I read it in 2 different books. One book was in english language and the other one in german language. Can´t remember the title anymore because it´s a long time ago and I browsed trough these books only quickly while being at a friend. But I clearly remember this info. Both books said that the 4-12-2´s were used in freight AND in passenger service in the 20´s and 30´s before the arrival of the Northerns and Challengers. I can imagine that very well. If a heavyweight passenger train reached a certain amount of cars / a certain tonnage, the UP in those times would probably prefer to have a 4-12-2 pulling that train in the mountains instead of two 4-8-2´s...
Jumping in and then jumping off...
I was re-reading the Swengel book last night, particularly the section on the 9000's, and to update things a bit Swegel says the 9000's were used on passenger trains, but not where or when. I suspect they may have been "pinch-hitting", not being used in regular service.
Again, the book is called "The Evolution Of The Steam Locomotive / The American Steam Locomotive, Volume 1, Evolution," (it says one thing on the binding and another on the front cover) by F. M. Swengel, copyright 1967. It's a good one to keep an eye out for at used bookstores and train meets, I usually see a copy or two at the train shows I go too.
By the way, if you've never been to train show (or train meet, as some call them) you should go! They're a LOT of fun, and there's no telling what you'll find.
To find one near you check the "Classic Toy Trains" website, click on "Resources" on the top bar, then "Coming Events" on the menu Follow the prompts from on the next menu from there.
You can also find "Coming Events" on the "Resorces" tab on the "Trains" magazine website.
I've never seen volume 2, but I'm lookin'!
And Wizlish, thanks for remembering my "Classic Trains" post. I'm flattered!
timz Wizlish 60 mph permitted speed Suspect no one can find a timetable allowing 4-12-2s more than 50 mph.
Wizlish 60 mph permitted speed
Wizlish60 mph permitted speed
De Luxe I read that the 4-12-2´s were used as regular power on scheduled passenger trains in the 20´s and 30´s until the arrival of the Challengers and Northerns.
I did a little checking and you asked this back in 2012:
http://cs.trains.com/ctr/f/3/t/203141.aspx
Firelock76 said he found a reference to disc mains, a 60 mph permitted speed, and steam-heat (and presumably signal) lines on some of the 4-12-2s. (I presume this was a wartime thing, but haven't read Swengel, the reference that was cited.) Since we have several experts and enthusiasts on the Nines watching these discussions, I'd like to see definitive confirmation here, and perhaps some quotes or a citation for that "German magazine". (Hopefully it wasn't Arnold Haas making the speed claim!)
timz Anyone else read that?
Anyone else read that?
I've got lots of material on the 9000s (my favorite steam). & I've never come across anything that suggested that.
As it concerns gigantic fast freight steam (larger than 10-coupled), the 4-12-2s were the very first. Ever. Betcha' didn't know that. They predated ALL articulated high speed steam locomotives. HOWEVER, they were good for an absolute maximum of 50 mph.
Regular passenger power? Challengers: Yes. 9000s: Can't find evidence of it.
De LuxeI read that the 4-12-2´s were used as regular power on scheduled passenger trains in the 20´s and 30´s
Thanks for the info. I read that the 4-12-2´s were used as regular power on scheduled passenger trains in the 20´s and 30´s until the arrival of the Challengers and Northerns. So I thought they also came down to LA because the grades of southwestern Utah, Nevada and California would be too much for a 4-8-2 to handle with a long heavyweight train. But I guess the 4-10-2´s did this job on this section then. Still wonder why UP had so many problems with their 4-10-2´s although they also had 3 cylinders, and due to their smaller drivers and less drivers they could also operate easier on more routes than the 4-12-2´s...
Very early on, a small handfull of 4-12-2s were assigned to the OWR&N, actually bringing them to Spokane WA on the "Washy" line. This didn't last, as they were unsuited for the circuitous route. They were renumbered & returned to the Overland Route. These were NOT the 9500s that spent many successful years on the OSL in Idaho. Never heard of any 9700s going west of Hinkle or 9500s going west of Huntington.
