Locomotive aesthetics

I've always been attracted to the Baldwin sharks and "babyfaces". Unique looks about them.

FM Trainmasters are pretty and powerful looking at the same time.

I like the RS-3 for it's "heavy" look, ready to go to work with no frills or doodads.

Side shots of a dirty CNJ 2-8-0 Camelback say the same thing, heavy and lots of power.

Some of my own preferences:

My old standby is the SD80/9043MAC, which I believe to be a popular engine. Among modern power, it's definitely the best. I don't like the more angular nose on the SD90MAC-H II. Interestingly, both GE's and EMD's current products produce the same reaction: nice body, butterface.

Speaking of widenoses, I prefer them without a window in the nose door. And I like the 3-window cab.

Like most people, I also like the GP60M and standard-nose B40-8, among "modern" power. A surprise was finding I liked the standard-nose C40-9.

Going into second-generation power, I find I like the 20-645 EMDs: SD45 but more so the others: F45, FP45, SDP45 (I like the SD80MAC, how can I not like this?), SD45-2. And I suppose the more esoteric "flares": DDA40X, GP40P-2, GP40X, SD45X...

Just as much as those, the big Alcos: C630, C636, M630, M636, M640. Also C430.

Among switchers, the Flexicoil-truck SW1200/1500.

First generation: Yes, there are locomotives better-looking than Alco PAs. FM C-Liners and Erie-Builts. Even among Alcos, I find the FAs more proportionate... favorite is the FPA-4.

FP7/9s look too long, preferred Fs are the first two phases of the F3 as well as the FT. Among Es, however, I prefer the E8/9 over the earlier models except the E2. I guess I have a weakness for portholes.

Best-looking first-gen hoods are Alcos: RS-2/3, RS-11, RSD-7/15. But also the SD7/9 (actually like the SD24 more - good call, tj48).

First-gen EMDs look bad with chopnoses... but worse with original (sloped) low noses.

Favorite first-gen switcher: S-2 (specifically prefer it over the smaller-radiator S-1 and S-3, and prefer Blunt trucks). Or maybe Alco HH-series.

The DL-109 is NOT ugly.

Steam:

NYC S1 Niagara, L3 and L4 Mohawks, J3 Hudson, A2 Berkshire (yes, all of them). Canadian Pacific G3 Pacific (later version), P2 Mikado. SP unstreamlined GSs, AC-9 Yellowstone. NP Z-8 Challenger. South African 25 condenser. East German 01.5 and 18 201. SNCF 232U1. Gresley streamliners. Bulleid Pacifics (yes, seriously). Soviet P36.

Also some tank engines: Boston & Albany 4-6-6T, Great Western pannier tanks, German 86 and 95/Prussian T20, East German 83.10 and narrow gauge 2-10-2Ts, Japanese E10 2-10-4T. Note that most of these aren't 0-x-0s.

The countries with the most consistently attractive steam are Germany and Japan.

Features I like:

Skyline casings, disk drivers (particularly Scullins), Elescos, all-weather cabs, Vanderbilt and centipede tenders. Solid pilots (though I've discovered I don't notice the total lack of pilots on British and European steam).

Dislikes:

Russian Decapods and other such steam with small high boilers. Most 4-x-0s. Horizontally-slatted pilots. Inside-bearings on four-wheel trailing trucks (these hurt some otherwise-perfect European engines, the Norwegian "Dovre Giant" and the DB rebuilt 05). Cabbage stacks. Bell-like or flared domes, and overly high domes in general. Wooten fireboxes, though camelbacks make them acceptable. To a lesser extent, Belpaires. Too-small tenders.

Class-B two-truck Shays over 30 tons, they look "right" and everything is in proportion to itself.

My favorites:

Steam: Milwaukee Road Class F7 4-6-4s, hands down. Pretty much any well-proportioned Pacific or Northern will do, though.

