I did not know about the Newespaper peoples' trip, and would be inyeresyed in learning more about it. The connection to Branford's 500 put be on to the Massachuseyys trolleymen's trip. Don't rememner the car used Biostton - New Haven. May have been the Worcester Tech's Rngineering car or a parlor from the Eorcester - Springfield intyerurban.
The trolleymen took two days, with overrnighy in Nrer Haven, if my memory is correct/ Did the newspap[ermen complrtr the trip in one day? Iy was possible to do the trip in one day on regolar cars, possibly reqiring about a dozen changes.
daveklepperThe other CV-B&M trains that used thr route were the New Englander to Boston and the Ambassador to Grand Central in New York, New Haven south of Spromgfield. MA.
CN's Southwark yard is reached at Cannon Jct, formerly M&SC Jct.
The only Boston-New York trip I can find details on without digging too hard involved Massachusetts newspapermen, not streetcar execs from Boston to New Rochelle and a connection with the NYW&B to New York City. On THAT trip it was necessary for the Shore Line Electric to reduce voltage from 1200 to 600 for about 45 miles (an easy task as "1200 volt" substations had two 600 volt rotary converters in series). Car used was Bay State 4182, a Laconia-built semi-convertible identical to 4175, under restoration at Seashore https://collection.trolleymuseum.org/browse.php?id=04175SMA
This isn't intended to directly answer Dave's question... I'll keep looking.
The other CV-B&M trains that used thr route were the New Englander to Boston and the Ambassador to Grand Central in New York, New Haven south of Spromgfield. MA.
A grouip of Massachusetts trolley executives and their friends chartered a trolley parlor car for a trip over the interconnecting trolley lines to New York City from Boston. They had planned to the same car for the entire trip.
But in New Haven they changed to Connecticut Co. 500, preserv3ed in operatuing condition at Branford, www.shorelinetroley.org.
Why did they change equipment?
Why did they not ride downtown, further souith than the loop under the 2nd and 3rd Avenue elevated yard near the 129th Street Carhouse? (That's easy, the first question is the real question.)
And tell us all you know about the excursion.
The short stretch south of the CN Maritimes main line is all that remains of the original Central Vermont route to the Montreal area via Farnham QC. CV's line originally continued north past the Grand Trunk main to a dock on the St. Lawrence, but that was gone by 1909 when the line was electrified by the Montreal and Southern Counties as far as Marieville. M&SC built its own line from Marieville to Granby, on another CV line.
The CV lines along with other Grand Trunk lines became part of CNH in 1923. CV/CN steam operations continued until 1925, though M&SC handled local freight customers after about 1913. The CV line was abandoned south of a spot a couple of miles past Marieville, which was electrified so the M&SC could provide service.
In 1951 CN replaced the M&SC trains east of Marieville with diesel-hauled trains, even buying FM-design H-12-46 engines specifically for the service. M&SC trains continued to operate to Marieville until 1955.
CN dropped the diesel-hauled passenger trains in 1960. The line remained in use for freight until the 1970s. Meanwhile the Rouses Point sub some miles to the west was in the path of the Rte 132 freeway, so CN built a connecting track from Richfield Park to La Prairie. This had the added advantage of eliminating a backup move for Rouses Point sub freight trains.
Amtrak's Adirondack uses the line now when not suspended. The same route was used by the Montrealer (and Washingtonian) prior to 1995.
Don't know the original owner, pssibly the Delaware and Hudson or the NYCentral, or the Central Vermont if you consider it a USA railroad, but the interurban was the Montreal and Southern Counties, and I believe the current owner is CN, and the track is on the most used rail bridge linking Montreal to the south across the St. Lawrence.
Car 9 of the M&SC is at Branford. wood, cleristry roof.
The Montrealer and Washingtonian used it for a time.
rcdryeknow NYC used Scullins on a fair number of L2 and L3 subclasses.
All the rest of the L3 and L4 were Boxpok; I do not know how many L2s might have gotten Boxpok retrofits as the early Mohawks don't really interest me, but I find it interesting that there are no examples of using a stronger disc main 'only' on NYC, as seen on so many retrofits of lightweight balancing on other roads.
I was looking solely at their weight as a factor - they were lighter than the conventional spoked Alco centers that were on most of the Mohawks' driver axles.
Tom Gerbracht seems to have fallen for the 'lower unsprung mass' argument in his article on late Mohawks but it's a mistake (one that Voyce Glaze, for example, did not make).
