When a railroad buys a steam locomotive from a bulder,such as ALCO,Baldwin,and Lima, they assigned them to one division only like,say the Chicago and North Western 4-8-4s running on the Chicago-Omaha main line or Wabash 4-8-4s running between Decatur ,IL and Montepelier,Ohio and not the whole system.Why would a railroad assign a steamer to only one terminal-to-terminal route instead of the entire system.
SPerWhy would a railroad assign a steamer to only one terminal-to-terminal route instead of the entire system.
Often, in the old days, because that is as far as they could go without requiring service.
In many cases there were weight or other restrictions that kept locomotives on particular routes. The C&NW E-4b Hudsons come to mind, as do the N&W As not being able to operate where train-control had been installed. The last NYC steam locomotives to operate were, as I recall, in service on track too light for even the smallest comparable first-generation diesel road switchers.
Even later, locomotives were assigned where shop forces were equipped or more familiar with them. Even with diesels this could be observed; for example this was a major factor in supporting Baldwins or FM-equipped engines in commuter service in the East and in California respectively.
ATSF liked to use its 84"-drivered Hudsons from Chicago west across Kansas, but those locomotives were ill-suited to some of the Western grades. Although they could famously 'run through' without servicing, there was no particular need for them to do so: they were swapped out for (more capable, as it turned out!) 4-8-4s which continued the run through to California.
In some cases the 'first best use' of locomotives was on runs between two fairly specific points. The Niagaras putting up the high mileage numbers by 1947 were doing so in a specific service, running a very specific turn (from Harmon, north of New York, to Chicago) and they were by far most effectively used there.
Also, keeping a locomotive to a specific assigned district allowed both regularly scheduled operating crews and roundhouse crews to develop a familiarity with each unit. This was valuable because every loco has it's quirks and both crews and repair personnel could diagnose problems more quickly.
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
Penny Trains Also, keeping a locomotive to a specific assigned district allowed both regularly scheduled operating crews and roundhouse crews to develop a familiarity with each unit. This was valuable because every loco has it's quirks and both crews and repair personnel could diagnose problems more quickly.
I do not remember if the account was in the Folklore book (Paul North and Jeff know the book) or in an issue of Trains.
Johnny
In the case of the C&NW, the H class 4-8-4s were too heavy for bridges on the Chicago - Milwaukee line, as were the E-4 4-6-4s and even the E-3 4-6-2s, which was bad news for the "400" which was stuck with upgraded older Pacifics until the E-6s arrived from EMD.
So the Hs and the E-4s were stuck on the Omaha road until they were replaced by diesels.
This was a more common problem than might be thought, with similar problems on the Florida services.
Peter
The Rio Grande found that their 2-10-2 locos were hard on the Colorado trackage, and mainly ran them in Utah hauling coal. While the 2-8-8-2's and mallets were great in the mountains, the 4-6-6-4's mainly ran across the intermountain zone between Grand Junction and Helper.
This is precisely how PRR arranged for the sumptuous "Visionary Vehicles of 1939" that used as a Taxi/Uber, the PRR S1 #6100. Compared to other general steam engines, Her Excellency required even more special treatment from a special crew that knew her personality, ensured smooth operation like not derailed during turning operation on the tailor-made wye at Crestline (not always successful though) and starting the locomotive without or lesser wheel slip. For a steam engine that would have been capable of reaching New York from Chicago within 8 hours on a straight railroad track that never built, I think she deserved those treatments and every good thing she had.
