Hello,
I recently acquired an old Alco Models, Pennsy DD1 jack-shaft "motor". In doing a little research as to the background of the early Pennsy electrics I have concluded that these locomotives were built sans steam heat boiler.
PRR_DD1a by Edmund, on Flickr
I don't see any evidence of steam lines on the pilot and in the few diagrams and even fewer photos inside the carbody, I don't see any room for a steam generator apparatus.
My main question is what was behind the reasoning in this? Did the PRR engineers believe that the quick jaunt from Manhattan Transfer into Penn Station could be pulled-off before the cars cooled down? What about after the bulk of DD1s were re-assigned to the Long Island. Did their trailing passenger cars have third-rail pickup to supply electric-resistance heat? Were the cars tied up to stationary steam lines inside Penn Station after arrival but before going to Sunnyside?
I know the New York Central sometimes used steam-heat trailers with the non SG equipped S class motors and the run from Harmon to GCT was considerably longer than that of the Pennsy's, but I have to believe that occasional delays were encountered of sufficient duration that on the really cold days that the cars would become uncomfortably chilly.
I found a photo of a DD1 powered passenger train arriving at the New York World's Fair, in Long Island's third-rail territory, with a GG1 in tow to supply steam heat. Certainly this was not an every day occurrence — or was it?
http://arrts-arrchives.com/1939wf.html
Scroll nearly to the bottom.
Can anyone elaborate?
Thank You, Ed
I can't answer your question Ed, but as a "resident" of the Classic Toy Trains Forum I've just got to complement you on your models of those DD1's!
Ya done good bro, they're gorgeous!
Firelock76Ya done good bro, they're gorgeous!
Thanks! I didn't realize I'd even "needed" a DD1
This fall, Broadway Limited is supposed to make their HO, P5a available. They'll be in good company.
Regards, Ed
An out bound train starting in Sunnyside would need to run to Penn Station, stop for passengers, and then make the trip to the Transfer. Seems like a long time to be without heat. Like you say, maybe steam lines at Penn Station. Could it have had an electric steam generator since it was operating in tunnels and an enclosed station?
I checked Middleton's When the Steam Railroads Electrified but could not find details on the DD1 train heating. There was a photo of DD1s haulng a train into the Worlds Fair without GG1 assistance, although it was July.
A circa 1914 issue of the General Electric Review had an article on on electrically powered steam generators for the PRR electrification. The gist of the article was that the steam generators were sized to maintain the heat, with the cars being pre-heated at Sunnyside yard.
- Erik
erikemA circa 1914 issue of the General Electric Review had an article on on electrically powered steam generators for the PRR electrification.
Vol 17, pp.871-3.
Thank you for the pertinent information, Eric and Overmod. I've yet to find a clear photo of the end of a DD1 showing any kind of steam connection. Even in the diagram below there is no mention of water tanks, although perhaps the compact size of the electric flash boiler could have fit above the air compressor and water tanks in the second unit of the pair.
PRR_DD1_view by Edmund, on Flickr
Quite possibly the flash boilers were added some time after construction and most of the photos predate this. All the original electrical work was credited to Westinghouse.
The text in the GE document clearly states that these units were purchased for supplying steam on the locomotives of the New York Terminal service.
Fascinating information. Thank you!
The familiar pipe arrangement found on almost all steam-heated equipment was not universal until after WW I. Asbestos-laced, wire-reinforced hoses were used on some equipment before then.
The DD-1s were a Baldwin-Westinghouse product and the GE development of the flash boilers comes across as a PRR modification. As such, the steam generating equipment would not show up on the builder drawings. It was interesting to see the steel tubing used as the resistance element.
Best way to use electricity for heating is electric heaters in the cars as done by the B.A.&P.
erikemBest way to use electricity for heating is electric heaters in the cars as done by the B.A.&P.
Yes BUT ...