The only known occurance of a 4-12-2 in Nevada & California is the 9000 itself, on its retirement trip to Pomona, which is the run referred to in a following reply.
The Kalmbach "Steam Locomotive Cyclopedia" has a photo of 9000 working its way very slowly through a crossover at Summit in Cajon Pass. My recollection is that the caption indicates that this was the only time a 9000 ever made its way to Los Angeles, since the 9000s were particularly unsuited to the curves and grades in Cajon Pass...
M636C
ValorStormThey had no inherent problems, & they're said to have been the easiest engines to fire on the entire system. They predate the Challengers by a decade. & in that decade the 9s were mountain climbers in Wyoming & Utah. Later they came into their own as reliable prairie sprinters. & they lasted virtually to the end of steam
Interesting info! I never saw a photo of the 4-12-2´s in Utah. But it makes sense that before the arrival of the Challengers and Northerns, they ruled the mainline also in Utah. I know they were used in Idaho and Oregon between Pocatello and Portland too, but what about Nevada and California? Did the 4-12-2´s ever operate between Ogden, Las Vegas and Los Angeles at some point of time?
I think the 4-6-6-4 would still be kinder to the track, specifically on curves. Larger diameter drivers would make up for some of the counterbalance advantages of three cylinders.
valorstorm wrote
>> In the mid-1930s, 8 of the 9000s were rebuilt with a double-Walschearts valve, replacing the Gresley valve gear <<
Right -
and yet this was again a tongue in cheek effort since motion then was derived from one outside return crank and had to be transmitted inside to the middle cylinder's piston valve . This solution inevitably incorporated unwelcome flexion and more bearings and with their wear increased summation of plays , again abortive to exactitude of valve events in turn causing middle cylinder power output at certain ( lower ) speeds to remain low in relation to outside cylinders , at other ( higher ) speeds summation of bearing plays allowing effective over-traveling of valve caused by mass inertia and thus output became high , causing excessive stress on drive since valve events by over-riding due to play were anything but precision timed ( there was no clearly defined true to design compression , admission and exhaust lead neither was cut-off kept strictly equivalent to that of outside cylinders - that's why exhaust rythm of worn Nines had become as erratic as can be haéared on rare sound recordings ) All in all the UP Nines as they were had remained confined by original ALCO design concept of having three cylinders yet avoiding to go all the way with consequential valve gear design . Further , inside drive to second coupled axle in view of an arrangement of six coupled axles was in itself a questionable decision continued simply from earlier 4-8-2 and 4-10-2 three cylinder realizations of the company , having become questionable in a 4-12-2 ince it clearly unbalanced distribution of piston thrust via coupling rods with but one forwards but four of them backwards , in view of bearing play - having remained an abortive factor with plain bearings all through the age of steam - again meaning middle cylinder piston force didn't reach last coupled axle before a measurable angular delay of supposedly synchronized turning of coupled axles and not without forced micro-slip of middle main and adjacent axles - to keep it simple and short here .
Had the 4-12-2 been developed into a 4-12-4 and had deficiencies of drive and valve motion been cured the type should have been superior to a 4-6-6-4 SE Mallet in adhesion limit tractive effort , based on equivalent adhesion mass in both types .
As it was their sheer number of engines on the roster and their power output all in all having been up to demands in spite of imperfections kept the class in service and had them struggle on until dieselization leveled out and made irrelevant all of steams various degrees of wanting or advanced design . ( it probably was a much closer cut with the smaller , less successful and lesser number of 4-10-2 locos which in the end got 'improve-worsened' into two cylinder engines with massive counter balancing pieces )
.. Ars longa - vita brevis..
Regards
Juniatha
In the mid-1930s, 8 of the 9000s were rebuilt with a double-Walschearts valve, replacing the Gresley valve gear. They were not delivered as such. These were engines 9006-9009, & 9011-9014.
