http://www.canadasouthern.com/caso/search/search.php?zoom_sort=0&zoom_query=commodore+vanderbilt&zoom_per_page=20&zoom_and=0&zoom_cat%5B%5D=0
Not quite...as grand!
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
It's charming Penny. Captures the essence.
Hold on! you guys already forgot streamlined train like these? :
http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/LOCOLOCO/bec/bec.htm
Anyway, Miningman was right that if there wasn't the UP M-10000 and CB&Q Zephyr, streamlining of the steam engine (Steam Engine Streamlining?) might have not become an important thing in the railroading industry.
I think there is not a single doubt that Henry Dreyfuss benefited the most by the streamlining movement and NYCentral's good taste and the opportunity they given to him. The streamlining of Empire State Express and the 20th Century Limited were timeless, iconic and having an unreplaceable status in the industrial design world.
Raymond Loewy achieved more outside the railroading world, not many works of him in the railroading industry is still being remembered by the general public. But this doesn't change the fact that his works in railroading are fascinating, just probably not as popular at the time.
1938-1945.....
Jones 3D Modeling Club https://www.youtube.com/Jones3DModelingClub
Rexall Drug store as seen along Grand Central Station
Note locomotive on headstone. Very nice nice tribute and remembrance.
Staufer said this design was evaluated and tested at the Case School of Science in Cleveland; it seems strange that Mr. Kantola didn't refer to this at all in his recollections. Who (Penny, perhaps?) knows this part of the story?
Explain THESE ... if you can!
The things you find when you actually use Google...
https://case.edu/ech/articles/z/zapf-norman-f
Now to see if I can find a link to the actual thesis... stand by
ZAPF, NORMAN F. (14 July 1911-23 June 1974), a mechanical engineer whose research in streamlining led to the design and construction of streamlined locomotives, was born in Cleveland to Herman R. and Mabel (McNess) Zapf. He entered Case School of Applied Science, studying aerodynamics under Dr. Paul Hemke. As an undergraduate, Zapf used the recirculating-type wind tunnel at Case and scale models of steam locomotives to achieve a practical streamlined design that reduced drag 90-100%. At 75 mph, his version required 350 hp less than the unstreamlined form. The findings were part of his senior thesis, "The Streamlining of a Steam Locomotive." He graduated in 1934 with a B.S. degree in mechanical engineering and took a job with New York Central Lines, but eventually resigned when he failed to procure an engineering position. He returned to Case as a graduate student but soon left to work for a Boston firm that produced hardware for locomotives. In the 1930s, railroads were searching for ways to improve their image while reducing costs in view of competition from airplanes and automobiles. New streamlined diesel-electric locomotives were introduced, but most railroads already had enormous investments in their steam locomotives. Conclusions from Zapf's thesis were used by New York Central Lines in the design for their Commodore Vanderbilt, the company's first streamlined steam locomotive. Zapf served in the Coast Guard during World War II and afterward moved to Florida, where he and his family developed Zapf Groves, Inc.
Zapf married Mildred Anderson in 1935; they had four children: Frederick, Douglas S., Shirley, and Laura. He died in Vero Beach, Florida and was buried there.
OvermodWho (Penny, perhaps?) knows this part of the story?
I've never seen the low speed wind tunnel at Case Western Reserve University but I have been inside the one at Glenn Research Center:
Overmod Explain THESE ... if you can!
"...Enameled ID badges for conventioneers. The locomotive motif was strangely patterned after New York Central's Commodore Vanderbilt with three large driving wheels on a side, rather than the Rexall Train locomotive which had four drivers on a side.( Designer: I needed more space to add the "year 1936" you )"
Penny Trains I've never seen the low speed wind tunnel at Case Western Reserve University but I have been inside the one at Glenn Research Center:
I am so inspired by some pictures of the wind tunnel in the Glenn Research Center!... My next art exhibition at the British Consulate General Hong Kong should be something like this:
Streamlined Northern CNR 6400
From Mike .
Notable that both the Northern and the Jubilee were in regular service right up to the end in 59/60 . 6400 is preserved as are 4,examples of Jubilees but none of the original 3000's which were the 'real ones'.
I love how they listed the size of firebox and boiler so that I can do some mental arithmetic when reading it. By the way, this is a message from Jim Arc:"Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland, Ohio merged with Western Reserve College (the campuses were side by side, and some classes already shared) in 1969. It is now known as CWRU - Case Western Reserve University."
"Invented and designed by Carl F. Kantola and developed by the Case Institute of Technology.
Locomotive #5344 was named the “Commodore Vanderbilt” and was first exhibited at Grand Central Station and then it began an exhibition tour of major cities on the NYC system. "
Jones1945(Designer: I needed more space to add the "year 1936" you @$$%#)
No, that would be why he put six wheels under the firebox, something that I would have thought you, Jones1945, would have found particularly notable... perhaps it's that they're obviously not in a single truck, perhaps arranged like the trailer arrangement on Gresley's 'hush-hush' watertube locomotive of only slightly older vintage, on steroids.
