General Pershing Zephyr: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 12:41, 7 April 2010

Revision as of 13:21, 4 August 2010

Line 9:

The power car, 9908 ''Silver Charger'', was unique. It utilised a single new EMC 567 [[V12 engine|V-12]] engine developing 1,000 hp, rather than the pair used in the contemporary [[EMC E3]]. It had one [[Martin Blomberg]]-designed E-unit A1A passenger truck at the front, with powered outer axles and a center idler axle, and an unpowered trailing truck, giving it the unusual [[wheel arrangement]] of A1A-2. The back half of the power car was a baggage area.

The train ran its assigned route until [[World War II|World War 2]] disrupted things in [[1942]], following which the trainset ran many different routes. As 9908 ''Silver Charger'' was really a separate locomotive, it continued in service hauling other trains after the rest of the streamlined trainset was withdrawn. In this form it lasted in service until [[1966]], following which it was donated to the [[Museum of Transportation]] in [[St. Louis, Missouri]].

Traveling between Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri required the ''General Pershing Zephyr'' to operate on tracks owned by the [[Alton Railroad]], officially making them an operating partner. To symbolize this joint administration, the ''General Pershing Zephyr'' often sported an "Alton Burlington" nose herald instead of the standard "Burlington Route" seen on most Burlington locomotives.