Railroad Trains for the Soul: Southern Pacific Cab Forwards
Let's take a break from so many colorful diesels and focus on some classic steam locomotives. Pentrex presents an amazing video collection of the Southern Pacific Cab Forward steamers. Built with a cab at the very front, these locomotives were designed to protect the crews from breathing in the harmful smoke while running through many tunnels on the SP.
This video covers mostly the oil-fired Articulated Consolidation classes from AC-1 to AC-12, and most were built by Baldwin with a 4-8-8-2 wheel arrangement. However, there was only one SP class of articulated steamers that were not Cab Forwards but fortunately not excluded from the video. It was the 2-8-8-4 coal-burning AC-9 class built by Lima.
Also included are some photos of Baldwin's early production articulated classes such as the 2-8-8-2 MC (Mallet Consolidation), 2-6-6-2 MM (Mallet Mogul), and 4-6-6-2 AM (Articulated Mogul). All the MC classes were rebuilt into AC-1 through AC-3 while the MM class was converted to AM.
As a special treat, there's some bonus footage covering the donation of Southern Pacific's last Cab Forward, AC-12 No. 4294, to the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento. While the 4294 is the lone survivor of all AC steam locomotives, you can still cherish the memories compiling every type of these unique Cab Forwards, thanks to all the research done by Pentrex.
Southern Pacific Cab Forward Collection