prettiest passenger railroad steam-locomotive of all time

Southern Railroad Ps4 #1401 at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

My January 2008 issue of Trains Magazine says the prettiest passenger railroad steam-locomotive of all time was the Southern Railroad Ps4 Pacific (4-6-2).
Well, I don’t know about that, but saying “best (anything) of all time” at the mighty Mezz was a guaranteed way of stopping everything — and I’m sure it will do the same for the almighty Bluster-King.
At the mighty Mezz, all activity would cease as all-and-sundry cocked their heads to hear what I had to say.
As soon as I said it, noisy fevered discussion would break out: “the greatest rock-and-roll song of all time is not ‘Louie-Loueye.’ It’s this or that or this......” —all forgettable stuff from the ‘80s.

Photo by Bud Laws.

New York Central J-3 Hudson #5441.

“Greatest car of all time” prompts a noisy torrent from West Bridgewater. I got loudly criticized for saying the 1953 Studebaker Starliner coupe was the best-styled car of all time.
Turgid muscle-cars of the ‘70s were trotted out — muscle-cars, but plain compared to the 1963 Riviera, or even the most recent Riv, which like the Starliner is a showcar brought to production.
But the Ps4 Pacific? It’s up against the New York Central Hudson (pictured) and even the Pennsy K4 Pacific (also pictured).
The Ps4 had excellent proportions, but so did the others. It’s advantage was that unlike the others it was painted green (see picture at top).
The NYC Hudsons were greyhounds, and were on a railroad where they could boom-and-zoom.

Photo by Bud Laws.

Pennsylvania Railroad K4 #5477. (Except it has the front-end beauty-treatment, which looks STUPID.)

But the K4 could strut its stuff too. And that belpaire-firebox was gorgeous.
Plus it had that gorgeous red keystone number-plate centered on the smokebox door.
I used to thrill when I saw that coming: “look for the red keystone, Bobby.”
The Ps4 was gorgeous too, but it ain’t the belpaire-firebox and the red keystone.
To me the prettiest passenger railroad steam-locomotive of all time is probably the Pennsy K4 Pacific.

The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired almost two years ago. Best job I ever had.

“The almighty Bluster-King” is my all-knowing, blowhard brother-in-Boston, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say.

“West Bridgewater,” MA, south of Boston, is where my brother-in-Boston lives.

“Pennsy” is the Pennsylvania Railroad, no longer in existence. It merged with New York Central Railroad in 1968 as Penn-Central, and that went bankrupt in about two years. “Pennsy” was once the largest railroad in the world. The K4 Pacific was its main steam passenger-locomotive.

“Look for the red keystone, Bobby......” is my father.