What I am saying - not all of C&O's use of the engines was on their 'mountainous' sub divisions. Did find two DOT investigations that mentioned 1600's. In the first report, a 1600 was pulling a 102 car train between Columbus and Walbridge. In the second report a train with a 1600 had passed the accident area shortly before the train involved in the accident happened a little distance outside Clifton Forge.
https://dotlibrary.specialcollection.net/Document?db=DOT-RAILROAD&query=(select+3373)
https://dotlibrary.specialcollection.net/Document?db=DOT-RAILROAD&query=(select+3374)
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Pictures show the Seaboard Air Line 2-6-6-4 locomotives as well as the Pittsburgh & West Virginia 2-6-6-4 locomotives had the firebox completely behind the drivers like the Norfolk & Western A.
Wasn't the N&W 2-6-6-4 firebox behind the drivers?
Woulda thought a couple others, too.
7j43kThe 2-6-6-6 appears to be the ONLY articulated that had a boiler that required a trailing truck
.
The 2-6-6-6 appears to be the ONLY articulated that had a boiler that required a trailing truck--the bottom of the firebox was substantially below the tops of the drivers. All other articulateds had fireboxes that extended over the drivers, and had to vertically allow for their height.
I find that design difference interesting.
One could argue that, if the bottom of the firebox had to be high to clear the drivers, then why not replace the trailing truck with more drivers. I assume that that would have used too much steam at higher speeds. So the trailing trucks were used as weight-bearing devices, not because the firebox demanded them.
I'll add that a two-wheel trailing truck might have also been useful in aiding locomotive tracking at speed.
Ed
nhrandI still would like someone to tell me why so much very expensive diesel horsepower is used on freight movements that I suspect could do well with less.
BaltACD ... over a lot of those territories the 2-6-6-6's handled large trains at speed
What speed -- both peak and average? What rate of acceleration from internal signal 'checks' and other kinds of slowdown? These are important to establish with reasonably good data.
One has to remember that the C&O was more of a railroad than just getting coal in large quantities over the Alleghenys from the mines to the Tidewater - and over a lot of those territories the 2-6-6-6's handled large trains at speed
nhrandI admit to being defensive about the Alleghenies, and maybe more than I should.
Don't be ashamed or even worried about advocacy -- anything I might say would have to apply just as equally to fervent advocacy as to a less passionate view. And remember that I still admire the Alleghenies as an effort to build fast modern power at the effective limits of contemporary reciprocating-engine practice -- something at which the design largely succeeded.
Maybe a 2-8-8-4 should have been considered. Would such a design have been cheaper to buy and less expensive to operate and maintain?
Probably not. Most of the 2-8-8-4s that were built were intended more as 'drag' engines than fast power: one might include a 2-8-8-4 version of a Big-Boy-sized locomotive with appropriate running gear and clearances, but to my knowledge no such thing was actively considered; the B&O EM-1s are a potential competitor, but more in the principle than the reality, as B&O's clearances and permissible loads were far below what C&O could 'optimize'.
But we immediately note that any deep-firebox eight-coupled engine that would nominally 'replace' an Allegheny would be larger, longer, and probably heavier than an Allegheny, and therefore more expensive to build and perhaps more restrictive of consist length. I would presume that a C&O version of such a thing would have the same leading-truck arrangement as the Alleghenies, and would be easily able to accommodate a double-Belpaire chamber (by the time Lima had worked around to touting the things) on whatever the effective driver size for it would be ... this being one of the critical design considerations. There will be a 'sweet spot' largely determined by rod inertia, balance considerations, and TE at speed that will fix the design driver diameter (net of largest tire diameter after servicing, but tolerant of what might be substantial wear and returning before replacement) and I would hazard a rough guess that no less than 63" drivers, and likely cast centers in at least the mains, would be appropriate to give true higher 'expected' peak and average speed when actually permitted to make at least part of a given run at higher track speed.
Theoretically an eight-coupled engine with lower drivers could, by 1941 or so, be balanced to fast-freight speed. An N&W Y-class just out of the shops could very famously be run downhill at fairly dramatic speed ... but it doesn't take much deep thought to understand that doing so with any kind of regularity would not help long-term reliability even with the very best of the 'best practice' maintenance N&W could provide, let alone what C&O was prepared to do.
... I do suspect that the C&O would not have been significantly more satisfied with a 2-8-8-2, a 2-8-8-4, more 2-10-4's, etc.
