The H class was restricted to the Chicago-Omaha main and certain freight routes out to Proviso to Milwaukee and just short of the Twin Cities, primarily due to light bridges. The aforementioned mechanical problems plus frame problems would have caused any road to be disappointed with them.
I believe they eventually could operate as far "Northwestern" as Altoona Yard, which is next to Eau Claire, WI. Weighing in at 498,000 lbs, they were the largest 4-8-4s built at that time and were only superseded in weight by a few classes of Northerns such as the ATSF 2900s and the Western Maryland Potomacs.
As built...
Rebuilt...
Hauling black diamonds...
Broadside view...
The competition...
On the Western Maryland the 4-8-4s were designated "Potomacs."
I believe that 2809 is actually a J-4 2-8-4 built primarily for hauling coal on the line from Litchfield. I would opine that the J-4's and H's, while good locomotives, may have been too big for C&NW.
Yup, on 2809 my bad. Thought I had an H rebuild picture there.
kgbw49 I believe they eventually could operate as far "Northwestern" as Altoona Yard, which is next to Eau Claire, WI. Weighing in at 498,000 lbs, they were the largest 4-8-4s built at that time and were only superseded in weight by a few classes of Northerns such as the ATSF 2900s and the Western Maryland Potomacs. As built... Broadside view...
Lead truck is a unusual design! Not many engine had outside bearing on their lead trucks from my observations.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BaltACD, I agree with your observation. Not a whole lot of railroads used 4 wheel outside-bearing lead trucks.
The only two that pop into my mind are Wabash and CN. I am sure there are other examples, but here are some from those roads:
Wabash 4-8-4...
Wabash 4-8-2...
CN 4-8-4...
CN 4-8-2...
CN 4-6-4 as built...
The Wabash O-1 4-8-4 and M-1 4-8-2 were built concurrently and were identical in all respects except for the trailing truck. The reason why two types were ordered instead of one is lost to history.
Interesting comparative numbers here between the Wabash Mountain and Wabash Northern:
http://www.steamlocomotive.com/mountain/?page=wabash
http://www.steamlocomotive.com/northern/?page=wabash
Looks like the Northern had 12 more square feet of grate, had about 10%+/- more firebox area and heating surface, weighed about 24 tons more, developed about 4,200 lbs more traction effort, was just three feet longer in total length, but had a lower factor of adhesion than the Mountain.
They sure do look identical in all other aspects. It would have been interesting to compare coal and water consumption on an identical train with the same engineer.
BaltACD kgbw49 I believe they eventually could operate as far "Northwestern" as Altoona Yard, which is next to Eau Claire, WI. Weighing in at 498,000 lbs, they were the largest 4-8-4s built at that time and were only superseded in weight by a few classes of Northerns such as the ATSF 2900s and the Western Maryland Potomacs. As built... Broadside view... Lead truck is a unusual design! Not many engine had outside bearing on their lead trucks from my observations.
The most notable thing about this engine is the outside truck sideframes in addition to the outside bearings.
kgbw49BaltACD, I agree with your observation. Not a whole lot of railroads used 4 wheel outside-bearing lead trucks.
Where's the PRR T1, which explicitly used this arrangement for better stability at high speed?
In my opinion, a far more important 'detail' of the H-class 'zeppelins' was that perimeter frame at the rear (also seen on the CN Hudson) which provided greater potential strength at the cost of access to the trailing truck and ashpan...
Indeed,Mr. Wizlish - another outside-framed four-wheel lead truck!
Here are a few:
T1...fresh off the showroom floor and looking like it wants to go somewhere - fast!
T1 doing what it was born to do...
T1 moving faster than the camera shutter...caption says 80 mph
Interesting. I hadn't bothered to check mechanical details between the two classes, but clearly the extra axle had to be for some reason. Thanks!
It still is a mystery as to why they would order two different classes at the same time, identical in all other aspects. Maybe one of their lines had slightly longer sidings so they could run slightly longer and heavier trains, thereby making use of the additional 4200 lbs of tractive force of the Northern. Or maybe they had a certain amount of capital dollars to spend, and reducing half the order to Mountains saved enough money by using 600 tons less steel to order 25 Northerns and 25 Mountains instead of, say, 49 Northerns. No one will ever really know. They were both good-looking engine classes, though.
kgbw49It still is a mystery as to why they would order two different classes at the same time, identical in all other aspects.
One possibility is turntable length and balance - as you probably know, the L&N Emmas would likely have been 4-8-4s if there had been 'room enough for them at the inn'.
