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Classic Train Questions Part Deux (50 Years or Older)

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Posted by rcdrye on Wednesday, December 14, 2016 8:14 AM

NP Eddie

The following is from Dave Klepper:

"Revised answer. Two motors per axle, a double quill drive".

Ed Burns for Dave Klepper.

 

That's what I was looking for.  The dual motor quill drive made the NH "Flatbottoms" possible, which were in turn the model for the GG1 and other successful designs.

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Posted by daveklepper on Wednesday, December 14, 2016 9:59 AM

The EP-2's were 2-6-2+2-6-2's   The EP-3]s were the first 4-6-6-4's and they were the mdoels for first the GG-1's, then the EP-4's (streamlined) and then the EF-3's (similarly streamlined0.  All had the double quill.


New York State claims the honor of the 1st North American over 100mph speed witht he Empire State EXpress and NYC&HR No. 999.

What speed record does Massachusetts claim, and give the detials.

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Posted by daveklepper on Thursday, December 15, 2016 2:58 PM

Gee---  I thhought this was easy, that everyone knew it.

Anway, it was steam powered.

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Posted by rcdrye on Friday, December 16, 2016 6:31 AM

The Boston and Lowell was the first railroad to schedule trains at over 60 miles an hour behind steam. 

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Posted by daveklepper on Saturday, December 17, 2016 12:47 PM

Correct, look forward to your question, and if you can supply further details, please do so.

I think George Washington Whistler was the design engineer for building the railroad.  Was he?  Did he then go to Russia for the Moscow - Petrsburg (now Leningrad) line? 

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Posted by K4sPRR on Saturday, December 17, 2016 1:53 PM

daveklepper

Correct, look forward to your question, and if you can supply further details, please do so.

I think George Washington Whistler was the design engineer for building the railroad.  Was he?  Did he then go to Russia for the Moscow - Petrsburg (now Leningrad) line? 

 

If his son had also done a painting of him, he'd be "Whistlers Father".  Yes, he went to Russia in the early 1840's as a consultant for construction of that railroad.  I believe he also died while living in Russia.

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Posted by wanswheel on Saturday, December 17, 2016 4:31 PM
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Posted by rcdrye on Saturday, December 17, 2016 5:52 PM

Locks and Canals was a significant locomotive builder for a short period.  Short as the Boston and Lowell was at just 30 miles, the run still required refueling the horribly ineffeicient early steam locomotives near the midpoint, at a site originally named Woodburn, shortened to Wo'burn, today's Woburn (locally pronounced wubbin).

 

This non-steam locomotive fits between DM&IR's Yellowstones and UP's Big Boys in the heavyweight list.

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Posted by daveklepper on Sunday, December 18, 2016 3:09 PM

Either the afformentioned New Haven EF-3, with the tenders of the two steamaers ommitted of course, or the second series of the UP's "Big Blow" Turbines.

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Posted by rcdrye on Sunday, December 18, 2016 4:13 PM

Nope. the "Big Engine" was a single unit with no tender.

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Posted by Miningman on Sunday, December 18, 2016 4:20 PM

How about Pennsy FF-1 Big Liz.

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Posted by rcdrye on Sunday, December 18, 2016 4:29 PM

Not Big Liz, though this design could have run on the PRR.

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Posted by RME on Sunday, December 18, 2016 6:01 PM

For 'successful' locomotives, I'd say the GN W-1.

For unsuccessful locomotives, why not the Frankenstein result involving one of the W-1s, the infamous UP coal turbine? (Counts as a whole locomotive, including the PA, tender, and all...)

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Posted by rcdrye on Sunday, December 18, 2016 8:36 PM

It looks like my electric sources failed fact checking...  The source I used - the usually reliable Bill Middleton - had it exactly backwards.

At 720,000 pounds GN's B-D+D-B W-1 electric weighed less than a UP Big Boy (minus tender) but outweighed a DM&IR Yellowstone by a bit.  Beat either one of them on tractive effort.  Actually Virginian's EL-2B weighed in at around 1,000,000 pounds, leaving the W-1, the Yellowstone and the Big Boy (without tenders) as lightweights.

I pass the baton to RME who got the answer I wanted, even though I fouled up on the question.

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Posted by rcdrye on Monday, December 26, 2016 7:59 AM

Since this has sat for a week without action, here's a new question...

GN's and VGN's motor-generator units were extremely successful.  Some NYNH&H freight and switching units were built about the same time as GN's Z-1 units, though NYNH&H went back to AC motors for later orders. The first successful motor-generator unit was equipped by Westinghouse in a carbody from a company not normally associated with locomotives.  Name the railroad and the builder.

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Posted by daveklepper on Monday, December 26, 2016 8:22 AM

The car body was furnished by St. Louis Car Company,  and the railroad was an AC interurban line, if I remember correctly.  May have been the South Shore, original electrification, before Insull and conversion to dc 1500V.  I know there was such a locomotive, but I may be in error of it being the first.

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Posted by rcdrye on Tuesday, December 27, 2016 7:52 AM

This engine was "steam road" size, and was mainly limited by a short electrification.

