#Southern Pacific GS-4

[collinthenychudson]

A light Spring breeze sweeps across the Salinas Valley as Southern Pacific GS-6 No. 4464 idles with a freight train a few miles north of King City, California. As the two tracks will merge into one track further ahead, No. 4464 has come to a stop to allow GS-4 No. 4449 to thunder onward with the Coast Daylight.

Models and Route by: Trainz-Forge, Auran, and Download Station

[american-railroading]

Somehow i really almost forgot to post the coolest car I’ve ever seen. Seen at the Monticello Railway Museum. Apparently this car lives somewhere near my uncle since he says he sees it almost everyday on his way to and from work. Not exactly a train but I thought it fit here. I hope maybe I can see it again someday, it was awesome.

[4449fandom]

Southern pacific 4447 #locomotive #railroad #railway #train #trainspotting

[maximinimaximus]

I mostly run British N Gauge, but tonight I decided to break out the Kato Morning Daylight set. The Southern Pacific GS-4 is probably my favourite US steam locomotive.

Hopefully the headlights and taillights are visible. (My phone was not bought for the camera quality.)

[zponds]

Three days ago, I made a post showing my OCs from the legendary Union Pacific. Now this post will go over my OCs from the biggest railroad that UP absorbed; the…

And even though these engines are under Union Pacific ownership and make up UP’s Southern Pacific heritage fleet…

they’re only found in railroad territories that were once owned by Southern Pacific. And these engines are…

Daylight, the 4-8-4 class GS-4 #4449

Shenstone, the 4-6-2 class P-8 #2472

Adrienne, the streamlined 4-6-2 class P-14 and Sunbeam engine

Olson, the 4-8-2 class MT-4 #4376

Duncan, the 4-10-2 class SP-2 #5021

Bill, the 4-8-8-2 class AC-12 #4164

Ben, the 4-8-8-2 class AC-12 #4272

Mike, the 2-8-8-4 class AC-9 #3800

Sully, the 2-8-8-4 class AC-9 #3811

Carol, the EMD E7 #6003 and Shasta Daylight engine

Bonnard, the EMD E7 #6000 and Lark engine

Andrea, the EMD E7 #6001

Kempinski, the ALCO PA-2 #6042 and Sunset Limited engine

Donald (ALCO PA-2 #6023) and Douglas (ALCO PA-2 #6031)

Orange, the ALCO PA-1 #6006

Fiona, the ALCO PA-1 #6005

Coleen (ALCO PA-2 #6019), Talbott (ALCO PA-2 #6014) and Estelle (ALCO PA-1 #6008)

Patch, the EMD E7 #6017

Corri, the EMD E9 #6051

McDavid, the EMD GP9 #3873

Rosenberg, the EMD GP9 #5623

Thompson, the EMD GP9 #3000 and Holrich, the EMD GP9 #3006

[guerrerense]

Southern Pacific 4-8-4 4439 por Wil Hata Por Flickr: Photographer unknown SP 4439 was built by Lima in 1941. It was one of 20 GS-4s built that year. 4439 is at Los Angeles in May 1950 between runs. The Daylight paint remained but most of the skirting was removed during WWII for easier maintenance access. The 4-8-4 would be gone by the mid-1950s. Los Angeles, CA May 7, 1950 Train of the Day 5/31/21

[espeesteamlog]

[Blog tagged!]

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[ Southern Pacific GS-3 #4427 Whyte: 4-8-4

Built: June 1930 Twelfth of Fourteen

Driver diameter: 80 in Length of engine wheelbase: 47 ft 8 in Length of engine and tender wheelbase: 96 ft 3 in

Boiler pressure: 300 psi Fuel type: Oil

Weight of engine: 475,000 lbs Weight on drivers: 275,700 lbs Tractive effort: 66,326 lbs Factor of adhesion: 4.16

Booster: TRUE | 13,000 lbs Skyline Casing: TRUE | Delivered with skyline casing Universal Disc Driver: FALSE | Delivered with disc drivers ]

[End of data...]

