nhrandI 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.
nhrandI 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. I think it got a super locomotive. Of course there were alternative designs that could have done the work but I think the C&O knew what it wanted and obtained what it needed.
The issue isn't what C&O could have done with the Alleghenies; it's that -- repeatedly and systematically -- they used them for services well below the horsepower range for which they were designed, rather than 'as intended'. That would not have been as severe a 'waste' had the engines been eight-coupled.
I have always thought that the Alleghenies represented a kind of Procrustean design, a complex and ultimately heavy design for 'one and a half' fast Berkshires that Lima flogged around looking for customers. They clearly found a willing one in C&O, but I have to wonder whether the rhetoric used by Lima's salesmen accurately matched what the locomotives could deliver if 'abused'... much the same as Baldwin repeatedly touted the design that became the N&W TE-1 as being able to run 65mph when it was woefully unable to do so with even an approximation of a useful number of trailing tons actually being pulled.
All he was saying is that there were clear designs of locomotive that could have fulfilled the mission C&O actually required of their engines most of the time, while still being capable of running 'fast enough' to make time when used in practical fast freight (or M&E) service, again as C&O would have required.
It is not my particular opinion that C&O actually had enough fast-freight traffic to justify large and ultimately heavy locomotives for the range of trains too large for one Kanawha but too small for two. Except in the same artificial wartime conditions that led to the success of the PRR Q2s, where 'snapping' delivery was more significant than in peacetime.
We certainly know C&O conducted some comparative tests in the late Forties, notably of the duplex designs. We also know they bought more Alleghenies ... and proceeded to 'abuse' them all ... but those were a costed-down design by then, and it might be relevant to note that fairly rapid dieselization was the 'answer' even by the late Forties (when C&O famously flogged a large number of nearly-new switchers to N&W, who then built still more copies than they could get, and ordered modernized 2-6-6-2s rather than large road power at the end) so any follow-on "better" steam design for C&O coal traffic wasn't going to be looked into.
nhrandI think the criticism that the C&O built a fast freght locomotive and used it in drag freight service is a bit overdone. 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. I think it got a super locomotive. Of course there were alternative designs that could have done the work but I think the C&O knew what it wanted and obtained what it needed.
With diesel-electrics and how current affects traction motors being operated at slow speeds - there is a 'minimum continuous speed' to prevent overheating the traction motors account being required to handle excessive currents at slower speeds which then generate more heat.
I never had the opportunity to work in the vicinity of steam engines being used in revenue freight service so I am not totally familiar with their operating characteristics when loaded to maximum tonnage other than to know that a maximum tonnage they will move slower than if they were not loaded so heavily.
I don't know what kinds of speeds steam locomotives handled their maximum tonnage trains over a territory when compared to a diesel-electric locomotive handling its maximum tonnage train. The minimum continuous speeds for diesel-electric were on the order of 11 - 12 MPH. I have no first hand knowledge of the speeds of steam under similar circumstance, however, I suspect steam engines designed for 'drag' freight speeds were operating in the 5 - 6 MPH range when loaded to maximum tonnage on the ruling grades. The C&O mine run engines 1300 series with the 'small' 56 inch drivers would personify a 'drag' engine.
To correlate that to the C&O 1600's with 67 inch drivers - my guess is they handled their max tonnage trains at speeds comparable to the diesel-electrics that would replace them.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
I think the criticism that the C&O built a fast freght locomotive and used it in drag freight service is a bit overdone. 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. I think it got a super locomotive. Of course there were alternative designs that could have done the work but I think the C&O knew what it wanted and obtained what it needed.
On the subject of misapplication of steam locomotives, I still can't get out of my head Wardale's accounts of the C&O 614 tests by ACE written in the Red Devil.
I guess a coal-fired anything is anathema these days, but the idea in the early 1980s Oil Crisis was that if you could get a steam locomotive thermal efficiency into the range of making synthetic fuel from coal and then running a Diesel, you were ahead of the game. Or at least that is what Wardale and Porta were pinning their hopes on.
Wardale tries to "correct the record" claiming good performance from 614 by explaining that the tests were a disaster. The BTUs per ton mile (or MJ per metric ton-kilometer -- Wardales insistence on metric units in that book) was anywhere from a factor 12 to 16 worse than a contemporary C&O coal drag using a pair of 6-axle EMD diesels. The test runs, by the way, were where C&O used to run Alleghenies.
Wardale tries to explain in part the poor showing of 614 to three factors -- a leaking firebox that increases the water rate substantially along with the coal needed to evaporate that water, a poor exhaust system and removal of the feedwater heater. I think Wardale is only partly correct about the feedwater heater because I read the J3a "Greenbrier" was said to have an exhaust-steam injector, not a feedwater heater as on the J3 class.