But the likeliest difference is, as you note, in that larger furnace and radiant area. 12 additional square feet of area is relatively huge; radiant heating surface is also likely to produce 'better' steam generation than the equivalent in convective surface. even before factoring in improvements in circulation due to arch tubes or syphons. Bear in mind that a principal reason for the four-wheel trailing truck was weight of additional firebox structure (and water in wider legs), not just what looks like a nominal increase in grate and leg structure. I am also tempted to have you look at the superheater area for the two engines.
You can't tell all that much useful difference from looking at things like starting TE or cylinder dimensions, as additional boiler capacity almost doesn't matter there. As noted here and elsewhere, higher nominal boiler pressure can even act as a drawback when calculating useful TE at a given FA, as will better ("Chapelonian") steam-passage streamlining or precise quick-unshrouding poppet valves...
The difference -- and a striking introduction is to look at the "improvement" of the J1 Hudson over the K5/6 Pacifics -- is in the useful loaded horsepower speed range (which also implies good clearance at relatively high mass flow, but good steam quality AND adequate superheat at that mass flow are also significant) Look for the engine to make its peak DBHP at a higher speed, and if the added capacity of the larger and heavier chassis involves auxiliaries that improve the Rankine cycle, a lower water rate per DBHP at most levels.
(If anything, the later 4-8-4s that the Superheater Company 'calculated' without dampers have a high propensity to develop too much superheat at high cyclic rpm. That is a whole 'nother story.)
I might add that 'most' of the need for Lima to use a 6-wheel truck under the proposed double-Belpaire eight-coupled locomotive involves the added weight of double Belpaire, an external manifold circulation system for the water legs, and Snyder air preheaters. You might get a 4-wheel truck to carry the weight, but its axle locations and pivot position would almost certainly NOT be in the right position for the truck to 'track' properly ... and you would need something like the Lima 'kludge' of using hardened steel rollers to allow the forward trailing-truck axle to float laterally separate from the pivoted truck frame. (I won't go into the articulated trailing-truck design except to say it was generally a Bad Idea On Several Levels...)
People tend to get carried away about Chapelonian improvements without recognizing one very important point: developing even the DBHP of a Q2 already puts the water rate so high as to make even the range with a coast-to-coast tender minuscule. The 8000 hp V1 turbine (which used a modified Q2 boiler to somewhat better nominal thermodynamic advantage) was only supposed to be good for something like 125 miles ... with a separate water tender. There was supposedly a 9000 hp "upgrade" to the conceptual design, which wasn't built and you can guess the main reason. F units at that point would go over 500 miles across divisions without attention.
Chapelon also quickly outpowered both the available chassis strength and most of the materials available to him to improve chassis strength on the locomotives he 'converted'. As he, or Porta or most anyone else, would tell you, the idea of the improvements was not so much to make a locomotive with twice the drawbar power, but one that would handle a reasonable train more economically or effectively - one of the 'benchmark' designs being the 240Ps. Can you 'improve' a Niagara up to 9000 DBHP? Probably, but what would you use it for? (NYC discovered, interestingly enough, that by using sliding-pressure firing a Niagara could use less fuel and water than a 2-8-0 when doing a 2-8-0's work ... but that's an awful lot of sophisticated technology to use for that ... and what did NYC run in the '40s that would require 9000 hp over their system?)
The "best" example of how to do this stuff (I think Big Jim will approve) is how the N&W optimized operation over the Kenova bridge, by carefully considering time, train weight, fuel, and the other variables so they could just make it with 15,000 tons... be interesting to see what an 'optimized' A class would do ...
Returning to the original topic, check todays railroad news everybody.
Woo hoo!
Coming in 2017, apparently...
Locojacket,
The railroads in America brought technology into the American wilderness. In a day when we take instant communication for granted it is hard to see how local some massive American industries were.
The the early 1900's the United States was a large and immense nation and travel and communication across the distances took time. It was the "local scene" where most Americans lived worked - and spent their lives. The reason I say this is because the local railroad community was often prepared to do many things for itself.
---------------------------------
Take the Johnson Brothers for example - they were "practical engineers" without formal education, who never the less designed and gave us the Johnson Outboard Motor Company now part of OMC. These four brothers were sons of a railroad shop superintendent in Terre Haute, Indiana. As children they stayed around the railroad yard with their dad and so became skilled in the use of the drafting table, pattern shop, machine shop and foundry at the local roundhouse and were casting engine blocks in iron in elementary school. In 1910 the Johnson Brothers designed and flew the first single wing monoplane - model in the Smithsonian Institute - both engine and plane of their own design - their two stroke engines went from V-4 to V-12 engine by simply adding cylinders. The first to fly a single wing airplane in America they started the Johnson Aerial Motor Company - like the Wright Brothers - Orville 3 years of highschool and Wilber 4 years - were also without formal education.
