Daily Archives:December 21st, 2007

Steam Heat

We were at the Henry Ford museum in Michigan today, somewhere I haven’t been for a few years, and I was impressed again at the sheer size of some of the trains which form one section of the exhibits. This, for example, is no ordinary snowplough:

Snowplough

It has extra gill-like flaps on the side which can open up allowing it to plough a path 16 feet wide. It was normally pushed by two locomotives. The gaping jaws are almost scary if you’re standing beside them.

But the most-photographed exhibit in the museum is the Allegheny locomotive. These were the most powerful engines ever made and are very big and very black. It feels more like part of a Gotham City set than something from my normal experience of railways.

Allegheny locomotive, Henry Ford museum

It’s actually rather difficult to photograph in a restricted space, so I switched my little camera into movie mode.

© Copyright Quentin Stafford-Fraser