An MKT 4-6-2 averaged 10 gallons of oil per mile pulling a 15-car passenger train St Louis to Oklahoma City
#110 - Railway age v.75 1923 Jul-Dec. - Full View | HathiTrust Digital Library
So I guess a 10-12 car Santa Fe train could do 600+ miles on one load of oil -- lots of their tenders could hold 6000 gallons.
(But maybe the MKT train was wooden cars?)
OvermodThe story I remember from Westing's book was 37-odd miles without adding coal to the fire, made out of Jersey City and not inbound.
(Don't recall whether it was before or after the 1911 Bristol line change -- probably before?)
Thanks, Ed
These could be steam or air actuated, on either hand-fired or stoker-equipped engines -- the 'general rule' probably being that the bunker size or shape made trimming from the rear difficult.
OvermodA coal pusher is a device on the rear slope sheet of the tender, usually a compressed-air cylinder driving a linkage, that moved coal at the rear of a long bunker down to where the stoker auger could pick it up.
Coal-Pusher by Edmund, on Flickr
timzSo "coal pusher" doesn't imply hand fired? Did lots of stoker-fired engines have them? Why did some need them and some not?
Both. Some roads found more value in 'added accessories' than others did. Pretty much up to the Superintendant of Motive Power as to which engines got the 'bells and whistles' so to speak. The advertizement below explains more —
Coal Pusher DA Type by Edmund, on Flickr
Regards, Ed
Water for locomotives was a significant issue on the Santa Fe west from Belen- Albuquerque. The volcanic history dictated that well extraction was sporadic. Therefore dams were created to capture runoff from rain and also from snowmelt.
At locations where water was needed for normal station operations and housing for employees water was hauled in tank cars from locations where Santa Fe dug wells and were either temporatevely stored on sidings or emptied into built storage tanks.
So "coal pusher" doesn't imply hand fired? Did lots of stoker-fired engines have them? Why did some need them and some not?
A coal pusher is a device on the rear slope sheet of the tender, usually a compressed-air cylinder driving a linkage, that moved coal at the rear of a long bunker down to where the stoker auger could pick it up. These longer tenders could uncover the front section of the long (sometimes in multiple sections!) worm -- some engines had plates to cover the front, for safety -- which could make it dangerous for the fireman to climb back to rake sticking coal forward.
I will see if I can find some good illustrations.
OvermodThe 'nonstop record' mentioned by the only credible authority (Prince) is between Nashville and Birmingham
Prince says "If the fuel was of the finest quality and the engine steamed well, no coal stop was made. However, upon arrival at the Louisville Union Station with an empty tender, there would often be barely enough steam pressure left in the boiler to take the engine back to the South Louisville Roundhouse under its own power."
Fortunately, Prince didn't say the 4-6-2 could do 125 mph.
The story I remember from Westing's book was 37-odd miles without adding coal to the fire, made out of Jersey City and not inbound. The fire was carefully built before starting, and it would have been interesting to know the precise details of how the heel was built, etc. -- there was probably some raking and shaking attention to the fire during the trip; just no coal added with the scoop.
Rebuilt L&N Pacific 295 was no more capable of taking the South Wind nonstop from Louisville to Montgomery than it would have been able to reach 125mph. Amusingly nearly every reference to its 'enormous' tender differs from the others either in number of gallons or number of tons. The 'nonstop record' mentioned by the only credible authority (Prince) is between Nashville and Birmingham, and is completely in line for what I'd expect the rebuilt locomotive to be able to produce.
The likeliest 'gold standard' for high-speed fuel economy was likely the projection for the New York Central C1a circa May 1945. I have not looked to see if this predates practical experience with PT-tender-equipped locomotives running the 900-odd miles through between Harmon and Chicago (not via CUT) with only one coaling stop (at Wayport), but the proposed C1a used an only-slightly-modified Niagara boiler, and 64T was intended to get it reliably between Harmon and Chicago with reasonable operating reserve at typical NYC passenger-train speeds. (Of course this would involve a relatively tiny cistern capacity, and frequent track-pan scooping... but even so, the 17,000 gallons I remember in the spec was only 3000 gallons less than what the railfans said the L&N was magically using for more than half that distance on a far slower and hillier railroad than the Water Level Route...)
