A final adjustment is made on the bell of Southern's No.1401 as several weeks of repainting, polishing, and general refurbishing come to an end and the locomotive can begin its trip to the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of History and Technology. |
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No.1401 's memorable odyssey is done.
Relic of the age of steam, she sits beautifully serene amid the clamor of construction as workmen finish erecting around her the structure which is to be her future home.
A final adjustment is made on the bell of Southern's No.1401 as several weeks of repainting, polishing, and general refurbishing come to an end and the locomotive can begin its trip to the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of History and Technology. |
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The structure is the still-abuilding Museum of History and Technology in the nation's capital newest museum to be established under the direction of the venerable Smithsonian Institution.
No.1401, first exhibit to be placed in the new museum building, has come to the Smithsonian as the gift of the Southern Railway System, upon whose lines her journeying began in 1926.
That was the year she was built in Richmond, Va., by the American Locomotive Company. She was one of sixty-four 4-6-2 heavy Pacifics which Southern put into service between 1923 and 1928; and like most of the others, No.1401 stuck mainly to the workaday task of stepping along with up to 14 cars at a top-rated speed of 80 miles an hour on the Washington-Atlanta main line. That's the way it went for almost all her working life.
Statistically and mechanically, there may not have been anything "special" about the 1401. The designers of Southern's heavy Pacifics followed accepted, proven methods to develop the speed and power demanded by the heavy, high-speed trains of the 1920's - "The Crescent," "The Piedmont Limited," "The Birmingham Special." But somewhere along the way, the skill of the designers blended with the imagination of the builders, and the heavy Pacific that grew from the drawing boards, out of the foundries, out of the back shops was something more than a great machine of brute and awkward strength. The power was there but the lines were those of a thoroughbred. The speed was there -but the motion was that of a racehorse. The heavy Pacifics came into being with a personality of their own, a sort of supreme confidence, perhaps with a touch of arrogance -"Look at me," they seemed to say. "I'm good - and I know it."
For the heavy Pacifics were good. Even now, when the veterans of the age of steam gather, the talk always turns to the heavy Pacifics. Always the "Southern" heavy Pacifics. The breed of the 1401. The last of a Beet of power unique in the passing parade of continually progressive railroading.
One memorable day in the history of the 1401 came in mid-April of 1945. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had died in Warm Springs, Ga. With five sets of Pacifics as motive power, the President's funeral train was brought along Southern lines from Warm Springs to Washington, D. C. No.1401, lead engine on the funeral train as it was double headed from Greenville, S. C., to Salisbury, N. C., was the only one of the 10 locomotives used on the journey that was marked in any special way. It carried an American flag lowered from the flagpole over Southern's engine-house at Greenville to be placed upon the locomotive as it was readied for its run.
After that, No.1401 settled down again into hardworking routine; but its days were numbered. Diesels had begun to take over.
By 1952, more and more of the fine old Pacifics were being cut up as scrap as they were replaced by the modern diesels necessary to the modern job which the railway had before it.
They were not to go unmourned.
In September of 1952, a letter arrived in the office of Southern's president, Harry A. DeButts. It was writtnl by Walter H. Thrall, Jr., of Whittier, Calif., whose father was an assistant in the engineering department of Southern. As a young railfan, Thrall had photographed some of the railway's steam locomotives in 1937 and 1938. He remembered the Pacifics, and the plea which he made in their behalf was simply stated. "Once these famous and handsome locomotives are gone," he wrote, "they are gone forever, never to be replaced."
Thrall suggested the Smithsonian Institution might be interested in preserving one.
Through Robert Fleming, a Southern Railway director who was then the president of the Riggs National Bank of Washington, D. C., and a member of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian, and chairman of the Board's executive committee, inquiry was made. The Smithsonian was indeed interested. But there was a major problem. The Institution had no building large enough to house such an exhibit as the huge Pacific.
But the Smithsonian did have uncertain plans for the eventual construction of a special building big enough to holq such exhibits as the Pacific. So Southern: elected to put one aside. And the one chosen was No.1401.
After a 13-block, 12-hour trip through the streets of Washington, No.1401 stands just inside the grounds of the Smithsonian's partly-completed Museum of History and Technology which will be its permanent home. Rising behind the engine, across Constitution A venue from the museum, the Departmental Auditorium (high-columned building) is flanked by the U. S. Department of Labor on its right and the Interstate Commerce Commission on its left. |
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On February 10, 1953 - four months before the fire was doused in the last steam locomotive to operate on the by-then completely dieselized Southern System -the 1401 was taken from Salisbury to Alexandria, Va., for storage until the Smithsonian's new building could be erected.
She waited there almost nine years while her new home-to-be progressed toward reality through budget hearings in Congress; planning and engineering conferences, blueprints and specifications, contract awards and construction activity.
Then in the early summer of 1961, workmen began refurbishing the 1401. First, they spent one month sandblasting and cleaning the 91-foot, 11-inch length of the locomotive and tender, inside and out. Then came the healers of those scars symbolic of 27 years' service and nearly nine years storage; these men, the healers, straightened the running boards and "doctored" all the dents and scratches.
Then the painters took over, with 110 gallons mixed to the specifications which Southern first required for the brilliant Virginia green and gold "uniform" Southern adopted in 1926the year 1401 was built.
When applied, those 110 gallons of paint made of the 1401 a sight to move any railroad buff to extremes of passionate admiration -stenciling and monograms of gold set against No. 1401's green boiler and cab - the red top of her tender- the jet black of her trucks.
