120 MPH T1

[daveklepper]

A good read for steam heads.....................

 

 

                          A Pennsylvania Railroad Class T1.

 

LAST CHANCE for a Pennsylvania Railroad Class T1

By John R. Crosby

 

Early in 1948, Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) President Martin W. Clement announced that "by May of this year we expect all our important east-west passenger trains will be diesel-electric powered west of Harrisburg."

 

True to his word, hordes of pin-striped diesels began to arrive from La Grange, Eddystone, Erie, and any other place that could slap together a diesel locomotive.  It seems that the Pennsy, in its rush to dieselize, bought them all.

 

With the arrival of the new power, it was not long before the Pennsy's T1 Locomotives, then only three or so years old were relegated to pulling secondary trains.  I was firing such a run between Fort Wayne, Indiana and Crestline, Ohio, and return.  Even our unglamorous trains, many bereft of names, now regularly sported diesels on the head end.

 

The best evidence of this was the way passenger engine crews dressed for work.  Most of us had discarded our work shirts, overalls, and bandanas in favor of slacks and sport shirts.  Some of the old-timers persisted in wearing their Oshkosh or Carhartt overalls, but they were looked down upon as hopeless fossils by we of the younger crowd.

 

While I had joined the slacks and shirt crowd, in the bottom of my grip I still carried a pair of goggles and gauntlet gloves. 

 

On the day in question, my engineer and I were awaiting the arrival of No. 43.  The train was due into Crestline at 2:25 p.m., and was a typical secondary train of that era.  The normal consist was about 14 cars of storage mail, Railway Express, and Railway Post office cars, a combination car and two coaches.  The train originated in Pitts burgh and wound up in Chicago, making stops every 25 miles of so.  On this run, the only significant revenue was produced on the head end, not in the coaches. 

 

About 1:45 p.m. we received word that number 43 was running some 45 minutes late, and was steam powered.  We were being assigned a class T1, and would we kindly get ourselves on the No. 5536. 

 

Reluctantly we walked out of the roundhouse and searched for our engine.  Way over on a back ready track we found it. 

 

What a pitiful sight!  The engine and tender were coated with thick layers of grime and soot.  At any place where steam was discharged, either by design or accident, streaks of gray dripped downward.  Someone had cleaned off the numbers on the side of the cab.  This had been done in such a fashion that each number looked as though it was in an oval frame.  To verify ownership, the flanks of the tender proudly displayed the letters PENNSY.  The LVANIA was totally covered by dirt.  The rubber diaphragm between the cab and tender was in shreds or missing.  On the engine, various inspection covers were missing, giving it a curiously hollow appearance.  The casing around the stacks was gone and they showed up quite clearly.

 

I had anticipated the cab would not be very clean so I scrounged up a large ball of cotton waste.  Climbing up into the cab confirmed my suspicions that it was a filthy mess.  About the only clean spot was the engineer's seat where the hostler had sat while coaling up the tender.  Harry, my engineer, using the privileges of seniority, remained on the ground and hollered up to me to get him a long oil can.  I handed him one and began to get busy with my cleaning.  It was quite evident that this engine had been sitting around for some time with the cab windows open to the elements and whatever dirt happened to be in the area.

 

I turned on the injector, then the squirt hose, and tried to wash down all the dirt that I could dislodge with water.  While I did achieve some degree of success, there was still a lot of dirt in the cab as harry climbed up the ladder.  He was very careful not to touch any place I happened to miss in my cleaning operation.  He spent a few minutes wiping off his seat, and the various valves and levers he would be operating. 

 

Satisfied with his efforts, he sat down and began testing the air brakes, whistle, bell, water pump, etc.  While he was busy with his chores I got the fire ready.  Surprisingly, considering how long the engine had been sitting around, the fire was in fairly good shape.  It did not require much to get it to my liking. 

