Lars LocoWas this the max. allowed track speed for freight?
I dug out the N&W timetables, and you hit the jackpot there: in 1953-54 speed limit was the same 78 mph for passenger and freight, east of Petersburg and west of Kenova. And that's any freight, not just the hot symbols.
timz Lars Loco: Was this the max. allowed track speed for freight? It was the maximum allowed by timetable in 1953, yes. Who knows whether anybody cared if engineers exceeded those speeds.
Lars Loco: Was this the max. allowed track speed for freight?
It was the maximum allowed by timetable in 1953, yes. Who knows whether anybody cared if engineers exceeded those speeds.
Thank you for your reply. But why have a timetable anyway, if nobody has to care about. Will try to investigate that.
Unfortunately, this gives room for speculation again - did they try to avoid excessive rail-wearing?
-lars
the only time i ever got a fast ride in the cab of a steam engine was also the only time i ever saw a steam engine with a speedometer - that is, before the FRA era when they became mandatory. it was on UP 826 west out of laramie with a passenger train, and the speedometer needle was vibrating so badly you couldn't see it! timing by milepost i got 65 MPH or so, and the engineer seemed to agree. actually the whole engine was vibrating so much that i felt i was standing on top of a jackhammer - and the UP 800's were reputed to ride as smoothly as a baby buggy! -arturo (big duke)
5629pac My father was a Yardmaster for the Grand trunk Western. He would bring a new turntable home every time they came out. I seemed like there was a table on the back page that gave speed verses time between mile posts. I don't rembering one without it. Boxcar 5629
My father was a Yardmaster for the Grand trunk Western. He would bring a new turntable home every time they came out. I seemed like there was a table on the back page that gave speed verses time between mile posts. I don't rembering one without it. Boxcar 5629
Now, I really cannot resist asking this question: where did your father put the turntables that he brought home? Did you have a large yard?
Back to reality: other roads also had the tables for determining speed from the elapsed time between mile posts.
Johnny
I refer you to the Ripley article in the Fall 2007 CLASSIC TRAINS
Authorized freight speeds for the 4-8-4's and the 2-10-4's were 60 mph with the timetable giving permission to exceed by 10 mph if necessary to recover time to schedule. These 2-10-4's were allowed on occasion to haul freight at 70 mph. The article states these were the only 2-10-4's to do so. The N&W did not have any 2-10-4's.
So freights at 70 mph were NOT all that uncommon in the steam era!
daveklepperAuthorized freight speeds for the 4-8-4's and the 2-10-4's were 60 mph
daveklepperwith the timetable giving permission to exceed by 10 mph if necessary to recover time to schedule.
daveklepperSo freights at 70 mph were NOT all that uncommon in the steam era!
timz On UP Cheyenne-Ogden, steam freight was allowed 50 mph in 1953 (diesel 55). On SFe west of Albuquerque/Belen, freight limit (steam or diesel) went from 55 to 60 around that time.
On UP Cheyenne-Ogden, steam freight was allowed 50 mph in 1953 (diesel 55). On SFe west of Albuquerque/Belen, freight limit (steam or diesel) went from 55 to 60 around that time.
Investigations with Mr. google spreads out a nice link http://oldtrainschedules.com/ of some older timetables.
At a brief look, the quickest to find steam-era dated TT is
"(1955-10-30) Union Pacific Kansas Division Employee Timetable No. 22" (Midwest Area)
As Tim has already published, highest allowed speed of steam pulled freight is again 50mph on that route.
Page 19 (General notes) shows some interesting details: a Table of max allowed speeds for different classes of UP steamlocos:
-Mountains, Challengers, 2-10-2s, 4-12-2s and Mikes with 63in drivers were permitted 50mph
-4000class, which I believe they never actually ran this route, were permitted just 45mph (freight and passenger!)
What could be the reason of that? The 9000class did not have a good reputation of have been a fast steamloco, why were even they permitted to run faster than a 4000class?
They did not a have a problem to run a Mountain class with passenger train up to 75mph, but freight was limited to 50mph.