...when you have an enormous stock of various kinds of passenger car, all of which are set up for steam heat and none for either trainlined electricity or electric car heaters either using or separate from the ducting for the steam-heat system... the use of steam generators remains extremely attractive. (Unsurprising that oil-fired steam generators remained the standard through the GG1 years, even to the extent of leaving the road engine on the PRR 'through service' to the prewar World's Fair to provide steam 'autonomously' while DD1s served as transfer power...)
This continued through the days of the 'tubular train' (with its separate HEP system) all the way through the early years of Amtrak in the NEC with first the heater cars and then the dedicated HEP cars. It was a long and relatively expensive trip to get to the equivalent, even with much higher effective COP, of 'electric heating in the cars' on the PRR westbound out of New York...
gmpullman Firelock76 Ya done good bro, they're gorgeous! Thanks! I didn't realize I'd even "needed" a DD1 This fall, Broadway Limited is supposed to make their HO, P5a available. They'll be in good company. Regards, Ed
Firelock76 Ya done good bro, they're gorgeous!
I can dig it, a few weeks ago I didn't know I needed an MTH N&W Y6b, then one day guess what happened?
I just LOVE that 1916 DD1 diagram! Like something out of a Jules Verne novel!
Overmod erikem Best way to use electricity for heating is electric heaters in the cars as done by the B.A.&P. Yes BUT ...
erikem
Probably should have added "in an ideal world"...
It makes perfect sense that the PRR went with the steam generators for the DD-1s for exactly the reasons you mentioned, whereas the B.A.&P. had the luxury of cars that were almost exclusively used on the electrified lines. An ironic twist was when the B.A.&P. dropped their passenger trains for mixed trains, they went back to coal stove heating.
A related factoid was that the UP found that the head end powered electric resistance heating on the 1938 (E-2 hauled) edition of the CoLA and CoSF used less diesel oil than the steam heat. IIRC, a car required about 200 lb/hr of steam, which would need on the order of 15 lb/hr of fuel, where the peak heating load per car was 28kW, which could be generated with about 15 lb/hr of fuel.
I would guess that in 1911, if some body was lucky enough to get a ride to the station in a car, it probably did not have a heater. People dressed for the weather, so the few minutes ride from the Transfer to Penn Station in a car still somewhat warm was probably tolerable, and PRR might not have considered heating a worry in the initial design of the DD1.
Considering that the train would be spending most of the time between Manhattan Transfer and Penn Station in a tunnel, there wouldn't be a lot of need for heat.
The General Electric Review article stated that 12 elecric flash boilers were made at the time of writing and it wasn't clear how many of those were installed on DD-1s.
erikemConsidering that the train would be spending most of the time between Manhattan Transfer and Penn Station in a tunnel, there wouldn't be a lot of need for heat.
That might have been the original assumption, but it would have been proven ... mistaken ... pretty quickly.
Three-quarters or more of the New York Tunnel Extension is outside the tunnel, and much of that was on top of a substantial embankment, exposed to wind.
Anyone who has visited the west portals knows the substantial displaced airflow through the north and south River Tunnels. There was substantial open space, where cold air could 'pond', between Penn Station and the east portals, and I suspect there was relatively little chance for heat exchange between displaced winter air and the deep structure in the time a train took to transit the tunnel even net of traction heating - riding open platform or vestibule through the tunnels in winter can be a chill experience.
While I suspect the preserved 'wire train' DD1s lost any passenger heat boilers long ago, a little forensic engineering investigation might show what had been installed over the years.
I can assure you that DD1s had steam boilers for train heating. They continued in passenger service on the LIRR between Penn Station and Jamaica, where power was swapped to and from K4s and G5s on through trains to and from non-electrified branches. These trains used steam-heated P70s and ping-pong P54s. Thru operation of these trains, later replaced by "Change in Jamaica" continued through WWII. The LIRR also used DD1s in freight service, and I recall such a freight train on the Long Beach branch.
There it is, take it from one who was there!
Bless you David, I don't know what we'd do without you!
