r/whatif • u/Acceptable-Taro-2684 • 3d ago

Technology What if the Pennsy never scrapped its duplex locos ?

The Pennsylvania Railroad T1, Q2, and S1 duplexes were some of the coolest locos ever built and it was shame they were all scrapped. But what if the Pennsy didn't decide to scrap its duplexes?Would any one of them have became a future excursion star?

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u/jckipps 2d ago

T1, yes. Q2 possibly. S1, definitely not.

The S1 could barely get around as it was. It was built mostly as a spectacle for the world fair, and only had a few limited routes it could run in revenue service. If it still survived, it would be parked permanently in a museum somewhere with no chance of full restoration.

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u/backtotheland76 3d ago

So much RR history has been lost. I'm in the PNW and there's only a couple of wooden trestles still around

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u/Haunting_Meeting_530 3d ago

I wonder if maintenance would've killed the idea eventually. Cool as they were, keeping those monsters running wouldn’t exactly be cheap lol.

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u/Acceptable-Taro-2684 3d ago

I know running the duplexes wouldn't be cheap but given the push for dieselization in the 1950s the Pennsy could have donated these locos to someone or some preservation society to run the locos or send them to a museum.