Guys,A thought cross my mind.. Does today's steam engineers have the grit the old steam engineers had when it comes to running wide open? Seeing its a speical breed that races cars at top speeds? I've notice today steam engineers love to lean half way out the window and at high speeds I doubt if that would be possible because of the wind force. My Grandfather bragged about hitting 90 mph between Newark(Oh) and Columbus(Oh) more then once in his passenger service career.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
Thanks for the defense, Crandall, but in actual fact he was right; there was in fact some undue testiness in there and he was justified to call me out on it.
Even if provoked, the 'right' response is to answer the substance of the criticism, no matter whether the tone is negative or not, and at least establish a way to the truth if there are misconceptions. As Mike pointed out, even the appearance that something is vitriolic can be enough to 'turn people off' from reading it -- and the whole point of posting is to either inform or amuse people who stay reading.
Water Level Route Overmod, I really wanted to follow this thread but the vitriol with which you respond to many of the posts here, especially if they question anything, is very off-putting. That's too bad. I'm a little surprised moderators haven't stepped in on some of your comments. Unnecessary.
Overmod, I really wanted to follow this thread but the vitriol with which you respond to many of the posts here, especially if they question anything, is very off-putting. That's too bad. I'm a little surprised moderators haven't stepped in on some of your comments. Unnecessary.
I didn't find it to be that way at all. I have followed Overmod's opinions and claims of fact for a few years now on other sub-fora here at trains.com, and perhaps have encountered him using other identifiers with which I am not familiar, but I have yet to see a testy or objectionable post authored by him. I did find that he replied rather evenly to Ulrich's aggressive challenge, with which you appear to find no umbrage...?
-Crandell
gmpullman Medina1128 And, all of this has WHAT to do with model railroading? Just curious... I thought the moderators would have at least moved this thread to the Prototype Information category already. Some of this discussion has rekindled my recollections of other prominent efforts to "modernize" steam technology. Anyone remember Ross Rowland's ACE 3000? https://www.american-rails.com/ace-3000.html and his earlier efforts with C&O 614: https://www.co614.com/main/history-of-614-2/#.Xe77SehKjRY How about the Coalition For Sustainable Rail? https://newatlas.com/csr-project-130-steam-locomotive/22670/ I applaud any effort to resurrect steam technology and apply 21st century advances to it. I wish the good folks at the T1 trust every chance for success. Regards, Ed
Medina1128 And, all of this has WHAT to do with model railroading? Just curious...
I thought the moderators would have at least moved this thread to the Prototype Information category already.
Some of this discussion has rekindled my recollections of other prominent efforts to "modernize" steam technology.
Anyone remember Ross Rowland's ACE 3000?
https://www.american-rails.com/ace-3000.html
and his earlier efforts with C&O 614:
https://www.co614.com/main/history-of-614-2/#.Xe77SehKjRY
How about the Coalition For Sustainable Rail?
https://newatlas.com/csr-project-130-steam-locomotive/22670/
I applaud any effort to resurrect steam technology and apply 21st century advances to it. I wish the good folks at the T1 trust every chance for success.
Regards, Ed
My opinion on Ross isn't that high personally, but I don't think this forum is the appropriate place to discuss my opinions on him. But I think its worth pointing out a rebuilt T1 is less along the vein of modernizing a steam locomotive for comercial use like those projects were, and more a modernization for preservation's and historical demonstration purposes.
If anything, the T1 project is more in vein to the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust and their projects to rebuild lost classes of locomotives in Britain. If the T1 is succesful in America, speed record or not, it could open up the doors for other lost classes like a NYC Hudson or Milwaukee Hiawatha to someday be recreated.
OvermodSorry about that. There are some little things that push my buttons a bit too much sometimes, and the usual 'pronouncements' about why the T1 replication is a problem are often more than usually in that category since they keep returning as if no one had addressed them.
OvermodI'm a native New Yorker who grew up in New Jersey
Overmodsarcasm and chop-busting are normal characteristics of conversation among friends with different opinions
Cheers,
Mike
rrinker Medina1128 And, all of this has WHAT to do with model railroading? Just curious... Well, they aren't restoring an original, because none exist. They are building a replica, from scratch. So it's a model of the real thing, just in 1:1 scale. --Randy
And, all of this has WHAT to do with model railroading? Just curious...
Well, they aren't restoring an original, because none exist. They are building a replica, from scratch. So it's a model of the real thing, just in 1:1 scale.