As a potentially interesting aside, NACA already had available to it in the late '20s (i.e. several years before the NRC testing) a wind-tunnel facility with a 20' throat capable of taking sustained measurements at 100mph. For this they used a pair of surplus 1000hp submarine diesel engines, which were apparently quite something to fire up and operate.
Mention in the Canadian tech article (on the 6400s) of the Townend ring reminded me of this facility, as the author conveniently forgot, or ignored, the NACA cowling that actually predates the Townend ring as well as being aerodynamically superior at higher airspeed.
I also distinctly remember wind-tunnel models of the train that became M10000 while it still had its TurboTrain-like parabolic nose (which I consider far superior in all respects but cooling to the wormlike 'face' that was ultimately foisted on that trainset). Unless I'm sadly mistaken, aerodynamic testing on ideal streamlining for trains was conducted comparatively early (some of the work arriving at the conclusion that McKeen-style streamlining was exactly backward, with the cylindrical curve better at the front and the extended 'teardrop' at the rear; the Kamm-chop effect regrettably in the future).
What this leads up to is that statement in the museum notes that
Big American railways copied the design, though NRC was not able to fight them in patent infringement lawsuits.
I for one would be highly interested to see exactly which of these 'copied' designs were actually disputed; I have a very strong suspicion from nothing more than details in Garth Wilson's article and the actual claims in the patent that neither Kantola's Commodore Vanderbilt nor the Mercury locomotives would have been subject to actual patent priority, and I'd have my doubts about either the Aeolus (aka Big Alice the Goon) locomotives on CB&Q or the 1938 C&NW E-4s using the design for 'smoke lifting' ... or particularly drag-reducing ... purposes.
I also chuckled more than a bit at the claim that
Inevitably, Canada's other rail company, Canadian Pacific Railway, built trains in the same style.
Even if you accept the somewhat laughable claim that the 6400s were 'semi-streamlined' by usual contemporary standards, you'd have to be awfully naive to confuse the approach with CP's implementation of unambiguous semi-streamlining. (Even if you are a Design History Society pedant with little formal railfan experience or interest).
The interesting thing here is that the Canadians very early recognized the key aspect of smoke-lifting, which is airflow over the top and to the rear of the boiler itself, not just upward flow ahead of and around the stack plume. Why they thought that this would produce permanent flow separation of the lifted gas plume during relatively slow station approach is still something of a mystery to me.
On the other hand, as an iconic Canadian locomotive, the thing has little competition (the best, ironically, being the far more aesthetically styled Grand Trunk U4bs) and I can easily forgive them producing lovely colored pictures of 6400 in the Rockies, a thousand miles or more from anywhere it actually ran.
The Rexall locomotive was a Mohawk 4-8-2 was it not? I don't know what a 4-6-6 is but I do know artists and bling companies take extreme liberties with these kind of things. You see it all the time.
Over the years ( and years) friends, acquaintances and family members have bought 'choo-choo' stuff for me that they picked here here and there for Christmas and birthdays and almost all of it is really bad functionally impossible creations. Of course I have to be grateful for all this stuff, their intentions are good.
I'm certain most of us have run into this same thing.
More era streamlining
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Mike points out that the Canadians reviewed the 'parabolic nose' version of the M10000 in some detail, here:
https://archive.org/details/transactionsofen17engi/page/32
Dave Klepper and others may enjoy the explicit connection of the car suspension to the PCC.
Overmod Jones1945 (Designer: I needed more space to add the "year 1936" you sweety pie) No, that would be why he put six wheels under the firebox, something that I would have thought you, Jones1945, would have found particularly notable... perhaps it's that they're obviously not in a single truck, perhaps arranged like the trailer arrangement on Gresley's 'hush-hush' watertube locomotive of only slightly older vintage, on steroids.
Jones1945 (Designer: I needed more space to add the "year 1936" you sweety pie)
Oh dear Overmod, I am afraid you are a little bit over analyzing thing in this case. The designer probably thought that a streamlined 4-8-2 is as ugly as almighty whatever you don't want to think about, so he/she/it made it a 4-6-6. I really don't think it is related to the British style "trailing truck" with an extra axle. Or maybe if we have a chance to see the sample of the 4-8-2 batch, we might understand why the designer skipped one bigger driver under the skirting
Overmod Mike points out that the Canadians reviewed the 'parabolic nose' version of the M10000 in some detail, here: https://archive.org/details/transactionsofen17engi/page/32 Dave Klepper and others may enjoy the explicit connection of the car suspension to the PCC.
I really don't like the reviewed version which they placed the rear end of the trainset to the front and called it a nose. The birdcage on the M-10000 nose should never be removed, if Mr. Young of C&O could place a fish tank on the premier train, why can't UP make a birdcage in front of the M-10000? Why not.People shouldn't expect every streamlined object would look like a cucumber.
No!No!NOO!
Take the Trail Blazer instead.
Still, Loewy had the greatest number of locomotives displaying his influence (but not really a basic design of his, remember "Rivets"): the GG-1s. More than possibly all streamlined stream locomitfves in total!
Wind Tunnel developments of the 6400's
This is fascinating!... thanks to Mike
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