The main "rumour" about 6100 is its claim to have run at 141 miles per hour.
This is definitely unproven and likely to be false since it is based on one man's estimate of times.
However, if a steam locomotive were to run at 140mph, something like the S1 would be needed to do it. I'd want it to have a dynamometer car attached with more than one speed recording device....
The various "Pennsy Power" books all provide basic details of the S1 and Q1 and show them as built and as modified.
There is a good book in German "Record Lokomotiven" which covers locomotives credited with speed records, NYC 999, PRR E2 7002, DR 05 002, DR 61 003, LNER Mallard and it has a full chapter on 6100. I'll post more detail later....
Peter
Jones 3D Modeling Club https://www.youtube.com/Jones3DModelingClub
Classics Trains Photo of the Day a few years back. Always adored this photo... it is imposing, stunning and beautiful, even mysterious and haunting. Forum memeber David Klepper saw it in person when it was brand new and showed off at the 1939 Worlds Fair.
The Pennsylvania’s one-of-a-kind class S1 6-4-4-6 duplex drive No. 6100 shrugs off an early Chicago winter snow storm as it pauses at Englewood Union Station with the eastbound Manhattan Limited in November 1939.Harold Stirton photo
I assume November 1939 was between the 1939 and 1940 seasons of the New York World's Fair...?
So they had to extract it by a fairly roundabout route and reinsert it for the following summer, as well as changing the lettering from "American Railroads" to "Pennsylvania" and back the next year...
As was posted above, it did quite a bit of work on the Chicago end, and no problems were attributed to the Walschearts valve gear and piston valves...
Miningman Classics Trains Photo of the Day a few years back. Always adored this photo... it is imposing, stunning and beautiful, even mysterious and haunting. Forum memeber David Klepper saw it in person when it was brand new and showed off at the 1939 Worlds Fair.
This is the one and the only one photo of S1 taken during snowy day, very rare and beautiful! I remember I read a story on a post about S1 was frozen during heavy winter, but the crews managed to start it up. I read forum member David Klepper's post, I wish we could see more first-hand stories or info like his sharing.
I always wonder why S1's pics and video are so rare, I believe I have seen more pics or videos of K4s #3768 than S1.
M636CI assume November 1939 was between the 1939 and 1940 seasons of the New York World's Fair...? As was posted above, it did quite a bit of work on the Chicago end, and no problems were attributed to the Walschearts valve gear and piston valves... Peter
The closure of 39 World Fair was in October 1940, I didn't know if S1 stayed there until the end or not. Franklin poppet valves were planned to be installed on S1 when it was under construction in 1938 but due to some technical difficulty, S1 was off the hook! IF I was the PRR HQ, I would apply Franklin type B poppet valves on S1 after its retirement in mid-1946 instead of throwing it on the scrapheap, but PRR was not run by railfans anyway, and they were probably busy fixing their brand new T1s
(Another lazy photoshopped pic)
The closure of 39 World Fair was in October 1940
(From Wikipedia) The fair was open for two seasons, from April to October each year, and was officially closed permanently on October 27, 1940
M636CThe main "rumour" about 6100 is its claim to have run at 141 miles per hour. This is definitely unproven and likely to be false since it is based on one man's estimate of times.
We've discussed this fairly extensively in the past, and I attempted to verify the 'supposed' story by contacting the FRA to determine what, if any ICC "police" action was taken (the high-speed run was supposedly made on the Trail Blazer in 1947 prior to enforcement of the ICC speed restrictions imposed after Naperville). There is no Government record of this (and no formal enforcement at the time) but we should recapitulate some of the details.
The story is attributable to Arnold Haas, who is better known as a NYC man ... one who is on record as having seen Niagaras regularly exceed 120mph in regular service, so make your own assessments. The mentioned speed is not 141mph but 141.2, which should make all you non-metric railfans highly suspicious that this is in fact a converted number from a more 'round' Germanic speed, even before you start looking at likely observation error for recording that speed using the watch and milepost method (the speed recorder for 6100 pegging higher than other PRR engines at 110, the T1s in particular being 100mph, about which more later, so no way to observe 'directly' and no Valve Pilot fitted to either engine). A good story also involves a certain lack of interest in the riding characteristics of the trailing consist; admittedly I have nothing but anecdotal evidence, but even the best PRR business cars were increasingly hard-riding as slow as 110mph, worse than the locomotive, and it is hard to believe that a long Trail Blazer coach consist even with Dave Klepper's favorite homemade lightweight coaches would have produced tolerable riding at the speed Haas claimed.
It is possible to model the S1 in software and do multiphysics and kinematic analysis on the chassis to determine its stability and freedom from resonant couples (as was done, for example, for the German 05 class which had a calculated severe emergent critical speed close to 122mph, perhaps explaining why a run to outdo Mallard was never made). There are some details that would need to be addressed to make the locomotive properly stable on contemporary PRR track west of Crestline, particularly the lateral on the lead truck and on the first driver pair; to my knowledge, this received nothing like the attention the T1s did in the period between 1946 and 1948.
The Q1 is interesting because it was intended as the 'modern' follow-on to the M1 (the 'performance envelope' specifically chosen to be 5/4 greater in capacity and in speed according to records preserved at the Hagley in Delaware) in the presumed higher-speed world of the future Pennsylvania. Remember that this was in the era of the B&O George Emerson and the ATSF 6-4-4-4 proposal, and all three of those designs essentially relied on divided drive to get around conventional balancing limitations rather than using later approaches like close-inboard Timken roller rods (and the ability of disc centers to handle the additional angling balance for the heavier bearings used with them) and Glaze-style balancing. It is valuable to consider in particular why 77" drivers were used here, but 69" on the vastly more capable Q2s (which among other things had a rigid wheelbase shorter than any ATSF 2-10-4 higher than 5001 class, but I digress) that were designed for more expedient wartime speeds. This while many of the J1-class engines, after "debugging", were getting 70" drivers...
A considerable effort was made to preserve the S1 'Big Engine' for the collection, it being arguably the most famous and recognizable PRR engine aside from 7002 and 460. In the end it was the sheer (over)size of the project that tipped the balance; PRR was still having balance sheet problems and had prioritized acquiring more diesels stat, and the scrap value of the engine was over $35,000 (considerably more impressive converted to modern dollars). Again much of the correspondence on this survives at the Hagley and it might make an interesting article for Classic Trains.
Overmod A good story also involves a certain lack of interest in the riding characteristics of the trailing consist; admittedly I have nothing but anecdotal evidence, but even the best PRR business cars were increasingly hard-riding as slow as 110mph, worse than the locomotive, and it is hard to believe that a long Trail Blazer coach consist even with Dave Klepper's favorite homemade lightweight coaches would have produced tolerable riding at the speed Haas claimed.
A good story also involves a certain lack of interest in the riding characteristics of the trailing consist; admittedly I have nothing but anecdotal evidence, but even the best PRR business cars were increasingly hard-riding as slow as 110mph, worse than the locomotive, and it is hard to believe that a long Trail Blazer coach consist even with Dave Klepper's favorite homemade lightweight coaches would have produced tolerable riding at the speed Haas claimed.
OvermodIt is possible to model the S1 in software and do multiphysics and kinematic analysis on the chassis to determine its stability and freedom from resonant couples (as was done, for example, for the German 05 class which had a calculated severe emergent critical speed close to 122mph, perhaps explaining why a run to outdo Mallard was never made).
(S1 and T1 6111 in the game "TrainZ")OvermodThe Q1 is interesting because it was intended as the 'modern' follow-on to the M1 (the 'performance envelope' specifically chosen to be 5/4 greater in capacity and in speed according to records preserved at the Hagley in Delaware) in the presumed higher-speed world of future Pennsylvania....... It is valuable to consider in particular why 77" drivers were used here,.....For me, Q1 is not only interesting, but I also consider it one of the most beautiful steam engine ever built by PRR. I don't understand why many consider the 77" drivers were too large for a freight locomotive, Q1 was built during the war when construction of passenger steam locomotive was limited (or banned temperately ?), officially it was a new design for fast freight service but I agree with you that it was intended to be the new "M1" which was supposed to be a dual service engine (at least it could switch its roles) . Q1 was a larger streamlined, next-gen version of M1 which was probably inspired by the Grand Trunk Western 4-8-4. The U-4-b class was also a duel engine with 4 set of 73" driver and streamlined casting. I can understand why Q1 was streamlined and using such a large diameter for (express) freight service. Unfortunately, Q1's serving details is also very rare...... I wonder If it was a 4-6-4-6, carry a larger firebox would have helped.
OvermodThe Q1 is interesting because it was intended as the 'modern' follow-on to the M1 (the 'performance envelope' specifically chosen to be 5/4 greater in capacity and in speed according to records preserved at the Hagley in Delaware) in the presumed higher-speed world of future Pennsylvania....... It is valuable to consider in particular why 77" drivers were used here,.....
Streamlined 70+ inches Drivers Dual Service
OvermodA considerable effort was made to preserve the S1 'Big Engine' for the collection, it being arguably the most famous and recognizable PRR engine aside from 7002 and 460. Thank you very much for reminding me that! When S1 was retired, it was just one year after World War II...... One year after it was sent to the torch in 1949, another war began in the far east....... I always tell my friend that If I was PRR HQ, I would at least do some experiment like applying a newer model of the poppet valve and roller bearings on S1 after its first retirement in 46, its massive firebox and boiler shouldn't be wasted like this. Imagine S1 was sold to some 3rd world countries for express service, I believe she is still in service today. : )
OvermodA considerable effort was made to preserve the S1 'Big Engine' for the collection, it being arguably the most famous and recognizable PRR engine aside from 7002 and 460.
Some years ago Feltonhill had recommended the following article on the S1:
Jones1945I remember I read a story that in UK 1938, when the streamlined "Coronation Scot" reach 113mph, all the foods or drinks carried on the plate by the waiters in the dinner car were thrown all over the place (haha), and many China in the kitchen car were broken because of the hunting oscillation effect !
Oh no, the story is FAR more amusing than that, and someone should provide a link to one of the contemporary accounts as they contain some fun Britannic prose.
As I recall the story, the 114mph (to beat Silver Fox) was attained running downgrade, within a couple of miles of Crewe station, where it then developed (somewhat astoundingly when I first heard the story, and somewhat astoundingly still) that for some reason the Press Run Coronation Scot had been lined across not just one but several crossovers to put the train several tracks off any sort of straight line through. Very sharp crossovers, probably 20mph crossovers. Taken at what was supposed to be about 57mph.
I am still not quite sure how the train made it through this, hunting oscillation playing a comparatively small objective role in the kinematics. But certainly very clear it was that a great deal of the crockery didn't. Certainly stopped any great tendency for the superior four-cylinder LMS Pacifics to be raced up to compete with Mallard later.
As I recall this was mid-1937.
Jones1945(another one is S2 #6200 turbine)
The Vol 45, No. 3 Keystone has a pretty decent article about #6200 if you don't already have that issue.
It is still available as a back-issue:
http://www.prrths.com/estore/keystone_magazine.html#2012
Regards, Ed
Beautiful covers on the Keystone. They truly capture the spirit of the Pennsy.
Overmod states " A considerable effort was made to preserve the S1 'Big Engine' for the collection, it being arguably the most famous and recognizable PRR engine aside from 7002 and 460. In the end it was the sheer (over)size of the project that tipped the balance; PRR was still having balance sheet problems and had prioritized acquiring more diesels stat, and the scrap value of the engine was over $35,000 (considerably more impressive converted to modern dollars). Again much of the correspondence on this survives at the Hagley and it might make an interesting article for Classic Trains."
Well isn't that just lovely that a bunch of executives can send each a whack of memos to cover their butts regarding scrapping. Maybe that's a bit harsh but a billion of dollars company is showing their greed and quite frankly, stupidity. There is no justification, you can play the Northhumberland Card, or the Diesels Now Card, poverty Card is ridiculous, but none of it justifies just a bunch of greedy yes men all lined up to prove how old fashioned steam was. What brave men!
Just as bad the New York Central Hudson's and Niagara's. New sheriff in town I guess, dumb and insensitive. The two 4-6-0's in St Thomas, much beloved, and very late in the game to be retired in the Spring of '57, were scrapped for $4,928.57 in scrap value. The only engines that still existed that were built for CASO/MichiganCentral/NYC in the St. Thomas erecting shops.
Obviously the $4,928.57 did not save the mighty Central, but I'm sure it bought some nice cigars and Bahama yacht vacation for a couple of the swells.
Same darn thing for the S1 and any other of at least one duplex example. There is zero justification. Setting the table for the crooks like Saunders to follow.
This is the internet version:
Between 1937 and 1939, two significant records were set by locomotives of the Coronation class. Before the introduction of the Coronation service, No. 6220 headed a special train of invited guests from London Euston to Crewe on 29 June 1937. Just south of Crewe, the train (disputably) achieved a speed of 114 miles per hour (183 km/h), narrowly beating the previous British record for a steam locomotive (held by the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER)). Insufficient braking distance had been left before entering a series of crossover points at Crewe, and although the train held the rails, much crockery in the dining car was smashed.
THe LMS invited Cecil J Allen...
http://www.steamindex.com/library/allen.htm
which was something like coupling a dynamometer car to the train...
Cecil J Allen was a Civil Engineer who worked for the LNER and inspected rails prior to delivery. His hobby was timing trains and he had a pass that allowed him to travel all over Britain as part of his job. The photo in the link above shows him sitting next to Sir Nigel Gresley on the trial of the LNER train Coronation not to be confused with the LMS locomotive of the same name being discussed here.
Forty nine years ago next week I celebrated my 21st Birthday. Of the presents I received from friends, three were books by Cecil J Allen, in cluding his autobiography.
In the autobiography he comments on the LMS trial.
All I can recall offhand is the words "Coronation rode through the crossovers like the great lady she is..."
I'll try to find more - I still have the books, of course.
RedwardsSome years ago Feltonhill had recommended the following article on the S1: "The S1's history was covered in a 7-page article by the late Charlie Meyer in the Jan 1992 (Vo.10, N0.1) issue of Milepost, a magazine published by Friends of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. I believe they're still in existence, maybe out of Strasburg, and this is available as a back issue. It's well worth trying to get. It's probably the only detailed account written at this point." I managed to find a copy on eBay and as he states, it's the most detailed account I've seen on the S1. --Reed
Thank you so much, Reed! This is exactly what I am looking for!
Overmod Very sharp crossovers, probably 20mph crossovers. Taken at what was supposed to be about 57mph. I am still not quite sure how the train made it through this, hunting oscillation playing a comparatively small objective role in the kinematics. But certainly very clear it was that a great deal of the crockery didn't. Certainly stopped any great tendency for the superior four-cylinder LMS Pacifics to be raced up to compete with Mallard later. As I recall this was mid-1937.
This reminds me (IIRC) a story about the PRR S2 #6200 steam turbine engine, during a test run, when the train reached 110mph, the engineer slowed it down before it was about to reach a crossover because of the regulation. Its seems that LMS and LNER would stop at nothing for a speed record, risked the life of their crews and guests! Another thing amazes me is that the “Gresley double-bolster 8ft 6in bogies” used on their standard coaches(LNER), a 1920s design managed to go as fast as 90mph+ without falling apart, I don’t know how was the ride quality though, but it is not hard to imagine riding a speedboat. :PPRR 2DP5 vs Gresley Bogie
Miningman The two 4-6-0's in St Thomas, much beloved, and very late in the game to be retired in the Spring of '57, were scrapped for $4,928.57 in scrap value. The only engines that still existed that were built for CASO/Michigan central/NYC in the St. Thomas erecting shops. Obviously, the $4,928.57 did not save the mighty Central, but I'm sure it bought some nice cigars and Bahama yacht vacation for a couple of the swells. Same darn thing for the S1 and any other of at least one duplex example. There is zero justification. Setting the table for the crooks like Saunders to follow.
The two 4-6-0's in St Thomas, much beloved, and very late in the game to be retired in the Spring of '57, were scrapped for $4,928.57 in scrap value. The only engines that still existed that were built for CASO/Michigan central/NYC in the St. Thomas erecting shops.
Obviously, the $4,928.57 did not save the mighty Central, but I'm sure it bought some nice cigars and Bahama yacht vacation for a couple of the swells.
Very well said! The thing hasn’t changed since then I believe; many transportation companies are still running by “elites” who have no feeling about their fleets, it’s just a job, a business and dollar sign for them. I don’t know if “elites” is an appropriate term to describe the Leaders of PRR and NYC during post-war period; NYCRR bought 700 lightweight cars for their “Great Steel Fleet” to lure passenger back from Airplane and their own fancy cars…… PRR hired Raymond Lowey to design the shrouding of their most important express steam engines in order to set up an outstanding image for the company but allow the work forces to torn them apart like trash (PRR HQ didn’t even order the work forces to keep the shrouding of at least one streamlined engine, maybe S1 or T1 6110, remain intact! )……"Did you hit something, my friend?"
gmpullman Jones1945 (another one is S2 #6200 turbine) The Vol 45, No. 3 Keystone has a pretty decent article about #6200 if you don't already have that issue. It is still available as a back-issue:http://www.prrths.com/estore/keystone_magazine.html#2012 Regards, Ed Thank you, Ed. One of my friends have a copy of this, it is a must read for everyone who interested in #6200! I don’t know why there is no article about S1 #6100 on Keystone, they are one of the most reliable sources. M636C Between 1937 and 1939, two significant records were set by locomotives of the Coronation class. Before the introduction of the Coronation service, No. 6220 headed a special train of invited guests from London Euston to Crewe on 29 June 1937. Peter Thank you very much for your sharing, Peter. I wonder if there was any guest puked or felt unwell during the special run I studied about the Coronation Class and Coronation Scot like 10 years ago, the engine and LMS used to be one of my favorite, even though it was no longer the fastest steam locomotive after the duck "gone downhill". PRR S1 and LMS Coronation Class in a video game.
gmpullman Jones1945 (another one is S2 #6200 turbine) The Vol 45, No. 3 Keystone has a pretty decent article about #6200 if you don't already have that issue. It is still available as a back-issue:http://www.prrths.com/estore/keystone_magazine.html#2012 Regards, Ed
Thank you, Ed. One of my friends have a copy of this, it is a must read for everyone who interested in #6200! I don’t know why there is no article about S1 #6100 on Keystone, they are one of the most reliable sources. M636C Between 1937 and 1939, two significant records were set by locomotives of the Coronation class. Before the introduction of the Coronation service, No. 6220 headed a special train of invited guests from London Euston to Crewe on 29 June 1937. Peter Thank you very much for your sharing, Peter. I wonder if there was any guest puked or felt unwell during the special run I studied about the Coronation Class and Coronation Scot like 10 years ago, the engine and LMS used to be one of my favorite, even though it was no longer the fastest steam locomotive after the duck "gone downhill".
M636C Between 1937 and 1939, two significant records were set by locomotives of the Coronation class. Before the introduction of the Coronation service, No. 6220 headed a special train of invited guests from London Euston to Crewe on 29 June 1937. Peter
Between 1937 and 1939, two significant records were set by locomotives of the Coronation class. Before the introduction of the Coronation service, No. 6220 headed a special train of invited guests from London Euston to Crewe on 29 June 1937.
PRR S1 and LMS Coronation Class in a video game.
M636CThe closure of 39 World Fair was in October 1940(From Wikipedia) The fair was open for two seasons, from April to October each year, and was officially closed permanently on October 27, 1940 Peter
Well a 65,000,000 dollar investment in duplex drives and they worry about $35,000 and destroy the best public relations tool they had? Not for the bottom line, no way.
It was image, dirty, smokey steam was outdated now, old fashioned, ridiculed, and Pennsy wanted a progressive image for the future. Besides it was all part of the brainwashing that had started, see the thread of 'Commander E. Jay Quinby's 1945 warning", and culminated with Ike's warning of the 'Military-Industrial Complex'. Big auto, big rubber and big oil won.
A very brief glimpse of a future that never happened, or better yet, was not allowed to happen. The T1's were soon sabotaged with bad coal, poor training, corporate wink and nod. GM standing on the sidelines with their expensive Diesels and easy peasy credit. Buy now, pay later. Baldwin, Lima, frantically abandoning steam and going down the drain. Took a bit longer to kill off Alco, and they retreated up here to Canada, a niche market.
I think there was a brief time when highly qualified wise elders were in charge of running the freight, passenger and motive power departments, you know, the guys that got them through the war, but a new group came in shortly into the post war years and a real duality existed but not for long.
A way of life started to disappear quite rapidly and now we have what we have today.
Overcrowded airports, overcrowded and dangerous highways, no rails to small towns, folks arguing about peanuts spent on Amtrak long distance, everyone clamouring for High Speed Rail that costs a trillion bucks. Double stacks of defective Chinese junk that end up in yard sales for 0.25 cents going from the West coast to the East coast and the East coast to the West coast.
I firmly believe we could have had the best of all worlds but we abondoned too much of one thing... local rail, intercity rail, downtown to downtown, freight and passenger.
Miningman Well a 65,000,000 dollar investment in duplex drives and they worry about $35,000 and destroy the best public relations tool they had? Not for the bottom line, no way.
Miningman It was image, dirty, smokey steam was outdated now, old fashioned, ridiculed, and Pennsy wanted a progressive image for the future. Besides it was all part of the brainwashing that had started, see the thread of 'Commander E. Jay Quinby's 1945 warning", and culminated with Ike's warning of the 'Military-Industrial Complex'. Big auto, big rubber and big oil won. A very brief glimpse of a future that never happened, or better yet, was not allowed to happen. The T1's were soon sabotaged with bad coal, poor training, corporate wink and nod. GM standing on the sidelines with their expensive Diesels and easy peasy credit. Buy now, pay later. Baldwin, Lima, frantically abandoning steam and going down the drain. Took a bit longer to kill off Alco, and they retreated up here to Canada, a niche market.
Jones1945Roller bearings can reduces the friction between the wheels and the axles or the trucks, but won’t affect the weight and friction between the engine and the rail track, does that mean a steam engine with roller bearing equipped can use less power to move the engine itself thus it have more power left to tow the cars behind it, compare to another steam engine which is not using roller bearings and towing a consist with the same weight? Does that mean roller bearing can improve the starting time of a passenger train but cannot ease wheel slip problem since the weight and friction between the engine and the rail remain unchanged? Thank you very much!
First, there is a distinction between rollers on the axles and rollers in the rods and valve gear. Most of the advantages for the former have little to do with reducing running friction, as a good hydrodynamic plain bearing will do fine at much less cost and complexity. One advantage (which really requires Franklin wedges or something like them) is 360-degree support for axle forces, A plain bearing only provides between journal and brasses, and very seldom allows any loadbearing support to arrest downward motion of the axle relative to the brass.
Difficult to keep oil-lubricated roller bearings running happily in some designs of trailing truck, where there is close contact with blowdown water, grate and ashpan heat, and various kinds of cinders and dirt. You sometimes see locomotives with rollers on all axles ... except the trailing truck.
Note that some devices like Hennessy lubricators were supposed to provide much of the theoretical benefit of fancy rolling-element bearings at a tiny fraction of the expense.Note that the early Reading T1s were built with plain main bearings, but the last order (of which 2124 is the only surviving representative) was built with rollers -- that probably speaks well of the practical superiority. The great advantage of rollers was in maintenance (see NYC and N&W practice for some of the more thoroughgoing and professional applications).
There might have been some 'advantage' in rollers maintaining low friction and precise alignment on drivers spinning up to high rotational speed, for example by allowing quick acceleration up to the range where inertia made re-establishment of adhesion difficult in quick response. Likewise a lower machine friction might make breakaway a bit more likely when operating at speed and power otherwise close to the adhesion limit (as is likely to be the issue with T1s experiencing classical high-speed slipping), but other factors including valve performance are likely to be far more significant.
The "$35,000" is the thirty pieces of silver received as scrap value for the 6100.
There is some evidence that PRR had solved, in principle, most of the operating issues with the T1 in 1948 (this being the Franklin type A poppet version, not wholesale conversion to T1a) including changes to the valves and seats to make them more resistant to damage at the higher 'debounce' closing pressure. Unfortunately this couldn't make up for some of the design limitations like the 92' grate (an issue that has carried over into the T1 Trust parameters) and the reliance on what turned out to be an overripe tomato of a feedwater-heater system.
Personally, I have come to suspect a far more likely conspiracy than that alleged for NCL killing off trolleys in favor of GM buses in the abrupt changes made from 1948 forward. There were enormous equipment-trust charges, going forward a substantial number of years, on All Those T1s, and the only way the bankers would let these go was if the locomotives proved to be hopeless, irrremediable dogs, engines that slipped all the time and broke repeatedly and could never, never be made to run reliably... oh wait, does this sound familiar to anyone?
The problem is, as a perusal of the contemporary trade press starts to show, that the costs involved with even the best steam power in the East were starting to balloon uncontrollably in the late '40s as other areas of the economy began to expand again. This is most notable in just the period between 1947 and 1948 that the drive to produce advanced steam on PRR goes bottom-up: you see an almost violent switch in motive-power assessment regarding not only the T1s but the mechanical turbines (both the 4-8-4 S2 followups and the V1 'centipedes'). There is something of a scam associated with Yellott's development of coal turbines at BCR, which factors into that part of motive power options increasingly during the early Fifties, but that and the potential of free-piston gas generation are more associated with diesel-type operation than high-overhead Rankine-cycle steam with staybolted fireboxes and chambers.
One sad detail normally overlooked is that the difference in calendar years between PRR giving up on the T1s and NYC effectively giving up on the Niagaras is no more than about 5 years. And this shows the dramatic changes in various costs and issues that led to steam being removed everywhere in the Northeast in the Korean War period, the demand for scrap being really little more than a situation that made it possible to unload large numbers of now-obsolescent locomotives expediently.
With exceptions! Nickel Plate, Grand Trunk Western in particular, Illinois Central, N&W. Of course N&W went quickly when it did and perhaps the others really are not East, I dunno, Chicago-Detroit-Buffalo, is that East?
Aaaannnd....why were T1's and Niagaras's obsolete? I think they could have had a stand alone specialized usage for many years yet, somewhat akin to Nickel Plates Berkshire. Ditto for Lackawanna 4-8-4's and Firelocks beloved Erie Berkshires.
The firebox wrappers problem of the Niagaras's could have been solved.
This did not happen so I quess my thinking is all screwy but it could have happened quite easily and with not so much of a rush to ruin.
MiningmanAaaannnd....why were T1's and Niagaras's obsolete? I think they could have had a stand alone specialized usage for many years yet, somewhat akin to Nickel Plates Berkshire.
Yes but ... the standalone specialized use of the T1 involved sustained high speed, implicitly higher speed than the point that the 'conventional valves' on the T1a started to have their obvious effect on free admission and exhaust (somewhere between 85 and 100mph; it's in the Keystone material and the T1 Trust repository, including the comparative TE/speed curves). No regular PRR train that wasn't better handled by diesels required (or could be given) that sort of speed cost-effectively, and as it developed, many of the PRR steam guys either had little interest in learning not to horse the passenger Duplexes or were to some degree willing participants or 'fellow-travelers' in the make-'em-fail effort.
The Niagara's whole raison d'etre economically was repeated use on long, fast passenger trains with effectively implemented maintenance. Even by the time the Kiefer report was published, what there was of that traffic was being converted to 'Dieseliners'; all you really need to know about the follow-on experimentation with the type A installation rigged on 5500-the-Niagara was how quickly the locomotive was retired from service, please note while T1s were happily polishing the rails still. And then came the great falloff of the Great Steel Fleet, very quickly to levels that effectively orphaned 6000hp locomotives whether or not they could be run effectively to lower levels of performance with careful sliding-pressure firing as the Niagaras could.
However we may think of Arnold Haas for his tales about 142-mph Trail Blazer runs and 120+mph Niagara flights, I think we can take him at his word about various engineers taking special pains to work the remaining Niagaras to death with ridiculously short or long cutoff in their last years.
Ditto for Lackawanna 4-8-4's and Firelocks beloved Erie Berkshires.
Yes, the Poconos (and while we're there, the LV equivalents) as well as the big Hudsons had plenty of life in them, but notice that they went completely and early, and comparatively ordinary kinds of diesel replaced most of them. It is possible that if Lackawanna had been associated with Nickel Plate, as the 1925 plan would have provided, it would form a kind of natural bridge route for high-speed freight that would make best use of Berks on the west and Poconos on the east. But ... better still with Fs and later things of that ilk.
Suspect Erie didn't have the money to withstand the putative diesel savings. They were considerable on the Pascack Valley and Northern branches, net of all saving.
The firebox wrapper problem of the Niagaras could have been solved.
I thought it WAS solved. Most if not all the Niagaras received new boilers fairly quickly when the problems with nickel steel were determined. I haven't yet read the (likely definitive) account in Know Thy Niagaras, but suspect this was solved beyond dispute. What would not be as easily solved would be the carryover problem due to the domeless separators combined with the ease with which the lightweight rodwork would bend laterally (and then quickly catastrophically!) with even heavy compression, let alone actual water through the elements. One instance of such a thing would likely be a death sentence from the early '50s on.
Well thank you Overmod for the reply and the info. At least the Niagara's , with the exception of 5500, got 10 years and fairly useful ones at that. The T1's half that. Maybe a bit more but used sparingly.
It is the fact that they were so modern and still new. They were not 'one of's' but whole fleets. Same goes for N&W J's, C&O 0-8-0 switchers , then N&W and VGN switchers, CPR Selkirk's and on and on.
Still boggles the mind though.there she goes, hook, line and sinker.
Wartime profits squandered away permanently and GM reaping a harvest of incredible wealth.
By the way, putative can be defined as 'supposed'.
MiningmanBy the way, putative can be defined as 'supposed'.
Precisely. You will be familiar with the general GM arguments for adoption of first switching and then road power. You are likely also familiar with Brown's paper (from 1961) discussing why some of the arguments "against steam" might have been exaggerated or even wrong.
Many of the arguments for first-generation dieselization didn't really hold up that well, as the preservation of the St. Clair 4-6-0s demonstrates in a number of ways. Even as late as the second-generation locomotives with Flexicoil trucks a great deal of the 'advantage' in low track forces, effective train-handling, etc. was in the explaining and not in the doing, if you take my point; this is one of the reasons Ross Rowland notes 614T was recorded as producing less track-damaging force than contemporary diesel alternatives at the time of the testing in the '80s. Alco and GM tried building better-mousetrap trucks in that period with dubious success.
Meanwhile, the great advantages of road-switcher power on the Pascack Valley and Northern branches were being brought out in the early-'50s trade press: no more water tower maintenance and filling, no more having to turn the power on a wye or table, no more keeping all the engines fired and hot all night under inspection to ensure they will be ready for a fairly short duty turn twice a day... etc. You can examine the plant at the Hudson River terminal end of the runs and tell me where you're going to maintain steam for all the trains Erie and later EL wanted to run.
Even with the fun of maintaining 244s all those years -- and they often got fairly tractorish in those last few, more endearingly than not -- the RS units ran those services effectively. In a way that steam never possibly could and be cost effective.
The problem with keeping a limited quantity of steam locomotives around is that you also have to maintain the associated fueling and maintenance facilities, also. That's why some railroads dieselized by division. At one fell swoop, they could get rid of coaling towers, waterspouts and most divisional roundhouses. Since the T1s were meant for long distance, interdivisional runs, that couldn't have happened. Look at my username. I have a special affinity for back/erecting shops and roundhouses. I miss them but that's from a hobbyist's point of view. From a practical, economic point, I understand completely why most aren't around anymore.
Yes that is logical and makes good sense and generally that is what happened. So here comes the but....but Donald Russell of the Southern Pacific kept hordes of steam of all sorts stored serviceable in Houston I believe. He did not believe that expensive Diesels should be idled during slower times so things were cut real tight. If there was an upturn somewhere along the system the steam was pulled out.
Not everyone was on the same wavelength.
This arraignment stuck around for quite some time.
Overmod The "$35,000" is the thirty pieces of silver received as scrap value for the 6100.
Overmod There is some evidence that PRR had solved, in principle, most of the operating issues with the T1 in 1948 (this being the Franklin type A poppet version, not wholesale conversion to T1a) including changes to the valves and seats to make them more resistant to damage at the higher 'debounce' closing pressure. Unfortunately this couldn't make up for some of the design limitations like the 92' grate (an issue that has carried over into the T1 Trust parameters) and the reliance on what turned out to be an overripe tomato of a feedwater-heater system. Personally, I have come to suspect a far more likely conspiracy than that alleged for NCL killing off trolleys in favor of GM buses in the abrupt changes made from 1948 forward. There were enormous equipment-trust charges, going forward a substantial number of years, on All Those T1s, and the only way the bankers would let these go was if the locomotives proved to be hopeless, irrremediable dogs, engines that slipped all the time and broke repeatedly and could never, never be made to run reliably... oh wait, does this sound familiar to anyone?
OvermodHowever we may think of Arnold Haas for his tales about 142-mph Trail Blazer runs and 120+mph Niagara flights, I think we can take him at his word about various engineers taking special pains to work the remaining Niagaras to death with ridiculously short or long cutoff in their last years.
Jones1945$35,000 in 1946 is almost equal to 100K today, not enough to buy a decent house in first tier cities, assuming S1 can keep in service for 40 years, doing Excursions, hauling special train for tourist or used for other creative business ideas, I believe it can bring more than $35,000 to PRR.
Once again, these are Bretton Woods dollars so it's appropriate to compare 'modern' value to the price of gold; that's a value of just under 1 and a quarter million. Hard to justify that to the stockholders, especially when so little practical use of the locomotive could be demonstrated through the latter half of the Forties. PRR had no place to run a very big, very fast locomotive like that economically, and some of its cost was likely still very much stuck on the PRR balance sheet. The decision to cash the Big Engine in was not taken idly, but in a world of PRR losing money and deciding to dieselize fast there was little question which way it would go.
The story about the approach curve 'restriction' in Pittsburgh station was well-documented by the T1 Trust, as was the research that eventually put enough lateral into T1s to get around it (I believe it was later removed with track realignment, but don't remember the specifics.) It did not as I recall involve access to all tracks in the station (tight point of a double slip switch?).
On the other hand, starting suitably long and heavy trains through complicated and possibly poorly lined and surfaced track arrangements was NOT where an unconjugated duplex, even with the exordinate FA the T1s wound up with, would be happy about. Unlike transient loss of adhesion on a 4-8-4 over a low joint or frog, the same thing on one engine of a duplex caused prompt unloading of up to 25% of the available adhesion. The lack of any kind of separate throttle for the two engines (and PRR's engine crew training, which as noted didn't emphasize careful handling for front-end throttles feeding poppet valves) made recovery from this difficult; the size and length of the locomotive made slipping, particularly of the forward engine, difficult to detect.