--Randy
Good point, Randy.
Marlon
See pictures of the Clinton-Golden Valley RR
Sorry about that. There are some little things that push my buttons a bit too much sometimes, and the usual 'pronouncements' about why the T1 replication is a problem are often more than usually in that category since they keep returning as if no one had addressed them.
I purposely didn't answer the posts about dynamic augment because they show disregard for the whole point of the duplex development, so responses are not wholly a chronic example of worthless knee-jerk-response curmudgeonry. (It does not help either that I'm a native New Yorker who grew up in New Jersey, so both sarcasm and chop-busting are normal characteristics of conversation among friends with different opinions)
Tinplate ToddlerYou sound as you have been there, but I think it is safe to assume you have not.
That is why the Western tradition invented these things called books. People who actually were there made a record of what was done and said, and if you read them, much as you would read texts in these posts, you can actually find out things not on the Internet without having to have been there! [PS for the future: note the correct use of 'have been' here; you should have said 'had been' in your sentence...]
My very dim recollection is that some of the discussion was in 'Master Builders of Steam' but there are some other similar sources that are in general accord. I have never seen anything, other than opinion, that said Gresley limited his understanding to 124mph, but if you have a reference for that I'd be interested to read it.
OvermodWhat Gresley actually accepted was a true peak at 125mph (not for a very long distance on the trace, I think corresponding to something like 150') but not an artifact; he explicitly rejected 126 as demonstrable surge artifact (and said so).
You sound as you have been there, but I think it is safe to assume you have not.
Happy times!
Ulrich (aka The Tin Man)
"You´re never too old for a happy childhood!"
Tinplate ToddlerDave - you are on the spot there!
Yes, but I humbly submit for different reasons than those which follow...
Mallard´s speed record is quite debatable, as the line had a slight downhill grade.
The effect of which can, and has, been calculated. A far greater reason for debate is how badly the inside big end came apart as a direct result of poor valve-gear drive action at high speed and necessary cutoff. I only excuse it because the detail design was promptly fixed... but then again, the new design was never tested to anything like 125mph.
Sir Nigel Gresley himself questioned the record and saw the speed more in the vicinity of 124mph, than the split second tachometer reading which showed 126mph.
You must have Swiss blood because there are so many holes in this sentence. What Gresley actually accepted was a true peak at 125mph (not for a very long distance on the trace, I think corresponding to something like 150') but not an artifact; he explicitly rejected 126 as demonstrable surge artifact (and said so).
The records were taken with a dynamometer, which comprises a speedometer as part of the instrumentation, but the result was a pen trace and not a needle indication. This is the amateur mistake in that 'low-flying' T1 story that has the speedometer 'pegged at 120mph'. Now, cars have 120mph speedometers, but the T1's Jones-Motrola only read up to 100. Had the author not felt the need to get salty about the instrumentation we could just have believed it was timing mileposts with the ol' 992B... but poof! wrong details instantly ruin verisimilitude.
This would make Deutsche Reichsbahn class 05 002 the fastest steam engine - until PRR T1 breaks it officially.
Personally I think it is difficult to believe an A4 could possibly be faster than an 05 (at least 001 and 002), and we are deprived of explicit proof only because the Germans used the metric system: essentially they 'lifted' after achieving the magic metric two-ton and didn't push that slight additional fraction. (And yes, I do think there was at least some consideration on the English side of ensuring that the numbers would 'beat the German ones') I do have some concern that the draft and firebox were at the verge of having their flow numbers go 'upside down' at that speed and load (cf. the accounts in Gottwaldt of the sirenlike howl at full tilt) but unlike the Mammuts (which are still my favorite German engine despite not performing a needed job as expected) they could likely have been run 'faster than 126' and perhaps even than the "magic" American claim at 127.1 with a little more tinkering. (This despite a careful dynamic analysis by students in Eastern Europe which indicated a likely whopping critical resonance in guiding developing by about 122.5 equivalent mph)
Thing is that the real revolution in achievable high speed was not in higher drivers but in lightweight rodwork, as close to zero overbalance as you could get, good lateral motion, really good steam generation and large internally-streamlined passages, ling-lap long-travel valves with generous diameter, low-back-pressure efficient front ends and so forth. The T1 came along just in time to benefit from much of the insight -- although to this day I think it would benefit from very low overbalance, perhaps at the proportion Voyce Glaze used in the J mains but distributed in the coupled
pair as well -- there is little nosing in a duplex, and with that tender and short stroke little potential issue with surge (and that little amenable to correction with rather small Langer balancers)
Baldwin famously didn't like the poppet valves; Kiefer very famously avoided them on the C1a which was like a common-sense correction of many of the wacky T1 details. (Notable by the way for accomplishing something a comparable Niagara would likely not, going from Harmon to Chicago on one 64-ton coal load). It would be interesting to see what either American or French design 'improvement' would have done if applied to an 05 locomotive... (cue the old Laugh-In Arte Johnson meme, 'veeeery interesting'!)