Could technical issues ( for example breaking power ) gives reason of those speed limits?
Does anybody has a TT of '40ties era?
Deggesty 5629pac: My father was a Yardmaster for the Grand trunk Western. He would bring a new turntable home every time they came out. I seemed like there was a table on the back page that gave speed verses time between mile posts. I don't rembering one without it. Boxcar 5629 Again, the system does not want me to excerpt one sentence. Now, I really cannot resist asking this question: where did your father put the turntables that he brought home? Did you have a large yard? Back to reality: other roads also had the tables for determining speed from the elapsed time between mile posts.
5629pac: My father was a Yardmaster for the Grand trunk Western. He would bring a new turntable home every time they came out. I seemed like there was a table on the back page that gave speed verses time between mile posts. I don't rembering one without it. Boxcar 5629
Employee time tables still have that chart. It's how you check the accuracy of the speedometer.
Jeff
Lars Loco They did not a have a problem to run a Mountain class with passenger train up to 75mph, but freight was limited to 50mph. Could technical issues ( for example breaking power ) gives reason of those speed limits?
I finally had time to rexamine some 1950's era CPR ETT's. It seems that even though the passenger train maximum speed is 80 MPH on mainline Sub's., on the same Sub's. freight is restricted to 45 MPH.
But I think I have an answer for that. I believe it is the limitations of freight car technology. Specific mention is made on these same Sub's. that the rule for standing inspections of all Mixed and Freight trains is amended from every 40 miles to every 50 miles. It sounds like the limiting factor is not the capabilities of the engines, or the track conditions, but the freight cars themselves.
Bruce
So shovel the coal, let this rattler roll.
"A Train is a Place Going Somewhere" CP Rail Public Timetable
"O. S. Irricana"
. . . __ . ______
AgentKid " Specific mention is made on these same Sub's. that the rule for standing inspections of all Mixed and Freight trains is amended from every 40 miles to every 50 miles." Bruce
"
Specific mention is made on these same Sub's. that the rule for standing inspections of all Mixed and Freight trains is amended from every 40 miles to every 50 miles."
Sorry for my lacking english, Bruce, but "standing inspect", does it means : check cars (axles, springs, brakes, air flow...) every 40-50 miles!?!
this sounds low...It sounds like an operational issue, not like a technical one...
What was the supposed max. speed for friction bearings box cars / roller based coal/boxcars?
I think the cars itself did not had problems accelerating up to 70mph.
Think about heavy weights cars, or tenders. A big centipede tender of total 200tons weight could roll 100mph easily.
btw:classic steam is here...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hc9jf6m9KrU&feature=channel
Lars Loco Sorry for my lacking english, Bruce, but "standing inspect", does it means : check cars (axles, springs, brakes, air flow...) every 40-50 miles!?! this sounds low...It sounds like an operational issue, not like a technical one... What was the supposed max. speed for friction bearings box cars / roller based coal/boxcars?
Lars, yes standing inspection does mean what you think it does. The problem comes from the fact that roller bearing use wasn't mandated on freight cars until 1970 or so. There were engines and tenders as well as passenger cars with roller bearings, but freight cars were a whole other matter. I understood that the supposed maximum speed for friction bearing equipped freight cars was 50 MPH. That would be for standard trucks, not high speed trucks used on express boxcars and reefers in passenger train service.
Fifty miles does seem low, but on single track mainline there was enough traffic that freight trains would normally have to stop for meets within that distance. The rule does not mean at 50 mile increments from the terminal you started from. Crews would have their orders when they left their terminal, and from those they could discern the lineup on the road. They would then plan out at which sidings they would walk the train to do the inspections while they were waiting for the other train anyway. In the fifties railroading was still a dangerous game, and when trains were stopped crews looked over all of the equipment pretty closely whenever they got the chance. Engine crews over their engines, and train crews over the train.