 

We were now ready to back down to the station.  Harry turned on the bell, gave three short blasts on the whistle, opened the cylinder cocks, then cracked open the throttle.  We started to back up, blowing out large amounts of water through the open cylinder cocks.  At Riley Street I saw that the dwarf signal governing our movement off the ready track to the running track was displaying "restricting," allowing us to continue our reverse move.  We continued to back eastward until stopped by the signal guarding access to the mainline.  We sat here for some time until we heard the unmistakable sound of a Pennsylvania chime whistle.  No. 43 was finally in town.

 

A few minutes later, a pair of bedraggled K4's slipped by on their way to the roundhouse.  As soon as they cleared the interlocking, I could see the switch points flop over for our movement; this was followed by the signal changing from "stop" to "restricting."  I called the aspect to Harry and we backed down to the train, rumbling across the tracks of the Big Four's Cleveland to Columbus mainline.

 

As we coupled onto the train, I noted that our conductor was standing on the platform with a clearance card stating that No. 43 had no train orders.  He also let us know that today we had a total of 15 cars, all heavyweight.  It was quite obvious that his major concern was that of maintaining as much distance as possible between himself and the filthy locomotive. 

The car inspectors coupled the air and signal hoses, and then the steam heat connectors.  Harry ran the air test while I fed coal to the fire.  At 3:40 p.m., 1 our and 15 minutes late, the communicating whistle peeped twice and we were finally on our way.  Harry turned on the bell, opened the sanders, and gently pulled on the throttle.  With a T1, you did not yank open the throttle unless you wanted the engine to slip, sand or no sand.  We slowly began to move, again rumbling over the Big Four diamonds (Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway or CCC&StL which became the New York Central).   At about 20 mph, Harry made a running brake test.  He released the brakes and opened the throttle a bit more.  We had a 4-mph speed restriction around an "S" curve through the yard.  Once clear of it, Harry got down to business and the tired old 5536 began to accelerate just as its designers had intended.  [Keep it mind the T1s had rotary cam poppet valves].

 

In spite of its cruddy appearance, this engine was still in good mechanical condition.  As the speed increased, so did the flow of cinders, grime sand and dust, and other debris into and out of the cab.  Evidently, there were some nooks that I had overlooked in my cleaning efforts.  It was indeed fortunate that I still had my goggles available.  While our eyes are protected from the flying dirt, I cannot say the same for our slacks and sport shirts.

 

Bucyrus was our first stop, only 12 minutes west of Crestline.  We drove into the station in a cloud of sand and dust, and blue brakeshoe smoke.  After a few minutes, during which mail, express and a few passengers had either been unloaded or loaded, we started another dash to Upper Sandusky, Ohio, all of 18 miles farther west.  This was followed by stops at Ada and Lima.  During the Lima stop, we filled the tender to its 19,000-gallon capacity.

 

The farther west we went, the better the T1 performed.  Our speed easily passed 90 several times.  Now, before anyone reading this gets excited about the speed mentioned, and cites the fact that the legal speed limit for passenger trains on the Fort Wayne division was 79 mph, let me quote the road foreman at the time, on James A. (Pappy) Warren: "If you can't make up time without worrying about the speed limit, I'll get someone who can."

 

Our last scheduled stop was in Van Wert, Ohio.  Again, Harry drove into the station, making a precise spot so that the various mail and express carts did not have to move far to find an open door.  He called me over to his side of the cab and said, "Johnny, this may be our last chance at one of these beasts.  What do you say about seeing just what she'll do between here and Fort Wayne?"  As he spoke, I noted that his face was completely covered with dirt, except for the two white circles behind his glasses. 

 

My deferential reply was, "You're the boss.  My side of the cab is still attached to yours."  He nodded in reply to my answer, and issued a warning.  "You'd better get your fire ready, 'cause we're going to move out of here."

 

With this bit of information, I began to work on my fire.  I grabbed the No. 5 scoop shovel and filled the back corners of the firebox.  I shut off the stoker jets and ran a big ward of coal into the firebox, right in front of the firebox doors.  When finished, I felt satisfied that I was ready for what was to come.  

