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Pennsylvania 6-5000

This was a fantasy scene that I created in around 1985. It was reminiscent of my memory of the freight yards and urban railroad layouts from the Great Lakes to New England. The Brown Cow Restaurant in the lower right was the name of my Grandfather's restaurant on Woodward Ave. and Blaine St. in Detroit. The building is still there and can be seen from street level on Google Earth. I got the idea and title for the painting from the Glenn Miller Big Band song of the same name. I combined these elements and my memories of the great numbers of railroad under passes that were found throughout the city. The model I used for the Locomotive 5000 was my Lionel J- Class Hudson Pacific that was manufactured by Alco Locomotive works in Schenectady, New York. The Hudson-Pacific J-Class was only used on the New York Central and was never used on the Pennsylvania RR. The New York Central was the P.R.R.'s great competitor. The little camel-back switcher No. 6 on the left was an anthracite coal burning engine and was used by the P.R.R. in cities because the use of hard anthracite was preferred in cities because anthracite coal burned so cleanly and helped lessen the pollution from the steam locomotives that burned softer bituminous coal.

9 Comments

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John Cappello 03 Nov 2014

Always Artistically Exquisite compositions !Thought it was a photo.

Maureen Bloesch 09 Jan 2010

I am just dumb struck by your work...so very beautiful. My fav...all your trains (i happen to love trains)

alan webb 29 Oct 2009

Beautifully balanced work

Marika Antal 28 Mar 2009

Wow!! im truly fascinated with your work!!!

Teresa Dominici 16 Mar 2009

Incredible detail work, beautiful done.

Cindy Sugg 10 Feb 2009

I am truly amazed at all the detail...it would drive me crazy to try to do all that...FANTASTIC work Stanton

Reba McDonald 10 Feb 2009

Excellent, Amazing work Stanton.

Claire Wilson 10 Feb 2009

Goodness Gracious - This is extroadinary work - Absolutely Brill!!!!

Julie Mayser 10 Feb 2009

Wow! As always, you give us such a wonderful background on your work! Very interesting text, and you had me looking all over at the various points of interest. It is so amazing that you can just create scenes like this from your imagination/memory! Very intriguing work!

Artist Reply: it was and still is fun doing things occasionally from my imagination. The aspect of this that got really creative with this is that my childhood memories of these scenes was of Detroit which is built on a town and grid layout once you are out of the downtown area. I had little that was interesting from those memories and all of the interest that is created is a result of staging. Wait to you see the Parisian street scene "Jardin Du La Boheme", that is my favorite.