Southern Pacific 4-8-4 steam loco (GS-6 Daylight 4460) with passenger train - real world MOC

[Murdoch17]

During the second World War, the US Government controlled the railway locomotive builders, one of which was Lima Locomotive Works. The Southern Pacific railroad submitted a order to this builder for 16 new 4-8-4 steam engines, (known to the railroad as 'Daylights') which was turned down due to them being passenger-only engines. Southern Pacific reworked the blueprints to have little streamlining, and not feature the Daylight's color scheme of orange, red and black. These new dual-mode engines were painted in silver and black, and were also smaller. Lima finally built the order in 1943, but with one condition: Six engines would be taken from the order and given to the power-starved Western Pacific Railroad. Because of their smaller size and the fact they were built during WWII gave these engine the names 'Baby Daylights' and 'War Babies'. Officially, the Southern Pacific engines were called GS-6 and numbered 4460 - 4469. (GS meaning General Service or Golden State, and 6 because they were the sixth batch of engines.) Only one of the GS-6 type survives: 4460, often referred to as the Forgotten Daylight when compared to it's famous surviving GS-4 cousin 4449. This last GS-6 pulled the final steam-hauled SP train in October 1958, before being donated to the Museum of Transportation in St. Louis, Missouri, where it resides today. You can read more about the engine on it's Wikipedia page.

This LEGO steam loco model is the third iteration of this Southern Pacific engine that I've made. It was originally built over a decade ago in eight wide, then was slimmed down a year later in 2016 to 6 wide, and now has been completely torn down and revised to 7 studs wide in 2026, retaining only a scant few ideas from the original MOC. These includes the letters / numbers, streamlined nosecone, and a few other small things - the rest is totally new. As a side note: this engine's original version was the second loco I made from the museum's collection of artifacts, only beaten by the GM Aerotrain MOC from 2014 - nowadays I've got over 30 vehicles made from this location, and I'm starting to run out of things to build that I feel are worthy of inclusion or under-represented in LEGO.

The rear of the engine. The ladder to the tender deck should be on the left and right sides, not the rear as has been constructed. I didn't realize this until it was too late in the design process. (Oh well!)

Baggage / coach. (NOTE: This car and the rest of the train that follows below are not based on any specific Daylight passenger cars. I just built what looked good with the loco. Also, these 6-stud wide passenger cars are based off ones from when the engine was in revenue service - they are not from the Museum of Transportation!)

Two (identical) passenger cars.

The dome car.

And finally, the observation car.

EDIT:

Just for comparison purposes, here is the real-world steam loco, as seen back in 2015.

Thoughts?

Edited March 19 by Murdoch17

[Modeltrainman]

Very cool! I'm surprised you didn't do the streamlining.

[Murdoch17]

21 minutes ago, Modeltrainman said:

Very cool! I'm surprised you didn't do the streamlining.

The real GS-6 type doesn't have much streamlining, and never did - only a skyline casing above the boiler and the nose cone. As I said in my post, the War Production Board wouldn't allow for a streamliner, so they stripped it down a lot on the drawing board from the typical GS look.

See my picture of the real deal @Modeltrainman.

Edited March 19 by Murdoch17

[Modeltrainman]

Ah, OK, that's neat! 

[Shiva]

Nice :)

[Murdoch17]

16 hours ago, Modeltrainman said:

Ah, OK, that's neat! 

Thank you @Modeltrainman! 

15 hours ago, Shiva said:

Nice :)

Thanks @Shiva!