Forgot about the South Wind. The L&N tried to pull it the 490 miles between Louisville and Montgomery on one load of coal, and no doubt they succeeded once in a while, anyway. The 4-6-2 had a 12-wheel tender -- 26 or maybe 28 tons of coal. Did any coal-burning engine beat that, anywhere?
Another unusual record: Pennsy Steam and Semaphores tells about Martin Lee, a PRR engineer. He and his fireman learned how to run a 4-4-2 for 50+ miles without adding any coal to the fire. His record was 67+ miles, Croydon to Jersey City; I forget how many cars in the passenger train.
Our route has a coaling tower over main track and a water tower at another location.
More grist:
The A-3s were Harriman Common Standard engines -- see detail here:
https://wx4.org/to/foam/past/less_traveled2017/pdfs/1905-6harriman_locos.pdf
Small, comparatively short-stroke cylinders fed through 12" valves, and one source (Ellicott) noted they ran out of power on grades. They also kept Stephenson gear. To me all this adds up to a design with comparatively low steam mass flow, but that could take reasonable advantage of superheating when it came in.
Applying the booster makes much operational sense, and the advantages of a good feedwater heater are not difficult to determine.
The locomotive referenced in the 'trains of the Forties' book was probably one of the two later A-6 conversions (1927-8) which were actually given Daylight paint. Significantly this was the same 'formula' of Delta trailer with booster and FWH as in 1922, but with slightly lower drivers.
timzWhat's "successfully" mean?
Something that might be interesting is that ATSF rebuilt one of their 4-4-2s (I think with one of the 4-cylinder Vauclain compound arrangements, probably balanced) about 1923, and perhaps this mirrored what SP was trying to do with piston-valve 2-cylinder DA and feedwater heat... I have not looked this up in Iron Horses of the Santa Fe Trail and didn't think to look for this while originally reading it.
The old CNW coaling tower still stands over the main line at Dekalb IL. There is also an exCNW tower in southwest Wisconsin out in a field where the tracks are long gone.
The exIC tower remains in Council Bluffs. All I've mentioned were built to last.
Jeff
Backshop Overmod As I recall there was one on the famous Sandusky branch for the J-1 and 5001/5011 2-10-4s, with some onets on operations using it. There is still a coaling tower on the Sandusky branch, it's a few miles north of the diamonds in Marion and is visible from US23.
Overmod As I recall there was one on the famous Sandusky branch for the J-1 and 5001/5011 2-10-4s, with some onets on operations using it.
As I recall there was one on the famous Sandusky branch for the J-1 and 5001/5011 2-10-4s, with some onets on operations using it.
There is still a coaling tower on the Sandusky branch, it's a few miles north of the diamonds in Marion and is visible from US23.
High volume coaling facilities were built to last when they were built - a lot of concrete & rebar went into their construction. Many 21st century carriers feature that removing them is more costly than just letting them rust in peace
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Overmod[a 4-4-2] started and ran a train of well over 20 loaded passenger cars successfully
In 1932 Rwy Age told about a Frisco 4-6-2 that pulled 54 passenger cars back to town after a couple of other engines broke down and their trains got merged. Don't recall if it said exactly where it happened; that issue isn't online.
Would Frisco have had wooden cars then?
Yes, I should have said 'worthless to me'. And it is their fault, really, that it won't run on my overly-paranoid browser.
Thanks.
I suspected what I was going to find, and it was EXACTLY what I was expecting.
These were comparatively high-wheeled (81" IIRC!), small-cylindered express engines, but (as with much steam power) they could 'pull a larger train than they could start'. They would also benefit from the comparative water-rate and heat-balance efficiencies of a good Worthington feedwater heater. Accordingly it should not come as a surprise that the locomotive with its then-innovative booster starts trains as effectively as a comparable 4-6-0, and has a remarkable effective water rate...