There are, of course, ways to get around this issue, ranging from the very simple (separate wheelslip lights) to complex but automatic (Deem-style conjugation with Ferguson clutch). If you convert a T1 to type B-2, the rear nightmare box can be removed, which opens up a clear and easy path for shaft conjugation. Use of Wagner throttles (look at the ACE3000 patent and understand that Porta couldn't spell very well sometimes) solves any tendency for the front end to break loose while the rear engine is still expected to make power; you can neatly and proportionally trim the forward engine to any percentage of the rear one without having to find space (and there really is none) to provide double front-end throttles in the available space.
The closest thing PRR really achieved to a grand train was the Congressional Limited so beloved of Dave Klepper. And that, of course, didn't really involve steam power. It might have been interesting to see if PRR would have developed an actual high-speed Fleet of Modernism if the 1928 plans to develop a New Main Line with much higher achievable speeds had in fact been achievable (but that would involve not only no Depression, but no significant use of funding for electrification, for steam to be involved more than 'experimentally').
The case of the Q2 'success' is worth looking at in this context. Much has been made of the J1s being 'good enough' for PRR at vastly lower capital and maintenance cost. But what I think is forgotten is that the Q2s were win-the-war locomotives, built for services that PRR could run faster than "normal" 50mph freight speed, and almost always sure of the opportunity of enough cars for a full train meriting nearly 8000 peak hp. when a train needed to be moved. Once you go back to postwar density (in non-electrified sections where Q2s could operate) at typical speeds with typical maintenance and attention, the joys of the sophisticated duplex were no longer as applicable, but the double costs for running gear were still leveraged out on the bleeding edge of rising costs.
If there is specialized Niagara testing at high speed, it would likely be covered by Tom Gerbracht (either in Know Thy Niagaras or via an appropriate e-mail to him via NYCSHS.
Some of this PDF may also be relevant: https://nycshs.files.wordpress.com/2014/07roadtestingniagaras.pdf
My guess would be that with the known problems of lateral buckling in the rods, there would NOT be any greased-rail slip testing, and in the absence of something like Wagner drifting valves a la ATSF (or some sort of Nicolai/Trofimov arrangement) no extreme high-speed instrumented testing.
The Hudson test (about which there seems to be considerable old-wives'-tale story spinning) is recounted in Kiefer's motive power study of 1947. This is a greased-rail test, I believe of a J3a, and the highest recorded "speed" (derived from rotational frequency) is just above 161mph. Here is where some care needs to be interpolated: on firm track this produced no overt wheel 'bounce' (meaning that at that rps the vertical augment was less than the imposed weight via the equalization) BUT on track with less stiffness or damping in the vertical plane, effects could be seen in the low 100s -- so track stiffness was and presumably is a major factor in expressed augment and "all that that implies".
OvermodThe decision to cash the Big Engine in was not taken idly, but in a world of PRR losing money and deciding to dieselize fast there was little question which way it would go.
OvermodThe story about the approach curve 'restriction' in Pittsburgh station was well-documented by the T1 Trust, as was the research that eventually put enough lateral into T1s to get around it (I believe it was later removed with track realignment, but don't remember the specifics.) It did not as I recall involve access to all tracks in the station (tight point of a double slip switch?).
Quote from T1 Trust: "A specific problem with 130 lb no.8 switches prevented them from operating through Pittsburgh - but an increase in lateral motion in 1946, and track realignments in the modern era (required to handle longer freight cars than the 1940's) mean that this particular issue has been resolved" Sadly, S1 was retired by mid-1946, if PRR keep her longer, she might have a chance to do what she supposed to do, hauling long-distance train from Chicago to Pittsburgh. I wonder if the Wye which was built especially for S1 (in 39?) was still in Pittsburgh that time……
OvermodThe closest thing PRR really achieved to a grand train was the Congressional Limited so beloved of Dave Klepper. And that, of course, didn't really involve steam power. It might have been interesting to see if PRR would have developed an actual high-speed Fleet of Modernism if the 1928 plans to develop a New Main Line with much higher achievable speeds had in fact been achievable (but that would involve not only no Depression, but no significant use of funding for electrification, for steam to be involved more than 'experimentally').
It would have saved so many people time, including the heads of PRR if the original electrification plan became a fact, the performance of GG1 was so extraordinary compared to post-war steam train like T1, Q2 etc, but I probably wouldn't become a PRR fan since they probably won't spend too much time on new steam engine design.
Electrification of the system was probably the most foresighted thing PRR ever planned and ever did. Imagine how awesome it would be an "RR1" hauling a 16 cars consist, running at 141.1mph straight form D.C to Pittsburgh or even Chicago? But I still prefer Steam locomotive to Electric locomotive. A new High-Speed Main Line between Chicago to Pittsburgh with average speed 90mph+ specially built for Class S1 6100-6109 (using poppet valves and roller bearing side rod ) A route as famous and as successful as the Hiawatha is always my dream.
Well at least everybody's thinking here!
Overmod--161 mph? Wholeeeeee Makinaw. That's nuts.
Not buying a $1.25 million dolllar equivalent for the scrap value of the S1. That would make the initial costs of duplex drives 2.32 billion. No way. The $35,000 put directly into the cost of a Diesel amounts to less than 10%. I don't know playing with numbers doesn't tell the tale though. Was it the S1 or the S2 that had it side all smucked up by a flailing broken side rod.
Jones1945-- I like the corruption angle. Powerful men at Pennsy, Baldwin, EMD, NYC, Alco ... lots of interactions, favours, shenanigans and big big $'s on the table. Things were done, of course.
In the past Overmod has alluded to actual documentation that may exist by executives at Pennsy stating how to go about making the T1's a hopeless engine. They couldn't get Diesels fast enough and I do recall reporters, analysists, shareholders and such hounding Pennsy as to why total Dieselization was taking so long. The answers were reasonable, that it was a huge system and it could not be done overnight. However, they couldn't get rid of steam fast enough and the heat was on. So strange things were happening amidst the big push and rush.
I have asked several times regarding the surprising and somewhat suspicious and mysterious loss shown by Pennsy in 1946 and then again in subsequent years in the late 40's. Perhaps they spent too much on Capital purchases. 1946 and the later 40's were still halcyon days. Sure labour costs were increasing but the railroads did and had the moving and the shaking economy wise.
Real criminals like Stuart Saunders were not in full effect yet but something is real fishy about it all.
They got together and complained about being underpaid for postal services over several years and got a fat settlement with Uncle Sam during this time as well.
I simply do not understand the 1946 loss.. how?
Jones1945It would have saved so many people time, including the heads of PRR if the original electrification plan became a fact, the performance of GG1 was so extraordinary compare to post-war steam train like T1,Q2 etc, but I probably wouldn't become a PRR fan since they probably won't spend too much time on new steam engine design.
Part of the difficulty with PRR steam was precisely that they overcapitalized on obsolescent designs -- all those K4s in the late '20s a notable example -- and then indulged in somewhat wacky electric designs analogous to 'standard' wheel arrangements (O1 approximating an E6; P5 a K4; L1 a lollipop, etc.), and then later making some dubious assumptions with the DD2 that was going to be the design model for the various classes for the electrification west of Harrisburg. This was precisely the time that the great convergence between Super-Power and advances in balancing post-Eksergian was coming together, after the Alco diversion into three-cylinder power was over, and PRR experienced this only peripherally through the J1s (and the process of perfecting them all over again that came from using the 'wrong' blueprint sets!)
Electrification of the system was probably the most foresighted thing PRR ever planned and ever did.
That is true, but remember that dieselization was a direct consequence of the 'electric' planning, giving a great deal of the advantage of 11kV wire to Pittsburgh while avoiding the expense -- and I wish it hadn't, but it made sense at the time -- of the full tunnel bypassing Horse Shoe, which at over 9000' would not have been worked with diesels at PRR's traffic density. We have a prospective 'wartime' plan for the engine classes of the first stage of the electrification, which would have followed the general plan of the DD2 with the horsepower classes reflecting use of the better 428A motors, right up to back-to-back eight-powered-axle units (!) for the part of the railroad far more deserving of the advantages of electrification than the politically-favored route between New York and Washington.
Perhaps interesting, I don't think the DD2 classes were intended to make very high speed. There would, however, be the same design "convergence" that led to the T1 and later the 'centipedes' and A-B-A BP-20 locomotives being the equivalent of a GG1; it's possible that some part of the Q2 design was made to match consists assembled in Enola and fired west over the mountains under wire. Problem is that F units are still a better answer all round, don't require massive expensive improvements to the railroad, and have the same advantages to equipment-trust bankers that saw them prescribed for lost-cause NYO&W.
Imagine how awesome it would be a "RR1" hauling a 16 cars consist, running at 141.1mph straight from D.C. to Pittsburgh...
No call for high speed on that run (even if current Amtrak services make it look a bit normal) -- in fact, we were discussing in another thread how definitively B&O was able to destroy PRR's ability to compete in the extension of service between DC and Chicago by utilizing the P&LE for better speed while keeping the excellent dining-car service. I don't think it could be possible to improve the Northern Central for appreciable high-speed gains with more money than PRR could spare from other more significant necessities; the same is probably true of the Port Road route. Meanwhile the Atglen & Susquehanna was no real speedway for that kind of performance, and not optimized for improvement into one, so it would fall to the New Main Line effort to progressively take out all the kinks and kludges that hampered, and in many respects still hamper, the PRR through Philadelphia (think Amtrak 188) and then out to the west via North Philadelphia. And as noted PRR really didn't think so much of passenger revenues to spend All The Money Required on providing great speed through the Allegheny regions.
I still prefer Steam locomotive to Electric locomotive. A new High Speed Main Line between Chicago to Pittsburgh with average speed 90mph+ specially built for Class S1 6100-6109 (using poppet valves and roller bearing side rod ) A route as famous and as sucessful as the Hiawatha is always my dream.
But this is precisely the route that promised those sorts of speeds (and, supposedly, where the T1s produced them on a number of occasions). I am not sure what improvements could be made between Pittsburgh and Crestline, or to allow 100mph speed to within 6 miles or so of the Chicago terminal as was the case for the Hiawathas, but there was track suitable for 112mph with 70" drivers in between...
Now, the S1 was not the right design for the steam service. Paul Kiefer would disagree with you on the necessity for poppet valves; his 120-mph postwar engine shared many of the characteristics of the T1 but had piston valves and Baker gear (and a rightsized firebox, the boiler being nearly common to Niagaras except for the extra length) and of course the PRR itself took out patents on the technology needed for wholesale conversion of type A eight-valve chests to piston valves. Note that PRR optimized their balance by using extremely short stroke (in fact they would have used shorter, but the web in the driver center between mainpin and axle seat fixed the dimension at 26") and this got around the need for 84" drivers to make reasonable high speed. By the time machinery speeds make 84" desirable again you're in the range where reciprocating steam locomotives are no loner preferable.
So the mantle falls on the passenger version of the mechanical turbine, the one Loewy's design patent likely covers. We now know how unlikely this construction would be, but it was certainly enough for Baldwin to filch the idea for its C&O turbines with all the wrong detail design. The killer here was, and is, the same thing that killed the V1 for freight: the water rate went upside-down above about 7000hp at just the time water treatment and deoxygenation became vital necessities. When the largest eight-axle coast-to-coast cistern gives a range less than 130 miles, you lose any real superiority over even early F units.
There are ways to get the water rate down, but these are difficult to package and to run at 8000+hp size. A case could be made for Holcroft-Anderson recompression, but this requires extensive cisterns, pumping power via separate engines, and some system of mechanical draft, with no guarantee that economy can be achieved in many practical PRR operating circumstances -- little real competitive advantage over MU to scale power to need. (And no particular romance to the appearance!)
Jones1945 Another thing amazes me is that the “Gresley double-bolster 8ft 6in bogies” used on their standard coaches(LNER), a 1920s design managed to go as fast as 90mph+ without falling apart, I don’t know how was the ride quality though, but it is not hard to imagine riding a speed boat. :PPRR 2DP5 vs Gresley Bogie
Although it isn't clear from the photograph, the suspension arrangements for the Pennsylvania truck illustrated and the Gresley bogie were the same. Both used coil springs in compression supporting an equalising beam as primary suspension over the axleboxes, and full elliptical leaf springs on a swing bolster as secondary suspension. The Pennsylvania truck had the equalising beam in full view, while it was hidden behind the side frame on the Gresley bogie. The Gresley beam was straight with the coil springs located on steel rods projecting downward held by collars and bearing against internal brackets on the side frame. The bottom ends of these (coil spring) rods can be seen projecting below the frame inboard of the wheels in the photo above.
The Gresley bogie was rated as better than the standard British Railways bogie (based on the LMS design) and was used on dining cars, and on a fleet of electric Commuter trains based on Glasgow in the mid 1960s. The more modern BR B4 and B5 designs provided a better ride still but they only arrived in the mid 1960s.
The LNER steamlined trains, apart from the Gresley Bogie, were purpose designed and had more modern interiors than the "Coronation Scot" which used standard LMS coaches of the period. Of course, the "Coronation Scot" was air conditioned and had only four seats per compartment in first class so West Coast travellers were not "hard done by". But the ride wasn't as good, not just when passing through crossovers at 57mph instead of 20mph...
This kind of sort of explains things but I can't seem to connect things very well.
The PRR reports record passenger and freight revenues for 1946, revenue exceeds expenditures, they recieved a whopping 17.6% freight rate increase then go on to say there is a loss due to government regulations.
Yet they state they transported more freight and passengers in 1946 than any year and in the same breath say revenues were down 114 million due to the decrease in wartime traffic and strikes.
The T1's are not mentioned by name but they are definitely mentioned in the article.
They recieved 37 high speed 6500 horsepower steam locomotives and tenders to complete an order of 50.
Someone help me out here and tell me what the heck is going on.
Miningman Well at least everybody's thinking here! Overmod--161 mph? Wholeeeeee Makinaw. That's nuts.
Miningman Jones1945-- I like the corruption angle. Powerful men at Pennsy, Baldwin, EMD, NYC, Alco ... lots of interactions, favours, shenanigans and big big $'s on the table. Things were done, of course. In the past Overmod has alluded to actual documentation that may exist by executives at Pennsy stating how to go about making the T1's a hopeless engine.
Miningman I have asked several times regarding the surprising and somewhat suspicious and mysterious loss shown by Pennsy in 1946 and then again in subsequent years in the late '40s. Perhaps they spent too much on Capital purchases. 1946 and the later '40s were still halcyon days. Sure labor costs were increasing but the railroads did and had the moving and the shaking economy wise. I simply do not understand the 1946 loss... how?
("My owner paid $16,640,000 to build us and dumped us all 7 years later", help me!)
Jones1945I heard another rumor about a story of J-3a reached 165mph during a special run to save a kid (rushed to somewhere to buy rare medicine for the kid), I would believe this story if it was 165kmh not mph.
That plot sure sounds familiar...
Great Milwaukee Road action here, and not a bad story, either...
Overmod Perhaps interesting, I don't think the DD2 classes were intended to make very high speed. F units are still a better answer all round, don't require massive expensive improvements to the railroad, and have the same advantages to equipment-trust bankers that saw them prescribed for lost-cause NYO&W.
Overmod But this is precisely the route that promised those sorts of speeds (and, supposedly, where the T1s produced them on a number of occasions). I am not sure what improvements could be made between Pittsburgh and Crestline, or to allow 100mph speed to within 6 miles or so of the Chicago terminal as was the case for the Hiawathas, but there was track suitable for 112mph with 70" drivers in between... Now, the S1 was not the right design for the steam service. Paul Kiefer would disagree with you on the necessity for poppet valves; his 120-mph postwar engine shared many of the characteristics of the T1 but had piston valves and Baker gear (and a rightsized firebox, the boiler being nearly common to Niagaras except for the extra length) and of course the PRR itself took out patents on the technology needed for wholesale conversion of type A eight-valve chests to piston valves.
Sorry I think I messed up the format of my post......
M636C The Gresley bogie was rated as better than the standard British Railways bogie (based on the LMS design) and was used on dining cars, and on a fleet of electric Commuter trains based on Glasgow in the mid 1960s. The more modern BR B4 and B5 designs provided a better ride still but they only arrived in the mid 1960s. The LNER steamlined trains, apart from the Gresley Bogie, were purpose designed and had more modern interiors than the "Coronation Scot" which used standard LMS coaches of the period. Of course, the "Coronation Scot" was air conditioned and had only four seats per compartment in first class so West Coast travellers were not "hard done by". But the ride wasn't as good, not just when passing through crossovers at 57mph instead of 20mph... Peter
As to the 'follow-ons' for the electric district, the answer is actually historical (and verifiable from a variety of sources) -- rectifier/Ignitron locomotives using diesel-style bogies with relatively low wheels and independent-axle traction motor drive (with DC, not universal, motors). This was clear on PRR by the time of the 'experimental' classes ordered in the early Fifties, and culminating in the vacuum-cleaner E44s ordered in the early Sixties. All these predominantly for freight, of course; passenger needs were covered by the wartime GG1s (in what might be considered a reprise of too many K4s in the Twenties) so no New Haven 'Jet' analogues, but that's what you would have seen had the passenger electrification been taken up at a reasonable point after the War.
In parallel, the evolution of the V1 into what became Jawn Henry is an interesting and valuable thing to observe. The 4-8-0+4-8-0 became a span-bolstered C-C+C-C, which turned out to roast a set of hexapole motors beyond reasonable repair in just a few years of testing. How much of that was attributable to drop damage in the main generators and how much of that was overloading may never be thoroughly known.
Anyway, as I mentioned before, the Federal government didn’t want to see the development of the nation’s Aerospace industry slowed down by High speed rail, thus we have what we got today.
OvermodIn parallel, the evolution of the V1 into what became Jawn Henry is an interesting and valuable thing to observe. The 4-8-0+4-8-0 became a span-bolstered C-C+C-C, which turned out to roast a set of hexapole motors beyond reasonable repair in just a few years of testing. How much of that was attributable to drop damage in the main generators and how much of that was overloading may never be thoroughly known.
When I was much younger, I want to own a model of C&O Chessie. I admit I am obsessed with big machines.
V1, or Jawn Henry both have at least one thing in common, they are too big! Jawn Henry was even bigger than S1. I can understand that S1 was *probably built for the 39 World Fair to represent America (without PRR's stockholder's approval), so it was unnecessarily massive, heavy and *expensive.
Overmod the problem being that few if any people designing then seemed to understand the profound split in costs and infrastructure involved in operation to 125mph as opposed to 150 or higher. The French figured this out, right down to the required power infrastructure, and so they've gone from success to success and have pervasive true high-speed rail
Overmodlook at the 'mission' difference between the S1 and T1 spec, and tell me realistically what sort of passenger consist needs to weigh 1000t in a single train that fits real-world platforms, especially from the Forties on as demand for multiple sections starts falling away.
Overmod If you want a reasonable starting point for a PRR "next-generation M1" 4-8-4, I would advocate starting with a "late" C&NW zeppelin H, with or without duplexing, and put a double Belpaire boiler on it
The 1943 proposal is likely a version of the infamous 'Triplex' which led to so much controversy between Carleton Steins and Raymond Loewy. This is amusingly associated with the secret crash development program at Baldwin to produce the C&O M1 turbines 'outside' Steins' patents before PRR made turbines of its own ... there is loving, if potentially highly one-sided documentation of this in some of H.T. Cover's correspondence at the Hagley. Some of the specific points of failure in the M1 design are more comprehensible when you know how they came about...
The spec for the T1 was dialed back to 880 tons at 100mph, a far more reasonable number for a locomotive with four-coupled engines especially in light of the lack of boosters for starting (you will remember that one of the prototype T1s was built with a booster, but had it removed in spite of the ghastly unloading problem created by the long equalizing beam between the engines, which was thankfully purged from the production suspension). This is just about platform limit length of high-speed lightweight coaches for something like a Trail Blazer. There is a certain optimism in designing Pullman trains for 100mph or faster operation over much of PRR where a considerable amount of high speed would involve projection out of one's berth, a consideration that factors amusingly into some of the anecdotes about high-speed running with the T1s.
It's not that Jawn was "too big", it was that he lacked meaningful horsepower for his size, and that characteristics of his electrical transmission made some of Baldwin's claims (the 65mph speed in particular) little better than ill-qualified lies. Something burned out all those motors in no more than three years of testing, and trust me, it's hard to kill a hexapole even intentionally.
Note that a steam-turbine electric today requires a practical continuous horsepower of 8800 or greater just to remain competitive with conventional diesel power, even as it combines all the inefficiencies of mobile Rankine-cycle with water as the working fluid with electrical conversion and drive using truck-mounted motors. It's possible there will be niches for such a thing; I am helping develop them. But it's not very effective as a one-for-one replacement for a class A locomotive, or a properly improved Y-class either.
Boeing as you may know was involved heavily in transit car manufacture at one point (out of the Vertol helicopter plant in suburban Philadelphia). I toured the plant as the first LRVs were coming off the line, and had great hopes for how the future would be. Likewise United Aircraft (which was Sikorski) voluntarily perfected Allan Cripe's train as a showcase for PT6 turboshafts and then made a reasonable show of promoting it -- the 1967 proposal to NYC with detailed timing calculations made by computer is a dramatic positive example. Of course Bombardier the snowmobile company became involved in aircraft production as well as diversifying into high-speed rail production, but that's not really the same. The real problem is that, as for TGV with LGV, new routes optimized for very high speed are required to make true HSR practical. Where that's not the case, it's far better to build to 110mph or 125mph specs, where the costs are not yet ridiculous or weight-saving quite so dramatically required, as in Britain where the HSTs were successful but the APTs (for a nominal top-end advantage of no more than about 25mph) were certainly not.
And as done to death on various Trains fora, there are comparatively few services outside identifiable (and fundable) corridor services where 125mph service enhancements will pay their way.
Interesting thread with many branch lines!
Anyone have any thoughts on how record setting freight and passenger transport translates into a loss when the year previous ( which was surpassed) shows a $49 million profit ...aaannnnd not only that but they enjoyed their recieved 17.6% increase in freight rates!
Everything in the article seems to conflict.
If you recieved a whopping 17.6% hourly pay increase on top of a banner year of hours worked that even beat your last extremely profitable banner year and revenues exceeded expense, but you lost all the money and dipped into last years, then I can only conclude you went to the Casino ... a lot!
It has been my understanding that Pennsy had a sort of military structure, no one at each lower level would dream of questioning those at the next level. I think this makes it easier for secrets and info withheld level to level.
Although some here have lamented the PRR for not preserving the S1, they actually did a decent job of preserving examples of their better known, bread and butter steam locomotives.
Interesting! I guess Gresley Bogie and PRR 2D P5 truck both doesn’t have shock absorber, am I right?
As I said earlier, both these designs had full elliptical leaf springs for the secondary suspension. These are the sort of leaf springs seen on the British LMS three axle bogie above the axleboxes, but combined as an inverted set pivoted to an upright set at each end of the leaves.
A feature of these springs is that the leaves move relative to eachother as the spring compresses or expands and this provides a built in damping that avoids oscillation.
At the time these trucks were designed, automotive style shock absorbers were not generally available, and automotive shock absorbers of suitable capacity only arrived in the 1950s.
If you look at USA streamliners, most prewar trains had full elliptical secondary springing, but post war trains had coil secondary springs with some form of damping added.
It is generally agreed that the PRR S1 and UPRR "Big Boy" are generally the same size overall, despite the UP locomotive having twice as many coupled axles.
Looking at the boiler barrel as something to base a comparison upon, the dimensions were:
S1 100" diameter by 21' 11" long
4000 106" diameter by 22' long
So unsurprisingly, the 4000 has a bigger boiler, but not significantly longer.
I'll have to think about the fireboxes since the arrangements are so different...
Something to add about PRR's financial status in 1946...
IIRC, Paul North posted some PRR ad's from the late WW2 time frame about having to defer maintenance on their track to to prioritizing wartime traffic over maintenance. At the same time the federal government forced the PRR to declare the "savings" from not maintaining their track and then taxing that as income, which was then subject to the high wartime tax rates.
Well thank you for that erikem. Wow that's some kind of twisted up thinking on the government's part.
Overmod The spec for the T1 was dialed back to 880 tons at 100mph, a far more reasonable number for a locomotive with four-coupled engines especially in light of the lack of boosters for starting (you will remember that one of the prototype T1s was built with a booster, but had it removed in spite of the ghastly unloading problem created by the long equalizing beam between the engines, which was thankfully purged from the production suspension).
I didn’t know that the booster was removed from 6111, could you specify the detail of the ghastly unloading problem created by the long equalizing beam between the engines? I tried to search “steam engine unloading problem” on the web but it seems I found the wrong thing. I know the equalizing beam between the 2nd set of and the 3rd set of the driver was removed from the production batch, but I don’t know about how a booster plus the equalizing beam affected the performance of 6111. By the way, if one of the unofficial goals to develop T1 was to outperform Diesel like the NYC Niagara 4-8-4 which successfully achieved, using a booster would at least increase the average annual maintained cost and average annual fuel cost as well.
Miningman Interesting thread with many branch lines! If you recieved a whopping 17.6% hourly pay increase on top of a banner year of hours worked that even beat your last extremely profitable banner year and revenues exceeded expense, but you lost all the money and dipped into last years, then I can only conclude you went to the Casino ... a lot! It has been my understanding that Pennsy had a sort of military structure, no one at each lower level would dream of questioning those at the next level. I think this makes it easier for secrets and info withheld level to level.
I bet 70 years ago when the concept of transparency and Media's supervision were not a daily thing, it was a completely different world compared to nowadays. (recommended thread: Jim Crow laws & railroads ). The military structure thing you mentioned in Pennsy makes it more difficult to find the truth today. If the Head of PRR (or other Class I railroads) did cheating or other shady things, I believe it is a mission impossible to reveal the truth without professional investigation, but many people involved had already passed away, not many railway enthusiasts have that amount of resource and time to find the truth. But I think it is a good start to at least raising the question.
Miningman Well thank you for that erikem. Wow that's some kind of twisted up thinking on the government's part.
If that was the best a government can do to a company which contributed so much to win the war, that was really messed up.By the way, I wish people won't forget that she helped to win the war too:
M636C It is generally agreed that the PRR S1 and UPRR "Big Boy" are generally the same sizes overall, despite the UP locomotive having twice as many coupled axles.
It is generally agreed that the PRR S1 and UPRR "Big Boy" are generally the same sizes overall, despite the UP locomotive having twice as many coupled axles.
M636C but post war trains had coil secondary springs with some form of damping added.
but post war trains had coil secondary springs with some form of damping added.
Post war train truck in US and UK, Top: Commonwealth bogie (UK), Bottom: GSC 41-N-11 Passenger Truck (US)
... could you specific the detail of the ghastly unloading problem created by the long equalizing beam between the engines? I tired to search “steam engine unloading problem” on the web but it seems I found the wrong thing. I know the equalizing beam between the 2nd set of and the 3rd set of driver was removed from the production batch, but I don’t know about how a booster plus the equalizing beam affected the performance of 6111.
The two are really separate issues; I only mentioned them together in the context of problems affecting slipping in the evolution of the T1 design.
Remember that the T1 started with a somewhat ridiculously high FA, and was subsequently dialed even higher by the equalization changes; all this while the N&W J stayed ridiculously low. In other words PRR and Baldwin recognized there would be a price for short-wheelbase duplexing, and expected that the increase in nominal wheel load on driver groups would address it -- the physics did not match their expectations, and one of the things the T1 Trust modeling will find out is the extent of that.
The purpose of a booster on a locomotive of this kind can be thought of as providing an 'additional coupled axle' that at low speed can use the boiler-generated steam efficiently where the main engine(s) can't. They convert a Hudson briefly into a Mountain where starting a relatively long, heavy train is concerned, but when disengaged have no real effect on high-speed running (there is additional mass in the trailing truck, and some addition of unsprung mass on the rear trailing axle, but no unbalanced force in any plane from rotation, as there is with 'auxiliary engines' with rods).
Unsurprisingly, the NYC espoused the things, and perhaps also unsurprisingly PRR found reasons not to support anything the 'green team' was connected with. But as Staufer noted, by the time the Niagara design came to fruition there was no booster, and he noted famously that it was needed 'about as much as a Christmas tree sticking out of the stack' as far as 'starting any load it could pull' was concerned.
The issue at hand is different: whether the additional smooth and gear-enhanced traction provided back at a trailing truck would solve or at least ameliorate the low-speed slipping issues with four-coupled duplexes starting a train over typical yard trackage, or accelerating with short stroke to the 35mph or so where the T1's began to produce real acceleration. This would seem an ideal use even for something as simple as a Franklin E-2, but there's also a degree of 'where's my big savings?' both in first cost and maintenance if the booster only provides "equivalent" slip performance to a comparable 4-8-4. (And if there were problems getting PRR to use front-end throttles and poppet gear effectively, imagine the fun with warming up, engaging, and disengaging boosters with no cutoff adjustment...)
Meanwhile, the original Baldwin design provided for the T1 'thought' that all the drivers in both engines should be equalized together, which required some cleverness to get past the cylinder block for the rear engine. Their solution was the long pivoted beam on the prototypes. One effect of this was pronounced unloading of the forward engine under any particular load. Analysis of the suspension revealed that (no particular surprise) it was better to divide the suspension in the middle of the 'driver wheelbase' and tie off the equalization with helical springs and snubbing (which is choosing the spring rates so the various resonance frequencies are highly out of phase and the system as a whole tends to self-damp - this was a design principle on the GG1s but was later removed). By 1947 all this had been repeatedly refined (there are many noted drawing revisions on the equalization by then!) and things had been perfected about as far as they could be without actual damping via shock absorption.
One big advantage that came into postwar truck design was the use of 'silentbloc' rubber bushings at contact points and joints. The French in particular made heavy use of this (and I think it was instrumental in achieving some of the contemporary high speeds reported for the equipment as early as the Fifties). If you look at the two truck designs you provide, note the radius rods and shock absorbers required especially for outside-swing-hanger designs; I believe John White has a section on proper postwar design in The American Passenger Car (vol.2). More modern designs have much more emphasis on low unsprung mass and controlled degrees of freedom, but still require controlled damping of shocks and other running forces.
What's the source for the streamlined-duplex 'cut' you provided? That looks like something a British enthusiast would provide for a C1a using an auxiliary and perhaps corridor tender instead of track pans; we made very little use of that kind of deep angle cab even with vestibule, and the NYC cabs that had vestibules (the Niagara and A2a Berk important examples) had them up near deck height. Is there a story associated with the picture, or more explanation of its origins? By the way, if one of the unofficial goal to develop T1 was to outperform Diesel like the NYC Niagara 4-8-4 which successfully achieved, using a booster would at least increase the average annual maintained cost and average annual fuel cost as well.[/quote]
To revert to the original request, here are a couple of references:
Loco Profile 24 "Pennsylvania Duplexii" by Brian Reed Profile Publications Windsor UK, 1972. Brian Reed was a locomotive design engineer with the North British Llocomotive Company.
"Rekord Lokomotiven" by Wilhelm Reuter, Motorbuch Verlag Stuttgart 1978 pp 303 to 315, chapter title "The Big Engine".
I have more information regarding the 1937 test run of the Coronation Scot and its description mentioned by Overmod.
There are three separate descriptions of the entry to Crewe in Cecil J Allen's "British Pacific Locomotives" from Ian Allen in 1962. My first edition has the price "65 shillings" pencilled in the back. The 1937 run is covered on pages 137 to 139.
R.A.Riddles, later credited with the design of the BR Standard locomotives, was riding the locomotive.
Part of his description reads:
"Spectators from Crewe coming into view along the lineside; and the train still hurtling at 114 miles an hour. On went the brakes, off the regulator but on we sailed, flames streaming from the tortured brake blocks.... We were still doing 60 to 70 miles an hour when we spotted the platform signal. The crockery in the dining car crashed. Down we came to 52 mph through the curve, with the engine riding like the great lady she is. There wasn't a thing we could do but hold on and let her take it. And take it she did; past a sea of pallid faces on the platform we ground to a dead stand, safe and sound and still on the rails."
Allen's own description is similar but less colourful. He did mention that two cast iron rail chairs in the curves had fractured...
LMS Vice President Sir Ernest Lemon said, at the press lunch:
"Of course, gentlemen, you will realise that we shan't need to do this kind of thing on every trip of the "Coronation Scot"; we were coming in a little faster than we shall have to do in the ordinary course..."
OvermodMeanwhile, the original Baldwin design provided for the T1 'thought' that all the drivers in both engines should be equalized together, which required some cleverness to get past the cylinder block for the rear engine. Their solution was the long pivoted beam on the prototypes.
OvermodOne big advantage that came into postwar truck design was the use of 'silentbloc' rubber bushings at contact points and joints. The French in particular made heavy use of this (and I think it was instrumental in achieving some of the contemporary high speeds reported for the equipment as early as the Fifties).
OvermodWhat's the source for the streamlined-duplex 'cut' you provided? That looks like something a British enthusiast would provide for a C1a using an auxiliary and perhaps corridor tender instead of track pans; we made very little use of that kind of deep angle cab even with vestibule, and the NYC cabs that had vestibules (the Niagara and A2a Berk important examples) had them up near deck height. Is there a story associated with the picture, or more explanation of its origins?
M636C To revert to the original request, here are a couple of references: Loco Profile 24 "Pennsylvania Duplexii" by Brian Reed Profile Publications Windsor UK, 1972. Brian Reed was a locomotive design engineer with the North British Llocomotive Company. "Rekord Lokomotiven" by Wilhelm Reuter, Motorbuch Verlag Stuttgart 1978 pp 303 to 315, chapter title "The Big Engine". Peter
Thank you very much, Peter. Those are some publishment form 70s, I wonder if it is still possible for me to find them. I really want to read them, If our forum members own these publishment and willing to share with me, please kindly pm me! Thank you very much!!
(Edit: I found a copy on the web of Loco Profile 24, but I am not sure if full name of "Rekord Lokomotiven" by Wilhelm Reuter = "Rekord Lokomotiven - Die schnellesten der Schiene 1848-1950", I can found plenty of them on amazon but I can't read German......
M636C ......Allen's own description is similar but less colourful. He did mention that two cast iron rail chairs in the curves had fractured... LMS Vice President Sir Ernest Lemon said, at the press lunch: "Of course, gentlemen, you will realise that we shan't need to do this kind of thing on every trip of the "Coronation Scot"; we were coming in a little faster than we shall have to do in the ordinary course..."
......Allen's own description is similar but less colourful. He did mention that two cast iron rail chairs in the curves had fractured...
It always amazes me that the weight of PRR S1 without the tender was 304 short tons, PRR T1 was 251 short tons while LMS The Coronation Class was only 121 short tons!
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IIRC both unique 3-axle trailing and the leading truck had independent suspension, consists of coil and leaf springs. The same type of trucks was used on S2 which make both engines had an impressive and unique look, they ensured good ride quality too.
