By August of 1966, the PRR was no longer operating the 12-5 cars, according to the August, 1966 Guide..
That summer, the East Coast Champion carired one 12-4 car New York-Miami.
I do not remember the car name, but one morning in the late fifties I saw one (probably a 12-5) in Bristol; it had come in from New York on the Pelican in place of the usual 10-6. As no one was around to stop me, I stepped on board to see the internal arrangement.
Obviously, Pullman's man in charge in Philadelphia did not know that it had been assigned to the line the night before. (He once questioned Conductor Moedinger about a particular car in a train that Mr. Moedinger was assigned to--"Why is such and such a named car in your train?)
Johnny
DS4-4-1000What US locomotive builder was the first to manufacture a single engined diesel locomotive with 2000 HP? What railroad purchased and used it?
Wouldn't a better question be 'who made the engine?'
If I'm right, the engine has ten cylinders and absolutely no Swiss design (although its name would indicate otherwise) - a version of this with two extra cylinders:
One of three roughly contemporary experimental locomotives, all owned by the same innovative mid-American railroad, from the mid-1930s.
GE built two six-axle transfer locomotives in 1936 for Illinois Central, one (9201) with a Busch-Sulzer 10 cylinder 14 x 16 2000 HP engine, and one (9200) with an Ingersoll-Rand 14 3/4 x 16 engine rated at 1800 HP. EMC contributed 9202, a twin-engine, four truck monster with 2 900HP 201-A engines. None of them lasted much after WWII. Each of these had a starting tractive effort rating of over 100,000 lbs.
You might wonder why IC, a railroad with a noticeably flat profile, was so interested in high horsepower transfer locomotives. The answer lies in IC's exit from its downtown Chicago Congress Street Yard to almost all of its Chicago connections. The "Long Hill" out of Congress St. up to the St. Charles Air Line was a real challenge, as almost no room was available to get a train started. The "Short Hill" up from Central Station at least had a couple of hundred yards of flat before its quick rise. Successful use of the transfer locomotives, and later of two-unit EMC/EMD TR cow-and-calf switchers, allowed IC to avoid electrifying the St. Charles Air Line - something the City of Chicago was still trying to push in the 1930s. IC also dropped electric switching around the same time, selling its heavy steeplecabs to the South Shore.
rcdryeEach of these had a starting tractive effort rating of over 100,000 lbs.
The figure I remember for the 9201 was something like 85,000lb TE, which I think may have been associated with the as-built 60mph gearing. It would be interesting to know if the unit was rebuilt or reconfigured with lower gearing to give the higher effective TE mentioned.
Yes, the 'Busch' was Adolphus Busch, also known for Budweiser and the early licensing of Rudolf Diesel's patents for industrial 'gas' engines. They had nothing whatsoever in common with Alco's license (in the mid-'30s) for Sulzer railroad engines... by that time, strictly an American domestic design. Interesting to consider why this engine family had no evident 'future' in first-generation locomotive dieselization.
The locomotive itself certainly looks ahead of its time.
So RME, what is your consideration why there was no evident future for this in first generation dieselization?
Capitalization? Onset of war? Could they have gone to Baldwin or Lima with some proposals?
One difficulty is in the characteristics of an engine that size with the shocks, bumps, dirt, and temperature changes of typical railroad service of the kind that can use the full horsepower of a single unit. I'd be a little concerned about the torsional stress in a ten-cylinder engine's crank given the vee angle; the eight-cylinder engine might have its own difficulties with balance issues.
I have not done a measured drawing, but I get the impression the Busch-Sulzer engine was relatively large and tall, which might have made the engine somewhat top-heavy; I don't care much for the truck configuration (I am tempted to bring up the Gravel Gerties; Commonwealth trucks with associated large traction motors not having real good equalization or riding at the nominal high geared speed indicated, and the trucks are out toward the ends of the unit).
Other issues, possibly including inadequate cooling, would be more specific to the 9201's specific detail design as a transfer unit, and not necessarily applicable to road power. Note that by the time Alco was touting single-unit 2000hp engines, in the late '40s, it was using a lightweight engine with substantial turbocharging to make the trick work...
Having said all this: I think the 'real' answer was that all the builders involved were substantially involved in their own detailed engine designs by no more than a couple of years past 1936 ... Baldwin, in fact, had four separate serious engine designs in the pot by 1939. None of the major builders had any particular reason to outsource to Busch-Sulzer; the closest perhaps being Ingalls which went to double Superiors and Bowes mechanical drive to save weight.
Acknowledged..thanks for a thorough answer.
Didn't suppose it was buried in a barn somewhere along side the perpetual motion machine.
I wouldn't characterize the experimentals as particularly unsuccessful. It was more IC's adoption of the TR cow-calf units, with a ready parts supply and superior visibility that really made them less valuable. All three of them survived until after WWII.
The 100,000+ starting tractive effort number came from an IC diagram book.
Never knew those three units existed. Very interesting indeed.
