Czech rail records
The fastest steam locomotive
Locomotive 498.106 ČSD, nicknamed Albatross, reached top speed 162 km/h on railway test circuit Velim (August 27, 1964)
Streamliner
The visual styling of the new trainsets made the existing fleets of locomotives and railcars suddenly look old hat. Rail lines soon responded by adding streamlined shrouding and varying degrees of mechanical improvement to older locomotives, and re-styling heavyweight cars. The first American steam locomotive to receive that treatment was one of the New York Central Railroad's J-1 Hudson class locomotives built in 1930, which was re-introduced with streamlined shrouding and dubbed the "Commodore Vanderbilt" in December 1934. New York Central's streamline styling was designed by Henry Dreyfuss, who followed his work on the "Vanderbilt" with full-length exterior and interior design of NYC's "Mercury" trainsets in 1936. 1937 saw bullet-front streamlining introduced by Otto Kuehler on a 4-6-2 locomotive for B&O's "Royal Blue", with a variation of that theme used by Dreyfuss on NYC's new J-3a Hudsons for the "Twentieth Century Limited." While streamlining on steam locomotives was more about marketing than performance, newly designed locomotives with state-of-the-art steam technology became very fast. The Milwaukee Road class A Atlantics, purpose-built to compete with the "Twin Cities Zephyr" in 1935, were the first "steamliners" equipped to back up their styled claim to extra speed. During a run by locomotive #2 with a dynamometer car on May 15, 1935, a top speed of 112.5 mph (181.1 km/h) was recorded. This was the fastest authenticated speed reached by a steam locomotive at the time, making #2 the rail speed record holder for steam and the first steam locomotive to top 110 mph (177 km/h). That record lasted until a German DRG Class 05 locomotive exceeded it the following year. In 1937 Milwaukee introduced the class F7 Hudsons on the "Twin Cities Hiawatha" run, which were known to cruise above and said to exceed on occasion. The Milwaukee Road's speedsters were designed by Otto Kuehler with "shovel nose" styling and for the Class A some details evocative of the "Zephyrs." Streamliner steam locomotives continued to be produced into the early postwar era; among the most distinctive were Pennsylvania Railroad's duplex-drive 6-4-4-6 type S1 and 4-4-4-4 type T1 locomotives styled by Raymond Loewy. In terms of service longevity, the most successful were the Norfolk and Western J1 class locomotives introduced in 1941.