jwhitten selector: Bipod, or maybe "Hominem?" Funny you should say that. Hominem was my great uncle Edward's last name.... true story... One day he was out riding his bipod when a group of youngsters pushed him over. It was a totally unwarranted Ed Hominem attack. John
selector: Bipod, or maybe "Hominem?"
Bipod, or maybe "Hominem?"
Funny you should say that. Hominem was my great uncle Edward's last name.... true story... One day he was out riding his bipod when a group of youngsters pushed him over. It was a totally unwarranted Ed Hominem attack.
John
Is there a smiley for 'groan'?
[quote user="BigJim"]
doctorwayne: Any votes for the Octopods? This would clean up all that mess created by 0-8-0s, 0-8-2s, 4-8-0s, Consolidations, Mikados, Mountains, Berkshires, and Northerns.
Any votes for the Octopods?
This would clean up all that mess created by 0-8-0s, 0-8-2s, 4-8-0s, Consolidations, Mikados, Mountains, Berkshires, and Northerns.
Yeah, that's the ticket!
And the six drivered are the Insectopods!
See what I mean. Just leave well enough alone.
No six would be a Sexopod
Rgds IGN
selector Bipod, or maybe "Hominem?"
Juniatha For a sounding book title, what about “From Decapod to Texas – the age of steam’s heavy haulers” Now, you could say “Wait a minute, weren’t articulateds steam heavy haulers par excellence?” Sure, they were. So, I specify: “From Decapod to Texas Type – steam’s two cylinder heavy haulers” Again, you could argue: “That forgets all about the three cylinder 4‑10‑2s!” And wasn’t there a strange 2‑4‑6‑2 on the French PLM, series 151.A, with four outsides cylinders and inner coupling rods, i e neither straight 10-coupled nor Duplex ..*g* So, it’s your turn, gentlemen, your proposals, please!
For a sounding book title, what about “From Decapod to Texas – the age of steam’s heavy haulers” Now, you could say “Wait a minute, weren’t articulateds steam heavy haulers par excellence?” Sure, they were. So, I specify: “From Decapod to Texas Type – steam’s two cylinder heavy haulers” Again, you could argue: “That forgets all about the three cylinder 4‑10‑2s!” And wasn’t there a strange 2‑4‑6‑2 on the French PLM, series 151.A, with four outsides cylinders and inner coupling rods, i e neither straight 10-coupled nor Duplex ..*g* So, it’s your turn, gentlemen, your proposals, please!
For a sounding book title, what about
“From Decapod to Texas – the age of steam’s heavy haulers”
Now, you could say “Wait a minute, weren’t articulateds steam heavy haulers par excellence?” Sure, they were. So, I specify:
“From Decapod to Texas Type – steam’s two cylinder heavy haulers”
Again, you could argue: “That forgets all about the three cylinder 4‑10‑2s!” And wasn’t there a strange 2‑4‑6‑2 on the French PLM, series 151.A, with four outsides cylinders and inner coupling rods, i e neither straight 10-coupled nor Duplex ..*g*
So, it’s your turn, gentlemen, your proposals, please!
I think a better title for the book might have been "Decopage"
Juniatha Yet, while we speak of it - what about a book on "The Niagaras of the Union Pacific" "??" Why, I mean the 4-8-4s, the 4-6-6-4s and the 4-8-8-4s, beefy FEFI, Chillinger and Big Brother … Ok-ok, I say no-more –
Yet, while we speak of it - what about a book on
"The Niagaras of the Union Pacific"
"??"
Why, I mean the 4-8-4s, the 4-6-6-4s and the 4-8-8-4s,
beefy FEFI, Chillinger and Big Brother …
Ok-ok, I say no-more –
Your attempt at an argument might have some merit if Niagara were an old Indian word meaning "eight-footed". The reason that describing locomotives with ten drive wheels as "Decapods" has validity (at least as a metaphor) is because "decapod" means "ten-footed."