IC's fourth and fifth transfer locomotives, delivered in early 1941, were the closest IC came to owning examples of this landmark locomotive design. Looking for the model names of the transfer engines and the engines they shared many parts with.
The "long hill" came down to the IC lakefront line's grade level just north of Roosevelt Rd. Between there and the north end of the yard at Water Street is only about 1.6 miles, with the junction with the IC freight line and the yard throat to fit in, all restricted speed territory. An article in Classic Trains about riding the Soo Line's Laker incidentally showed the "long hill" in the background. (The Laker used the "short hill" to get to the StCAL).
Those would be TR1s, with Blomberg trucks, more like road locomotives than cow-and-calf switchers. I believe they shared parts with NW3s
The TR1s were mechanically equivilent to FTs, of which IC never owned any. (RME can have the question.)
All yours, RME! The TR1 (two pairs, 9250A/B and 9251A/B) was IC's next stab at a transfer locomotive after the 1936 experimentals. Lasted into the mid-1960s, longer than most contemporary FTs.
Poor RME- He now has 3 questions to ask! One on each quiz and one still owed. Thankfully we know he is more than capable!
We need to get additional folks involved somehow. Down to a small cadre. The questions provide a great deal of not that easy to get information and are exceptionally informative.
In all of North America and railfans throughout the world you would think there are any hundreds, if not thousands. C'mon fella's!.
Yes, Miningman, I miss seeing several posters who used to be quite active. There was one (whom I had the pleasure of meeting in person three years ago) who has passed away (KCSfan), and once in a great while one or another of the others will chime in.
I have very little transit knowledge, so I can only read the questions and responses on that subject.
But you have lots of knowledge of railroading in general, and we have learned from your postings. Transit is just a fraction of the total railroad picture.
Dave- Well he did say "on that subject". Deggesty likes questions from the Official Guide, mileposts, connections and such, yourself favours interurbans, traction and NY City but other subjects as well, I seem to gravitate toward Canadian things and so on. Each has it's own strengths and bias and we all benefit. It's just that we are down to a very small group and I dare say "a pretty long in the tooth" bunch at that. It's working OK I suppose but it would be better if we could expand the circle a bit. Also not everyone has the time to do intricate research, read all the posts, come up with items and so on.
I know this is all a bit Captain Obvious.
We only need a dozen or so more participants out of the whole planet!
Hey, I got a question for you guys...I'm sitting at the table this afternoon and my iPhone starts humming like a phaser on overload on Star Trek...it's shaking like crazy and the pitch increases ..then the screen goes black...I stare at it and just as I pick it up the Apple logo comes on staring at me for 2 minutes...then it comes back on and asked me to log in as if nothing happened. I think it's Russians! Gotta be.
MiningmanI'm sitting at the table this afternoon and my iPhone starts humming like a phaser on overload on Star Trek...it's shaking like crazy and the pitch increases ..then the screen goes black...I stare at it and just as I pick it up the Apple logo comes on staring at me for 2 minutes...then it comes back on and asked me to log in as if nothing happened.
Probably crApple forced update. They claim they don't do that, but I've observed it happening on at least one occasion, and seen the results (including multiple effective device brickings and permission corruptions) on other occasions. At one time the 'control channel' they used was a protected API in crApple Messages ... sneaky!
When you logged in, did it ask you for anything unusual, like setting 6 digits of password instead of 4, or enabling their crap second-factor authentication?
Hmmm...well first off thanks for the response RME. Log in was just 4 digits. Been getting a lot of messages, like 10 times a day that my i Phone needs to be backed up and any backups failed and need to purchase more storage. Not sure if that is related to the incident or not.
Thought it was going to blow! Quite startling.
MiningmanBeen getting a lot of messages, like 10 times a day that my i Phone needs to be backed up and any backups failed and need to purchase more storage.
This tells me a great deal.
First, that you need to get the phone connected to some local computer that you can back the phone up to. Right now you're backing up to iCloud, which is the default, you probably have taken a bunch of new recent photos, and you have used up the 5GB of free storage (or whatever additional storage you may have paid for). The iPhone does NOT like running with most of its storage used up, and may become unstable when that happens.
The first thing is to arrange for a full physical backup to a local computer (you can make that choice in iTunes settings, which is (go figure) the application where you do this for iPhones. This is a separate action from iCloud backups, but you can go into the phone settings and adjust the items crApple saves in an iCloud backup -- don't save something like a Photostream if you don't want to pay for all the storage to keep it packratted.
Yes, you can back up to a Windows computer; no, I don't know exactly how. (There will be many, many threads on the Web, many of which will not be exactly correct. Caveat lector.)
When you have backed it up, go through and clean out all the files, photos, etc. you no longer want or need to keep on the phone. You'll be surprised how many that is. Keep the aggregate storage as much below the physical capacity of memory in the phone as you can, and if backing up to iCloud either keep it trimmed well below 5GB or 'purchase additional storage'.
