Lateral Motion Devices on Pennsy T1 locomotives

[081552]

I'm reading an old Trains Magazine (11-1959) article about the Pennys T1 engine. "And the T1 was designed with sufficient flexibility because of lateral motion devices on the first and third sets of drivers to negotiate 15-degree curves and 3 percent grades."

 

How did these work? Did any of you see these monsters in service?

 

Thanks 

[feltonhill]

The T1s were equipped with lateral motion devices on axles 1 & 3, IRRC. These allowed a certain amount of "play" from side to side which allowed the long wheel base to negotiate curves easier.  Never saw a T1 run except for videos.  They were before my time.  Have done a lot of research on them (about 12 years worth) and I found they were not as bad as their hearsay reputation would have us believe, nor were they fully successful.  However. there were very few locos that could stay with them over 80 mph and once past 100 they were in a league of their own.  Probably impractical in day-to-day operation because of their complexity, but they had an undeniable appeal to the imagination.  If you want to go really, really fast with most any passenger train, the T1 is the your best choice!!

[selector]

I was fortunate to have purchased perhaps one of the very last of the BLI T1's recently (HO scale), and am becoming somewhat enamoured...well, let's say highly intrigued, by this locomotive.

Would there be a good, reliable, and compact source of information about its development and eventual use that is readily available, maybe even some anecdotal input?  I would be most grateful to have such a thing.

[feltonhill]

Unfortunately, there is no one source that can meet all your criteria. The definitive history has yet to be put into book form. However, there are several sources that can give you as much detail as you want to get into. The following highly biased, personally selected list will be overkill, but there are many different pieces of the puzzle to consider depending on how much you want to learn about the T1. There are many more sources than those listed here, but I figure this is way too much as is!  And a word of caution.  After the 11/59 Trains article, T1 history devolved into anecdotes that were exaggerated, out-of-context, wrong, or had significant extenuating circumstances that were overlooked.  They were interesting locomotives in interesting times.

BEST SINGLE BOOK SOURCES

The two books I recommend below give a good perspective in one volume. However, the T1 story is only a minor part of each book, so you have to buy the whole thing to get the pages you want. Atkins presents the best story, comparing the NYC Niagara with the PRR T1, and only makes one misstep, one that everyone made for 40+ years. It is as unbiased as you'll find. Hirsimaki presents the best perspective of the T1 within the entire PRR saga. He shows the incredible complexity of events that surrounded these locomotives. However, his goals with the book go far beyond just the T1, so the story is a relatively small part of the entire volume.

Atkins, Phillip. Dropping the Fire, Irwell Press (1999), ISBN 1-871608-89-9, pp14-21

Hirsimaki, Eric. Black Gold, Black Diamonds, Volume 1, Mileposts Publishing, 1997

Check any of the book websites (e.g. Amazon...) for these two.

BEST DETAILED SOURCES

The best sources for recent research dedicated entirely to the PRR T1 are the series of articles published in PRRT&HS' magazine, The Keystone, and two articles on the PRR T1 tests on other railroads published by C&OHS and N&WHS. The two authors have amassed a huge file of original source documents. Burnell has interviewed the crews that actually operated the T1's over the road and written en extensive series of article for The Keystone. The other two articles explain two relatively unknown tests that were conducted on C&O in 1946 and N&W in 1948. Large amounts of information survived on each of these tests.

Burnell, Neil. "An Appreciation of the T1 - The Enginemen's Perspective," The Keystone (Autumn 2001, pp 19-59)

Burnell, Neil. "The ‘Slippery' T1," The Keystone (Winter 2001, pp57-62)

Burnell, Neil. Response to 2 letters, The Keystone (Winter 2002, pp11-13)

Burnell, Neil. "A Reassessment of T1 6110 and 6111", The Keystone, Vol 37, No. 1, pp18-39

Burnell, Neil. "The Case for the T1a #5547." The Keystone, Vol.39, No. 3, pp40-52

Stephenson, David R. "Chesapeake & Ohio Tests the PRR T1". C&O History, May 2005

Stephenson, David R. "T vs. J". The Arrow, November/December 2006

The Keystone is published by the PRRT&HS. Back issues are available, but they don't have a very active program. Check their website.