This now gets us back to the question of why have timetables if nobody is following the rules. I grew up hearing of fast freight trains. And I look at amazement at these old time tables and wonder how anything ever got done considering the enormous distances trains traveled in Canada. It was a strange mix of cautious head office management and skilled yet careful men pushing things as hard as they could go. Modern rules based railroading started in Canada after the wreck at Piapot, Saskatchewan around 1970. It wasn't a loss of life, or the cost of the damage that changed the game, it was the clean up cost and lost revenue as a result of having to clear the wreckage from the track. A loaded grain train running 80+ MPH hit the ground and put a terrific number of cars between about three telegraph pole lengths. There were many 100 ton cylindrical hoppers piled three layers deep, and the railway's equipment wasn't tall enough to reach to the top of the pile, and outside machinery had to be brought in to deal with it. It got a lot of people's attention.
Thank you Bruce for your extensive answer. Thinking about a hard working steamloco, especially in mountain area, necessary stops for refueling my have occur indeed every 50-100miles. But just walk down a mile long train can take 10min, to do recurring inspections sounds time-consuming.
Funny, I can not determine a speedometer in a 4000class cab... looking and looking but appears to have a mph scale...not in Kratvilles book, nor at photographs of preserved BB.
Either, speedometers were very small and my eyes to bad or... they were uncommon?
Again, please check the Ripley article in the Fall 2007 CLASSIC TRAINS
Possibly you need to check AT&SF timetable immediately prewar or during WWII. Possibly the heavyn use of the railroad during WWII and the backlog of track maintenance caused a reduction in allowable top freight train speeds.
Lars Loco But just walk down a mile long train can take 10min, to do recurring inspections sounds time-consuming.
But just walk down a mile long train can take 10min, to do recurring inspections sounds time-consuming.
Mile long trains didn't happen in the 1950's behind steam in Canada. My father worked with a dispatcher who was known as "Big Train" right up to his retirement. As a young man he started dispatching at the same time as the CPR was moving their Selkirk 2-10-4's (the biggest steam loco's in the British Empire (as they used to call it)) out of the mountains onto the Brooks Sub. On that line they could pull about eighty cars or about 4000 ft. Young folks who hired on in the early 1980's were always amazed at that story.
Mile long freights were a phenomena of the Diesel era.
daveklepperplease check the Ripley article in the Fall 2007 CLASSIC TRAINS
I checked 1940 SFe timetables between Albuquerque/Belen and LA-- freight maximum was 50 or 55 mph.
The Ripley article clearly states the 2-10-4's and 4-8-4's were premitted 60 mph per timetable plus 10mph overspeed to make up time.
What did he actually say? What territory is he talking about, in what year?
No one else has found a SFe timetable showing 70 mph for SFe steam freight-- right?
None of our Illinois Central steam locomotives (both passenger and freight) had speedometers. I think I can state without equivocation that any road enginner could tell you from experience (within 5 mph) how fast he was running.
I no longer have an ETT from the steam era but the maximum track speed for freights on the Illinois Div. mainline between Richton Park and Effingham was at least 70 mph. Other than for track work, the only speed restrictions that I recall were at Kankakee, Gilman, Champaign and Mattoon. IC's hotshot freight, MS-1, regularly ran at 70 mph behind steam with about 50 journal bearing boxcars.
There was no checking of cars between Markham Yard in Chicago (actually Homewood) and Champaign, a distance of right at 100 miles. Car Inspection at Champaign was done by car knockers and not Tand E crewmen. As far as I know this was the practice all over the IC system.
Mark
For slower speeds, the number of driver revolutions could be counted for a certain time. There are tables for different sized drivers (or you could calculate it if you wanted to). For example, for a locomotive with 63" drivers, count the number of revolutions (or number of exhaust chugs and divide by 4) in 11 seconds. The number of driver revs in 11 seconds is the speed in mph. This is easy to do at speeds up to about 30 mph.
somebody said, 'mile-long trains are a phenomenon of the diesel era". wrong! all summer long during 1943, i watched 100-car-plus freights (close to or over 5000 ft.) roll past Van Nest shops in the Bronx; behind ELECTRICS! i betcha the Pennsy did the same on its electrified divisions. the reason i was watching at van nest shops? they used the only steam engine i knew of in the area as a shop switcher!