[Comment added.] [ >[4449fandom]. Lay off of the GS classes a tad. >Remember; you all can always find <road numbers> in the text of posts and mention this blog. ]

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SP-4427 GS-3, San Jose Southern Pacific “GS” 4-8-4, #4427, passes the San Jose Lenzen Roundhouse with the New “Daylight Limited,” train #99, bound for San Francisco, 5:00 pm, Sunday, June 27, 1938.

[espee-southernpacifc]

Southern Pacific Alhambra Roundhouse is seen with passenger type steam locomotives in Los Angeles, California, late 40’s or early 50’s by alcomike43 on Flickr.

Via Flickr: Southern Pacific Alhambra Roundhouse is seen with passenger type steam locomotives in Los Angeles, California, late 1940’s or early 1950’s. The steam locomotive # 4413, seen in the foreground is Daylight class GS-2 Northern 4-8-4 streamlined steam locomotive. The steam locomotive # 4351, on the left is a MT-1 class, 4-8-2 Mountain type. Notice the semi-vanderbilt tender used behind the MT-1 Mountain class locomotive. You can observe various workmen throughout the roundhouse scene. Heavy steam locomotive repairs were performed at this railroad facility and roundhouse. Photo courtesy of an unknown source. The name of the photographer that took this photo is unknown. Copyright Disclaimer under Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for the purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.

[20th-century-railroading]

GS-4 No. 4451 rests at Los Angeles after a run from San Francisco in the 1940s. Painted orange, red, and black, locomotives came to symbolize the Southern Pacific on the California coast. H.D. Bonham photo

[1863-project]

Heya!

Lately I've been pestered by my mom to try and do some train stickers, and while I adore the idea of doing some M-63/M-73 stickers, well, I'm really NOT versed well in older steam engines

Would you have any models that you like and haven't been represented in mainstream stickers? Some you'd like to see? I have pics of older canadian trains (some very unique!) but they don't exactly look like trains at first sight? The ones that stuck in my mind are the snowplows, which are not what people expect of a train lol

TL;DR: I'm looking for trains that aren't the normal "wooden toy train" stereotype. Think any other models would appeal to other train fans?

Steam, Dual, electric, I'm up for anything!

Ohhhh, do I have some recommendations for you!

For older electric locomotives:

Pennsylvania Railroad GG1. Everyone knew this was coming from me, but I've been obsessed with it since age 4 or so. It's sleek, it's art deco, and it was damn good at what it did. I am so deeply attached to these things that it's pathetic.

For older steam locomotives:

New York Central Dreyfuss Hudson

Pennsylvania Railroad K4

Pennsylvania Railroad T1

LNER A1/A3 Flying Scotsman (a specific locomotive, not just the class)

LNER A4 4468 Mallard (a specific locomotive, not just the class - Mallard holds the steam speed record at 126 mph)

Milwaukee Road Class A Atlantics

Norfolk and Western J Class (N&W 611 is the lone survivor of the class and still operates)

Union Pacific Big Boy

Southern Pacific GS-4 (SP 4449 is the lone survivor of the class and still operates)

GWR 3700 Class 3440 City of Truro (a specific locomotive, not just the class)

Canadian Pacific Royal Hudson

Stephenson's Rocket

John Bull

For older diesel locomotives:

Pioneer Zephyr

I hope this is a decent starter list! Hopefully it's not too many or too overwhelming! There's a lot of others I'd add later, and if you wanted to do modern trains, I'm of course going to shill for the E5/H5 Shinkansen because I love it, but this is hopefully a good starting place!

