Overmod
The Cincinnatian, and Olive Dennis's work, were of course postwar and couldn't possibly have any influence on this.
I would have to wonder if some version of Kuhler's original styling for 5304, or an adaptation of his design for the stillborn W-1, might have been the treatment for Lady Baltimore. If there is any collection of Kuhler's railroad work, there might be drafts in there.
I suspect the streamlining would be more akin to the Milwaukee As than the E4bs, as the As were of comparable size to the Lady. It's interesting that they were given the 'English look' a la Loree instead of full streamlining.
You have to remember that B&O No 1 preceded both 5304 and the heavyweight Royal Blue for which it was modified. It was more or less contempoary with the Milwaukee Atlantics, but it is vey unlikely that it would have resembled them.
On No 1 as released, it is clear that the streamlining involved a skyline casing (check the sand dome and the steam turret cover). The deeper valance on the running board above the cylinders suggests that a flat casing might have been applied over the running gear.
In 1934 the Chief Commissioner of the Victorian Railways, Harold Clapp, visited the USA. He visited the Milwaukee, the B&O and the ACF plant at St Charles Missouri where the lightweight "Abraham Lincoln" and "Royal Blue" were still under construction. Clapp's father was American and Harold had been educated in the USA and he managed to extract the full drawings of the B&O trains from ACF and the drawings of the J-1 from the B&O. In his report to the Victorian Government (who owned and operated the Victorian Railways), he described in detail his intention to build a train based on the ACF drawings and he described the J-1 and in particular its trailing truck booster which was geared to higher speeds than freight boosters (and was described as an "accelerating booster").
By 1937 Clapp had built his train and proceeded to streamline four existing "Pacific" locomotives. The new tenders, required for a 400 mile non stop journey looked very like the tender on the J-1, in that it matched the profile of the train.
The VR locomotives had a very rectangular skyline casing, much like the turret covers on the J-1 and V-2. Since Clapp presumably had the drawings of the J-1 as streamlined, and he copied many details from the American trains, it is possible that the J-1 would have looked like this:
(adjusted for the different locomotive dimensions and different clearances...)
Certainly, the two ACF trains for B&O had a "lunch counter" as well as a diner and observation lounge. The VR built one of these immediately they received the plans.
and scroll down to "Buffet Car Taggerty" and particularly the interior view.
All of the steel cars in that section (apart from the earlier "Avoca" and "Hopkins") were built using the ACF drawings, and had the distinctive flattened roof seen on the two B&O trains. The VR trains were built from "Corten" steel. I believe the "Abraham Lincoln" was Corten and the "Royal Blue" aluminium.
Certainly photographs of the observation saloon interior in the B&O and VR trains were difficult to tell apart.
Peter
