My favorite arrangement? It's when the wheels are arranged on a working locomotive and under steam and running by me so that I can watch them. In that case I don't care whether it's a 2-8-2, 0-4-0, 4-4-0, geared loco, 4-8-4, 7-5-pi, or whatever.
Well, there's no way I can stick w/ one. 4-4-2 Atlantic. I really want one ( HO ) for my layout to pull small, local, mixed passenger/freight around. 4-6-2 Pacific, Chesapeake and Ohio with the flying pumps 2-6-6-6 Chesapeake and Ohio Allegheny Each of those engines IMHO looks VERY well proportioned. They're gorgeous.
I guess I would have to say that very little comes close to seeing a locomotive coming down the tracks at full steam no matter the wheel arrangement, gauge, size, color, type (rod/geared/cog/etc.), and so on.
Can't... pick... too many... locomotives... I like basically all superpower (4-wheel trailing truck) steam, and a lot of others besides. I've done a lot of thinking about this, but I won't go into it all here. I'll say the Texas and Allegheny. The final evolution of non-articulated and articulated fast freight power. Huge machines that hardly got a chance to rule the rails and lived for far too short a time.
Adam, and Ken, you beat me to it. Being on one or behind one or photographing one is my favorite set of arrangements. :tb-biggrin:
4-6-2 Pacific. NZR version. (3'6" gauge and all that entails) Not just because they were first built for NZR (some shipped from America too!) The fact that the metalsmiths near the town where I grew up built several might have something to do with it though... I've only got one model steamer (not counting Thomas)... funnily enough, it's lettered for the AT&SF. Even more strangely it's a 4-6-2. To justify it on a '90's railway? Tourist Train. <note to self: make a little scale model foamer with camera and put him by the tracks when running the steamer>
No doubt about it - 2-8-4. There is Pere Marquette Berkshire number 1223 on display about 20 minutes away. I just took delivery of a Bachmann 2-8-4 K-4 Kanawha in HO scale a few weeks ago in C&O; just took delivery of another Berk in N scale this week. And they run 2-8-4 number 1225 on excursions over towards the middle of the state (Michigan). Above my fireplace mantle is an artist-signed and numbered painting "Passing Time" by Dave Barnhouse featuring C&O K-4 number 2700. Just by coincidence, yesterday the hardcover reprint "Pere Marquette Power" by Thomas W. Dixon and the late Art Million just arrived from the C&O Historical Society with a 2-8-4 on the cover - had it on order for a while!
...one of which, number 475, is operating at the Strasburg Rail Road in Pennsylvania. Here's a link for a wikipedia article I started on it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4-8-0_475
Here's a drawing of one of the origonal 12 240P's. This one you can zoom in on: http://thierry.stora.free.fr/pics/dwg240_1.gif
Say - that was a mighty fine pic of you a while back at the throttle - let's see, what engine was that...