They were all master machinists in their youth as were many persons taught these basic skills on the job or in the average public school even as late as the 1980s - local people who were highly skilled in all of the industrial arts.
-------------------------------
It is not hard to understand that many railroads like Reading Railroad produced their own product and the use of "packaged parts" such as we are familiar with today was not part of that age of technology. If Southern Pacific needed a cylinder casting for a 4-8-4, they would cast their own in the Sacrameto shops then have it machined and installed on the locomotive at their own backshops. This is what Cheyenne was to Union Pacific or Detroit to New York Central.
I believe these skills and trades are still common in England and may be why the reproduction of modern copies of famous steam locomotives comes so easily to them - the technology has not been modernized out of the society.
-----------------------------------
When Reading Company President Revelle W. BRown decided to increase railroad freight capacity and speed he asked Reading engineers and shops to build these engines - the RDG 2100 series T-1 4-8-4's - from their existing stock H-10sa "Consolidation" 2-8-0 locomotives. It was decided to just upgrade some of these already existing engines into the new desired 4-8-4's. Reading built 30 engines in this fashion starting in 1945 and finishing in 1947. The RDG 2100's ran for 11 years until they were scrapped in 1956. Component parts used in their construction were saved from the existing engines or were purchased from Baldwin or other vendors. Items such as - one piece cast steel frames, Boxpolk drive wheels, boilers, rear trucks etc. One very unusal part of the RDG 2100 engines is the firebox. The railroad started in the 1800 using "Anthracite coal." This was a very hard coal that burned slowly and very clean. A special firebox was needed to burn this coal and the design was called a Wootton firebox after the inventor. This very wide firebox is seldom seen today but was used on all the H-10sa locomotives and was transfered to the RDG 2100 T-1. Take a good look because it's an unusual part of their design - large and wide with round curving sides - generated a lot of heat when stoker fed with more common Bituminous coal.
----------------------------
Similarly, when Cheasapeake & Ohio Railroad decided to upgrade its 1926 built F 10 - Baldwin 1926 built 4-6-2 passenger engines - they decided to turn these engines into 4-6-4 "Hudson" locomotives complete with "poppet valve gear" roller bearing side rods and Boxpolk drive wheels balanced for high speed, they were equipped with high speed booster engines and had new front end multiple throttles. But they retained their original F-10 boilers.
These were nice high speed engines, but were they really 4-6-2 "Pacifics" or 4-6-4 "Hudsons?" The boiler was still from the original locomotive and its power relatively the same. The engine probably became a "Hudsons" in order to effectively use the high speed booster steam engine that was added and located on the rear truck axle. Probably the four wheel truck was not needed to carry the weight of the engine as on other locomotives.
These C&O 490 "Hudson" engines may have served C&O well, but were hardly "Hudsons" built from a blank sheet of paper. The C&O 490 "Hudsons" would to my mind be a poor comparison to the new 1948 built C&O 300 series "Hudsons" which were more modern - brand new from Baldwin Locomotive Works and were very large and fast with every detail done right.
-----------------------------
Similarly, the Reading 2100 4-8-4 "Northern" were long lanky plain bearing freight locomotives assembled by the Reading shops, but they hardly compare to say the C&O 614 the 4-8-4 "Northern" which Ross Rowland acquired to replace his Reading 2101. In the excursions he ran with both locomotives it was astounding to witness the difference between the two engine designs. I saw The C&O 614 blast out of Saginaw, Michigan from a standing start with a full excursion train unlike any steam locomotive I have ever seen accelerate - accept for maybe N&W 611. I caught this same train again near M-59 in Highland, Michigan going overhead on a highway overpass - going like a meteor with Ross at the throttle - it blasted across that highway bridge like few trains I have ever seen - certainly different from the lazzy gate of the Reading 2101 over the same tracks. The roller bearing side rods on the C&O 614 were just flying! The RDG 2101 just didn't put it out like that.
Just my opinion of course.
Doc
Since the intern has a low opinion of rebuilds, I will risk asking what his opinion would be of various Paducah rebuilds, both steam and diesel, plus various ATSF diesel rebuilds, especially the CF7's.
