If you are a big time steam freak or someone who is into locomotives and have known about hi-jinx like this for years, forgive us. We never knew that locomotives were drag raced! In this video (which we believe is from Finland) we see three engines that are unencumbered aside from their fuel tenders let loose in a three wide fashion on sets of parallel tracks. The three behemoths actually get their roll on pretty hard and that may be the thing we dug about this video the most.
When you think of a steam train accelerating the obvious place your brain goes is to the slow cadence of chuffing steam that eventually increases until the engine is running down the track. Remember that the laboring and slow accelerating comes largely from the fact that there are hundred or thousands of tons of cars behind the engine in those cases. In this video? Nothing but a coal or wood tender to keep the firebox hot and the steam blazing. We chopped off the early part of the video which was a bunch of yelling in Finnish and trains sitting there. All we have below is the action, now.
These things bring a whole new meaning to the term “rolling coal” because when their throttles are pushed wide open, two out of the three locomotives unleash a near volcanic cloud of soot. We’re not sure if they tore down the train that won looking for nitrous or other illegal power adders but it certainly lays a whoopin’ on the other two. Big smoke, big steam, big torque, and big pressure. Here’s some locomotive drag racing!