Any WPB-style 'required' construction of an existing 2-8-8-2 or 2-8-8-4: as Curly might say, 'Soytinly". Any greater construction or 'expansion' of 2-10-4s (as PRR very effectively did with their T-1 "clones" once they figured out the redlining situation) was relatively unlikely to come up to the standards of the Alleghenies, which were specifically designed as 'enlarging' follow-on power to the T-1s just as the T-1 was an improvement on earlier large power (most notably, simple-articulated 2-8-8-2s of contemporary design).
At this point we could briefly consider again whether C&O would find the idea of a higher-nominal-power duplex locomotive, like a 'revised' Q2 with the original bugs worked out of it, as preferable to an Allegheny as the T-1 was preferable to the H-7s. This is in my opinion less of a shoulda-woulda-coulda analysis than any of the 2-8-8-x "opportunities", as there is little doubt that a good duplex with comparable leading dimensions to an Allegheny but dramatically shorter overall length and better construction simplicity could do the job ... except with the necessary presence of a four-coupled engine and the associated need for really good autonomic slip protection at all achievable speed ranges. Maintenance costs probably comparable to an Allegheny as far as cylinders and valve gear were concerned; how much fun you'd have by eliminating all the flexible joints and necessary steam-flow bends for the hinged forward engine would have to be determined from C&O's actual maintenance data. People will try to whine about long rigid wheelbase, but that's not a very real issue, particularly as it was less even for a Q2 with 69" 'maximum-diameter' drivers than for a Santa Fe 5001/5011 class. And there can be little argument that the augment from the duplex, even if Deem-conjugated, would be lower than even the best equivalent to the last N&W As C&O could have built or specified (with lightweight Timken rods and running gear). This becomes more relevant when thinking about...
I still think the H-8 2-6-6-6 was more flexible and there were many, many trains that the H-8 handled well that would not have been handled as well by a 2-8-8-2 -- I'm thinking of the many mixed freight or passenger assignments where speed and power were useful.
I'd be very interested to see non-wartime examples where C&O ran Alleghenies to 'full effect' -- that specifically includes M&E trains. I personally suspect that the track forces involved in operating a locomotive as heavy as an Allegheny in truly fast -- let's call it above the 70mph that N&W As apparently routinely could run at -- service would produce more problems than the revenue from the service would justify, but I'm not sure we need to go that far: we need to consider whether a locomotive with the characteristics of a Y7 configuration improved up to reasonable state of the art in 1941 would have enough upper-end performance to fulfil whatever high speed C&O needed out of a large single engine, and not one or two 2-8-4s, which is something that Dave Stephenson could probably address with some direct reference to hard data on C&O traffic. This while significantly optimizing both the fuel and water consumption and maintenance issues attendant on loading the H-8s down where their actual advantages wouldn't be realized for all the regular miles where the 2-8-8-x has distinctive competence.
Certainly, managing a dual-service stable can definitely be inefficient at times and too much time may have been spent on heavy coal trains. Plus, it is obvious that a motive power decision made at the eve of World War II would not necessarily be the best one in less than a decade later.
The key to the whole point of the discussion is to develop a 'dual-service stable' that actually optimizes performance toward the way the locomotives would be typically used in actual service. (Any competent series of test runs would include at least a few that legitimately did this, rather than 'seeing what the locomotive could do' under ideal conditions for its design assumptions.)
There's no intrinsic reason a good eight-coupled articulated with 2-wheel leading truck need be any more 'unstable' than a comparable Berk up to the highest speed the latter could achieve, other than some considerations regarding Cooper rating and longitudinal track loading that probably wouldn't apply with any relevance to C&O (as the Allegheny's peak load would be greater than either a brace of Berks or the 2-8-8-x equivalent.) Now, we have some admittedly somewhat anecdotal claims about what that is for 'fully-comparable' AMC Berk designs; Ross Rowland in particular is likely to have some interesting peak numbers (and corresponding readings on the superheat gauge) for you.
Yes, to an extent this depends on 'line changes' later than 1941, but these were well-recognized as they developed in importance in the immediate postwar period, and very little if anything of full importance radically postdates, let's say 1950 (the date the Cunningham circulation equipment was patented in Canada) and would of course be available to re-fit on Alleghenies just as on any other contemporary locomotive. Certainly there is little if any mechanical complexity in Chapelon proportional IP injection that Forties-era technology couldn't achieve (it is certainly much easier now, but that doesn't count in part for the reasons you mention).