WELL, While they were pretty to look at, I heard it fron the "Horses Mouth" (John Crosby) who was an engineer on the Ft.Wayne line at the time, The S-1 was a total disaster. Slippery, and a real female dog on curves. The T-1's were not any better.The T-1 would slip like hell starting a train. Best thing before the E-7's were the K-4's. Sure, dirty to work on, but sure-footed and could make the time. The Pennsy guys were a bit envious of the NYC Hudsons just to their north... It took two, sometimes three, K-4's to get a passenger train across the Alleghenies, while the "Central" whisked along with a single J-3.. At 90 mph..
Todd
WELL, While they were pretty to look at, I heard it from the "Horses Mouth" (John Crosby) who was an engineer on the Ft.Wayne line at the time, The S-1 was a total disaster. Slippery, and a real B!tch on curves. The T-1's were not any better.The T-1 would slip like hell starting a train. It was standard operating procedure to assign a pusher to get a T-1 led train out of Columbus Station. Best thing before the E-7's were the K-4's. Sure, dirty to work on, but sure-footed and could make the time. The Pennsy guys were a bit envious of the NYC Hudsons just to their north... It took two, sometimes three, K-4's to get a passenger train across the Alleghenies, while the "Central" whisked along with a single J-3.. At 90 mph..
Now, John talked about running a T-1 from Crestline OH, To FT. Wayne IN hitting over 100 mph, but I can only imagine... Look at that line today. Weeds and rotten ties. Ah, what a shame.......
3rd rail The Pennsy guys were a bit envious of the NYC Hudsons just to their north... It took two, sometimes three, K-4's to get a passenger train across the Alleghenies, while the "Central" whisked along with a single J-3.. At 90 mph.. Now, John talked about running a T-1 from Crestline OH, To FT. Wayne IN hitting over 100 mph, but I can only imagine... Look at that line today. Weeds and rotten ties. Ah, what a shame....... Todd
They should have been envious of the Central's "Water-Level" route, It was that, more than superior motive power, that avoided double-heading on the Central.
Yes,routinely K4s were double-headed, especially Harrsburg-Pittslbugh. (Often through to Crestline.) Never saw triple-heading though. Have any evidence?
daveklepper They should have been envious of the Central's "Water-Level" route, It was that, more than superior motive power, that avoided double-heading on the Central. Yes,routinely K4s were double-headed, especially Harrsburg-Pittslbugh. (Often through to Crestline.) Never saw triple-heading though. Have any evidence?
I read some articles mentioned about Triple-heading K4s, probably happened during World War II at the Horseshoe curves, but I never have seen any photographic or video evidence so far. Triple-heading after the war must be as rare as a double-headed T1 (jk).Btw, many think that PRR T1 was not welcomed by the crews because it replaced double-headed K4s; an operating arrangement which ensured their living hood.
In case you missed some "K4s action":
daveklepperYes,routinely K4s were double-headed, especially Harrisburg-Pittsburg(h). (Often through to Crestline.) Never saw triple-heading though.
The double-heading was to create the effect of a single large road engine for very heavy Pullman consists (on the order of the 1000-ton train in the S1 spec), the rationale being the very large number of available locomotives (even more with the progression of the electrification). In fact it would be possible to doublehead a couple of E6 locomotives and save some costs ... as mirrored in the early planning and use of the O-class electrics or a bit later in the T1 design ... but the great 'standardization' was made in the Twenties, sized to perceived requirements then, and however much a mistake it was to do that, there were far more K4s available for 'fungible' use building passenger consists essentially greater than anything possible with Algerian-Garratt style articulateds. (And as noted, the crews would like All Those Extra Hours Every Hundred Miles On Every Train, too). Then the size of your available train becomes constrained by things like platform length or walk to the diner, not horsepower, except in one critical respect.
That respect being getting over the fixed maximum restriction on PRR, the grade over Gallitzin including Horse Shoe. This is where even the 'vanity cushion' of a twelve-coupled locomotive doesn't provide quite enough power to maintain road speed for the few miles of steep grade, and the third K4 would come into play.
Now, if you look at PRR slang carefully enough, you'll see that 'snapper' was not just a regional term for helper service -- PRR had both 'helpers' and 'snappers' and they were not just distinguished by their location in a consist (although that is functionally important). You need to distinguish what the extra TE and horsepower is meant to do. If you add locomotive power to enable a heavy train to make it 'over the hill', you have a helper. If you add locomotive power to enable a heavy train to make time 'over the hill' comparable to, or at least faster than, the train can make on either side, you have a snapper. And the selected class of snapper locomotive can't be, say, like the 2-10-2s used to drag diesel streamliners up the likes of Cajon; they have to be smooth-riding at the speeds expected.
So if snapping were desired, as on one of the 'first-class' trains, you might expect triple-heading, but only over certain divisions. Otherwise expect the fact of the double-heading to be able to maintain reasonable (albeit lower) speed, or the ability to traverse Horse Shoe without external helper, for less extreme or less demanding trains.
Overmod....Now, if you look at PRR slang carefully enough, you'll see that 'snapper' was not just a regional term for helper service -- PRR had both 'helpers' and 'snappers' and they were not just distinguished by their location in a consist (although that is functionally important).
The largest, heaviest and most expensive "helper" the PRR ever purchased. It was supposed to perform as good as GG1, the preferred engine of the Blue-Ribbon Fleet. Its size fitted PRR’s taste, big enough to wow its rivals, but turn out they were one of the biggest flops in America Railroad History. (source: Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, note the passenger cars were still carrying the FOM scheme)
It even illuminates the track it is on.
It was a publicity pic of Martin Clemens’s ambitious dieselization plan for PRR’s Blue-ribbon fleet in 1948, the pic was heavily touched up. There is a E7 version too.
Hi All,
I have a question about PRR S1's FA (Factor of adhesion). According to Wiki: "Starting tractive effort calculated in the usual way (85% mean effective pressure) comes out 76,400 lbf (340 kN), but the engine used 70% limited cutoff (presumably to increase port openings at short cutoff) so the railroad claimed a correspondingly lower tractive effort.", Does that mean S1's TE never reached 76,400 lbf during normal operation? Was there any mechanical device to allow the crews to increase the cutoff to 85% for maximum TE?
Compare to S1, N&W Class J had a much higher TE and lower FA but they were doing just fine, I don’t understand why PRR didn’t max out S1’s potential during the War. Imagine if S1 could tow a named train (eg.14 cars) plus its section (eg.9-10 cars) at the same time, that would be saved at least 2 K4s and 4 crews!
Best regards, Jones
Except the S1 was limited as to where it could run so when you get to Crestline you have this monster train, so now what do you do?... and need the crews and K4's there anyways. Pay me now or pay me later.
As for the Centipedes, well they had 2 moments of glory...10 minutes after they rolled off the line and outside for the official photo and when they were glamourized in the painting.
The depiction is reminiscent of a Roman Centurian or Patton slicing forward to Berlin.
Between the Centipedes, the Bp20 passenger Sharks, the regular Sharks, the FM opposed piston offerings, the PA1's and other assorted disasters a whole ton of money went down the drain with a lot of headaches along the way. People keep stating " war weary worn out steam locomotives", but heck, Altoona rebuilt them good as new anytime, quickly, efficiently and skillfully. I think perhaps keep the steam and use it up, buy Diesel swithchers ok, let things sort themselves out and then go all in same as N&W did. Armchair stuff but that was rather easy to see.
Miningman Except the S1 was limited as to where it could run so when you get to Crestline you have this monster train, so now what do you do?... and need the crews and K4's there anyways. Pay me now or pay me later.
Miningman Between the Centipedes, the Bp20 passenger Sharks, the regular Sharks, the FM opposed piston offerings, the PA1's and other assorted disasters a whole ton of money went down the drain with a lot of headaches along the way. People keep stating " war weary worn out steam locomotives", but heck, Altoona rebuilt them good as new anytime, quickly, efficiently and skillfully. I think perhaps keep the steam and use it up, buy Diesel swithchers ok, let things sort themselves out and then go all in same as N&W did. Armchair stuff but that was rather easy to see.
Jones1945I have a question about PRR S1's FA (Factor of adhesion). According to Wiki: "Starting tractive effort calculated in the usual way (85% mean effective pressure) comes out 76,400 lbf (340 kN), but the engine used 70% limited cutoff (presumably to increase port openings at short cutoff) so the railroad claimed a correspondingly lower tractive effort.", Does that mean S1's TE never reached 76,400 lbf during normal operation? Was there any mechanical device to allow the crews increasing the cutoff to 85% for maximum TE?
These are two vastly different things. The '85%' is a convention in the formula that corrects for pressure drop from nominal (safety-valve pop) boiler pressure to the actual pressure present at the cylinders to make power. The limited cutoff is a characteristic of the valve gear that closes the inlet ports to steam "early" even when the valve-gear mechanism is set to full gear, thereby forcing expansive working all the time.
Yes, there were approaches to get around the issues of limited cutoff when starting, the most familiar being slot ports or 'Weiss' ports as Porta liked to call them. Remember that even with limited cutoff and long-lead long-travel valves, the valve heads and rings still run the full stroke of the piston valve. Providing some very thin slots communicating to throttled steam relatively early in the stroke gives some amount of admission corresponding to a steam edge earlier in the valve stroke -- but restricted by the relatively poor flow, wire-drawing effects, etc. of steam through the small aperture as rotational speed came up.
Compare to S1, N&W Class J had a much higher TE and lower FA but they were doing just fine, I don’t understand why PRR didn’t max out S1’s potential during the War.
Part of this involves N&W actually driving the locomotives correctly, something it would appear that too many PRR engineers had little interest in doing too much of the time. There's always a problem with railroads wanting to get full rated power out of any locomotive as much of the time as possible, with one usual result (with steam locomotives) being to assign train consists that under many conditions will be difficult to start without care. The low FA of the Glaze-balanced J would require very careful handling at low speed, although several factors of the design would make the almost-inevitable slips easier to recover from than, say, in the S1 or T1 as built.
The problem with the S1 towing very large consists is that this would exacerbate an already serious issue with one of the engines breaking loose and slipping either at low speed or high (two different sets of physical conditions). This would be a formula for disaster without some 'hardware' method of trimming throttle admission to the two engines separately, with starting from many stations being a protracted agony in anything less than perfect conditions, and high-speed running being a constant and ultimately neurotic attention to incipient high-speed slips that might start over little more than a bad joint or harmonic.
Note that this is very different from getting the locomotive to pull that number of cars, or (in my opinion, reasonably) using a terminal switcher to assist in starting ridiculously long heavy consists, perhaps after having to break long consists just to get them into intermediate stations within platform length. instead of putting a booster with all its weight and efficiency issues on the S1 itself. There is little doubt that the S1 could operate a train of tremendous length at some 'balancing speed', albeit not very happily. But outside the performance envelope of 84" Atlantics with short stroke and high pressure under a common boiler...
Imagine if S1 could tow a named train (eg.14 cars) plus its section (eg.9-10 cars) at the same time, that would saved at least 2 K4s and 4 crews! [/quote]
Overmod These are two vastly different things. The '85%' is a convention in the formula that corrects for pressure drop from nominal (safety-valve pop) boiler pressure to the actual pressure present at the cylinders to make power. The limited cutoff is a characteristic of the valve gear that closes the inlet ports to steam "early" even when the valve-gear mechanism is set to full gear, thereby forcing expansive working all the time. Yes, there were approaches to get around the issues of limited cutoff when starting, the most familiar being slot ports or 'Weiss' ports as Porta liked to call them. Remember that even with limited cutoff and long-lead long-travel valves, the valve heads and rings still run the full stroke of the piston valve. Providing some very thin slots communicating to throttled steam relatively early in the stroke gives some amount of admission corresponding to a steam edge earlier in the valve stroke -- but restricted by the relatively poor flow, wire-drawing effects, etc. of steam through the small aperture as rotational speed came up.
It’s my pleasure discussing with you and learning so much from your professional sharing here, Overmod! I am not familiar with engineering knowledge, but I think I get it, though I am not sure I 100% understand the whole thing, thank you for your patience in advance if I ask some silly question!
Overmod ……The low FA of the Glaze-balanced J would require very careful handling at low speed, although several factors of the design would make the almost-inevitable slips easier to recover from than, say, in the S1 or T1 as built.
Jones1945In S1 case, which figure is more appropriate to use as official figure of its TE?
PRR naturally figured they shouldn't claim 85% MEP for the S1. What's the "appropriate" MEP to assume, for an angine that cuts off when the crank has reached 114 degrees? PRR apparently just took a guess at 80%, which gives the TE they claimed. (Dunno if the S1 had auxiliary ports.)
Similarly, what's "appropriate" for an I1 with 50% cutoff? Might depend on whether engineers could count on the auxiliary ports to work.
Jones1945Is it possible to adjust or increase the energy output and TE of a steam engine which was using limited cutoff, by changing the angle or modify the expansion link on the Walschaerts valve gear?
Geometrically I think this wouldn't give the right 'thing', but having just confused a bunch of people with side-rod geometry over on RyPN I would revert to first principles. First, the 'basis' of limited cutoff relates directly to the location of the ports in the bushings, which is determined when the cylinders and bushings are cast and machined. A major point of long-lap long-travel valves is that the valve runs through a fairly extreme distance (some of the last de Caso efforts over 16"!) so that it will be moving at high speed (and hence open and close quickly to steam) at the moment the steam edge is reached with normal cutoff setting. You will gain nothing by building the valve in such a way that it can be moved further to open it earlier or longer (which is what modifying the expansion link would have to do). Much of the 'Holy Grail' of valve design (see for example the theory and practice of Willoteaux valves) is involved in arranging for much higher mass flow of steam ONLY in the brief range where it produces effective MEP for traction at high speed: that is not something that jiggering simple-harmonic-motion gear will produce reliably. Likewise, a gear like Walschaerts has the same characteristics for closing exhaust that it has for opening to steam, whereas most of the important characteristics are very different ... hence the perceived importance in, say, the Franklin System or in British Caprotti for setting exhaust timing and duration very differently from admission.
Now, D&RGW had a device for adjusting lead (on some 4-8-4s and 4-6-6-4s) that performed some of what you're wanting to do -- see here for some interesting reference material. Note how Porta suggests this be 'optimized' with reference to pressure matching, then consider what the 'opposite side' regarding compression control would entail.
Assume I step into the cab of S1, the Reverser/Reversing lever was pushed to the forward max, does that mean its cutoff has been set to its maximum?
By definition, yes. If you were to look outside you would see the reach rods all the way to the end of the link, moved by the linkage from the power reverse cylinders.
... thus when the engine starts moving, it’s using maximum power and the TE would be 71900lbf instead of76,400 lbf since the machinery of the gears and everything related to TE has been adjusted to reach the 70% Limited cutoff setting?
Well no, not exactly; the TE is going to be whatever the steam getting to the cylinders at that moment, on that particular day, produces at the wheelrims for torque. All these other figures are only approximations, and possibly poor ones at that. The number that matters is the actual drawbar pull, and you can plot that as PRR did against speed to derive a performance curve that can provide DBHP (likewise the number that matters for horsepower).
I think, inherently, the way the S1 put so much of its overall weight on the lead and trailing trucks, without any kind of adjustable equalizing or unloading mechanism to put more weight on drivers for, say, starting, had already crippled its ability to run at any practical FA. I think it is clear that none of the engineers who developed duplexes quite comprehended the degree to which one of the engines would lose traction if the suspension unloaded one of the wheels, with pathetically underdamped compliance, at high rotational speed and high delivered wheelrim torque, although it is pretty clear they planned for high levels with the original (ridiculously high) FA on the T1 and then the initial redesign of the equalization that took it higher still!
So you have a terribly long, terribly heavy locomotive with short stroke and reliably, efficiently high boiler pressure, that right out of the box has very low FA while retaining an underdamped suspension but does not even allow the valve gear on the two engines to be trimmed separately. I do not need to write home to Mother to realize this dog is not going to hunt well except by combining nosing and rolling.
Jones1945English is not my first language; would you mind telling me what is the $35000 was about?
It's the equivalent of 30 pieces of silver; the amount (in 1949 money) received for the S1 as scrap.
Anyway, PRR was a quitter of their “duplex movement” when their president Martin Clement announced to remove all steam engines from through passenger trains west of the electrified territory in 1948.
Not quite - the removal only involved the first-class trains (like the Broadway) although it can be argued that restricting a 120mph engine to secondary and mail trains is something of a waste of the potential.
More to the point, it was agonizingly clear in 1948 just as it was not at all settled in 1946 that there was a very poor future for large steam locomotives in high-speed passenger service. Just as it would become agonizingly clear in no more than a couple more years that there was a very poor future for high-speed passenger service itself. And meanwhile, there was that huge investment in T1s, weighing down the books just at the time PRR needed 'better' power but impossible to peddle elsewhere...
Meanwhile, the Q2s. Very successful design ... for what they were, engines that could move critical wartime freight in 150-car trains about as fast as anyone would care to take them. By the time you have to justify a four-cylinder design with dangerously-corrodible alloy-steel boiler and enormous water rate that reduces augment above 60mph on a railroad where no freight is supposed to move faster than 50mph, you should not expect to find that the design is worth All The Extra Work over, say, all those J1 versions which are perfectly happy in a 'sweet spot' around that speed.
In a long run, EMD's diesel might have saved a lot of money for PRR, but tons of money already spent on the duplex ... Not to mention The PRR bought some problematic early Diesel from Baldwin and Alco with tons of money, even more money was wasted.
Which is why I suspect, and argue, that The Duplexes Had To Die. And why there was, and in some respects still is, something of a conspiracy to make the locomotives and in fact the whole concept out to be a slippery total failure, a design disaster fully justifying early writeoff of a great deal of that $65 million so that the available credit could be released for things more useful in 1950s railroading.
In hindsight, if PRR used their money to further improve the performance of their Duplex like applying the Franklin Type B Poppet Valves on both T1 and Q2 or other steam locomotive instead of buying this and that, we might have seen a much “romantic” ending. :P
Well, there was just exactly that approach: the development of the 'system' as well as the approach to substitute piston valves and normal valve gear on the T1s, essentially reducing the unfamiliar technology to the equivalent of a couple of fancy Atlantics (see the unbuilt E8 high-speed Atlantic design for a comparable) with much more familiar characteristics for typical PRR engineers. In my opinion the mere fact that PRR proudly patented several aspects of the piston-valve conversion was an indication that they thought ... at that time ... it represented a good answer to making an exotic high-speed design a perfectly capable 100mph-peak/tested to 110mph locomotive. And that the T1a was by just about any measure ... except when you have $65M down the hole and many hundreds of thousands of near-future tinkering needed just to get them reliably ordinary. I suspect that Franklin itself would be expecting quite a bit of additional royalty money as well as cost-plus contracts to provide all the various B-2 parts to make the rotary-cam conversions, at which point I suspect that quite a few issues with rotary-cam gear longevity in general, some related to wear and stress of ball followers giving line contact (against increased spring return pressure to debounce the actual valves) bearing on expensive lateral-shifting variable cams, would have come up had for some quixotic reason PRR management decided to proceed with the full 1948 debugging and improvement program (which I firmly believe would have eliminated most of the substantive difficulties with using the T1s for reasonably high mileage in general service suited to their characteristics).
How about an entirely different perspective and one that cannot be dismissed in any way. So here goes.
After WWII the government had legitimate fears of a recession, as what happened after WWI. Everyone around at the time still remembered the Great Depression like it was yesterday. It was a frightening prospect to face going right back into it. Terrifying actually when you consider all of that war industry grinding to a halt, sending millions out of work and simultaneously millions of people coming home. As mentioned this did happen after WWI and it was ugly. Riots, uprising, unrest, massive unemployment, people died.
So at the highest levels, behind closed doors, it was decided to sell consumerism. Incredible consumerism on an unprecedented scale. After 2 decades of serious deprivation it was time to rekindle the fires with futuristic dreams.
All the technical know how we can come up with today for the T1's or the S1, or the Niagaras's, and all the armchair retrospective what ifs and deep insights are meaningless because society was irreversibly directed into a push button future. This did not happen in Europe or Japan, they were starving and picking up the rubble. The peace had yet to be won. It was way off yet in the future.
Steam, any steam, regardless, did not fit into any of it. The T1's horrible misfortune and rapid fall from grace was in its timing. 1945 to mid '46 was the only time period that a massive order of 50 of them would or could have been acceptable, as the full force a of new found direction and enthusiasm, now sanctioned and official policy, was just on the horizon, the next day if you will. Regardless of how functional or reliable they could be made, or how promising a future their 6 months of glory was and regardless of the dollars spent they absolutely had to go.
Also I think people were traumatized by the war, wether they served or not. I believe just about the whole of society was going through a PTSD type of mental condition at some level. This was recognized by learned folks, maybe not as PTSD, but a general discomfort and disorder. People were not thinking quite straight. The fix was to set society on a new path to an entirely new society, where the marvels of massive industrial production and capitalism, through sanctioned blatant consumerism could save the day. GM was one of the major leaders in this role, but really it was everyone, from Admiral TV's to Maidenform bras to Levittowns.
I can understand the demise of steam, essentially a loss of a whole technology and their builders in North America, and of course we are nostalgic for what we recall.
The rapid fall of the passenger train was part of this policy, a part that I believe was not necessary at all and a serious 'one bridge too far' mistake but was caught up in the maelstrom of the times.
Overmod Geometrically I think this wouldn't give the right 'thing', but having just confused a bunch of people with side-rod geometry over on RyPN I would revert to first principles. First, the 'basis' of limited cutoff relates directly to the location of the ports in the bushings, which is determined when the cylinders and bushings are cast and machined............the TE is going to be whatever the steam getting to the cylinders at that moment, on that particular day, produces at the wheelrims for torque. All these other figures are only approximations and possibly poor ones at that. The number that matters is the actual drawbar pull, and you can plot that as PRR did against speed to derive a performance curve that can provide DBHP (likewise the number that matters for horsepower).
Geometrically I think this wouldn't give the right 'thing', but having just confused a bunch of people with side-rod geometry over on RyPN I would revert to first principles. First, the 'basis' of limited cutoff relates directly to the location of the ports in the bushings, which is determined when the cylinders and bushings are cast and machined............the TE is going to be whatever the steam getting to the cylinders at that moment, on that particular day, produces at the wheelrims for torque. All these other figures are only approximations and possibly poor ones at that. The number that matters is the actual drawbar pull, and you can plot that as PRR did against speed to derive a performance curve that can provide DBHP (likewise the number that matters for horsepower).
Speaking of DBHP, it brings up another question about S1; the one and the only one 6-4-4-6 ever built in human history. The only source of S1’s DBHP is from Steamlocomotive.com, which is 7200hp (when hauling 1200 tons consist at 100mph), I can’t find another source of it. Maybe it is in the books which our forum members recommended in previous post but I haven’t bought or able to obtain all of them yet.
As we know the higher the speed of a train consist, the lesser power the engine need to tow that consist, thus at higher speed, steam locomotive use lower cutoff. The prototype of T1 #6110 “tested on the Stationary Test Plant in Altoona, developed 6,550 hp (4,880 kW) in the cylinders at 85 mph (137 km/h)” (quote from wiki), IIRC much powerful steam locomotive developed it maximum DBHP at much lower speed, take UP “Big Boy” 4-8-8-4 as an example; its firebox, boiler and total heating area were slightly bigger than S1, but It only developed 6,345 DBHP at 41.5mph.
Moreover, the test plant in Altoona was expanded for the new T1 prototype, which implies that S1 might never be tested on the test plant in Altoona, maybe there was another method to obtain the data of DBHP? All these things make the figures of S1’s 7200 DBHP sound suspicious to me. One year after S1 was put into service, The attack of Pearl Harbor happened, the whole nation needs some encouraging thing to improve morale, I wonder if this is one of the reasons why the 7200 DBHP figure was used?
Overmod.....I think, inherently, the way the S1 put so much of its overall weight on the lead and trailing trucks, without any kind of adjustable equalizing or unloading mechanism to put more weight on drivers for, say, starting, had already crippled its ability to run at any practical FA. Just curious, I understand the differences of trucks design between T1 and S1, was it possible to use softer suspension springs at both 6-wheel leading and trailing truck? Those trucks on S1 had independence suspension consist of coil and leaf springs, PRR could adjust them one by one independently according to their needs. By the way, if more weight was put on the drivers, would it excess the axle load regulation? Thank you very much! Overmod……Just as it would become agonizingly clear in no more than a couple more years that there was a very poor future for high-speed passenger service itself. And meanwhile, there was that huge investment in T1s, weighing down the books just at the time PRR needed 'better' power but impossible to peddle elsewhere... Meanwhile, the Q2s. Very successful design ... for what they were, engines that could move critical wartime freight in 150-car trains about as fast as anyone would care to take them…… I once thought that building some HSR which linked most of the tier one cities in North East in the 40s was the only way to compete with Airline or Greyhound. PRR or even NYCRR had the best tool like T1 and Nigeria but the coverage of their racetrack was not large enough. But if even Milwaukee Road Hiawatha also had the same decline, I think it was not only about speed but a trend which was irreversible. I don’t know why PRR has given up to raise the speed of their freight services after WWII. from Q1 to Q2, they were designed to express freight service, work best at speed. if PRR thought it was dangerous or impractical, why they designed and built them in the first place? 26 Q2 plus the total number of F7 needed to replace them involved tons of money, I love PRR’s trains, but I despise their leadership and management in the late 40s. Overmod Which is why I suspect, and argue, that The Duplexes Had To Die. And why there was, and in some respects still is, something of a conspiracy to make the locomotives and in fact the whole concept out to be a slippery total failure, a design disaster fully justifying early writeoff of a great deal of that $65 million so that the available credit could be released for things more useful in 1950s railroading. I heard from the previous post by our forum members that you have some evidence of PRR officials who wanted to make T1 a hopeless engine, do you mind telling us a little bit more detail about it? To be honest, I won’t be surprised if it was the truth! Just like many flagship corporations, they are always surrounded by leeches; their business partners, their own employees, government officials, bankers etc., milking the host and keep it alive at the same time so that they can milk it even more and longer.
Overmod.....I think, inherently, the way the S1 put so much of its overall weight on the lead and trailing trucks, without any kind of adjustable equalizing or unloading mechanism to put more weight on drivers for, say, starting, had already crippled its ability to run at any practical FA.
Just curious, I understand the differences of trucks design between T1 and S1, was it possible to use softer suspension springs at both 6-wheel leading and trailing truck? Those trucks on S1 had independence suspension consist of coil and leaf springs, PRR could adjust them one by one independently according to their needs. By the way, if more weight was put on the drivers, would it excess the axle load regulation? Thank you very much!
Overmod……Just as it would become agonizingly clear in no more than a couple more years that there was a very poor future for high-speed passenger service itself. And meanwhile, there was that huge investment in T1s, weighing down the books just at the time PRR needed 'better' power but impossible to peddle elsewhere... Meanwhile, the Q2s. Very successful design ... for what they were, engines that could move critical wartime freight in 150-car trains about as fast as anyone would care to take them…… I once thought that building some HSR which linked most of the tier one cities in North East in the 40s was the only way to compete with Airline or Greyhound. PRR or even NYCRR had the best tool like T1 and Nigeria but the coverage of their racetrack was not large enough. But if even Milwaukee Road Hiawatha also had the same decline, I think it was not only about speed but a trend which was irreversible. I don’t know why PRR has given up to raise the speed of their freight services after WWII. from Q1 to Q2, they were designed to express freight service, work best at speed. if PRR thought it was dangerous or impractical, why they designed and built them in the first place? 26 Q2 plus the total number of F7 needed to replace them involved tons of money, I love PRR’s trains, but I despise their leadership and management in the late 40s. Overmod Which is why I suspect, and argue, that The Duplexes Had To Die. And why there was, and in some respects still is, something of a conspiracy to make the locomotives and in fact the whole concept out to be a slippery total failure, a design disaster fully justifying early writeoff of a great deal of that $65 million so that the available credit could be released for things more useful in 1950s railroading. I heard from the previous post by our forum members that you have some evidence of PRR officials who wanted to make T1 a hopeless engine, do you mind telling us a little bit more detail about it? To be honest, I won’t be surprised if it was the truth! Just like many flagship corporations, they are always surrounded by leeches; their business partners, their own employees, government officials, bankers etc., milking the host and keep it alive at the same time so that they can milk it even more and longer.
Overmod……Just as it would become agonizingly clear in no more than a couple more years that there was a very poor future for high-speed passenger service itself. And meanwhile, there was that huge investment in T1s, weighing down the books just at the time PRR needed 'better' power but impossible to peddle elsewhere... Meanwhile, the Q2s. Very successful design ... for what they were, engines that could move critical wartime freight in 150-car trains about as fast as anyone would care to take them……
Overmod Which is why I suspect, and argue, that The Duplexes Had To Die. And why there was, and in some respects still is, something of a conspiracy to make the locomotives and in fact the whole concept out to be a slippery total failure, a design disaster fully justifying early writeoff of a great deal of that $65 million so that the available credit could be released for things more useful in 1950s railroading.
MiningmanAlso I think people were traumatized by the war, wether they served or not. I believe just about the whole of society was going through a PTSD type of mental condition at some level. This was recognized by learned folks, maybe not as PTSD, but a general discomfort and disorder. People were not thinking quite straight. The fix was to set society on a new path to an entirely new society, where the marvels of massive industrial production and capitalism, through sanctioned blatant consumerism could save the day. GM was one of the major leaders in this role, but really it was everyone, from Admiral TV's to Maidenform bras to Levittowns.
Interesting perspective, Miningman. People were not only traumatized by the World War II itself, many things happened just after the war prolonged the anxiety of the whole society including officials in the government. Remember” Roswell UFO incident 1947”, “1952 Washington, D.C. UFO incident”, the establishment of NASA in 1958 etc. I don’t want to go too far since it will lead the discussion to something unrelated to the topic of the post or some forum member would call me out for trying to write a Science fiction here. I believe all these things happened after the war leaded the US government in late 40s adjusted their Policy priority on aerospace development and public transportation as well. In short, PRR S1 #6100 looks like a rocket but it didn’t and never can take us to that creepy “natural satellite” in the space, The abandonment of Steam power development was inevitable, it is just a part of the plan of “ the highest levels, behind closed doors”......
MiningmanThe fix was to set society on a new path to an entirely new society, where the marvels of massive industrial production and capitalism, through sanctioned blatant consumerism could save the day. GM was one of the major leaders in this role, but really it was everyone, from Admiral TV's to Maidenform bras to Levittowns.
I think this was perceived, and 'spun,' very differently back in the day, and with much different intent.
I doubt if many workers from the Depression era would be complaining about job availability based on an evolving 'consumer products' market. This did, however, factor into the single biggest thing supporting Dieselization -- willingness to work hard hours in a dirty environment with only gradual advancement at tiny pay (and under lousy conditions) was not just dying out as a profession, it was disappearing completely. This affecting not only the maintenance of the locomotives, but obtaining reliable fuel for them.
Meanwhile, the whole expansion of suburban development into relatively low-income tracts (as opposed to the Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House in Connecticut model) and everything that implied in terms of roads, cars, and general unsuitability of light mass transit and unfinancial sense of heavy rail run only a few hours a day was perceived as opportunity and progress, and compared to a decade ago it most surely was. The history of steam power in the late '40s needs to be overlaid with the history of All Those Streamlined Trains railroads sanguinely constructed, at huge expense, that almost never succeeded to the extent prewar experience indicated.
It could be argued that the Insolent Chariots model of "wealth creation" through accelerated depreciation and planned product obsolescence coupled with the social engineering of 'buying a new car every year' and climbing the social ladder from Chevrolet to Cadillac created far more than any mass-transit-intensive alternative possibly could have -- even with government support of what the large electric-generation companies would have had to take up. What is not quite as clear is the tendency for cars to become sensible competition for those streamlined trains, which involves quite a bit of infrastructure as well as vehicle engineering; if you look at the experience of the New Haven with the Connecticut Turnpike as an edged example, you realize that the Interstate system was not the major impetus away from luxury trains that a simple analysis might indicate.
A bit of an illustration: in early 1969, my father dropped me off at Penn Station to ride one of the early Metroliners. This put him on local streets with what was at the time no real direct connection to highways leading to the New Jersey Turnpike; the train departed NYP not very much later than that and ran above 100mph much of the way. You can imagine my dismay when he met the train on the platform at Union Station, having driven out to Silver Spring and picked up some people on the way. (And then there was the famous billboard, location carefully chosen in the depths of rust-belt industrial Philadelphia, the only brightly-lit colorful item for miles, cheerfully reminding 'You'd be there by now on the Air Shuttle'...)
The real defense, perhaps the only one outside well-defined lanes in well-defined corridors with wretched highways, was the idea of the Auto Train and services like it, like the stillborn CP idea to bridge tractors together with road trains. I still admire a company doing this with private money, in the '70s, and there is another cautionary tale, too, in what happened to them. But I think there was little organized effort to kill them off, just -- as in the fall of steam in the late '40s and early '50s, too many advantages synergistically applicable to competing ideas for the plan as a whole to succeed robustly or long-term.
Jones1945As we know the higher the speed of a train consist, the lesser power the engine need to tow that consist, thus at higher speed, steam locomotive use lower cutoff.
No, that ain't so; in fact the power needed may go up dramatically at higher and higher incremental speed ranges, certainly at the point where streamlining becomes functional rather than a marketing device. The point of shortening cutoff at higher speed is not related to 'decreasing horsepower' -- you have, I think, forgotten that cyclic rpm as a component of horsepower means that you are inducing greater horsepower at speed even though the torque per stroke is declining and perhaps becoming peakier with speed, and (as you could have mentioned) the effect of things like compression and back-pressure are increasingly 'impacting' the power from any given complete stroke.
Part of the actual effect you're discussing is that a good modern steam locomotive (and the S1 as an almost cartoon exaggeration provided some of the greatest exaggeration of all in this respect) carries a large vanity cushion of available cylinder horsepower in the overcritical water in its boiler, and can produce relatively more power per cubic inch of cylinder displacement than any engine which has to combust fuel completely inside its cylinders under the same conditions. At the same time, a typical diesel-electric is suffering from the range of problems relating to its transmission -- most important, the effects of back EMF in DC traction motors, part of the reason any discussion of high-speed transition does not end with 'parallel' but then involves field 'shunt'. (And the associated vastly exaggerated armature currents that become necessary, and comments about 'streetcar motors' on Raton Pass, and so forth...) So the horsepower output of a diesel electric, where the engine is constant output at a given governor setting, can be described by a rectangular hyperbola but never exceed that bound, whereas a big steam locomotive can produce dramatically higher short-term output and, if designed for it, have the ability to use 'reserve' both to achieve faster acceleration and to run a train to higher speed.