Juniatha Oh, by the way: the ‘+’ is generally used for Garratts as in 2-6-2 + 2-6-2 or 4-8-2 + 2-8-4 etc, - could also be used for electrics like Milwaukees 4-6-2 + 2-6-4 - (for clarity I use blanks between wheel sets) and also for articulateds where not just the frames are divided but the whole vehicle is sectioned like in the old Santa Fe hinged boiler trial engines as in 4-4+6-2 or 2-10+10-2 (without blanks for a difference to Garratts) or in modern fixed combination electrics as in the Norwegian ore carrying railway's extra powerful Co-Co+Co-Co also written as CoCo+CoCo
Oh, by the way: the ‘+’ is generally used for Garratts as in
2-6-2 + 2-6-2 or 4-8-2 + 2-8-4 etc,
- could also be used for electrics like Milwaukees 4-6-2 + 2-6-4 -
(for clarity I use blanks between wheel sets)
and also for articulateds where not just the frames are divided but
the whole vehicle is sectioned like in the old Santa Fe hinged boiler
trial engines as in 4-4+6-2 or 2-10+10-2
(without blanks for a difference to Garratts)
or in modern fixed combination electrics as in the Norwegian ore
carrying railway's extra powerful
Co-Co+Co-Co also written as CoCo+CoCo
The whole point of bringing up the use of the "+" in Whyte classification (as used by Le Messena) was to illustrate that Le Messena's influence, or more precisely, the lack of it. It is unlikely to cause the historical confusion as feared by some of the other posters here. I don't think it rises to that level.
Incidentally, Alfred W. Bruce, erstwhile Vice-President in Charge of Engineering, and Director of Steam Locomotive Engineering for the American Locomotive Company, didn't use dashes between the numbers. He wrote the type whose name is under consideration "2100". He did describe two truck diesel electrics and electrics as "040-040" and "060-060." See his book:
Alfred W. Bruce, The Steam Locomotive in America: Its Development in the Twentieth Century, New York: Bonanza Books, 1952.
Dan
Maybe the fact we can exchange ideas on this subject in a forum conversation is but an indication of our relative well being in an increasingly complex world where in many regions people are struggling for the very basics of life, even. So, I think, while it’s an interesting subject concerning steam’s tech-history, we will rather keep quite a relaxed approach and with a twinkle of an eye may take it as jet another example of how different people tend to see things from different angles, leading them to take differing points of view.
Henry VI:
Dunno who first had come up with the ‘plus’ symbol. It has just come to stand for combining two vehicle units in one articulated locomotive.
The way I see it: if you take a look at one of the units chassis of a Garratt, complete with a frame of its own, set of drive wheels, cylinders, rods and with leading and trailing radial axles then you could – theoretically – imagine to put a fitting boiler onto this chassis, mount a cab and tanks for water and fuel: there you are with an independent locomotive! So, you could consider a Garratt to be really composed of two fairly complete steam loco chassis, combined by a bridge frame with a common boiler.
BTW: two throttles: that is an idea I also had myself, if for any locomotive with two drive units, be it Duplex or Mallet or other, but I don’t know of any realization. It might as much have helped with the Pennsy T-1 in a technical sense as it might have added up to personal feeling of strenuous handling for drivers compared with a K-4s.
More evidently so, in the case of double-unit electrics there are two vehicles permanently coupled that could work on their own (at least if each puts up its own pantograph) which makes ‘plus’ really stand for the idea of ‘unit-plus-unit’. Clearly, this was the idea EMD started with: one driver in a cab unit reinforced by booster units as you please to make up
A+B+B+A or any other combinations.
Articulateds such as the Triplex, if you boil down to it, were a combination of Mallet plus Tender drive – so you get:
2-8-8+8-2 as for example in the three eerie ERIE engines ;-)
Sure, the classic steam wheel arrangement indication system would reach its limits if extended to describe some of the more – er-hm – outlandish proposals of ‘super-tractive-effort’ steam that have been put forward by some people in post-steam times, if you pardon my rather cloudy term for this era. Repeatedly there have been dreams – or nightmares, depending on your point of view – of Mallet-Garratt aggregations that would raise questions – besides more serious technical points – as how to classify a
(2’C)D1’ + 1’D(C2’) or in case of a Duplex-Mallet-Garratt maybe something like a
(2’BC)CB2’ + 2’BC(CB2’) or any other (im-)possible abstonohype conclusterizations.
