CSSHEGEWISCH beaulieu More than likely the design of the first locomotive failed to perform up to expectations, thereby souring CP's Chief Mechanical Officer on the idea of Mallet Articulateds. There are several other roads that had the same experience. CSSHEGEWISCH noted about the Santa Fe mallets; "...Santa Fe had the same attitude toward articulateds, and for most of the same reasons, although to be fair, ATSF had some rather unusual articulateds..." To round out what Paul (Csshegewisch) said; About 1904/1911 The ATSF Shops at Topeks (KS.) bought 10 Front assemblys(Low Pressure) from Baldwin Co ( (2-10-2s), and then took 10 900 Class 2-10-2's and created 10 locomotives in their 3000/3009 number series which were 2-10-10-2's these engines were built and pulled an unusual style of tender ( 'whale-or-Turtleback(?) back' style). This link is to a photos of the 3000 on its initial outing and taken at Winfield, Ks. http://www.ausbcomp.com/~bbott/WINRR/wrsfd8.htm And according to information they were then converted back into 2-10-2's (20) after which they had long careers til retired. (see link) http://www.steamlocomotive.com/2-10-10-2/?page=atsf
beaulieu More than likely the design of the first locomotive failed to perform up to expectations, thereby souring CP's Chief Mechanical Officer on the idea of Mallet Articulateds. There are several other roads that had the same experience.
More than likely the design of the first locomotive failed to perform up to expectations, thereby souring CP's Chief Mechanical Officer on the idea of Mallet Articulateds. There are several other roads that had the same experience.
"...Santa Fe had the same attitude toward articulateds, and for most of the same reasons, although to be fair, ATSF had some rather unusual articulateds..."
To round out what Paul (Csshegewisch) said;
I'll have a look if I can find those... thanks..
Ulrich,
See Hill biography "James j Hill and the operning of the Northwest" by Albro Martin, or Van Horne bio "From Telegrapher to Titan" by Knowles.
Also see "Steam Along the Boundary" by Turner which describes how the rivalry played out in southern British Columbia.
Mac
Not sure about Hill and Van Horne being bitter rivals...Van Horne wasn't a business tycoon like Hill was, he was more of a builder in the employ of CP. And Hill hand picked Van Horne to build the CP I believe.
PNWRMNM Ulrich, You are correct to note that J. J. Hill was a founding member of both the (what became) GN and the CP associates and syndicate respectively. When CP decided to build north of the Great Lakes, as opposed to using the St. Paul as part of an American bridge route, Hill withdrew from CP and began his own route to the Pacific. By the period 1905-1910 CP and GN were each others most hated rivals. Think Hill and Van Horne. Mac McCulloch
You are correct to note that J. J. Hill was a founding member of both the (what became) GN and the CP associates and syndicate respectively. When CP decided to build north of the Great Lakes, as opposed to using the St. Paul as part of an American bridge route, Hill withdrew from CP and began his own route to the Pacific.
By the period 1905-1910 CP and GN were each others most hated rivals. Think Hill and Van Horne.
Mac McCulloch
The interesting part about that is while Hill and Van Horne were bitter rivals, George Stephen (Lord Mount Stephen), the Chairman of CP remained friends with J.J. Hill and assisted him with gaining control of the Northern Pacific and keeping it away from E.H. Harriman. Half the money that bought the stock came from George Stephen.
Santa Fe had the same attitude toward articulateds, and for most of the same reasons, although to be fair, ATSF had some rather unusual articulateds.
More than likely the design of the first locomotive failed to perform up to expectations, thereby souring CP's Chief Mechanical Officer on the idea of Mallet Articulateds. There are several other roads that had the same experience. Look at how few Mountain and Northern type steam locomotives CP operated. CP was very conservative on motive power, other than the Mikados, minimal eight coupled power. Also no other company regularly operated Hudson type locomotives in freight service, and those that operated Pacific type locomotives in freight service had mostly moved on to bigger power by the 1930's
Also, given that JJ HILL was instrumental in the construction and leadership of both GN and CP, one would think that the two roads would perhaps also collaborate on motive power development. I'm thinking that maybe CP, being a transcontinental carrier at the time, wanted locomotives that could be efficiently used in other parts of its system if needed. A large articulated locomotive would therefore be a large investment that could really only be used on a small part of the system. A locomotive like the Selkirk, on the other hand, could be sent east if power requirements changed. In fact that's what happened. When GP7s and GP9s supplanted steam in BC, the large Selkirks were sent east to Alberta and Saskatchewan until they were retired in 1959. Just my theory..
A bit more on GN 2-6-6-2 locomotives from "Steam Locomotives of the Great Northern Railway" by Middleton and Priebe.
At the time they were ordered the only other Mallet in service was one built for the B&O in 1904. IIRC this was an 0-6-6-0, but the book is silent on this point.