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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Tuesday, December 27, 2016 10:15 AM

The road in question is the DT&I, and the carbody builder was the Ford Motor Company, owner of DT&I at the time.

The daily commute is part of everyday life but I get two rides a day out of it. Paul
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Posted by rcdrye on Tuesday, December 27, 2016 11:03 AM

CSSHEGEWISCH

The road in question is the DT&I, and the carbody builder was the Ford Motor Company, owner of DT&I at the time.

 

Paul is correct.  New Haven's GE EF-2 freight units the following year were successful but were not repeated, most likely because of NH's dual-voltage requirements for passenger units.  Baldwin-Westinghouse, and later GE, built Mo-Gens for GN and VGN, and a couple of experimentals that ended up on the PRR.  The emergence of practical rectifiers, both ignitron and silicon, ended the development of motor-generator electrics.

PRR bought control of the DT&I in 1929, and dismantled the electrification in 1930. 

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Posted by daveklepper on Wednesday, December 28, 2016 8:09 AM

The New Haven had only two EF-2's, and they ran OK but maintenance was higher than on the EP-1 and EF-1 1-B-B-1 (2-4-4-2) "Ponies."  They also had a Y-2 B-B switcher that was a rotary convertor unit, again with higher maintenance.  DC thrid-rail capabilty was not an issue because no New Haven freight ran into Grand Central, and the occasionally-used and then abandoned interchange track at Woodlawn was reachable by 11000V AC catenary.

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Posted by RME on Wednesday, December 28, 2016 8:37 AM

rcdrye
PRR bought control of the DT&I in 1929, and dismantled the electrification in 1930.

Probably more correct to say Ford sold control of the DT&I (to Pennroad, the holding company, not PRR per se) because he got sick of the ICC tinkering in what he considered an industrial adjunct to the Rouge plant.  Most of the aspects of the electrification were interesting, including the catenary support 'arches' in that popular material of the time, reinforced concrete.

Here's a picture that shows both the MG locomotives and what was possible with the arch material...

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Posted by rcdrye on Wednesday, December 28, 2016 10:05 AM

Some of the concrete arches are still standing.

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Posted by RME on Wednesday, December 28, 2016 12:53 PM

rcdrye
Some of the concrete arches are still standing.

At least one source indicates that this is not 'for want of trying': it's too expensive to take them down for any purpose, including use as 'fill' (anyone remember what the folks who bought the Lackawanna Cutoff intended as one of their 'business purposes'?)

Personally, I suspect that some form of 'controlled demolition' would easily take the arches down and cut them into convenient size ... but I ain't speaking up about it, and nobody else should, either.  They're a historic monument, and I think a significant one, as is.

This reminds me: although I always thought it ironic that DT&I was an all-EMD railroad from 1955, Ford got some distinctive equipment from a builder other than Westinghouse.  How many, what was distinctive about them, and what became of them?

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Posted by daveklepper on Wednesday, December 28, 2016 12:56 PM

Tall enough so double-stack is no problem?

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Posted by RME on Wednesday, December 28, 2016 1:01 PM

daveklepper
Tall enough so double-stack is no problem?

Not on the section of track where they remain Big Smile

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Posted by rcdrye on Wednesday, December 28, 2016 1:49 PM

In addition to some "normal" GE industrial diesels Ford bought eight 125- to 132-ton center cabs with some really nice automobile-style grills, allegedly to look like a 1939 Ford.  All of them eventually ended up on the Wellsville, Addison and Galeton in western New York.

http://rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=3887106

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Posted by RME on Wednesday, December 28, 2016 2:46 PM

rcdrye

In addition to some "normal" GE industrial diesels Ford bought eight 125- to 132-ton center cabs with some really nice automobile-style grills, allegedly to look like a 1939 Ford.  All of them eventually ended up on the Wellsville, Addison and Galeton in western New York.

http://rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=3887106

Focus of at least one very good article in Trains in the early '70s, when they were still running on WA&G.

One of them (#1700, ex-Ford 1006) did make it to preservation!  She is at the Lake Shore Railway Historical Society museum:

http://lakeshorerailway.com/rolling-stock-of-lsrhs/

 

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Posted by wanswheel on Wednesday, December 28, 2016 3:26 PM
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Posted by rcdrye on Thursday, December 29, 2016 9:19 AM

This small builder of specialty steam locomotives built one diesel-electric in its later years.  One of its customers converted a 24-ton steam engine into a diesel, which still exists.

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Posted by RME on Thursday, December 29, 2016 1:26 PM

Heisler, supposedly with two 180hp Buda engines, Westinghouse for the electrics, and roller-bearing trucks to boot:

I had thought this thing had Murphy engines -- and the Murphy engine would be just about ideal for this kind of railroad service: unit injectors, four valves per cylinder, worm-drive DOHC, starting by motoring the generator ... better than a Maytag for leaving its service people starving and out of work.

 

Interestingly enough, there is a whole page at the Geared Steam site cataloguing lots of the steam locomotives converted to internal-combustion power:

http://www.gearedsteam.com/converted.htm

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