NDG Should have started with something more realistic. Such as a NYC ' Niagara ' Thank You.
Should have started with something more realistic.
Such as a NYC ' Niagara '
Thank You.
I kinda of agree with you. The T 1 was an impressive machine. But the PRR never got the bugs out of them. They had a short service life, when the Railroad decided that the diesel was more efficient way to go.
I'd vote for a NYC Niagara as well, a Hell of a locomotive that got over the road fast. Killed by the same forces that did in the T 1's and met the same fate, none were preserved.
But it's not my money. Either way, 2030 looks a long way off. If they pull it off, and I think they will, I'll have to hobble down to the horse shoe curve, tip my hat with one hand and hold on to my walker with the other.
You know those Brits build new historical locomotives, can't see why us yank can't.
I wish them the best.
It would have been impractical for N&W to dieselize most of their traffic effectively with first-generation diesels. While I think the 'fix would be in' with Saunders Esq. & Co. anyway, as soon as the coal-burning alternatives crapped out circa 1956, the presence of practical 2400hp single-engine six-motor units made pulling the trigger on full diesel conversion workable.
Note the unfortunate timing with TrainMasters. VGN of course famously used these, but the extended strike and all took FM out of the market effectively just as they might have started exploring higher-horsepower versions of the OP engine.
i emailed Ben Custer (a general questions erson for the Trust) about the front end design, and he said it would be a mix of both, 5550 will have the portholes on it, but not the side skirting the prototype T1's had.
"Could their bottom line have been improved if they dieselized by 1954?"
I don't know enough about the Virginian to comment on it, but the Norfolk and Western didn't think so, and as such wasn't in any rush to dieselize.
Bear in mind the N&W people weren't starry-eyed romantics, they were seasoned railroaders who knew and understood the business. They pretty much knew diesels had to come eventually, they just weren't in any hurry as their "Holy Trinity of Steam" locomotives were working just fine and still making money.
At any rate, their "Take it easy, watch and learn, don't rush" philosophy worked out well in the long run. When the time came to buy road diesels they bought Geeps and avoided all the experimentation the other 'roads went through.
Although let me tell you, trains like the "Cavalier," the "Pocahontas," and the "Powhatan Arrow" looked LOUSY with a Geep in the head-end instead of a Class J!
Bear in mind the N&W people weren't starry-eyed romantics, they were seasoned railroaders who knew and understood the business. They pretty much knew diesels had to come eventually, they just weren't in any rush.
I don't know enough about the Virginian to comment on it, but the Norfolk and Western didn't think so, and as such weren't in any rush to dieselize.
Overmod brings up a lot of valid issues and factors inside and outside of railroading that contributed to the demise of the steam locomotive. Also consider that the diesel locomotive got its foot in the door in 1925 and became practical for yard and passenger service by the mid-1930's. Practical road freight locomotives were just a matter of time.
Food for thought: N&W and VGN were already quite profitable hauling coal behind steam (and electric) locomotives. Could their bottom line have been improved if they dieselized by 1954?
NDGHow would have the Niagaras and the PRR T1s fared had the Diesels arrived 20 years later??
As well as can be expected.
All the 'remaining' issues of the T1, apart from the control issues inherent in high-speed slipping, would have been solved by the 1948 detail revisions. I have solutions for the other problems, using nothing more than technologies and equipment available in the late Forties, and I have little doubt that PRR would have come to use these increasingly with the adoption of rotary-cam conversions to the valve gear, which I think would have been likelier than widespread implementation of the T1a conversion to piston valves.
The chief problem, which I think is seldom described enough, is that in order to make the heroic mileages the Niagaras developed in service a railroad needed a large number of long, fast, passenger and M&E trains, together with an infrastructure that sometimes thumbed its nose at employee safety in serious ways to get the locomotives 'turned' for long, fast return service. Since the success of diesels turned almost directly on increasing crew costs and rising crew quality-of-work demands through the latter half of the Forties and onward, for the development of some form of practical diesel to be delayed 20 years an enormous amount of social and industrial change in those years would need to change also, and it is particularly difficult to imagine a world preserving the particular pride in achievement that marked, say, CP's continuation of steam into the 1950s in the more widespread world of Robert R. Young's meddling with NYC and subsequent adoption of Al Perlman's economies, or PRR's different emphasis on operations after having lost money in 1946 for the first time.
The Niagara had the advantage of being an explicitly suitable fast-freight engine, in fact well-suited for implementation of the various kinds of Flexi-Van service NYC was planning. Likewise there would be uses for T1s on Truc-Train services (and there, I think, the piston-valve conversion would have some dramatic advantages, particularly with regard to low-speed adhesion and recovery from low-speed slipping)
If either road disregarded the late-40s push for clean 2" good-grade coal, expect the worst.
I don't know what you have to 'posit' to get around the accelerating failure of specialty manufacturers that eventually took out the remaining big-steam adherents in the very late '50s. We can sort of imagine a company proportionally owned by steam operating railroads that would acquire and then produce the various things like shaped firebrick and feedwater-heater parts 'at cost' (or no more than cost-plus) to the extent that actual backshops failed to be able to do so cost-effectively. Certainly the supply companies could get no better deal for their collateral and patent rights...
New snow on the Mtns.
Shadow the Cats ownerThese were cast from the original PRR drawings and specifications
Which did not, and do not, include any provisions for instrumenting the wheelsets, as FRA will require to run the locomotive at Pueblo.