I am not certain that we should translate that "223 miles observed on test" as the person writing the story did -- I suspect that this would have left very little, if any actual reserve in the tender cistern, which no one sane would do on a passenger train like the contemporary Daylight service. But, by the same token, a comparatively small increase in 'original' cistern capacity, or the adoption of even a small A-tank arrangement, might easily provide the required working range with little compromise to train makeup.
But then, there is an interesting piece of corroborative evidence which I in fact was thinking of when I read about a "SP 4-4-2" with high performance. One of these engines was mentioned in that 'Trains of the 1940s' book -- where it's mentioned that it successfully started and ran a train of well over 20 loaded passenger cars successfully, to the then astonishment of the author.
I am trying to find my copy of Fryer's book on experimental steam, where he describes a contemporary experiment using a booster (in an articulated truck) applied to a British 4-4-2. It performed with similar effectiveness (but wasn't deemed worthwhile enough to implement on a grander scale, perhaps in part because of NIH syndrome...)
OvermodProvided link to Hathitrust is worthless
Page 252 in Rwy Age for 19 Jan 1924.
Provided link to Hathitrust is worthless: it goes to a random page when clicked from an iPhone, and nothing from babel.hathitrust.org will load on my browser because their site permissions have expired but they still mandate HSTS.
Can you please provide the appropriate page number from the physical issue (not the one in the PDF copy) and post it here?
I believe the reason you could find a water tower at every town was for the freight locomotives. They spent a lot of time idling in sidings getting out of the way of the through passenger trains. Sitting still, they still consumed fuel and water, though not very much, it still adds up over time. Freights often did considerable work along the way, so they would use a lot more fuel and water from point A to Point B than a Limited.
I've been reading thorugh accident reports in the 1910s and there are several accounts where a crew will cut off the train they were pulling on the mainline and run to get water before it was too late. With no radios or other form of instant, universal communication, this sometimes led to problems with other trains that didn't know what was going on.
In 1924, SP said its 4-4-2s could run 223 miles Los Angeles to San Luis Obispo without taking water. (Lower right corner of the page)
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015010882184&seq=286
Obvious question: why bother? Surely they changed crews at Santa Barbara, going from the Los Angeles Division to the Coast Division. If they have to stop anyway, what do they gain by refusing to take water?
When the Daylight Limited started in 1923, it was limited, all right. Just passengers from LA to SF -- no in-betweeners. But presumably that didn't last long, and presumably if they're picking up passengers in Santa Barbara they'd feel pretty silly making a point of not taking water.
But maybe they did run thru a few times, and I don't know of any train anywhere that ran more than 223 miles unwatered.
A number of railroads started building coaling facilities immediately adjacent to mains, or on bridges over them, to make fueling and watering easy and relatively direct. As I recall there was one on the famous Sandusky branch for the J-1 and 5001/5011 2-10-4s, with some onets on operations using it. C&O famously built one to service the M-1 turbines, streamlined to match the locomotive.
I don't have a copy of Scribbins, but I have read that Milwaukee had high-speed coal chutes at one point (New Lisbon?) for the F-7s (and other coal-fired power, obviously not the As). I was never able to figure out whether 'coal shoots' was a technical description of something like high-speed flood loading (of the desired 2" washed passenger gas coal) or just another historian who couldn't quite spell. (I did run with the concept for my own use...)
For those of you who are tired of 'we can't know' and want a definitive account of fuel needed on the New York Central after the PT tenders allowed the single stop at Wayneport:
In April 1945 the 'postwar passenger steam power' was still the C1a, not any sort of "Niagara". This had the running-gear dimensions of a PRR T1 but with Baker gear, piston valves of appropriate proportion, and -- most importantly -- a Niagara-proportioned boiler made to have as many common details and dimensions as possible (it was slightly longer in the waist for the center cylinder saddle).