Operating needs change or new people have different ideas about how to use motive power.
I will immediately acknowledge something you as an advocate should probably remember and adopt: the Alleghenies were IMMEDIATELY relevant in many senses to C&O traffic and priorities from the date they were constructed through to some reasonable point in 1945 that effective wartime traffic dropped off. They may well have become relevant in some of the same ways again during the Korean 'incident' (where long main trains again became prioritized along with the likely desire to 'get them over the road and out of traffic ASAP'...
There are certainly documented examples of people making mistakes how to use their power (PRR, for example, has many in a variety of respects) and in any case it's the 'right' of the owner to run things "sub-optimally" if in their sole judgment it works better for their purposes. Again, the argument here is whether a different detail design of locomotive would have served C&O better, for C&O's purposes in ways C&O management or even ownership would acknowledge as 'better'. And in my opinion advocacy for a given locomotive or even wheel arrangement 'ought' to be given a bit less emphasis at least while investigating what the bounds of that argument will be. That's not intended as a criticism either of you or your love for the Allegheny design.
I still would like someone to tell me why so much very expensive diesel horsepower is used on freight movements that I suspect could do well with less. That should be easier to answer than whether an Allegheny was the wrong engine for the C&O.
I don't think there is just 'one true' reason why that is done -- it might involve protection against road failure, or tolerance of poor maintenance priorities, or 'snapping' of speed at certain points in a run, or power balancing, to name a couple off the top of my head. Periodically I see a single 4400hp engine assigned to a long string of largely-empty articulated stack sets or empty autoracks ... then I don't see any such thing for months. Whether this actually reflects anything, I of course can't say with any assurance.
Remember in any case that the concept of 'ruling grade' applies to over-the-road power-desk assignment, as does a consideration of how weather conditions (either known or 'accidentally' evolving) might adversely affect any point of the run. There are a number of experts on here who can, either in direct post or PM, tell you everything you want to know about effective real-world power management.
And I want to leave you with the idea that the issue is less that the Allegheny was a 'wrong' engine for C&O than it is that some other types of engine might have been 'righter' for them. None of this, even practical success of the M-1 turbines, would have changed the fundamental reasons C&O abandoned any kind of external combustion. They had the clear opportunity to purchase TE-1 variants ... or have them built by other builders ... and I think history speaks for itself on how that went. So I think it likely there would be little, if any, little 'difference' in the longevity or perceived worth of C&O steam if one of the alternative forms of reciprocating power had been built, either in 1941 or 1947, instead of the Allegheny.
Mr. Rand, you got to sit in the engineer's seat of the B&O Museum's Allegheny?
How'd you manage that?
The last time I saw it the cab was swarming with kids! It looked like a playground gone berserk!
Hey, I didn't mind. We have to generate the next generation of railfans somehow!
It's probably just as well I couldn't get in the cab of the Jersey Central 1000 either, (nobody can) I'd have gotten in trouble trying to start it. It still smells like diesel fuel.
To Overmond:
Could have, should have discussions can be interesting but inconclusive. I admit to being defensive about the Alleghenies, and maybe more than I should. Actually, I never saw an Allegheny in steam but spent time on the N&W when A's and Y-6's were the main freight power. Maybe I like the Allegheny simply because I can go to the B&O Museum and sit in the engineer's seat of the preserved H-8 and daydream.
Yes, the C&O might have gotten more out of a modern, single-expansion 2-8-8-2 similar to the Y-7 the N&W had in mind or some other advanced design. Maybe a 2-8-8-4 should have been considered. Would such a design have been cheaper to buy and less expensive to operate and maintain ? I don't know. But I do suspect that the C&O would not have been significantly more satisfied with a 2-8-8-2, a 2-8-8-4, more 2-10-4's, etc. I still think the H-8 2-6-6-6 was more flexible and there were many, many trains that the H-8 handled well that would not have been handled as well by a 2-8-8-2 -- I'm thinking of the many mixed freight or passenger assignments where speed and power were useful. Certainly, managing a dual-service stable can definetly be inefficient at times and too much time may have been spent on heavy coal trains. Plus, it is obvious that a motive power decision made at the eve of World War II would not necessarily be the best one in less than a decade later. Operating needs change or new people have different ideas about how to use motive power.
nhrandI don't have drawbar horsepower vs speed curves handy for the H-8 but I do have curves for the N&W Class A 2-6-6-4 and the Y6b 2-8-8-2 handy and they give an approximation of what could be expected if the C&O stayed with a 2-8-8-2.