Interestingly enough, with most of the designs I'm familiar with, including the Duke of Gloucester, the shortness of cutoff matters much less in reaching high speed. Mallard is highly representative, with about 40% cutoff producing the record speed; I believe the calculations for the T1 so far indicate slightly greater efficiency through the poppet valves and streamlined steam tracting, but the equivalent is still around 36%. One of the keys for high-speed running is to plan the events around the mass flow involved with that cutoff at the rotational speed corresponding to the 'top speed' you want to sustain.
Diesels, on the other hand, need more and more against the rising train resistance (you can get this to a reasonable first approximation from the Davis formula, if you don't have a dynamometer or strain gage to measure DB resistance directly). There are figures in Brashear's book on Santa Fe power that indicate the actual drawbar pull of early ATSF diesels had fallen below 9000lb by 110mph or so (and declining more than monotonically by that point!) and this, more than just a numerical horsepower number, gives you an idea about just how such power will both accelerate and sustain a train of given characteristics.
To my knowledge, there are no objective tests sustaining a "7200dbhp" figure, and I suspect you would encounter impractical amounts of high-speed slip long before the locomotive would deliver that power through 'two sets of four' in real-world conditions. (You can run the Davis formula for a train operated at the 'design conditions', 1000 trailing tons at 100mph with whatever adjustment for track, streamlining, etc, you care to make to get a kind of Bekenstein bound on what the required horsepower at 100mph would have to be; that's a useful exercise 'for the reader'...)
The prototype of T1 #6110 “tested on the Stationary Test Plant in Altoona, developed 6,550 hp (4,880 kW) in the cylinders at 85 mph (137 km/h)” (quote from wiki)
You're better off, probably far better off, to actually review the records of the rather extensive testing to see what horsepower was recorded under what conditions. Joe Burgard had an extensive analysis and discussion of this on the T1 Trust internal forum and I believe he has posted some of those results in threads here (probably several years ago by now); I believe at least some of the test records are available on the Web (or from libraries and collections in Pennsylvania). There is little doubt in my mind that 6400hp for a good T1, and perhaps for a C1a at its 'best' speed range, is achievable, provided you can accommodate the water rate, and water-treatment conditions, that correspond to that power.
Note that the Q2 was tested on the stationary plant, and given a figure in testing of just shy of 8000hp, although I don't know offhand if the S1 was tested at the time that figure was determined. One note about the Q2 is that it was very sensitive to what I believe to be phase effect on the plant; there was so severe a difference between phase and antiphase torque that the locomotive actually surged on the rollers to the point of alarming the test crew. (It is possible that a similar effect would have been observed on the S1 at its 'peak' output, but probably acting to limit achievable wheelrim torque as the adhesion between driver tyre and roller will be less than that between tyre and railhead.)
IIRC many powerful steam locomotives developed [their] maximum DBHP at much lower speed, take UP “Big Boy” 4-8-8-4 as an example; its firebox, boiler and total heating area were slightly bigger than S1, but It only developed 6,345 DBHP at 41.5mph.
Not a fair example, as the locomotives had large nominal GA and firebox/chamber volume to accommodate subbituminous firing -- much of which actually mimicked the characteristics of brown-coal dust firing as far as primary vs. secondary-air contribution and caloric value per ton of fuel were concerned. Some of these characteristics should have been much better determined and calculated in the discussions of this class, as there is much more prompt heat release but limited actual heat content per ton (see the papers on the Victorian Railways experimentation with StuG pulverized firing for some relevant details plainly stated).
All these things make the figures of S1’s 7200 DBHP sound suspicious to me.
It doesn't really matter. The take-home message, looking at the design as a whole, was that nothing like 7200dbhp could actually be reliably derived from the locomotive in service, and it would be unsurprising if, loading the locomotive as though that were an expectation, failures in service were frequently observed.
There were several spirited discussions involving the 'follow-on' design for the "T2" (code-named '5551') and one of these specifically involved using the S1's equal-length main rods in conjunction with Deem-style conjugation and cheek-plate traction control to eliminate the long frail piston rod on the forward engine. It is interesting to consider exactly how a well-considered 4-4-4-4 can be made better than any 4-8-4 for sustained high speed; there is little doubt that for a given lightweight-rod technology the speed as well as relative durability against lateral failure is much better for the former, as is much of the cross-balance issues producing lateral 'hammer blow.' Keep in mind that the surge component of reciprocating overbalance is solved by the Langer device (Westinghouse patent, 1947) which is driven by the same gearing that would be used to drive RC valve gear without the balance issues of external return cranks.
Overmod .....I think, inherently, the way the S1 put so much of its overall weight on the lead and trailing trucks, without any kind of adjustable equalizing or unloading mechanism to put more weight on drivers for, say, starting, had already crippled its ability to run at any practical FA.
There may be some documentation on this, but I've always just assumed that the designers figured out what tolerable axle load they could put on the four driver pairs, then just jiggered the equalizing and springing to produce that effect on the scale. As with Glaze balancing on the J class, you want to divorce as much of the guiding force from the drivers as possible and produce relatively stiff lateral compliance (the exception being the lateral-motion device on the lead driver pair of the forward engine, which still does some of the 'steering' of the chassis, but much less than on a regular 4-8-4, that being accomplished by much stronger progressive lateral spring force on the lead-truck pivot arrangement and load imposed on the equalizing and roll-loading arrangements to give lateral restoring force. Under such conditions on a locomotive as long and heavy as the S1 you then arrange the drivers to be 'bouncing' as little as possible at nominal FA for whatever degree of augment your overbalance provides; we know from Kiefer that if the 'critical speed' on stiff track is over 161mph, it will almost certainly be higher for higher drivers and lighter rods and valve drive, and anything short of actual bouncing off the railhead won't produce extreme hammering of the track (it's SHM up to that point) ... the question that 'should have been asked' at that point being what the antiphase lifting of the driver pairs at that point would be doing to practical adhesion at the limit...
Just curious, I understand the differences of trucks design between T1 and S1, was it possible to use softer suspension springs at both 6-wheel leading and trailing truck?
Be very sure you appreciate the design of those trucks on the T1, both in the implementation of the lead truck (which was carried over almost unchanged into the C1a design) and the placement and configuration of that somewhat-ridiculous-looking trailing truck with the axles seemingly too close together and not very well centered under the rear of the locomotive.
Those trucks on S1 had independent suspension consisting of coil and leaf springs, PRR could adjust them one by one independently according to their needs.
This is one of those timeless topics on the Yahoo group 'steam_tech' with proponents of full equalization duking it out with the (largely British) contingent who think proper permanent way makes any kind of lever equalization nugatory at best. I am resolutely in the former category, and would expect any high-speed truck to feature equalization "inside" somewhere, even if the individual axleboxes have separate visible springs fore and aft; the situation is somewhat different from modern diesel trucks like the GE 'rollerblades' that have floating axleboxes located and laterally controlled by spring distortion, and it might be interesting to see whether the Fabreeka approach (composite shear spring) as seen in practical Centipede tenders (and in some interesting testing on N&W trucks) would represent a better approach.
On the other hand, the six-wheel trucks were unnecessary as early as 1947 in the Westinghouse follow-ups to the direct-drive mechanical turbine (the locomotive being drawn in one catalog explicitly as a 4-8-4) and they made any locomotive relatively longer than it 'had to be' (which became increasingly relevant as tenders capable of accommodating the necessary treated water for modern boiler system life even for 130-mile-long divisions ballooned in size). It may be demonstrated that no practical circulation construction for fireboxes/chambers much larger than the T1's GA (92') could be made to run over a two-axle truck with proper steering and guiding geometry ... but the C1a certainly expected to run at over 6000hp, and the tender for it was calculated (at 64t) to produce Harmon-to-Chicago runs without refueling, something that would likely be good for at least 15min schedule reductions on Water Level Route trains (it would have been interesting, in an extremely good way, to see what C1as would have done on the CASO). But of course this is with the obligate use of frequent track pans, and the effects on proper water-treatment dosing that go with that (particularly including oxygenation of the feedwater in the tender cistern)
Keep in mind that the C1a was explicitly meant to have almost an identical "Niagara" boiler (with the added length to line up on the slightly longer chassis) but its number sequence indicated Kiefer fully expected 6400hp from the duplex vs. 6000 from the comparable 4-8-4. This may be analogous to the expectation of over 8000hp from the V1 turbine with a nearly-identical Q2 style boiler.
By the way, if more weight was put on the drivers, would it excess the axle load regulation?
Not unless you are Lima and fudging numbers, perhaps for management's advantage, on the only railroad built to tolerate truly extravagant axle loading at the time. (It remains to be considered how strong the VGN trackage was for their versions). On PRR the civil division probably always had enough 'clout' to keep the motive-power department strictly honest on its axle loads, both static and dynamic, in the years such an issue would be of concern.
And meanwhile, there was that huge investment in T1s, weighing down the books just at the time PRR needed 'better' power but impossible to peddle elsewhere...
Something to quietly remember is that even after all the design issues were solved in theory (by 1948) PRR couldn't find anyone who would buy them ... at what the equipment trust would allow them to be sold for.
It might be interesting to see if there is any surviving correspondence about PRR offering to 'subsidize' some of the necessary purchases. I can see some of that being tried, and the 'hatchet job' starting only when that approach had failed...
I once thought that building some HSR which linked most of the tier one cities in North East in 40s was the only way to compete with Airline or Greyhound.
It was actually much simpler than that, and I think NYC and PRR were both well aware of where to put the marginal improvements needed to make the ride better for the sleepers and the trip time a couple of hours quicker. Remember that then, as really now, the practical 'trip time' has to be no faster than what elapses between a couple of reasonable hours after the close of business in one city to reasonably-assurable early-morning arrival before business in the other -- this being probably no better than 12 to 13 hours elapsed time, even with unfavorable time change going eastward. There is no need for huge investments in New York and Chicago Air Line-style grade- and curve-limited construction or true HSR speeds that are fully sleeper-compatible for any of this traffic, or more southern destinations like St. Louis.
What it does presume, of course, is (1) that the Middle Division is fully electrified, as per the 1943 engine plan, and (2) that the tunnel under Horse Shoe, and the associated line straightening, is carried through. That turned out to be something PRR found 'more expensive' for value received than dieselizing, and while we can argue with it for romantic reasons it is depressingly hard to fully justify it at the time.
PRR or NYCRR had the best tool like T1 and Niagara but the coverage of their racetrack were not large enough.
With the problem being that much of the work 'necessary' to provide more route-miles of full high speed being just that much better when (1) electrified themselves, or (2) run with higher-speed diesels at lower effective long-term cost. Remember that NYC was, in 1947 at least, seriously considering long-range electrification of at least part of the route, but was perfectly satisfied just a few years later, with EMD Dieseliners and implementation of CTC. It might be quickly said that the whole case for electrification disappeared with the Great Steel Fleet.
There was little point in fixing the issue in the Pittsburgh station plant that kept the S1 from running further east. There would be little point in running that locomotive over Horse Shoe in the first place; a complete abuse of most of the 'optimizations' of its architecture. Interestingly, "railfans" conflated the hard restriction for the S1 with the temporary restriction (I think fixed not later than 1947) for the T1s, and to this day you will find people who confidently state the T1 couldn't operate routinely east of the entrance to Pittsburgh station without intolerable derailing/slipping/insert ignorant canard of choice.
But if even Milwaukee Road Hiawatha also had the same decline, I think it was not only about speed but a trend which was irreversible.
I am going to step out on a bit of a plank here, as I am almost as paranoid about F7s on Milwaukee as T1s, but in the opposite direction.
Remember that one of the great quandaries of steam design is the utter disconnect between the lie-down-and-beg dog performance of the C&NW E-4s on actual AAR testing (couldn't get even to 100mph with the test trains) and the almost identical F7s, which supposedly reached the speeds attributed to the A-class Atlantics (120mph or better) with ease. The Christian-Scientist-with-appendicitis issue is that when you look around you never see the F7s running faster than the low 100s in service, but you do see some fairly spectacular evidence of running-gear failure that for the longest time was covered up in the fan-press coverage of the locomotives. And you see the F7s being taken out of service very early in the game and scrapped suspiciously fast with little attempt to preserve one, even though the replacement dieselization was haphazard at best, as bad or even worse than what happened on PRR.
Now, let me hasten to say that I sure hope I am dramatically wrong. And that we can find someone (or the necessary group of someones) to set up a Hiawatha Trust and build replica A and F7 locomotives that can substantiate how dramatically wrong I am. But I think this is of a piece with the ATSF 3460 class, which had little trouble reaching 100mph but needed a falling grade with a tailwind to get much above 104mph. There are much better overall solutions for 110+mph speed, which the A class was clearly capable of and so were any of the ATSF 4-8-4s from 3765 onward. Be interesting to see what a Niagara-size 4-8-4 built to MILW standards would have been able to do...
I don’t know why PRR given up to raise the speed of their freight services after WWII. from Q1 to Q2, they were designed for express freight service, work best at speed.
Remember that the Q1 was intended, at an earlier era of understanding, to be a practical capacity increment over the M1 just as the C&O 2-10-4s were an increment over a Berk. As things turned out ... but, really, after 1945 ... the much better solution was lightweight rods and good valve gear and no duplexing overhead, if all you want is an M1-plus.
The Q2s were vastly more than that, and the 'smoking gun' as to what would become of them is really nowhere better seen than in the cancellation of the greenlighted-for-construction-during-WPB-times V1 prototype. The nominal advantage was supposedly the sustained running at high speed, but a practical water rate no better than typical division length just eliminated any real advantage either of the speed or of the high horsepower. On top of which were the much more finicky care and feeding of a high-alloy boiler pressed to higher-than-what-turned-out-to-be-practical pressure, and all the happy throng of maintenance and service problems, including the cockamamie antislip system as built. One trembles, just as for Centipedes, to contemplate brakeshoe changes on a V1, probably a less-than-uncommon maintenance task if the engines were used anywhere near the speed or service they would be optimized for.
If PRR thought it was dangerous or impractical, why they designed and built them in the first place?
This is not fair to PRR. When the T1 production was under consideration, the 'alternative' diesel was something like an E6, and there are perfectly good reasons why PRR didn't buy those instead of planning for T1s ... I believe the over $400K that would have been involved at the time, in gold dollars, to give equivalent horsepower at speed being one of the more compelling arguments. Likewise, when the Q2s were developed and built, it was wartime (in the years when it was still very much thought it would take a million-man invasion with, perhaps, a million or more American casualties to take out the vicious Japanese) and, not only couldn't PRR get road diesels in needed quantities, in fact not at all, thanks to the WPB, they were still looking to a future that was not based on peacetime economization.
A somewhat better irony is that, if modern steam on PRR had remained in management favor (and not stored 'unserviceable' to where the boilers were ruined in less than a year) there might have been some openings for Q2s on TrucTrain service, where they would arguably be better-suited even than the Nickel Plate Berks were in their peculiarly steam-friendly service. I think the outcome by then would not have been different (the issues with continuous blowdown under effective water treatment and with the snowballing nonavailability of all those proprietary little auxiliaries that were essential to the economics of big modern steam power being enough, even absent considerations of support and training, to wipe out any advantage of Q2s or even J1as for anything long-term or essential). It might be remembered, though, that by the time TrucTrain service came to be an important potential service there were plenty of modern E units being freed up, and even then PRR didn't spend the money to put effective backward transition on them in freight service (at least as far as I know).
I heard from pervious post by our forum members that you have some evidences of PRR officials who wanted to make T1 a hopeless engine, do you mind telling us a little bit more detail about it? To be honest, I won’t be surprise if it was the truth!
I need to be careful, like any paranoid, to point out that I do not have any hard evidence that the conspiracy to kill off the equipment-trust expense was real. There may be documents that substantiate things better somewhere at the Hagley, or in Lewistown. All I do know is that there was a hell of a lot of storytelling going on about how bad the duplexes were, all in the direction of showing how utterly mistaken the whole idea was, much of it being from people who really, really ought to have known better or at least do better homework or fact checking. To this day I keep having to correct people, in boring MEGO detail, almost chapter and verse about how to 'do' duplexes correctly, and what are the likely 'real' problems vs. the lies and wives' tales. Who knows to what actual success?
Just like many flagship corporations, they are always surround by leeches; their business partners, their own employees, government officials, bankers etc., milking the host and keep it alive at the same time, so that they can milk it even more and longer.
Again, you need to remember the situation here is exactly the opposite. PRR was on the hook to important New York bankers for a colossal sum of money, and it takes a heap of carefully-planned convincing to make those sharp-eyed characters write off an amount of that magnitude. In particular, you will be unlikely to achieve this result if you have engineers affirming how simple some of the fixes will be (centrifugally-cast valve spools being one particularly memorable one) or you have anyone even remotely highly placed in the evolving motive-power structure who spills the beans or blows a whistle trying to polish the sow's ear as much as possible when the whole world was going to silk purses, as it were.
In perspective, it is almost impossible that either Q2s or T1s would survive in any service meaningful to them even as late as NYC was operating Niagaras. That means no later than 1956, TrucTrains or no. Those additional couple of years don't change much, if anything, about nostalgia or 'alternative-history' claims for longer working lives for those two classes of locomotive.
From Balt:
The good smells from the kitchen as you walked the narrow passageway past the kitchen. The B&O's 'Great Big Salad Bowl' to serve your own salad portion. The complimentary demitasse coffee. The after meal finger bowls. The Deer Park water decanters on the tables (B&O owned Deer Park spring and sold it after Amtrak). Customers writing out their orders - waiters were not permitted to take verbal orders. The Steward locking and unlocking the 'bar' of miniture whiskey bottles as the train entered and left West Virginia (dry at the time). The B&O Blue china. Many of the dishes prepared in the diner were old family recepies.
From gmpullman:
BandO_4-24-66_service by Edmund, on Flickr
From me:
...This is all gone because why? Yeah yeah Ive heard it all before, it's empty meaningless tautology and self fulfilling stupid stuff.
If, If this was a thing today it would require multiple sections.
The joys of airports and the easy going crusin' on the highways. A bag of potato chips and fast food crap.
We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.
Thats quite a detailed and informative response Overmod.
The above and following goes to your response in the letter preceding your last one.
We had it and we had it all and a lot of it was new and state of the art. In the East there were many places, the important ones, where the trackage was 4 mains, 2 dedicated for passenger, one EB and one WB. Quite a lot of other trackage was 2 mains. It is only now that double tracking is becoming a thing again.
The passenger service and its trackage should not have been lost in the first place. There were several effective ways to prevent this loss and preserve passenger service to a very high standard. (That could be discussed later.) Getting there faster means nothing.
Trains knew this when they had their "Who Shot the Passenger Train" issue.
This would have simply been a part of accepted society today.
Flying out of airports and driving on highways are approaching unacceptable levels. It is terrifying. There is a future yet for passenger trains perhaps out of sheer necessity but the cost of replacing all that track and 200 million opinions will be astronomical.
C1a's on the CASO eh? Good place for them. The T1's and Q2's as well, if they could be had for a good bargain. A dedicated fleet like that, an island unto itself, based out of St. Thomas. With its steam infrastructure very intact, some of it even new, (track pans and such), could have lasted easily into 1960 and even well beyond that. Keep it Windsor-Ft. Erie/Niagara, Canadian side only, with Diesels awaiting on each end to go stateside. That would have been quite the show.
Overmod......in fact the power needed may go up dramatically at higher and higher incremental speed ranges, certainly at the point where streamlining becomes functional rather than a marketing device. The point of shortening cutoff at higher speed is not related to 'decreasing horsepower' ......
Overmod To my knowledge, there are no objective tests sustaining a "7200dbhp" figure, and I suspect you would encounter impractical amounts of high-speed slip long before the locomotive would deliver that power through 'two sets of four' in real-world conditions. (You can run the Davis formula for a train operated at the 'design conditions', 1000 trailing tons at 100mph with whatever adjustment for track, streamlining, etc, you care to make to get a kind of Bekenstein bound on what the required horsepower at 100mph would have to be; that's a useful exercise 'for the reader'...)
Overmod Note that the Q2 was tested on the stationary plant, and given a figure in testing of just shy of 8000hp, although I don't know offhand if the S1 was tested at the time that figure was determined.
Overmod There were several spirited discussions involving the 'follow-on' design for the "T2" (code-named '5551') and one of these specifically involved using the S1's equal-length main rods in conjunction with Deem-style conjugation and cheek-plate traction control to eliminate the long frail piston rod on the forward engine.
Overmod Not unless you are Lima and fudging numbers, perhaps for management's advantage, on the only railroad built to tolerate truly extravagant axle loading at the time. (It remains to be considered how strong the VGN trackage was for their versions). On PRR the civil division probably always had enough 'clout' to keep the motive-power department strictly honest on its axle loads, both static and dynamic, in the years such an issue would be of concern.
Overmod ……There is no need for huge investments in New York and Chicago Air Line-style grade- and curve-limited construction or true HSR speeds that are fully sleeper-compatible for any of this traffic, or more southern destinations like St. Louis…….
Overmod …..and to this day you will find people who confidently state the T1 couldn't operate routinely east of the entrance to Pittsburgh station without intolerable derailing/slipping/insert ignorant canard of choice.
Overmod ……you never see the F7s running faster than the low 100s in service, but you do see some fairly spectacular evidence of running-gear failure that for the longest time was covered up in the fan-press coverage of the locomotives. And you see the F7s being taken out of service very early in the game and scrapped suspiciously fast with little attempt to preserve one, even though the replacement dieselization was haphazard at best, as bad or even worse than what happened on PRR.
Overmod In perspective, it is almost impossible that either Q2s or T1s would survive in any service meaningful to them even as late as NYC was operating Niagaras. That means no later than 1956, TrucTrains or no. Those additional couple of years don't change much, if anything, about nostalgia or 'alternative-history' claims for longer working lives for those two classes of locomotive.
MiningmanWe had it and we had it all and a lot of it was new and state of the art.
And the fact that so much of it was gone in two decades, almost across the board, with only the exceptional hanging on, will tell you all that is really needed about the economics. It would be nice to have a 'flagship' level of service on a meaningful national network, or a reasonable American equivalent to the original ICE or Trans-Europ-Express services. But absent a motivated government with the political will and community organizing needed to perpetually throw down thousands of revenue dollars per passenger to provide services for the relatively few at a level inherently targeted to the relatively wealthy ... and that is NOT something American democracy has reasonably provided in most postwar years ... you really can't expect, say, any railroad in the Northeast to pay for that stuff itself.
[quote]In the East there were many places, the important ones, where the trackage was 4 mains, 2 dedicated for passenger, one EB and one WB. Quite a lot of other trackage was 2 mains. It is only now that double tracking is becoming a thing again. The passenger service and its trackage should not have been lost in the first place.[quote]
Of course, this begs something of a question: the safety of typical double-track mains with close spacing and deferred maintenance. Slowing down for all passing traffic is not an unreasonable action, but much of the supposed utility of the separated tracks goes away as it becomes progressively unsafer to traverse them with a closing speed well over a fifth the speed of sound.
And then we come to the BIG thing that was never really very well solved, the issue with local taxation of all that ROW needed for the multiple tracks and other plant. It's easy to snicker at New Haven selling all its stations and then leasing them back, but it takes down an otherwise high-and-trending-higher tendency for locals to skin the perceived octopus because they could. Worse yet, under the Fifteenth Amendment it becomes difficult to impossible for the Federal government to override local and State taxation with a commerce-clause excuse, although there are times when that might have been achievable (right after the Heart of Atlanta decision, for example).
You may also note that one very early thing NYC did was replace an obsolescent four-track main with CTC, reducing an enormous amount of various kinds of cost and liability in the process. Could the other two tracks have been removed if the passenger traffic had remained at classic Great Steel Fleet levels ... albeit operated a bit slower at some times and route segments? Or could CTC over three or four tracks in places provided still more effective fluidity? We won't know, because two-track CTC was perfectly adequate for what NYC ever needed by the time it was operational.
There were several effective ways to prevent this loss and preserve passenger service to a very high standard. (That could be discussed later.) Getting there faster means nothing.
They do need to be discussed, and 'getting there faster' certainly does mean a great deal ... when it is appropriate (as in many corridor services, even today). One of the enormous expenses on LD trains is the necessity of a great many operating trainsets, with all the personnel involved, in order to have even rudimentarily convenient services. "Sailing days" are cute, but let's consider how many big passenger ships are still actively used, let alone fully subsidized, for long-distance point-to-point travel. The only practical way to provide 'daily' service over LD routes is to provide reasonably advanced speed over as much of a prospective route as possible; the economics work much as they do for aircraft. The thought of a California Zephyr built at full price and run as it was, as a cruise train going 45mph all night to let the pax sleep in their costly beds, with all the associated issues in finding and qualifying attendants with the right attitude and aptitudes, reworking the commissary and dining-car kitchen systems, etc. etc. etc. for all the required trainsets on all the required routes, is vaguely terrifying, even if you sweeten the pot with automobile-ferry service (backed up with free or discounted rentals at both ends if the ferried cars aren't promptly available).
Now, I was hoping that the idea that B&O had with Speedliner trains and Reading had with its Wall Streeter service, the idea of fast motor trains with reasonably full amenities for daylight operations, would catch on for the higher level of service and amenities we're expecting here. That wasn't the premise of those ridiculous stripper lightweight fad trains, but note what happened, and why, when some of the idea was tried on the Las Vegas Aerotrain experiment.
It would have been interesting to see what SPV consists for comparable service level (perhaps with 125mph dash capability) might have provided. Heaven knows the bugs that killed that platform were easy enough to solve. Of course you'd have to solve the showstopping issue with the unions and gearing the outer axles... something that was sure not going to happen in the '70s, and perhaps wouldn't happen even now. And at any rate the world has moved on from there technologically, and almost anything even remotely workable has priced itself out of contention for anything but spendthrift and politically distorted regional or local government-backed entities ... I do not notice special concierge service being something in the Florida or Texas private development operations.
Overmod-- Oh my. I can see the Borg appliances all over you, a-la-Picard. Even the directed laser beam comes straight thru my screen.
I shall do my best to fight back against assimilation, resistance can be expected.
Lets assume the people at the top are learned folks, a bit more attuned to the future than your average bear. A special meeting is called perhaps even attended by the POTUS and the Railroad CEO's from across the land, to address the alarming trend in passenger train ridership. Since these are concerned leaders and have superb information lets set the date as 1950. Perhaps in the very room the famous Godfather scene was filmed, in Grand Central with the Empire State Express painting on the wall. That part dosent matter, just to add a touch of seriousness to the discussion. UP, Sante Fe, C&NW, Milw, NYC, Pennsy, B&O, GM&O, Monon, Soo Line et al, they are all there. Hundreds of millions have been spent on re-equipping new streamliners. Sleepers and diners are new and plentiful. Service standards are high. Their track is plentiful, dedicated and in tip top shape with knife edge ballast. Even on the Rock Island! War time profits have been correctly used for this. However the trend is undeniable, ridership is dropping off alarmingly, and it is in the nations interest to maintain a strong viable and leadership role in passenger services for the long term and into the future.
I see Truman as a man who will make hard decisions in the Nations interest. I see Ike as a President who has a skeptical eye on what he famously referred to later as the military industrial complex. The Nations interest in this is paramount to him as well, Madison Ave, GM, GoodYear, even the Railroads themselves be damned. He is sympathic and correctly so, as is Truman, to make sure this passenger service is kept alive and well and the investment not be lost. Lets say the rest of it unfolds just as it did. The highway systems, the airports, the St. Lawrence Seaway, all of that. However just before that happens the government takes over all passenger track, the equipment, the stations, the employees in passenger services. The Railroads supply the engineers, for now anyway, and are held to account that passenger trains receive top priority in track superiority where required. Local and State taxes are waived in the Nations interest and due to Federal Ownership, period, over and out. A giant burden is taken away from the railroads, no payment to the railroads involved, tax relief is guaranteed. Maintenance costs are greatly reduced. They must still pay for the upkeep of their own freight tracks, but anything to do with passenger is now cost free. There is a lot of quid pro quo in these negotiations and the details involved but there was a common sense and understanding of the spirit of things back then that perhaps does not exist today.
So yes a cost to the Government. No mandates to make a profit, but a well oiled, robust and modern passenger service is kept intact. A division is set up to advance technology and achieve great things for the future, call it a railroad version of NASA but much earlier. Paid for by the way of a special gasoline tax, which of course also pays for the passenger trains shortfalls. Fares are inexpensive, ditto sleepers and meals. This assures less highway intercity travel and long distance trips. Perhaps North America would have developed incredible and unforseen 'we can only imagine' trains which point the way to responsibility of family and environment, pride, a less frantic and insane society, smarter people and cooler heads.
Another could be a direct guaranttee of $$'s at say a 6% return on all passenger services, covering any and all shortfalls from stations to track work, again paid for thru a gasoline and airport tax. This will insure high levels of service and an incentive not to discontinue trains. It will keep many cars off the highways, but still fine for suburban going to work or the grocery store use but if you are going to visit Aunt Petunia in Moose Jaw, then its a no brainer, one takes the train and the train is available.
Essentially this is what happened but in the exact reverse!
If you showed that picture that Jones1945 put up in his last post, of E8 4312 all beat up with its sad consist, to the CEO's and the POTUS in 1950 they would be horrified and maybe think, and who could fault them, that the Communists took us over. But the guy from GM would be smiling, not only did they destroy the passenger train with a wink and nod from government they got to feed them the poison.
You know it reminds me of your current President who before his inauguration was discussing the costs of the new Air Force One and said "we want Boeing to make money, but not that much money".
MiningmanI can see the Borg appliances all over you, a-la-Picard.
But consider the advantages -- Seven of Nine with added senses, for example...
The problem is that history is very, very clear about what voters would stand to be taxed for, especially taxed on gasoline. The quid pro quo for the original Highway Trust Fund involved the hard condition that none of the money would be diverted to 'transit' or some mode other than road-building; I in fact would be screaming at the idea of using a gas tax to pay for transit somewhere else from where I live, or as a subsidy to some private railroad so it can make a guaranteed 6% on services I don't use. (Remember this is before the period where the right kind of claims for 'publicizing' whole commuter districts and services could be made, I believe New York State being the first in about 1966, with the utter and complete understanding the stuff would never, ever come remotely near paying for itself.)
I still vividly remember the analogy that was given to me early on in the Amtrak years -- this being back when Volkswagen made a cheap economy car. Running the published numbers indicated that every passenger who rode Amtrak could have been given a Volkswagen and gas to run it a reasonable number of miles a year, at full government expense, and the finances would have come out ahead. And that's platinum mist and far-from-exceptional service on a great many route-miles. Imagine what could have been involved for Turquoise Room level services... or even for attractive cruise trains where all the operational models for food service and entertainment work efficiently.
A division is set up to advance technology and achieve great things for the future, call it a railroad version of NASA but much earlier.
Johnson's High Speed Ground Transportation initiative was just this, and more, and indeed in that 'guns and butter' era plenty of money was thrown at the "modern" alternatives ... unfortunately, all too often the mid-Sixties versions of the lightweight trains of the Fifties, or that early competitor of mag-lev for the scientifiction aficionados, the hovertrain. Again, the idea of a Democratic Party-sponsored system of subsidy of things perceived as, or that could be 'spun' as, rich-folks luxury, with so many programs of the Great Society competing for available funds, is not something I'd wager confidently on.
Also bears noting that this was the era where the 'next step' after the 707 and similar 'jet set' transportation was going to be the practical supersonic transport, which really should have been built to XB-70 technology and not Concorde kludging. And where the world actually went instead was to the Freddy Laker model, where you go New York to the West Coast in about 6 hours for $135 and so fill every seat on colossal aircraft with enormous potential equipment utilization. (Take a look at the flown mileage of the Braniff 'Big Orange' 747 and tell me how anything ever designed or built for Amtrak could compete.)
(Ok lets try this again ...I lost the response, cannot recover it, somewhere in the Cloud..what a frustration.It was done too! Good grief)
Yeah, Seven of Nine would have made a great spokesperson for Amtrak in the '90's. Legions of men could be lead off a cliff.
As to my theoretical proposal, and the tax angle, I think Truman was the kind of President that would just tell everyone to "suck it up". There are other alternatives to a gasoline tax but I mention this as the most likely to temper down extended highway trips. Both freight and passenger would have benefitted and the Nation as a whole just from an environmental viewpoint or carnage and mayhem. Today it would seem genius, the absolute right thing and without anyone knowing perhaps saved well over a million lives. Ike and Kennedy would have gone along with this, even solidyfying it further and then it becomes a way of life, without question.
Fares would be kept low, as well as sleepers and dining. It is for the common man, not for the wealthy. The wealthy can drive and fly. Target customers would be business folk, travelling salesman, seniors and teens. It is a social benefit of sorts and viewed as an absolute necessity and a viable option. Lets say in due time long distance trains are cut back somewhat as alternatives arrive. Maybe long distance trains become the domain of luxury cruises, not part of this system. The real markets are the intercity East, the West Coast, Texas, Florida, Middle America radiating from Chicago, and isolated areas relying on rail.
Just think a 20-25 year advance on anything running in Japan and Europe today. This would be a source of incredible pride and neccesity.
https://youtu.be/71I7Gq-_BAw
Open the above and enjoy Jeri Ryan aka Seven of Nine
The Commies have taken over
The actual future that should have been starts with J.P. Morgan's railroad expert NOT dying unexpectedly in 1906, but instead leveraging much of the available power of the investment bank into PRR-like grade and capacity improvements on elements of a practical transcon -- this might involve a more successful version of the Reading Combine with a stronger Poughkeepsie Bridge, or a B&O not impoverished by the New York Extension. It is possible that the Hepburn Act wouldn't have gone through as it did had more knowledgeable people lobbied against it, not for cheap advantage but to assure good railroad profitability in depth.
This is just at the time Edison et al. made the enormous strides in practical use of structural concrete, and good-size earthmoving machinery began to appear in civil efforts. It's not difficult to imagine the grading of the Atglen and Susquehanna and the bridges/viaducts of the Lackawanna Cutoff more and more widespread across the parts of the Northeast that constituted the historical bottlenecks both to power and speed.
Now fast-forward to the Twenties, and the PRR plans for New Era reconstruction of substantial parts of some of its main lines for high speed. It is not difficult to figure out a world in which the Depression was caught relatively early as far as its effect on production and factor transportation were concerned, and in this world expansion of both electrified and unelectrified power would run hand in hand with the improvement 'curve' from 1928 on instead of being starved. That is the model for constructing true high-speed trackage from the early Thirties forward, with all the fun stuff done around the world with lightweight push-pull compatible trains finding all the use they deserved, and lightweight but much larger trains taking their place as needed.
Of course, what I've wanted to see ever since the days of 'the case for the double-track train' was the United States version of the German Breitspurbahn: actual grand-hotel style superior to almost anything possible in competition.
MiningmanThere are other alternatives to a gasoline tax but I mention this as the most likely to temper down extended highway trips.
