Pennsy Steam

The Pennsy had thousands of steam engines running millions of miles through the 1950s, and yet vintage film of a PRR steamer is hard to find. Greg Scholl has brought together several sources of vintage film, and a look at the brief new lease-on-life for K4 #1361, to bring us an hour of The Standard Railroad of the World. Much of this presentation is vintage film, from 16mm B&W to color 8mm film. We also get a color look at #1361 as she returned briefly to the rails in 1987. Join us as we roll around the system in search of vintage PRR! We begin riding a diesel passenger train to New York in the winter of 1955, then see lots of K4 action between Exchange Place, South Amboy, and Bay Head Junction in New Jersey. This was the last stronghold for K4 Steam passenger operations on the Pennsylvania. We see mostly riding footage, but also stations, terminals, and some trackside scenes. Next we go back to Ohio and see two different visits to the PRR line from Columbus that ran north toward Sandusky, Ohio. The power is the huge J1 2-10-4 locomotives which are seen in winter and summer – with one engine and double-headed.

After this we show some very unusual rare Black and White footage shot first on Horseshoe curve in the late 1930s, then head to the Altoona test plant for K4s being tested with new valve gear and for smoke deflectors. This is some very unusual footage, and includes some camera mounted shots atop the boiler of a doubleheader. We also see an engine with cylinder damage. Finally we show the K4 1361 out of Altoona in April of 1987. This is about 10 minutes or so of live audio footage with a 4-coach passenger train that was a test run on the branch line that left the main at Tyrone. Vintage film segments have music and informative narration as no sound ever existed with these vintage films. The 1987 segment has live train sounds.