Jones 3D Modeling Club https://www.youtube.com/Jones3DModelingClub
Jones1945This is precisely how PRR arranged for the sumptuous "Visionary Vehicles of 1939"
The problem we all so easily forget is that PRR wasn't designing the greatest possible passenger experience, or spending enormous amounts of its revenue to make a rocket raceway to some of its destinations. It was a business, in a highly-regulated environment, subject to both actual and nominal competition some of which could unexpectedly become intolerable (see the Liberty Limited for a late, pointed example!) with very high overhead costs and opportunistic taxes inflicted in a variety of jurisdictions. There was no point -- it's a very similar issue to the controversy in the Trains passenger forum over the new Avelia Liberty sets that will replace the Bombardier Acelas -- in buying tremendous new locomotives for high speed until you have large stretches of railroad completely optimized for them ... and no stretches that impede or limit them. The Sam Rea line, with its relatively tremendous cost and obvious foregone business (it completely bypassed most of the Pittsburgh potential market) was only a fraction of the improvement that would have to be made; the expensive "low grade" Atglen and Susquehanna was unsuitable for high speed (and not meant to be) but a similar high-speed connection from the north-south railroad (probably further north than North Philadelphia, perhaps even north of Trenton, with all that implies about bypassing metropolitan Philadelphia) to the middle-Pennsylvania improvements would have to be made likely AROUND both the old main line and the low-grade cutoff all the way to Harrisburg. At post-'20s real-estate prices.
Personally, I think it's a whopping good thing little of this was built. History clearly showed us how little freight customers actually value (in tangible dollars paid to railroads) extreme high-speed service other than high-value M&E; it has also shown (in the case of the 1958 improvements to the Broadway so beloved of Lucius Beebe) that just about nothing in better service would replace the flood of customers using private cars on turnpikes or jet replacements for already-much-faster-than-rail DC7Cs and the like.
And it also shows the ginormous infrastructure cost of maintaining the heroic civil-engineering works that a high-speed railroad in the Northeast built in that era would require.
Meanwhile, of course, the pace of innovation went on even in the years the S1 was being very expensively billed-by-the-piece to the PRR. We already know that by the time it would actually have been completed, the Sam Rea line would be electrified, and probably with no less than the (I think superior) 428-A traction motors (as on the DD2) rather than the 'more GG1s' that came in the war years. And that 1948-optimized T1s did every bit, and more, of the job the S1 was supposed to do even on the putative lines built by its time, just as a 4-8-4 version of the S2 would have... and remember, Westinghouse thought enough of that piece of the future that they put it into their catalog carefully dutching out the center axle of a six-axle truck's spacing.
Yes, it would have been grand; yes, I'd like to have seen it; yes, I'll happily draw and model and help engineer it. But it wouldn't easily have survived the future ... any likely future, in context.
The SP Cab Forwards Mallets ran on the entire SP system from Portland to El Paso and eveywhere in between
I was paging through a book today and came accross an interresting tidbit. The State Railways of Thailand placed their stations at the points where locomotives would run out of fuel (wood, bamboo, etc).
Can you imagine hand firing a Pacific, Mikado or a 2-8-2 + 2-8-2 Garrat with wood?
https://www.thailandbytrain.com/RailHistory.html
Overmod ......The problem we all so easily forget is that PRR wasn't designing the greatest possible passenger experience, or spending enormous amounts of its revenue to make a rocket raceway to some of its destinations. It was a business, in a highly-regulated environment, subject to both actual and nominal competition some of which could unexpectedly become intolerable (see the Liberty Limited for a late, pointed example!) with very high overhead costs and opportunistic taxes inflicted in a variety of jurisdictions....... ......Yes, it would have been grand; yes, I'd like to have seen it; yes, I'll happily draw and model and help engineer it. But it wouldn't easily have survived the future ... any likely future, in context......
......The problem we all so easily forget is that PRR wasn't designing the greatest possible passenger experience, or spending enormous amounts of its revenue to make a rocket raceway to some of its destinations. It was a business, in a highly-regulated environment, subject to both actual and nominal competition some of which could unexpectedly become intolerable (see the Liberty Limited for a late, pointed example!) with very high overhead costs and opportunistic taxes inflicted in a variety of jurisdictions.......
......Yes, it would have been grand; yes, I'd like to have seen it; yes, I'll happily draw and model and help engineer it. But it wouldn't easily have survived the future ... any likely future, in context......
