Longest train pulled by a steam engine

[espeefoamer]

QUOTE: Originally posted by HighIron2003ar

Ok OS, what is the steepest grade that a straight rod job ever faced in revenue service?

(I dont know the answer but that Saluda would be my next guess if Madision wasnt it.)

Saluda was the steepest mainline grade at 4.7%.Madison hill was on a branch,and was 5.89%.
Today the steepest grade is BNSFs ex Santa Fe line over Raton pass at 3.5%.

[timz]

Steepest main line, you mean. Is that spur to Boeing's Everett plant still used?

[Anonymous]

Feltonhill -

That account of the N&W 500-car train you read about errs - the power was 3 SD45s on the point and THREE more 300 cars back, not five. The train did not have to go up any steep grades; the only hill in the way was the .3% climb over the Ohio River Bridge at Kenova, which was a momentum grade that the six '45's were easily capable of handling.

N&W's class A 2-6-6-4s handled 16,000 ton trains over that grade in steam days, after the use of auxiliary water tanks eliminated a water stop that killed any chance for running for the "hill".

Old Timer

[feltonhill]

I was going by the description and photo in Trains. There's an arrow pointing to what looks like 5 units in the middle of the train. They definitely stand out from the hoppers surrounding them. However, the photo was taken between Iaeger and Williamson, and according to the caption, it was a 450-car train, so it looks like I erred, not Trains. It was probably a different train. Did N&W do this more than once? Or did they change power west of Williamson and increase the load to 500 cars.

[timz]

It seems N&W ran the 450-car train in October 1967and the 500-car train three weeks later. 2/68 Trains says the longer train did have 3 SD45s cut in.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by garyaiki
I pasted a whole paragraph from a website I found because it claimed a BigBoy "kept moving" a 10km long train. A claim no one in this thread has confirmed or denied. The rest of the paragraph was full of errors and it was a mistake to paste them.

I don't see any way that the UP could have kept a 10 Klick long train together. Contemporary to the Big Boy, the Reading had to remove the 4 unit FTs it was using on 100 car or less trains on the Catawissa grade in Pennsylvania because they kept pulling the drawbars out of the ends of the cars. The internal reports found that the 4 by 6 inch shanks on the couplers of the era were not capable of absorbing the stress of a long train being pulled up the grade and would snap when there was a change in tension.

Now the FT was described by EMC as being the equivalent of a modern 4-8-4. The Big Boy is at least the equivalent of two 4-8-4s. So are you going to tell me that Union Pacific was able to defy the laws of physics and get metals to safely handle loads well in excess of their failure limits? A 1.0 km train i can believe even a 2.0 if the engineer was careful. But not a 10 km train with one locomotive on the head end.

[gabe]

QUOTE: Originally posted by rdganthracite

QUOTE: Originally posted by garyaiki
I pasted a whole paragraph from a website I found because it claimed a BigBoy "kept moving" a 10km long train. A claim no one in this thread has confirmed or denied. The rest of the paragraph was full of errors and it was a mistake to paste them.

I don't see any way that the UP could have kept a 10 Klick long train together. Contemporary to the Big Boy, the Reading had to remove the 4 unit FTs it was using on 100 car or less trains on the Catawissa grade in Pennsylvania because they kept pulling the drawbars out of the ends of the cars. The internal reports found that the 4 by 6 inch shanks on the couplers of the era were not capable of absorbing the stress of a long train being pulled up the grade and would snap when there was a change in tension.

Now the FT was described by EMC as being the equivalent of a modern 4-8-4. The Big Boy is at least the equivalent of two 4-8-4s. So are you going to tell me that Union Pacific was able to defy the laws of physics and get metals to safely handle loads well in excess of their failure limits? A 1.0 km train i can believe even a 2.0 if the engineer was careful. But not a 10 km train with one locomotive on the head end.

Sure its possible. Just make sure she's pushing instead of pulling the train.

Gabe

P.S. However, perhaps one should reference the 500-car N&W coal drag. Apparently there were 250 cars without an engine behind them, I wonder how long that would be? I do know that broken knuckles did occur with some regularity on the N&W though. Apparently, they would just bull doze the car right off the tracks and worry about it later so as not to tie up the main.

[feltonhill]

I don't have the exact figures, but each FT unit should be able to generate about 60,000 lbs starting TE, four would be 240,000 lbs. A BB generates about 135,000 lbs starting TE. A typical 4-8-4 is good for about 65,000 lbs. You can see why the FT's would be more proficient at pulling drawbars out at low speeds (5-10 mph) than the other two. I believe the FT developed a maximum of 1350 hp each unit, about 5,400 hp total. This is not the same as drawbar HP either.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by gabe
[
Sure its possible. Just make sure she's pushing instead of pulling the train.

Gabe

P.S. However, perhaps one should reference the 500-car N&W coal drag. Apparently there were 250 cars without an engine behind them, I wonder how long that would be? I do know that broken knuckles did occur with some regularity on the N&W though. Apparently, they would just bull doze the car right off the tracks and worry about it later so as not to tie up the main.

If you remember the 500 car N&W train was operated in the 1960s when the coupler drawbars were 6 by 8 inches or larger, not the 4 by 6 inch common in the 1940's and early 50s. The doubling of drawbar size, in addition to the improvements in the metalurgy allowed the longer trains to be operated safely.

I do not in any way see how one could possibly justify a statement like a 10 kilometer long train being pulled (or pushed) by one locomotive. People we are talking about a train in excess of six miles long. Put another way, this train would have had over 800 forty foot long cars in it. Very few, if any, would have had roller bearings like most of the N&W hoppers had in the 500 car demonstration train.

Maybe the entire run was downhill with a 50 mph tailwind. But then why use a Big Boy, an 0-4-0 would have done just as well.

[timz]

We naturally assume UP never hauled a 10-km train with a 4-8+8-4 or anything else. But don't forget-- if you assembled such a train on the main line just east of Archer, and if you could somehow control it, gravity would be more than enough to cover two or three hundred miles eastward. No need to pull it at all.

[Anonymous]

"the last of steam" by joe collias shows the class a 1213 with 213 cars of mixed freight, not a coal train.