Why does your model lack steam hoses while the as-built DD1s had them? Because after they were removed from LIRR passenger service (around 1949-1950?), two were retained as power for the Penn. Sta. tunnels' wire train. (The third rail extends to the New Jersey Portal.) They probably lost their boilers and steam hose connections at that time, and continued as wire train power for about 20 years until the Penn Central replaced them with an ex-NYCentral T-1, not needed in Grand Central Terminal service and with underrunning shoes replaced with overrunning. Today, Amtrak borrows LIRR MUs to do the job. The model is probably based on the two longest surviving DD1s in their final configuration. Isn't one preserved in Baltimore?
Something to add to the confusion: The October 1956 issue of Trains has a several page article on the DD1. The author explicitly states that while steam generators were investigated, none were installed on the DD1's. The author may very well be wrong, but I am not in a position to say authoratively.
Maybe he is wrong, and maybe I am wrong. If I am wrong, then assuradly, the LIRR had them installed, because believe me we did have heated cars in the winter between Penn Station and Jamaica on through trains to Oyster Bay and Ronkonkama, I assume to Montauk as well.
Could the PRR have had them installed on some and not others? Seems very unlikely that they would not have boilers. There is no account of specific steam heating cars. Remember, the PRR trains were made up at Sunnyside, then rung to Penn Station, with around a minimum of ten minutes for boarding. So from Sunnyside to Manhattan Transfer, about 35 or 40 minutes is required. Seems unlikely that there would be no heat for that length of time.
All the engine changing on the LIRR was at Jamaica, even if the track on the particular route was electrified further out.
Possibly the writer got it wrong. Possibly what happened is that they investigated electric heating and decided to stick with the old and universal for the time steam.
Also, if my memory is correct, Penn Station itself had station steam only on a few storage tracks west of the station, mostly in the open area. Or possibly I just never saw steam elsewhere used? Sunnyside yard had plenty of tracks equipped to supply steam, however. All long-distance passenger trains operationally did not use Penn Station as a real terminal station. Except for the through trains over the Hell Gate Bridge, Sunnyside Yard was the real operatonal terminal. Except for swapping New Haven and PRR power, very little switching of any kind was done at Penn. And the LIRR through trains, with DD-1 power, actually ran in reverse, with conductor with the backup hose, back through the East River tunnels all the way back to Holban Yard in Queens!
Of course a vast majority of LIRR trains were MUs, and they reversed as new scheduled trains on the tracks where they arrived. Ditto about half the PRR New Jersey M Us, using the low-numbered stub-end tracks on the south side of the station. The other half of the PRR MUs still ran to Exchange Place for a ferry and H&M connection to New York, and the commuter fare structure encouraged that use.
I did ride as many as fourteen privare-car trips in and out of Penn Station, once out and back to Chicago with PRR 120 and Dover Colony on the Broadway, about six times with LV 353, twice to Colonial Williamsburg with the car continuing to Newport News and back, and seven times with Mountain View, once also to Williamsburg, and several times to Pittsburgh. Only once was the PV added or substracted at Penn, and that was on a NY - Boston trip, where the PV was tacked on the rear of a Washington - Boston train. Otherwise the PV was on the train between Sunnyside and Penn.
I can't get at my Complete Collection, but I suspect we have semantics here. "Steam Generator" usually refers to the Vapor-Clarkson kind of device, as exemplified on the GG1s, with oil as the fuel for energy density. The devices discussed in 1914 are flash boilers, and while ingenious their capacity is not great. It would be interesting to see how you could shoehorn something like an OK-4620 and its tanks into a DD1 (no need to bother for L5s!) but it's overkill for most DD1-hauled LIRR trains on the historical electrified portion west of Jamaica.
Still trying to find what was running the steam generator on that towed GG1 that went to the fair. Suspect a small diesel or gasoline genset.