New York Central Railroad owned over 600 "Mountain" 4-8-2 locomotives which they called "Mohawks." Both freight and passenger designs NYC 3001 survives in Elkhart, Indiana and NYC 2933 survives in St. Louis, MO. Other lovers of this 4-8-2 design were Pennsylvania Railroad which had 301 of its 4-8-2 "Mountain" M-1 locomotives. Third behind these steam fleets was Illinois Central with 136 engines.
CSSHEGEWISCH is right I forgot to mention that Illinois Central did the same thing that Reading Railroad did - they built 4-8-2 "Mountain" locomotives in Paducah, KY. It's a pretty complicated story so here goes.
----------------------
Story goes that in 1923 - 1925 they purchased "brand new" 40 of the IC 2400 "Mountain" 4-8-2 engines in two separate orders. The first 15 of these were from American Locomotive Works and the last 25 engines were from LIMA. All engines had 225 psi boilers and 73" drive wheels.
------------------------
Illinois Central really liked the new 4-8-2 "Mountain" design. So during the tail end of the Great Depression, in 1937 Illinois Central decided to "home build" its IC 2900 2-10-2 "Santa Fe" locomotives into a new class of IC 2500 of 4-8-2 "Mountain" type locomotives using the 240 psi original 2-10-2 boilers. This rebuilding was done at the Paducah shops and continued until the United States was into the Second World War, when they started rebuilding their "war weary" IC 2400 class engines.
-----------------
This is where it gets compilcated because Illinois Central decided that these "war weary" IC 2400 class "Mountain" 4-8-2 - "new bought engines" remember - that IC could rebuild them into a much more powerful IC 2300 class of engines using new home made 275 psi high pressure boilers. They kept the 73 inch drivers.
Further they decided that if they could rebuild all these engines - 2-10-2 into 4-8-2 and 4-8-2 into super 4-8-2. That they could also do NEW ILLINOIS CENTRAL 4-8-2 from scratch. Yah they finally decided to build their very own NEW engines the IC 2600 "Mountain" 4-8-2 strongest "Mountains" ever built by any railroad. With 275 psi boilers and 70 inch drive wheels.
-------------------------
So to recap here - this huge fleet of Illinois Central steam "Mountain" locomotives then consisted of:
New built IC 2400 "Mountain" 4-8-2 repowerd into home rebuilt IC 2300 "Mountain" 4-8-2. The high pressure 275 psi 73 inch drive engines.
And home rebuilt during the Great Depression the IC 2500 "Mountain" 4-8-2 which were made from new bought LIMA IC 2900 2-10-2. The lower pressure 240 psi 70 inch drive engines.
And IC 2600 "Mountain" 4-8-2 strongest ever built or should I say "NEW home built." Also the high pressure 275 psi 70 inch drive engines.
---------------------
The Illinois Central really had a thing for the 4-8-2 locomotives - all flavors and built or rebuilt in the Illiniois Central Railroad Shops at Paducah, Kentucky. And some have been saved! Oddly, they are both IC 2500 low pressure 70 inch driver rebuilds of the original IC 2900 "Santa Fe" type 2-10-2 that featured old boilers on new cast steel frames - they were the of the first 55 rebuilds begun during the Great Depression. Go Figure!
IC 2500 the first rebuild remains in a city park in Centralia, Illinois.
IC 2542 saved at the other end of the line at the Illinois Central passenger depot at McComb, Mississippi.
Both originally built 1923 engines have been rusting out doors for a long time.
----------------
I can hear the Illinois Central ballad ringing in my ears -
"Good Morning America, 'How are ya!'" - "Don't Ya know me 'I'm your native son?'" - "I'm the train they call the 'City of New Orleans'" - "And 'I'll have run 500 mile when the day is done!'"
You avoided a comment on IC's and Santa Fe's diesel rebuilds.
CSSHEGEWISCH,
Yah ain't it great! - I don't do diesels - you do it!
Now that it's official, I've updated the thread name appropriately.
IC 2600 Class 2610 in action...looks like the air reservoirs were cast integral with the frame...
2500 Rebuilder's photo...
2600 class Builder's photo...
2300 class rebuilt with Boxpok drivers...
2400 class on varnish...
2500 with tender capacity increased...
2500 class with tender capacity increased and auxiliary water tender...
2600 class with a long string of reefers...
A couple of random comments:
Dr D ... the local railroad community was often prepared to do many things for itself [...] the use of "packaged parts" such as we are familiar with today was not part of that age of technology. If Southern Pacific needed a cylinder casting for a 4-8-4, they would cast their own in the Sacramento shops then have it machined and installed on the locomotive at their own backshops.
