| Proud face that made the 4-4-2 wheel arrangement famous. According to one online source - Among the last 4-4-2s to be built, the engine had high drivers and a brightly colored, air-smoothed casing. Although seemingly lightweight, the four oil-fired engines developed over 3,000 cylinder horsepower and kept a 6 1/4 hour schedule over the 408-mile run between Chicago and Minneapolis with 9 cars. Alfred Bruce gives further details about the design: "The Hiawatha engines had their main rods connected to the front axle and were remarkably stable riding." He adds that this quartet were among the first to press a conventionally staybolted boiler to 300 psi. He also notes that the streamlining fairing proved very effective in protecting the crew and the train from wandering livestock. One of the four, traveling at 100 mph, hit a cow and sent it "sailing out over the telephone wires along one side of the right of way." All of the cow's bones were broken, he observes, but the hide was intact. Gene Connelly photo |