As to the three-way test-off: if you know how to pry the surviving 05 out of Nuremberg I'll be the first to start agitating for running refurbishment (I believe the '63 work was mechanical and not just cosmetic so there may not be too difficult a time). The British will never, no never (and I do NOT mean 'hardly ever') let Mallard out again, but any good A4 given a Kylchap and the necessary conjugating-gear and bearing beefing up should do as well.
The niggling problem is that they won't survive tech inspection at Pueblo unless very careful instrumentation can be applied to lightweight spoke drivers. There are relatively easy answers for Boxpok or Baldwin Disc centers, but spokes are likely going to need so many strain gages and microphones for the 'necessary' speed and load range as to make data communication alone an interesting exercise.
LensCapOnF-7 vs. E-4 is ALCO vs. Baldwin and at that point ALCO knew far more about high speed running. You should not dismiss the speed claims about the F-7 so quickly.
This is a bit strange. In the world I grew up in and the steam community I know, I thought it was well-established that the E-4 is an Alco locomotive, built at about the same era as the F7s and sharing a suspiciously high number of dimensions and construction details with them. We all bend over trying to believe before breakfast that the F7 couldn't possibly have E-4 issues... but barring the existence of magic spells (and for that matter any high-speed testing of the sort that established Burlington Hudsons as over-112mph engines) it becomes increasingly difficult to believe in fairies. (We might also note that Mr. Bruce says nothing about them as notably fast, whereas...)
About the speed and capability of the As there can be little doubt, and were it not for the fact that there is utterly no practical use for one in modern railroading, high speed or preservation, I would have long ago spearheaded some effort to rebuild one. Before the PRR 'standardized' its high-speed future on double Atlantics it was working on an E8 that would have 84" drivers, oil firing, drive on the leading pair, and doubtless show Baldwin's take on the Alco high-speed formula... I hesitate to use the words 'rip off' as there was other similar high-speed design work in that brief period, and PRR was notorious for espousing four-coupleds as the only true high-speed approach (hence the reverence for the Lindbergh Engine), but it does occur to me that NIH was as suspended then as it had been when Alco essentially invented the K4 a couple of decades before...
I believe some comments were made above regarding the advisability of spending hard earned cash on a T-1 venture, and respectfully, I must ask the question:
So what about the millions of dollars spent each year on automobile racing?
Desiring to make a T-1 live again, and race against time, is a drop in the bucket by comparison. I hope the engineers and technicians succeed!
John
Tinplate Toddler The biggest limitating factor for high speeds are the reciprocating, unbalanced masses, i.e. the valve gear and connecting rods, which rotate at a tremendous high speed, causing the loco to buck like a stubborn bronco, damaging the track and what not. Just imagine one of the side rods breaking ...
The biggest limitating factor for high speeds are the reciprocating, unbalanced masses, i.e. the valve gear and connecting rods, which rotate at a tremendous high speed, causing the loco to buck like a stubborn bronco, damaging the track and what not. Just imagine one of the side rods breaking ...
And yet,PRR engineers would hit 90-100 mph between Crestline and Ft.Wayne even with K4s. Back then railroads and passenger engineers pride theirselves when their crack passenger trains arrived on the advertized.
On the other hand..Should something go afoul the engineer would get the blame citing excessive speed and rule infractions.
I don't understand the end game for the project and I probably won't be here for the conclusion.
However I would argue that if it is built from plans, with modern materials and upgrades in design, technology or manufacturing, it isn't really a 1:1 model. It's an upgrade. One of Sam Colt's inventions, that I can't mention is currently manufactured in what is called the 3rd generation. John Browning's inventions have been constantly upgraded for more than 100 years and are still in use my the military. The changes are evolutionary.
Unlike other places in the world, high speed rail just isn't a thing in this country. If it ultimately can go 200 or 300 mph, are we going to have high speed steam, or even solar or electric?
