The "Berkshire's...were they great steamers?

[orsonroy]

Berkshires were midsized superpower steam. Since all steam was designed for a specific purpose, if used correctly, they were capable of outperforming any other steam engine. Case in point is the Nickel Plate's roster of 2-8-4s. When designed and built in the early 1930s, they were a logical progression from the USRA-style of mikado, which was the closest thing steam-era railroads ever had to a standardized, general-purpose engine. The NKP Berkshires weighed more than their USRA mikes, and steamed slightly better. The best of the NKP's USRA clone mikes were equipped with trailing truck boosters and feedwater heaters, which increased their starting tractive effort by something like 25%. The NKP's Berks were designed to match that performance without boosters. So starting effort was about the same, but road performance was greatly different. At about 25 MPH, boosters cut off, reducing the Mike's performance to roughly 75% of that of the Berks. But the Berkshires, with their larger drivers, better balancing, more modern equipment, and more steam capability, were able to outperform the MIkes by 50% at road speeds (40 MPH and above). In fact, NKP Berkshires could outperform any diesel at speed until the advent of da***wo controls and the SD-40 model and above.

The NKP used their Berkshires completely properly. The NKP's grades were mostly flat, their mainlines were mostly straight, and their second and third class freights mostly ran on tim and fast. The combination of all these elements meant that they were able to run passenger train schedules with 69 car freights. In fact, NKP Berkshires pulling freights regularly passed New York Central diesel passenger trains on parallel tracks! The NKP had no need to upgrade their steam fleet with 4-8-4s, and their Berk's superior performance meant that the NKP never owned an F unit, and only completed dieselization in 1958, five years after most railroads in the US had finished dieselization.

Now, most other roads that owned Berkshires DID use them improperly. The Erie relied on a huge fleet of Berks, but their grades were hilly and curvy. The C&O had no business owning Berks at all. And the IC bought copies of the A-1, the first Berkshires designed, so they weren't the best designed beasts in the world, and retired early (they did admit that the NKP's Berks were MUCH better than their own, but never bought any of the AMC-designed engines, since they were pretty well wedded to gigantic 4-8-2s for their fast freights).

[dknelson]

Remember that the four wheel trailing truck was to support a big firebox -- it did not necessarily connote speed. A 2-8-2 was limited in teh size of its firebox by what could be balanced over the rest of the engine -- that is also why the 2-8-2 supplanted the 2-8-0, and so on.
Not all 2-8-4s were intended for fast freight running as were the NKPs. The Chicago & North Western had monster Berks that were intended for heavy lugging -- getting heavy coal out of the Illinois River valley and ore out of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. They were so heavy in fact that when the C&NW needed to move them from Illinois to Michigan, I seem to recall reading that they could not use their own railroad for the move -- the engine was too heavy for the bridges. This was not an engine built for speed but for power and it performed pretty much as the railroad intended -- at the cost I suppose of beating up the track rather badly.
Dave Nelson

[Anonymous]

Just a few notes about Berks vs Mikes. Leon Silverman was dead on regarding the story of "super power steam" in Trains (9/04). That will answer your questions about the differences between the two wheel arrangements and engine sizes. For "N" scale the Berks & Mikes will run about the same simply because they both have eight drive wheels powered by an electric motor. The prototypes were totally different in size, tractive force and horsepower. The first Berkshire was the A-1 from Lima Locomotive Works in 1925; the last was Nickle Plate Road's 779, also from Lima in 1949. They were called superpower engines because they had larger boilers and a much larger firebox than the Mikado types (one exception was Great Northerns 0-8 class which was as big as many Berkshires, had as much horsepower and could pull more than any Mike or Berk ever built)! I don't know where "Steamerfan" was coming from about the price of Mikes & Berks and the USRA. There were no comparisons in price & performance. Berkshires cost more and had it over anything that was built prior to their time in the sun and they outran all other non-articulated freight haulers. Case in point: "The C&O ran some of their K-4 "Kanwah" Berks in passenger servcie and 80 miles per hour was common for these engines.

[Anonymous]

Ok here goes, Berkshire were great engines but with one slight flaw, they weren't USRA Standardized. The Mikado's being USRA Standardized were favored for that reason alone by most railroads. Take a mike into a yard, if ti needed repairs, you could just snag a piece off a severe downed Engine if the part wasn't in stock. Take a Berkshire into a Yard and expect a long wait for the part if you didn't have one in stock. Hence, when it came between buying a Mike or a Berk, most would choose the Mike, but some bought the Berk, since sometimes it was cheaper and some Lines Didn't want to fork the money out for a Mike.

[Leon Silverman]

You might want to read the September 2004 "Trains" article titled "Big Boy or Big Mistake". This gives a good explaination as to why the so called "Super power" steam engines worked in some locations but not others.

[twhite]

Jacktal: The Berkshires were very fine steamers, but like all Super-Power, they had to be utilized to their capacity. Some roads, like the Nickel Plate and Boston and Albany had great success with them, because they utilized them for fast time freights over rather level districts. Other roads like C&O and Erie had large rosters, but used them for coal or drag freight hauling, which is not what the locomotives were intended for, so their potential was never reached. This is true of a lot of 'super' locomotives just before and during WWII. Out here in the west, the Berkshire never really caught on, though SP had some second-hand Boston and Maine 2-8-4's that they bought for the traffic surge during WWII. They originally ran on the El Paso-Tucumcari "Golden State" division and were pretty successful there. After the War, SP transferred a few of them to California, where they worked the Valley line as supplementary power to SP's own Mountains. I think the Santa Fe had some also, but as to what divisions they worked, I'm not sure. So the 'Berkshire' is pretty much a midwest-east loco, and as such was successful or not, depending on how it was used. But they certainly were handsome beasts.

[Jacktal]

As time goes on,I'm assembling a collection of "N" scale steamers,and in the process I try to educate myself on the different characteristics and purposes of their prototypes.Their sizes relative to other types,their advantages and their drawbacks,and so on are all details I like to be aware of.Unfortunately,there is so much that could be learned about steamers alone that I probably never will be a walking train encyclopedia,but still...I like to learn at least some.

I'm planning to add a Berkshire to my collection and from what I've read on them,they were quite impressive in both size and power and could outperform the Mikado's,which I believe were great locos.However,the Berkshire weren't produced in very large numbers as were the Mikado's and the Northern's.Are my infos accurate or were the Berkshire's not so good,or simply fell outdated very fast,being replaced by the Northern's?Thanks.