No. 10487 #400E 4-4-4 Steam Locomotive and Vanderbilt Tender, heading up the "Crescent Limited" Tinplate Heavyweight Passenger Train

Southern Railway

In 1891, the "Washington and Southwestern Vestibuled Limited" was introduced by Southern Railway's predecessor Richmond & Danville Railroad, a luxurious extra-fare train with new Pullman Palace cars with service between  Washington and Atlanta. The "Vestibule" evolved into the "New York & New Orleans Limited" in 1906 (New York-Washington-Atlanta-New Orleans), and finally, in 1925, the new "Crescent Limited," honoring New Orleans, the Crescent City. There were five complete sets of cars and locomotives for the "Crescent Limited."  Trip time in those early days was 40 hours New York-New Orleans (1350 miles).

At this time, Southern president Fairfax Harrison was taking a fancy to the colorful green steam locomotives of the London & North Eastern line in England. On his return home, he had some of the Southern's "Pacific"-type locomotives painted Virginia (or Forest) green and trimmed in gold and silver (see No. 10309).  In 1929, Pullman delivered new heavyweight passenger cars for the "Crescent Limited," all painted two-tone green with gold trim. Interior amenities of the extra-fare, all-Pullman train included showers, maid, and valet service. Southern-style fried chicken was a specialty in the dining car.  Trip time was reduced to 37 hours and 50 minutes. 

In 1938, the train's name was abbreviated to, simply, "Crescent," and in 1941, diesel locomotives started to replace steam, evolving into new green, white, and gray Electro-Motive diesel units after 1945 (see Nos. 10192, 10633), combining with traditional heavyweight cars.

For a postwar streamlined version of the "Crescent," see No. 10633. The "Crescent" was a most successful diesel-powered flagship streamliner postwar for the Southern, but by 1970, with the advent of the interstate highway system and jet airliner travel in the 1960s, declining revenues caused the retirement of the "Crescent" name, along with the train's luxurious amenities, with its skeletal remains joining the "Southerner" (see No. 10726), to be renamed the "Southern Crescent," a fine coach and sleeper operation between New York and New Orleans. The "Southern Crescent" continued to run as a Southern train until Southern joined Amtrak in 1979, at which time Amtrak revived the "Crescent" name, and the train continues to operate today as Amtrak's coach-and-sleeper "Crescent" between New York and New Orleans, one of Amtrak's better long-distance trains.

The Lionel #400E 4-4-4 steam locomotive is easily the most popular and sought after of the original prewar tinplate locomotives. The largest of the Standard gauge steamers, it was introduced in 1931 with its Vanderbilt tender and is best known to Lionel fans for pulling the "Blue Comet" passenger train (see No. 10157), Jersey Central's flagship train of the 1930s between New York and Atlantic City, New Jersey. The #400E "Blue Comet" set was offered throughout the 1930s but did not survive postwar, as Standard gauge was not revived by Lionel or anyone else after World War II, until reproductions began to appear in the 1990s by Lionel and MTH Electric Trains. The "Blue Comet" tinplate cars had fully detailed interiors and were the second largest passenger cars made by Lionel, after the "State" set (see No. 10102).

Toy train manufacturers in the 1930s more often than not took liberties with wheel arrangements when modeling real trains - the 4-6-4 "Hudson"-type would be abbreviated to a 4-4-4, a 4-6-2 "Pacific"-type would become a 4-4-2, and so on. In the case of this history, toy train manufacturer MTH is apparently simulating the 4-6-4 "Hudson"-type with its reproduction #400E 4-4-4 steamer, originally introduced in the Lionel catalog in Standard gauge in 1931 priced at $42.50, extremely high in those Great Depression days. 

MTH has done something new in remodeling the "Blue Comet" into a Southern Railway heavyweight passenger train, although the coal-burning Southern, like the Jersey Central, had no oil-burning locomotives (the Vanderbilt tender was designed to carry oil as fuel). The authentic Virginia (or Forest) green coloring of the MTH Southern train leaves no question that it is intended to represent the steam-powered heavyweight "Crescent Limited," introduced in 1925. Steam power ended on the Southern in 1953.

No. 10487 represents an illusory toy-like model of the prewar "Crescent Limited" by MTH in Standard gauge, with its colorful two-tone Forest green 4-car heavyweight passenger train (No. 10488), as Southern's "Crescent Limited" would have been seen on its run between New York and New Orleans 1929-1938. As we have said, this is a toy train, intended to suggest the real train. For an accurate scale model of the "Crescent Limited," please see No. 10309.

The original Lionel "Blue Comet" cars offered in 1931 were #420, "Faye" Pullman, #421 "Westphal" Pullman, and #422 "Tempel" Observation Car. MTH has renamed the cars: #420 Pullman is "Park Road," #421 Pullman is "Andrew Pickens," and #422 Observation Car is "Robert E. Lee." Another Pullman, never offered by Lionel, was made for this train by MTH: #423 "Canonbury Tower."