Now there were welded double-disc drivers, some of which looked very much like Scullins, and those might have been lighter. But the Scullins in regular production were all cast, like Boxpoks.
Scullins were also supposed to allow easier counterbalancing.[/quote]Probably as cast, perhaps by allowing some of the counterweighting to be arranged closer to the outer face of the wheel. On the other hand it appears they were viewed as being weak in the pin fits, and there might have been a little lightness in the counterweight coring and angling provision. Certainly none of the centers chosen for the Timken rod modifications were Scullin.
I know NYC used Scullins on a fair number of L2 and L3 subclasses. Like many late steam improvements, there were tradeoffs in their use. I was looking solely at their weight as a factor - they were lighter than the conventional spoked Alco centers that were on most of the Mohawks' driver axles. Scullins were also supposed to allow easier counterbalancing.
A short stretch of track in Canada not far from the US border has seen many changes in use in its lifespan.
A through route to overseas commerce by an American-owned railroad
A connection to its new owner for regional trains
An electrified steam line with interurbans sharing track with steam trains
An all-electric line, including interchange freight
A suburban electric line with diesel-powered trains covering its former interurban service
and finally a link in a reroute required by highway construction that is still assigned today as a route for passenger trains.
Name the original US owner, the electric railway, and the current owner.
You have managed to arrive at the answer without getting much of the explanation right! While I believe the Scullin disc centers were lighter than Boxpok, they were also weaker, and both were I think heavier than the Union Web-Spoke (which were in turn heavier, by at least the mass of the webs, than conventional spoke drivers).
Only 10 of the L4s had Scullin drivers (5 early L4as and 5 L4bs) so I think you're thinking of the 25 late J3as built with them.
With the success of the Niagaras, an enormous part of which can be attributed to the Timken lightweight running gear, it would seem obvious that the same 'beauty treatment' on smaller-drivered power ought to produce the speed increase justified by the increase to 90mph permissible speed on some of the Water Level Route. That there would be some issues involved with the larger pin diameter and alloy-bearing construction could be observed in the plans for drilling additional lead cores in the cast Boxpok centers, from the rear which would increase the augment couple somewhat from counterweighting nearly in-plane and negating some of the advantage of the lightweight 'tandem' intermediate rods. I see no indication that any of the 10 Scullin-equipped L4s were considered for receiving Timken rods, which (reading between the lines in Gerbracht's book) is fortunate as the enlarged pins for the roller rods might have weakened the Double-Disc centers still further.
In the event, only two L4s received the roller-bearing rods, and they did indeed not exhibit the dramatic improvement the Niagaras did. Perhaps the important thing to look at was the floating-bushing redesign of the L4 rodwork, which used much of the same sophisticated steel alloys as the Timken rods did, rode articulated close to the drivers for better augment, and had good hard-grease lubrication. It's a sobering tale for those who think roller-bearing rods are a wonderful improvement on any older power...
NYC played some with various disc drivers, with Scullins being the most common on Mohawks, not necessarily on all axles. If anything the disc drivers used were lighter than conventional wheels. A few of the L4Bs were equipped with roller bearing rods, which would be a bit heavier than conventional rods. My guess is that there was little to no performance increase (a testimony to excellent NYC maintenance of conventional rods) and only marginal savings on maintenance.
As we know, Paul Kiefer was a bit obsessive on the subject of locomotive weight, particularly unsprung weight. It is therefore interesting to see required balance weight increase, more than a bit counterintuitively, on five of the L4b Mohawks, for reasons that should have made perfect sense, but that evidently did not have much, if any, real-world benefit.
What was the reason for the increase? And why should it have been an advantage?
Overmod Who has this question now? I lost track after SD70dude got it...
Who has this question now? I lost track after SD70dude got it...
The Mudburner SD9s (5439-5463) were assigned to Tehachapi and had boilers for heating passenger trains - the engine cooling water was used to get the "mud" up to a flowing temperature. Original tanks had 400 gallons of diesel, 1200 of Bunker C and 800 of water. After the S/Gs were pulled they had 800 diesel and 1600 bunker C. Mudburner feature was pulled around 1969 at which time all 2400 was diesel.
The Baldwin unit that was first used was a DRS-6-6-1500 with a 608SC engine. Baldwin supplied some modified injectors and pumps that were used. The same technique of heating the tanks with engine cooling water was used since the DRS's were never equipped for passenger service.