If they wanted it done right, though, they'd outsource it to GSC. Look at the pages of illustrations in the '40s Cyclopedias of cylinder 'beds' carried back to the centers of the pedestals for #1 or #2 driver pairs, with integral frames and beams. There may have been shops that could set up to cast and relieve this level of thing ... but I doubt they'd do a better job at lower cost than GSC would. Likewise I don't think even N&W (or SSW in building the latter 4-8-4s that were intended to be as 'homebuilt' as possible to sustain the skilled workforce in lean years) tried their hand at casting engine beds ... they outsourced them to a firm with distinctive competence.
When Reading Company President Revelle W. BRown decided to increase railroad freight capacity and speed he asked Reading engineers and shops to build these engines - the RDG 2100 series T-1 4-8-4's - from their existing stock H-10sa "Consolidation" 2-8-0 locomotives. It was decided to just upgrade some of these already existing engines into the new desired 4-8-4's.
I believe you will find that tax reasons were far more important than 're-using' old 2-8-0 parts for new locomotives. Not to take away anything from the recognition that the boiler parts 'reused' WERE 'fit for purpose'.
--------------------------
Similarly, when Cheasapeake & Ohio Railroad decided to upgrade its 1926 built F 10 "President Pacifics" - 4-6-2 passenger engines named for the US Presidents ...
Someone, somewhere, has gone very, very wrong. You are conflating the C&O with the B&O at a time when there was very little, if any, commonalty in their approach to passenger power. The L1s, if I remember correctly, were modified from F19 Pacifics, which were quite appropriately described as 'fearsome' (and with much more capable boilers than P-7s, be it added)...
- they decided to turn these engines into 4-6-4 "Hudson" locomotives complete with "poppet valve gear" roller bearing side rods and Boxpolk drive wheels ...
That's "Boxpok", not merely to pick nits, pronounced just as in 'box spoke' to make the point about their construction. This is the typical late-'30s style 'balancing package' plus the Franklin system as demonstrated on the (comparable size, really) Pacifics as modified by Lima for PRR). Even though amazingly streamlined I don't think C&O had either much opportunity or much interest in sustained high-speed running a la NYC, or even an N&W-style interest in intermittent very high maxima; the idea was to have a locomotive that would be very efficient and smooth at 'expected' speeds (but that would be advanced for promotional consumption ... this being of a piece with the "100 mph" design speed for the M-1 turbines which would be hard pressed to average half that in actual service...)
... But they retained their original F-10 "President Pacific" boilers. These were nice high speed engines, but were they really 4-6-2 "Pacifics" or 4-6-4 "Hudsons?" The boiler was still from the original locomotive and its power relatively the same.
These were nice high speed engines, but were they really 4-6-2 "Pacifics" or 4-6-4 "Hudsons?" The boiler was still from the original locomotive and its power relatively the same.
And the point is not difficult to make that the F19 boiler was perfectly adequate for the 'desired' output with the better valves -- compare NYC 5500. This is NOT your typical little Pacific. Go look at the preserved one if you want better proof. (Sure, they're not huuuuuuge like the L2 Hudsons, but those would have been 4-8-4s on almost any road but C&O...)
The engine probably became a "Hudsons" in order to effectively use the high speed booster steam engine that was added and located on the rear truck axle.
That's just silly and you know it, and you need go no further than beloved NYC power for the demonstration. Even the last generation of Franklin booster worked only on one axle, and was just as happy in a two-wheel Delta truck as a four-wheel truck -- in fact, the tare weight, equalization issues, and other considerations probably favor the former. The absolute fastest you'd have the booster cut in would be between 29 and 35 mph, but looooooong before you got there that relatively inefficient little engine would be consuming far more steam than it produced effective contribution to forward acceleration. And above cutout speed the booster's 'contribution' to truck stability is essentially negative, even when it's little more than the added unsprung mass of the bull gear and case on the axle.
Probably the four wheel truck was not needed to carry the weight of the engine as on other locomotives.
Possible. Someone familiar with C&O power may know this. Certainly we can look at your previous points about NYC and IC power, and some of Dr. Leonard's comments about prospective evolution of modern power on NYC, to recognize that there was little reason other than weight accommodation for C&O to go to a four-wheel truck that impedes ashpan access and primary air flow, etc. -- and C&O had higher permitted axle load than almost any railroad.
