General Discussion

timz:

AFAIK N&W still has the US record, from 1967 or so-- 500 coal loads, Iaeger to Williamson.

WOW! 500 coal loads! I bet those Y class Mallys were sure pullin' and a' pushin!

No Mallets, unfortunately [though I sure wish so, too].  All diesels - I'm pretty sure there was a mid-train 'slave' or remote control unit lash-up, not sure if there was a rear pusher as well.  Somewhere there's probably a record or report of how many and which model were used - remember, back then a typical diesel was about half the HP - say, about 2,000 HP, plus or minus 500 - of those that have been around for the last 15 years or so.

Over this past weekend I was re-reading a 1999 Trains article on N and W Mechanical Dept.'s 'Mr. Fix-It', Clyde Taylor - the train broke a coupler knuckle on re-starting from one of the en-route points [of course].  Taylor's crew replaced it in something like record time - there were a lot of N and W 'brass hats' watching, apparently.

- Paul North. 

bubbajustin:

timz:

AFAIK N&W still has the US record, from 1967 or so-- 500 coal loads, Iaeger to Williamson.

WOW! 500 coal loads! I bet those Y class Mallys were sure pullin' and a' pushin!

 You're about a decade off on that, buddy (1960 was the last year with Steam locomotives in revenue service on a US Class 1).. I'm more than 3 times your age and Steam was all done by the time I was born (1966)..The N&W monster coal train was powered by a veritable fleet of SD45s including some remote controlled helpers..

Three SD45s pulling and three cut in-- don't recall whether the cut-in units were manned or not.

SD45 = 3,600 HP each, so that's 10,800 HP up front, and another 10,800 HP  someplace in back, for a total of 21,600 HP.  As I recall, the train weighed somewhere in the 30,000-plus ton range - so at 0.7 HP/ ton or less, it wasn't overpowered, to say the least.

I believe I have my 1967 bound volume of Trains handy at home at the moment.  I'll see if I can extract the specifics and post them in the next day or two.

- PDN.

The cars grossed more than 60 tons apiece. I vaguely recall a total of 47000 tons.

3:40 PM Oct. 25, 1967 - 500 450 loaded coal cars, about 45,000 44,475 gross tons, 8 ea. SD45's - 3 leading, 5 as mid-train slaves (radio-controlled), west along the Tug River from Iaeger, W. Va. to Williamson, W. Va..  Photo on top left of page 8 and short article - "N&W raises the tonnage ante" on pages 13 and 15 (about 3-1/2 column-inches, about half of that summarizing the PRR's prior long trains) under the "NEWS AND EDITORIAL COMMENT" section in Jan. 1968 Trains.  Ran about 48 47.1 miles, avg. speed 28-1/2 MPH.  Will review again and check and post addt'l. details tomorrow. EDIT:  See misc. additions and changes above. 

Trains 2/68 tells about the 500-car train-- 3 + 3 SD45s, 47000 tons Iaeger to Portsmouth 157 miles in 6 1/2 hours it says. They got one knuckle-- wonder if that 6 1/2 hours includes the time fixing that?

Williamson was probably a crew change then? Two stops and starts there?

(It was the 450-car train that ran Iaeger to Williamson.)

OK  - I think timz's got it more correct - and that explains some discrepancies I noticed in the 1999 Clyde Taylor - "N&W's Mr. Fix-It" article.  Nov. 15, 1967; yes, the 6-1/2 hrs. included fixing the knuckle (seems it took only a few minutes), Williamson was a crew change - that was the only reason for the stop.

The two stops and starts at Williamson were probably for 1) change the head-end crew, and 2) fix the broken knuckle.  Since the 2nd set of SD45s were probably mid-train unmanned 'slaves' (radio-controlled) - that was the common state-of-the-art "DPU" back then - no 2nd stop to change the non-existent crew on them would have been needed.

- Paul North.