And make arrangements to get on a WiFi network and update your iOS as soon as you can, if you don't have an older phone that is already running the 'latest' version it can. Be sure you are backed up and have your four-digit password set before you update, and be prepared to have to set a new 6-digit password if it goes to the latest version of iOS 10.3.2. I do not recommend 'opting for' second-factor authentication until crApple gives you a free device to be the second factor.
Thank you very much RME! I did not know that being backed up against the Cloud could affect ones phone. I will go with that route and for the whole $1.29 a month buy the extra 50 GB's which should get me to the end of time.
Saw a TV show where a person tossed another persons phone down the toilet to which the perpetrator said "Don't worry, everything's in the Cloud these days". Hmmm. Thanks again.
ALL:
I enjoy the many crotributors to this thread and had forgotten that the IC had the experimental switchers prior to WWII.
A retorical question: In "Danger Lights" how can a steam engine go from Miles City, Montana to Chicago in six or so hours without fueling and watering? Quite a feat only in the movies and television.
Ed Burns
NP Eddie In "Danger Lights" how can a steam engine go from Miles City, Montana to Chicago in six or so hours without fueling and watering? Quite a feat only in the movies and television.
In "Danger Lights" how can a steam engine go from Miles City, Montana to Chicago in six or so hours without fueling and watering? Quite a feat only in the movies and television.
I know it's retorical, but answering seems just too fun. Haven't seen "Danger Lights", but to make a run like that said engine must have been oil-fired with about 10 extra tenders.
Oh and it would have to be something capable of very high speeds a la a MILW Hudson.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
NP Eddiehow can a steam engine go from Miles City, Montana to Chicago in six or so hours without fueling and watering?
Must have had an ancestor of Ophelia Todd dispatching.
I do have to wonder if Grumpy Anderson could have wheeled 'em through even faster ... if you told him time was of the essence.
SD70M-2 Dude- Believe it was an F5 Pacific 69" drivers, 46,000 + change # tractive effort. Pulled just the one passenger car.
They cleared everything off the track ahead of time.
The rest of the story is like a Western, where the good guys 6 shooter has an infinite amount of shots.
The staged contest tug of war scene between 2 steam locomotives is pretty nifty..night shot to boot! Pretty good.
...and of course it's the Milwaukee Road where anything is possible.
NP Eddie A retorical question: In "Danger Lights" how can a steam engine go from Miles City, Montana to Chicago in six or so hours without fueling and watering? Quite a feat only in the movies and television.
Especially if it is going through Lombard on the way.... This introduces a follow-up rhetorical question: What was the Pacfic doing going through electrified territory???
I did get a kick out of seeing the locomotive shoving contest, which I first heard about from my dad who remembered the movie being filmed in MIles City. Don't know if he was part of the crowd watching the shoving match. The weirdest thing for me was seeing the smokestack by the roundhouse in the movie and just knowing it was Miles City.
erikemThis introduces a follow-up rhetorical question: What was the Pacfic doing going through electrified territory???
At least 170mph.
(I couldn't resist a straight line like that!)
RME erikem This introduces a follow-up rhetorical question: What was the Pacfic doing going through electrified territory??? At least 170mph. (I couldn't resist a straight line like that!)
erikem This introduces a follow-up rhetorical question: What was the Pacfic doing going through electrified territory???
Hmmm, doing 170 through the combination of the curve at Lombard and the electric field set up by the 3kV catenary must be doing the same kind of slingshot effect as when the starship Enterprise does warp 8+ when going near the sun...
What's depressing is that episode was aired ~37 years after Danger Lights was filmed.
FWIW, Miles City is at mp1119, Lombard is at mp1430 - going from Miles City to Chicago via Lombard would involve some very fast running.
- Erik
Well, if we rule out Stephen King magic, the only possible effects can be time dilation ... or the effect of warp (hyperluminal) speed in the local reference frame. And while it might be noted that the imortant thing to 'minimize' with time dilation is the patient on board the train, the effect from the movie's point of view is external clock time.
But the Lombard issue introduces a new complication. I am tempted to invoke the spirit of that Speedy Gonzales Volkswagen commercial to figure out how going further would make the trip faster -- charging the flux capacitor with the 3kV field, perhaps? They'd have little trouble getting an F6 above 88mph but someone more familiar with MILW power will have to comment about the F5s.
There is something of a precedent for using LVDC for 'super' power -- Tommyknockers come to mind; what works with batteries ought to work really well with MILW catenary voltage! So perhaps the excursion made some sense. How much of the actual run is recognizably east of Miles City after the shots at Lombard -- before we start to see close-in Chicago? Hmmmm.
So it may be time to bite the bullet and start discussing Doc Smith inertialess drives to make the higher speed over the rails workable. Some sort of technological deus ex machina is definitely being called for. Then we could explain why it was such a heroic exercise to make the run in six whole hours when any sufficiently advanced technology could arrive at the hospital almost before the incident requiring medical attention...
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