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
gmpullmanI thought the moderators would have at least moved this thread to the Prototype Information category already.
That ability has been lost for more than a month now, Ed, along with a number of other forum functions. We'll see if the new promised software next year will address those issues.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
Medina1128And, all of this has WHAT to do with model railroading? Just curious...
I have less than no intention of flaming or denigrating Ed, who knows more about historical railroading than I do. It's the attitude that the T1 Trust is 'doing a model railroad build' that has me so hot -- that they'd get a passel of detail drawings and think building the locomotive is just a matter of fabricating everything to scale and screwing it together the way Fine Art Models or Mr. Kohs might do. That was not the design process for any of the generations of duplex at Baldwin, and it is manifestly not the design process at the Trust -- the point is that the public doesn't see the depth or scope of ongoing work in things like multiphysics simulation or working with Lehigh to perfect side-rod alloys and fine geometry. Now, no small part of that has been by intent; you have to be registered to access the repository, for example, or see the extensive discussions conducted over elements of the detail design or fabrication so far. If Baldwin were developing this design today, they would almost certainly use the kind of tools and methodologies the Trust is, and in many cases the result wouldn't have needed the fine-tuning and improvements PRR conducted over the several years after completion (and would have continued with, had the engines not been pulled from first-line service when they were).
Tinplate ToddlerI find the endeavour to subject a multimillion dollar build of a steam engine to the unknown risks of attempting a speed record, which has no reason, nor any value, rather questionable. I can only assume that there is a substantial amount of false pride attached to that.
There's an old saying in the United States about what happens when you ASSume something like that, and I would venture that you have embodied it.
I'll certainly grant you there was a certain element of 'we'll wipe Gresley's nose with this' in the very early days of the effort, when it was much like a bunch of railfans talking about their dream projects, or for that matter Davidson Ward touting CSR/SRI's 'science project' as the exemplar of new reciprocating steam power for Amtrak. In both cases, the bold claims have been, shall we say, officially reduced as common sense comes to the fore. If there is high-speed testing done, the purpose is not to flog the 5550 faster than Mallard, but to determine how well the duplex principle achieves its purpose at high speed -- as Ed said, in the real world and not on a test plant or modeled in a computer. And there are a number of significant ones, including assessment of actual reasons for high-speed slip and confirmation of Chapelon's speculations about lateral rod deflection at speed, that almost must be confirmed empirically whether or not computer models show the behavior.
Most of the perceived future value of the locomotive as a 'capital asset' (aside from its historical value as an embodiment of lost technologies) is as an advertising supermodel, not an efficient or even nostalgic replacement for excursion or passenger power... although there may be a little cachet in 'it goes even faster than it looks'. It should be as useful as any comparably-sized 4-8-4 for those kinds of purpose, up to a much higher useful speed than even an eight-coupled with lightweight rodwork would achieve in the modern diesel era... but in an insurance-limited world, the high-speed-augment question is far less important than the capability of reliably running at road speed, with good stopping and acceleration, and the 'dash' ability to get out of any scheduling situation with minimum inconvenience or delay to prospective host operations. (At which point 5550 has far less augment than, say, 614, which Ross Rowland has repeatly noted was assessed to cause less track damage than its equivalent in contemporary diesels...)
In particular, the Trust did not undertake this project merely to break records, or for that matter to make money in the excursion business (and a good thing it was, too, considering the removal of the Amtrak excuse for allowing excursion traffic!) It's more akin to the original inspiration, the near-total reconstruction (and not incidentally, fixing of various design fehlern and near-certain intentional sabotage) involved with the Duke of Gloucester.
Now, it does have to be added that I would relish wiping the eye of a fairly vast conspiracy of naysayers who have pooh-poohed the thing from the beginning, but it is for the people raising the millions to say how their expenditure is best spent, as it were. Very early on, I mentioned another example of fast-running hubris with a multimillion-dollar asset that came to grief shortly thereafter, in no small part as a result. Any operations will be mindful of these things.
As a kid in the early 50's I rode in my Uncle Ed's PRR K-4 at over 100 mph in south Jersey west of Williamstown. Both my dad and I were quite scared and hung on to anything we could find in the swaying and rocking cab. No safety chains, and the loco was hand fired. The roar and power of the draft was quite noticable....all on small flanges. I did not go back for a second ride and settled for my other steam driving uncle...Ike who ran a rather docile Erie K1 on a slow commuter run to Jersey City. It is sort of like my Corvette....don't think about the family jewels just inches above the ground at 90 mph.