These were cast from the original PRR drawings and specifications plus they've found a foundry that can replicate the steel in the original drive wheels in compistition. From what I've heard again from my friend at the UP steam shop this same foundry is about to get another large order for 12 drivers for the 3985 16 for 4014 and 8 for 844. Plus more than likely the main axle orders.
Shadow the Cats ownerThe T1 trust has had another 2 drivers cast and machined at for the engine. I think that brings them up to 4 driving wheels.
Remember that it is very likely the mains, and probably the other 2 sets, will have to be recast with very different cores and machining by the time the locomotive actually undergoes high-speed testing. Think of the ones produced so far as experiments producing valuable know-how and experience, and as fund-raising tools.
On Facebook I was going through looking at the UP steam page and someone that's having a live steam 2.5 inch gauge 844 model built had a very interesting background of her driver picture. The T1 trust has had another 2 drivers cast and machined at for the engine. I think that brings them up to 4 driving wheels.
NDGShould have started with something more realistic. Such as a NYC 'Niagara'
Except that nobody feels inclined to prove the Niagara was an unjustly rejected failure.
Now, one of the things I hope will come out of the extended provisioning program designed for the T1 Trust is the availability of parts and knowhow for making the sophisticated parts of a Niagara, such as the Timken rods and their somewhat specialized bearings, easily available to anyone who cares to build a replica, or improved, Niagara. The design was certainly well suited to running economic-sized excursion trains that could stay out of the way of any train operated on any railroad it would be run. Until the present Amtrak ban on special moves is terminated, however, there isn't any business model for using something -- anything -- that large. (How fortunate for the T1 Trust that none of its development effort is predicated on the locomotive 'earning its way' as a pure transportation-business proposition!)
You may be familiar with the somewhat earlier effort to build a replica Hudson, which proceeded well through detail design into production engineering at one of the Chinese factories (I believe Datong, not Dalien; what was the one that had plant largely located in a secret cave?). That one foundered, somewhat inexplicably to me, when the original people planning the replica found out what the 'second production locomotive' was going to cost anyone who wanted one. Shades of the BCR coal-turbine denouement!
If I were going to build a replica Niagara it wouldn't have the Frankenstein-monster Selkirk smokebox-door arrangement, and a bunch of the detail design would be radically different. (In other words, almost as much of a 'science project' as a historical replica build). The problem is that at the end of it all, you have a locomotive most people wouldn't be able to functionally distinguish from UP 844, a locomotive already having an assured operational future and home, as far as 'trips viewable by the public' would be concerned. At a cost per ton easily comparable to that for 5550, a much more visually-distinctive locomotive...
feltonhillDid anyone notice that 5550 has two different front-end arrangements in the video: (1) the as-built 3-porthole design and (2) the modified in-service arrangement with conventional ladders to the pilot beam? I wonder which one will get built on 5550.
Current plans are for the 'final' arrangement, with the loaf-of-bread radiator containing the small auxiliary light. To me, that's still the best of the T1 arrangements as built.
I worked up a semi-elaborate plan to make the 'three portholes' fairing in one piece, and provide hinges that would allow the whole shebang to be lifted and rotated up for maintenance (like some of those hot-rods with one-piece faired front end treatment). Could still be built if there's any great enthusiasm for having it, but it's a bunch of extra weight for a dubious addition of wicked coolness.
All right! Feltonhill's back!
Don't stay away so long buddy, we need your expertise here, AND on the "Classic Trains" Forum as well!
Uh, no, I for one didn't notice the change in front-end styling, I was too busy going ga-ga over the video.
Did anyone notice that 5550 has two different front-end arrangements in the video: (1) the as-built 3-porthole design and (2) the modified in-service arrangement with conventional ladders to the pilot beam? I wonder which one will get built on 5550. Great video regardless !!
It's the real thing, ladies and gents!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVDbJQKOwyY
Miningman They say 2030... no flippin way I make it that far.
They say 2030... no flippin way I make it that far.
Jeez, I'll be 77 assuming I'm still around. I can't imagine being 77.
Then again, I'm 65, and there was a time I couldn't imagine that either.
Gotta think positive.
Flintlock76 That video's so damn realistic they almost don't need to build a new T1! Excellent CGI! People will come trackside to see any steam engine go by! It's almost primal!
That video's so damn realistic they almost don't need to build a new T1!
Excellent CGI!
People will come trackside to see any steam engine go by! It's almost primal!
Yes, I thought it was a scaled model the first time I saw a screenshot from the video. This is the first time T1 Trust release a much longer video of it. But we still need to build it since a lot of people want to take a ride on the train led by 5550.
Jones 3D Modeling Club https://www.youtube.com/Jones3DModelingClub
The Keystone over the years have well documented the T1. In one artical, and I can't sight which one as there are too many in my collection (sorry) one T1 engineenman noted how folks would come out to watch T1s come through town. When the E units came, no one came down track side to watch the train go by. The video from T1 Trust just goes to show why people came down track side to watch. Just hope the big man above lets me live long enought to watch 5050 go by.
The T1 Trust posted a new video on their official YouTube channel a few hours ago. It is not about the progress of the construction but a 3D animation of the T1 5550 render what the engine would look like:
"It Can Be Done" by The T1 Trust
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.