A look inside the engineer’s cab of the Reading Railroad Switching Locomotive # 1251. The 1251 is one of nine remaining Reading Company engines. This engine was the last standard-gauge steam locomotive in daily operation on a class one railroad in the US. It was built by Philadelphia & Reading Co. in September 1918 from parts of a I-8 2-8-0 Consolidation and was retired from regular service on Feb. 9, 1963. It last ran on 1966. The 1251 is what is known as a “Tank Engine”, so called because it carries its water supply and fuel on board itself, rather than in an attached rail car called a tender. Such locomotives are often used as switchers in rail yards, and for relatively short runs. If you are familiar with the Children’s book and TV show series “Thomas The Tank Engine”, Thomas is modeled on this type of locomotive. Shot at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg, PA back on 3-29-2009.
For more information on the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, visit their web site at www.rrmuseumpa.org/index.shtml.
I shot this as seven bracketed RAW frames at .7 stop increments and then combined them into an HDR with Photomatix Pro and finally, tone mapped that image.
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