Oh, there is a much, much better theoretical alternative, one which in fact looked very likely in its earliest years. That is the construction of all modern grade-separated highways compliant with ITS (like the one GM was developing intensively in the '40s) and therefore flexibly and appropriately tolled in a way that can track any traffic pattern or combination of incentives/disincentives reliably. Naturally the minimum rates are set to recover cost of capital and aid in proper operation of the relatively complex automatic machinery ... and can be easily adjusted to keep overused or congested lanes priced to capacity. If that is the expectation for the future of multiple-lane grade-separated parkways, as it was in a lesser sense well into the Fifties, you never get to metastasizing freeways sucking the life out of cities and causing the paving over of downtowns. And more appropriately, it keeps a luxurious and convenient rail service well-enough patronized to make system improvements desirable.
Well that is something I have not considered. Fascinating.
Also re: Breitspurbahn
Can you imagine having a conversation about Pennsys new 24,700hp
4-12-12-4 + 10-10 + 4-12-12-4. Yeesh.
The Smithsonian Channel covered this fairly well along with some animation on their series on Combat Trains. The Nazi's had over a hundred engineers working on this. They had a lot of plans, lots of locomotive designs, consists fiqured out ( I suppose that swimming pool would be a wave pool), lots of drafting blueprints and scale models but all they got done in the construction was some route surveying.
Didn't John Kneiling have some ideas along these lines as well.
You really think this could be a thing?
If steam do you haul around a lake with the locomotive. The water demand would be gigantic. A boiler mishap would take out a town.
Breitspurbahn: Ocean liner on wheels
This is really something I would spend a fortune just to experience......
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I tried to find out what happened outside the "Broadway" during the Dark Age of post-war America's railroad history in mid-1950s, which was only merely 10 years after PRR sent S1 to the torch. These two videos from YouTube answered me many questions I haven't even asked yet.
"GREYHOUND BUS LINES GUIDED TOUR 1957 PROMOTIONAL FILM 71122""The Golden Age of Travel | Airline Hostess | 6 Hours on Pan Am 1950's" The general public had more transportation choices, all forms of conspiracy theories aside, the Free Economy was working just fine, until......
Photo taken in 1938 in Baldwin workshop, roller bearing (?) equipped on the axle, I don't know If this was built for S1. (Source: Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania)
Note the difference between a 'main' driver's rod pin and the one on the wheelset with the lateral-motion device installed. That last picture likely does reflect the difference between main and coupled-wheel sets, the item pictured with the lateral-motion device installed and in the foreground therefore being indeed either the first or third wheelset.
Suspect these are implemented with concentric 'snubbing' springs rather than any kind of friction damping (as was, I think, more general PRR practice for this stuff at the time). That might be an issue with lateral flange force at high speed, even with good lateral control on the lead truck; there is something of a geometric issue here both in spiral and continuous curve between the 'chord' between lead-truck and trailing-truck-pivot pins projected out to the tread-contact/flange-contact line vs. the actual desired tangency between tread cone, fillet, and (only in last recourse!) actual flange face as the lateral take-up occurs. Resonance here due to underdamping (or the wrong snubbing frequency ranges) might lead to some very poor effects...
"Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics."
Falsely attributed to Albert Einstein but maybe there is hope for The S1 to be made to appear. Pop! There it is!
(This kind of makes a person's thinking to short circuit...like thinking about infinity).
However I do believe everything that was still is, just not sure how. Have some ideas but way too everything for here.
We do use matching resonance in Geophysics as an exploration tool.
Regardless, The S1 should never have been scrapped.
OvermodNote the difference between a 'main' driver's rod pin and the one on the wheelset with the lateral-motion device installed. That last picture likely does reflect the difference between main and coupled-wheel sets, the item pictured with the lateral-motion device installed and in the foreground therefore being indeed either the first or third wheelset. Suspect these are implemented with concentric 'snubbing' springs rather than any kind of friction damping (as was, I think, more general PRR practice for this stuff at the time). That might be an issue with lateral flange force at high speed, even with good lateral control on the lead truck; there is something of a geometric issue here both in spiral and continuous curve between the 'chord' between lead-truck and trailing-truck-pivot pins projected out to the tread-contact/flange-contact line vs. the actual desired tangency between tread cone, fillet, and (only in last recourse!) actual flange face as the lateral take-up occurs. Resonance here due to underdamping (or the wrong snubbing frequency ranges) might lead to some very poor effects...
ALCO made Lateral Cushioning Devices for the UP FEF-2 locomotives (820-834)
Patent Drawing from Google.
Miningman Regardless, The S1 should never have been scrapped.
Miningman"Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics."
Except that, oh Lord, it's not. This sounds like someone who has confused pop-Einstein with pop-Tesla with about as much actual physics knowledge as someone talking about 'detoxing' and 'cleansing' has medical knowledge.
Resonance is really useful, as are the somewhat more sophisticated versions used in control theory. Note that strange attractors (and other convergent or metastable-convergent functions using sequential probabilities) don't work at all deterministically in the happy idea that what may be true for SHM or electromagnetic radiation accurately describes even small systems of complex reality.
And then we get to what E=MC^2 is derived from, and what it means, and from there we get to quantum mechanics and what the 'numbers' that can be quantum entangled actually represent (hint: it assumes particular structure of matter, and preservation of relationships in that structure across 'distance', in ways that have nothing to do with oscillating frequency in the classical sense).
Much more fun than "frequency" per se is the ongoing discussion of the wave-particle duality in so much of this physics. Just be sure you have the aspirin bottle reasonably near when trying to conceive of what an actual 'photon' represents (and why it has a virtual wavetrain of more than one EM cycle at given wavelength/frequency contained in it...)
There is PLENTY of stuff that was that does not 'still exist'. One case in point should be highly familiar to you: where are the neptunium-series daughters??
And I ask you to consider the numbers that would have to be manipulated to produce a time-stable S1 ... as opposed to one with, say, a gold tooth in its front end, or paint patched for Conrail, or one metric-size tender wheelset. Transfinite numbers, aren't they? Suspect no amount of faith-based reasoning can help extract just the right complexity and phase in just the right area of reality to help with this -- unfortunately. If only Mary Baker Eddy's father had been able to craft a religion...
"I did some googling. I haven't found anything that conclusively proves what I'm about to say, but it looks like the person being misquoted here is a guy named Darryl Anka, who claims to be channeling a "multi-dimensional extra-terrestrial being" named Bashar. Anka has a web site that I don't want to link to, but I'm sure you will find it if you search for it. I'm reluctant to link to any woo woo sites, but I think I have to post a couple of links, since they are the only evidence we have of where this quote came from. The quote started appearing on the web some time in 2001. (You can use date ranges when you search with Google). http://www.angelvalley.org/assets/pdf/bashar-ides-of-march.pdf [Broken] (titled ‘The Ides of March’, channeling from Bashar by Darryl Anka) is filled with so much nonsense that I can't make myself read it, but it came up in the search results, so I searched the document for "frequency", and found that it ends with the words This is not philosophy! This is physics! Everything is energy and that's all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is physics.​ This web page contains the quote Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality.​ It's attributed to Bashar, not to Einstein. "Reference https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/einstein-misquoted.583449/
Quote feature is screwed up again; here is the three-dollar tour of the general logic behind the stabilizing rollers:
I do not have good records of online illustrations for the following, but you may want to go through the history of trailing trucks (particularly the change from 1st to 2nd-type Delta) and look a bit at the general knowledge of what '20s trailing trucks did and didn't do well.
Most of the early accommodations for trailing axles in locomotives with low fireboxes did not hinge-pivot them following the Bissel formula; about the closest would be Cartazzi axles which arranged the suspension pedestals to have just the right lateral radius that the wheeltread and flange contact patches would 'track straight' to the inside tangent involved. The chief issue here is that one important thing a trailing truck has to do is to steer the back of the locomotive chassis, and as more and more designs recognized the importance of large radiant area, circulators, heavy cast beds and ancillary machinery at the extreme rear of the locomotive, etc., designs that accomplished lateral compliance with -- well, devices like the lateral-motion devices used on driver cannon boxes, acting only as far back as the hub liners on trailing wheels, there are rapidly-achieved limits on how much stabilizing force you can apply, and the range through which that force can be made to act proportionally, which apply strictly to inside-bearing trailers and somewhat less but still meaningfully intensively to the many 'patent' outside-bearing lever arrangements involved in the pre-Delta trailing truck arrangements, many of which are known by their inventor's or promoter's names.
The Delta two-wheel truck, as perfected, solved the tracking issue with the pivot and axle location, and the equalization issue with onboard levers controlled by the relatively heavy frame structure. However, you may note that simply by extending the truck frame far back in the right way, you can arrange lateral-motion compliance between the extreme rear of the frame and the truck-frame extensions, thereby achieving as long a lever arm as really possible to exert steering force both 'on' and 'to'.
The problem being, as you will quickly notice in a model or with reference to drawings, that the swing is very long -- much longer than an undamped facing-spring arrangement can accommodate without dreadful resonance. (There is an epic story about a Reading 2-10-2 given "sprung" truck steering that was so bad even at drag speeds that someone from shop forces had to come out and weld the arrangement solid to permit getting the train the rest of the way over the road...) The initial arrangement used here took advantage of a happy characteristic of equalized engines: if you use inclined planes in the 'corners', the actual weight of the chassis can serve as the proportional restoring and centering force. It did not take long before the idea of using upside-down heart-shaped cams, or a gear-and-sector approach, cut to use rolling and not sliding tribology, was adapted to give long swing (we see pairs of heart-shaped cams also used for lateral in some Adams pin-guided lead trucks, which among other things allows separate control of small-period lateral oscillation coupling to hunting due to flange clearance or railhead wear vs. progressive curve guidance or Voyce Glaze-style steering against what would otherwise have to be handled by relatively high reciprocating overbalance.
As a peripheral note: you have probably read up on Woodard's clever articulated trailing truck ... and some of the reasons it could be a disaster in practice, particularly when you tried to back the train on a curve. An interesting thing some of these trucks shared with the earlier two-axle Delta trucks was this: the axle spacing is prescribed as part of the Bissel formula, but other considerations -- practical weight distribution to the axles and location of the ashpan arrangements being two -- often dictated a geometrically suboptimal position for the leading trailer axle. Timken devised a highly interesting arrangement that essentially treated a four-wheel trailing truck as a very long single-rear-axle Delta frame, with the forward axle completely free to 'float' laterally in its pedestals, the weight being transferred to it from the frame via a couple of large hardened lateral rollers. The guiding force for the rear of the chassis was only passed to the track through the cone and flanges of the rearmost wheelset; the forward one was essentially weight-bearing only.
Trailing Truck of Q1 4-6-4-4 #6130:
Q1 4-6-4-4 #6130 Trailing truck with booster.
The 6-wheel trailing truck of S1 and S2(Steam Turbine) :
S1's tender trucks, once exchanged with 6110's tender trucks for testing, returned after the test. ATSF 2900s 4-8-4 used the same model, probable a design from Baldwin.
Jones1945Is that fan-shaped thing inside the red cycle, which supporting the weight of the firebox and cab on the trailer truck is the "inverted-rocker centering device" aka stabilizing rocker?
Yes. Note also the inclined planes on the part of the frame that rests on the roller to provide the restoring force, and the substantial casting that the 'foot' of the roller rests on, a kind of 'chair' that bolts to the trailing-truck frame casting in the kind of place visible in some of the other pictures.
I had thought all the PRR eight-wheel trailing trucks were radically different in both construction and principle from the ATSF version (which much more closely follows Buckeye principles, like those in a three-piece freight truck). This adds particular interest to the use of this particular design on so fast a locomotive.
I thought I might mention a couple of little-known Duplex designs that remained unbuilt, and probably for the best.
I was looking at German War Locomotives 1939-1945 by Alfred Gottwalt. It mentions the broad gauge railway and illustrates a two unit turbo electric condensing locomotive roughly similar to that illustrated in an earlier post. It also mentions that Adolf Hitler was concerned that 3m gauge (10'0") might not be adequate and that it should be increased to 4 metres....
It does go into greater detail on larger standard gauge locomotives intended for use in Russia. These were to be built to a 20 ton axleload, while the Russians themselves were concentrating on locomotives of 18 tons axleload, and I'd guess the Russians knew more about the track than the Germans.
One of these is fairly well known, as a result of Maerklin making a model of an early Borsig suggested design, a 2-6-8-0. Maerklin gave it a road number in the "53" series, but with a 20 ton axleload it would have had a number in the "40" group, "46" being the lowest available. Borsig's other proposal was a three cylinder 2-10-4 with a booster and coupling rods on the trailing truck, giving a wheel arrangement of 1' E 2'b h3.
There were a couple of 2-12-0 and 2-12-2 designs, generally three cylinder but eventually someone suggested a 2-14-0 which was, amazingly, two cylinder so described as 1'G h2.
However, eventually the Vienna Locomotive Works suggested a Duplex. Someone had been reading about Emerson's work for the B&O and what emerged was a 2-6-6-2 with cylinders each end and a choice of two water tube fireboxes, with and without combustion chamber. What could possibly go wrong?
The Germans managed to lose the war (and more particularly the Russian campaign) without assistance from any of these designs, and the 42s and 52s performed well enough for the Russians to keep many of them right up to the end of steam, although Warsaw pact nations found that they were offered many, possibly without the option of refusal.
This book had a subtitle "Railways in World War II, part 2"
The back cover describes "part 1" which was a reprint of Ron Ziel's book "Steel Rails to Victory" translated to German. The perceptive publishers felt that a new title might better suit their market so it was retitled "Wheels must Turn" apparently a wartime propaganda message.
Overmod ......I had thought all the PRR eight-wheel trailing trucks were radically different in both construction and principle from the ATSF version (which much more closely follows Buckeye principles, like those in a three-piece freight truck). This adds particular interest to the use of this particular design on so fast a locomotive.
......I had thought all the PRR eight-wheel trailing trucks were radically different in both construction and principle from the ATSF version (which much more closely follows Buckeye principles, like those in a three-piece freight truck). This adds particular interest to the use of this particular design on so fast a locomotive.
ATSF 2912's tender trucks, a different arrangement of brake cylinders.
The only one pic of S1's tender from Hagley, note the Builder Plate was painted in DGLE except the number of the locomotive before it was sent to 39 World Fair.
M636C ......One of these is fairly well known, as a result of Maerklin making a model of an early Borsig suggested design, a 2-6-8-0. Maerklin gave it a road number in the "53" series, but with a 20 ton axleload it would have had a number in the "40" group, "46" being the lowest available. Borsig's other proposal was a three cylinder 2-10-4 with a booster and coupling rods on the trailing truck, giving a wheel arrangement of 1' E 2'b h3.
......One of these is fairly well known, as a result of Maerklin making a model of an early Borsig suggested design, a 2-6-8-0. Maerklin gave it a road number in the "53" series, but with a 20 ton axleload it would have had a number in the "40" group, "46" being the lowest available. Borsig's other proposal was a three cylinder 2-10-4 with a booster and coupling rods on the trailing truck, giving a wheel arrangement of 1' E 2'b h3.
Very interesting, Peter. I wish there is a book record all the proposed, never built locomotive around the world! Some pic of the 2-6-8-0 avalible on the web:
"Mallet of Borsig. The original was built in 1943 to carry a load of 1,700 tons at an 8-degree gradient. 148 tons and top speed 80 km/h"
Locomotives with condensers were built for service on the Russian front owing to unreliability of water supplies for locomotives. The condenser allowed longer runs between stops for water. The Soviet Railways had built condensing versions of the SO class 2-10-0 prior to WWII for the same reason. The 2-6-8-0 was intended for service in Russia, so a condensing version seems quite reasonable, although I haven't seen any drawings of one. The model includes a a pipe on the left side for conveying exhaust steam to the condenser. There is however no indication of the fitting of an exhaust fan to replace the blast pipe since no steam would be exhausted to the atmosphere. The tender is the type fitted to the Class 52 2-10-0 and would probably be too small for normal service on the 2-6-8-0. It does allow the model manufacturer to issue another model where the lack of a prototype must reduce the chances of criticism.
M636C ......Locomotives with condensers were built for service on the Russian front owing to unreliability of water supplies for locomotives. The condenser allowed longer runs between stops for water. The Soviet Railways had built condensing versions of the SO class 2-10-0 prior to WWII for the same reason......
......Locomotives with condensers were built for service on the Russian front owing to unreliability of water supplies for locomotives. The condenser allowed longer runs between stops for water. The Soviet Railways had built condensing versions of the SO class 2-10-0 prior to WWII for the same reason......
Jones1945I don't know what is the function of the condenser on the tender of this version...
Reducing the effective water rate.
Note that it is possible this only involves recovering part of the exhaust, not going to the trouble of implementing a full draft-fan rebuild (with expensive and hard-to-maintain components; did Henschel figure out before the War how to make char-resistant fan configurations as on the latter South African class 25s?) and I think that is what you see here.
I also seem to remember that some quasi-condensing design arrangements retained a full blastpipe front end for use when the full capacity of the condenser was not needed (or could not be achieved).
Jones1945"Mallet of Borsig. The original was built in 1943 to carry a load of 1,700 tons at an 8-degree gradient. 148 tons and top speed 80 km/h"
M636CThe perceptive publishers felt that a new title might better suit their market so it was retitled "Wheels must Turn" apparently a wartime propaganda message.
Indeed it was, more completely as "Räder müssen rollen für den Sieg", and you can watch YouTube clips that contain it, as here:
One wonders whether 'Wheels must Roll for Victory' is really all that different from Ziel's title, and of course it would have been familiar to many prospective readers?
It seems that Locomotive using condensing tender was very rare, this pic is Class 25 and Type CZ condensing tender from South Africa, c. 1970. Looking at it makes me feel thirsty.
Speaking of German Locomotive, one of my favoite had a similar fate like PRR S1, which is the BR 06 001 and 002, the only two "Northern" type German ever made, also the most powerful two. The smoke lifters on them was something the PRR T1 really needed.
timz Jones1945 "Mallet of Borsig. The original was built in 1943 to carry a load of 1,700 tons at an 8-degree gradient. 148 tons and top speed 80 km/h" Anyone know the correct numbers? What tonnage was it intended to pull up what grade?
Jones1945 "Mallet of Borsig. The original was built in 1943 to carry a load of 1,700 tons at an 8-degree gradient. 148 tons and top speed 80 km/h"
Anyone know the correct numbers? What tonnage was it intended to pull up what grade?
The Germans tended to use gradients in "per thousand", one tenth of a "percent" grade. I suspect that the load quoted was on a 0.8 percent grade.
Overmod Jones1945 I don't know what is the function of the condenser on the tender of this version... Reducing the effective water rate. Note that it is possible this only involves recovering part of the exhaust, not going to the trouble of implementing a full draft-fan rebuild (with expensive and hard-to-maintain components; did Henschel figure out before the War how to make char-resistant fan configurations as on the latter South African class 25s?) and I think that is what you see here. I also seem to remember that some quasi-condensing design arrangements retained a full blastpipe front end for use when the full capacity of the condenser was not needed (or could not be achieved).
Jones1945 I don't know what is the function of the condenser on the tender of this version...
Interesting film Overmod. Lots of Nar-zees...lots.
So, (in the end), who blew that bridge to Kingdom come...the Allies, the Russians or the Germans themselves.
We discussed before the "war locomotive' the Kriegslok, 7,000+ made in total. An amazing number.
Miningman Interesting film Overmod. Lots of Nar-zees...lots. So, (in the end), who blew that bridge to Kingdom come...the Allies, the Russians or the Germans themselves. We discussed before the "war locomotive' the Kriegslok, 7,000+ made in total. An amazing number.
Baldwin, Lima and Alco continued to build steam locomotives and some Diesel switchers over the war but they were also tasked with building tanks, artillery pieces and other wartime military needs. The Baldwin Sante Fe 4-8-4's, the Alco Big Boys and many other notables were produced during the war. The Pennsy 2-10-4's J1's and the C&O Alleghenies, B&O EM-1 and several others being notable.
The Kriegslok was a 2-10-0 Decapod, making Pennsys fleet of Decapods look minuscule in comparison. Not only that but a great many survived the war and were used all over Europe, mostly behind the Iron Curtain but some in Western countries, Norway and Austria come to mind, and for a long time afterward with some continuing on in service up to the year 2000.
It was inexpensive to build, tough as can be, easy to fix out on the road without having to 'bring it in', not complicated, and powerful. The very fact they were kept in service for 40+++ years after they were built is quite a testament. Perhaps Baldwin and Pennsy would have admired them.
M636C The book I mentioned above "War Locomotives 1939-1945" contains a production diagram. For two months in 1943, 505 locomotives were being completed per month. I don't think EMD ever reached that level, for example. On the other hand, Baldwin Lima and Alco must have built a lot of locomotives in 1942-1945, too. Peter
FYI,
Number of orders received from 1942 to 1945 in America were as follow:
Steam locomotive: 363,413,74,148 (Total=998)
Diesel:894,635,680,691 (Total=2900)
Electrict: 12,0,3,6 (Total=21)
Number of locomotive built from 1942 to 1945 in America:
1047,936,1012,1171 (Total=4166)
(These figures courtesy Railway Ages and Railway Mechanical Enginner)
M636C timz Jones1945 "Mallet of Borsig. The original was built in 1943 to carry a load of 1,700 tons at an 8-degree gradient. 148 tons and top speed 80 km/h" Anyone know the correct numbers? What tonnage was it intended to pull up what grade? The Germans tended to use gradients in "per thousand", one tenth of a "percent" grade. I suspect that the load quoted was on a 0.8 percent grade. Peter
Hello all. Do you think linking the 3rd and 4th set driver with a pair of rods would have saved the PRR Q1 or at least let her served more and longer? That would make it a 4-10-4 “Duplex” (?). Some books remain neutral about the performance of Q1, many books say it was a completely failure (I believe it was).
But money already spent, the engine with 90000 TE was already there, PRR should have maxed out the use of this prototypes if small modifications could make the train run more than merely 65000 miles (1942-1946), it still worth a try.
Q1 was suffered from wheel slip of its rear engines, linking two set of engines together with a pair of rods might solve the wheel slip problem, but it was impossible to relocate the rear cylinders to a “cleaner” place or to make the firebox larger. Please feel free to share your thought!
Jones1945Hello all. Do you think linking the 3rd and 4th set driver with a pair of rods would have saved the PRR Q1 or at least let her served more and longer? That would make it a 4-10-4 “Duplex” (?). Some books remain neutral about the performance of Q1, many books say it was a completely failure (I believe it was).
The Q1 was already lethally impaired by being an oddball one-off that didn't produce enough incremental power to justify all the construction expense (and maintenance complications).
It's interesting to consider designing a set of what would by that time have been tandem rods connecting the two driver pairs. These might have to be somewhat less in section than an equivalent 4-10-4 due to the divided drive cylinders, much as the PLM 2-10-2 from 1930 was, and the incremental balance weighting should have been accommodated in the 77" driver centers. But you still have the augment of a 10-coupled engine together with all the 'additional' moments of the mains, crosshead momenta, etc. that now act strictly in phase; not really much point in running numbers as you get less, not more result for the complexity.
Considering Withuhn conjugated duplexing, a 'solution' might have been achieved with inside cranks and a pair of quartered conjugating rods putting the two engines either in antiphase balance or 135-degree 'torque optimizing' at eight peaks per revolution. How practical it would be to make up the necessary frame, bearing, etc. modifications would involve much more detailed knowledge of the locomotive's construction than I have obtained; there are, I think, more substantial difficulties than for the ACE3000 (and many of the ACE3000s potential issues were, to put it charitably, more than a little glossed over, such as how driver-axle roller bearings would be implemented in practice on the two center driving axles...)
Likewise, some form of Deem geared conjugation might be considered, and this in conjunction with a Langer balancer is by far the 'best' solution to the issue of conjugation in general. You'd still need some form of Ferguson-clutch arrangement between the engines, as rigid gearing would rapidly wear and die.
Naturally, some form of applied traction control would work far better than conjugation for most of the observed 'issues' with running a Q1 in anticipated 5/4ths-of-a-M1 service on head end express/mail services (the only sort of thing that made sense for it as designed, a strictly passenger engine "needing" to be 80" or larger in the PRR pipe-dream design continuum of that era, but I digress...) and for this the likeliest approach would be to provide cheek plates for the independent driver brakes and implement them as air-over-hydraulic lateral calipers with comparatively small running gap between pads and faces. Note that much of the 'loss' involved with using these even in full contact at starting or low speed is actually 'reversible' - think of it as expansion of the steam that doesn't happen as quickly as in 'equilibrium' with unrestrained acceleration - and you may benefit more than proportionally from thermodynamic "improvements" that decrease wall condensation, tract losses, etc. when the physical dwell of the steam per stroke is longer. (Naturally most workable forms of "jacketing" principle could be considered here). Likewise, using four Wagner 'throttles' in the four tracts would allow realtime 'trim' of one engine relative to the other even if only one common front-end throttle were provided for the locomotive itself -- and this could be arranged with the control technologies and methods available at that time. (Note that the arrangement to be used on T1 5550 involves a similar modulation of independent brake acting on the driver brakeshoes and rigging, which is a slower-acting and more constrained version of traction control but that should be adequate for both low- and high-speed slip on that locomotive in any prospective service.)
I don't want to keep beating a dead horse, but ONE of the problems with the PRR Duplexes was more duplicate (hence the name), equipment to maintain. ( 4 cylinders doing the work of 2). (4 sets of rods doing the work of 2.) However, That is not what killed the PRR modern steam experimentals.. Oh no.. At the same time that was going on, there was a group of men working with Winton 2-cycle diesel engines connected to big DC generators. That soon turned into EMC, later known as EMD, and the rest, as they say, is history.. Can't compete with a unit that has almost no down time, and has a monthly, instead of hourly, maintainance window.
I love steam, I'll say that Norfolk & Western being married to coal, held onto their super Y-6's 'till 1960. But even then, they had to succumb to the EMD 567 wave.
Funny now, these days a GP-9 seems a relic. When was the last time you saw one on the head of a mainline hot-shot?
It's all relative to when you were born I suppose. The young kids today will soon look at an SD-70 and have the same melancholy that us old-timers have for the engines that we remember from our youth.
Baloney! The development of the Diesel engine was true enough but it was 2 and half times costlier to purchase up front. Very expensive. Sizable fleets of Centipedes, Passenger Sharks Bp20's, FM opposed piston entries, Alco PA1's, RF-16 Sharks, even FA1's were a total waste of money and were junk in short order and that after sizeable maintenance headaches, costs, breakdowns and delays.
Roundhouse backstops could rebuild, fix and repair steam locomotives quickly and efficiently. Pennsy and NYC would have done better to do exactly what you state the N&W did...hold out until bullitproof proven Diesel locomotives became available, even longer.
They succumbed to pressure from a societal direction that was eager for a new world of massive consumerism and easy credit was waved in front of their faces especially by EMD. It was image, style over substance. It did nothing to save them at all, not a thing.
Overmod It's interesting to consider designing a set of what would by that time have been tandem rods connecting the two driver pairs. These might have to be somewhat less in section than an equivalent 4-10-4 due to the divided drive cylinders, much as the PLM 2-10-2 from 1930 was, and the incremental balance weighting should have been accommodated in the 77" driver centers. But you still have the augment of a 10-coupled engine together with all the 'additional' moments of the mains, crosshead momenta, etc. that now act strictly in phase; not really much point in running numbers as you get less, not more result for the complexity.
Miningman Baloney! The development of the Diesel engine was true enough but it was 2 and half times costlier to purchase up front. Very expensive. Sizable fleets of Centipedes, Passenger Sharks Bp20's, FM opposed piston entries, Alco PA1's, RF-16 Sharks, even FA1's were a total waste of money and were junk in short order and that after sizeable maintenance headaches, costs, breakdowns and delays. Roundhouse backstops could rebuild, fix and repair steam locomotives quickly and efficiently. Pennsy and NYC would have done better to do exactly what you state the N&W did...hold out until bullitproof proven Diesel locomotives became available, even longer. They succumbed to pressure from a societal direction that was eager for a new world of massive consumerism and easy credit was waved in front of their faces especially by EMD. It was image, style over substance. It did nothing to save them at all, not a thing.
Overmod Likewise, some form of Deem geared conjugation might be considered, and this in conjunction with a Langer balancer is by far the 'best' solution to the issue of conjugation in general. You'd still need some form of Ferguson-clutch arrangement between the engines, as rigid gearing would rapidly wear and die.
Not ignoring or overlooking anything. We just finished discussion on the Kriegslok war locomotive of which over 7,000 were made, many of them lasting up to the year 2000, and not all behind the Iron Curtain, count Norway, Austria and Turkey in that. . A simple, inexpensive design, easy to fix, easy to maintain, powerful as can be. Compare that to hundreds of millions of dollars of junked wasteful crappy designed Diesels, the horrible costs in breakdowns, delays, unreliability and exceptionally expensive maintenance costs and that barely made ten years of existence on the planet, a good portion of that time in the shop. To make it even worse throw in the cost of new perfectly good modern steam, all that wasted money on them, add that in. The infrastructure of coal towers, water towers, ash pits and the like already existed and was paid for eons ago. It was there, like my back door of the house, it served a purpose.
Throw in the human cost. Hundreds of thousands of skilled craftsman nationwide, and to tie in a wee bit with the Jim Crow Laws thread, the brunt of this affecting Black roundhouse and general labour workers.
No wonder deferred maintenance on track and massive losses on the books became normal. The passenger trains disappeared. More layoffs, more wasted money. If you think for a minute the Diesels saved the railroads then that does not pass the eyeballs test. All the proud, viable, built for the ages independant railroads are gone. Competition was eliminated not enhanced. Even today people still parrot the same tired old talking points as if the ArchAngel Michael descended down and decreed it so.
Ike saw it clearly and warned everyone.
"Over 6,700 locomotives of DRB Class 52 type were built across Europe for use on the Eastern Front during the Second World War. Thus, it was one of the most numerous steam locomotives in the world......"
The actual number of Class 52 built depends on the list and who prepared it....
"German War Locomotives 1939-1945" suggests that 6161 were built during the war. Other books suggest a total of 6718, including those built after May 1945.
The highest road number taken into stock by the DRB during the war appears to be 52 7793. There were numerous gaps due to orders not completed. Locomotives were supplied new to Romania, Turkey, Serbia and Croatia, some of which had 52 series numbers allocated and some not.
However there were 1107 locomotives of the class 50, from which the 52 was derived that were built as "Transitional War Locomotives", the later versions of which were indistinguishable from the Class 52 (at least from those 52 with bar frames rather than plate frames).
So there were more than 7800 War Locomotives with the same general dimensions built from 1939 to 1945.
It would be wrong to regard this as a triumph of traditional design. There were many modern features in the Class 52, with extensive welding of components not previously considered, including the boiler and firebox.
Miningman Compare that to hundreds of millions of dollars of junked wasteful crappy designed Diesels, the horrible costs in breakdowns, delays, unreliability and exceptionally expensive maintenance costs and that barely made ten years of existence on the planet, a good portion of that time in the shop.
Compare that to hundreds of millions of dollars of junked wasteful crappy designed Diesels, the horrible costs in breakdowns, delays, unreliability and exceptionally expensive maintenance costs and that barely made ten years of existence on the planet, a good portion of that time in the shop.
A former poster to the Trains.com forums, Juniatha, made the suggestion of a multispeed gearing between the turbine and drive wheels. This would reduce the steam flow at low speeds as the steam flow was almost directly proportional to torque and very weakly related to shaft speed.
- Erik
erikem A former poster to the Trains.com forums, Juniatha, made the suggestion of a multispeed gearing between the turbine and drive wheels. This would reduce the steam flow at low speeds as the steam flow was almost directly proportional to torque and very weakly related to shaft speed. - Erik
Isn't that what they did with the two UP units, C&O M-1 and N&W Jawn Henry?
I know, she was probably thinking about mechanical drive, but at the time turbo-electric seemed like a good idea....
sorry, duplicate post...
I don't seem to have a delete option...
Thank you erikem and Peter. I remember more than one similar design of a multispeed gearing were designed and received U.S. Patent not long before the S2 turbine was put in an idle position. The worst thing was the turbine blade was seriously damaged by coal dust, according to PRR. After the 1948 Railroad Fair, S2 was withdrawn from service. SAD.......By the way, I am reviewing some posts from a few years ago on train.com forum. I really love Juniatha's music choices......
M636C Isn't that what they did with the two UP units, C&O M-1 and N&W Jawn Henry? I know, she was probably thinking about mechanical drive, but at the time turbo-electric seemed like a good idea....
Gears weigh less, cost less and are more compact than an electrical drive - the USN went through a similar phase between 1920 and the mid-30's going from turbo electric drive to high speed reduction gears.
OTOH, a turbo-electric drive makes more sense in a general purpose locomotive than one intended only for high speed passenger service (i.e. T1 replacement).
erikem M636C Isn't that what they did with the two UP units, C&O M-1 and N&W Jawn Henry? I know, she was probably thinking about mechanical drive, but at the time turbo-electric seemed like a good idea.... Gears weigh less, cost less and are more compact than an electrical drive - the USN went through a similar phase between 1920 and the mid-30's going from turbo electric drive to high speed reduction gears.
To be honest, turboelectric has never made sense, since the days of the Heilmann locomotive. Some of the problems and issues have changed with improvements in electrical technology, and there are some current (no pun intended) applications where some kinds of expander-electric drive make sense.
Note that the marine application has substantial differences with even the most optimal railroad applications; the differences between propeller drive and the characteristics of freight railroad service alone bear looking at (with the understanding that the Bowes drive produces the practical advantage of turboelectric drive that generator/traction motor drive only does indirectly with much higher cumulative operating losses)
One issue is that steam expanders have a different torque characteristic than most internal-combustion cycles; the same 'arguments' used so often for the absence of multispeed transmissions on steam automobiles also apply to both steam-mechanical and steam-electric locomotives. The long early history of IC-motor-driven railroad equipment established the importance of electric vs. other kinds of transmission ... for internal-combustion engines with particular torque-speed characteristics particularly when operating at low final-drive rotational speed under high torque, precisely the range where either positive-displacement expanders or turbines can develop the equivalent of high locked-rotor torque.
The primary 'need' for multispeed action in high-capacity turbine locomotives is to minimize the slip at low road speeds; but another high-priority need is to avoid rotational 'jerk' or axial shock - in fact, anything that induces blading interference in rotation. The same kind of Ferguson clutch that makes Deem-conjugated duplexes practical also provides a reasonable opportunity for allowing higher rotational speed for a given inlet mass flow; hydraulic torque multiplication might be better still but has to be implemented either in the high-rpm or high-torque ranges of the reduction gearing ... neither of which is where the usual torque-converter designs like operating at the necessary high peak horsepower. The Bowes drive, although an electrical machine, is not just a fancy 'slippable clutch.'