The mudburners were pretty closely confined to Southern California so the minor fuel savings ran up against maintenance issues and the ability to assign the engines systemwide. SP's huge purchases of SD45s and variants in the 1960s and 70s forced a redistribution of locomotives that did not favor SD9s with special fuel requirements. All of the former mudburner SD9s survived long enough to be rebuilt by SP in the 1970s including at least two that made it to the UP merger.
SD70DudeRegarding the Baldwin, did marine De La Vergne engines burn bunker fuel?
I confess that I'd have my doubts about true Bunker C being particularly optimal for use in a De La Vergne (or 600-series) engine that used diesel for startup and purge in the same injectors -- I'd think this might be the same sort of #4 to #5 with the crud and asphalting rigorously filtered out that other references mention. But then again I've never seen a technical discussion of what precisely was in "X-6" as used on the railroad...
Very interesting, I had forgotten about SP's mudburners, they certainly aren't as well known as UP's fleet.
Regarding the Baldwin, did marine De La Vergne engines burn bunker fuel?
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Steam generator was taken out circa 1958, after which just diesel and heavy fuel were carried in the tanks. As I recall some of them ran into the early 1970s.
I am now seeing references to Strapac -- there were a bunch of F units, GP9s, and even RSD Alcos that got X-6 heavy fuel.
That's the Southern Pacific "mudburner" heavy fuel experiment, a bunch of SD9s in the mid-5400 series if I remember right, which used a steam generator to heat the heavy fuel instead of UP's electrically heated elements. (As I said in describing them, in the discussion on diesel use of heavy fuel in one of those GTEL threads, SP was familiar with steam heat for reciprocating locomotives and that might have something to do with it.) For some reason I remember this fuel as specially filtered and somewhere in the #4 to #5 range to work with the injectors, not bottom-of-the-barrel residual.
SP also reputedly ran a Baldwin (5207) on actual Bunker C, using the engine cooling water as part of the fuel heating -- that's a somewhat likelier engine design to survive injecting heated residual oil. I only know about it from hearsay (including an old post here on the Kalmbach forums) so I don't have any more accurate details or even particularly good speculation.
Supposedly the engine had better economy on the heavy fuel thanks to the higher carbon content...
UP's GP9s did not have boilers - and were retrofits anyway. These units were "factory". You're on the right track.
Did any of Union Pacific's heavy fuel GP9's have steam generators?
Perhaps there was a separate diesel fuel tank for the Vapor-Clarkson, along with the fuel oil and and water tanks?
I have seen a photo of the two units operating back-to-back on the GN. I'm sure you're right about the flash boiler - I wasn't considering the water quality required for steam turbine operation. Boilers for electrics and diesels were pretty well developed by 1938 - the E2 sets used on the "City" trains certainly had them.
A western railroad got a series of locomotives in the mid-1950s from EMD with three underframe tanks each containing a different liquid, later reduced to two tanks as service requirements changed, each with its own. In the end both of the remaining tanks ended up with the same liquid. I want the railroad, the engine type and the liquid contents of the tanks. For a freebie hint (which might not be very valuable...) the tank capacity total started at and remained at 2400 gallons during the locomotives' entire service lives.
rcdryeThere's a photo of them coupled "elephant style" (but not necessarily in MU) ...
So yes, at least one would have nose MU, at least for whatever the standard cabling was that GE used. I'll bet there is a more precise description of how the MU function worked, too -- either with respect to UP, or on GN.
There were four hatches on the nose above the anticlimber that could have housed MU sockets. They would most likely have had GE's dual socket 12 + 21 pin arrangement, with a possible field loop socket for dynamic braking control.
I'm also reaonably sure that on-board water capacity was a real issue, even with condensing.
... Especially if the boiler steam was tapped for train heat.
There's a photo of them coupled "elephant style" (but not necessarily in MU) on the Wikipedia page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE_steam_turbine_locomotives
GE did use a larger MU jumper for contemporary electrics. There were four hatches on the nose above the anticlimber that could have housed MU sockets. They would most likely have had GE's dual socket 12 + 21 pin arrangement, with a possible field loop socket for dynamic braking control.
I'm also reaonably sure that on-board water capacity was a real issue, even with condensing. Especially so if the boiler steam was tapped for train heat.
I'll post something later today.
There are many sites on the web that cover various details of the locomotives, and in usual model-railroad form, a couple of models were made (the Overland version being particularly spectacular in replicating the large illuminated signs on the nose sides, often unremarked in technical discussions)
We just had a great huge technical discussion of sorts concerning these two in connection with that thread about GTELs for use on Great Northern (in 'Locomotives' on the Trains Magazine forum...) Note that Ed has provided a number of drawings and photos in there that will help you understand the internal layout and component sizes.