And those 100-car freight trains were frequently pulled by ONE EF-3 double-end streamlined eslectric, inlcuding the stiff grades to and from the Hell Gate Bridge. Or by three or four "Pony Motors" in multiple. The same years I watched them cross Hell Gate Bridge from an upper floor friend's Central Park West apartment window.
bigduke76 somebody said, 'mile-long trains are a phenomenon of the diesel era". wrong! ...
somebody said, 'mile-long trains are a phenomenon of the diesel era". wrong! ...
Yes, most certainly wrong. The Norfolk & Western routinely ran 160+ wagon consists nested between three Mallets of the Y variety. That would, with the engines, be well in excess of 1 mile...close to 1.3 miles.
-Crandell
timz Governors on steam locomotives? Sounds unlikely, doesn't it? Offhand I'm guessing steam-powered PRR freights weren't supposed to do even 60 mph. More likely 50.
Governors on steam locomotives? Sounds unlikely, doesn't it?
Offhand I'm guessing steam-powered PRR freights weren't supposed to do even 60 mph. More likely 50.
Not really. The LNER had a tram line with governor on the tram engines to limit them to 12 mph. Now US trains I'm not too sure about
If you can read this... thank a teacher. If you are reading this in english... thank a veteran
When in doubt. grab a hammer.
If it moves and isn't supposed to, get a hammer
If it doesn't move and is supposed to, get a hammer
If it's broken, get a hammer
If it can't be fixed with a hammer... DUCK TAPE!
And we have already established that M-1 Mountains undercatenary were authorized 70mph with specific freight trains (intermodal).
Far as we can tell from the timetable, a PRR 4-8-2 would have been allowed 60 mph on a couple of freight trains starting around 1956; no reason to assume a 4-8-2 ever pulled those trains. No PRR timetable ever showed 70 mph for any steam engine pulling any freight.
Isn't you post a bit contradictory? Some of the last roundhouses to house PRR steam, were in the east close to or on electrification, and there isn't any reason to assume that the old practice of using steam, and then deisel, under wire, during heavy traffic periods, instead of investing in more electric power, was ended. I would assume what was true in 1956 was probably true of few years earlier anyway.
True-- no reason to assume anything; for all we know a 4-8-2 conceivably did pull TT-1 on some unknown occasion in 1956. If it did, far as we know it would have been allowed 60 mph.
daveklepperI would assume what was true in 1956 was probably true of few years earlier anyway.
Do you have the timetables to determine just when speed was raised. Do you have access to them?
Again, during WWII especially, and particularly between Fort Wayne and Chicago, there were times that overspeeding was not penalized in the interest of keeping the line flued and getting the war material delivered. Any of the old time PRR engineers will tell you that. I also recall a story in Trains about a ride on a three or four car National Limited in Amtrak days between Baltimore and WASHINGTON where the speed approached 120 mph behind a GG-1. I asume the rider was looking at mileposts. I recall seeing 110 mphs on the speedometer of one of the two Turbotrains between Rye and New Rochelle, where the speed limit was at that time officially 70mph! I also saw the speedometer of a Metroliner between Wilmington and Baltimore at 136mph, when the speed limite was 110 for Metroliners. And then my conversation at the rear of the Obs of the Silver Meteor going north from Jacksonville, few years before the SCL merger. To the trainman sitting in the seat across from me: "Do you know how fast we are going?" Reply" *The ICC Auhtorized Speed Limit on this track is 79 mph, and that is how fast we are going. "Oh? I am timing each mile post at 36 seconds, 36 seconds, 36 seconds, continually." Repeated reply: "The ICC Authorized Speed Limit on this stretch of track is 79 mph, and that is as fast as we are going." With a smile of course.
Both Union Pacific engines 844 & 3985 have speedo's
The 4/56 NY and Phila Region TTs show 50 mph for freight; a 5/56 general order shows 60 mph for TT-1 and TT-2 on the Phila Region. So as you'd expect the 10/56 NY Region timetable also shows 60 mph for those two trains.
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