I certainly agree and understand that a "rocket raceway" that only available for high-speed passenger trains between NYC and Chi-town is never commercially practicable, not even today's technology can make it profitable if the distance between two destinations and the travel time is long enough to discourage people from choosing it instead of travel by plane. Let alone there were so many choices, service overlapping of different railroads on the NY-Chi-town corridor. The construction and maintenance cost for an extra "rocket raceway" would have been an enormous figure, no matter it would have been operating by how many Class I railroads altogether in the past. I remember we discussed this topic in-depth before, and I kind of agree that an "HSR" built in the 1940s wouldn't be survived today due to many reasons. And if there is an HSR beside the Northeast Corridor, steam engines like T1, NYC's C1a, steam turbine engines, diesel streamliners, and electric locomotives would have done a much better job than the "Visionary Locomotive of 1939, PRR S1 6-4-4-6". However, my fantasy private train is always powered by the S1 or a 4-8-4, 6-8-4, 6-4-4-6 engine that looks like the S1.
Penny Trains I was paging through a book today and came accross an interresting tidbit. The State Railways of Thailand placed their stations at the points where locomotives would run out of fuel (wood, bamboo, etc). Can you imagine hand firing a Pacific, Mikado or a 2-8-2 + 2-8-2 Garrat with wood? https://www.thailandbytrain.com/RailHistory.html
They learned from the "best", remember even the PRR K5s were equipped for hand firing? The steam engines served in Bangkok were surprisingly clean and well decorated in this video:
Penny TrainsCan you imagine hand firing a Pacific, Mikado or a 2-8-2 + 2-8-2 Garratt [note sp.] with wood?
Yes, but 'there's wood and then there's wood'. Some engines were fired with eucalyptus (I think in Australia) and with 'fatwood' in America: these are rich in combustible compounds and easily capable of making all the steam you want at any speed these engines would run. I don't know the species used in Thailand but it might well be similar.
I haven't looked at the combustibility of dried bamboo, and I do suspect it would involve some bundling, but it would likely at least partially levitate in the firebox and "burn in 3D" as far as heat release is concerned ... look up 'switchgrass' as a similar natural fuel that has been somewhat extensively considered as a starting place for renewable energy firing.
I remember seeing old railroad ties being fed to the world's smallest standard gauge 4-6-2 at the Little River Railroad, running out of Coldwater in Western Michigan.
Back to original topic, Central Vermont's 2-10-4' s were restricted from operating south of Brattleboro, VT because of track capacity. These Texas types were New England's largest steam locomotives, yet also the smallest 2-10-4' s, at least in this country.
Rogers Whittaker (as E.M. Frimbo) mentioned riding behind a steam engine on the Beguela Railway in Portugese Angola fueled by eucalyptus logs.
He described it thus, "Eucalyptus burns like guncotton!"
He said it smelled nice too!
Jones1945The steam engines served in Bangkok were surprisingly clean and well decorated in this video:
Check out this video done by engineering students at Bangkok University:
Looks like they've converted to oil?
I'd say oil-fired, certainly. And look at how beautifully maintained those engines are! Looks like love of steam is a world-wide thing.
Maybe steam locomotives could be the key to world peace? If only I could figure it out...
Flintlock76 I'd say oil-fired, certainly. And look at how beautifully maintained those engines are! Looks like love of steam is a world-wide thing. Maybe steam locomotives could be the key to world peace? If only I could figure it out...
Good point, Wayne! Many people have forgotten the beauty and magic of steam engines in the past 30 years, and I do wish steam locomotive will become a new common language of this planet and bring us peace! Just like music. Although the world of music has a lot of severe competition, it is probably the best "tool" available that is capable of connecting different kinds of people with diverse cultural backgrounds. I am not saying diesel and electric locomotive don't have the same potential, but for the younger generation, steam-powered engine is an entirely new topic for many of them, just as I know very little about American's railroading before I was impressed by a scale model of PRR steam engine a few years ago.