I learned smething. I just never knew or forgot about the GE UP steam turbine-electrics. Can someone post a picture and technical details?
I have never seen anything to indicate that the C&O turbines were intended as anything other than big single-unit steam locomotives. As these were passenger engines, it is difficult to imagine a train requiring two of them; the 'other' contemporary power for the Chessie was conventional reciprocating rebuilds of F19 Pacifics -- btw, I have seen a picture of one of the converted Hudsons without shrouding, apparently in service, which indicates the decision to streamline them came after the mechanical conversion to very capable 4-6-4s had started -- in the era C&O was still devoted to being a coal-burning railroad.
N&W of course eschewed diesels during the period of development of the Jawn Henry, and any MU of the TE-1 would involve a Baldwin pneumatic throttle arrangement anyway. I think it was very quickly apparent to N&W that the "65mph speed" claim Baldwin asserted for the design was very highly theoretical, or should I say highly creative; the locomotive evidently wound up mostly used in lower-speed pusher service, where its low-speed tractive effort 'advantage' would be best used... and use it the N&W engineers certainly did: they managed to severely damage something like 8 of the 12 hexapole motors beyond economical repair in just the couple of years of spotty service that engine delivered. This on a locomotive which, according to Louis Newton, had one of its two main generators damaged by accident during fabrication, and never quite satisfactorily repaired...
SD70DudeI didn't think I had done enough to get proper credit for answering your question.
Overmod SD70Dude Since no one else has posted anything for a while, here's a simple one to get this thread restarted. Since you were in fact 'up' to ask the next question, let's take this one seriously...
SD70Dude Since no one else has posted anything for a while, here's a simple one to get this thread restarted.
Since you were in fact 'up' to ask the next question, let's take this one seriously...
I forgot.
Anyway, I didn't think I had done enough to get proper credit for answering your question.
I was thinking of the GE pair, which were regularly operated together under the control of one Engineer.
I don't know enough about the C&O or N&W steam turbine-electrics to say whether they had DB and MU capability or not, at any rate the C&O units seem to have been operated on their own and there was only one 'Jawn Henry'.
I've never seen a photo of any of them working with diesels, but I would quite like to if any exist.
SD70DudeSince no one else has posted anything for a while, here's a simple one to get this thread restarted.
Yes, this will be the GE steam turbines 1 and 2. But there are some interesting caveats to the answers here.
The dynamic braking was not to grids, as on diesels, but to heating in the Rankine cycle for the high-pressure steam. This constituted a form of true regenerative braking. A number of modern designs "think" they invented this idea, but it appears to have been incorporated in the GE design from relatively early on.
I can't find a technical reference, but I suspect the MU in these units had a number of proprietary contacts specific to internal "steam-related" functions (in other words to run coupled back-to-back) and someone would need to show me where they had nose MU connections. I suspect if they were 'diesel-compatible' it would be with an old GE (11-pin? and something else) MU connection (as on the early switchers) and not the 27-pin standard that later engines used -- this might have been separate from the cabling for the more 'proprietary' functions.
In my opinion these engines were 'better' than their history indicates -- the principal difficulty is that development began in 1936, when exotic high-pressure steam could offer horsepower density and at least theoretically robust performance that would take many cylinders' worth of complex and fragile Winton 201 power to equal. By the time GE had a commercial product, EMD was well into the 567 era, and where UP was concerned with steam, conventional approaches were giving adequate high-speed performance.
Reading between the lines, it was the prospect of condenser issues in this design that soured UP on the idea of high-pressure high-performance steam. And this would likely have been insurmountable, at that time or now, for the necessary mass flow to develop 'diesel-competitive' sustained horsepower per unit.
Note that both the C&O turbines (which used conventional boiler construction and pressure) and the N&W turbine (which only used 600psi) were atmospheric-exhausting by design, and would likely have been impossible to design practical condensers for without using external water spray.
The 1938 GE 2+C-C+2 steam turbine-electric engines that tested on the UP could MU with each other, and since the GE MU System was already well-defined, with Diesels as well.
UP put them into service for a while before returning them to GE. Apparently GE also leased them to the GN for a while.
Technically successful, they were much more expensive than Diesels for the same service. The units were also equipped with condensors, unique in US practice. The use of aluminum was partly inspired by UP's contemporary streamliners, partly to control the weight which was driven by their complexity.
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