Turboelectric DC drive on locomotives is a longstanding boondoggle, even with a comprehension of the degree of field weakening/"shunt" transition feature needed to achieve even a semblance of high speed. Here the 'poster child' example isn't the C&O M-1 (which has cripplingly dumb design issues long before you get to back-EMF problems) but the N&W TE-1. You may recall that the thing was touted by BLH as having a top road speed of 65mph? In practice, it might achieve that speed with something like 12 cars on its drawbar; certainly N&W found out the hard way that there was considerable fibbing going on ... and yes, I think Baldwin did know better but creatively avoided mentioning key information, a bit like Lucius Beebe's famous 'serves two' example.
It's a pity the collateral on the old Turbomotive 2 site has been so thoroughly expunged; that locomotive and its possible improvements represent perhaps the best of the simple high-speed express locomotive designs.
Jones1945I remember more than one similar design of a multispeed gearing were designed and received U.S. Patent not long before the S2 turbine was put in an idle position.
One thing to remember is that the timeline of certain improvements is highly interesting, and probably highly relevant, here. Remember that the internal correspondence as preserved goes from highly positive as late as 1946 to dismissive by ... about the time the improvement program for the T1 was cancelled, and this appears to be highly related to the staybolt issue (which is really far more terrifying when you think about it while reading the reports) BUT there appears to be no consideration of adapting the Bowes drive precisely when it was being carefully presented at some length to revive the V1 design for potential passenger use (i.e. what Loewy's design patent for it, in 1947, would involve).
Strangely, I have not been able to find any use of multispeed gearing on any of the V1 versions, where it would have been most practical (and in my opinion essential if for no other reason than to solve the water-rate concern). Note that the Bowes drive really doesn't address issues of reduction of high-speed turbine shaft speed, so the change-speed advantages are just as they were for my version of this kind of locomotive (which would have used modified GG1 chassis architecture) in the '70s.
The worst thing was the turbine blade was seriously damaged by coal dust, according to PRR.
I think you are confusing this, badly, perhaps with more than one mistaken thing.
Coal damage to turbine blading is related to ASH problems in a coal-burning turbine like the scam undertaken by Yellott for BCR all those years in the '40s and '50s. (And then rediscovered by UP in the Sixties, but I won't digress.)
Coal-dust damage to traction motors was one of the chronic problems with the C&O turbines. But this is not related to the use of a turbine, even if problems with motors, generator flashovers, etc. might lead to rapid load shedding and consequent turbine overspeed. (That's a turbine governor issue.)
After the 1948 Railroad Fair, S2 was withdrawn from service. SAD...
Oh, I think by that time everything PRR had to learn from direct-drive turbines had been learned. If I remember correctly, what actually happened was that Westinghouse had essentially loaned PRR the turbine, and wanted it back; what was left was not optimal for any kind of conversion into a practical PRR locomotive (and of course the V1 configuration had much more perceived potential advantage at that time...)
I'm a bit amused by the streamlined-S2 illustration as just presented. In a sense this is limited by driver diameter and associated quartered-rod-induced augment (really, hammer blow more than nosing, etc.) concerns, in a way the Roosen motor-locomotive or B&O W-1 approaches are not. In a perhaps more important sense nobody needs a passenger locomotive with six-wheel lead and trailing trucks necessary to support its weight. There is more to operating trains at high speed than being able to make the horsepower to accelerate and then pull trains in a straight line ...
OvermodTurboelectric DC drive on locomotives is a longstanding boondoggle, even with a comprehension of the degree of field weakening/"shunt" transition feature needed to achieve even a semblance of high speed. Here the 'poster child' example isn't the C&O M-1 (which has cripplingly dumb design issues long before you get to back-EMF problems) but the N&W TE-1. You may recall that the thing was touted by BLH as having a top road speed of 65mph? In practice, it might achieve that speed with something like 12 cars on its drawbar; certainly N&W found out the hard way that there was considerable fibbing going on ... and yes, I think Baldwin did know better but creatively avoided mentioning key information, a bit like Lucius Beebe's famous 'serves two' example.
.
BigJimI am going to have to call your bluff on this one.
Alas! everything I say about the TE-1 is either from Louis Newton or source documents particularly at NWHS. The part about 65mph being a Baldwin fib is clearly stated in Tale of a Turbine, although since I don't have my copy handy I can't quote chapter and verse. In fact if I recall correctly he mentioned that N&W management was pissed at what was essentially a lie about achievement of practical 65mph speed under the conditions BLH had implied it would be achieved.
The '12 cars' was intended more as hyperbole than an exact car count; the point is (again as Mr. Newton has said) the locomotive couldn't reach anything like the speed a class A loaded to a similar percentage of its rated tonnage could -- and a major part of that is the characteristic of the electrical transmission. (We won't get into the issues of the dropped generators that were never quite correctly rebuilt, but we CERTAINLY can take up the issue of what killed many of the hexapole motors in 2300 with so few years of service, if you like.)
Now, IN MY OPINION the N&W should have stuck to the PRR design of mechanical turbine with Bowes drive, as that would have produced a worthy successor to even the compound Ys (assuming the turbines were 'rightsized' instead of being made artificially huge as in the last "9000hp" propaganda. The apparent history of this involves N&W falling for the siren call of motorizing the engine trucks (the approach that worked so well on the PRR P5b!) and thereby going to steam-electric, and then the early-Fifties use of span-bolstered diesel-equivalent trimounts for the whole of the running gear. I'm sure this made sense if you intended to peddle the design to other coal-hauling railroads, and indeed much of the design might have been carried across to Alco/GE or even GM running gear after Baldwin/Westinghouse quit the locomotive business, but in the event what Baldwin built certainly wound up underwhelming anyone with any combination of money to spend and need for coal-combustion economics; in fact, I'd argue it helped queer the pitch for any of the subsequent steam-turbine-electric projects.
But marine gear drives are inherently single speed, with the exception of some German Navy drives which have two different input speeds, one for cruise diesels and one for the gas turbines.
Navy gearboxes are heavy. Taking the drives in a current DDG, each turbine weighs about 14 tons in its enclosure, and the fixed ratio reduction gear weighs arount 50 tons, one on each shaft.
The biggest variable speed mechanical drive with which I'm familiar is that in the big Voith diesel hydraulic locomotives, good for about 4000 HP. This dates from the early years of this century and I don't think anything like it was available in 1946, for example. Even the Krass-Maffei and Alco diesel hydraulics were twin engined with two transmissions to get to 4000 HP.
I'm not suggesting that electric drive is lighter. In the Royal Navy Type 45, the alternators on the gas turbines weigh around 70 tons and the motors on each shaft nearly 100 tons. The "electric" ships have longer propeller shafts than direct drive because the heavy motors and alternators need to be amidships for fore and aft trim.
I haven't heard much about the USN "Zumwalt" class. These are the ships of tomorrow, but remain just that. Conventional ships are being built in large numbers while these two get debugged.
But I don't believe that there was a production variable speed drive capable of powering a steam turbine locomotive in 1946, nor for some time thereafter.
M636CBut I don't believe that there was a production variable speed drive capable of powering a steam turbine locomotive in 1946, nor for some time thereafter.
You actually don't need a 'VSD' in the current sense of the term. Variable ratios close to the turbine shaft will work, and I recall several German approaches to provide them (using the same mechanism in at least one of them that interposed an 'idler' gear to give full reverse from the main turbine without the costs of a dedicated geared or 'windage'-crippled reverse turbine). It is possible that no more than a two-speed ratio change might suffice for practical operation.
The Bowes drive, I suspect, could have been scaled appropriately ... had there been a practical 4000hp prime mover in the late '40s. (That being, of course, the precise turbine rating of one-half the design of PRR V1 actually 'greenlighted' for production in 1944.) Of course that was also the supposed nominal rating of the Hamilton/Lima-Hamilton/Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton free-piston engine that would replace, any month now through the late '40s and into the '50s, expensive and fragile things like GM 2-stroke engines; and arguably that's what the BCR coal turbine rating would wind up being after the experimental-scale units were sized up (the question of who would pay for the practical development being an increasingly critical issue as the scam developed).
Another quite logical technology was adaptation of magnetorheological clutches (the enabling technology becoming quite well known across different fields of mechanical engineering and design over the course of the year 1948). This gives the effect of a variable-engagement wet-plate clutch without significant frictional wear, when 'slipped', but very simple lockup even with something as simple as a Maybach claw clutch when speed-matched. Here again 'variable-ratio' is not the same as continuous variable-speed drive in the current sense of the term.
Now, part of the issue involving these prospective drives is that PRR did not have a bulletproof way to provide them. Look at the difference between the quill drive in the GG1s and the gearing size and arrangement used in the S2; pay particular attention to the 'flexible' arrangements in the S2's bull gear. That's a LOT of protection against jerk or shock to the turbine roots and blading.
As a sort of aside, much of the size and robustness of ship reduction gearing has much less to do with full HP transmission at cruise or dash speed as it has to do with the prop(s) coming out of the water or experiencing reduction in driving resistance when at high power (the analogue of why hydroplane racing requires a throttleman with very quick reflexes or very capable and low-latency robot control over engine and transmission). It is hard to comprehend the practical meaning of how much torque is involved in this until you watch the behavior of the shaft in the alley as the load comes on and off the prop.
It would be nice to size mechanical locomotive transmission components as, say, helicopter gears are designed (and there have been some attempts to use the design tools and methodologies used for superfinishing helicopter gears in railroad applications) but the practical effects of shocks and loading are far more severe in significant ways when train run-in ... let alone a collision of a moving cut with the locomotive, as in the event that reputedly damaged the TE-1's turbine ... has to be considered.
The locomotive that killed the T1's. Brilliant....fish heads!
Overmod One thing to remember is that the timeline of certain improvements is highly interesting, and probably highly relevant, here. Remember that the internal correspondence as preserved goes from highly positive as late as 1946 to dismissive by ... about the time the improvement program for the T1 was cancelled, and this appears to be highly related to the staybolt issue (which is really far more terrifying when you think about it while reading the reports) BUT there appears to be no consideration of adapting the Bowes drive precisely when it was being carefully presented at some length to revive the V1 design for potential passenger use (i.e. what Loewy's design patent for it, in 1947, would involve)……
OvermodOh, I think by that time everything PRR had to learn from direct-drive turbines had been learned. If I remember correctly, what actually happened was that Westinghouse had essentially loaned PRR the turbine, and wanted it back……
Overmod in a perhaps more important sense nobody needs a passenger locomotive with six-wheel lead and trailing trucks necessary to support its weight. There is more to operating trains at high speed than being able to make the horsepower to accelerate and then pull trains in a straight line ...
Miningman The locomotive that killed the T1's. Brilliant....fish heads!
lmao Miningman. I don’t hate all early diesels, but imo, only UP's M10000s and E2 to E6 were qualified to competitive with steam locomotive in terms of appearance. Diesel like E7/8/9 looked so dull and boring no matter how reliable they were I don't even call them a streamliner.
Jones1945 (By Juniatha from Trains.com) A drawing I found on Facebook, showing a 6-8-6 direct drive stream turbine with T1’s shrouding. Looks like a fan art, no describion provided.(Edit: By Juniatha from Trains.com) If something like this was built in 40s, I guess a 4-8-6 wheel arrangement would be enough to do the trick. It would need a firebox and boiler as large as or even larger than S1, S2, a new gearbox system, advanced filter inside the pipe work to protect the turbine blade…… However, if the operation and maintenance cost cannot competitive with EMD’s product, it would be just another wasting of time project. Sigh...... I wonder if all the steam power connects to a Turbine-generator instead of a direct drive design would work better or not. The front end would need to redesign for more space, (IIRC there were 13ft of space inside the smoke box of S1). The drivers or even the wheels in both truck could attach to electric motor.
As unlikely as it sounds, Westinghouse actually published an illustration of a streamlined turbine...
https://www.railarchive.net/wecbook/wec10.htm
M636C As unlikely as it sounds, Westinghouse actually published an illustration of a streamlined turbine... Peter
Nice found, Peter. I posted this pic on my pervious post as well.
btw.......
My fantasy Steam turbine locomotive PRR V2 #6600
OvermodAlas! everything I say about the TE-1 is either from Louis Newton or source documents particularly at NWHS. The part about 65mph being a Baldwin fib is clearly stated in Tale of a Turbine, although since I don't have my copy handy I can't quote chapter and verse. In fact if I recall correctly he mentioned that N&W management was pissed at what was essentially a lie about achievement of practical 65mph speed under the conditions BLH had implied it would be achieved.
BigJimThen you will have to show me as I sure have never seen anything about "65 mph" being a target for the "Jawn Henry".
There are multiple pieces of documentation that establish BLH touted the design which became the TE-1 as being capable of "65mph". I suspect this might be related to the kind of diesel-electric claim to "120mph gearing" where the speed is limited by the constant horsepower to well below what the traction motors could be spun up to -- but with the promise of external combustion to eliminate the constant-horsepower issue.
Unlike the C&O M-1, the TE-1 was not intended to be a passenger locomotive. I quote from Mr. Newton (pg. 713); "the N&W's Class A locomotives were able to haul 175 fully loaded coal cars at 40 MPH, which was fast enough (my emphasis).
But this ignores the other uses of the TE-1 as a replacement for the class A as well as the compounds: there were plenty of uses in fast freight, mail, and probably express where the A's speed of ... about 65 mph ... was necessary and expected. You may recall that Mr. Newton was referring to a train of 175 coal hoppers, not exactly the poster child consist for high speed either physically or economically -- yes, 40mph was 'fast enough'. But you may also recall that the TE-1 was intended as a more economical replacement for ALL N&W freight steam going forward, and just as there is little point in C&O operating an Allegheny well below the peak of its horsepower curve, there would be little point in reducing N&W to the equivalent of a one-speed railroad with comparatively fragile turbines that cost multiple times what an A did. Especially when the Baldwin design with the span-bolstered diesel trimount trucks had specifically been promoted as a locomotive capable of all services N&W anticipated.
Further reading will show that R.H. Smith wanted five more of the locos.
Which is a pathetically tiny drop in the bucket of N&W's contemporary motive-power pool, particularly as even a TE-1 with nondefective generators was a poor replacement even for a single A, and in my opinion for a properly-boosted Y6, And yes, it was a bit more economical on coal and water, but the ash problem was likely insoluble (and highly irritating to engine crews, according to Mr. Newton).
Stuart Saunders wanted none. Not because of any "65 mph", but because they "were not economical". Saunders won the battle.[/quote]
Yes, I wish he hadn't, but no, unless (1) there was sufficient sales volume for STEs to make line production economical and (2) there was a really quick way to make actual locomotive builders circa 1957 interested in building STEs there was really no more market for something long, finicky, and relay-logic controlled with most of the maintenance problems of steam power and a few added ones that only produced 4500hp. I don't find it too surprising that no one since has built STEs in production quantity, let alone gotten the equivalent of full diesel depreciation life out of them profitably -- and I speak as someone who has advocated the design and adoption of STEs, together with some other designs, since the 1970s.
Incidentally, Matt Austin has just posted over on RyPN an interesting Union Pacific DBTE v. speed curve which includes data for a "BLH steam turbine" of 4500 hp generator rating, identified in the fine print as the TE-1, compared to 4-8-8-4, 4-6-6-4, and both 3 and 4 GP9s in MU.
http://www.rypn.org/forums/download/file.php?id=14908
They don't bother to plot it past 60mph, unlike all the other locomotives in comparison, for what that's worth.
Stuart Saunders...crook, criminal, vandal, scumbag, American Taliban.
The warden in Shawshank Redemtion.
No money in it for him personally for approving of 5 turbines.
I've known people like him and it's always puzzling how these terrible weasel people get into positions of power.
Without admitting any culpability, Mr. Saunders was among a group of former directors and officers who later contributed to a $12 million settlement to end litigation brought by shareholders of the bankrupt railroad. The lawsuits accused the railroad's management of dereliction of duty and of responsibility for issuing false financial statements and misleading proxy material over a period of years. Graduate of Harvard Law School
MiningmanNo money in it for him personally for approving of 5 turbines.
Yeah, but be sure to read 'Tale of a Turbine' (which is actually titled "Rails Remembered, volume 4") very carefully, and tell me if you would pay what it would cost to replicate that thing in that quantity.
Remember that the TE-1 program spans the development era of practical second-generation diesels, including the realization at GE that a great deal more horsepower could be developed out of the basic Cooper-Bessemer engine architecture. A 4500hp steam-turbine electric is competitive with little GP7s or F units. It's a poor alternative to two 2400hp six-motor Alcos. And I have to suspect that any other TM than a Westinghouse hexapole would be cooked at least as badly in line service, at least as quickly, as Mr. Newton documented.
I am by no means a fan of Stuart Saunders (who reminds me of an evil American cousin of Sir Topham Hatt) but with respect to that turkey he was right.
I regret that I can’t join the discussion since I am not familiar with steam turbine locomotive except PRR S2, even though I am really interested in this new topic for me. Anyway, I just found this record from PRR Chronology. I would like to put it here for the record：
"Mar. 12, 1952
Board reviews the status of the T1's, all 52 of which are now out of service, with only 19 stored in good running order; note that the maintenance costs are 2.5 times that of Class K4s; heavy running repairs are almost 3 times as great; T1's are 4 times as costly to operate as diesels; slipperiness did not work with PRR’s grades; decides they are to be disposed of as soon as the equipment trust obligations are paid off. (VPO)"
This thing actually sound like a trial to me. If T1 was really that bad, why spent tons of money to design, to test, and to build them in the first place? It was not the first time Baldwin and PRR building a new class of engine. If this was the judgement directly came from the heads of PRR, they were just making themselves looks like a world class fool.
Whoa! Lots of stuff here.
1) Overmod-- R.H.Smith recommended the purchase of 5 more. I can only assume he was qualified enough to make a sane decision. Perhaps Mr Smith looked at it as a political decision based on a tip and nod to the coal industry, as you say, not a large % of N&W's fleet. The minus and the minus make a plus sort of thing. My point about Saunders has little to do with his decision on its desirability but what was coming his way probably stock price wise or perhaps something shorter term. Of all the railroads N&W could have run their A's and others up to the mid 70's assuming they can appeal or seek exception and stretch things out say 3 years or so after the Clean Air Act.
2) Jones @6:25 post about the T1's. Well they had Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers almost 4 years before the production models rolled out and extensive testing during that time. I recall the tests on the static bed at Altoona and the published results and subsequent reporting of breaking every record and all time bests of water and coal consumption coupled with astronomical horsepower ratings. The best thing ever.
Reading that nonsense you can just picture the authors stating things like " no, not 8 times, that's too much, makes us look bad...lets say 4 times, yeah thats good, they will buy that". Show trial, kangaroo court.
3) Wow on the working model S2. For about ten minutes I felt like "I have done nothing this good in my whole life" but I snapped out of it.
Miningman Whoa! Lots of stuff here...... Jones @6:25 post about the T1's. Well they had Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers almost 4 years before the production models rolled out and extensive testing during that time. I recall the tests on the static bed at Altoona and the published results and subsequent reporting of breaking every record and all time bests of water and coal consumption coupled with astronomical horsepower ratings. The best thing ever. Reading that nonsense you can just picture the authors stating things like " no, not 8 times, that's too much, makes us look bad...lets say 4 times, yeah thats good, they will buy that". Show trial, kangaroo court. 3) Wow on the working model S2. For about ten minutes I felt like "I have done nothing this good in my whole life" but I snapped out of it.
Whoa! Lots of stuff here......
Jones @6:25 post about the T1's. Well they had Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers almost 4 years before the production models rolled out and extensive testing during that time. I recall the tests on the static bed at Altoona and the published results and subsequent reporting of breaking every record and all time bests of water and coal consumption coupled with astronomical horsepower ratings. The best thing ever.
People wanting to hatchet on H.T. Cover should budget for a vacation in Delaware and spend a couple of days at the Hagley reading his surviving correspondence. They might shut up afterward.
What this likely refers to is the ongoing correction of lateral control vs. suspension that was (still) a significant concern in 1946. Some engines had been 'corrected' with improved equalization and allowance for lateral motion, and could traverse the 'problem areas' e.g. in Pittsburgh station better; these were the ones assigned to Harrisburg-Pittsburgh. The others were kept on the 'racetrack' that was their first best use, etc.
The smoking gun comes sometime in 1948, when the decision is made to take the T1s off the first-class trains (sometimes this is described as 'dieselizing all the first-class trains', but I get the impression the T1 removal was the more important objective) and at about the same time, perhaps linked, the full improvement program is abandoned. You can consider whether simple evolutionary improvements, such as better-cast valves, or more complex ones like piston-valve conversions, would have made the engines embarrassingly better just as the economics for any highly-sophisticated steam passenger power were declining radically, and find evidence for politics accordingly; remember, these guys were looking at very alarming actual statistics, and not the 'fudged' ones that pretended the T1s were hangar queens making only multiples of hundreds of miles a month.
As you all probably know, I think practical luxury-bus service was nipped in the bud far too early, essentially starting when Missouri proactively reduced its highway size and axle-load limits. Look at the late Pickwick Nite Coaches, and the later Santa Fe articulateds, to see what interesting rubber-tired alternatives could have been for all those REA city pairs that were becoming uneconomical to serve even with one-man motor trains.
Good grief, I'd rather discuss Seven of Nine than buses. Buses suck...and stink.
Miningman Good grief, I'd rather discuss Seven of Nine than buses. Buses suck...and stink.
Trolleys don't.
And what's wrong with Voyager? I thought Jeri Ryan did a fine job on that show!
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
There is nothing wrong with Jeri Ryan...she da bomb!
There was a show where one of her Borg thingies was expiring and would lead to her demise and it appeared she was to be a goner.
She said "adjusting to my abscene will be difficult" ...well heck yeah!
I want that on my headstone.
Rode a lot of trolleys in my day in Hamilton. Was better when it was streetcars. They were stoic and characterless. Drivers hated 'em cause the twin contact was always coming off the overhead and out the door he would go cursing.
Departing from a Diesel bus and reaching the end of the bus just as it pulls away and getting that heat blast followed by all the smelly atmospherics is not something correct for the human condition. ...and of course Murphys Law states the bus won't leave until you are in the correct spot every time.
Overmod ……You can consider whether simple evolutionary improvements, such as better-cast valves, or more complex ones like piston-valve conversions, would have made the engines embarrassingly better just as the economics for any highly-sophisticated steam passenger power were declining radically, and find evidence for politics accordingly……
Overmod As you all probably know, I think practical luxury-bus service was nipped in the bud far too early, essentially starting when Missouri proactively reduced its highway size and axle-load limits. Look at the late Pickwick Nite Coaches, and the later Santa Fe articulateds, to see what interesting rubber-tired alternatives could have been for all those REA city pairs that were becoming uneconomical to serve even with one-man motor trains.
Some patent drawings of the PRR V1 project (9000hp Direct-Drive Steam Turbine Locomotive) from 1946 (source: Google Patents):
Steam Turbine Electric Locomotive Vs Direct-Drive Steam Turbine Locomotive
A key to the diesel transition was the MU building block principal. Once labor agreements allowed MU operation it became possible to build a 6000 HP diesel that could still operate if one of the units went off line. If your 9000 HP turbine drops out, you're in real trouble. PRR's side trip with the Baldwin Centipedes shows how deeply the "Big Engine" mentatlity was embedded in both builders and carriers. Santa Fe's largely unnoticed, but nonetheless groundbreaking decision to order all of its FT units with couplers instead of drawbars hastened the end of steam as much as anything.
Since nothing happens in a vacuum, what else is happening in the railroad world at this time... Other railroads have dieselized and laid off thousands of employees and closed multiple heavy maintenance facilities. They have also stopped their dependence on the whims of the most powerful labor union of the time (UMW). Even if the PRR gets the duplexes sorted out, so what? Most are for passenger trains, which although they are prestigious, don't make any money. What are you going to do to replace those thousands of H,K,I,M,and L classes worn out from the war. The only reason the Pennsy wasn't swamped by the war was all the steamers not needed by the new electrification. Now, they are antiques.
“Feb 24, 1948 Charles D. Young writes to James M. Symes calling attention to an article on turbine locomotives in the Feb. 14 issue of Railway Age and suggests inviting Westinghouse Electric Corporation and Babcock & Wilcox to collaborate on a design for a high-pressure water-tube boiler for the Class S2 6-8-6 chassis. (VPO)”"Mar. 2, 1948 VP James M. Symes rejects Charles D. Young’s suggestion for a highpressure water-tube boiler for the S2 turbine locomotive, as the only way to increase turbine efficiency is to use a forced draft, and no fan can stand up to the damage from fly ash and other abrasives. (VPO)"
The US Navy used forced draft in the Destroyer Escorts from DE 1037 Bronstein onward, up through the Knox class until these became known as Frigates and the next class, the FFG-7 went to gas turbine propulsion.
My understanding is that these were pressurised boilers, with high pressure air being pumped into the combustion space by blowers well downstream of the combustion. Of course, these were all oil fired, but coal firing of a pressurised boiler, possibly using pulverised coal injected into the blower stream should be practical. At least there were no turbine blades to erode, just the water tubes...
These installations were very compact for their power, 600psi and 22000 shp in the Bronstein and 1200psi and 35000 shp in the Knox.
Of course the 40000 shp in the FFG-7 from two GE LM2500s was even more compact and not that much less fuel efficient, since you could run on one turbine and extract waste heat for dometic purposes. You could also run on one boiler in the steam ships, of course, but they had only one steam turbine which was a single point of failure.
These ships are about ten to fifteen years later than the rail steam turbines being discussed, but the US Navy is rarely at the forefront of technology (nuclear power excepted).
rcdryeA key to the diesel transition was the MU building block principal. Once labor agreements allowed MU operation it became possible to build a 6000 HP diesel that could still operate if one of the units went off line. If your 9000 HP turbine drops out, you're in real trouble. PRR's side trip with the Baldwin Centipedes shows how deeply the "Big Engine" mentatlity was embedded in both builders and carriers. Santa Fe's largely unnoticed, but nonetheless groundbreaking decision to order all of its FT units with couplers instead of drawbars hastened the end of steam as much as anything.
Backshop Since nothing happens in a vacuum, what else is happening in the railroad world at this time... Other railroads have dieselized and laid off thousands of employees and closed multiple heavy maintenance facilities. They have also stopped their dependence on the whims of the most powerful labor union of the time (UMW). Even if the PRR gets the duplexes sorted out, so what? Most are for passenger trains, which although they are prestigious, don't make any money. What are you going to do to replace those thousands of H,K,I,M,and L classes worn out from the war. The only reason the Pennsy wasn't swamped by the war was all the steamers not needed by the new electrification. Now, they are antiques.
M636C ……My understanding is that these were pressurised boilers, with high pressure air being pumped into the combustion space by blowers well downstream of the combustion. Of course, these were all oil fired, but coal firing of a pressurised boiler, possibly using pulverised coal injected into the blower stream should be practical. At least there were no turbine blades to erode, just the water tubes......
Jones1945Looking at the patent drawing of the Baldwin Centipedes, I really can’t understand how they could approve such “vanguard” design;
That's not the Centipedes; what you're looking at is the far more significant Essl modular locomotive (which used 408-engined gensets. each with its own little piece of carbody for the radiators, that could relatively easily be swapped out if they failed a la RDC engines, or fired up as needed for instantaneous HP vs. fuel efficiency). That was the first practical 6000hp single-unit diesel locomotive design, the only real problem being that each 750hp unit was arranged to drive on the single adjacent driver axle, giving both control and slipping issues in that era.
There have been a couple of articles in Trains with good information on this; the principal problem was that it was even more expensive than the equivalent hp's worth of building-block EMDs ... and that proved more important than the length reduction (this design offering considerably more than a 4-unit FT hp in only about 58' length; see Kiefer's 1947 report for the packaging advantages).
PRR's Centipedes were built with those DeLaVergne tugboat derived engines, taking four of them in two units to match Essl's prospective output. This was considered (by Baldwin and PRR) to be a better capital and maintenance prospect, the engines peaking at only 625rpm with everything overbuilt. (If you argue, consider how R.J. Russell, who ran BP-20s on the Bay Head trains, got normal high acceleration -- he said the ammeter would go into the red and peg, and only come floating down after a minute or so, stop after stop. And PRR only retired those units when it consolidated the number of types of locomotive power after 1963...
M636C"Mar. 2, 1948 VP James M. Symes rejects Charles D. Young’s suggestion for a highpressure water-tube boiler for the S2 turbine locomotive, as the only way to increase turbine efficiency is to use a forced draft, and no fan can stand up to the damage from fly ash and other abrasives. (VPO)"
We should pause here for a moment. There are two kinds of draft in boiler design, forced draft and induced draft, which have specific technical meaning. Very often in railroad practice you see the former term mistakenly used for the latter implementation, as with what Symes is doing here. Induced draft is upstream of the boiler, and the primary air is pulled through the fire, the radiant section, and the convective passes before being exhausted (either through a draft fan or via nozzle ejection as in a traditional front end). Forced draft involves a sealed firebox, and fan arrangements acting as compressors to provide a positive overpressure (and hence greater mass of available oxygen) in the combustion space. Of course, every little hole or seam in the firebox spews gas and soot all the time, which is why forced draft has been a dubious proposition since the early years of steam-locomotive design when it was first tried.
Now you may notice that the B&W high-pressure watertube boiler proposals that culminated in the locomotive design used in the N&W TE-1) will work nicely with induced draft. But not with the draft induced from the S2-style mechanical turbine, with its relatively high slip at low speed, perhaps not even from the V1's two turbines and Bowes drives.
Symes is likely thinking of some of the experimentation with fan drafting, notably MacFarland's. Fans with enough performance to duplicate the effect of conventional front ends that would 'package' in the room available would either have to turn quickly or be very large, in either case exacerbating the impingement wear of exhaust ash and soot on the blading. (It is illustrative to note the ways the South Africans dealt with this through changes in construction and location, a few years later)
An example of railroad use of forced draft is the Velox boiler (described by Duffy in a rather good Newcomen Society paper) which used a gas-turbine compressor to produce (iirc) about 30psi pressure in the combustion air. You can dramatically reduce the size and weight of plant needed for producing a large mass flow of high-pressure steam. But one has to argue that using an expensive, fragile, high-maintenance turbine as a prerequisite for a relatively low-efficiency Rankine cycle plant is a dubious proposition economically -- and I think the Swiss experience thoroughly bore this out.
The US Navy used forced draft in the Destroyer Escorts from DE 1037 Bronstein onward, up through the Knox class until these became known as Frigates and the next class, the FFG-7 went to gas turbine propulsion. My understanding is that these [Navy boilers] were pressurised boilers, with high pressure air being pumped into the combustion space by blowers well downstream of the combustion.
I believe you mean 'upstream' in this context, e.g. pressurized ahead of the air preheaters, with something like Racer pressure burners themselves fed primary compressed primary air.
Of course, these were all oil fired, but coal firing of a pressurised boiler, possibly using pulverised coal injected into the blower stream should be practical.
I'm not sure that's the word I would use for any mobile pulverized-coal plant as by definition you're pressurizing the entire feed apparatus to get it to work reliably, and any failure is likely to result sooner or later in nice coal-dust explosions (which can propagate at about 0.93c, an effect likely to be implicated in the sinkings of the Lusitania and Britannic) and fires where you do not ever want them. Feeding PC with compressed primary air in the burner is one thing; positive overpressure in the firebox something decidedly different.
Now, I have had quite a bit of fun designing locomotives that use a combination of forced and induced draft; the arrangements at the primary end involving a cellular windbox and active dampers to allow fitting a proper combustion-air preheat arrangement and some 'trim' over the fired areas on a grate, but no more than a couple of psi peak overpressure. Even that is probably overkill for most practical road locomotive applications...
Overmod That's not the Centipedes; what you're looking at is the far more significant Essl modular locomotive (which used 408-engined gensets. each with its own little piece of carbody for the radiators, that could relatively easily be swapped out if they failed a la RDC engines, or fired up as needed for instantaneous HP vs. fuel efficiency). That was the first practical 6000hp single-unit diesel locomotive design, the only real problem being that each 750hp unit was arranged to drive on the single adjacent driver axle, giving both control and slipping issues in that era.
Well, that was the problem.
When you have a motive power fleet that diverse, how can you effectively shop the units for regular maintainance cycles without causing "Havoc" in the "Then-New" Diesel shops? Most of the employees were used to working on steam. Now they have to learn about all these various new critters? Disaster! Well, after about 10-15 years, PRR, along with the rest of them figured out that sticking with one manufacturer (usually EMD ), would simplify life.
Of course you can't forget the Immense savings from eliminating all the coaling/watering facilities, the reduced shop force, etc, etc, etc..
Now, don't get the idea that I hate steam locomotives. I don't. I Love to see the restored ones in operation. But, I will say, if it weren't for the Diesel Locomotive, we would most likely NOT have any railroads left. The modern Semi-Truck would have long ago, stolen ALL the traffic.
Note that Elsey's design, as written, is the wrong answer to not just a couple, but several questions nobody asked. It's not particularly hard to understand why it was not applied to the Q1 to 'save' or assist it.
I suspect it would be difficult to find someone other than a French mecanicien (as on de Glehn- du Bousquet engines) who would voluntarily choose a system requiring manipulation of four separate controls, without conjugation or indicators of any kind, to synchronize or 'trim' power between two separate cylinder groups. What is needed is a differential arrangement for each control, preferably one which can 'store' the offset needed for slip control, actuate it when needed, and then go back to normal sync or to "best" balance of power between units easily.
If you are familiar with the Eames locomotive, the wacky nature of the throttle arrangement in this patent, as drawn, will be appallingly clear. At high mass flow the steam is NOT going to go neatly between the piping branches; it is also amusing to consider what the flow of combustion gas in the upper flues does to get around the considerable obstruction of the second throttle and interconnections. Elsey appears not to know anything about Wagner throttles or the design of modern multiple front-end (poppet) throttles; there is no room for two of these on a T1 at any point in the available space for steam tracting, and even if there were, it would be better to use air actuators on both and control them from a single grapevine with a fast-acting differential control of some kind appended. We have already discussed practical methods of detecting and indicating the pair of wheels slipping on a duplex -- a pair of simple wheelslip lights representing one of the better ways -- and it is not difficult to design a small motor-activated 'riding cutoff' arrangement (probably applied only to the 'slipperier' engine in practice) that would act in servo to extinguish the lights autonomically.
I do agree with Porta that a better way to eliminate the slip on a duplex is to use four Wagner throttles (Porta couldn't spell very well and called them "Waggoner") which use fluidic amplification for very quick, very close control of fine throttle opening across the full range of actuation. These go immediately upstream of the sets of ports and would be fed by branch manifolds similar to those used on Franklin poppet valves; they allow trim of one engine when the (single) main throttle is fully open and the engine is being driven on cutoff, and don't involve the weight and complexity of a complete separate power reverse arrangement.
