N&W 1100 diesel conversion?

[oldline1]

OK............OK..............OK..............................before you all blast me out of the sky about my comment about the N&W NEVER operated in Pittsburgh I will clarify that to say, the REAL, steam,  pre-1964 merger/lease N&W NEVER operated in Pittsburgh!

Better?

Roger

[oldline1]

N&W converted 2 of their M-2 4-8-0's into "M-2 "Automatic" switchers. #1100 was converted in April 1947 and #1112 in September 1948. They were an attempt to further economize steam and cut yard switching costs after the War.

The engines were designed to operate with little attention from a crew compared to normal steam operation. They were given combustion chambers and automatic controls for the stokers and water level and a turbine driven fan in the smokebox to control draft. That's the reason for the long smokebox compared to normal class M-2's. The standard USRA 10,000 gallon tender was increased from 16 to 20 tons of coal to allow the engines to operate 24 hours without servicing.

The 1100 was basically a success and so the 1112 was built with some minor modifications to the firebox and the cinder screens.

When the C&O dieselized their yard switching they sold their practically new USRA-copy 0-8-0's to the N&W and Virginian in March 1951. Until that time the N&W had used down-graded mainline engines for light switching like the W-2 2-8-0's and their numerous M and M-2 class 4-8-0's. The 0-8-0's were modern and much more efficient to operate than any of those engines. The M-2 Automatics were complex and just not as efficient as the 0-8-0's.

The N&W NEVER operated in Pittsburgh! The 1100 was used in Lamberts Point  (Norfolk, VA) and the 1112 was assigned to Roanoke, VA. Both were removed from service and scrapped in 1951.

Roger

[feltonhill]

Kingsport-tn, glad you asked!!

It looks like guesswork and misinformation keeps rolling right along.  It's hard to believe that this sort of fiction exists today, but there it is, just follow the link.  PBenham's information is correct, the stuff at pitt.edu is not even close.  N&W didn't serve Pittsburgh in 1945-46 so 1100 is irrelevant to the smoke abatement issue.

[PBenham]

 The purpose of the conversion was to permit one man operation of this engine for an entire eight hour shift. The 4-8-0 had a stoker installed, a relocated water glass,"automatic" grates and a larger tender to hold enough water for a full shift of work. N&W had never given a thought to diesels when this project was carried out. A short time after this project was started N&W bought some nearly new 0-8-0s from C&O that did what 1100 could do for a fraction of the cost. They liked them so much that they duplicated them in Roanoke Shops as late as 1953!

[kingsport-tn]

Hello all.  I'm originally from Pittsburgh and have been researching photo archives about my hometown on the web.  Ran across a set of photos from the Allegheny County Smoke Control agency that date to the 1940s.  Amongst them are shots of N&W steam engine #1100, pruportedly being converted from steam to diesel power.  Shop floor shots show what appears to be a boiler-retuning operation. The finished shot shows the loco with a large upper shroud, looking like a home-made streamliner. However, the drivers, rods, and cylinders are all still intact.  Anyone out there familiar with this engine's history?  Was it actually just converted to fire oil ("diesel") instead of coal?  The photos can be seen at this website:  http://images.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/i/image/image-idx?sid=9c4a773df17dcbe3fc8e5b159527292d;type=boolean;view=thumbnail;g=imls;med=1;q1=smoke;rgn1=smoke_all;corig=smoke;size=20;c=smoke&start=41