C&O History is published by the C&OHS. Back issues are readily available, see their website. The entire T1 article text is available on findarticles.com if you want a free sample of the level of detail. However, there are no graphics, which makes some of the points hard to follow.

The Arrow is published by N&WHS. Unfortunately, back issues are available only as 1-year sets. This may be changed shortly.

OTHER SOURCES, STILL AVAILABLE

Crosby, John R. "Last Chance," Trains (August 1993), pp 54-56

Lamb, J. Parker. Perfecting the American Steam Locomotive, Indiana University Press, 2003, pp152-160

Lamb, J. Parker. "Supernovas of Steam," Steam Glory, Classic Trains Special Edition No. 2, Fall 2003

Dr. Lamb does an excellent job of putting the T1 development in perspective with the rest of U.S. steam locomotive history. His conclusions are very well thought out and reasonable in both his book and the Classic Trains article. The Crosby piece in Trains is the best first-person story ever written about the T1.

OTHER SOURCES, DIFFICULT TO FIND

The Meyer series is probably the best technical writing on the T1. He led the way in exposing the myths and legends of the T1 through detailed research and original source documents. Unfortunately, back issues of the Milepost are not readily available. Try FRMPA's website.

Meyer, Charlie. "What Derailed the T1," Milepost, Vol. 7, No. 2, Spring 1989, Friends of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania (FRMPA)

Meyer, Charlie. "Tracking the Pittsburgh T1 Derailments," Milepost, Winter/Spring 1990, Friends of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania

Meyer, Charlie. "Poppets on the PRR T1, Part 1 of 2," Milepost, November 1990, Friends of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania

Meyer, Charlie. "Poppets on the PRR T1, Part 2 of 2," Milepost, April 1991, Friends of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania

Meyer, Charlie. "Just How Slippery was The T1?," Milepost, July 1991, Friends of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania

Meyer, Charlie. "So Quickly Gone-What Really Happened to the T1," Milepost, December 1991, Friends of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania

T1 PLANS AND DRAWINGS

Mainline Modeler, (April 1982), pp 46-57.

These are the best plans available bar none

[selector]

Whew!  I feel like I just removed my mouth from over the business end of a fire hose!

Thank-you very much, Feltonhill, for your comprehensive response....much more than I had dared to hope.  I will print it out so that I have it for future reference.

My regards and compliments go out to you.

-Crandell

[Redwards]

I have been working my way through Feltonhill's list as time and budget permits and I haven't been disappointed!  The John Crosby article alone was phenomenal.  I managed to grab a copy of "Back Gold, Black Diamonds" on eBay this week and I've been waiting by the mailbox for it.

Unfortunately I haven't had any luck finding copies of the Charlie Meyer articles yet.  I had contacted the FRMPA and they told me that they don't have issues prior to 1994.

Feltonhill - I know you had mentioned that Charlie Meyer had written an article on the S1, I think it was called "The Big Engine".  I am fascinated by the T1 but am really curious to hear more information on the S1.  I suspect, given the short service life of the locomotive, that the PRR didn't have a good experience with it.  Did the article address any of the speed rumors?

Thanks,

Reed      

 

[Redwards]

Forgot to mention in my last post, this thread on the T1 and other duplexes was great as well:

http://www.trains.com/trccs/forums/713357/ShowPost.aspx

[selector]

Thanks, Reed.  I may have seen it, but I'll have a good look none-the-less.

-Crandell

[Isambard]

I have been working my way through Feltonhill's list as time and budget permits and I haven't been disappointed!  The John Crosby article alone was phenomenal.  I managed to grab a copy of "Back Gold, Black Diamonds" on eBay this week and I've been waiting by the mailbox for it.

