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This ain't no Thomas The Tank Engine!  There were three coal-fired steam turbine engines such as this built by Baldwin Locomotive for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad in 1947/1948. Number 500, pictured above, was delivered first, in 1948, and immediately took a goodwill inaugural tour through-out the C&O system, heading a super-first-class, state-of-the-art Budd-built passenger train named the Chessie. These engines were monstrous for their day, each one being 106' long, with a 48' water tender. They stood 16' 4" high, and from front coupler to rear coupler, they measured almost 30' more than C&O's massive H-8 Alleghenies and 23' more than a Union Pacific Big Boy. Engine weight was 428 tons, exceeding that of an H-8 by 43 tons. A 6,000 h.p. steam turbine churned out electric power for eight traction motors mounted in a 4-8-0-4-8-4 wheel arrangement. Coal was carried in the nose ahead of the cab, and the boiler faced backwards, with turbine and generator at the far rear. From the outside, however, it was difficult to tell what was where, as the exterior was streamlined, from the forward-slanting orange nose to the stainless-steel flanked tender. The whole train was far too opulent both inside and out to be called simply a streamliner, and hence, was dubbed a dreamliner. But unfortunately, it never sailed. The C&O had drastically over-extended itself financially, not only in trying to get this project off the ground, but in other areas as well, such as rolling stock upgrades after WWII, capital improvements, etc, and in an era of rapidly-dwindling passenger revenue, and with freight revenue also starting to dip, the deficit was just too great. After the successful public relations tour of the C&O system, the train never began a regular run, and just . . . vanished . . . without any fanfare whatsoever, not even one single mention as to why this well-publicised super-train would never see the light of day. The passenger cars were sold off to various other railroads, and the three turbines were quietly put to work in low-profile passenger service. As it turned out their performance was less than spectacular: operating and maintenance costs were high, and power output and availability was uncertain at best. They wheezed unsteadily for two years, and in 1950, they were retired and turned back to Baldwin. One of the few things that remain from the whole endeavor is this post card.  (The information and much of the wording in this caption comes from an excellent article in the July 1968 issue of Trains magazine, entitled, "This Was The Train That Was (But Never Was)", by Geoffrey H George)

By 1945 it was obvious that the diesel electric, with its higher low speed tractive effort, cheaper and easier to handle fuel source, and ease of maintinence and higher availibility, was here to stay and steam was on the way out. The C&O was a major coal hauler and thought the only way to save steam was to combine the benefits of electrical traction motors to a coal fired steam turbine which generated electricity for the traction motors.

With the help of Baldwin and Westinghouse, the C&O built three steam turbine electrics. Number 500 was built in 1947 and numbers 501 and 502, in early 1948. They had conventional fire-tube boilers mounted backwards to regular practice. They were streamlined and looked like nothing else on the rails. They were built for speeds of 100 miles per hour. The only problem was that they were incredibly complex. They spent much more time in the shop than on the rails. The book C&O Power has a few good photos including one with the streamlining removed. It looked like a pipefitters nightmare. By 1949 they were on the dead line and all three were quietly scrapped in 1950.

The C&O heavily promoted the 500 as the locomotive of the future, and advertised them pulling the soon to be placed in service "Chessie" passenger train. The Chessie was to have four dome cars and one of the lounges had a large warm water aquarium with tropical fish. Yet, the train never made its debut in the summer of 1948. There were strikes at Baldwin, Pullman and Budd in 1947 that delayed the equipment, and testing the 500 was not going well. In February 1948 the B&O launched their own streamliner between Cinncinatti and Washington DC. That train stole the Chessie's thunder, and also showed the C&O how miniscule the daytime Cinncinatti Washington passenger train market really was.

In 1947, during test runs, the 500 had many service failures. The C&O also found out the tropical fish in the aquarium died due to the train's vibrations. Yet the main problem was the 500. There were many bugs in this long and complicated machine. It was 106 feet long and weighed 856,000 pounds. It had five trucks in a 2-C1-2-C1-B arrangement. Only the first three axles on the eight wheel trucks were powered. The trailing truck was powered, but the leading truck and the one in between the big powered trucks were not powered. That four wheel truck supported the firebox. Coal was carried in a hopper at the nose of the locomotive, a streamlined cowl makes this look like a boiler from ground level, but the fire box was behind the cab and the boiler streched back towards the tender.

The photos