Hi, simple question. I can't seem to find a set of dates as to when they modernized their steam engines, such as the K4s, M1b, I1sa, etc with new pilots, new headlight positions, etc. Everywhere I searched, they just say "post war". Was this like all before 1950? Or did it continue to occur after that?
PRR began scrapping their K4s starting 1947(end 1960), so it doesn't make much sense to me why they would modernize them just to scrap them.
PS when did the PRR transition from primarily pullman heavyweights to the new streamlined stuff?
Cheers!
Charles Li
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Modeling the PRR & NYC in HO
Youtube Channel: www.youtube.com/@trainman440
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Heavyweights vs. Streamliners: it depended upon which train you are talking about. Some lightweight passenger cars were pre-WWII.
Prior to WWII the Pullman Company still had a monopoly on the heavyweight Pullman sleeping cars, which were in pooled service traveling all over the country. At a point after WWII they were required to divest the sleeping cars, but the heavyweight era did not end all at once.
Being a Santa Fe fan you should know that Santa Fe continued using their own heavyweight coaches well into the 1960's (there's a famous photo of a lone Alco PA pulling a Santa Fe 3000 series heavyweight coach). I'm sure there were still heavyweights in service on lesser PRR trains.
Steam power was often upgraded at major shoppings ie every few years new appliances might be added.
Your questions are way too broad for simplistic answers, imo.
Both PRR and NYC management had "drunk the Koolade" and thought that by modernizing the passenger trains, postwar, that they would somehow "win back" the passengers that were fleeing to air and automobile travel. Had their idiot managers bothered to look at their own traffic data, they would have known that by 1947 it was "game over" for the long distance passenger train. Instead both railroads invested 100's of millions of dollars (NYC 400 million dollars alone) in brand new passenger equipment for east to west trains that, well, nobody wanted to ride anymore.
Had they half a clue and invested in the NE Corridor, that would have paid returns. Sadly, neither railroad had half a clue.
The 400 million dollars NYC wasted, let me repeat, wasted, on new lightweight passenger cars, along with a similarly high figure for PRR, but not quite as much, was financially the beginning of the end. The money which could have gone to more worthwhile service improvements was essentially gambled and wasted--and put BOTH railroads on a long slide to bankruptcy.
According to Fred Frailey, in Twilight of the Great Trains, the game was over in 1947 for the NYC to Chicago trains. From that point on they began a long slide down in riders and profitability.
John
Trainman440a set of dates as to when they modernized their steam engines, such as the K4s, M1b, I1sa, etc with new pilots, new headlight positions, etc. Everywhere I searched, they just say "post war". Was this like all before 1950? Or did it continue to occur after that?
I have seen 1946 as the date when the headlight and generator were moved, and the slat steel pilot was replaced on passenger locomotives. I have also seen photos where it is remarked that for whatever reason that particular locomotive escaped the change over. It is not like someone snapped their fingers and every loco was changed immediately.
One source says the generator and headlight swapped places for reasons of safety when the generator was being repaired or replaced. A platform to reach the generator was also added.
Dave Nelson
Trainman440 Hi, simple question. I can't seem to find a set of dates as to when they modernized their steam engines, such as the K4s, M1b, I1sa, etc with new pilots, new headlight positions, etc. Everywhere I searched, they just say "post war". Was this like all before 1950? Or did it continue to occur after that? PRR began scrapping their K4s starting 1947(end 1960), so it doesn't make much sense to me why they would modernize them just to scrap them. PS when did the PRR transition from primarily pullman heavyweights to the new streamlined stuff? Cheers! Charles Li
I have seen 1946 as the year, too, but I understand they would make changes when the locos were shopped, so the process took several years on a railroad with so many locomotives.
Gary
Hi, Charles
As mentioned above, these changes, or "programs" as PRR sometimes refered to its equipment upgrade plans, spanned many years and often, hundreds of pieces of equipment.
One source would be the Hagley collection of PRR negatives where you can search the collection and perhaps "close-in" on the date of a change. Many of the earliest modifications or experiments were photographed.
https://digital.hagley.org/islandora/object/islandora:2339204
This photo, taken on July 17, 1940 is the earliest appearance of a full-steel pilot I have found in the collection.
https://digital.hagley.org/PRR_12497
By the time the J1s were showing up, as in this Feb. 13, 1943 photo, the solid steel pilot looks like it has seen the modifications that would become the "new" standard.
https://digital.hagley.org/PRR_14239
Much of the information may have been gathered from the several experimentals and the streamlined K4 with similar smooth-lined pilots as well.
https://digital.hagley.org/PRR_12731
The PRRT&HS has an excellent quarterly magazine along with a modeler's on-line reference which may help in your research as well.
Look for a PM from me.
Good Luck, Ed
Thank you, I just needed a rough date.
I understand that it is a broad question, but I just needed a rough date, since I remember seeing some modeler run pullman heavyweights behind a modernized K4s and was wondering if that was common or not. And in particular, I'm still trying to find a date in which to base my PRR fleet on. I got both modernized and unmodernized equipment, and a few Heavyweights, and mostly streamlined cars.
As you can see, when I bought my PRR stuff, I was a kid in a candy shop, never considered era or being prototypical. So now that Im trying to become a bit more accurate, Im wondering what to sell and what to keep.
Thanks for the replies!
Charles