Diesels:
first gen: EMD NW5 or ALCO RS-1, or the Baldwin or Lima twin-engine transfer units.
second gen: M640, U30CG
modern: the NRE gensets and the DE/DM-30

Electrics:
old: most everything, honestly - I'm partial to boxcabs and motors from that age
modern(ish): E60CH, even though they sucked, and the ALP-44A.

For me

I like the look of the older EMD Switchers. THe SW1 is perfectly balanced with the sandbox at the front and large front porch. The NW2 not so much. The SW7/9/900/8/1200 all are sweet looking too.

Geeps- GP30, Gp38-2, anything w/ a high short hood

Adding to what I said about steam:

I generally find 4-4-2s and 2-6-2s proportionate, and lament that they were less popular and lasted less time than boring 4-4-0s, 4-6-0s and 2-8-0s.

Something I can't decide is who had the perfect fleet of big steam: UP or C&O. One clean, the other cluttered. One emphasizing speed, the other true superpower.

Electrics:

Unlike most Americans, I don't like the GG-1. Too deco. My tastes run to older boxcabs, though there are more bad designs than good among them. I favor those with steam-like (1-D-1, 2-C-C-2...) rather than diesel-like (B-B, C-C...) wheel arrangements, and those with large end platforms. Therefore, NYC P-motors and New Haven EP-3s are probably my favorites.

Steeplecabs are pretty much always ugly. Some of the worst aesthetic failures in railroading, though, have to be the Buchli drives on old Swiss electrics.

Yo Triplex. You probably are the only person I have ever heard of that didn't like a GG-1. I used to hang out at the Sunnyside Yards, Queens, NYC where the GG-1's were based in NYC. Got to go on board them, tour them, sit in the Engineer's seat etc. Got to know the fellas pretty well. Would loved to have been able to show you around a GG-1. And it would have blown your mind to "feel" their power. It was once calculated that a GG-1, from a dead start, could accelerate a passenger train to cruising speed really fast, by delivering 10,000 hp. for a short period of time.

Count me as another person who isn't head-over-heels in love with the GG1. I do think they're pretty cool... I'm just not a huge fan of the way they look.

I was stationed in Germany from 1983 to 1987. Deutsche Bundesbahn's 103 class on the point of an Inter City was just fine with me:

All this discussion of looks, more importantly for the people who run them is functionality of the looks.

Nothing beats Spartan Cab EMD's for visibility. And while i too like the looks of many loco's, more then anything i care about visibility while running. And most loco's that people like the looks of are annoying to operate. GE DASH 7 and higher radiator wings kill rearward visibility. As do the SD80/90/43/70 MAC/ACe radiator wings. E and F unit's have terrible visibility right in front. GG1's are the same way.

Function aside, my opinion of the ugliest Locomotive in use today by a major railroad, The GE Genisis line. Totally crude and boxy with virtually no style at all. Even the trucks look nasty and fabricated. I honesly cannot look at one and find ANYTHING about it that looks nice. To me, it was the end of styling on locomotives for Amtrak. Even the AEM7's have more style then they do.

I don't think anyone has mentioned the ALCo six axle Century series. Pictures just don't show how absolutely HUGE these locomotives where for their time. C-628, C-630 and the C-636 with the, before their time, hi-adhesion truck. Form followed function with vents and intakes all over the place, but still followed the proven "Road Switcher" style hoods. To bad there are few still around.

drgw-sd45 wrote:I don't think anyone has mentioned the ALCo six axle Century series.

A few people did mention them, but there's no harm in mentioning them again.

for my money, SW1500's. I think their the best. I like any SW1500 still in Conrail paint, and I also really like New Jersey Transit engine #502 (the last sw1500 on njt's active roster)

Didn't particularly care for them in Ballast Express livery, but a GE C32-8 in clean dress blue was always an attractive locomotive to me. The low curved cab roof and prominent numberboard housing gave them a "mean" appearance - they looked like they could lug, and they could.

http://railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=140512&nseq=10

Indeed, those C32s (and the very similar looking C39s) were "all business" and very serious looking.