14"x19" original painting, mixed media, matted and framed. Signed lower right. 1987. The "Black Beauty" of the streamlined era was the "Shoreliner" as it pulled the "Merchant's Limited" through the Connecticut and Massachusetts countryside.

Ten Shoreliners were built in 1937 to replace an aging fleet of 1916 vintage steam engines that were having problems pulling trains of more than thirteen cars. The Shoreliners handled sixteen cars with ease at speeds above eighty miles per hour.

Besides the "Merchant's Limited," the New Haven Railroad also needed power for the "Baystate Limited" and the "Yankee Clipper." Each of the limited covered the distance between New Haven and Boston, a distance of 156.8 miles, in three hours and fifteen minutes for the heavier trains.

The I-5 Shoreliners averaged as many as 124,000 per year during the war years. With seventy-seven trains of thirteen cars, the New Haven depended greatly on the Shoreliners for their performance.

The last five Shoreliners were retired in the early months of 1951.

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