[espeesteamlog]

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[ Southern Pacific/Texas & New Orleans GS-1 #4400/#708 Whyte: 4-8-4

Built: June 1930 Fifth of Fourteen

Driver diameter: 73 1/2 in Length of engine wheelbase: 45 ft 10 in Length of engine and tender wheelbase: 88 ft 2 1/4 in

Boiler pressure: 210 psi *Later changed to 250 psi Fuel type: Oil

Weight of engine: 442,300 lbs Weight on drivers: 262,000 lbs Tractive effort: 63,230 lbs Factor of adhesion: 4.14

Booster: TRUE | 13,710 lbs Skyline Casing: N/A Universal Disc Driver: N/A ]

[End of data]

[Comment added.] [ >SP #4400 was delivered to the SP in 1930, but was later transferred to the SP's subsidiary, The Texas and New Orleans, where it received the road number #708 >The first 4 GS-1s were specifically built by Baldwin for the T&NO. Later, Baldwin built the sister classes of the GS-1, the GS-7 & GS-8. ]

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SP train, engine number 708, engine type 4-8-4 Train #2, Sunset Ltd.; 12 cars. Photographed: El Paso, Tex., September 23, 1947.

[collinthenychudson]

New Year’s Eve, the last day of the year. As we all know, it is the holiday when people get together with families and friends, share resolutions, and light fireworks to bring in the new year. But 80 years ago, this would not be the case out on the Great Salt Lake in Utah for a deadly train crash took place on that day.

In the early morning hours of New Year’s Eve December 31st 1944, two trains operating as No. 21, the Westbound Pacific Limited, were preparing to proceed onward to San Francisco with the First 21, the 18-car passenger train, running ahead of the Second 21, the 20-car mail-express train. The Pacific Limited normally ran as a long singular train but it was split in two on this occasion. The First 21 was being pulled by Southern Pacific 4425, a GS-3 Class 4-8-4 “Northern” Type locomotive, while the Second 21 was being pulled by Southern Pacific 4361, an MT-4 class 4-8-2 “Mountain” Type locomotive. Running 38 minutes late, the First 21 departed from Ogden, Utah at 4:38 AM while the second 21 departed at 4:50 AM 12 minutes later.

Things wouldn’t go according to plan however because 17 miles west of Ogden at Bagley along the Lucin Cutoff, a stalled freight train was dealing with a hotbox which would force the two trains to slow down and come to a stop. The First 21 would slow down to 8 mph until stopping when the flagman of the freight train would give the signal. Meanwhile, the Second 21 was speeding at 50 mph in hopes of making up for lost time.

Although engineer James Mcdonald of the Second 21 applied the brakes upon noticing the First 21, it was too late. At 5:14 AM, the Second 21 slammed into the back of the First 21. The last several cars of the First 21 were telescoped into each other while the first few cars of the Second 21 piled into No. 4361 crushing the locomotive’s tender with some sliding into the water and mud.

48 people had died while 81 people were injured with 2 more later dying in the hospital thus bumping the death toll up to 50. Among those who had died were 35 military personnel that were returning home after serving in the Second World War, the death toll also included James McDonald and the flagman of the First 21. Two military hospital cars of the First 21 would be used to take care of the injured passengers until rescue trains from Ogden would arrive at the scene.

During the investigation, it was revealed that the main cause of the wreck was failure to properly control the speed of the Second 21 in accordance with signal indications. While the engineer did apply the brakes, it was said that he “died” due to sudden shock or heart failure. Another factor that caused this wreck was heavy fog which resulted in the fireman of the Second 21 to miss the first stop signal before seeing the second stop signal.

Those who were injured were taken to nearby hospitals such as the Bushnell General Military Hospital in Brigham City. Although there is currently no further information regarding what happened to No. 4361 after the wreck, the locomotive alongside the last few cars of the First 21 and the first few cars of the Second 21 were probably scrapped due to being severely damaged. As for No. 4425, the locomotive was left unharmed and would continue to serve the Southern Pacific until being retired on May 14th, 1956 and later scrapped on July 13th of that year in Los Angeles. None of the 14 GS-3s nor any of the railroad’s 4-8-2s were set aside for preservation when the Southern Pacific ended revenue steam operations in January 1957, although a driving wheel from No. 4422 was salvaged and is at the Railgaints Train Museum in Pomona, California.

The Pacific Limited would continue to run until October 1st, 1947. As for the Southern Pacific, it would continue to use the Lucin Cutoff until 1996 when the railroad became part of the Union Pacific whose trains still continue to use the Lucin Cutoff to this day. It has been 80 years since this wreck occurred and it still holds the title of being Utah’s worst train wreck but rear-end collisions between trains still unfortunately have occurred over the following years and of course before then.

