FOREWORD 



The Vanishing Iron Horse 



As the midpoint of the 20th century was reached, the 

 curtain was falhng upon the final phases of steam locomo- 

 tive operation in North America. Almost certainly, after 

 another decade there would remain in service comparatively 

 few representatives of the engine which had been the primary 

 source of motive power of the railroads for over a hundred 

 years. 



In that comparatively short time the steam locomotive had 

 changed the United States from a small country with a few 

 seaports, and with towns and settlements little farther inland 

 than river navigation permitted, to a great nation covered 

 with cities and spanning a continent. It had made possible 

 the confederation of the isolated provinces of Canada into a 

 great. Dominion. Now, by the 1950's, owing to the emer- 

 gence of another type of motive power, it had become 

 obsolete and its days could be numbered. 



No future generation would experience the thrill enjoyed 

 by its predecessors. No future American could stand awed 

 beside the track and behold the majestic onrush of the iron 

 horse, be deafened by the blast of the exhaust, the crash and 

 clatter of steel on steel, and the hiss of escaping steam, or be 

 momentarily shaken as the locomotive thundered past in a 

 blurred flash of connecting rods, valve mechanism, and 

 pounding wheels. 



No child at night would ever again awaken to the eerie 

 echo of a far-off^ steam whistle crying at a lonely crossing, or 

 by day look out from a hillside at the long white plume of 

 steam that marked a distant train charging down the valley 

 below. The present generation of Americans can gaze back 

 upon these things with nostalgia. The next will never know 

 them. 



Here and there a steam engine will be saved, but the 

 people of a different era will note them and quickly pass on, 

 wondering. Only a few will pause to marvel and ponder over 

 the development of the steam locomotive. 