 

With the first peep of the communicating whistle, Harry turned on the bell and sanders.  A second later came the second peep.  He cautiously opened the throttle.  The first six or so exhausts were relatively gentle "chuffs" as we began to move.  One of the exhausts blew a perfect smoke ring.  When Harry was satisfied that we had a good supply of sand under the drivers, he pulled open the throttle a little farther.  Until then, the sounds of the exhaust had been drowned out by the sound of the whistle, but no more.  The exhaust began to snap and crack out of the twin stacks.  The presence of nearby warehouses and lumber yards created a pronounced echo effect so that each exhaust was multiplied as it bounced back and forth from building to building.  This was the ultimate in stereo.  With the heavy throttle, the engine began to rock slightly from side to side.

 

We rounded the curve at Estry Tower, and now between us and Fort Wayne lay 31 miles of perfectly straight track.  As soon as we cleared the Cincinnati Northern diamond, Harry pulled the throttle wide open.  The engine began to quiver, and it was easy to note the acceleration.  With a good supply of sand, there was not a hint of a slip, although I did note that Harry kept his hand on the throttle in anticipation of such an event.  As the speed built up, he began to move the reverse lever from the corner up towards center, in effect shifting from low to high gear.

 

The busy U.S. 30 crossing slipped by with the speedometer showing 78 mph.  Soon the needle showed 86.  In spite of the large demand for steam, I had no problem maintaining 300 pounds of steam pressure.  This was not necessarily due to my prowess as a fireman, but rather to the fact that the engine was a free steamer.  I cracked open the firedoors to check the fire.  I was satisfied to note that its color was bright yellow-white.  The coal that I had put into the back corners and in front of the fire door was long gone.

 

Dixon is the location of a cast-iron post indicating Ohio on one side and Indiana on the other.  We did not have much time for reading as we were now running at 96 mph.  Harry had now moved the reverse lever to within just a few points of being vertical.  He was kept busy blowing for road crossings.  At our speed, there was not too much time from the passing of a whistle post until the crossing showed up. 

 

We bounced straight through the Monroeville crossovers at 108 mph, with the needle still unwinding.  West of town we hit 110.  The "T" still had reserve left.  The only problem we had was with dirt and soot.  This was compounded by coal dust from the tender. 

 

At Maples the speedometer needle quit moving.  We were now covering a mile in 30 seconds - 120 mph!

We blazed by Adams Tower with the engine and tender each trying to go their separate ways as they passed over the crossovers and siding switches.  The tower operator beat a hasty retreat as the breeze we created tried to blow him over.  Clearing the interlocking, Harry applied the brakes and pulled our speed down to a more respectable 80.  We slipped into town, stopping at the coal dock for a load of coal.  With the tender full, we made our final dash of a mile to the Fort Wayne station. 

 

Arriving there, we got off and headed downstairs to the crew room.  The passenger crew dispatcher, Chet Glant, met Harry as he turned in his timeslip.  "Harry, the dispatcher wants to talk to you upstairs."  So without cleaning ourselves, we both went up to the dispatcher's office.

 

The dispatcher eyeballed us, shaking his head in wonder.  Somewhat sarcastically he asked, "Which one of you two clowns has a pilot's license?"  He paused for dramatic effect and continued, "You guys were certainly flying low today.  According to your timing by Estry and Adams, it took you only 17 minutes to cover 27miles.  Now my math is nothing to brag about, but that averages out to something like 95 miles per hour, and that from a station stop."

 

Neither of us offered any comment.  He looked at us for a few moments and closed with the admonition, "Don't do this again."  As we walked out he grinned and added, Good job, guys."

 

The did turn out to be my last trip on a T1.  With the proliferation of diesels on passenger trains, there was little call for maintaining much of an extra passenger board.  About the only business was that of pulling dead, or nearly dead, Baldwin diesels.  So when the engineers' board was cut, I wound up back on freight with Q2's (4-4-6-4), J1's (2-10-4) and F3's.  But that is another story.