I'd suspect it is more a matter of weight DISTRIBUTION and better control of chassis stability, etc., as was the case for some other locomotives that were given four-wheel trailing trucks. There were ways to accomplish much of this with properly-designed modern 2-wheel trailers, some of which have been discussed in other threads on this forum.
These C&O 490 "Hudson" engines may have served C&O well, but were hardly "Hudsons" built from a blank sheet of paper. The C&O 490 "Hudsons" would to my mind be a poor comparison to the new 1948 built C&O 300 series "Hudsons" which were brand new from Baldwin Locomotive Works and were very large and fast with every detail done right.
Which must be why the L2s survived so long. Including the last series with the much better (on paper at least) RC poppet valves. My understanding was that these were nowhere near as good as the last Greenbriers, but I would cheerfully defer to anyone who actually knows C&O steam power details.
Similarly, the Reading 2100 4-8-4 "Northern" were long lanky plain bearing freight locomotives assembled by the Reading shops, but they hardly compare to say the C&O 614 the 4-8-4 "Northern" which Ross Rowland acquired to replace his Reading 2101.
I think you might want to review the use of roller bearings on T-1 locomotives, and also do a little research on Hennessy 'cellar' lubricators as a practical alternative to roller bearings in the services Reading expected to use the locomotives.
[quote]In the excursions he ran with both locomotives it was astounding to witness the difference between the two engine designs. I saw The C&O 614 blast out of Saginaw, Michigan from a standing start with a full excursion train unlike any steam locomotive I have ever seen accelerate - accept for maybe N&W 611. I caught this same train again near M-59 in Highland, Michigan going overhead on a highway overpass - going like a meteor with Ross at the throttle - it blasted across that highway bridge like few trains I have ever seen - certainly different from the [lazy gait] of the Reading 2101 over the same tracks.
The unintended irony here is that of all the railroads that could have built a true high-speed 4-8-4, Reading was perhaps the most qualified (at least as far as the proven historical achievement of very high speeds from passenger-power designs) and as we know, a certain other railroad far less interested in high speed got very good results from Timken rods on 70" drivers.
You are comparing apples with oranges, in my opinion very unfairly. If the Reading had had the C&O's budget when building the T1s, and full access to roller bearing production at build time ... and a reason to use expensive running-gear improvements on them ... I would have expected something at least as good as a J3, probably with much better feedwater heating too. Pity the community that was offered one of the 1948 Pacifics did not accept ... THAT would have been an interesting thing for Ross to try running 'as fast as it could be made to go'
I confess that I still wish there were a business case for restoring the 'yellowbelly' to operation, and seeing what it would actually do in caring hands... theoretically this is more interesting even than NYC 3001.
Wislish,
Southern Pacific machine shop and casting ability is illustrated, as I said, in the company movie "My Railroad" which shows SP machining new engine cylinder castings - using a giant metal shaper no less - one stroke at a time!
I think your as much in love with that little C&O 490 "Hudson" Yellowbelly as you are with the Pennsylvania T-1 "Duplex!" Thankfully, they did'nt scrap all of them too!
B&O 5300 and C&O 490 Presidential "monkier" mix-up is just my senior moment - sorry!
The comparison of Reading T-1 4-8-4 and C&O 614 while unfair i.e. one rebuild vs one late model high tech 4-8-4 comparison while "unfair;" it remains an illustration of how locomotives of the same wheel arrangement can differ from each other. I am sure Ross considered the fire that destroyed RDG 2101 to be tragic - yet out of that disaster he received C&O 614. He was a unique man to turn that misfortunate situation to everyone's advantage.
Thoughtful reply and am glad you enjoyed the post.
Could the Reading have built a high-speed Northern? Possibly, but you have to remember they didn't have the need for one. High-speed Pacifics yes, Northerns no. They needed 4-8-4's to haul the anthracite and other freight at a good speed, not a high speed. Coal doesn't spoil if you don't get it to market fast enough.
When the RBM&N gets 2102 running again, and if it's feasable, they WILL, even they won't need a high-speed Northern. Back in the days when they were running steam on weekend passenger trips they had a speed limit set of 45 mph. Even though the trackage was good for up to 60 mph there just wasn't the need to run that fast, and at any rate the passengers wanted the rides to last.
The idea was for the trips to give the passengers an idea of what real steam passenger runs were like, a good run at a good speed, not put-putting around a museum track at 5, 10 or 15 mph. For passengers that didn't remember steam in actual service it was a revelation, for those that did it was sweet nostalgia.
in the april 2015 issue, in the preservation by justin franz has more in fromantion about 2102 and C&O 2716.
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