Randy Vos
"Ever have one of those days where you couldn't hit the ground with your hat??" - Waylon Jennings
"May the Lord take a liking to you and blow you up, real good" - SCTV
@Paul Milenkovic
I would assume that it was the MAV back in the days. IIRC, before Austria became the dual monarchy of Austro-Hungary, the railways were private. And after the creation of the dual monarchy, the Hungarian parliament nationalized these private railroads under it's control (so Hungary in itself + Romania + Slavonia + Međimurje + Hrvatsko zagorje + Kordun + Banovina + Gorski kotar + Lika(?) + the city of Rijeka).
I think I'm not capable of creating such a word, but I can give you the "ingredients". I don't know in which order they would be. If it was a compounder, it's a Dreizylinderverbunddampflokomotive. (the most famous one of these is the SNCF 242A1 modified by the legend himself, Andre Chapelon) If it isn't, it's a Dreizylinderlokomotive. Notice how lokomotive is at the end. It would also be in the end of that giant word.
Express passenger locomotive translates to Schnellzuglokomotive. Superheated steam is, quiet simply, "hot steam locomotive" > Heißdampflokomotive. My guess would be that the locomotive was then a Dreizylinderheißdampfschnellzuglokomotive. Or a : Dreizylinder-heißdampf-schnellzuglokomotive
If it was a superheated compounder, it was a Dreizylinderverbundheißdampfschnellzuglokomotive. Or a: Dreizylinder-verbund-heißdampf-schnellzuglokomotive. (as "dampf" is mentioned in heißdampf already, I think that it wouldn't make sense to call it a Dreizylinder-verbunddampf-heißdampf-schnellzuglokomotive. Maybe Dreizylinder-verbund-und-heißdampf-schnellzuglokomotive was used aswell)
Btw, there is a south slavic forum around, http://www.zeljeznice.net/forum/, I assume you can read Serbo-Croatian from your name, so if you would like to collect some pictures of locomotives which your dad and great grandfather might've seen, have a look there. There are some of the extremly rare MAV Mallet pics there, too!
@Firelock76
Well, then I'm glad that everything turned out well!
We Europeans used 3-cylinder steam and compounders all the time cause of loading-gauge limits. USA railroads didn't have that problem in the 20th century. It was indeed cool! If anyone could've predicted that Yugoslavia would fall apart, and if he thought about it as early as the 1970s, and if he could've imagined himself that the resulting states would become free-market-capitalist, I'm 99% sure we wouldn't have any diesels, (like the extremly loud one built in cooperation with GE here in Croatia, which just thundered around my house with a 6coach passenger train...) and only maybe 10 electric locomotives for the mountainous region between Rijeka and Karlovac.
@Feltonhill: I'm indebted forever! Priceless info! Thank you!
Hi dimovski! Oh, I knew you weren't being disrepectful, I was trying not to be disrepectful, hence the "Mr." I put in front of the "dimivski."
Three-cylinder locomotives never really caught on here in the US in spite of ALCO's best efforts to make it so. ALCO's selling point, and it was a good one, was that a multi-cylinder locomotive would be easier to balance, and as a result a lot less damaging to trackage. The problem was American railroaders just couldn't get past the added maintanance costs of three cylinder engines. An engine in in the shop wasn't out on the road making money, so "get 'em in, get 'em fixed, get 'em out, and the quicker the better!" was the philosophy. Any three cylinder locomotives that were sold quickly became the "oddballs" that got less than optimum maintanance, with some exceptions like UP's 9000's.
As I said, the 9000's were good performers, but with better things like the Challengers and FEF's coming they were a UP purchase that wasn't repeated. Even ALCO gave up the concept.
Steam in your area up to the 1990's, and into the 2000's? Wow, how cool was that?
My great grandfather Viktor Heim worked as a civil engineer for the Hungarian State Railway in Croatia under the Austro-Hungarian administration (was it called the MAV in those days?).