I think Wardale is missing the forest from the trees in applying a Northern (OK, Greenbrier) to a coal drag. OK again, the compromises in its shallow firebox and its "booster" valve, but in a fantasy universe, a Y6b may have been a much better comparison to the Diesels in this application. If you can deal with the condensation problem in the LP cylinders, a coal drag is a good application for compound expansion where you need to generate near maximum tractive effort for hours on end. A compound can get some semblance of expansive steam working under those conditions.
The simple-expansion Northern was just the worst choice to show that a steam locomotive is a good fit to coal service. The 12:1 thermal efficiency gap seemed too big to bridge by the ACE 3000's long list of exotic features.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
IA and eastern... [if] the C&O borrows a N&W Y-6 2-8-8-2 and borrows a D&RGW 2-8-8-2 along with that railroad engineers ... would have some real data[;] if the C&O does not the C&O would not go near a compound.
Now of course the L-13x classes were simple articulateds, some of the earliest batches, so we can leave the compounding arguments aside for that part of the discussion.
I'd argue that the L-132 was a better class to use as a 'starting point' for the demonstration (look at the differences in boiler construction, reflecting evolution in steam-generation thinking at that time). How would you propose to get around what was by most accounts a tremendous gas and unburnt fuel problem with these engines? Have you actually calculated the corresponding water rate and checked to see if an uneconomical number of water stops would result?
Locobase points out that the number in these class designations is the 'official' starting TE, rounded conservatively down; they speculate that this reflects a use of .80 rather than the more usual .85 in the formula. Would C&O have tested them expecting a full 140K, or perhaps uprate the test pressure even further (with the assumption that 'native' 2-8-8-2s built to the test results would use welded boilers or otherwise benefit from higher pressure)?
These engines had a 63" wheel, which should be adequate with lightweight rods and better balancing (mainstream from the late 1930s on, in plenty of time for the advent of the Alleghenies) to get that 50mph speed referred to. Problem then becomes, in fairly short order, that the chassis is incompetent at that speed -- it would need to be redesigned along the lines of the N&W A and Y7 or the Challengers, constraining the vertical component of 'freedom' of the forward engine. Not, perhaps, a radical change in terms of cost, but necessary if you expect to actually run the engines at higher speed when the service allows.
Now, the point of a Chapelon-optimized compound (which is what would be 'sold' to C&O in the first place to get them to consider compounds; they certainly wouldn't otherwise!) would be to produce better operation both dynamically and thermodynamically out of a given investment in larger articulated power -- specifically, a logical improvement from the T-1s (which very successfully and very famously supplanted the H-8 articulateds, a cautionary tale for the simple 2-8-8-2 proponents). If that can be done with a lighter coal-burning engine, far less smoky, The Y-6, 'ancient' as much of its design was (at the time the Alleghenies were being drafted up as a solution in search of an adequate problem) is a perfectly good starting place for a reasonably stable design with maximum adhesion weight. The whole of a Chapelon system is unlikely to add more than a ton or so of weight to a Y-6 with the homegrown booster valve, and it allows balanced compound working at most any speed, or more importantly, automatically adjusted for load, speed, and grade without the kind of fiddling that, say, a de Glehn compound expects. That will likely translate into better water rate, which becomes leveraged in importance as you go to full 'scientific' water treatment for feedwater. We can of course expect concomitant saving of fuel with the lower combined steam mass flow, while preserving the 'gains' from Snyder preheaters or a good Cunningham circulation system in the firebox water legs. I believe C&O tried Snyders (on a 2-8-4 Kanawha?) and observed a nominal saving over 10% (don't ask me to remember exactly 10% of what offhand, though!) and the benefit would likely translate to a simple 2-8-8-2 also, but on an engine demonstrating a new operating principle I'd expect simple 'mod cons' to be installed.
The C&O 2-6-6-2 would [work] simple going uphill. I wonder what N&W engineers would think of that.
Big Jim will probably have a comment, and mine would be only slightly less profane.
N&W had its own comparable engines (the first class of which was significantly derived from a C&O engine, and which did not 'take' to being rebuilt as simple articulateds - see #1399). By the time of the Alleghenies neither the C&O nor the N&W engines would have been used (except in emergency) on the significant grades; they were excellent mine-run engines at correspondingly low speed. The thought of flogging one up Sand Patch with the intercepting valve fully open to "make more TE" is ... disturbing.
Now, cracking the intercepting valve to reduce condensation losses in the LP engine is a different thing entirely. Just don't go calling it 'working simple' because it isn't.
The additional augment alone, out there at the end of the double hinged joint, on the LP engine operated at the full percentage of effective pressure set in the intercepting valve is likely something that would constrain speed pretty dramatically. Let alone an engine capable of expressing peak thrust in the LP cylinders comparable to boiler pressure. Let alone an engine that size with adequate boiler reserve to work the four cylinders simple (or approximated so) for the length of these meaningful grades...