GG1 boilers were oil fired and worked without AC power. There's room in the DD1 body between the control stand and the motor for a small flash boiler and water tank. I have looked at a fair number of DD1 photos since this was posted and can only find air, signal and equalization hoses in any of them. The equalization hose is only found on DD1s that were expected to operate in MU, a rare occurence in later years.
daveklepperLIRR through trains, with DD-1 power, actually ran in reverse, with conductor with the backup hose, back through the East River tunnels all the way back to Holban Yard in Queens!
The June 1946 timetable shows nine trains each weekday afternoon from NY Penn beyond third rail: one to Greenport, two to Montauk, two to Speonk, one to Patchogue, two to Port Jeff and one to Oyster Bay. First one left NY Penn at 3:50 EDT, last at 5:36.
My Vapor-Clarkson OK schematic only indicates LINE + and -, which indicates DC to me; the Elesco version (when in an EMD) requires connection to the auxiliary generator of a running 567, but the OK cleverly uses 100psi air from the brake system to run the burners, so its electrical power requirements can be lower. Someone who has access to a PRR publication 192, which is the 18-page manual for the specific application to the GG1, may find specific instructions on maintaining steam heat when off catenary.
RC: Where and when were your photos taken? Important to know what service they represented. There may have been a time after Penn Sta. opened when trains were regularly attached to station steam at Penn, unlike later years.
Possibly only the LIRR-assigned DD1s were equipped with the electrically-heated boilers and not the PRR's?
How many of those flash-GE boilers were built, compared to how many DD1s built? How many DD1s were assigned to LIRR?
There were four choices the PRR had: No heat, electricall-heated boilers, coal-fired boilers, building the new steel cars and Pullmans also, for electric in addition to steam heating. They rejected the last two. I assume the first two were both applied, some with and some without.
Lots of MUs had both electric and steam-heat capability. Many New York Central, and those of the PRR, IC, and DL&W that were originally hauled behind steam. (After WWII, PRR converted some P54s to MP54s. These could be identified by their aluminim windowframes.)
The P54s were built, like the Erie suburban Stillwells, for easy conlversion to MUs.
The 1914 GE Review article said that 12 of the flash boilers were built, and the initial order for DD1's was for 24, i.e. 12 pairs. It is plausible that each pair would get only one boiler, but no mention was made in the GE Review article of any of the boilers being installed in a locomotive.
Hello, again.
This has been a very lively and informative discussion. Thank you to everyone that participated!
Here is a link to a photo that shows the GG1, pans down but obviously venting steam, at the Worlds Fair station.
https://tinyurl.com/y9b9v2lg
I agree that the Vapor OK-45xx requires a supply of electric power. There's a water pump, combustion blower, ignition transformer and fuel pump all requiring electric power. The Elesco has similar needs. Both makes I have information for call for 74 V. DC.
This web site is where I first found that photo and it deals mostly with the DD1s that were eventually turned over to the LIRR.
http://www.trainsarefun.com/lirr/early-electric-engines/earlylirr-electric-engines.htm
I'd love to be able to go through the DD1 at RR Museum of Pennsylvania and do some industrial forensics to see if there was any remains of the possible installation, even if for only a short time, of the GE flash boiler.
I'll stop by again if I discover any new information.
Glad to know a DD1 has been saved. Maybe someone can get permission to go inside and check on this? The boiler probably wonl't be there, because the one saved is probably one that served the wire train, but there may be evidences of the former installatin when in LIRR service.
11 seems the right number, with one lacking as asssigned to switching service. Each pair would only need one boiler.
daveklepperRC: Where and when were your photos taken? Important to know what service they represented. There may have been a time after Penn Sta. opened when trains were regularly attached to station steam at Penn, unlike later years.
I looked at photos from both the PRR and LIRR eras dating from about 1910 to the 1940s. The equalizer hose could be mistaken for a steam line, but its purpose became clear when I saw a side shot of two (pairs of) DD1s in MU. The equalizer hose is used to connect the independent brake reservoirs of MU'd electrics or diesels, so that all of the "independents" work together.
On the GG1 - it had 74v batteries for auxiliary functions. Since the power required for steam generator controls would be minimal there was probably enough battery life off line to be workable.
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