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Belpaire fireboxes-any safer ? (and PRR T1) (any PRR steam)
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Feltonhill - <br /> <br />The PRR T1 on N&W did well enough east of Roanoke, after it got over Blue Ridge Mountain. But it did slip still westbound up Alleghany Mountain's 1.3% grade with a J-sized load. <br /> <br />The speed of the J on the Pennsy surprised several engineers, who sneered at the comparatively low drivers. The unofficial top speed of J 610 on the Fort Wayne Division was 115 MPH, at which point the drivers were turning around 525 RPM. <br /> <br />I had several discussions about the T1 with the late Vernon Smith, a former neighbor, who worked for Franklin Poppet Valve Co. (Franklin Railway Supply); Vernon made the very true statement that for their brief lives they generally served in the passenger pools and took what came their way very nicely. <br /> <br />I've read the Pennsy Society's recent writeups (the Keystone?) on the T1 performance which generally affirm what Smith said. <br /> <br />But I believe that the T1 had trouble in the hands of engineers who weren't as skilled, or who, perhaps, resented that they and their locomotive were replacing two K4 Pacifics and two crews. This has been the case in several areas where doubleheaded small power was replaced by big power; the crews resented it and didn't want to operate the big power to its fullest capacity. <br /> <br />But it's obvious from the writeups that when skillfully handled, the T1 would do what it was supposed to do. <br /> <br />It's also entirely possible that the Duplex configuration caused weight distribution problems and the reduction of back pressure (the reason for poppet valves) applied in the same package was a bit much. If these concepts had come along ten years earlier and were more fully developed, it's possible that the T1 could have been a much more fantastic machine than it really was. <br /> <br />Old Timer
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