Train first BF-1

NG503002

Train first BF-1

Steam Freight Train

The photographs in this album are arranged as nearly as possible in an east-to-west sequence, and the first twenty-two of them were taken along the Cleveland - St. Louis route through town - that is, inbound on the Ohio Division and outbound on the Illinois Division. Here at East 38th Street is a 69-car extra west, nearing home base at 50 MPH, the maximum for freight on this district. The consist is a familiar one in Indiana, where state law makes a third brakeman mandatory on trains of 70 or more cars. The power is most unfamiliar - a 2-8-4 classified as A-2a and built for the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie. To ease a power shortage in mid-1955, this engine (no. 9406) and six sisters were transferred to the Southern District from the dieselized P&LE. They were hauled dead from McKees Rocks, Pa., and put into service at Bellefontaine, Ohio. On the day this picture was taken - August 24, 1955 - the 9406 was making her maiden trip. It was completed without incident, but she and her sisters were almost immediately beset with serious mechanical troubles from which they all ultimately succumbed. More will be said later about the brief and i1l-starred tenure of the A-2as on the Southern District.

Jeremy Taylor

Jeremy Taylor

2-1/4x3-1/4 neg

Summer, 1955

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365

A-2a

#9406

Alco-Schen

E. 38th St., Indianapolis, IN

See NG503002a