FAST FREIGHT, SIXTY YEARS AGO.

Union Pacific called attention to the performance of contemporary freight diesel locomotives with a visual.

Once upon a time, 4,410 cylinder horsepower looked like this moving freight at those speeds.

Philip R. Hastings, "All the implications of the Book of Revelations," Shelby, Ohio.

In the mid-1950s Trains editor David P. Morgan and photographer Philip R. Hastings documented the end of steam on the trunk line railroads in a series, "Steam in Indian Summer."  In many cases a transitory increase in traffic had the railroads dusting off or delaying the retirement of their steam locomotives rather than wait for the delivery of diesels, let alone issuing rush purchases for diesels whose permanent employ could not be assured once the surge passed.

Here, a New York Central L2 is making that 70 mph with dead freight behind.  The title of that month's article was "The Mohawk That Refused to Abdicate" on the basis of the illustrated performance, and a subsequent anthology of the "Indian Summer" stories sold under that title.  There's still at least one Mohawk in preservation, albeit not the star of the Shelby story.