This was made in honor of those who lost their lives and survived this train wreck, I wish you all a Happy New Year.

Models and Route by: Trainz-Forge, K&L Trainz, Jointed Rail, Auran, and Download Station

[rockyp77mk3]

Southern Pacific GS-4 "Daylight" Lima-built 4-8-4 steam locomotive number 4449.

[4449fandom]

Southern Pacific's Coast Daylight with GS-4

[alidaisinthevalli]

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The GS-2 was a streamlined 4-8-4 Northern type steam locomotive that served the Southern Pacific Company from 1937 to 1958. They were built by Lima Locomotive Works and were numbered 4410 through 4415. GS stands for "Golden State" or "General Service."

[joezworld]

📂

What in the HECK happened with Scotsman, Dominion, and Dwight during the Great Gathering?!

(Also, since Dutchess of Hamilton has also been to the US during the 1939 NY World’s Fair, did she get involved?)

Warning - extremely long post below

So, first of all, Duchess of Hamilton never went back to the UK.

Duchess of Hamilton (6229) and Coronation (6220) had their nameplates swapped by the LMS when an engine was sent over to the US. 6229, in the guise of 6220, went to the US.

Streamlined locomotives were all the rage at the time, and railroads practically fell over themselves to get Coronation (as she was now known) onto press trains. The B&O railroad in particular was so impressed with her capabilities that they extended a formal offer of employment to her for service on their streamlined Royal Blue service. The LMS were surprised to get an offer to "purchase" their locomotive, but accepted nonetheless, as it meant a welcome infusion of cash in the dark days during the beginning of WWII.

Coronation fit right in with the Americans, having only been about a year old when she was sent to New York. Following the end of steam traction on the Royal Blue in the late 40s, (the B&O were early adopters of diesels.) she and her B&O coworkers found good employment on the New York Central, where she still runs to this day.

Since then, she's fully "gone native", marrying a J3 Hudson, (yes one of the streamlined ones) adopting both an American accent and three children, and being fully repainted to NYC silver by 1956. Flying Scotsman met her in Albany in 1970, and neither one of them recognized the other.

Actually, most UK expats don't recognize her, to the point where a common interaction is for her to be held up as an example of "look at her, she's integrated well into the US", only for the British engines to say "that's preposterous, she isn't English".

When it's pointed out that she's still obviously an LMS Coronation, the next response is usually screaming.

All that being said, she has no interest to come back to the United Kingdom, and wasn’t asked by the NRM anyways. 

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Second of all, the Great Gathering was... an event.

So, there are (officially) 6 preserved Gresley A4s.

Mallard - static, National Railway Museum (UK). Also an asshole.

Bittern - running, private owner, UK based

Sir Nigel Gresley - running, owned by a trust, UK based

Union of South Africa - running, private owner, UK based

Dwight D. Eisenhower - static (officially), National Railway Museum (USA)

Dominion of Canada - static (officially), Exporail (Montréal)

This is the official list, and for the first 4 engines, it's the truth.

However, things are a bit hazier on the other side of the Atlantic...

-----

So the thing that needs to be made clear right up front that in a sentient vehicle world, museums aren't like the NRM, where locomotives sit static for years on end, although obviously the English have museums like that because of course they do.

Rail museums in the rest of the world are much more like Colonial Williamsburg - a living history center staffed by volunteers who act out a prototypical setting from [insert decade here].

British Rail, being British Rail, didn’t know that and didn’t care.

-

4496, Dwight D. Eisenhower, having been named after the General-turned-President, had been earmarked for preservation by BR, and was summarily shipped off to the US National Railway Museum in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

In an entirely unintentional move, this donation MONUMENTALLY snubbed the Smithsonian, who refused to have any dealings with BR for decades, even for archival purposes. This, combined with the fallout from Operation Smash Hit, and the fact that the Smithsonian is Petty AF, meant that there was virtually no official trans-Atlantic cooperation between British and US museums for decades.

