Beautiful Helen (Unique PM36 fast steam class locomotive)

[SHADOW-XIII]

Hello to all steam train fans.
I was thinking to leave it for competition or something but hell with that - I took those photos last summer, that's long enough.
I'm going to give you today something special: very unique locomotive fast steam locomotive built in Poland.

The design of PM36 was ready in 1936 and the following year the first two prototypes were built. One of them (Pm36-1) had aerodynamic fairing designed by aerospace scientists from the Warsaw University of Technology, the other had a standard look. The idea was to test both engines in parallel to compare top speed, acceleration, coal and water consumption etc. The Pm36-1 won a gold medal at the International Exposition of Art and Technology in 1937.

Pm36-1 was damaged and later scrapped during World War II (probably in 1942), but Pm36-2 survived and worked for PKP until 1965, when it was given to the Warsaw Railway Museum. During wartime, the machine bore the German State Railways’ number 18 602.

Nowadays, since its restoration in 1995, PM36-2 is working as a tourist attraction in Wolsztyn being called Beautiful Helen (in polish Piękna Helena).

However very rarely you can see it outiside on normal tracks, as I was able to take some photos of it.

Text from Wikipedia

[SHADOW-XIII]

and some more photos

[SHADOW-XIII]

and the last of its' livery

so ... anybody keen on drawing and coding this baby in TTD

[Dave]

For a minute I thought you were talking about Brianetta's girl

[imaginner]

Very beautiful indeed
Hey, SHADOW-XIII, how come you took those photos? were you on some holidays in Poland?
It's a real rarity to see Piękna Helena on tracks and running normally she's indoors in the museum
Cheers from PL!

[Railwaymodeler]

Those look like Thunderbox coaches. I scratchbuilt some for HO scale some years ago.

Beautiful old train, nice to see a preserved set like this.

Here in the US, whole preserved passenger trains are something of a rarity. Usually when they take coach trains out with steam, you'll see all sorts of roadnames on the coaches.

[SHADOW-XIII]

Very beautiful indeed
Hey, SHADOW-XIII, how come you took those photos? were you on some holidays in Poland?
It's a real rarity to see Piękna Helena on tracks and running normally she's indoors in the museum
Cheers from PL!

Well I went to holiday at Gdynia, I was waiting couple hours for my train and I notice that beautiful train, so I took some shots. I have no idea what it was doing there, I suppose it was one-time tourist event.

@Railwaymodeler: this PM36 is also a rarity: the last (of two) left in the whole world, very unique

[Johnny B Goode]

Hello to all steam train fans.
I was thinking to leave it for competition or something but hell with that - I took those photos last summer, that's long enough.
I'm going to give you today something special: very unique locomotive fast steam locomotive built in Poland.

Nowadays, since its restoration in 1995, PM36-2 is working as a tourist attraction in Wolsztyn being called Beautiful Helen (in polish Piękna Helena).

Wolsztyn? Lucky you, man. (Especially to see it running) And that is definitely a beauty.

[MeusH]

She's so big, especially the wheels Lucky you