#railroad #WW2 #design #ushistory
Streamlined Steam Locomotives
To compete for the ‘future mania’ of Americans in the 1930s, railroads followed aviation and automotive design trends by attaching streamlined cowling to some of their fast passenger steam locomotives. In fact, aerodynamics mattered much less to a fast trip … than good track, and the brute amount of steam which could be produced in a given amount of time from a hot coal fire.
This cartoon laughs at an ‘urban versus rural’ wedge concept. The ‘real’ streamliners were running between the sophisticated modern urban centres of New York and Chicago.
However, the illustration is accurate in the sense that the roundhouse and shop crews disliked - intensely - having to remove the delicate and finicky sheet metal to perform repairs and maintenance. It was never as easy as lifting off a shell as this illustration suggests.
from: Railroad Magazine; April 1941; Frank A Munsey Co, New York.
