Wow, nice pictures. How many trains/cars do they have there?
The posh interiors are a safety feature, even low-life train robbers would be loath to shoot up that décor. ;)

It's fairly big, presumably the biggest of its kind in the UK. You can easily spend half a day or more there. Or on their website: www.nrm.org.uk

resembling a horse-drawn carriage, I think:
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A posh horse drawn carriage, but I suppose all horse draw carriages were posh, the hoi polloi rode in wagons. :haha:
Nice engines.

Excellent pics.

Germans were into streamlining too.

So, what IS the dirty kind? Do you mean when a group of men line up and take turns having relations with one woman? Like on a pool table or something?

Uh... I would have no knowledge of those things, but I've heard references to unspeakable perversions of some sort which are collectively coded by the shorthand term trains, among people who have knowledge of that culture.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it...



as long as I can keep a straight face.

From "The Shawshank Redemption":

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New York Central called their design Mercury, when they threw their hat in the streamlined ring.

Banff Boo Boo

Trans Siberian

Back when men were men and sheep were nervous, the US was carved up into fiefdoms by the major railroads. They grew by building tracks, stealing land, bribing politicians and swallowing small companies. Once it reached a point where there were only a handful of systems to big to mess with, they had to look inward for opportunities to jack profits.

Union Pacific decided there was money in short haul passengers on existing infrastructure, except the locomotives and cars were too costly. So they designed a smaller unit, with a gasoline engine for small groups of passengers. Streamlined, in 70' and 55' sizes, with the front 12' for the engine/mechanicals. The 70' had a mail compartment, and two passenger compartments, one for 50 Whites divided into smoking/nonsmoking, and one for 10 Colored, which I suppose included Indians, Chinese, and Mexicans.

The 200hp, 6 cyl, reversible, gasoline engine sat on the front truck, chain driving the axels. The cars operated in either direction at 50 to 60 mph, with 75 max. The engines proved unreliable and ultimately killed the project.

Union Pacific built the first 4 then subcontracted McKeen to build them in UP's shops. They were bringing cheap help back then, too.

I have never heard of a Reversible gasoline engine. I must research this.

My quick google search, brought me back to the same article. There are many reversible diesel engines, Atlas Imperial, and B-W diesel marine engines.
To reverse an engine, you stop the engine, line up the timing marks, rotate the cam shaft 180 degrees, and re-start it the opposite direction. Since most magnetos don't like turning backwards, you would need a mag. for reverse operation. This would be a complex engine to operate, but would put out the same power in reverse as well as forward.
One way of doing this is with two camshafts making for a complicated valve train. I'm gonna look into this engine, and see what I learn.

Something tells me the engine is a Klamath. They made gasoline marine engines in the same power range as described in the article. And direct reversing was quite popular at the time.