 

 

[RME]

I loved this story from the first time I read it ... and am still looking forward to some Q2 tales.  Gil Reid bought into the story 'big time', and the result is something we should all have on our walls:

But, just as there is no 'real' Santa Claus for Virginia, there is no getting around that 5536 had no unusual mods to the speed-recorder system documented anywhere in the (rather extensive) material so far identified.  I am still looking to see if 5500 (which got the rotary-cam setup) might have had a higher encoder and speedometer display put on as part of the conversion ... but for reasons previously and exhaustively described, I do not think there is, or was, any reason for PRR to put more than a "100mph" speedometer on any of its steam locomotives, with the possible exception of the S1 (which I think might have been 110mph, still well short of what was reported on 5536 - I am looking for my backhead shot of the S1 locomotive to confirm this).

Note that Crosby is not a T1 expert - he claims that all the T1s had 'rotary cam poppet valves' which is a strange thing to make it past the Trains Magazine editors.  I continue to think that this is akin to the situation where the 161mph Hudson slip tests morphed with the 'serum to Nome' railroaders'-boyhood stories to produce that story about a Hudson rushing medical relief across New York State at 157mph ... a lot of verisimilitude with a few little mistaken points that spoil the tale a bit, like some of John Barnes' early science fiction.

Note that I say this all with extreme regret, as I think the T1 design was easily capable of performing as reported.

[daveklepper]

Thanks for the Gil Reid artwork. immediately downloaded to my hard-drive.  Thanks!

[Firelock76]

I remember the article and especially the Gil Reid painting.  I saw it in a short-lived magazine called "Vintage Rails" which I wished I kept, dammit!

It may have originally appeared in "Trains," but I'm not sure about that.

Thanks David and RME!

[kgbw49]

I don't have the T1 print but I do have a similar one of an NYC J3a Hudson framed print entitled "79 MPH".

[daveklepper]

Another really beautiful painting that is on my hard-drive is Rose's Walking through Texas.  I really get a lump in my throat every time I look at it.  Two Riply Northerns heading into the sunset with SF refers.

Some day I will find the right story to attach to it.  Railroading has insipired some terrific painting as well as photography.  

[RME]

One that I am particularly fond of, as telling a story that unfolds as you look at it, is John Winfield's take on Scheeler's Rolling Power called "Three Hours to Amarillo" (I'm not posting a thumbnail, but here is a place where you can see a large preview by clicking the thumbnail (and a great many fine other paintings as well).

[kgbw49]

John Winfield is a great, great artist. I am fortunate to have prints of his "Extra 3801 West" and "Cab Forwards On Tehachapi". Looking to give myself a  Christmas present of "Storming Curtis Hill" showing ATSF 2926 on a reefer block. All his work is excellent.

[PJS1]

A great story indeed! Almost made me feel like I was in the cab.

[tpatrick]

Here's a question for one of you with an engineering degree. This T1 was pulling 14 cars, which I would estimate to be about 1200 tons. Please feel free to amend that estimate if you wish. Add to it another 450 tons for the locomotive and tender. Now tell me how much horsepower would it take to move that load 120 mph on level ground. Also is there a formula one can use to  determine HP? In my foggy memory I recall the T1 to be capable of 5000 to 6000 HP. Is that enough to pull off the alleged performance?

[timz]

tpatrick

how much horsepower would it take to move that load 120 mph on level ground.

No one here knows. We can guess at it, and maybe be right within a factor of 1.5 or so.

tpatrick

is there a formula one can use to determine HP?

Horsepower of the locomotive, you mean? There are formulas, but no one would promise they're right. Only way to learn the power of a steam locomotive is to test it.

tpatrick

5000 to 6000 HP

The T1 may have been capable of 5000 dbhp, but not at 120 mph.

