Does any one have a picture of a NYC Mohawk L-4b tacking on water at speed or moving?
I'm assuming you are talking about the track pans. Are you looking for something about it in particular - e.g. view of the tender scoop?
Here's a pic of an L-4b over a track pan but it doesn't really give much of a view:
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
So tom there was a pan of water like a steam in between the tracks, and the tender would scoop it up, right, I could not figure it out, by looking at MTH Mohawk's L-4b,
Yes, it was a pan of water located between the rails so that locomotives could scoop water into their tenders "on the fly" at 60-80 MPH. There were a few railroads who were able to incorporate them along flat sections of track. Since NYC's "Waterlevel Route" had that in abundance, they made the most of them on their line - summer or winter.
The large PT tenders on NYC's Niagaras (and some later Hudsons and Mohawks) were all designed with tender scoops so that they could scoop water at high speed. Since the larger tender could carry more coal, this cut down on the amount of stops needed for refueling. IIRC, the pans were anywhere from 1,500'-2,000' in length so you had only 15 or so seconds @ 60 MPH to drop and raise the scoop in order to fill the tender. And, someone can correct me if I'm wrong but, the track pans appear to be no more than 24" wide.
And you can imagine the amount of pressure created by the inrush of the water into the tender at those speeds. Not only were the PT tenders on the Hudsons, Mohawks, and Niagaras of heavier construction than their earlier siblings, there were built-in overflow ports in the tenders so that they wouldn't explode from all the pressure.
Here's a picture of a sign in MI that outlines a bit of history about them in that area:
Here's another of NYC's famous Empire State Express #999 in 1905 using a track pan:
Lastly, I'll have to double-check but I believe Green Frog Production's New York Central - Odyssey Vol. 1 has several minutes of track pan action early on.on the DVD. It's a terrific video if you're interested in the NYC.
[Edit: Glad I checked. The footage turned out to be on the Herron Rail Video DVD Reflections of the New York Central. From ~7:50 - 11:50 of the DVD, there's a solid 4 minutes of track pan action. A couple of those Niagaras were reaaaaaly flying.]
Thanks Tom
Gidday, Great movie, not the greatest footage but check out 9 minutes 10 seconds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcC9laB3UFU
Cheers, the Bear.
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
Thanks for posting that, Bear! Great stuff! Yea, the quality of the footage isn't that good but I can put up with that when it's chock full of prototype information.
What was even better for me was, right after the brief shot of the track pan at 9:10, there was a 2 sec. shot @ 9:21 of a wig-wag-type signal just west of Toledo. I love wig-wags but most were located and used out west. Now, perhaps - with a slight modification - I can include that style of wig-wag on my NYC layout. Sweet!