Considering the length of some of the grades, I can't imagine an H-6 running simple for very long on uphill portions before running out of steam.
unless the C&O borrows a N&W Y-6 2-8-8-2 and borrows a D&RGW 2-8-8-2 along with that railroad engineers the when the C&O would have some real data, If the C&O does not the the C&O would not go near a compound. The C&O 2-6-6-2 would world simple going uphill. I wonder what N&W engineers would thing of that.Gary
IA and easternI have been told that C&O would have been better off with a 2-8-8-2 than the 2-6-6-6s.
IA and easternI have been told that C&O would have been better off with a 2-8-8-2 than the 2-6-6-6s. Would a updated D&RGW L-131 with 140.000 lb TE and a speed of 50 MPH pulling at least 200 coal cars and with 2-10-4s as pushers. Or would something else been better.
The chief 'problem' with the Alleghenies on C&O is that much of their expensive (and ultimately heavy) construction was to facilitate making high horsepower at speed -- something that was wasted when the engines were used predominantly for drag service. The 'usual' argument for 2-8-8-2s (rather than, please note, 2-8-8-4s or even 2-8-8-6s which are the more 'logical' alternative) usually ignores the point you make about the T-1 class 2-10-4s in service, which is that they could (and did) run at higher speed when required ... one "answer" being to see whether a 2-8-8-x design of suitable efficiency could be made to run at comparable speed to one of the 2-10-4s with 'beauty treatment' balancing when desired (e.g. for what C&O considered fast or merchandise traffic'
As an additional consideration we remember that a 2-8-8-4 or 2-8-8-6 has the advantages of a deep firebox, while a 2-8-8-2 'perches' its boiler and firebox over the driver wheelbase with the same effect on restricting permissible water-leg length that a Challenger has. This determines to a degree the maximum effective steam-generation rate for high horsepower ... but this also affects the effective water rate, which in turn limits the practical real-world horsepower by restricting range between water stops and hence vitiating much of the effect of added speed. Meanwhile the 2-8-8-2 can be dramatically shorter and somewhat lighter, and has much more of its weight on drivers. (I do some handwaving over fitting an efficient steam circuit on a 2-8-8-2, but the job was effectively done by the time the Alleghenies were designed.)
I would argue that the 'right' engine for C&O would have been comparable to a N&W-size 2-8-8-2, perhaps as large as a Y7, reverting to compound but equipped with Chapelon's full modulated IP injection instead of the N&W-style 'booster valve' which was primarily for reheat rather than balancing LP to HP performance at speed. This would have produced efficient operation at drag speeds, but the ability to run 50+mph in regular service whenever needed. You'd want the deep-pocket outside-frame engine trucks with careful attention to equalization, again as reasonably perfected on the N&W A class, to run that fast, and some of the care with lateral motion on the driver pairs adjacent to the trucks, but these are not particularly difficult design details once you know they're needed.
One 'catch' is balancing the engines for acceptable augment at the higher speed. By the time of the ACE6000 it was nominally possible to accommodate angled weight of the necessary amounts in a cast 58" wheel ... but the augment overbalance there was supposed to be inherently handled by the Withuhn conjugation, and the leading engine of a 2-8-8-2 might not be amenable to the stiffer compliance needed for near-zero overbalance there. Some of the putative savings from locating the boiler over the coupled wheelbase will be lost if you have to go to lightweight close-in rod design ... but, strange as it may seem, there might be advantages to using even Timken-style rods if the engine is to be operated flexibly between slow-speed and high-speed service.
My guess is that these would produce comparable DBHP at practical C&O speeds to an Allegheny while being enough lighter as to keep the union bill down, and perhaps efficient enough to make better time net of water stops. I also think they would beat the pants off any D&RGW design, variable-lead valve gear and all, but at least part of that is natural prejudice and I entertain arguments to the contrary.
CSSHEGEWISCHThere is no doubt that the Alleghenys were first-rate steam locomotives. The common wisdom is that Lima built a fast freight locomotive akin to a large Challenger that C&O and VGN primarily used in drag freight service. It would be interesting to speculate on what UP might have done with such a design. The irony is that C&O's last new steam locomotives were compound 2-6-6-2's designed and built for mine run service.
The irony is that C&O's last new steam locomotives were compound 2-6-6-2's designed and built for mine run service.
Of which the 1309 which the Western Maryland Senic Railroad is restoring to operation is an example.
There is no doubt that the Alleghenys were first-rate steam locomotives. The common wisdom is that Lima built a fast freight locomotive akin to a large Challenger that C&O and VGN primarily used in drag freight service. It would be interesting to speculate on what UP might have done with such a design.
I have been told that C&O would have been better off with a 2-8-8-2 than the 2-6-6-6s. Would a updated D&RGW L-131 with 140.000 lb TE and a speed of 50 MPH pulling at least 200 coal cars and with 2-10-4s as pushers. Or would something else been better. Gary
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