This is cute, but manifestly silly. The 'correct' comparison for C&O is not to the Y6 as built -- which, you will notice, is not what I proposed for a compound locomotive at all -- but the simple-expansion Y7, on which enough preliminary detail design was done to have a good idea of the principal numbers. If the source you used for your posted numbers was Ed King's book on the A, you will find a short section on the Y7 right there for your perusal.
Obviously C&O wouldn't be bothered with anything the size or style of the H7 articulateds -- those were passe by the time trials on the T-1s were complete. I have to suspect that some of the careful consideration they gave the Q-2 involved the possibility of a similar rigid-frame 'bettering' of the HP of what, in the Allegheny, was a large, incredibly complicated, heavy locomotive -- I have to wonder what might have happened had PRR sent a locomotive in good condition, with enthusiastic support people, for the testing.
Note again that the modifications necessary for the 2-8-8-2 involve careful use of mechanism that equalizes the thrusts of the cylinders and, where possible, the inertial masses, so the engine responds as a simple articulated would, and the refinement of the chassis to use class A or Challenger-style restriction of vertical hinging within the limits of (possibly-enhanced) equalization and vertical suspension travel. While of course I have no actual test data on this, it is very clear that the falloff in Y-class efficiency due to 'compounding' does not apply to the Chapelon-converted engine, just as I suspect it would apply much less to the engines with 'booster valves' than those producing the statistics you quoted. Again, the reason to retain compounding on an engine for C&O would be to reduce the water rate (and the other associated factors) and thereby increase things like effective range; something that needs to be considered is whether C&O, which notably used a very conservative pressure on the Alleghenies, would embrace a 'culture' of 300 to 315psi boiler construction and maintenance, as was becoming something of a 'fad' in the last days of advanced big steam design here.
But of course, if they didn't want to optimize for compounding, they could just adapt the Y7 to their taste, and have something dramatically better suited for most of their actual operation than an Allegheny.
Mind you, this says nothing, and is intended to say nothing, about any performance on test trains. It's cute to point out that N&W 610 happily ran at 110mph 'in testing'; whether N&W actually ran it at that speed for any particular percentage of its actual service time is far less likely. As is the extended question of Allegheny performance: perhaps they could accelerate heavy trains to higher road speed and then happily use their (quite good) developed HP at speed to hold them there. But the fact remains that C&O wasn't running a one-speed railroad at that speed, and the moment they decided to run trains at 'convenient' or 'economic' slower speed to any extent -- and the historical record clearly and repeatedly confirms that is what C&O chose to do -- they would have been better off with a design optimized for that reality (provided that it could fulfil any actual higher-speed duties competently when required ... which both the Y7 and modified Y6 would have done).
True -- if the train is more than 11600 tons, speed with two H-8s will be less than 18 mph, on 0.57%.
timzApparently the test trains did anywhere close to 15 mph
Yeah a Challenger on the Prairies between say Winnipeg and Calgary would have been a sight on the Dominion. The CPR had 0-6-6-0's in the mountains for a bit. Some logging roads had articulates but that's a different cookie.
I know population and traffic levels north of the border at the time made a high-speed articulated unnecessary, but it would have been something to see what a CN or CP 2-6-6-4, 4-6-6-4 or 2-6-6-6 would have looked like.
nhrand-- That's a great answer/analysis.. a keeper! I'm sure glad and most of us are that they built them, (except for the one that blew up).
BigJimI seriously doubt that you would be hearing a coal train running anywhere close to 15 mph on the ruling grade [to Alleghany]
The Allegheny - Lima's Finest quotes a report on the test with two H-8s -- says they got stopped by a red signal on 0.57% just west of MP 316. After the stop they reached 18 mph in 2-1/2 miles.
The original question was whether the C&O should have bought more 2-8-8-2's rather than 2-6-6-6's that allegedly produced more horsepower than the C&O could use on its coal trains. I suggested in an earlier post that I think the C&O made a reasonably good decision in buying the Allegheney type and will elaborate a bit. I assume the C&O wanted a dual service locomotive although it seems coal train use predominated. The criticism of using the H-8 Class mainly in coal service is that its peak horsepower developed at higher speeds and therefore the engines should have been used at speeds at which the horsepower output was at a peak.