Dwight hit the shores of the US in 1964 New York City and was greeted by a marching band, a ticker-tape parade, and Presidents Johnson and Eisenhower, who were on-hand to personally make the engine a US citizen.

Always keen to curry favor with the government, the Southern Pacific railroad had a job offer waiting for Dwight right alongside the Presidents and the parade, and when he accepted, he went off to Sunny Southern California - someplace so opposed to Britain the he fell in love with the place immediately and refused to leave!

The ladies may have also had something to do with it as well - while most engine classes fell into a typical 50-50 gender distribution, the SP GS-4 class was all female...

[Pictured above - one of 28 very good reasons to live in California if you're a single British steam engine.]

Dwight does not kiss and tell, but at his wedding in 1974, all 28 GS-4s showed up - and he was only marrying one of them!

Since the 70's, he's become a mainstay in California, having been repainted into Daylight Limited colors in 1969, and retiring from railroad duties in 1999. After that, he went into the movie business, and is currently the head of digital media development at Disney.

His wife Irene (SP 4437) is also an interesting figure as well - following in the wheelmarks of the great female locomotives before her, she had an eye for business and a Stanford education before she married her husband, and was an initial investor in multiple tech companies in Silicon Valley during the 70's and 80's, but stopped doing that after her investment in Apple proved very lucrative. In 1996, she was convinced by a few people in the Stanford Alumni association to invest in another tech startup, this one an "internet search engine" called Google.

So yeah, Dwight Eisenhower kept falling up and up and up all his life, and is now married to the richest woman in the world.

--

4489 Dominion of Canada was donated mostly by accident, having been forgotten in the back of Darlington sheds until 1966, when she was shipped off to the Canadian Railway Historical Society in Montreal.

As stated elsewhere, the Canadian Government considered any locomotive built in the UK to have UK citizenship, and therefore treated them as commonwealth citizens under existing Canadian law. (remember that Canada was still a colony at that time)

CN, the national rail carrier, was obligated to offer her a job under their charter, and she accepted, moving to Toronto to run intercity trains between Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa.

Within two years she was displaced from those duties by the introduction of a new, shiny, jet turbine powered train, and was summarily demoted to local commuter runs in the Toronto suburbs.

Moving to suburbia did one thing more than anything else - expose her to the people who live there. They all had complaints, they all had problems, and they all had no idea on how to fix them.

Being a helpful sort, Dominion decided that she could help, and promptly ran for Toronto city council in 1974. She won, and has been a fixture in local Toronto politics ever since - she even got to be Chairwoman of Metro Toronto (the closest thing to being mayor because Toronto's governmental structure is weird) until 1998, when Toronto was merged with the surrounding area to create a massive new region.

Having then done everything there is to do in municipal Toronto government, Dominion went on to become the Chief Executive Officer of Metrolinx, the agency that controls almost all of the transit agencies in Ontario, because, as she puts it, "I'm still a commuter engine at heart".

She's now painted in the current GO Transit paint scheme, and still does commuter runs- which is really weird looking now that there are double deck commuter coaches in a push-pull configuration, with a Gresley A4 doing the pushing.

------

Now, I mentioned that those 6 were the only ones officially preserved - there were two unofficial preservations as well...

-

4486 Merlin was properly Shanghied - he was yanked off the docks in Southhampton by a cargo ship in August of 1965, and was spirited away to parts unknown.

Those unknown parts turned out to be South Korea. There, he was given citizenship by the US-aligned military dictatorship (Korean history is wild) and was employed by the State-run rail operator.

As the military government began a hardcore plan to increase their country's wealth and industrial output, rail lines were being built across the country, and Merlin was soon awarded a position on the fastest train in the network, the Seoul-Busan Saemaeul-ho.

Because of his experience in running high-speed express trains, Merlin not only became the public face of Korean high-speed rail, but also became an "honored elder" amongst the other Korean engines, a position he still holds to this day - as despite being over 70 years old, he still runs daily trains on the fast services, easily keeping time with the Korean schedules as well as training the new high speed trains, including the KTX sets. He's on his 24th boiler by now, and has more parts from Hyundai than Doncaster.

