"Sons of Martha?" Now that's an obscure Kipling poem I've never heard of. Just looked it up and read it. Very good!
My own personal favorite Kipling poem is "Brown Bess," which should surprise absolutely no-one.
And just so everyone knows, I'm not trying to be blasphemous when I say "God invented...", that's old gunshop humor, as in "You couldn't clean smokeless powder residue like you cleaned black powder fouling, so God invented Hoppe's Number 9!"
Flintlock76Well of course nuts can work loose! That's why God made "Loc-tite!"
That's why God made "Loc-tite!"
Wayne, you do know it's a metaphor, right?. From the Sons of Martha. (By an Englishman who loved American trains...)
And in the frame sense, God's answer was the Huck bolt. Although it does have to be said that some of His best work is anaerobic...
God invented RUST - Man created Loc-tite
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Well of course nuts can work loose!
Flintlock76I could be wrong on this, but didn't the British use built-up plate frames for their steam engines right up to the end?
They did, and somewhat famously argued against the practice of equalization (hard as that seems!) -- to this day we have at least one personage on steam_tech who insists it's a kludge, and a waste of design weight and capacity, on a locomotive that operates on properly designed permanent way.
Metallurgically, of course, pound for pound the plate frame is stronger than a cast bed, the chief problem keeping it from stress cracking at the inevitable range of stress raisers as "the nuts work loose". Much of the modern work in frame design is predicated on fabricating double-wall frames with ship layout and welding equipment, which can relatively easily produce something stronger and at the same time lighter than a cast bed, with the same permanent homogeneity of construction. As I've noted, a combination of lost-foam castings and formed plate was my initial advised design approach of choice for 5550.
I could be wrong on this, but didn't the British use built-up plate frames for their steam engines right up to the end?
Overmod The pictures Jones1945 provides remind me of one of the great stated advantages of the classic 'American' design: the bolted joint for easy separation of the locomotive into 'forward and aft' sections for maintenance. This was of great importance in the days before traveling cranes in engine houses! It is hard for anyone brought up on the importance of cast vs. fabricated frames to appreciate why easy separation of the frame at a 'field joint' was important...
The pictures Jones1945 provides remind me of one of the great stated advantages of the classic 'American' design: the bolted joint for easy separation of the locomotive into 'forward and aft' sections for maintenance. This was of great importance in the days before traveling cranes in engine houses!
It is hard for anyone brought up on the importance of cast vs. fabricated frames to appreciate why easy separation of the frame at a 'field joint' was important...
If the locomotive bed of the PRR T1 could be separated like an articulated engine, maintenance of the rear engine cam box would have been much easier.
https://www.up.com/aboutup/community/inside_track/steam-update-08-25-2017.htm
Jones 3D Modeling Club https://www.youtube.com/Jones3DModelingClub
What is interesting is to read how the 'primitive' 4-4-0s quickly acquired cabs and better proportions -- I believe Rogers is one of those acclaimed foremost in turning locomotive engines into 'melodies cast and wrought in metal'. His as I recall was the refinement of having the engine-truck wheels to either side of the cylinder block rather than propped pertly underneath; he also famously advocated for spoked truck wheels, saying he never 'put a cheese wheel on a locomotive'. It can be interesting to see how quickly the design proportions evolved to the classical 'American locomotive' and stayed there for the rest of a long, long design run...
Meanwhile -- it occurs to me that we had a discussion, here or on one of the other forums, concerning why one of these early locomotives appeared to have two sets of valve spindles, one over the other. It turns out this is Eastwick's method of reversing the locomotive fitted with hook or gab gear, of which I was unaccountably ignorant until recently. From Scientific American (1897):
... we will notice the reversing gear, which was patented by Mr. A. M. Eastwick, July 21, 1835, and is very simple and ingenious. It will be seen ... that the valve chest had two valve stems projecting therefrom. The upper one was for the ordinary slide valve and was connected to a rocking shaft actuated by a single eccentric on the rear axle. The lower one was connected to a movable block working between the slide valve and the cylinder ports. This movable block had four ports, two for fore gear and two for back gear. The fore gear ports (called direct ports) opened directly into the cylinder in the usual way, but the back gear ports (called indirect ports) went but half way through the block, and then turned and passed each other before entering the cylinder. When it was desired to run the engine backward, the block was moved by the hand lever on the foot plate to bring the indirect ports in communication with the cylinder, so that when the slide valve admitted steam to the front port in the block it was conducted to the back end of the cylinder and vice versa. A similar device was patented in England by William Beckett Johnson in the year 1847.
