July

Gary at the front of the 1928 2-8-2 Lima engine

Same as above with a side on view

2-10-0 Eagle Picher - 1918 Baldwin used on a variety of routes including Frisco.

Various wagons on display

Chicago, Burlington & Quincy "Silver Charger" 1939 Zephur unit

Baldwin wedge snowplough 1913

1954 all steel caboose 1966 rotary snowplow - largest ever built

Above and next few slides are from the Route 66 exhibition in a separate aircon hall at the museum

Crysler Turbine car 1963

1914 Panama Canal Mule

1933 first all welded steel hull towboat - H T Pott

1943 Douglas C-47A transport aeroplane

Today we drove a short distance from the motel to the St Louis Museum of Transport. I thought of American cars and trucks but what we got was trains, trains and more trains. I have been to train museums in the UK where everything is nice and shiny, here it is in it's raw state. This was big boy toys so forget about the heat and humidity, I just had a big smile on my face all day. I did take some photo's but as most engines were packed in together it was difficult to get the right angles, plus I was melting.

All train exhibits were outside with a number under a roof only. Most were BIG ranging from the days of steam through to early days of the Diesel Electric of the 50's and 60's. As I say there were some large trains and freight cars on display, some of the cabooses were open but the pullman cars were not. The oldest steam loco which had been restored was a 1863 Boston & Province Railroad 4-4-0 "Daniel Nason" which was a delight, there was also a 1873 Camel back Baltimore & Ohio Railroad 4-6-0. I have not seen one like this before, the cab sits over the boiler just behind the chimney. The driving wheels are 50" so it looks very ungainly and top heavy, being short and tall.

They had some lovely engines such as the Atchinson, Topeka & Santa Fe Railways 2-10-4 oil burning Baldwin fast freight loco. This has 74" driving wheels, a tender that holds 24,000 gallons of water and 7,000 gallons of oil. One was able to sit in the cab and ring the bell - which I did - several times :-)

The Eagle-Picher (photo above) was originally built for the Russian market with 5' gauge, but owing to the revolution some 200 engines were modified to the slightly smaller American gauge (4 feet 8.5 inches). Not on display but could be seen in the distance was a concept train, a 1955 Aerotrain. Very futuristic to look at but apparently failed to meet expectations.

I think the second largest train was the 1960 steamer - Y62 mallet class from Norfolk & Western Railways 2-8-8-2. Hauled heavy coal wagons through the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia (there is a song there somewhere!!). The coal from the tender being delivered buy an archimedies screw plus the engine is a compound i.e. utilising steam twice.

The worlds largest steam then oil burning locomotive was the 1941 Union Pacific Railroad 4-8-8-4 BigBoy. This unit hauled heavy freight through the Rocky Mountains, is 132 feet long and could reach speeds of 80mph!!! Oh God why can we not have one in this country it would just be amazing to see it in action. Theoretically this engine could pull a train of wagons of length 5 and a half miles long. As most of America's road/rail crossings are of the level crossing type think of how long you would have to wait?

Then we have a 1913 wedge shaped plough which seemed rather large until one came across the 1966 rotary snow plough. this really is a snow blower with a 12 foot rotary head that can cut a 14 foot square slice through the snow drift. The unit is 56 feet long and generates 3,000 horsepower used to drive the cutter and ancillary electric motors but still requires 4 locos to move it whilst in operation.

They had the world's largest tank car, built 1965 which held 60,000 gallons of liquefied petroleum gas and is 96 feet long; a huge 1960 triple decked car transporter (12 large or 15 compact cars) - 88 feet long - the list goes on, I think there were over 70 exhibits mostly kept in a cosmetic state rather than showroom.

By this time we were all totally melted so after a soda and crisps it was time to explore the air conditioned building which housed their vehicle collection. Sorry to say it was not a patch on Beaulieu or many of the other vehicle museums I have been to. Nicely set out with half a dozen cars ranging from the Model T to the Thunderbird and Mustang, plus a couple of small trucks based around the theme of Route 66. Included was two caravans, see photo above for the larger of the two, the second was a tiny one person van of the kind you would tow behind an Austin 7 Ruby. They did have one of the 1963 Chrysler turbine cars on display, body designed by Ghia. The advantage was that the engine can use any liquid fuel, so other than diesel and petrol what about corn oil, brandy, whiskey, perfume, cooking oil (nothing new there then)? 55 of these cars were produced and only 9 remain. They were test cars only and over a 2 year period were driven over 1 million miles. Why was the concept not taken forward, don't know?

Outside around the car park were several items of interest, a Douglas C-47a transport plane used in WW2 as part of the Normandy landings; a 1933 all welded tug boat which was used on the Missouri river; a 1914 Panama Canal Mule train which was used as one of 4 to haul the ships through the locks in the canal. As ships got bigger then up to 10 mules were required. There was also the only known surviving Sellers 1903 60ft turntable (in the USA) on show, a real monster.

A great day out and a very hot one, but oh what a joy; certainly would go again but on a cooler day.

To help cool off we stopped and had a delicious double ice-cream in a waffle cone at Rosies ice cream parlour, then it was onto a couple of flea markets - antique and bric-a-brac to us. Very interesting and time to keep ones hands firmly in the pocket. back to Alek and the cats and a rest!!