[RME]

There is no 'one true' formula for calculating dbhp (which is the only thing that really counts on the road).  Chapelon says PRR observed 6760ihp from the instrumentation on one run on the test plant at 100mph indicated, but he does not say what was recorded on the roller brakes for that run (which would be close to wheelrim HP).  Machine losses on the T1s were remarkably low, so I would not think dbhp would vary very far from wheelrim output; there should be a correction factor for the high-speed slipping but that's probably impossible to model deterministically, let alone get meaningful numbers from; it should be possible to model the aerodynamic drag under straight and quartering conditions using a second locomotive and a dynamometer car able to record accurately in buff.

Meanwhile, the practical falloff of developed HP at high speed is probably far less on the T1s than most other locomotives, as both admission volume and timing precision will be maintained by the poppet valves up to very high cyclic rpm (as observed on 5399) and the superheat will ramp up to ridiculous levels (as on 614) without producing catastrophic valve issues (as on the high-speed class J testing) if the 1948 valve improvements are used.  So the falling 'tail' of the horsepower curve, already relatively broad and flat, may be sustained far longer than anticipated at speeds above those PRR actually tested on the plant.  I expect the actual limiting factor to be backpressure in the front end (and characteristics of chassis stability) and both of those to be well above 120mph on level, straight, ideal track.

I think you are vastly overestimating the train weight.  If you consult PRR equipment diagrams for the lightweight equipment (for example the POS211a observation) you will find a light weight under 60 tons, and I believe this may cross-relate well with 14 such cars, loaded, representing the design load (880 tons) for the locomotive. 

[Dr D]

This story and the painting ran in Trains Magazine back in the 60's or 70's - likely I have the issue and can find it.

Doc

[Paul Milenkovic]

RME

Machine losses on the T1s were remarkably low

Are there any usable sources from machine losses -- friction between the power in the cylinders and power at the wheel rims?

John Knowles had posted a long report on this subject, but it looks to be that his Web site is no longer up.  What was interesting about his work is that this machine friction varied with load and speed in a way that made it more complicated than a simple "mechanical efficiency" number.  Another point was that the machine friction of a locomotive was much higher than the locomotive's Davis formula rolling resistance, to the point where the machine friction of the locomotive was roughly comparable to the (non-aerodynamic) rolling resistance of the entire train it was pulling.

I am interested if there are other sources going into comparable detail.

[daveklepper]

Wish to correct my Johe Rose SF ReferBlock painting posting:

Racing into the SunRISE is correct!

[RME]

Paul Milenkovic

Are there any usable sources from machine losses -- friction between the power in the cylinders and power at the wheel rims?

There are some discussions relevant specifically to the T1 in the Engineering Committee sections on the T1 Trust site.

Part of the reason for the machine losses being (relatively) low was the use of roller bearings, and supposedly-more-than-desultory wheel turning to profile.  I'm sure the burns from the various kinds of slip did not help the situation, but the magnitude of the difference was probably only a fraction of a percent, the difficulties being much more pronounced in terms of reactions at high speed and increased propensity for very-high-speed slipping.

The difference between Franklin type A and piston valves is substantial, both in relative friction and inertia.  Typical piston valves for a locomotive this size would consume something like 35hp around diameter speed, and of course much more at higher speed or if unanticipated high superheat degraded the tribology.  Franklin indicated that the hp to run type A was about 3hp (much of which was in compression of the springs and lubricated contact of the little dwarf radial gear in the box).  "Standard" type B RC was supposed to be less, but I don't have any material on the specific 4-valve RC conversion ("B-1") that the only RC T1 had, which had more cams and linkage at all 'eight corners'.

ISTR some correspondence at the Hagley that indicated the hp to drive the valves on the T1a was about 22hp, but I don't really know if that was for both or for 'each engine' - the valves are not that much smaller than typical.

As a perhaps-interesting aside, there was some discussion about flexion in the Timken lightweight rods being a source of loss (Chapelon mentions the effect in conjunction with lateral-motion devices and roller-bearing rods).  I'm not sure I believe this, but there is strong circumstantial evidence...

I will ask John (via steam_tech) whether his reference is still on the Web, or if not whether I can find a way to put it up or quote from/summarize it here.