However, opening this door would lead into theoretical fields detached of the burdens of practical life – or in other words: it’s a topic to be ventilated or philosophized upon in the still of the small hours, in focussed beyondness embracing the warm subdued desk lights inside the comfortable drawing room car of an LTD riding the high iron behind a mighty Northern incessantly storming through the dead of night, steaming westwards bound …
Regards
= J =
Is it possible that Mr. LeMassena's writings have evolved to a ( spin doctor) ?? I wonder if any of Don Ball Jr's fans would have to say about this . It seems that someone is always trying to change the past to suit themselves. It it hard to improve an anvil , isn't it .
Jim
Y6bs evergreen in my mind
The "+" for the Garrats was that it indicated a wholly seperate engine working from steam from a common boiler (but not acommon throttle?).
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No problem,
AltonFan,
I was never intending to question a venerable author
(I have read some of his articles)
only I thought the book title was less then fully happy.
------------------
Edit: several additions and revisions made
Juniatha Question is: what should be gained by such a re-definition? Not much, I think. On the other hand, a lot is lost: clarity, specific definition. Someone asks: "Say, could a Decapod have taken this much of a load and still run 50 mph?" Answer, according to the 'new' 'definition': "Hell, no! Decapods were slow luggers, you'd need a Decapod or better a Decapod to do that!" So, where's the use in using a useful name in that way? Needless to say it would be useless. So, I join the votes for keeping historical wording straight!
Question is: what should be gained by such a re-definition? Not much, I think. On the other hand, a lot is lost: clarity, specific definition. Someone asks: "Say, could a Decapod have taken this much of a load and still run 50 mph?" Answer, according to the 'new' 'definition': "Hell, no! Decapods were slow luggers, you'd need a Decapod or better a Decapod to do that!" So, where's the use in using a useful name in that way? Needless to say it would be useless.
So, I join the votes for keeping historical wording straight!
Again, I don't think Le Messena's use of the word "Decapod" in a title for a book amounts to "re-definition" in any meaningful way. This book is not going to have any influence outside of the railfan community, and serious railfans and students of steam are going to probably be aware that, strictly speaking, the name decapod applies only to the 2-10-0.
Some years ago, Le Messena found an ally in David P. Morgan in describing articulated engines as, for example, 4-8+8-4, and the Pennsylvania Railroad's first duplex engines as 4-4=4-4s. Today, the only place one is likely to find Le Messena's notations are in his own writings, and the engines I cited are now being described as 4-8-8-4 and 4-4-4-4. If Le Messena, with the assistance of the legendary editor of the most important magazine for North American rail enthusiasts, could not induce the hobby to change how it writes Whyte Classification, I doubt a single specialist study could effect the names of the wheel arrangements.
And given that steam locomotives are no longer in regular use, I don't think there is any danger to life, limb, property, or prestige by using "Decapod" to describe all ten-coupled engines, in the limited context in which it is being used.
Article at link was published on April 11, 2007, when Mr. LeMassena was 93.
http://www.gocolorado.com/Content/Article/70/Bob-LeMassena-Letting-Off-Steam-at-Railroad-Museum.aspx#
Another article, published in August 2007, no longer available on the web but the intro remembered by Google, said he was 94. I guess he was born in the spring or summer of 1913.
75 years ago, he wrote this item for The Model Railroader...
The 1936 edition of the New York Society of Model Engineers Exhibition was a huge success, to your correspondent's way of thinking. The lure of model railroading and models of boats and engines was sufficient to insure capacity crowds every day of the two weeks duration of the show.
Instead of "standing room only" the sign read "elbow room only". There were 16 commercial exhibitors, and from the looks of things business was definitely good.