The Wagner throttle arrangement is also a more correct way to implement, physically, the differential control as used on the Q2s, as it permits continuous control of the amount of steam admission rather than 'bang-bang' controlling the flow on and off with butterfly valves that require gland seals exposed to nearly full superheat. To my knowledge there was no problem with the actual analog-computer setup used, which remains a highly interesting application of technology to steam power.
Overmod Note that Elsey's design, as written, is the wrong answer to not just a couple, but several questions nobody asked. It's not particularly hard to understand why it was not applied to the Q1 to 'save' or assist it.
Estimating steam locomotive horsepowerAuthor: AdamPhillips (2013)
http://digital.hagley.org/PRR_11454
Knew if I dug into some of the records, I'd find it. This is the S1 backhead view.
I found the espresso maker....seats don't look so great.
Overmod http://digital.hagley.org/PRR_11454 Knew if I dug into some of the records, I'd find it. This is the S1 backhead view.
Such delicate interior! S1 is like a 1925 Rolls-Royce Phantom 1 in my heart.
No computers, no phone, no radio. Operating this behemoth was not for your average bear. As strange as this comparison will seem to many it reminds me a lot of the face of an advancing drift underground. Just air, drill oil and water, operating a bouncing jackleg with strength and smarts. High skills at many levels and brawn. No computers, no phone, no radio either. Finishing work at the end of the day the Engineer, Fireman and a two man Mining crew would have a similar appearance. Not for your average bear either.
The Espresso maker is just above the 3 same size circular gauges on the Firemans side.
While I have no specific facts to back this up, I suspect that the "6-4-4-6" arrangement of the S-1 was more for show, than go.. After all, that took a lot of available weight off the driving axles. Add that to the long rigid frame, and it was not a very practical engine. Doomed before it was ever built.
Here is a virtually unknown streamlined Pacific that operated on the Ontario Northland Railway
700 after modifications including streamlining and larger tender. Built with Young valve gear changed to Baker. 200 lbs. 69" drivers. 37% t.e. (with booster 47%) CLC #1692 1921 North Bay 1940's
I'll admit to skimming over the many replies, but I did not see one mention of the maintainance costs for Steam/VS/ Diesel. Most Modern steam locos would have to visit the roundhouse after every run of at the most of 200 miles. Not to mention the regular boiler washouts, rod lubrication, ash pan clean outs, coaling, watering, pretty much non-stop attention. Then, the upkeep of the lineside facilities for these machines. Now, don't get me wrong.. I think steam was really neat, I love to see them run. However, I see why the RR's dumped them. Simple economics.
From Wiki: Six of these locomotives were chosen by their designer, Paul W. Kiefer, for the famous 1946 Steam Versus Diesel road trials, where the 6,000 hp (4,500 kW) Niagaras were put up against some 4,000 hp (3,000 kW) diesels (E7's). The locomotives were run along the 928.1 miles (1,493.6 km) from New York (Harmon) to Chicago, via Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo and Elkhart, and return. The results were close: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Central_Niagara
In this thread, I am going to create a compilation of information about the Raymond Loewy "Triplex" and PRR V1 direct-drive turbine locomotive. I will gather all information from The PRR Chronology in the first phase, please feel free to sharing all your thought with us!
This thread will keep updating when new information is avaliable.
Apr. 10, 1943 | Raymond Loewy’s office applies for three design patents covering the streamlined shell of the proposed “Triplex” steam turbine locomotive. (VPO)
Jan. 4, 1944 | Mechanical Engineer Carleton K. Steins receives patents Nos. 2,338,212 and 2,338,214 covering a turbine or reciprocating locomotive with a tender first, followed by the cab, and then the boiler with the firebox forward, the proposed V1. (VPO)
Feb. 8, 1944 | Chief of Motive Power H. W. Jones writes to Carleton K. Steins asking him to discuss the steam turbine V1 “Triplex” locomotive with the Baldwin Locomotive Works. (VPO)
Feb. 9, 1944 | With the patents granted, Carleton K. Steins writes to Chief Engineer Ralph P. Johnson of the Baldwin Locomotive Works arranging to discuss the “Triplex” steam turbine locomotive when they next come up to discuss the Class Q2. (VPO)
Apr. 12, 1944 | Pres. Clement meets with heads of other coal-hauling railroads to promote the development of a coal-burning turbine locomotive.
Apr. 12, 1944 | Mechanical Engineer's office issues specification drawing for proposed Class V1 4-8-4-8 steam turbine "Triplex"; twin turbines developing 9,000 HP with top speed of 100 MPH; 48" drivers; total weight 882,000 lbs.; starting drawbar pull 115,000 lbs.. (CMP)
June 22, 1944 | VP in Charge of Operations John F. Deasy requests Pres. Clement to approve development of an experimental Class V1 2-D+2-D streamlined steam turbine locomotive, for which $400,000 is to be charged to capital account and $350,000 to operating expenses; it is to use the same boiler as the Q2 but which can develop 115,000 lbs. of starting tractive effort from two 4,500 shaft HP turbines; the coal bunker is to be equipped with auxiliary water tanks, so that water can be pumped forward as the coal is depleted to maintain weight on the front driving unit; overall length is to be 137'-5" and total weight 882,000 lbs.;
the V1 is to have clearances similar to the J1; it will require 125-foot turntables, of which there is presently only one at Harrisburg, so that a new turntable will be required at East Altoona; track troughs at Jacks and Latrobe would have to be lengthened from 1,800 to 2,600 feet; Deasy proposes using it on the Middle Division and in helper service between Altoona and Gallitzin, althought he forsees its use between Enola and East St. Louis/Chicago using the Port Perry Branch to get through Pittsburgh; development work begins without formal authorization from Board. (VPO)
Sep. 13, 1944 | PRR Board authorizes the expenditure of $375,000 for a 4,000 HP EMD E7 A-A set; track changes at “Q” Tower at Sunnyside Yard; approves a contract between the railroads and the General Electric Company for a coal-burning steam turbine electric locomotive of 5,435 HP. (MB)
Oct. 18, 1944 | Motive Power Dept. prepares a performance curve showing the proposed Class V1 turbine locomotive outperforming all PRR conventional steam locomotives and even the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway’s 2-6-6-6 “Alleghany” Type at all speeds over 25 MPH. (VPO)
(S2 #6200)Nov. 28, 1944 Experimental Class S2 6-8-6 steam turbine locomotive No. 6200 placed on display for press at Philadelphia; developed by Baldwin with turbine components by Westinghouse; proposed T1-type Loewy streamlining has been rejected; develops 6,900 HP at turbine shaft. (Hirsmaki says in service 10/1/44!! 11/28 is date of press event!! NYT); simplified smokebox design leads to staybolts breaking and steam leaks, although turbine performs well. (RyAge, CMP)
Nov. 28, 1944 | Pres. Martin W. Clement asks when the company will be able to make up its mind on the Class V1 turbine locomotive and whether it will be used for freight or passenger service. (VPO)
Jan. 29, 1945 | VP in Charge of Operations John F. Deasy proposes that the Baldwin Locomotive Works and Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company collaborate with the PRR on developing a prototype of the Class V1 turbine locomotive; Chief Electrical Engineer John V. B. Duer writes to the Baldwin Locomotive Works concerning the patents, particularly possible patent infringement from the similar steam turbine locomotives that Baldwin is building for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway. (VPO)
Feb. 21, 1945 | H. W. Jones, John V. B. Duer, Carleton K. Steins and J. S. Stair of the PRR meet in Philadelphia with representatives of Baldwin Locomotive Works and Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company in Philadelphia and agree that they will develop and build a prototype Class V1 coal-burning direct-drive turbine locomotive on the same terms as they have built the Class S2 No. 6200; Westinghouse will design the turbines, gearing and drives, Baldwin the locomotive, and the PRR only the driving and guiding trucks; this has the effect of raising the costs of the locomotive from $750,000 if built at Altoona, to $975,000. (VPO)
Feb. 25, 1945 | G. M. Humphrey, Pres. of the M.A. Hanna Company writes to Pres. M. W. Clement complaining about the announcement of the Class V1; the PRR has chosen a side view to emphasize the difference in arrangement from a conventional locomotive; Humphrey would have preferred an angle shot that emphasized the streamlining and “modernity” still possible in a coal-burning locomotive. (VPO)
Mar. 20, 1945 | PRR announces completion of design of Class V1 "Triplex" 9,000 HP 2-D+2- D steam turbine locomotive to be built jointly with Baldwin and Westinghouse; to be 137.5 long; falling revenues after end of war preclude construction; also announces pending construction of Class Q2 duplexes. (PR)
Mar. 20, 1945 | Raymond Loewy responds to the V1 “Triplex” locomotive publicity complaining that he originated the “Triplex” concept in 1941 and “suggesting” that future publicity state that it “was conceived by the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Consulting Designer, Raymond Loewy and developed by the railroad’s engineering staff ...”; he also complains about the poor quality of the rendering supplied to the press. (VPO)
Mar. 26, 1945 | VP in Charge of Operations John F. Deasy responds to Raymond Loewy’s criticisms by noting the Loewy’s original “Triplex” design was for a three-unit reciprocating locomotive, whereas the PRR’s engineers have replaced it with a two-unit turbine design; he promises that Loewy will be given credit for styling the V1 when it reaches that point. (VPO)
Mar. 28, 1945 | Chesapeake & Ohio Railway asks War Production Board to build three steamturbine-electric locomotives similar to the projected PRR V1. (RyAge)
Apr. 28, 1945 | PRR Pres. Martin W. Clement questions VP in Charge of Operations John F. Deasy where the Class V1 turbine locomotive can be used if successful.(VPO)
June 22, 1945 VP in Charge of Operations John F. Deasy replies that the Class V1 turbine locomotive should be used between Harrisburg and Altoona, as it will have enough coal to operate 160-170 miles at 50 MPH. (VPO)
Sep. 25, 1945 | VP in Charge of Operations John F. Deasy submits a new AFE for $975,000 for the construction of one Class V1 steam turbine locomotive; the Accounting Dept. questions whether the increase in cost of $225,000 is because the locomotive will be built by outside builders, Baldwin and Westinghouse, instead of at Altoona; if so, the additional charge cannot be made to operating expenses; this means that $500,000 must be charged to Road & Equipment. (VPO)
June 13, 1946 | Chief of Motive Power Howell T. Cover request the use in the proposed Class V1 turbine locomotive of an electric drive and reversing mechanism invented by Dr. Thomas D. Bowes, naval architect and used in ship propulsion; it will raise the cost of the complete locomotive by $10,000 to $985,000; Cover recommends building and testing one truck complete before proceeding with the whole locomotive, and speed is necessary to secure the use of the patent if it proves successful. (VPO)
June 19, 1946 | VP in Charge of Operation John F. Deasy formally submits to Pres. M. W. Clement a proposal to first build a truck with the Bowes drive and complete the design of the Class V1 turbine locomotive for $578,000, followed by construction of a complete locomotive for a total of $985,000; he urges speed to prevent the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway from claiming patent priority. (VPO)
Aug. 20, 1946 | Meeting of PRR, Baldwin Locomotive Works and Westinghouse Electric Corporation personnel held in Philadelphia on the proposed Class V1 turbine locomotive; both the Bowes drive and DC transmission are rejected as they would make the locomotive 10-20 feet longer; Carleton K. Steins calls for the coal capacity to be increased from 32.5 tons to 42 tons. (CMP)
Sep. 9, 1946 | Chief of Motive Power Howell T. Cover comments on the proposed contract with Baldwin Locomotive Works for building the Class V1 turbine locomotive, noting that the Bowes drive has been dropped from consideration; he also notes that it is probably that the American Locomotive Company (ALCO) will build an all-welded boiler for the Class Q2, and if so, the same type of boiler, and not a Baldwin riveted boiler, should be used on the V1. (CMP)
Sep. 11, 1946 | PRR Board approves contracting with the Baldwin Locomotive Works and Westinghouse Electric Corporation for the construction of trucks, gearing and drives for the proposed Class V1 turbine locomotive. (VPO, MB)
Oct. 2, 1946 | Chief of Motive Power Howell T. Cover notes some objections to the proposed contract with Baldwin Locomotive Works to build the Class V1 turbine locomotive; Baldwin is demanding to build the boiler, because it knows that the PRR would have an all-welded boiler built by its rival the American Locomotive Company (ALCO); Cover wants the most modern boiler. (CMP)
Nov. 29, 1946 | VP John F. Deasy submits papers to Pres. Clement asking authority to spend $1.15 million to develop one Class V1 modified Triplex 4-8-4-8 coal-burning steam turbine locomotive. (VPO)
Feb. 21, 1947 | General Electric Company issues final report on coal-burning turbo-electric locomotive; was to have been 6,700 HP with estimated cost of $1.15 million each; compares unfavorably with four-unit 6,000 HP diesel at cost of $540,000 each; cost per horsepower $172 for turbine vs. $90 for diesel; concludes that the turbine cannot be competitive, and the project is scrapped. (SMPE)
May 8, 1947 | In a memo to Chief of Motive Power Howell T. Cover, VP James M. Symes kills further development of the V1 Triplex, saying it would be a waste of money. (VPO)
May 14, 1947 | Chief of Motive Power H.T. Cover replies to VP James M. Symes noting that the V1 Triplex would not be a satisfactory freight locomotive as its principal advantage would be in the higher speed range, which the PRR is in no position to attain at present; it would require 7-10 years for development, whereas diesels are presently available; further expenditures would be a waste of money. (VPO)
May 28, 1947 | John V.B. Duer of Mechanical Officers Committee informs other eight railroads participating with PRR in General Electric Company’s steam turbine project that the committee has received copies of all the patents, drawings and test reports, that there will be no further work, and the project is closed. (Rdg)
1948 | PRR cancels further steam locomotive development, including V-1 turbine locomotive, and orders full dieselization
(Bonus) The final nail in the coffin:
Aug. 25 1948 PRR announces expansion of postwar equipment program to $216.7 million; includes 566 diesels, 395 new lightweight passenger cars, 273 rebuilt coaches, parlor, diner and lounge cars, and 4,400 new freight cars; passenger cars are to include 212 sleeping and lounge cars, 118 overnight coaches, 40 diners, including 16 twin-units, and 25 observation and lounge cars without sleeping accommodations; Senator and Congressional to be reequipped with compartment cars. (NYT, RyAge, Guide)
The evolution of Raymond Loewy's "Triplex" :
I thought Loewy's "Triplex" idea went considerably further back than 1941 (I don't have my notes available, but I seem to recall 1934) and was somewhat different in detail: it involved separating the locomotive into three 'modules' containing water, fuel, and boiler (hence the 'triplex' designation). Why PRR persisted in calling the design that became the V1 the 'triplex' as long as they did is something of a mystery to me, as it's clear in some of the correspondence preserved at the Hagley that it's not what Loewy had developed or intended. (As an amusing counterpoint, I have seen a Lehigh Valley diagram for a proposed duplex that features an enigmatic vehicle that is probably an integral separate water tender 'module.')
Cover et al. made much of the fact that Baldwin's design for the C&O M-1 was done in great secrecy and relatively great haste but largely to get around any prospective Steins patents rather than try to steal priority -- you may notice that many of the basic design features are very different. If I recall correctly Baldwin was also thinking they would have a leg up on having a steam turbine product to promote and sell 'ahead' of anything PRR or BCR could develop ... this being the practical follow-on to large passenger locomotives required to pull long trains of axle-generator-served modern air-conditioned cars. (There are highly revealing graphs of trailing resistance in Kiefer's report showing the effect on acceleration rate as the axle generators are cut in progressively). Note that Chris Baer's sources specifically include the files at the Hagley that I reviewed concerning the V1.
Note the considerable differences between the GE 'turboelectric' (which was a follow-on to the first-generation experiment sold to the UP in the late Thirties) and anything PRR is doing with turbines at this point, either with the S2 or the V1 which are direct-drive through gears. It is important to keep the various lines of development separate, especially as when you extend this development to its logical conclusion at N&W you will see one of the earlier "improvements" being a switch to electric drive, in part to utilize the 'wasted' carrying axles for additional traction.
There is also poor distinction in the records regarding use of steam turbine locomotives for high speed passenger work (the V1 as greenlighted in 1944 being intended as a freight locomotive). Loewy's design patents clearly show a passenger shell suited for this chassis, and the use of the Bowes drive should have permitted better starting and much faster running than the original version.
A word on the S2 front end: It was fairly common knowledge that a steam turbine in locomotive service requires a very large exhaust plenum volume (and effective cross-section) in order to simulate the conditions of marine condensing (where the effective pressure at the turbine outlet can be considerably below atmospheric or gauge pressure due to the phase change). This is clearly seen in the plenum for the '30s GE high-pressure turbine, and in the front end for the S2 which used four separate nozzles and stacks in an arrangement similar to that proposed for the UP FEF-4s. A problem with the S2 was that, at starting, there was considerable 'slip' of steam both around the tips and through the blading with the turbine at low speed (this was not reflected in a loss of starting TE, as some PRR correspondence as late as 1946 was at pains to demonstrate) and this quite cheerily induced glorious vacuum relatively quickly after full-power starting had begun. This was a disaster waiting to happen as soon as one engineer had forgotten about this difference and horsed the throttle open (or slipped the engine at starting) as the draft induced high combustion and gas temperatures and steam consumption soared inducing what were probably DNB conditions in parts of the water legs. Result was popped staybolts, and lots of them, with consequences not many would enjoy contemplating. In my opinion some of this trouble could be solved by using only part of the available nozzle capacity at low speeds (or regulating the rate at which draft could be physically induced during acceleration) and there are front-end arrangements, including those using aerodynamics to augment gas eduction, that supplement large plenums in achieving low exhaust back pressure even at high steam mass flow at the high speed a turbine passenger locomotive would expect to work much of its time.
Overmod ......I thought Loewy's "Triplex" idea went considerably further back than 1941 (I don't have my notes available, but I seem to recall 1934) and was somewhat different in detail: it involved separating the locomotive into three 'modules' containing water, fuel, and boiler (hence the 'triplex' designation). Why PRR persisted in calling the design that became the V1 the 'triplex' as long as they did is something of a mystery to me, as it's clear in some of the correspondence preserved at the Hagley that it's not what Loewy had developed or intended. (As an amusing counterpoint, I have seen a Lehigh Valley diagram for a proposed duplex that features an enigmatic vehicle that is probably an integral separate water tender 'module.')......
......I thought Loewy's "Triplex" idea went considerably further back than 1941 (I don't have my notes available, but I seem to recall 1934) and was somewhat different in detail: it involved separating the locomotive into three 'modules' containing water, fuel, and boiler (hence the 'triplex' designation). Why PRR persisted in calling the design that became the V1 the 'triplex' as long as they did is something of a mystery to me, as it's clear in some of the correspondence preserved at the Hagley that it's not what Loewy had developed or intended. (As an amusing counterpoint, I have seen a Lehigh Valley diagram for a proposed duplex that features an enigmatic vehicle that is probably an integral separate water tender 'module.')......
Thank you very much, Overmod. It seems that you and me are the only two forum member who knows or interested or willing to talk about this topic at the moment! I remember I found other simple drawing of Loewy’s “Triplex” before 1944 but I can’t find them anymore, it was in the Google Patents IIRC.
By the way, I wish I can find a detailed drawing of Bowes drive so that I can’t at least understand how a direct-drive turbine can work on PRR’s V1 (two modules) design.
I do admire the craftmanship of S2’s firebox. Working under such dangerous operating environment, it still managed to not explode but cracked on here and there…… By the way, now I understand that S2 was supposed to be a passenger engine while V1 was for freight services. Since 6900hp was not enough to handle heavy freight train, but ironically V1’s design top speed was 100mph.
The original Loewy ”Triplex” was a three “modules” design, it would looks like a Garratts (eg. 4-8-2+2-8-4) without articulation. Without articulation, TE of both Fuel and water modules would decrease during operation if there are drivers under these modules.
The original Loewy Triplex that I recall had the drivers under the 'central' boiler, with trucks at either end. There was no loss of TE as fuel and water levels changed. I remember the presentation being nonarticulated (and only six-coupled!) but that might have been just for 'show' as in so many of these locomotive-scheme patent drawings.
You will note that the V1 comparison curve is plotted only to a comparison speed well below "100mph" (although a properly-designed mechanical turbine can, of course, reach much higher speeds) -- in fact, I thought it interesting that the S2 comparison line goes all the way up to 85mph, higher than other locomotives traced, and is trending 'better' than the V1 (with original drive) at that point. (The original of this graph is in the Hagley files, and is a beautiful thing in multiple colors).
Your best bet with the Bowes drive, since I don't have the patent list handy, is to start with the Bowes collection finding aid at the Philadelphia seaport museum. Note down the various patent numbers and then use Google Patents to download the PDFs (don't go by the online text; it is often poorly rendered and viewing the drawings is essential to understanding both the principles and the detail design of the various kinds of drive).
From the handwritten presentation in the Hagley files, I had originally thought of the drive as a kind of electromagnetic slip coupling, a bit like a magnetorheological clutch but without fluid between its armature and field. But it is more complex than that, as you will see; think of a motor with two opposing armatures, one rotated by an external shaft, the other driving the output, both with magnetic-phase control. A modern version using multiple salience and intelligent phase control becomes both more cost-effective and far more robust.
Note that the V1 was not supposed to be 6900hp but 8000hp (this being directly related to the steam-generation potential of the welded version of the Q2 boiler), little if any turbine power being 'wasted' in the direct drive. The original version was probably direct-connected much like the S2 at 'right angles', but it would likely have been practical to install at least a Maybach clutch to allow the turbine to be warmed and 'dewatered' before attempting a hard start into load. With a Bowes drive, of course, this is much simplified.
The postwar version of the V1 began to be touted as "9000hp" in PRR literature, but this is likely at least partly PR 'vaporware' as the changes to a Q2 boiler to achieve the necessary mass flow would be difficult and, of course, the water rate colossally useless, almost defeating the purpose of most high-speed working. That's not to say such horsepower wasn't needed or couldn't be used, only that PRR was beginning to have experience with high pressure and alloy steel in their normal service, and it wasn't proving very pretty especially with typical track-pan water quality...
Overmod The original Loewy Triplex that I recall had the drivers under the 'central' boiler, with trucks at either end. There was no loss of TE as fuel and water levels changed. I remember the presentation being nonarticulated (and only six-coupled!) but that might have been just for 'show' as in so many of these locomotive-scheme patent drawings.
Overmod ……in fact, I thought it interesting that the S2 comparison line goes all the way up to 85mph, higher than other locomotives traced, and is trending 'better' than the V1 (with original drive) at that point. (The original of this graph is in the Hagley files, and is a beautiful thing in multiple colors)……
Overmod ……start with the Bowes collection finding aid at the Philadelphia seaport museum. Note down the various patent numbers and then use Google Patents to download the PDFs (don't go by the online text; it is often poorly rendered and viewing the drawings is essential to understanding both the principles and the detail design of the various kinds of drive) …..
Please note that my last post was edited, corrected some silly mistakes and typos.
This above page is from a report of PRR in 1946, note S1 was still on the list after Dec 1945. Wheel Arrangement of S2 #6200 was 6-4-4-6 instead of 6-8-6. There were two brake shoes between the 2nd and 3rd set of driver, formed a larger gap between both set of driver on S2, but both set of driver were connected with the main gear and turbine. Prewar proposal of the direct-steam turbine engine was a 4-4-4-4, two separate rods connected two set of drivers.
Jones1945Does it mean the Loewy Triplex was (probably) supposed to be a 0-6-0 in the middle module? I assume its “tender” and the unit for water storage had 12 wheels truck that would make it a 30-wheel engine with three modules.
I started went through Hagley files on its online archive these days, but It seems to me that it is not easy to find texts and document that I wants to read (PRR stuff), do you have some hints and tips could share with us? Thanks!
I do understand you're overseas and unlikely to have the opportunity to be here soon, but if you can, I highly recommend that you budget time to visit both the Bowes collection and the Hagley at length. (Hagley does have accommodations for visiting scholars; it's a VERY well-run operation .. du Ponts do it right.)
I would like to ask you a question regarding PRR S2 6-8-6 Direct-steam turbine locomotive, would you mind giving me a hand? (please allow me to put the question here in advance so that other member could read it too). What is your opinion of the design of PRR S2 #6200, if you could rewrite history with no limitation today, how would you improve the design of S2?
First, of course, it needed to be a 4-8-4, with proper firebox construction and front-end arrangement for a turbine of expected characteristics. I would size things for an anticipated peak hp of anywhere from 6000 to 6400 with adequate grate area, probably Cunningham circulators and Snyder preheaters; the perfected C1a boiler being a logical starting point dimension-wise as none of the PRR high-pressure things were particularly 'rightsized' for that range. I of course would use a forced-circulation waterwall firebox, not anything with staybolts, but it's possible that with proper construction a welded-staybolt firebox could be built for this service, permitting considerably higher throttle pressure. Lead and trailing truck lateral compliance, guiding, and equalization could be made optimal for a relatively low-augmented locomotive; the 'added' rods between the two center driver pairs might be made lighter (since they are in effect only conjugating) but fairly extensive strain testing would be needed to confirm all the various forces. I would be highly tempted to arrange the engine for full bidirectional operation with an extended 'doghouse' arrangement being used for the reverse driving cab.
I assume you have worked through the reasons why the original S2 divided drive was not preferable to the 'final' rod configuration notably with respect to how the flexible gear in the final drive worked. It would be difficult to work around this without some version of quill final drive, which would have to be doubled for the pair -- a couple of Timken lightweight rods is a better solution if they clear the turbine and transmission.
I would use the configuration I proposed for the Turbomotive 2 project (once heavily documented on the Web, perhaps still accessible via the Wayback Machine) which puts a double turbine symmetrically around a center pinion. The high-pressure inlet and nozzles are inboard, and the exhaust plena are outboard (where there is plenty of room to balloon their cross-section appropriately for low turbine-exhaust back pressure at highest mass flow). Reverse would be handled with an intermediate gear directly on this pinion (as far up in the reduction gear train as practical to minimize the tooth and bearing stresses. An alternative would be to use a Ljungstrom counterrotating turbine (where the "stator" blading rotates the opposite way from the "rotor" but it is complicated to try to arrange the gearing to a central takeoff on such a configuration.
For many reasons the engine would be equipped with a Lewty booster arrangement, using perhaps more than one engine. If we assume many of the auxiliaries on the engine, and other systems, are driven electrically, it is not unthinkable to implement the booster using some form of traction motors on some of the trucks -- probably the lead and tender trucks, not the ones under the ashpan -- although I suspect a hydraulic booster for the trailing truck would work well. A booster using a positive-displacement expander is a good 'foil' to the kind of impulse-reaction turbine Westinghouse designed.
Overmod The way I remember it, the center section would be 0-6-0, but presumably with both equalization and effective Franklin-style buffering between it and the other units. Probably the 'best' idea would be to adapt the German idea of pushing the 'adjacent' unit trucks out toward the coupled section to give some of the effect of articulation to the guiding forces on the chassis.
Overmod Unfortunately, there is no substitute for actually going to Delaware, registering, and going through the files in their various boxes and folders. No finding aid is likely to tell you anything meaningful about the contents of many of the relevant documents!
Overmod First, of course, it needed to be a 4-8-4, with proper firebox construction and front-end arrangement for a turbine of expected characteristics. I would size things for an anticipated peak hp of anywhere from 6000 to 6400 with adequate grate area, probably Cunningham circulators and Snyder preheaters; the perfected C1a boiler being a logical starting point dimension-wise as none of the PRR high-pressure things were particularly 'rightsized' for that range……
Westinghouse's direct-drive steam turbine locomotive, 4-8-4-8, looks like it was supposed to be able to operate in both direction. (1945)
None of the "4-8+4-8" locomotives were true bidirectional designs (you would need to start with a couple of Stroudley's tricks to try to get those frames to track in the reverse direction going into curves). The design didn't use a symmetrical articulated underframe (like the type used on GG1s) because of the dropped firebox and ashpan requirement of the boiler (whether reversed or not). Oddly enough, the Westinghouse patent drawing does not show this (it has the firebox drop as on a Meyer locomotive, completely between the axles, which adds length and reduces strength). You see a different version of this accommodation on the C&O M-1 (which was also monodirectional in service) but there, too, not all the axles were appropriately steered when backing.
To provide trucks for bidirectionality with this arrangement would have involved significantly increasing the length (and probably weight) of the locomotive. The answer, of course, was to use three-axle trucks and span bolsters, as on the N&W TE-1 (which was not designed for full bidirectional operation, but could have been)
Overmod None of the "4-8+4-8" locomotives were true bidirectional designs (you would need to start with a couple of Stroudley's tricks to try to get those frames to track in the reverse direction going into curves). The design didn't use a symmetrical articulated underframe (like the type used on GG1s) because of the dropped firebox and ashpan requirement of the boiler (whether reversed or not). Oddly enough, the Westinghouse patent drawing does not show this (it has the firebox drop as on a Meyer locomotive, completely between the axles, which adds length and reduces strength). You see a different version of this accommodation on the C&O M-1 (which was also monodirectional in service) but there, too, not all the axles were appropriately steered when backing......
None of the "4-8+4-8" locomotives were true bidirectional designs (you would need to start with a couple of Stroudley's tricks to try to get those frames to track in the reverse direction going into curves). The design didn't use a symmetrical articulated underframe (like the type used on GG1s) because of the dropped firebox and ashpan requirement of the boiler (whether reversed or not). Oddly enough, the Westinghouse patent drawing does not show this (it has the firebox drop as on a Meyer locomotive, completely between the axles, which adds length and reduces strength). You see a different version of this accommodation on the C&O M-1 (which was also monodirectional in service) but there, too, not all the axles were appropriately steered when backing......
Jones1945A 4-8-4 built with lighter material with a booster engine, adding another control cap on the newly designed tender, a transmission gear to make it operate bidirectional like you suggested would be good enough.
An interesting thing to me is that no such effort was made by PRR. One reason going through the Hagley material on-site is valuable is that you easily build up a chronology of what the folks 'involved in decision making' were doing and saying as technical change was happening. The material on the S2-type turbine is positive up to some point in 1946, but almost completely negative by 1947. Coordinating this with other material we have from that period allows some discrimination of 'steam as a whole' from the particular S2 detail design.
Westinghouse as previously noted has a 4-8-4 turbine in a 1948 product brochure (which I believe has been linked in previous posts on at least one of the Trains forums) but by that time any serious discussion on PRR seems to have switched to the low-wheeled multiple-geared-turbine locomotives epitomized by the V1.
One perhaps sad note is that we had a report several years ago that the original Westinghouse detail drawings for the N&W TE-1 main turbine had survived, rescued from a dumpster. To the extent the S2 and V1 turbine drawings were detailed out ... they would likely have been stored in the same location, and presumably are lost.
BTW: There are good photographs on the Web of the innards of both the S2 main and reverse turbines. You should find them and put them in the post instead of a generic power turbine, which is MUCH larger than the locomotive units. I don't think many people here appreciate just how small the S2's main turbine was.
For fun: one of the potential modifications for this general idea is to provide something like an N&W class A lead truck, with its appropriate equalization, at each end of the 'main' driver pedestal casting, and put the turbine and associated equipment more or less within the rigid wheelbase (instead of over the 4-wheel truck in the original configuration). Then place the firebox completely between the chassis units, as on a Meyer, which allows the ashpan to extend nearly to rail level and dump to the sides (as on the TE-1) or comprise sealed modules for dust-free ash handling.
Overmod An interesting thing to me is that no such effort was made by PRR. One reason going through the Hagley material on-site is valuable is that you easily build up a chronology of what the folks 'involved in decision making' were doing and saying as technical change was happening. The material on the S2-type turbine is positive up to some point in 1946, but almost completely negative by 1947. Coordinating this with other material we have from that period allows some discrimination of 'steam as a whole' from the particular S2 detail design.
ebay
I guess the whole S2 Direct-drive steam turbine locomotive was not a 100% serious experiment but a product of pacification policy, tried to pacify the “Coal burning Party” in the HQ and PRR’s “Coal Burning Club” Allies, from PRR’s own higher officials, employees to everyone related to the coal business as well as PRR’s powerful stock holders (CEOs in the coal industry).
What else PRR expected to get from an overweight testbed (S2) in the first place? But at the same time, it was not, it couldn’t be (they couldn’t fool that many people at the same time) or unnecessary needed to be a 100% pacification thing, I believe even the PRR board had some people who supported dieselization still wanted to see if there was any alternative choices to prolong the coal burning empire leading by the PRR. The 6-8-6 and the turbine was already there, “let see what we can get from this thing”. Situation like this would have involved a lot of corruption.
During 1947,1948 PRR's passenger services were declining but they were far from rock bottom, if they wanted to build a “6201”, they still had tons of money to spend, even if they chose dieselization, why didn’t they do it in phases instead of negated everything about Steam power and everything they done for steam engine development in such a short time? But it has been 70 years, the rest is history. Just my two cents.
LIFE
OvermodWestinghouse as previously noted has a 4-8-4 turbine in a 1948 product brochure (which I believe has been linked in previous posts on at least one of the Trains forums) but by that time any serious discussion on PRR seems to have switched to the low-wheeled multiple-geared-turbine locomotives epitomized by the V1. One perhaps sad note is that we had a report several years ago that the original Westinghouse detail drawings for the N&W TE-1 main turbine had survived, rescued from a dumpster. To the extent the S2 and V1 turbine drawings were detailed out ... they would likely have been stored in the same location, and presumably are lost.
Very interesting question I really concerned for a while. Before I register on this forum, I discussed this issue with some PRR fans on various platforms. I always told them I suspect the management of PRR or Baldwin destroyed as many core technologies data and information of S2 as they could on purpose, including operating and road testing footage.
I took a wild guess that maybe the turbine was a military thing, even though they were not rocket science, that PRR or the "Higher Power" didn't want such info leaked after the project was dropped. But some of this info and data were still survived and posted on the web or published in many magazines. I believe many were still hidden in some ex-PRR, Baldwin, Westinghouse official’s basement or attic. Of course many were destroyed. (Footage of S2 and S1 were so rare, even a color pic of them were very hard to find, unlike J1, T1, Loewy's K4s. I don’t think It is just a single special case)
Not only for S2, you could find a lot of damaged pic looked like it was saved from the trashcan or dumpster on Hagley, one example is the streamlined K4s’s wind tunnel model. There was not even ONE official footage of S1’s or T1 6110,6111 recorded during their operation from 1940 to mid-40s.
IIRC, The S2 was still appeared in the 1948 Chicago Railroad Fair but her name wasn’t officially listed on the poster, only photographic evidence existed. C&O M-1 was proofed to be a world class flop, project V1 was dropped, the only way for a Direct-drive turbine engine to succeed was a 4-8-4 base on S2 basic design, or adding a booster engine on the S2 trailing truck and modified her massive tender, S2’s tender was big enough to build a little boiler to assist the steam supply of the booster, that would at least bought the project more time. But we all know how PRR treated their experimental engine like T1, Q1, S1, S2 etc. Two more cents from me.