I don't have drawbar horsepower vs speed curves handy for the H-8 but I do have curves for the N&W Class A 2-6-6-4 and the Y6b 2-8-8-2 handy and they give an approximation of what could be expected if the C&O stayed with a 2-8-8-2. The Class Y6b produced more drawbar horsepower than the Class A until about 32 miles per hour at which point the horsepower of the 2-8-8-2 fell substantially. The peak drawbar horsepower of the Y6b was about 5,500 at about 25 mph while the 2-6-6-4 peaked at about 5,200 at about 35 mph. However, due to the high capacity of the boiler, the Class A maintained that same high drawbar horsepower at 60 mph or more. By the time the Y6b had reached a top speed of about 40 mph, drawbar horsepower had dropped to nearly 4,000. (We seldom talk about the drawbar horsepower of a diesel but that is another story.)
If the C&O had wanted to restrict the Allegheney type to purely coal trains a 2-8-8-2 would have done the job but flexibility would be lost. The Allegheney could easily handle coal, merchandise or passenger trains. The power was there when needed. Whether it was need often enough to justify the cost of such a large engine is hard to say. Was it being wasted when it was used on coal trains --- I think not. The high power output of the H-8 was still useful in moving a coal train at a more than "drag" speed and the C&O had enough 2-8-8-2's to know their capabilities. The C&O also had the nearby N&W as a model for building both 2-8-8-2's and 2-6-6-4's and stayed with the Allegheney type. (If you get the impression I like the Alleheney you are right.)
Regarding wasted horsepower, why are trains today seemingly overpowered. Short or long trains today get diesel power amounting to 8, 12, 16 or more thousands of horsepower. Some of these heavily powered trains move on lines that have low speed limits. If the Allegheney was more than was needed, I think the same can be said about the way power is managed today. I doubt the CSX gets more bang for the buck with its high horsepower diesels than the C&O did with its 2-6-6-6's.
There's a saying here also. As long as the load gets to the final safe the customer doesn't care if the truck is a Pete Freightliner KW or Volvo. Only the driver and the name on the door matters. The only person that complains that complains about what brand of truck it is are the driver. In railroading the beancounters don't care what engine pulls the train as long as it gets it there the only ones that female dog are the RAILFANS and the crews when it comes to the GE EMD wars.
Have any of you heard the old adage..."Don't worry about the mule, just load the wagon"? There is the answer to many of your questions!
I don't personally know of any sound recordings of C&O coal trains on a grade. If they do exist, I seriously doubt that you would be hearing a coal train running anywhere close to 15 mph on the ruling grade! Remember that the real world is very different than what you railfans percieve it to be.
The locomotives did the job the C&O wanted done at what the C&O considered a reasonable cost. If they had not done the job or had cost more than what the C&O considered reasonable they would have been replaced post haste.
The utility and economy of diesel-electric locomotives replaced all steam in short order after it became available consistant with manufacturing capacity.
BaltACDB&O and N&W on moving their coal trains to Tidewate terminals had grades of over 1% and into the 2% range as their ruling grades - grades requiring seriously more power than the C&O did over the 0.57% grade of moving their coal. Not all the territory is grades, and the 2-6-6-6's could probably maintain close to track speed in the 'non-grade' territories. East of Clifton Forge the C&O operated coal loads over the James River water level grade to Newport News. The empties returned from Newport News to Clifton Forge over the North Mountain route - a route that had over 1% grades. Two single track alignments operated as double track for their most important commodity.
The problem here is that it's dancing around the important issue here: whether east or west of Clifton Forge, C&O apparently chose to routinely load down the Alleghenies to the point they regularly ran 20mph or more below their best-horsepower speed. Whether or not this represented 'lowest net cost' vs. running lighter trains more quickly is immaterial if considering better, or more economical, locomotives optimized to run at the speeds C&O wanted.
We have still not addressed whether C&O ran a significant mileage per month of non-wartime fast freight with these locomotives, and what both the average and peak speeds of that service were (or had to be). That determines the 'other half' of the question that was asked: how fast would the alternative 'have' to run to be an effective alternative to the Alleghenies? This can be answered, but better by someone like Dave Stephenson, who knows the actual details, than by me.
selectorAccording to Mr. Krug, each 0.5% increase in grade requires a bit over 3X the horsepower to maintain track speed. 15 mph isn't much of a speed, but even a drag would want to stay pretty close to that speed up a mere 0.5% grade.
