# Daylight



## main131 (Jan 3, 2008)

What engine can you think of that surpasses the sheer lines and beauty of the Southern Pacific Daylight






Don't bother with an alternative because the chances are that I will not believe you!


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## pickleford75 (May 3, 2012)

None surpasses..... but i think there is a close tie between the SP Gs4 and the N and W class J


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## Dave Meashey (Jan 2, 2008)

Ditto the post above! However, I do currently live in Roanoke, VA, and the J is returning under her own steam from Spencer, NC in just s few months. There is a possibility I could be just a wee bit prejudiced!

Regards,
David Meashey


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## steamtom1 (Jan 2, 2008)

Like this one...










But it does need a rake of correct coaches!


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## zubi (May 14, 2009)

Quite frankly, I could never understand why so many people attribute Daylight with beauty. Personally, I think this streamlined locomotive should deserve a lot more praise


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## scottemcdonald (Jan 11, 2008)

I think that to really understand the beauty of a locomotive you also have to take into account its natural habitat. If you have ever traveled or lived in California, then this is the memory the SP Daylight invokes for many of us.









and this









Scott (and yes..the first photo was taken in what was my backyard in my early years)


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## steamtom1 (Jan 2, 2008)

So that's where they got the colors?


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## zubi (May 14, 2009)

Scott, that is a beautiful photo and it explains the context to me. Best wishes from Tokyo, Zubi


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## Garratt (Sep 15, 2012)

OK, now I get the colors! I thought it looked like it went express through a paint factory. 










Andrew


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## Bob in Mich (Mar 8, 2008)

Here is My Choice Penn.T 1


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## Pete Thornton (Jan 2, 2008)

> What engine can you think of that surpasses the sheer lines and beauty of the Southern Pacific Daylight


Quite a few - that Daylight is pretty but has too much clutter. Here's my favorite:










And then there's the Gresley P2 if you must have 8 driving axles:


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## Jim Overland (Jan 3, 2008)

Daylight with a stream of coaches at Stavers!

The streamline A4 is no too shabby either


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## steamtom1 (Jan 2, 2008)

Beauty in a locomotive can be defined in many ways, sleek lines, colors, etc. One of the things that appeal to me as beauty is uniqueness, like a Garratt, of perhaps this one...


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

UGH! What totally UGLY locomotives some folk like! hee hee hee... to each his own.

To me, they gotta be BLACK all over and not wearing a "cloak" (streamlining -- BLEAH!). Gimme a "Mike" or a "Berk" any day. (Like the NKP 765 or Pere Marquette 1225... DELICIOUS!)


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## Charles (Jan 2, 2008)

*Jim Overland photo*

Follow up to Jim's prior post:


















Also some considerations given to:


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## Dave Meashey (Jan 2, 2008)

Well, my personal favorite is the Reading Crusader, but it has a rather small following these days.










At least the J will soon be in steam again. Plus it is my current "home town girl."

Regards,
David Meashey


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## du-bousquetaire (Feb 14, 2011)

Actually, I prefer the NORD hudsons to the 2-3-2 U1 especially in their original condition with long skirts, Buggatti or A4 inspired front end, complete with the streamlined Nord Cinema on one side and the headlight on the other giving it an assymetric look yet so sleek like a bowie knife. The T1, the NYC, streamlined Hudsons and the N&W J class would also be prefered to the "Flying Toothpaste Tube". Ditto the B&O P7 of the Cincinatian, those beautiful C&NW 4-8-4, were pretty exciting things also, the stirling single and the NORD Atlantic perhaps are the most beautiful of them all.


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## Reg Stocking (Sep 29, 2010)

Somebody remarked that streamlining was originally intended to improve efficiency by reducing wind resistance but quickly was adapted to increasing revenue by reducing ticket sales resistance. The first American streamlined steam locomotive was NYC 5344, the Commodore Vanderbilt, called the Flying Bathtub, designed in a wind tunnel at the Case Institute of Technology. It was followed by Henry Dreyfuss' Mercury Pacifics and Century Hudsons, which were purely styling excercises. 

Raymond Loewy did Pacifics, the S1, and T1 for the Pennsylvania. Otto Kuhler did the Atlantics and Baltics for the Milwaukee Road and other jobs for various lines plus becoming the Alco stylist for some years. My favorite of his jobs was the Pacific for the Royal Blue.

The SP Daylight streamlining was an in-house job and looks it, as was Burlington's Aeolus (Big Alice the Goon). Who did Santa Fe's Blue Goose I don't know. And there were several other home-brews.

The LNER A4 was styled by Sir Nigel Gresley after looking carefully at a dirigible. Again it was an attempt at reducing wind resistance. As for the French, Belgian, and German streamlined steam, can anyone enlighten us? And indeed there was a Mongolian streamliner....


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## Bob in Mich (Mar 8, 2008)

I have both the Daylight and the Penn.T1 Think that they are Great,But the A4 Mallard With the rake of Coaches that Berry Harper Made,Well to Me What a Train


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## steamtom1 (Jan 2, 2008)

I submit that some locomotives are so ugly, they are beautiful. Case in point, although not steam, a New Haven RR boxcab...


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## Garratt (Sep 15, 2012)

While on the subject of streamlining. The Lehigh Valley 2101 is pretty nifty.



















Andrew


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## Nick Jr (Jan 2, 2008)

Since Tom bright up Electrics, how about the very stylish PRR GG1. I believe that was a Loewy design also.
Later came the E44, boxy but beautiful in it's own way.


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## steamtom1 (Jan 2, 2008)

I was going to mention the beautiful Lowey PRR GG1, but I didn't want to include it in the same post as the ugly boxcab.


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## Dave Meashey (Jan 2, 2008)

Andrew;

I believe that Otto Kuhler was the designer for the Lehigh Valley streamliner, but the Star Trek fan in me thinks it looks like a Klingon design. 

Regards,
David Meashey


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

Dave Meashey said:


> Andrew;
> 
> I believe that Otto Kuhler was the designer for the Lehigh Valley streamliner, but the Star Trek fan in me thinks it looks like a Klingon design.
> 
> ...


Then you are not old enough to remember Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon.


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## steamtom1 (Jan 2, 2008)

How about *



...*

*"Glasses on! Sharp focus!"*


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## Nick Jr (Jan 2, 2008)

Tom, Captain Video, since way back then I've only heard that on old re-runs of the Honey Mooners, wonderful times.
In my eyes, just like animals, nothing that runs on rails is ugly. LG


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## Dave Meashey (Jan 2, 2008)

Semper;

I remember them, but my family did not get a TV until 1955, and it only picked up one channel. I seem to recall Buster Crabb playing Buck Rogers in the Saturday matinee serials. I do remember Flash Gordon comic books (and later a short-lived TV series). (I am 69.) I just remember Star Trek better because I was in college by the time it came out.

Yours,
David Meashey


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## Steve S. (Jan 2, 2008)

To each his own. To me the Big Boy is the most beautiful. Pictures and video I have seen of the massive beast climbing up Sherman hill with a full consist, covered in dirt and soot, with smoke and steam bellowing from it's dual stacks reaching the clouds in the sky make the hair on the back of my neck stand up.


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## Phippsburg Eric (Jan 10, 2008)

What about those bright and shiny Americans of the 1870's and 80's...fancy paint and polished brass... Nothing beats those!


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## derPeter (Dec 26, 2010)

*Daylight beauty..?*

Hallo MSers,
i never understand how a steam-loco could be paint in ORANGE, but when i have seen this wonderful picture of nature in yellow+orange, i can understand now.
Here is my favorite: BBÖ 214 gauge one livesteam..


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