Dad told me he had one long word all strung together in German for "Three-cylinder superheated-steam express passenger locomotive." Between Dimovski and Juniatha, can anyone write that word out for me?
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
This is from William W. Kratville's book, "The Union Pacific Type", page 186. These figure were read from several graphs .
Actual TE (Speed - Lbs)
0 - 98,000
10 - 97,800
20 - 79,500
30 - 60,000
40 - 46,000
45 - 41,200 (last data on graph, didn't go to 50 mph
Drawbar Pull (Speed - lbs)
0 - 93,000
10 - 93,000
20 - 76,000
30 - 56,000
40 - 41,500
50 - 31,000
60 - 24,000
Hope this helps!
Firelock76, by no means did I wish to sound disrespectful.
Yes, they lasted into the early 90s I think, and in Serbia some were towing until 2010 or so. I think there might be some industrial railways in Bosnia still operating on steam. We had mostly Austro-Hungarian types (our railroads were the home of the mighty MAV Mallets), tho we also used a couple of German Kriegsloks (50,42,52) and American Mikes(?) (C-160 or S-160 or even -260, can't remember)
I don't know, I think the N&W J Class restoration wasn't a great idea either. Then again, maybe they're like old cars - if you fully restore them, you got to exercise them or they'll rust...
Well, if you pay for their stay, I'm 99% sure the dampf-freaks would love to help! But who would run the loco? Which railroad? What would support it? (coal, water) What if something breaks down? And the insurance costs are likely to be fairly high too! But just in case you need to contact these dampf-freaks, my German is fluent... give me a shout if you need it ;) (I guess you probably don't work on the restoration, but maybe someone might once read this, as a fascinated UP 9000 fan, trying to soak up all the knowledge there is about this locomotive)
ValorStorm, thank you for the useful infos! Especially the weight ones are intriguing!
My guess would've been about 12300BTU, I didn't expect the coal to be that... "bad" - calorie-wise, that is.
Juniatha, I don't really know what to say about the quality of the Nines, but I don't think that maintenance was such a huge problem. Could a "hidden" 3rd cylinder create the need for more work than the 2 outer cylinders of the CSA?
Feltonhill, I'm indebted forever! I hope I'll be able to repay you one day! So 4750bhp at 42mph should be correct then, I guess, as highest ihp is usually reached before highest bhp. Well, I'm looking forward to these! Thanks again!
The tractive effort and drawbar pull curves for the UP 9000s are on pg 186 of the book, "Union Pacific Type," by Kratville and Bush, published 1990. I'll convert them to IHP and DBHP curves during the next couple of days if I can. I'm at the NWHS archives in Roanoke and they have a library with most of the major railroad books. Great research tool. I should be able to get a preliminary curve but will be able to do better when I get home and have some photoshop capability to enlarge the graphs for more accurate readings. FWIW, maximum IHP (at the cylinders) was 4,917 at 37 mph.
timztimzUP's usual coal was... maybe 9000-10000 BTU per pound?Not that low, it seems. The RME article on the 3950-series 4-6+6-4s says they were designed for 11800-BTU coal.
timzUP's usual coal was... maybe 9000-10000 BTU per pound?
It's not just about the BTU content, but how how the coal burns. Western coal just doesn't burn as well as eastern bituminous. Anthracite coal has a high BTU, but makes a poor locomotive fuel - it just burns too slow. The best eastern bituminous, such as what was found in the Pocahontas Field or the Connellville section of the Pittsburgh Seam had a BTU as high as anthracite, but burned much quicker. That's why railroads that used this coal, such as the N&W and B&O only needed relatively small grate areas on their locomotives to get the output they wanted.