You are proving my points - B&O & N&W needed 3 to 6 to 9 times more power to move the equivalent tonnage over their ruling grades.
According to Mr. Krug, each 0.5% increase in grade requires a bit over 3X the horsepower to maintain track speed. 15 mph isn't much of a speed, but even a drag would want to stay pretty close to that speed up a mere 0.5% grade.
timz nhrand I think the C&O needed a high capacity freight locomotive that could keep coal trains moving fast -- not at passenger speeds, just fast enough to keep the road fluid. Probably C&O wanted coal trains to be doing 15 mph or less on the 0.57% to Allegheny, so a 2-8-8-2 or 2-8-8-4 would have done just as well, far as us fans know. But C&O got 2-6-6-6s, which us fans can't explain -- as usual, we don't know why RRs did what they did, since we don't know the costs for the alternatives.
nhrand I think the C&O needed a high capacity freight locomotive that could keep coal trains moving fast -- not at passenger speeds, just fast enough to keep the road fluid.
Probably C&O wanted coal trains to be doing 15 mph or less on the 0.57% to Allegheny, so a 2-8-8-2 or 2-8-8-4 would have done just as well, far as us fans know. But C&O got 2-6-6-6s, which us fans can't explain -- as usual, we don't know why RRs did what they did, since we don't know the costs for the alternatives.
0.57% in the world of real railroading is not much of a ruling grade. Yes any grade required more power to move tonnage up it than to move the tonnage on level ground. That being said, the eye has a hard time visualizing about 7 inches per 100 feet of change in elevation as being a grade.
B&O and N&W on moving their coal trains to Tidewate terminals had grades of over 1% and into the 2% range as their ruling grades - grades requiring seriously more power than the C&O did over the 0.57% grade of moving their coal. Not all the territory is grades, and the 2-6-6-6's could probably maintain close to track speed in the 'non-grade' territories. East of Clifton Forge the C&O operated coal loads over the James River water level grade to Newport News. The empties returned from Newport News to Clifton Forge over the North Mountain route - a route that had over 1% grades. Two single track alignments operated as double track for their most important commodity.
That's what us fans can't explain -- why C&O chose "a truly fast Super-Power articulated" to haul coal to Alleghany. Some fans like to think C&O knew it was a bad choice, but ordered it anyway (and re-ordered it a few times).
timzPart of what idea?
The idea of a truly fast Super-Power articulated. (With the implicit understanding that six-coupled engines gave the peak horsepower any high-speed reciprocating steam locomotive in fast service could use).
It was my strong opinion that some of the folks at Lima got a bit of target fixation over beating the N&W at its own game; I think it was Hirsimaki who reported on the general glee and gloating when the early high dynamometer results were observed...
Some part of this involved C&O's permissible axle load, which was substantially high (at what I recall to be 42T per axle at the time).
Part of what idea?
Found the Poultney article on the tests of 1608. With 141 cars, 11623 tons, two H-8s ran Hinton to Alleghany in 2 hr 09 min; with 144 cars, 11606 tons, an H-8 and an H-7 took 1-59. (Just under 50 miles.)
With 70 cars, 5826 tons (and no pusher I assume) time was 1-43; with 70 cars, 5760 tons, time 1-48. Don't have the whole article -- dunno if he explained why the single (?) trains did better.
timzBut C&O got 2-6-6-6s, which us fans can't explain
We fans can explain it damn well: there was this thing called the AMC that worked out at least part of the idea.
It might be interesting to see if there was a kind of 'institutional memory' that remembered what an advantage even the original T-1s were over the slightly earlier 'first-generation' simple-articulated 2-8-8-2s, and had a prejudice against relatively low-drivered simple-articulated power from that earlier epoch without realizing fully how the technical world had advanced, notably in terms of rebalancing, in the intervening years.
The real question is what transpired when Lima started fleshing out the idea, and it got heavier as it got more complex; I think somewhere there came to be a disconnect between what a heavy modern six-coupled articulated could do and what was expected of the corresponding capital investment in motive power.
I have not yet seen a full discussion of the sordid aspects of the 'overweight' cover-up; it has always seemed to me (outside the loops) that there was conscious intent to cheat on the crew arrangements. It was interesting to see how C&O implemented the Virginian's "savings" on the late-Forties batch...
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