Unfortunately I haven't had any luck finding copies of the Charlie Meyer articles yet.  I had contacted the FRMPA and they told me that they don't have issues prior to 1994.

Feltonhill - I know you had mentioned that Charlie Meyer had written an article on the S1, I think it was called "The Big Engine".  I am fascinated by the T1 but am really curious to hear more information on the S1.  I suspect, given the short service life of the locomotive, that the PRR didn't have a good experience with it.  Did the article address any of the speed rumors?

Thanks,

Reed      

 

 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRR_S1 for a summary regarding the S1.

Alfred W. Bruce attributes the S1 being a one-off due to being found to be more powerful than actually needed for scheduled runs. The experimental S1 was built by the PRR in 1938 to designs jointly prepared by an engineering commitee composed of representaives of the PRR and the three large locomotive builders.

[Redwards]

Thanks for posting.  They've toned down that Wikipedia entry a bit as the last time I saw it it referenced that apocryphal story about the ICC timing the S1 at 140mph somewhere on the Fort Wayne Division. 

The extreme length of the locomotive certainly ensured that it was going to be a one off.  This site talks about an incident with the S1 on the wye at Crestline during WW2.  It also has some decent pictures and information on the other duplexes including the T1's:

http://www.crestlineprr.com/duplexexperimentals.html#s1

--Reed

[KCSfan]

I'm reading an old Trains Magazine (11-1959) article about the Pennys T1 engine. "And the T1 was designed with sufficient flexibility because of lateral motion devices on the first and third sets of drivers to negotiate 15-degree curves and 3 percent grades."

 

How did these work? Did any of you see these monsters in service?

 

Thanks 

As a kid in the early 1940's my family would sometimes take Sunday afternoon drives on US 30 which ran along the PRR east of Valpariso, IN. It was common to see passenger trains headed by a pair of K-4's on this speedway but sometimes I'd be lucky enough to see one with a T-1  on the head end. To a kid of 8-10 years old they were truly an awesome sight. I especially liked it when one would overtake us heading the same direction as we were travelling. Dad would be driving about 60 mph but they'd pass us like we were standing still. Sometimes these drives would take us close to the Nickle Plate line and on several occasions I remember seeing one of their beautiful Berk's heading a manifest freight at full speed. I wish I'd had a camera to record these sightings which esist only a a memory in my minds eye.

Mark 

[Redwards]

Man I wish I could jump in the car today and see something like that.  Thanks for posting. 

[feltonhill]

Redwards,

Thanks for posting that Trains link.  There was a lot of good discussion during that rather lengthy thread.  It covered a lot of topics, more than just the T1.

[Redwards]

Bit of a downer way to wind down the thread, but it looks like the roundhouse at Crestline (what's left of it anyway) is being torn down today:

http://www.trains.com/trccs/forums/1071206/ShowPost.aspx 

[Redwards]

Lamb, J. Parker. Perfecting the American Steam Locomotive, Indiana University Press, 2003, pp152-160

Lamb, J. Parker. "Supernovas of Steam," Steam Glory, Classic Trains Special Edition No. 2, Fall 2003

Dr. Lamb does an excellent job of putting the T1 development in perspective with the rest of U.S. steam locomotive history. His conclusions are very well thought out and reasonable in both his book and the Classic Trains article. The Crosby piece in Trains is the best first-person story ever written about the T1.

While searching for a used copy of Steam Glory online, (if anybody has an extra copy that they are willing to sell drop me a line) I noticed that an excerpt of "Supernovas of Steam" by J. Parker Lamb is available online.

Part I (Railway & Locomotive Historical Society Newsletter - Fall 2006)

http://www.rlhs.org/rlhsnews/htms/nl26-4.htm

Part II (Railway & Locomotive Historical Society Newsletter - Winter 2007)

http://www.rlhs.org/rlhsnews/htms/nl27-1.htm

--Reed