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jpwoodruff,  <o:p></o:p> Thanks for that information.  I have not seen the article yet, so I can only go by what I am told about it.   <o:p></o:p> Regarding your details about the article:  <o:p></o:p> Well sure, if the time were measured wrong, the speed would be wrong.  But just the possibility of error or fraud is not at all evidence that it actually happened.  Railroaders knew their stuff back in those days when it came to timekeeping and fast running.   <o:p></o:p> Just the fact that this event was staged by a railroad company ought to lend substantial credibility to the speed claims.  They published a clear and comprehensive record of this run in a timetable format with station points, mileage, and times, along with calculations of maximum speeds reached in many specific locations.  This speed clocking hardly seems like a mere amateur production by spectators here and there who happened to have watches.  <o:p></o:p> Interestingly, the ATSF did not permit their enginemen to simply run the fastest speed possible on this run.  They told them they could exceed the limit, but only within a safe margin, depending on conditions and location.   <o:p></o:p> I have to wonder what the technical foundation is for an opinion that the #510 could not have accelerated its train past 80-90 mph.  Are you saying that it is only one man’s opinion?  Does Mr. Hankey not provide a formal engineering analysis and calculation showing the weight of the train, horsepower, condition of the track, wind direction, air temperature, quality of coal, pounds of coal per minute burned, track grades and curves, etc.?  <o:p></o:p> So this whole supposed debunking rests only on the possibility that a clocking error might have occurred, and it might have resulted in 100 mph being misreported as 106 mph; and one person has an opinion that the locomotive was not capable of exceeding 90 mph?    <o:p></o:p> This supposed debunking sounds like it is coming from people who believe railroading was anachronism incapable of heroic feats until the pinnacle of the super power era.  It sounds to me like a collection of little doubts all strung together to reach for a preconceived conclusion.
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