@ ValorStorm:
quote :
>> They had no inherent problems, ...<<
Well , well ... they had the inherent problem their conjugated gear caused extra mass forces load on outer gear and at the same time started to develop slack in bearings tolerably quickly . Both of this contrasted disfavorably with UP's desire to run power at maximum monthly mileage simply because mileage of power under repair in shop is nil while being worked on . As I see it they made a compromise and ran the engines until exhaust beat became so irregular that some drivers wondered how many cylinders there really were - active . This *was* an inherent problem of the Gresley gear which in fact the ALCO conjugated gear really was . True , this was late fought by the general cure-all in steam loco bearing problems , roller bearings . However since the extra load on external rod bearings of valve gear still remained the solution was incomplete and running the Nines at fast paces always resulted in rapid wear . Unfortunately running long trains fast is just what optimizes ton-mile productivity and so - again - running of the Nines on Nebraska lines *still* was far from an optimum operation . The locomotives lasted simply because they where needed , they belonged to the most powerful steam locomotives on the system an UP could not afford to drop them as long as steam ruled . Let's say , they were *just* successful enough - power output and maintenance balance was just acceptable - for them to remain on the roster . Finally , at least after final batches of FEFI and BB had been delivered and decission tochange over to diesel traction was made , steam was run out the way it was - that's why no further efforts were made to solve the Nine's valve gear problem .
As concerns firing :
The nines may have been easy to fire yet that's no prove the very feature of having front firebox cut off from grate by a Gaines wall was a great design or had principally caused this nor had to do with it at any rate . I'm sure in fact the engines would have been as easy or even better steaming had the firebox had a conventional shape with front throat plate in place of Gaines wall and an honest combustion chamber of same or in fact somewhat shorter length as in existing design was combustion chamber plus firebox ex Gaines wall . From viewpoint of thermal stress the Gaines wall was logically ill-concepted .
DIMovsky :
A larger t.e. at speed than at starting is very unlikely . It is not totally impossible , but could only have been 'realized' by *very* cooked design dimensioning - this was not the case with the Nines . Number of cars in comparison with train total tonnage has always surprised me , too . Cars usually were far from having steam loco value of mass / axle - that's why trains listing in number of cars usually looks much more impressive than actual tonnage . Yet , in this light 120 cars at 50 mph on the Nebraska level track horizon to horizon sound very much like UP running their steam power as they usually did : nothing less than flat out ! After all they were tools meant for producing commercial traffic .
As it concerns the engine & (loaded) tender weight, the 1st 15 9000s were 782,000 lbs as delivered. By 1938 new & larger tenders brought these same ones up to 805,500 lbs. Then starting with #9015 the engines were delivered 1,500 lbs heavier; 807,000 lbs. Somewhere between #9029 & #9063 the locos arrived 18,500 lbs heavier still; 825,500 lbs until end of production. So, 391 (US) tons, 402.75 tons, 403.5 tons, 412.75 tons.
Incidentally, 391 US tons is 354.7 metric tons.
OK brother, "Dimovski" it'll be. I added the "Mr." as I still take being an officer and a gentleman seriously and it's better to be polite than not.
So you're Croatian? Since we're talking about successful steam, didn't steam last up until pretty recently on Croat railroads, and with quite a variety of types? I'm sure I've seen some films of the same.
Oh, I'm not concerned about the 9000 being an irreplaceable artefact so that precludes it from being restored to operation. The N&W J, the Mighty 611, is in the process of restoration as we speak and should be running again sometime in 2015, and about time too, Lady Firestorm and I have waited patiently 20 years for this! No, the problem I see with the 9000 is I doubt there's anyone who want to tackle that third cylinder!
Now maybe if we got some European dampf-freaks who are used to multi-cylinder steamers over here to try a restoration it might be possible. Most American steam mechanics in the old days wanted nothing to do with three cylinder steamers. Depends on what you're used to, I suppose.
timzValorStormUP used high quality coal at all times.UP's usual coal was... maybe 9000-10000 BTU per pound?
ValorStormUP used high quality coal at all times.
Exactly.
While the UP stuff was better than the glorified dirt the NP used, it is not in the same league as eastern coal from West Virginia and Western PA in terms of BTU and quality of burn.
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