An additional fact - Merlin actually has had a linguistic effect on Korean railroading, as his strange amalgamation of an accent - a strong Yorkshire accent that tried to be Received Pronunciation for 30 years, mixed with almost 50 years of middle-to-upper-class Korean - has filtered down through the ranks of KoRail, because all of his students want to sound like him out of respect. Human British expats in Korea will occasionally hear a locomotive speaking in English, and the engine will sound like a Yorkshireman every time and the Brits cannot handle it.

---------

4495 Golden Fleece is the only A4 to preserve himself - he saw the writing on the wall in the early 60s, and hopped a car ferry to France at the end of 1962. From there, he bounced around Europe for a bit before making it to the United States in the late 70's.

Of the 8 surviving A4s, he's probably led the quietest life of all - he moved to Miami before it got nice, and basically got in on the ground floor of CSX when that merger happened in 1980. He's now the head of terminal operations for the Port of Miami, but he's generally kept a low profile - not even having a chance to meet Scotsman due to his time in Europe.

He's still in contact with Dwight and Dominion, and has no real bitterness over not being "famous" like they are - he likes the quiet, and still lives in a modest house in Boynton Beach with his long-term girlfriend.

----------------------

Soooo... the Great Gathering.

It was supposed to be a meeting of the 6 surviving A4s - a two year event held at the NRM in honor of the 75th anniversary of Mallard's record-setting run.

"Record setting" is a past-tense term here. While there have been no official runs, every single one of the Pennsylvania Railroad's T1 and S1 locomotives claim to have gone faster than 126 without meaning to, and numerous other locomotives on unofficial attempts done late at night on flat stretches of land across the country have hit 130+.

British Expats have also done better than 126 - Coronation claims to have hit at least 140 on a midnight mail train in 1980, and in Korea, Merlin claims to have hit 128 on a test train, although that was judged by timing mile markers as his speedometer wasn't functioning properly.

Problems arose before any of the engines had even reached the NRM, as Mallard's already sizeable ego had swelled to massive proportions, and several engines in the great hall were planning a justifiable homicide.

Then came the time restraints - none of the foreign locomotives were willing to uproot their lives and jobs for two years just to sit motionless in a shed. A two year exhibition was eventually negotiated down to a 6 month gala, much to the irritation and confusion of the NRM, who could not understand that the engines were still in service.

Then came the extra engines - Dwight and Dominion thought that the NRM knew about Fleece, and were quite insulted on his behalf when he wasn't invited - they threatened to not attend unless arrangements were made for Fleece to attend as well.

An utterly baffled NRM agreed, but also tore their record archives apart, as they knew that Fleece had been scrapped. The fact that his picture was plastered all over CSX's Florida Division website was all the more confusing as a result.

-

Meanwhile in Busan, nobody knew that Merlin had escaped the scrappers' torch and therefore did not invite him. He was only informed after K-Pop star Psy texted him from London to ask if he knew about the event, which was being advertised on television.

Merlin, having missed his friends from the LNER, decided that he would just crash the party, used some of his many vacation days, and took off for England on a cargo ship.

-

By sheer coincidence, all four foreign A4s hit the dock in Southhampton on the same day, and were delighted to see each other - especially Merlin, considering that everyone else had thought he'd died.

Meanwhile at the NRM, delight was not the word one would use. Befuddled, confused, shocked even, but not delighted. Their plans had revolved around 6 A4s, most of which wouldn’t be running - only to now discover that there were 7, all but one of which were functioning! (Mallard, the star of the show, was the odd one out, and it drove him crazy) 

Then they got a phone call from their man at the docks saying that another one had showed up, looking like he’d driven out of a K-pop album cover, and they just gave up and started screaming. 

-

Screaming is also what happened when the cavalcade of foreigners showed up in York - first of all, the quartet of new engines sounded nothing like they had when they left England. 

Dwight had willfully unlearned his Upper Crust British accent by 1971, and had fallen deep into a California accent (quite similar to what Scotsman sounds like - coincidence? No.)

