No. 10197 Streamlined L-1Class 4-6-4 "Hudson" Type Steam Locomotive, heading up the "Chessie" Streamlined Connector Passenger Train

Chesapeake & Ohio Railway

The flamboyant Robert R. Young attained the chairmanship of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway in 1942, and, as an outspoken advocate of superior rail passenger service, vowed that the C&O would have a postwar passenger service second to none.
 
Among other C&O orders for new equipment in 1946 was one for 46 new lightweight streamlined cars from the Budd Company to outfit three new trains linking Washington and Cincinnati by daylight. The new trains were to be named “Chessie,” powered by the largest passenger locomotives in railroading history, the Baldwin-built M-1 Class steam-turbine-electrics (see No 10582).
 
The first glimpse of the “Chessie’s” tantalizing favors came not from a sneak preview of one of the new all-stainless steel cars, nor from a look at that mysterious steam-turbine-electric locomotive building at the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Eddystone, Pennsylvania, south of Philadelphia, but in the unlikely guise of a rebuilt 20-year old heavy “Pacific” (4-6-2) steam locomotive—a holdover from the heavyweight days that, in its streamlined shroud, would not even power the new daylight cruise train at all, but one of its two hastily planned sibling connections.
 
When the “Chessie” project became public, the Virginia powers-that-be in Richmond were dismayed to learn that this fabulous new train would not originate at the traditional eastern terminus of Phoebus. The howls were heard all the way to Cleveland, where plans were quickly altered to create two connecting trains: one between Charlottesville and Newport News (Phoebus) via Richmond to the east, the other between Ashland, Kentucky, and Louisville via Lexington to the west.
 
To keep the “Chessie” on its demanding 12-hour schedule, these connections would break with tradition and not combine with the main train for the climb across the mountains. Connecting passengers would be required to make a cross-platform change at Charlottesville and Ashland. Even so, the connecting trains’ cars would be designed to perfectly match the “Chessie’s,” and their locomotives would complement those of the streamlined train. In an economy move, the C&O took those five older F-19 “Pacifics” that, ironically, had inaugurated both the “Sportsman” (see No. 10637) and the “George Washington” (see No. 10243), and reconfigured each as 2,753-horsepower “Hudsons” (4-6-4)—saving $17,000 each in the bargain.
 
Controversial from the day Number 490 rolled out of the C&O Huntington Shops in late 1946 as the first of Class L-1, the streamlined “Hudsons” telegraphed the new look of the “Chessie.” Harking back to the days of the first “FFV,” the altered locomotives sported an orange livery. Combined with the gleaming silver of the stainless steel and accent of Enchantment Blue, the new streamlined L-1s served notice that a new dawn was breaking on the “good ol’ C&O.”
 
The sculptured boiler shroud was dominated by a nose that thrust out to place the headlight directly over the leading edge of the pilot. Two traditional “doughnut” heralds (minus “For Progress,” which would not be introduced until early 1948) in Enchantment Blue dominated the nose on each quarter. Rising from the headlight was a stainless steel arch that imparted a certain Greco-Roman look to the front end. This arch rose to the numberboards where it joined the skyline cowling, which swept back across the top of the boiler to the engineer’s cab—the C&O’s largest ever.
 
The balance of the streamlining presaged the as yet unrevealed car design. An orange letterboard-style stripe edged in blue extended from the shroud back along the cab and tender, the top of which curved inward that matched the cars’ roof line.  A hint of the passenger car windows was found in a polished stainless steel band running the length of the locomotive and back across the tender. Within this band were the blue engine number on the cab and road name on the tender (the latter, oddly enough, in the traditional steam era Roman lettering—not the Art Deco script). Below was a fluted stainless steel panel similar to that on the new cars.
 
The gleaming locomotive drivers, rods, and linkage were exposed by a cutout in the fluting, which then dropped fore and aft to accentuate the leading and trailing trucks. These were painted a light gray, as was the pilot. The tender sides below the fluting mirrored the fluted skirts of the cars to follow. Utilitarian features such as the engine walkways and front coupler were artfully concealed in the design.
 
Perhaps it was the brilliant mass of orange. Or the home-styled streamlined design. Or the conventional wisdom that held all steam engine shrouding in contempt.  Or a combination of all these factors. For whatever reason, industrial design purists never fully accepted the L-1 design as a valid contribution to the streamline school.
 
Yet, to many hard-core C&O fans, these “ugly-duckling” locomotives were hauntingly beautiful. Even at rest, the distinctive design of Number 490 and its streamlined siblings Numbers 491-494 suggested the graceful speed of the thoroughbred it was without denying the rippling muscles under its glistening skin that would power its charge through the rolling horse country of Virginia and Kentucky. As the only streamlined conventional steam locomotives to serve on the C&O, the L-1 class represented itself and the railway in fine fashion.
 
In 1946, the newly ordered C&O “Pere Marquette” streamlined  trains (see No. 10150) went into service, successfully operating between Detroit and Grand Rapids, Michigan. However, it was apparent by 1948 that the planned “Chessies” could not operate profitably. The handsome trains were delivered to the C&O, but they never entered service as “Chessies.” Most of the “Chessie” cars were sold to other railroads, with some of the equipment consigned to the overnight sleeper-equipped “George Washington” (see No. 10243) between Washington, D.C. and Cincinnati (main section), with shorter sections diverted to Louisville and Detroit via Ashland, Kentucky. The streamlined L-1s were repainted yellow and put to work on other C&O passenger trains, until 1953, when they were retired.  #490, the only survivor, can be seen today at  Baltimore’s B&O Museum.
 
With declining ridership, C&O scaled back its streamliner fleet in 1962, and by 1968 all C&O routes had been reduced to one pair of trains daily — the “George Washington”— plus the “Pere Marquette” service.
 
The “George Washington” name survived Amtrak’s takeover in 1971 until the name was dropped in 1974,  but to Chicago from Washington rather than Cincinnati.
 
No. 10197 represents a semi-scale model of C&O’s dramatically designed 4-6-4 “Hudson”-type streamlined steam locomotive #491, with its striking 5-car streamlined passenger train (Nos. 10198, 10199) in “0” gauge by MTH. The model train shows the “Chessie” streamliner connecting trains as they would have been seen on C&O’s rails between Charlottesville/Newport News and Ashland/Louisville  in the late 1940s to the early 1950s, had the trains ever been put into service.
 
As a footnote, in 1954, after many years of persistence, Texas-reared stock manipulator Robert R. Young succeeded in gaining a controlling interest in the New York Central Railroad, selling in the same year his 43% interest in the C&O, purchased in 1934. These were years of decline for the New York Central, and Young’s revival efforts — mergers with other railroads and real estate development— were unsuccessful. Finally, during intense merger talks with rival Pennsylvania Railroad in 1958, New York Central board chairman Young committed suicide. The merger agreement was signed in 1961, and finalized with federal government approval in 1968, resulting in the unsuccessful Penn Central Corporation. The next step was the creation of Amtrak in 1971 to take over the nation’s railroad passenger operations (see No. 10207), including those of Penn Central.