She was ready for the rods -main and side -and all the valve gear parts. Newly returned from Cleveland, Ohio, they had been chrome plated. The Chromium Corporation of America, with this contribution to the 1401's restoration, assured a permanent bright- ness for these great symbols of power .
As a final touch, No. 1401's hand servants polished her bell and whistle, and all her many surfaces.
No.1401 was ready.
She was the product of much special care.
For one thing, all the nuts around the edge of her smoke box front were replaced because those that were on when reconditioning started were of a modern type not used on 1401 originally.
The front end was painted gray to resemble the mixture of graphite and oil used in 1401 's day to cover such areas where intimate contact with intense heat burned paint away.
The pains thus taken for authenticity were more than equalled by the methodical care taken to bring No.1401 safely to the new museum site.
Some two weeks after the 59-ton tender had been moved in a relatively easy manner to the museum, the locomotive itself was started on its way.
From a time standpoint, if was, considering the distance, the longest run No.1401 had ever made. But it started innocently enough when the locomotive was towed quickly upon rails from Potomac Yards in Alexandria to the Naval Weapons Plant six miles away in the District of Columbia. There the locomotive was lifted by crane onto the 250-ton capacity trailer brought from Philadelphia particularly to do the job of moving No.1401 to the museum. And then for several weeks, No.1401 -just sat.
A route for the locomotive's progress through the District streets to the museum site some two miles from the Naval Weapons Plant could not be agreed upon. The main fear was that the tremendous weight of the locomotive and rig combined -177 tons would send the whole works crashing through a street. surface into one of the utility tunnels which honeycomb the downtown area of Washington.
Finally, a route was decided upon -but it was one which required lifting the 132-ton locomotive off the trailer and setting it back on the tracks for a three quarter-mile run to another loading site, where two railroad derricks patiently, loaded her again onto the trailer. As night fell, she 'was ready to go.
The engineer's side of the cab interior shows the complex of tubing, valves, gauges and control$ as familiar to engine crews in steam locomotive days as the instrument panels of automobiles are to today's motorists. |
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Then at one time riding on 50 wheels, the tractor trailer rig set out along a route which all the human talent available had made as safe as possible.
At two street intersections, areas ranging from 25 to 65 feet in length and 16 feet wide were covered with seven-inch-deep layers of sand, which in turn were covered by two layers of 16-foot-long 2 x 12 planks: The object was to distribute the weight as the rig crossed over these points, made extremely critical by the particular nature of the sewers and steam tunnels that ran beneath them.
At some 15 points along the route, 8x10-foot steel plates 7/8th of an inch thick were laid across manhole covers -again, to distribute the weight as the rig rolled across them and thus avoid caving them in.
So it went, careful inch by careful inch.
It was very much like a slow-motion parade.
Among those who attended the move every patient foot of the way were many who had planned for a long time to be present on that very chilly night. These were the railfans, obvious by the engineers' caps they wore or by the furious abandon with which they wielded their cameras. Others among the spectators had been drawn by revolving red lights on police cars and motorcycles and searchlights of a light-truck unit manned by volunteer members of the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Rescue Squad.
And there were some who by their comments revealed they were there only from a perverse desire to see whether No.1401 might not meet calamity on her last journey.
They were doomed to disappointment.
Shortly before dawn, No.1401 was pulled up safely at the site of the new museum.
And then, while only the hardiest of spectators watched (the others, even the perverse ones, having long since gone home to bed) , the tractor tugged its locomotive-Ioaded trailer crosswise on Constitution Avenue and prepared to back up a slight grade onto the new museum's grounds proper .
At the beginning of the backwards progress up the grade, a loud crack slammed through the pre-dawn dark. A goodly number of round oaths were heard.
The tractor had snapped an axle.
In 30 minutes, another axle had been installed. Another 30 minutes, and locomotive No.1401 sat upon the museum grounds, finished with longest journey of its career.
". ..the heavy Pacifics were good. Even now, when the veterans of the age of steam gather, the talk always turns to the heavy Pacifics. Always the 'Southern' heavy Pacifics. The breed of the 1401. The last of a fleet of power unique in the passing parade of continually progressive railroading." |
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It had taken 27 hours to travel the last mile and a half of that journey.
It took another 10 days of patient work to transfer the locomotive from the trailer to its exhibition spot inside the museum building. After this had finally been accomplished, No. 1401's long journey ended. Formal presentation ceremonies will be held later when the building is more nearly finished.
When the new museum is opened to the public, probably late in 1962, No.1401 will be a prime exhibit. It will be on view not only from the inside, but also from the street through a plate-glass show window 110 feet long and 18 feet high. There will be a landscaped patio outside, beneath the window, where visitors may take their ease while this graceful giant pre-diesel American railroading revives memories for, those who knew steam locomotives, gives a silent lesson in America's history for those too young to remember. No.1401 will ably represent what was in many ways railroading most dramatic hour.
Some of the elements of that drama will be absent as No.1401 towers silently above the millions who over the years will come to see her. The big Pacific's quiet repose in the museum stillness will contrast sharply with the sounds of the power that was applied to the work of a nation when steam locomotives rode the rails.
"No. 1401's memorable odyssey is done" |
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It was most appropriate that this first gift be given the Smithsonian's new museum by Southern -the first railroad in America to operate a steam locomotive in regularly- scheduled service -the first major railroad in the United States to complete a changeover in motive power from steam to diesel to meet the changing. needs of the changing times.
Southern has made history.
Locomotive No.1401 will help perpetuate the memories of that history .