As I understand it, each one of the names is representing a clearly defined wheel arrangement, sometimes they do so better than the cypher-dash-cypher-dash-cypher formulae because of established comprehensive understanding of their meaning. For instance definition of a 'Challenger' comprises a front unit articulated by concept based on the Mallet principle. This is not strictly included in the 4‑6‑6‑4 formulae. Luckily there never were similar w/a in both Mallet and Duplex configuration or else there would have been a conflict, which by the UIC classification does not exist. Counting axles rather than wheels on the hardly questionable recognition that in railroad engines an axle rarely comes with less than two wheels, the Challenger would be classified as a (2'C)C2' - with numbers for idling axles, capital letters for driven axles, (brackets) for articulated part of w/a, apostrophe for radial axles, delta trucks or bogies. Interestingly, the 2‑10‑0 becomes just 1'E, instead of 1'E0, omitting the obvious question whether a non-existing axle would be radially adjusting or not. In case of now widening the representative meaning of one of these names to stand for a whole bunch of w/a but loosely connected by historic development the logic concept would be broken and this would leave to conjecture meanings of other names, too. Question is: what should be gained by such a re-definition? Not much, I think. On the other hand, a lot is lost: clarity, specific definition. Someone asks: "Say, could a Decapod have taken this much of a load and still run 50 mph?" Answer, according to the 'new' 'definition': "Hell, no! Decapods were slow luggers, you'd need a Decapod or better a Decapod to do that!" So, where's the use in using a useful name in that way? Needless to say it would be useless. So, I join the votes for keeping historical wording straight! For a sounding book title, what about “From Decapod to Texas – the age of steam’s heavy haulers” Now, you could say “Wait a minute, weren’t articulateds steam heavy haulers par excellence?” Sure, they were. So, I specify: “From Decapod to Texas Type – steam’s two cylinder heavy haulers” Again, you could argue: “That forgets all about the three cylinder 4‑10‑2s!” And wasn’t there a strange 2‑4‑6‑2 on the French PLM, series 151.A, with four outsides cylinders and inner coupling rods, i e neither straight 10-coupled nor Duplex ..*g* So, it’s your turn, gentlemen, your proposals, please! By the way, what 'wheel arrangement' so to speak would be our own? perhaps 2‑2‑0, obviously to be named 'Humanic', if those running on all their four legs would be 0‑4‑0s, likely to be called 'Animalic'? But then again: which way to classify kangaroos, leave alone T-Rex? Hu..e-hm? Absurd – or, not quite so ..? Regards Juniatha editing: short cut fixed in subject line Feb 24th
As I understand it, each one of the names is representing a clearly defined wheel arrangement, sometimes they do so better than the cypher-dash-cypher-dash-cypher formulae because of established comprehensive understanding of their meaning. For instance definition of a 'Challenger' comprises a front unit articulated by concept based on the Mallet principle. This is not strictly included in the 4‑6‑6‑4 formulae. Luckily there never were similar w/a in both Mallet and Duplex configuration or else there would have been a conflict, which by the UIC classification does not exist. Counting axles rather than wheels on the hardly questionable recognition that in railroad engines an axle rarely comes with less than two wheels, the Challenger would be classified as a (2'C)C2' - with numbers for idling axles, capital letters for driven axles, (brackets) for articulated part of w/a, apostrophe for radial axles, delta trucks or bogies. Interestingly, the 2‑10‑0 becomes just 1'E, instead of 1'E0, omitting the obvious question whether a non-existing axle would be radially adjusting or not.
In case of now widening the representative meaning of one of these names to stand for a whole bunch of w/a but loosely connected by historic development the logic concept would be broken and this would leave to conjecture meanings of other names, too.
By the way, what 'wheel arrangement' so to speak would be our own? perhaps 2‑2‑0, obviously to be named 'Humanic', if those running on all their four legs would be 0‑4‑0s, likely to be called 'Animalic'? But then again: which way to classify kangaroos, leave alone T-Rex? Hu..e-hm? Absurd – or, not quite so ..?
Juniatha
editing: short cut fixed in subject line Feb 24th
BigJim And the six drivered are the Insectopods!
The next thing you know, the diesels will get lumped in with the steam, too: Baldwin made the Centipede and there are all those Davenport, Plymouth, etc. "critters".
