This painting is a fantasy piece that I created in the very early days of my career as a watercolorist, and it is one of my favorites because of the quality of the composition and finished work. It is one of which I am most proud because I accomplished this so early in my career as an artist in the medium of watercolor. The Norfolk and Western Y6B Locomotives were a late development of what were known as Mallet (pronounced Mallay) locomotives. They were created to pull coal trains over a mile long through the Allegheny and Appalachian Mountain ranges. Their design and size were similar to the Chesapeake of the C&O R.R., and the Challenger class locomotive of the Union Pacific. They were what was known as compound articulated locomotives which were designed deliver maximum power and size and still make the hairpin turns of the mountains. The only larger engine was the Union Pacific Big Boy which was used to haul produce from California's San Joaquin Valley across the mountains during WWII. The Y3 Class was the first of the N&W RR Mallets. N&W introduced the Y6B in 1952 and they ran until the railroad terminated steam operations in the early 1960s. Norfolk and Western was the last railroad to stop using steam in the Continental United States and Canada. I love these smoking steam belching behemoths. As a child our family had a cottage in Canada on the south shore of Lake Ste. Claire in the little village of Belle River Ontario. Behind our house was the mainline of the Canadian National and the Wabash RR between Windsor and Toronto and I was privileged to witness the last days of steam power on the North American Continent. As A child I actually heard the steam whistles of the Canadian Pacific RR a mile from my home suddenly rise out of the night soaring over the sound of chirping crickets. In winter in Detroit we had the Norfolk and Western Y6Bs crossing over the John C. Lodge Expressway carrying their loads of coal to the manufacturing plants of Detroit that which powered the economy of the entire Great Lakes Region. It was a sight to behold, with sounds wondrous to the ear of a little boy who would be privileged to grow up to paint these magnificent beasts of burden for the world to remember.