One point of this design was that the Duplex had better water rate than an 'equivalent' 2-cylinder DA locomotive, and the lower water rate translated into lower fuel burn rate. Calculations indicated that a 64T pedestal tender (the design with the five centipede axles plus a trailing Delta truck) would allow the trip between Harmon and Chicago on one fueling (of course with many water stops enroute; the cistern was something like 17,000 gallons). Presumably this would have been on the trains that did not go through CUT, as those involved engines with much lesser required economy that could be ready, fueled and watered, for easy engine change at either end of the short electrification). The interesting point to remember here is that the Niagara, with the same boiler, was never proposed to get this tender, and it doesn't appear that this was because 'Dieseliner' preference stopped the idea short.
BaltACDRunning too low on water - was explosive.
If you were dumb enough to trade water for steam, or (as with C&O 1642) you trusted the lies of the Nicholson Company, then you might progress to rocketry and 'unanticipated rapid disassembly' -- I remember seeing an ominous picture of an explosion with the water tower in the background -- they took water and as quick as they could fired up the injector, which ran cold water onto hot sheets...
Running too low on water - was explosive.
gregc even if a train needed to refuel, wouldn't the loco simply be swapped with one that is fully loaded with fuel and water?
even if a train needed to refuel, wouldn't the loco simply be swapped with one that is fully loaded with fuel and water?
Coaling facilities, and water, were designed for rapid movement of the commodity in question - hence water towers and coal towers. I'm pretty sure that a refueling stop or a water stop could be measured in minutes, and not very many, at that.
In the days when a locomotive stayed with a particular engineer, what you suggest would be true. But in the later years, locomotives stayed pretty much with their trains. Of course, they never left "home" rails, either, unlike the run-through power we see today.
I was just reading about the NYC Hudsons - those on the 20th Century ran from Harmon to Chicago, changing crews enroute. Especially in the days of the streamlined locos, they wanted them on the name trains. There were only a few so decorated.
The Central's track pans have been mentioned (I believe the Pennsy had them, too). Locomotives running those routes had tenders that held a lot of coal - and not a lot of water. Since they could pick up water at the pans pretty much at speed, they didn't need even the few minutes that would be required to fill at a water stop.
If you look at old stations, you'll often find that there were water columns at the point where the locomotive would stop. Thus the tender could be replenished during a station stop, minimizing any delay that might be introduced.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
The longest steam nonstop run of which I'm aware was 205 miles between Nashville and Birmingham on L&N by the "South Wind".
greg - Philadelphia & Reading / Reading
Supposedly, NY Central built the Wayneport coaling station intending that it would be the single coal stop for some NY-Chicago passenger trains (presumably trains that didn't go to Cleveland Union Terminal). They could hope to do that because their tenders had room for more coal, since water capacity was low, due to track pans.
So: assuming no track pans, how far did trains go unrefuelled? We don't have that good of an idea. Probably oil burners had a better chance? Could be SP's original 12-car Daylight was intended to run the 470 miles LA to SF on one tank of oil.
Steam passenger trains were known to run 200 miles nonstop, without track pans, but don't think any could do much better than that.
Most of the stories that I have HEARD - In most cases a locomotive would be filled with coal and water at its origin terminal, it was expected to make its destination terminal on that load of coal, it was expected to take on water one or more times between terminals. YMMV
The B&O Cincinnatian, when implemented ran from Mt. Royal Station in Baltimore to Cincinnati Union Terminal. Power would be fully serviced for its departure from Baltimore, it would take water at Martinsburg, WV and proceed over the Patterson Creek Cut Off to Grafton, WV where the power would be changed with fully serviced power, the train would then take water at Athens, OH and then complete the train's 12 hour 30 minute run. Eastbound had the same watering point and engine changes as Westbound.
B&O Employee Timetables showed on the Division Map page what kinds of facilities were available at the appropriate division locations, coal, water, turning facilities etc. Crews working on the line of road would decide when it was necessary to take water and/or fuel.
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