[RME]

daveklepper

Wish to correct my Johe Rose SF ReferBlock painting posting:

Unless I'm sadly mistaken you need a little more correction - isn't it TED Rose?

While we're on the general subject, here's Ted 'on topic':

and for a couple of you who are enamored of the Milwaukee F7, here's something T1s for all their slipping didn't do:

And, for Mr. Klepper, here's something akin to 'Racing into the Sunrise' that he might appreciate...

[BaltACD]

RME

and for a couple of you who are enamored of the Milwaukee F7, here's something T1s for all their slipping didn't do:

I am guessing that is a representation just a second after broken rod?

[RME]

BaltACD

I am guessing that is a representation just a second after broken rod?

It is one of two possible things.  The likelier one is the event Scribbins described where (if I recall this correctly) the crosshead seized in the guide due to tribology problems at speed.  The train momentum (and thrust from the other side) bent the main, which then windmilled knocking off the shrouding but somehow not digging into the ties and lifting that side of the locomotive.

The other possibility, which I saw documented in a thumbnail picture in Trains years ago without a full narrative, involved a broken main pin.  I suspect those were starting to become relatively frequent in the latter-'40s experience with big steam running lots of effective horsepower through just two pins, especially in arrangements like the 'revised' system on N&W Js that put the bending moment on the main far out on the pin (somewhat ironically to relieve a chronic fracture problem on the extended #4 driver pins in the inline tandem-rod original arrangement).  I do not know how much actual R&R of roller-bearing rods and magnafluxing of pins actually took place, but have my suspicions that there is a relatively narrow critical range of load in which the failure of the pins would rise dramatically...

[AnthonyV]

Paul Milenkovic

 

 

RME

Machine losses on the T1s were remarkably low

 

 

 

Are there any usable sources from machine losses -- friction between the power in the cylinders and power at the wheel rims?

John Knowles had posted a long report on this subject, but it looks to be that his Web site is no longer up.  What was interesting about his work is that this machine friction varied with load and speed in a way that made it more complicated than a simple "mechanical efficiency" number.  Another point was that the machine friction of a locomotive was much higher than the locomotive's Davis formula rolling resistance, to the point where the machine friction of the locomotive was roughly comparable to the (non-aerodynamic) rolling resistance of the entire train it was pulling.

I am interested if there are other sources going into comparable detail.

 

I found this info from a thread from 2012. 

http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/741/p/2917510/reply.aspx

NM_Coot

Santa Fe test results showed that the 3765 class with limited cutoff could maintain full boiler pressure at all speeds and cutoffs.  Test runs with 3766 showed 5450 MIH at 55 to 70 mph and over 5000 IH from 35 to 90 mph.  Given the Santa Fe penchant for long runs at high reliability, this high HP over a very wide speed range makes for excellent performance with heavy, fast services where maximum output is required over wide speed ranges.  The concept of limited cutoff was recommended for implementation on the 3460, 3776, and 5001 classes.  In passing, the test of 3766, as equipped with roller bearings on all axles, gave a mechanical efficiency of about 90% up to 30 MPH and then dropped to about 82% at 60 MPH and 62% at 90 MPH.

 emphasis mine

[kgbw49]

Cruising at high speed...

[kgbw49]

Not sure how fast this one is moving, but it gives a pretty good idea what the T1 Trust is all about....

[kgbw49]

Here is a nifty 4-minute video with a lot of T1 footage...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=znMu4K71ktY

At Columbus, OH...

Doubleheading with another T1 in the smoke shadow...

Outrunning the camera shutter at high speed...

Burning up the miles with a dinged-up front end...

Coming up the express tracks on four tracks wide...

About to rattle double diamonds...

Station stop at Valparaiso...

Broadside at a bit of an odd angle, but it shows just how big a unit these locomotives are - they are very large...

 

[kgbw49]

Fresh out of Altoona Shops...

At Harrisburg PA...

Downgrade on Horseshoe Curve...

Brunswick Green at speed...

Station stop...

Ready to roll...

 

[BaltACD]

What was the capacity of the tender?

