M10000 Debut

[BaltACD]

[wanswheel]

I have a photo of my father standing next to the M-10000 in Chicago in 1934. He was a student at Notre Dame then, so probably came in on NYC, or South Shore.

[wanswheel]

https://archive.org/stream/meccano-magazine-1935-04/mm193504#page/n31/mode/2up

https://archive.org/stream/meccano-magazine-1938-03/mm193803#page/n45/mode/2up

[M636C]

I was impressed by the interviews with Averell Harriman in the M-10000 video. None of the histories I've read suggested that the first two streamliners were basically just prototypes intended to test the concept, but that's what Harriman said, about both trains, quite clearly. That explains to some extent the complete rebuild of the M-10001 power car - as built it wasn't enough.

As an antipodean I first heard of Averell Harriman as the man who negotiated the peace treaty with North Vietnam. Clearly he was a very smart guy in the mid 1930s and was still one of the best in the mid 1970s...

Peter

[wanswheel]

Harriman at Yalta, second from the right, standing behind Stalin.

 https://www.gettyimages.com/license/613506824

[Overmod]

Something to be remembered here is that the idea of the motor train as an upgraded doodlebug crosses over with the growing idea of very fast trains on existing track.

Perhaps some proof of this is the extensive revision of the early UP motor-train truck designs as documented ... without, I must say ruefully, an informed engineering discussion of the reasons for no few of the changes ... in the Kratville book on the Streamliners.

The early Budd trains were all essentially fancy motorcar trains; the one on T&P had waaaaaay too much weight on the lead truck and those silly self-steering Michelin bogies as an 'excuse' not to fix low-rent jointed track... low joints and associated line and surface deficiencies spelling death to early-'30s carcass construction...

[M636C]

The history of M10001 shows the transition pretty clearly.

It started out with a 900HP V-12 and was rebuilt almost immediately with a 1200HP V-16, as the reality of rolling resistance and the minimum size of train dawned on the operator.

M10002 was the first of the articulated two unit power sets and added M10001's old V-12 to a V-16 to provide a real transcontinental train, if still rather tubular. Otto Perry has a photo of M-10002 running with a 1200HP booster from the M10004 series. This might have been an early trial before the bigger trains appeared. Of course the M10004 series became triples after E units appeared to haul even bigger trains.

But it emphasises W.A. harriman's statement about the trains being prototypes for further development, an attitude that seemed to get lost in the PR hype reproduced (quite faithfully) in Kratville's "Streamliners" (which I wouldn't do without once I saw it, to be fair).

Peter

[wanswheel]

https://mirc.sc.edu/islandora/object/usc%3A45289

[SD70Dude]

Talk about rare mileage!  Thanks again for posting!

[BaltACD]

wanswheel

https://mirc.sc.edu/islandora/object/usc%3A45289

Makes one wonder if the tracks are still there or were the removed when the lake was allowed to fill the valley.  Secondly, with the drought conditions that now exist in the area, Is track level still 700 feet below the surface of the lake?

[Overmod]

This is part of the track structure at Lomix, the concrete mixing facility that provided aggregate for the lower 2/3 of the dam.  To my knowledge the trestle structures seen in the picture were removed (and Six Companies scrapped them)

There are interesting online historical discussions about the portions of Lomix and the aggregate classification plant that survive 'under the water'.  The latter, in particular, was carefully documented because the diversion project for Las Vegas treated sewage runs across its site and construction will damage some of the 'historic fabric' there.