Dominion and Fleece hadn’t tried to unlearn their accents, but 40+ years of living in North America can really dilute the Britishness. It doesn’t help that Dominion has developed most Canadian vocal tics eh?

As stated above, Merlin has a weird fuckin accent, and now he speaks English with a strong Yorkshire accent, but will occasionally and without warning drop into a Korean/Yorkshire hybrid accent.

The screaming also happened because the NRM had wanted to repaint the duo trio! quartet?! into LNER garter blue, and were promptly informed that “we’re painted like this for work! Don’t touch it!” (the sole exception was Dwight, who hadn’t pulled a real train in 14 years, but he liked his Daylight Limited paint), so instead of the new arrivals showing up in LNER colours, they showed up looking like THIS:

Having their long-lost siblings show up looking and sounding like THAT had quite an affect on the A4s and the other NRM engines: 

Bittern could not believe her eyes - to the point where she actually began making noise about seeing an optometrist

Union of South Africa almost backed through a wall

Sir Nigel Gresley was speechless for two days

Mallard was so angry that he actually chipped a tooth during one of his rants about “the impropriety of it all!!”

Evening Star laughed so hard that he managed to derail himself without moving

City of Truro almost cracked a piston from shock

Alycidon spent the entire gala coming up with more and more laser focused jabs at Mallard - who was so easy to fluster that the Deltic needn’t have bothered 

Oliver Cromwell and Green Arrow made fast friends with the new arrivals, and spent the entire time learning ‘Americanisms’ to annoy the other engines with.

But what about Flying Scotsman? Where was he in all of this? He was generally considered to be the “leader” of the NRM fleet (much to Mallard’s annoyance), and was usually who the other engines turned to when things started getting out of control. 

Did Scotsman calm things down? Like hell he did. The inmates were running the asylum from the moment that Scotsman saw the other A4s - more importantly saw Dwight - and immediately greeted them in flawless Californian. 

This actually set off the building’s security alarm, as Flying Scotsman saying “DUDES! Wassup?!” caused such an uproar that the noise broke several exterior windows. 

----

And all of this was in the first few days - there were six months left to go. 

--

There was one railtour attempt. It was supposed to feature Bittern and Sir Nigel running in tandem, but instead featured Dwight and Merlin, mainly because Bittern wanted to see what would happen. 

They exceeded the max speed limit for steam traction within 15 minutes, sparked a thorough investigation by the RAIB, and got all future steam powered railtours for the Gathering cancelled immediately. 

On the plus side, the two engines did prove that it was still possible for a steam train to hit 100 safely. 

--

One thing that baffled the other engines was the inordinately large number of people who turned up just to see Dominion, and the one person who kept turning up to see Fleece - it took a lot of explaining for them to understand that Dominion had been married three times, and had children (adopted) and grandchildren from all three marriages coming to see her. A similar amount of explaining was required to explain that Fleece’s girlfriend/partner wanted to see him too. 

The normally chatty Dwight and Scotsman would suddenly clam up whenever Dominion and Fleece teasingly tried to ask about their love lives, something which wasn’t unnoticed by the other engines, but got similarly nowhere. 

The answer to why they both shut the hell up was explained when a lot of shouting broke out in the yard of the NRM one day about a month into the exhibition:

Irene Eisenhower, not content to sit in California and count her billions, quickly grew bored without her husband, and decided to go to England and be with him. The fact that she definitely did not fit the UK loading gauge was never even a consideration, and so she just showed up in York on the back of a lorry, having informed no-one of her arrival, and content to just pay off the requisite people if a fuss occurred. 

A fuss did occur, and it was only ended when Scotsman managed to convince the museum’s curator (who at this point in his life was regretting ever thinking of this damned gathering) that Irene was a ‘temporary donation’ to the museum. 

[Scotsman, who definitely hid his Cali accent from museum staff the entire time, has one of the best poker faces in the world]

Dwight was overjoyed, and so was Scotsman, for initially unclear reasons. Then Irene managed to grab both her husband and Scotsman, dragged them behind a shed, and [THIS IS A PG13 HEADCANON] the both of [PG13]. Turns out that while Scotsman may have slept his way across the US a few times, he was actually ready to settle down with Dwight and Irene - they were a throuple way back in the 70s, and those passions haven’t faded. When Scotsman reluctantly left the US in 74, a lot of the reluctance was because of those two. 