The trailing truck was added because they locos were expected to have to back down the 2.2% Cascade Mountain grades that they were built to serve as helpers on. The first 5 Class L-1, received in 1906, had 55 inch drivers, weighed 355,000 pounds, and delivered 69,900 of tractive effort. GN ordered another 20, three of which went to the CB&Q. These were built in 1908
GN ordered another 25, these class L-2, which were much lighter, at 288,000 pounds and intended to be road engines, but retaining the 55 inch drivers.
The original L-1 locos were written up in the trade press, so CP management certainly should have been aware of them. For CP to select 0-6-6-0 wheel arangement when they did was a throwback in terms of design.
The class L locos served as late as 1926. The L-1 were rebuilt into O-5 mikados begining in 1921, and the L-2 to O-6 mikes. Looks like a good design to me and it was clearly available to CP when they bought what they did.
AgentKidexperienced a number of other derailments in their brief career.
That is a taken from the book "The Big Hill" by Floyd Yeats. In the same book it was speculated that the cause of the derailments was due to the lack of a pilot truck.
Bruce
So shovel the coal, let this rattler roll.
"A Train is a Place Going Somewhere" CP Rail Public Timetable
"O. S. Irricana"
. . . __ . ______
According to Omer Lavallee, the 6, 0-6-6-0 locos were designed specially for pusher service on the mainline in the ROCKIES, they were quite light as Mallet engines went, they had 59'' drivers.
This would seem they were not having trouble on curves in the mountains.
AgentKidI don't believe the Mallets lasted even a year
In trying to find the sharpest degree of curvature on the west side of the Kicking Horse Pass, I did find this.
The Mallets were built between 1909 and 1911 and converted to Decapods (2-10-0) between 1916 and 1917. They were described as very early examples of their type, and experienced a number of other derailments in their brief career.
"I think there is much more to the story. With regard to timing of piston thrusts, this is easy to control when setting valves."
Setting valves has absolutely no effect. Remember there 2 separate engines involved with no mechanical connection between them other than the center pin on the front engine. One engine's wheels can slip with out the other slipping.
Agentkid,
I think there is much more to the story. With regard to timing of piston thrusts, this is easy to control when setting valves. The fact that they were 0-6-6-0 implies they were very early examples of the breed. Lack of pilot wheels probably contributed more to poor tracking qualities than piston thrust patterns, but I must admit that as early as they were, the issue of piston thrust patterns may not have been recognized. CP could well have been put off by the weck, but 20 years is a long time to keep your head in the sand.
Both GN and NP bought early (1905-06) 2-6-6-2 locomotives and a bit later 2-8-8-2's as well. NP ran the 2-8-8-2s around 24 degree curves. Both GN and NP had lots of 10 degree curves and I suspect 10 degrees was about CP mainline minimum. One NP 2-6-6-2 operated on a real logging railroad for several years. That seems to prove they were flexible.
As to CN, with their much more favorable profile, I don't think they ever needed or wanted the high tractive effort at low speeds characteristic of the compound locos.
Ulrich.that way their thrusting action would always be more or less in line
That is why we need more input from a loco expert. The two sets of drivers can be pointing in two different directions. One set is fixed to the loco frame and the other set swivels. Unlike a Shay, there is no gearing between the two driver sets. So it is possible that there can be a thrust on both sets of drivers, at exactly the wrong moment, when the engine is climbing through a curve.
UlrichSo the curves on CP between Field and Revelstoke are tighter than curves on N&W or UP?
Linn H. Westcott, of Model Railroader fame, described CP's mountain operations as a "logging railroad built and operated to Class I standards".
That's a good point about the tight curves..maybe this is why CP's mallets were custom designed with all four cylinders in the middle of the locomotive...that way their thrusting action would always be more or less in line. But, nonetheless, it doesn't appear that this novel design solved the problem...So the curves on CP between Field and Revelstoke are tighter than curves on N&W or UP?
The fact that one of the demonstrators derailed on the west side of the Kicking Horse Pass and killed the salesman and some CP executives probably had a negative impact on the whole idea.
There are very tight curves, on grades, on CP's mountain passes and the nature of articulated locos causes a high likelihood of derailments in these situations. A loco expert here could better explain it, but it had to do with there being two cylinder thrusts at roughly the same time (one on each set of drivers), on two different trajectories, relative to the track curvature and gradient, causing the engine to want to jump up onto the railhead.
I don't believe the Mallets lasted even a year and they were far from being the biggest of their type anyway.
To my knowledge only six were ever built for CP...and those were 0-6-6-0 engines that were converted to decapods by 1917.
The articlulated locomotive was widely embraced in Europe as well as the United States by roads that operated in mountainous territory. Yet for some reason they were never accepted in Canada. Even the few that were built were eventually converted to rigid frames, and the biggest steam power CP ever operated were the Selkirk T class 2-10-4 locomotives. Was there something about CP or CN or the way in which they operated that made the use of these locomotives impractical?
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