I did hear tales of track damge from steam locos at speed so I doubt seriously that any road today would allow a T-1 these speeds. Just a bit off balance...call the track crew at a huge expense.
Overmod (Don't come to me with fibs about alleged '120mph' 3460 class locomotives or those Milwaukee F7s so suspiciously similar in all respects to the C&NW E-4 that couldn't even get to 100mph with a train; on the other hand Mr. Bruce, who ran Alco and was in a peculiarly good position to know, said the A was easily good for over 128mph ... you'll appreciate where he got that number ... and we owe it to his memory to find out if he was right.)
(Don't come to me with fibs about alleged '120mph' 3460 class locomotives or those Milwaukee F7s so suspiciously similar in all respects to the C&NW E-4 that couldn't even get to 100mph with a train; on the other hand Mr. Bruce, who ran Alco and was in a peculiarly good position to know, said the A was easily good for over 128mph ... you'll appreciate where he got that number ... and we owe it to his memory to find out if he was right.)
F-7 vs. E-4 is ALCO vs. Baldwin and at that point ALCO knew far more about high speed running. You should not dismiss the speed claims about the F-7 so quickly.
I would rather have seen them put the money and effort in to getting the 1361 running or build a new K4s.
oldline1
dknelsonThe British steam locomotive steam records were judged according to pretty strict objective standards for precision and thus the Brits have always tended to cast shade on steam speeds records which were either more loosely judged in their opinion
Dave - you are on the spot there! Mallard´s speed record is quite debatable, as the line had a slide downhill grade. Sir Nigel Gresley himself questioned the record and saw the speed more in the vicinity of 124mph, than the split second tachometer reading which showed 126mph. This would make Deutsche Reichsbahn class 05 002 the fastest steam engine - until PRR T1 breaks it officially.
Should your layout have a stretch of triple track, you can have all those engines race against each other!
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
The British steam locomotive steam records were judged according to pretty strict objective standards for precision and thus the Brits have always tended to cast shade on steam speeds records which were either more loosely judged in their opinion (I think the NYC's 999 record falls in that category, even though it was intended to be a record breaking run by the railroad itself) or are more purely anecdotal, as some of the Milwaukee Road speed records tend to be. There are also anecdotes about the Pennsy T1 and the speeds that crews hit that the railroad itself would not have advertised or sanctioned or evaluated because the crews were exceeding published speed limits. I recall a story in Trains magazine about a crew that found itself on a work train (!) pulled by a T1 in its final months of service and the engineer basically said "hey watch this" and let her rip.
Just a few years ago the CB&Q E5 streamlined diesel and the Nebraska Zephyr train set had a series of excursions over a weekend on the BNSF line to Quincy IL and back. I watched it go through Mendota IL and it was flying (and as I was putting down my camera I noticed that I was totally surrounded by grass fires set by the hot exhausts -- probably a few decades of carbon buildup were involved!). Given the tangents on that line - the real racetrack of the old CB&Q -- the crew let her rip, maybe forgetting that the engine now had a GPS transponder on it and the dispatcher had access to speed information. Story is that they briefly got it up to 100 on track where Amtrak would probably be limited to 79. Fortunately that track has few grade crossings so the train was in relatively little danger of making a crossing before the gates were down. The DS got on the radio and asked some pointed questions about speed and so that little experiment was ended. I heard about this from folks who were listening on their scanners.
Dave Nelson
I've seen the arguments about the lack of a solid cast frame before and the mention of how we can never truly replicate it just like Baldwin built the original.
But this is the 21st century, the world of instant communication and self landing rockets. We have materials available that weren't even in labs 50 years ago. There are definitely things we know now that the guys in Baldwin in the 1940's would have killed to know. The extensive Solidworks drawings coming out of the T1 trust are a modern drafting wonder.
It's not like the knowledge of steam locomotives have been lost, physics are still the same laws, math is the same, and countless heritage railway's and modern FRA codes have kept steam locomotive knowledge alive. If anything the resonance of the locomotive can be tested using a Matlab or Python code, a timesaver compared to the hand calculation the original engineers would have done.
Really the only thing that is still in doubt is that pesky frame. If they can find one lost mold casting company with a sand bed big enough, its certainly possible to still cast the frame. However with modern techniques, welding might just be simpler and faster.
Its well known between Crestline and Ft.Wayne the T1s hit 90-100 mph on a routine bases in regular service.