Only later in the 1840s would we see cutoff devices, above the valves, replacing blocks below them, as in McQueen's Champlain for the NYC&HR:
There were two slide valves in. the steam chest; the upper one was a cut-off valve to enable the steam to be worked expansively, and it moved on a fixed perforated plate immediately over the main valve. The former was worked from a return crank on the crank-pin; the main valve was worked from the eccentrics with the V hook motion commonly used at that period. The throw of the main valve was 3½ in. with five-eighths in. lap, and set with a lead of three-sixteenths in. The expansion valve cut off at half stroke.
Thanks Overmod! Doesn't look like the 4-4-0's we're used to, but everything's got to start somewhere.
Flintlock76I do have to revise my "start date" for 4-4-0's, looks like the first one was built in 1836. Only six years after Peter Cooper's "Tom Thumb."
Here is supposedly one of the patent drawings for it
And here (from Angus Sinclair) is the first one built. Actually constructed by James Brooks, and started little more than a month after the patent date; it was ready for service May 8th, 1837.
As is known, something of substantial importance to American railroading was absent from Campbell's design: a good equalization arrangement. This was supplied after a little 'false starting' by Joseph Harrison the year after the Brooks-built engine was put in service, then refined. This quickly provided a good level of sophistication:
Report on the Gowan and Marx locomotive, built 1839
(It is interesting to see what other contemporary designers, notably Matthias Baldwin and Ross Winans, were coming up with in order to get what they perceived to be satisfactory adhesion...)
The Drury book doesn't have any numbers on total 4-4-0 production, so we'll have to go with the 25,000 number that rcdrye submitted.
I do have to revise my "start date" for 4-4-0's, looks like the first one was built in 1836. Only six years after Peter Cooper's "Tom Thumb." Remarkable.
How many steamers were scrapped after World War Two? Maybe we don't WANT to know! Might be too depressing.
That 25,000 figure beats the 2-8-0. Makes sense though. Now I wonder how many steam locomotives were scrapped after WWII 1945-1960, that's a huge number. Got to be over 4,000 just on the Pennsy.
CSSHEGEWISCH Are there any estimates on just how many 4-4-0's were built? https://www.steamlocomotive.com estimates around 25000. Chicago & Illinois Midland 500-502 were delivered by Baldwin in 1927 and 1928.
CSSHEGEWISCH Are there any estimates on just how many 4-4-0's were built?
Are there any estimates on just how many 4-4-0's were built?
https://www.steamlocomotive.com estimates around 25000. Chicago & Illinois Midland 500-502 were delivered by Baldwin in 1927 and 1928.
Oh wow. I don't have access to my Drury book right now to see if he mentions it, but I'd say look at it this way, the first 4-4-0's were built (I think) in the 1840's, the last were built around 1940 or so for export. I believe the last ones produced for American use were in the 1920's.
Figuring the exports that's almost a 100 year production cycle. I'd be surprised is anyone has a figure of just how many were made. I wouldn't count the Crown Metal amusement park replicas or David Kloke's engines, those are a special class.
I'll get back on this.
Wayne. 21,000 plus 2-8-0's, amazing. So it was the largest cohort by Whyte classification.
NDG- Haunting photos at Angus, in colour too! The Consolidation and Mikado were the backbone and mainstay of the West in Canada.
Certainly the 2-8-0 toiled away in relative obscurity and was an invaluable workhorse Stateside. Southern Pacific 2-8-0's come to mind. Plenty of others. They did not have the glamour and prestige of later designed big power but again many hung on to the end.
OK, I did some checking.
According to George Drury's "Guide to North American Steam Locomotives" there were "...around 21,000" 2-8-0's built, more than any other type.
The first for the Lehigh Valley in 1866, the last for the Mexican Railway in 1946.
Eighty years! Formidable!
Thank You.
Great shot, and it also goes to show you to "never say never." as in "2-8-0's were freight engines and they didn't use 'em on passenger trains."
Railroaders are pragmatic people, and when they need "power for the run" they'll use what's available. I've seen pictures of 2-8-2's on passenger trains as well.
How many 2-8-0's were built? Good question, I'll have to look that one up. Consolidations and Mikados were certainly the most popular engines for freight use, many lasting until the end of steam, which is why they're fairly common today.
1938. A very well looked after 2-8-0 is hauling what I count 14 or 15 heavyweights. Perhaps not a wheel arraignment we associate too much with passenger service, Pacifics and Hudsons, 4-8-4's, 4-4-0's back in the day, Atlantics and Jubilees to be expected.
One thing is for sure. They sure were powerful and quite capable of amazing performance. Everyone had 2-8-0's and lots of them.
I wonder how many 2-8-0's were built in total. Would it be the largest cohort of all under the Whyte classification?
For me this is a stunning picture, a world not yet in a world war. Depression stubbordly hanging on. Terrible suffering and inhumanity going on in other parts of the world.
Lucky us, we could travel freely behind a spit and polished 2-8-0. The world will change soon. That Consolodation will get real busy very soon.
2514 with a long passenger train. Vancouver July 1938 Bud Laws Collection
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