This bombshell of a revelation went over interestingly at the NRM. Some engines (Green Arrow) were happy for them, some were incensed (Mallard - although it was for anti-American reasons, not homophobic ones), and some were intensely curious about what was going on in the outside world (Bittern). 

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The ‘foreigners’ (as Mallard had taken to calling them), were deeply displeased at how their fellow engines were being treated - while a lot of them were ‘in steam’, some were not and might never be again, something they found abhorrent. Unable to do anything at that time, as the NRM was not a for-profit entity and therefore did not have anyone to bribe, (Irene’s solution to things is to throw money at the situation) the engines started talking about how life was different in the outside world - namely that engines were still working hard, even when they were over a century old and running on steam power. 

This was of great interest to engines like Evening Star and (6220) Duchess of Hamilton, neither of whom were likely to be steamed again, and Bittern, who was growing more and more curious with each passing day. Dissent began to slowly build against the NRM curators, and the culture of the United Kingdom in general.

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One thing the foreigners did try do something about was Ellerman Lines. The poor bastard had been sectioned to show his inner workings, much to the jaw-dropped horror of the foreign A4s, who made such a stink about it that he was moved outside the museum by NRM staff, who must have thought that the engines lacked object permanence or something, because that didn’t make it better!

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Irene Eisenhower, who was beginning to get really sick of the nonsense that the NRM called preservation, (Scotsman was not in running condition, and had been hastily reassembled mid-overhaul in order to be cosmetically ready for the event, and let’s not forget poor Ellerman Lines) elected to bring the event to a close on her own after only three months. She did this by eventually putting her immense wealth to good use, and called for a haulage service to rescue the engines from the NRM without the knowledge of the museum staff. Aside from the A4s, she also took Ellerman Lines, Scotsman, and Bittern (who had asked to go) with her, and only bothered to inform Ellerman and Bittern - she was not about risk Scotsman having another “think of England” moment and staying. 

The haulage firm was efficient and the cargo ship was waiting, so the engines were in international waters before the NRM opened the next morning. 

Much swearing occurred in England that day, and the NRM’s image has yet to fully recover from the PR story that they had sold Flying Scotsman (and Ellerman Lines) to a reclusive American billionaire. 

Privately though, the NRM does not care, as that story is a lot better than “Someone stole our engines and we’re not allowed to get them back because as it turns out we’re slaveowners, so no international court will help us.”

Also, despite their multimillion dollar “donation" from the I. Eisenhower Opportunity Fund, they still haven’t been able to fully pacify their engines, all of whom have somehow gotten the idea that they should be running in main line service like they live on Sodor or something...

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Dwight, Scotsman, and Irene all live happily together in the sprawling Eisenhower estate in Malibu. Irene is currently lobbying the California state government to legalize polygamy, with moderate success. 

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Ellerman Lines, after a lot of therapy and a full rebuild, is now working on a short line in Wyoming. He likes the scenery.

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Bittern followed Dwight, Irene, and Scotsman to Los Angeles, and used her ‘connections’ (Dwight) to get a supporting role in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Since then, she’s gotten several roles based on her own merits, including an Emmy nomination for Best Guest Appearance in a Comedy.

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Merlin spent a few months in LA before he went back to Korea. He is very thankful that he was able to reconnect with his brothers and sisters, and that his homeland has good internet, as he video calls his family across the Pacific almost every day.

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Golden Fleece still lives a quiet life in Florida, but finally decided to tie the knot, and married his girlfriend in 2017. The ceremony was supposed to be quiet, but Irene Eisenhower has no idea what that word means. 

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Dominion of Canada continues to baffle non-local trainspotters when she runs commuter trains into Toronto. She is now a great-grandmother. 

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7 years later, and the term “Great Gathering” is still a forbidden phrase in the back rooms of the NRM.