Wiki
Jones1945... for the younger generation, steam-powered engine is an entirely new topic for many of them ...
When I went to West Chicago to see 4014, I became increasingly appalled by the sheer, utter ignorance of even the simplest ideas about reciprocating steam that appeared to be held not only by the young, but just about every one of the people who actually asked questions about it. These weren't simple things like how to make the fire in the boiler, mind you: these were ideas like the water being sprayed into the fire and the combustion gas and steam piped to the cylinders directly.
On the other hand, all those people were there to see the grandeur and the wonder of big steam, and that's really the more important thing that trips like this, just as with the tour of 3985 I observed in 2004, accomplish in and for the communities they touch.
Those steam locomotives are alive, you know.
Oh, they're alive all right Mod-man.
The steam locomotive is the closest God in His wisdom has allowed man to get in creating life.
Flintlock76 Oh, they're alive all right Mod-man. The steam locomotive is the closest God in His wisdom has allowed man to get in creating life.
CSSHEGEWISCH Flintlock76 Oh, they're alive all right Mod-man. A steam locomotive is a mechanical contrivance, nothing more or less, the same as a diesel locomotive or a straight electric locomotive.
Flintlock76 Oh, they're alive all right Mod-man.
Jones1945I was impressed by a scale model of PRR steam engine a few years ago. Smile Wiki
That's quite a scale model Mr Jones!
Overmod CSSHEGEWISCH Flintlock76 Oh, they're alive all right Mod-man. A steam locomotive is a mechanical contrivance, nothing more or less, the same as a diesel locomotive or a straight electric locomotive. Nobody said diesels or electrics weren't alive in a sense, either -- and not a trivial sense. In all cases it's romance, not objectivity; the steam people are just noting that there are more signs of the 'aliveness' to notice. My cars are contrivances, too, but they exhibit complex behavior and often 'seem' to respond to appropriate respect...
Ask a ship's captain if his ship is alive. He'll tell you!
Personal experience. I was on the flying bridge of a US Navy LPD, an amphibious warfare ship, and as I was holding the rail so help me there was a pulsing vibration coming from it that felt just like a heartbeat! Made me wonder...
And of course there's the USS Arizona, still weeping tears of oil for her lost crew.
Have to stop now, I'm making myself shudder.
Penny Trains Jones1945 I was impressed by a scale model of PRR steam engine a few years ago. Smile Wiki That's quite a scale model Mr Jones!
Jones1945 I was impressed by a scale model of PRR steam engine a few years ago. Smile Wiki
12" to the foot scale! Nice if you can pull it off!
I have visited the USS Arizona Memorial to honor the officers and men of the crew who died at Pearl Harbor. Let's not read too much into the fuel oil still seeping out after almost 78 years.
I do wish my scale models were that large! Not gonna place any 1:1 train crew figures inside it though! Remember the movie like House of Wax?
Overmod When I went to West Chicago to see 4014, I became increasingly appalled by the sheer, utter ignorance of even the simplest ideas about reciprocating steam that appeared to be held not only by the young, but just about every one of the people who actually asked questions about it. These weren't simple things like how to make the fire in the boiler, mind you: these were ideas like the water being sprayed into the fire and the combustion gas and steam piped to the cylinders directly. On the other hand, all those people were there to see the grandeur and the wonder of big steam, and that's really the more important thing that trips like this, just as with the tour of 3985 I observed in 2004, accomplish in and for the communities they touch. Those steam locomotives are alive, you know.
I can feel the atmosphere on the spot when reading your message. The steam, the heat, the rhythm of the running gear, the sound of the steam whistle, the mechanism of them connect and enlighten our soul through our body.
Login, or register today to interact in our online community, comment on articles, receive our newsletter, manage your account online and more!
Get the Classic Trains twice-monthly newsletter