Wayne
doctorwayne Any votes for the Octopods? This would clean up all that mess created by 0-8-0s, 0-8-2s, 4-8-0s, Consolidations, Mikados, Mountains, Berkshires, and Northerns.
Maybe he didn't have enough info on the real decapods alone and needed something else to fill the pages.
.
Maybe we should just start all over and re-name all of them.
This brings to mind the furor not too long ago about whether Pluto should be called a planet.
_____________
"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
But Atlantics have only four drive wheels, and consolidations have eight drive wheels. Not all wheels under a steam locomotive are created equal.
There is a direct line of development from the decapod to the 2-10-2. The first Santa Fe types were decapods fitted with trailing trucks to facilitate backing moves of helpers on the Raton Pass.
OTOH, the Texas type really owes more to the Berkshire than to the Decapod.
Atlantics and Consolidations each have ten wheels, but neither comes to mind when you hear the term "ten wheel."
Which misappropriates a specific name for a wheel arrangement for the purpose of selling books?Decapod=2-10-0 in the locomotive world, nothing else. This book was published by a museum. Historical accuracy comes first, buzzy-sounding titles a distant second, IMO.
selector In that case, I would have expected him to use the more conventional, "ten-coupled." Crandell
In that case, I would have expected him to use the more conventional, "ten-coupled."
Crandell
But which sings?
The Age of the Ten-Coupled Steam Locomotives
The Age of the Decapods
I know LaMassena has put out some controversial stuff, and his modification of the Whyte Classification was doesn't enjoy much acceptance, but I don't see the problem with LaMessena using the word "decapod" for the title of a survey of the ten-drive-wheel equipped locomotives. After all, the word "decapod" does mean "ten footed".
And it's not as if the title of this book is going to cause any real confusion in any situation where correct nomenclature will really matter.
Having victimized myself and my readers once or twice using uncommon terms and then attempting to justify their use, or worse, assuming with no further explanation that my readers would just shrug and accept it, this is an example of success and hubris taking their toll in unintended ways. People who develop a following begin to take shortcuts of a kind that make others have to work much harder to believe them and to receive new information or analyses with an open mind.
I haven't read it yet, but it would be a typical example of what I mean above...the use of quotes and an attempt to universalize terminolog, often in an attempt to solidify one's fan base.
A person ought to be careful to cultivate loyalty and not to offend sensibilities in his readership, devoted and potentially so. On the subject of steam locomotives, which is largley 'closed history'', tinkering with long-held and common names and concepts is a dangerous path to tread.
There was little or no reaction to the 1968 article. No arguing at all, as I recall.
After reading all of the references on these and other forums, I zeroed in on LeMassena's "Big Engines" and "Was there every a Super 4-8-4" articles when I received the 70 years of Trains DVD last month. I'm realizing now that I should probably take a look at the letters sections in subsequent issues to see how much controversy they caused at the time they were published.
--Reed
The book review on page 87 certainly caught my attention. Novel concept and the use of quotes around the word "decapod"? I don't whether those were raised eyebrows or not. But just think, you only have to learn one name for at least five other wheel arrangements (Union, Decapod, Santa Fe, Texas, Mastodon). Most of his books (and I have a lot of them) are incredible compilations of information, and reflect a great deal of work. Why does he have to go over the top with this sort of thing?
In the past 20 years or so it seems that Mr. LeMassena has associated himself with unusual viewpoints, contrived controversy and marketing. That's a far cry from Stagner, Middleton, Shaughnessy and many others who appeared in Trains over the past 70 years. They put history and accuracy first and foremost. They didn't seem to have any need to tinker with the facts.
Sorry if this seems grumpy, but I believe that all published authors, particularly those of significant reputation, have a responsibility to set the record straight, including the use of established nomenclature. I'm sure the content of the book is monumental, and it's highly likely I'll buy it at the next train show here. But I still have to wonder why this sort of extrapolation is necessary. I'm really dismayed by the title.
A blurb on page 87 of the spring issue states that Robert LeMassena in his new book wants to now group all ten-drivered steam locomotives under the "Decapod" name. Can't this guy just leave history alone?
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