[kgbw49]

BaltACD, the numbers for 5500-5549 are 42.6 tons of coal and 19,200 US gallons of water per the info on Steamlocomotive.com.

http://steamlocomotive.com/duplex/?page=prr

The engine and empty tender are reported as weighing 944,700 lbs.

The T1 driver fixed wheelbase was 25 feet 4 inches. This compares to the PRR J1 driver fixed wheelbase of 24 feet 4 inches.

Big units!

[wraithe]

tpatrick

Here's a question for one of you with an engineering degree. This T1 was pulling 14 cars, which I would estimate to be about 1200 tons. Please feel free to amend that estimate if you wish. Add to it another 450 tons for the locomotive and tender. Now tell me how much horsepower would it take to move that load 120 mph on level ground. Also is there a formula one can use to  determine HP? In my foggy memory I recall the T1 to be capable of 5000 to 6000 HP. Is that enough to pull off the alleged performance?

 

I dont drive trains, I have driven a steamer once and a diesel a few times, but I can explain large loads and speed...

My experience is trucks and I dont mean just one trailer and weighing only 42.5 tonnes(93,600 lbs) but upto 100 tonnes(220,000 lbs).. top speed aloud is 100 kph(60 mph)..

You might think, impossible with 50 tyres under you, 13 axles and and rough roads... But its getting going thats the hard bit, once you get that weight working for you and pushing when you need it, maintaining speed is easy and if our laws aloud, I could easily get upto 130 kph or more, but heat on tyres etc would be a problem... big hills that pulled you down below 80 kph(50mph) meant you had to make the engine work and gearing to pull you over the hill, so you would end up at about 50 kph(30mph)...

A good operator is only limited by the machines limits, there are limits to every machine(my limit was 550hp)..steam engines that are designed for speed, generally are capable of a lot more than they do daily, but then the operator is taking a risk at breaking the gear too...

I have read and heard stories about steamers going a lot faster than they where designed for, but they where designed to do a job and ability to do more, thus giving the engine a chance to last longer in service... Pushing the limits reduces that service time... A good operator should always get the best out of a machine..

I would love to have been able to run an express in an emergency, thats when you could run the fastest without any restrictions...( Like needing fresh cream for the local bailiff)...

[Jim611]

I had the pleasure of meeting John Crosby's son a few years ago.  He said that it was not an isolated incident and that engineers would frequently exceed the speed limit in order to make up time on a passenger train running late.

His dad ended up as a PRR tower operator in Toledo where he had a lot of time to write.

[kgbw49]

Leaving Chicago Union Station...

Leaving Chicago...

Passing Van Wert, OH on the advertised...

Waiting for the highball...

Pittsburgh engine terminal...

A little wear and tear but ready to chew up the miles...

Rockville Bridge...

Clean stack through Harrisburg, PA...

Making time through Pittsburgh, PA...

Fresh off the showroom floor...

 

[daveklepper]

A musician-author-teacher responded to my Christmas transmission to her as follows:

I think you sent the one about the paralyzed boy before - a good one for the season.

The other one reminded me of a time I was on one of my British trips, and was invited by members of the London Organ Club to go with them from London to Coventry back in the 1960s. They had rented a steamer, and several of them went in the engine. It seemed a pretty straight run. I tagged along to the engine to watch. On the way back some of them decided they wanted to see how fast they could go. They took off their coats (handing some to me) and went to the stoker and started shoveling like mad; a couple were up front with the engineer. We were definitely speeding up (and I began wondering if some of those guys weren't courting heart attacks) we roared past the Eton station and a bunch of the school boys were on the platform (they still wore uniforms then). They seemed to know exactly what was going on, and they jumped up and down waving their hats in the air. We slowed down entering London, apparently about a half hour ahead of the planned time. I never did find out just how fast we were going, but the guys who had been stoking were pretty sweaty and a bit grubby. I wondered if they were going to get bloody hell from their wives when they got home. I also wondered if British Rail would ever rent a train to the Organ Club again!  :-)