Saved from trashcan by Hagley
Overmod BTW: There are good photographs on the Web of the innards of both the S2 main and reverse turbines. You should find them and put them in the post instead of a generic power turbine, which is MUCH larger than the locomotive units. I don't think many people here appreciate just how small the S2's main turbine was.
Here you are:
Overmod For fun: one of the potential modifications for this general idea is to provide something like an N&W class A lead truck, with its appropriate equalization, at each end of the 'main' driver pedestal casting, and put the turbine and associated equipment more or less within the rigid wheelbase (instead of over the 4-wheel truck in the original configuration). Then place the firebox completely between the chassis units, as on a Meyer, which allows the ashpan to extend nearly to rail level and dump to the sides (as on the TE-1) or comprise sealed modules for dust-free ash handling.
I may try drawing your idea on a paper. This one is specially for you, Overmod: the Fleet of TE-1
It may pay to remember that, as with the T1s, development of 'new' locomotives may involve a considerable period of time from first conception to practical use. In the case of the direct-drive turbine, that period more than spans the coincidental development of practical-size diesel road power.
The development of direct-drive atmospheric-exhausting steam power was fairly well-established as both practical and economical, with the Swedish and English locomotives giving some firsthand experience.
As with the Q2s, PRR had wartime traffic running over long distances on priority schedules, and so could make a case for trialing (this is an intentional substitution for correct English 'trying') a large straight-turbine design even if overweight at the time of construction and known to be a 'steam hog' at low speeds and high loads. Several pieces in the Hagley collection show that motive-power people took pains to correct the 'wive's tale' that turbines develop low power at stall or low-speed conditions -- the issue is certainly not developed torque, it's steam mass flow, which is a different thing.
Even with the known faults in the detail design, it's notable that PRR was actively promoting the direct-drive design along with the V1 in 1946, which is after much of the early experience with E units (both negative and positive) was understood. Certainly Westinghouse thought there would be a market for lighter but still large "Niagara equivalents" in that period in the late Forties that Lima was still promoting large long-compression steam locomotives.
But as soon as those staybolts started popping in the reported ways, there was no particular future for that big, heavy test platform. And too much metal in it to be tied up in Northumberland, especially as something of a failure as 'future power of the PRR'. Which, even turbineless, was a shame.
Yes, I enjoyed seeing all those model TE-1s. Pity that scene couldn't have been seen in real life.
I agree with most of your points, Overmod. Even these testbeds of PRR in 40s, from S1, Q2, S2 to V1, were built oversized or overweight because of various reasons, they did provide some useful data for further development of PRR’s new engines.
The powerful and high speed performance of S1 convinced PRR to continue the development of Duplex Steam Engine for passenger service, even she was built (IMO) unnecessary large for the 1939 New York World Fair. Q2 was a war baby, probably expected to be a one time engine, came a little bit too late but it really helped to solve the crazily heavy wartime traffic for PRR, and I personally don’t consider it seriously oversized or overweighed since I1s, M1 or J1, especially the performance and TE of J1s could easily overtake the job of Q2, so if PRR didn’t build them in such design, it was no other than officially announced that the duplex for freight service was a failure in the first phase (if there would be another phase).
A new two speeds transmission gear (two for high speed, one reverse) designed by Westinghouse was ready and Patented in 1946, Westinghouse claimed that it would replace the Reverse Turbine and aimed to solve the starting problem of S2 (I am not the best person to judge if it would work on S2 or not though), but I don’t know why no action was taken by the PRR, maybe PRR thought it wouldn’t work, maybe PRR wanted to start the development of V1 project as you stated. But the unsuccessful experiences of S2, even though PRR learned a lot of new things from it, may discouraged the PRR board and stockholders to continue the development of V1.
At that time, diesel of EMC, EMD had already accumulated more than10 years of successful experiences and orders from different Class I railroad like UP, Santa Fe, B&O, NYC, CB&Q etc. After a few years of struggling, the PRR board chose to surrender to the diesel power in 1948. At least they tried......
Another attempt of Westinghouse, just one page with a draft plan of a "Double-End Turbine Locomotive". Filed in Feb 1944.
Inventor: Winston A Brecht, Jr Charles Kerr
https://patents.google.com/patent/US2412866A/
One-half the 'wave of the future' replacing the steam-turbine electric (the other half being the development of free-piston engines of various sorts culminating eventually in the FG9) was the aforementioned coal turbine,as for example here:
https://patents.google.com/patent/US2533866A/en
In my opinion this became more and more of a scam as development went on. Railroads participating in the project became increasingly concerned that they were paying for commercialization of practical locomotive design that locomotive building firms would then get 'free' to peddle to their competitors. While it became increasingly clear that Yellott and company had little if any idea how to fix the ash problem (one answer was SRC, but that wasn't price competitive in that era). Note that UP made another run at this (with some truly heroic equipment!) and couldn't make it work a decade later. Then along came the Clean Air Act after which no coal turbine made sense any more...
Jones1945-- Your thinking is perfectly understandable. These new locomotives and trains were the vanguard of the future and the future was here and now. We read that every performance record was smashed. We could ride these fabulous trains with all their amenities, powered by duplexi and turbines. It was very exciting.
Then it ended, just like that, a snap of the fingers. Vanished, all the claims of breaking every record swept away and no longer allowed to be spoken of.
PRR reports highest revenue for passenger and freight ever in 1946, this on top of a 17% increase in freight rates and in the very next sentence reports its first loss ever. Like what??? Some vague mumble explanation that is nothing but Orwellian doublespeak.
Ten years later everything is junked, duplexes are staples and razor blades, passenger trains have regressed shockingly, Ike is warning the Nation of the "military industrial complex" because he saw and knew things that we don't know, even the incredible Pacific Electric in LA is going going gone. A tragic incredibly unbelievable loss.
A future destroyed and replaced by a few men behind a curtain. Too bad we could not expose this.
It sure was inspiring while it was here though. I've mentioned this before but even as a kid I used to think to myself ' this is too good to last'. It is quite the phenomenon, happiness and a state of well being can be attained but not kept.
Jones1945I am not sure about the accurate term of it, but wasn’t burning of coal dust has been proofed unsuccessful on the German BR 05 003; the one of a kind Cab Forward Class 05, early in late-30s? I wish I have the knowledge and a chance to understand why Yellott and his research team thought it would work in their new coal burning turbine project not more than 10 years later and even patented it.
What you're looking at is coal-dust firing of steam locomotives -- what we call pulverized-coal firing. It was not proven 'unsuccessful' (there were quite good technical results, for example, in Australia in the 1950s); the problems with it were more economics ... and long-term safety ... related.
BCR and Yellott were involved with something else altogether - using pulverized fuel in a GAS turbine, in place of things like burner cans, kerosene/Jet A and whatnot. This isn't unthinkable with a solid fuel that has been de-ashed, say with solvent refining (google SRC), but the idea was to use mine-run coal (!!!) by using a combination of techniques to separate ash from combustion gas and make any residual content so fine that it would neither erode nor 'glass' the leading edges of the turbine blading.
It didn't work, and didn't work, and didn't work, but was always cheerfully promoted as 'just around the corner' year after year after year.
Didn't work when UP tried it in their Mad Max locomotive (so big they had to number it twice during development), more's the pity.
Wasn't there a Hirsimaki article on the coal turbine in one of the early issues of Classic Trains?
MiningmanPRR reports highest revenue for passenger and freight ever in 1946, this on top of a 17% increase in freight rates and in the very next sentence reports its first loss ever. Like what??? Some vague mumble explanation that is nothing but Orwellian doublespeak. Ten years later everything is junked, duplexes are staples and razor blades, passenger trains have regressed shockingly, Ike is warning the Nation of the "military-industrial complex" because he saw and knew things that we don't know, even the incredible Pacific Electric in LA is going gone. A tragic incredibly unbelievable loss. A future destroyed and replaced by a few men behind a curtain. Too bad we could not expose this.
Ten years later everything is junked, duplexes are staples and razor blades, passenger trains have regressed shockingly, Ike is warning the Nation of the "military-industrial complex" because he saw and knew things that we don't know, even the incredible Pacific Electric in LA is going gone. A tragic incredibly unbelievable loss.
Thank you very much for the reply, Miningman. The historic annual income loss of PRR in1946 did sound very suspicious, if the last year(1945) PRR had only 17% less revenue compared to their highest revenue record (1946) in probably a few decades, let alone PRR’s passenger service income was doing extremely well during the high of wartime traffic from 1941 to 1946 (they even needed to sold lounge car and dining car seats to handle the wartime traffic), It was hard to believe PRR reports its first historic loss this early.
According to the book "Penny Streamliner", gross annual revenue of the Trail Blazer was $2,260,000 in 1940, which was enough to build seven T1 or three S1, it is not hard to imagine tons of money PRR had earned from their Blue-Ribbon Fleet as well as their freight service during the war. Since I don’t have their financial reports, I can only assume that maybe the PRR Board made some reckless investment or banks and debtors suddenly call loans after the war. PRR had many stockholders who were noted person, I believe it wasn’t easy for PRR to do anything shady.
However, it was a fact that PRR was very good at wasting money after the war. I always think that it was unnecessary and too early to retire their 52 T1s in 1949-1952. Construction cost of 6110 was $310,676, assume the cost didn't change in 1945, 52 of them would cost $16 million! Note that I haven’t calculate the construction cost of 27 Q1 and Q2 yet. Horse power of one T1 (6000hp) and one Q2(8000hp) equal to three units and four units of EMD E8 respectively. In order to replace all T1 and Q2, PRR required another 264 units of E8, let alone they need even more diesel to replace those worn out K4s and I1s, M1s etc.!!
PRR already spent almost 25 million for the construction of T1 and Q2, in 1944-45, after not more than 5 years, they unnecessarily spend another tens of millions for Dieselization, let alone they bought some problematic early diesel from BLW and ALCO, this was no different than openly digging their own grave under broad daylight. If the PRR Board willing to spend an hour to read the passenger survey about the dieselization of Southern Pacific's Daylight, they should know what should had done, given that RR could never beat the speed of plane, even a DC-4.
Jones1945... their engineers managed to build the most successful 4-8-4 ever in America railroad history and their overall performance and operation cost was good enough to slap EMD E8 in the face
Except that it wasn't. It was barely better than E7s, based on a tremendously skewed service density and essentially mid-Forties factor and labor prices. None of those things still applied by the time the E8 became so many railroads' chief passenger power. Watch what happens when you run the numbers as in Kiefer's report, but with details from 1949 or 1950...
Overmod What you're looking at is coal-dust firing of steam locomotives -- what we call pulverized-coal firing. It was not proven 'unsuccessful' (there were quite good technical results, for example, in Australia in the 1950s); the problems with it were more economics ... and long-term safety ... related. BCR and Yellott were involved with something else altogether - using pulverized fuel in a GAS turbine, in place of things like burner cans, kerosene/Jet A and whatnot. This isn't unthinkable with a solid fuel that has been de-ashed, say with solvent refining (google SRC), but the idea was to use mine-run coal (!!!) by using a combination of techniques to separate ash from combustion gas and make any residual content so fine that it would neither erode nor 'glass' the leading edges of the turbine blading. It didn't work, and didn't work, and didn't work, but was always cheerfully promoted as 'just around the corner' year after year after year. Didn't work when UP tried it in their Mad Max locomotive (so big they had to number it twice during development), more's the pity.
Overmod Except that it wasn't. It was barely better than E7s, based on a tremendously skewed service density and essentially mid-Forties factor and labor prices. None of those things still applied by the time the E8 became so many railroads' chief passenger power. Watch what happens when you run the numbers as in Kiefer's report, but with details from 1949 or 1950...
Jones1945I don’t know if the author is saying the pulverized coal delivery system consisted of a pulverised-coal feed pipes was unsuccessful or the method itself was not successful
If you have access to Gottwaldt's books, I believe he covers some of this better than Doug Self did. One issue that is seldom discussed is that the type of PC firing that was used 'mimicks' oil firing, with all the differences in detail design and firing 'strategy' which that implies. However, the firebox design on 05 003 appears to have been little modified for the test, and the burner complexity required for high, variable, unpredictable turndown (as generally seen in even the highest-speed German passenger service) does not appear to be either present or "designed for" by the engineers involved.
It is interesting as a 'thought experiment' of sorts to work through what would have been needed to make levitated PC firing a good solution for the class 05 locomotive (I would argue it needed conventional stoker firing and grates for baseline power, with PC injected over the grates for variable higher power output as with some dual-fuel schemes, and much better design of the radiant section than Wagner seemed to ever figure out how to do. I would also argue that the first best use of such a system would have been not on the high-speed six-coupled power but on the class 06 Mammuts, which "failed" in part because their steam generation was inadequate for the capabilities of their running gear...)
I invite you to work through the 'primary secondary' references in the trade press to the BCR developments, including the growing rumble of dissatisfaction at the progress of development as you get into the Fifties. I have just e-mailed Battelle (still in Columbus, OH) to see if they have or will provide records of the work done on the project. There are some very clear contemporary discussions of the technology that describe the operative problems with the designs, particularly the time-of-flight concerns at necessary combustion density within the constraints of the 1940s loading gage and weight restrictions. Note that there is a fundamental difficulty with Hilsch tube operation in that the 'fine' ceramic ash constituents will be kept levitated in the hot-end flow almost regardless of what can be practically done to filter them or segregate them centrifugally, but they will still glass or erode typical hard-metal alloy turbine-blade leading edges.
Jones1945IF I were the PRR HQ, I would apply Franklin type B poppet valves on S1 after its retirement in mid-1946 instead of throw[ing] it on the scrapheap
One potential problem here was that the amount of work to accomplish this would have been as heroic as the T1a conversion "in reverse", with the added requirement of adjusting the port areas above the 'line of section' to flow-match what would come from and go to the relevant poppet valves, with minimum dead-space effect. By that time the effective drawbacks of the eight-valve version of the Franklin System were becoming pretty well known to PRR, and although they used B-2 on the T1 to good effect, the situation is quite different from voluntarily adopting, then fabricating a new eight-valve setup four times for a locomotive that is already too heavy, too long, probably too slippery in the hands of most crew, etc. In addition (assuming a world in which it would make sense to rebuild steam expensively for service) the opportunity cost of any money spent to adapt the S1, dollar for dollar, would involve money remediating T1s ... where in my opinion it would be better spent.
It is tempting to state 'because PRR was actively considering replacing Franklin System poppets with piston valves even on the T1, why consider poppets?' But it probably should be remembered that when PRR made the T1a modifications they fully understood this would greatly reduce the true high-speed capability of the locomotives, and to me all the subsequent test results (and some of the analysis done by Joe Burgard) bears this out. The true question is slightly different, and could be framed as 'did an 80mph railroad like PRR actually need locomotives that made distinctively high power above 115mph' ... and that idea itself, very attractive in the first postwar years, fell off very quickly in the years of ICC order 29543 and the decline of market for even the best high-speed long-distance trains that was observed. So T1s with 'reliable old piston valves' (and the back pressure issues that retarded slip propagation) were a perfectly good "4-8-4 replacement with lower augment" in the speed ranges the railroad needed to use ... and yes, in the absence of good diesels it would have been highly interesting to have seen if the 1948 'remediations' provided a better reliability for engine effectiveness than the T1a conversion offered.
https://patents.google.com/patent/US2197731A
Think of Nonemaker's system as a differential governor, rather than a mechanical conjugation system. It senses the speeds of both engines in a duplex (with Spicer-drive-like shafts to a differential output) and generates a control 'error' signal when speeds differ by more than a set amount (this takes care of differential wheel wear in a way that mechanical conjugation needs slip to accommodate), You may recall that the Q2 slip system used small wheels on driver treads for its speed sensors; the '731 patent avoids this ... but as drawn, could not be implemented on a T1 not converted to B-2 (as the governor and shafts would interfere with the rear engine type A cambox).
There is no reason why the two Spicer drives cannot be linked directly to DC proportional generators, or rotary encoders of a variety of designs, and the differential action then performed electrically (e.g. via the Q2 approach or as in contemporary gun directors) which can then include both absolute speed differential and rate-of-change in "computing" and controlling the response.
There are better ways of implementing the differential control 'trim' activation. You will note that this shares the problem of the Q2 system in having to support a rotary bushing that must retain both tribology and seal in the presence of a wide temperature range including much higher than 'expected' levels of superheat. It would be much simpler to implement this with Franklin Precision air throttle actuators, more directly, or better still with Wagner fluidic valves throttling part of the steam flow in a branched section of manifold.
Nonemaker's idea was followed up by one by Steins, which was issued in 1948:
https://patents.google.com/patent/US2440124A/en
Note that this is not the slip control applied to the Q2s, which used a completely different method of detection.
Here the idea is that back pressure increases with speed, and (certainly in theory) the two engines in a duplex could be designed so their rate of back-pressure increase with speed were close across the range of speed. (Remember here that PRR is using common cutoff and throttle for the two engines of a duplex, and this system is removing the necessity to provide separate control of either.) The system measures back pressure for both engines and generates a control-error signal that moves a valve to progressively impede steam flow in the 'faster' engine. The patent language explicitly recognizes the need to damp the response both in speed and 'recovery' and mentions where this comes from.
This system retains the idea of rotary vanes acting to reduce the free area of some part of the steam supply piping, but this time keeping the bearings for the vanes entirely inside the pipe and actuating via a rod completely sealed in the steam space from an attached cylinder. It might be interesting to see what issues would have come up in maintaining these, as there are two bearings, two pin joints, and a rod gland exposed to the effect of superheat. I don't think any 'stiction' or heat expansion effects have any influence on effective function of the system, as both the sensing and the differential actuation are independent of the position or speed of operation of the actual control actuation. It's an interesting 'practical' approach taken in comparison to the other methods.
Inside rods a la PLM (or the Withuhn conjugated duplex) are a poor idea mechanically for any large (or fast) steam locomotive, as it is difficult to implement them with roller bearings. Note that on the ACE 3000 the inside cranks conjugate the two main driver pairs, which implies that these would not have cannon boxes (or the usual kind of lateral-motion device). The only way I could figure out to get around this is to construct a stiff cage outside the sweep of the inside cranks between the two roller-bearing axleboxes; this is facilitated by using tunnel cranks (and large-diameter bearings) for the mains, but the unsprung mass of the arrangement becomes substantial although it does remove one of the critical limitations on achieving short stroke on the outside cylinders.
Jones1945 ... only Q2 installed another anti-slip system and that system wasn’t maintained by the PRR constantly and it sometimes didn't work properly (IIRC.)
It may bear repeating that the system installed on the Q2s involved cutting-edge technology at the time, some of which could almost be considered 'classified' as it was used in gun directors. Some of the problems involved the sensors for the driver rims. For example, the drivers would neatly offset-print curve grease and traction sand up to the little wheels; this was not as serious on a Valve Pilot (which displays an advisory signal continuously) as on the Q2 where it must track both speed and acceleration for feedback control with short but 'debounced' latency. The real problem appears to be the maintenance of the 'butterfly' valves themselves, about which I've already noted some of the "issues", and the nature of the control actuation itself, which apparently went between 'open' and 'closed' position quickly (to ensure no sticking of the valve, perhaps) rather than modulating continuously or in small steps -- bang-bang control is NOT a good idea on a high-horsepower duplex working near its effective adhesion limit.
S1 and T1 didn’t even have any device to ensure two set of separated drivers, four cylinders operating at the same speed.
What truly amazes me is not so much that it wasn't installed as that no particular organized attempt was made to retrofit it when the slipperiness problem reports became so pronounced.
I think it wouldn’t need a complicated device to at least let the crew know which set of driver is slipping, 2 speedometers with a red light or alarm above each of them, detect the speed of both front and rear engine separately, an electric device connect and monitor the speed of both speedometers, if the device detect a huge speed different between two speedometers, the red light or alarm above the speedometer showing a higher speed will be turned on or activated.
It could be done a bit simpler than that. The existing Jones-Motrola speedometer is driven off the rear engine, which conveniently is not the one that usually slips; the mechanical drive can easily be fitted with a centrifugal switch to detect abnormally high acceleration of that engine (which would light the respective display light for a slip on that engine).
Meanwhile, the mechanical drive can (relatively) easily be given a wiper potentiometer arrangement, for example close to the pointer, that produces a reference voltage associated with speed. The front engine drives its own speed reference (probably an instrument generator directly producing a voltage proportional to speed in that era; easier to use a rotary encoder and circuitry later) which is then easily bridge-compared to the rear-engine voltage so that the forward-engine light illuminates ... you decide whether you want it to come on when a given number of volts' difference is detected, or illuminate brighter and brighter relative to the voltage (i.e. speed) difference between the engines.
The arrangement on 5550 will likely involve a couple of rotary encoders (4096 or 8192 steps) each with a small processor that generates speed and delta-speed (rate of change, or acceleration/deceleration) to run the lights, and (to the extent installed) control the antislip systems.
Note that the easiest way to adjust slip on a T1, which has only the one throttle and little provision for effectively shifting valve gear on only one engine, is to split the independent brake foundation rigging so each 'half' works on only one engine, and provide a small proportional valve that (1) allows the shoes to be brought right up to the wheeltread, to trim the latency out of actuation, and (2) proportionally applies and graduatedly releases pressure to control both slip and tendency to break away. A 'proportionally-dimming' light control signal could just as easily be a magnetic-valve actuation signal.
It requires the engineer to control the throttle manually when wheel slip occur. But I understand that PRR wanted a system which can detect and adjust the speed of both engines on a duplex automatically, like the anti-wheel slip system they used on Q2.
It's a little of both ... wound up with the idea of spending as little as po$$ible while eliminating any tendency for failure of the system either to disable the locomotive's operation or 'fail unsafe' by not indicating a potentially damaging slip condition. Note that the phenomenon of high-speed slipping is by definition a transient situation that cannot be 'corrected' by moving the throttle (even a Franklin Precision air throttle set up to have very small control latency in both opening and closing) as speed must be maintained, and all an incremental closing of the throttle will produce is a slower road speed down to the point that transient loss of adhesion doesn't propagate effective slipping -- a speed that may be comparatively low in many cases where train resistance is near locomotive capacity.
Needless to say, any device that eliminates the issues with responding to transient slips without explicit engineer distraction is reasonable to consider (even if it costs a considerable amount to implement) provided it does not break or fail in the wrong ways when needed. That is particularly so when the inertial forces build up as quickly as they do, and overspeed consequences can be as severe as they often are, in direct-connected reciprocating locomotives with high effective axle load. Having a system that responds effectively in controlling and then removing overspeed in about 1/4 revolution, far quicker than any human reaction time even to a light in the cab, becomes much more important than PRR acknowledged.
If not, it was no different than telling the whole world that the idea of duplex had an unsolvable defect.
And therein, of course, lies a somewhat paranoiac point: since there are so many relatively simple answers to make the problem stop without expensive redesign (e.g. installing two front-end throttles on the T1s) ... why was not one of them tried? Not for the first time do I wonder if things were being set up to fail. PRR couldn't make any use of their wonder wartime power once they went back to 50mph commodity freight in an anticipated postwar recession. Even before the consequences of the Great Boiler Steel Debacle reared their heads.
Jones1945, in part:https://patents.google.com/patent/US2128490A/ ... I believe many people have seen this patent drawing long time ago.
Angus Sinclair used to comment on certain 'crank' inventions regarding steam flow by noting that there were usually arrows in their patent drawings showing which way the steam flowed. The problem being that the steam couldn't read, and therefore didn't follow the neat little arrows ... so the idea didn't work as stated.
Keep that in mind when examining this patent, and the apparent lack of enthusiasm for its teachings on PRR subsequently. The T1 ranks as one of the least aerodynamically-satisfactory designs of all time from the standpoint of keeping smoke away from the engineer's line of sight or out of the cab. And to my knowledge the difficulties were never meaningfully addressed...
Now take a look at the Quellmalz patent conveniently referenced for you in the Google Patents link Jones1945 provided. (For those that read German, the original, on Espacenet, is here. The link in Google Patents has the two-edged 'feature' of being translated, presumably via the Google Translate engine so be prepared to do some on-the-fly reinterpretation of words and grammatical structure as presented.
Overmod It may bear repeating that the system installed on the Q2s involved cutting-edge technology at the time, some of which could almost be considered 'classified' as it was used in gun directors.
It is still hard to believe for me that Pennsy only used Q2s, the most powerful non-articulated locomotive for merely 4-6 years which was only equal to about 13% of GG1’s average service life despite PRR put so much effort to develop duplex for freight hauling with cutting-edge technology. We can see PRR had high hope of the duplex project from the conceptual drawing of Q1, which was a 4-6-4-6, with a streamlined design by Raymond Loewy. I wonder if there were any other technologies in late-40s which could be applied to Q2s to decrease their operating cost, assume that PRR given up the V1 project.
Overmod What truly amazes me is not so much that it wasn't installed as that no particular organized attempt was made to retrofit it when the slipperiness problem reports became so pronounced. Exactly, the PRR Board probably knew the slipperiness problem of their duplexes since the day when S1 had her first road test in 1939. T1s was what PRR really wanted but after two years of testing (#6110 & #6111)from 1942-1944, there was enough time to determinate this idea was practical or not. If PRR thought it was impractical, they still had “plan B” like building a PRR 4-8-4 base on the design of N&W Class J 4-8-4 or building “Super K4s” like #5399 (both of them were tested by PRR and powerful enough), if not, they had enough time to train their engineers the trick and skill to handle the T1 properly, but they didn’t. https://sites.google.com/site/pacific462steamlocomotive Overmod ...It could be done a bit simpler than that. The existing Jones-Motrola speedometer is driven off the rear engine, which conveniently is not the one that usually slips… ...The arrangement on 5550 will likely involve a couple of rotary encoders (4096 or 8192 steps) each with a small processor that generates speed and delta-speed (rate of change, or acceleration/deceleration) to run the lights, and (to the extent installed) control the antislip systems… ...And therein, of course, lies a somewhat paranoiac point: since there are so many relatively simple answers to make the problem stop without expensive redesign (e.g. installing two front-end throttles on the T1s) ... why was not one of them tried? Not for the first time do I wonder if things were being set up to fail. PRR couldn't make any use of their wonder wartime power once they went back to 50mph commodity freight in an anticipated postwar recession. Even before the consequences of the Great Boiler Steel Debacle reared their heads. Very true, Overmod. so many things about PRR’s duplexes were incomprehensible, so many things should have done and could have been done. I really wish I can see the 5550 running again in person and take a ride on it...... I don’t think PRR couldn’t afford another 78 Jones-Motrola speedometer and two front-end throttles on their duplexes after their passenger ridership hit record high year after year until 1946! When Baldwin told PRR to not apply the Franklin poppet valve gear to all T1s in one single order, the PRR stubbornly rejected, when people asked the Board why not using Type B poppet valve gear instead of older version, they couldn’t provide any persuasive reason. When a PRR mechanical engineer asked why using 77’ driver on Q1, a freight engine, the Project Manager told him the engine was “well proportioned” but it was proofed wrong later. There were mistake after mistake, wrong decision after wrong decision, tons of money wrongly invested, a lot of check was unnecessarily signed to different parties. Who or which parties from different company, from PRR itself to Baldwin, Franklin, EMD etc, could benefited from this kind of messy management? I would say a lot. I remember you mentioned that you have some documents about “the dark side of PRR” which can be used as evidence, this further reinforced my belief that something went wrong in PRR, at least on the T1 duplex project. Compare to the development of Electric Locomotive like GG1 and K4, K5, M1 in the 1920s to 1930s, PRR never act like a lost cause like this before. Yesterday I found a pic on eBay which showing a page from a book about PRR passenger equipment. It was surprising to know that the first postwar order of 90 lightweight coaches built by PRR Shop and ACF in Nov 1944 had quality problem which made them needed to retire in mid-1960s, meanwhile, many rebuilt P70 managed to continue serving in PC or even Amtrak era. Degenerate! LIFE magazine 1940
Overmod What truly amazes me is not so much that it wasn't installed as that no particular organized attempt was made to retrofit it when the slipperiness problem reports became so pronounced.
Exactly, the PRR Board probably knew the slipperiness problem of their duplexes since the day when S1 had her first road test in 1939. T1s was what PRR really wanted but after two years of testing (#6110 & #6111)from 1942-1944, there was enough time to determinate this idea was practical or not. If PRR thought it was impractical, they still had “plan B” like building a PRR 4-8-4 base on the design of N&W Class J 4-8-4 or building “Super K4s” like #5399 (both of them were tested by PRR and powerful enough), if not, they had enough time to train their engineers the trick and skill to handle the T1 properly, but they didn’t.
https://sites.google.com/site/pacific462steamlocomotive
Overmod ...It could be done a bit simpler than that. The existing Jones-Motrola speedometer is driven off the rear engine, which conveniently is not the one that usually slips… ...The arrangement on 5550 will likely involve a couple of rotary encoders (4096 or 8192 steps) each with a small processor that generates speed and delta-speed (rate of change, or acceleration/deceleration) to run the lights, and (to the extent installed) control the antislip systems… ...And therein, of course, lies a somewhat paranoiac point: since there are so many relatively simple answers to make the problem stop without expensive redesign (e.g. installing two front-end throttles on the T1s) ... why was not one of them tried? Not for the first time do I wonder if things were being set up to fail. PRR couldn't make any use of their wonder wartime power once they went back to 50mph commodity freight in an anticipated postwar recession. Even before the consequences of the Great Boiler Steel Debacle reared their heads.
...It could be done a bit simpler than that. The existing Jones-Motrola speedometer is driven off the rear engine, which conveniently is not the one that usually slips…
...The arrangement on 5550 will likely involve a couple of rotary encoders (4096 or 8192 steps) each with a small processor that generates speed and delta-speed (rate of change, or acceleration/deceleration) to run the lights, and (to the extent installed) control the antislip systems…
...And therein, of course, lies a somewhat paranoiac point: since there are so many relatively simple answers to make the problem stop without expensive redesign (e.g. installing two front-end throttles on the T1s) ... why was not one of them tried? Not for the first time do I wonder if things were being set up to fail. PRR couldn't make any use of their wonder wartime power once they went back to 50mph commodity freight in an anticipated postwar recession. Even before the consequences of the Great Boiler Steel Debacle reared their heads.
Very true, Overmod. so many things about PRR’s duplexes were incomprehensible, so many things should have done and could have been done. I really wish I can see the 5550 running again in person and take a ride on it......
I don’t think PRR couldn’t afford another 78 Jones-Motrola speedometer and two front-end throttles on their duplexes after their passenger ridership hit record high year after year until 1946! When Baldwin told PRR to not apply the Franklin poppet valve gear to all T1s in one single order, the PRR stubbornly rejected, when people asked the Board why not using Type B poppet valve gear instead of older version, they couldn’t provide any persuasive reason. When a PRR mechanical engineer asked why using 77’ driver on Q1, a freight engine, the Project Manager told him the engine was “well proportioned” but it was proofed wrong later.
There were mistake after mistake, wrong decision after wrong decision, tons of money wrongly invested, a lot of check was unnecessarily signed to different parties. Who or which parties from different company, from PRR itself to Baldwin, Franklin, EMD etc, could benefited from this kind of messy management? I would say a lot. I remember you mentioned that you have some documents about “the dark side of PRR” which can be used as evidence, this further reinforced my belief that something went wrong in PRR, at least on the T1 duplex project. Compare to the development of Electric Locomotive like GG1 and K4, K5, M1 in the 1920s to 1930s, PRR never act like a lost cause like this before.
Yesterday I found a pic on eBay which showing a page from a book about PRR passenger equipment. It was surprising to know that the first postwar order of 90 lightweight coaches built by PRR Shop and ACF in Nov 1944 had quality problem which made them needed to retire in mid-1960s, meanwhile, many rebuilt P70 managed to continue serving in PC or even Amtrak era. Degenerate!
LIFE magazine 1940
There is a Keystone article (90 mph and beyond) in the Fall 2014 volume. The 140 mph speed issue was discussed in the context of the T-1 and the Franklin poppet valve system. Apparently Franklin warrantied their equipment for continuous 120 mph running. Nevetheless the valve systems were failing and Franklin/Pennsy wondered why. So Franklin sent mech engineers to ride T-1s in regular service in the cab with train crews and note speeds. They could not use speedometers since the needle was usually already buried. So they used stopwatches and quickly found crews were runnng the T-1s at 140 - on the jointed rail of the Ft wayne Div. with no ATS or cab signals. The implication was these speeds were a regular occurrence. Maybe the crews were playing with the poor Franklin guys, or were always making up time - who knows.
Overmod Keep that in mind when examining this patent, and the apparent lack of enthusiasm for its teachings on PRR subsequently. The T1 ranks as one of the least aerodynamically-satisfactory designs of all time from the standpoint of keeping smoke away from the engineer's line of sight or out of the cab. And to my knowledge the difficulties were never meaningfully addressed...
Thank you for the link, Overmod. I did note that T1s wasn't subject to any wind tunnel test just like their sister S1 #6100 aka Cleopatra VII Philopator. I shared my thought about it in this post. I think It's time for me to create an index on the first post for our readers convenient.
I didn't know if this topic was raised in the past or not. Railroads took aerodynamic engineering very seriously when designing their streamlined steam locomotive in 1930s, example like DRG Class 05, DRG 61 (002 is one of my favorites) of German and the Autorail Bugatti of France. NYC’s first streamlined Hudson was also subjected to wind tunnel test multiple times and filed some detailed Patents for it. But after RRs noted that streamlining was more for advertising than improving speed and efficiency, it seems that RR didn’t arrange the wind tunnel test for heavy steam locomotive design since 1940s.
From Wiki
For a high-speed steam locomotive like T1 who always operated at 120mph or above, I think it worth the time and money to arrange wind tunnel test for them since they were fast enough for the advantage factors of streamlining to take effect, improve speed and efficiency above 80mph, but PRR didn’t think so!
From my understanding aerodynamic engineering is not only about streamlining, things like smoke deflector or how to design the front end of a steam locomotive to ensure the crew having a good visibility also involved knowledge of aerodynamic, PRR S2 and Q2 were two good examples. As Overmod stated, “The T1 ranks as one of the least aerodynamically-satisfactory designs of all time from the standpoint of keeping smoke away from the engineer's line of sight or out of the cab…” If PRR and Raymond Loewy never suggest or request a wind tunnel test for T1, they were negligence of duty, irresponsible and unprofessional in my book.
LAWRENCE SMITHFranklin sent mech engineers to ride T-1s in regular service in the cab with train crews and note speeds. They could not use speedometers since the needle was usually already buried.
See previous discussions about T1 speedometers, and the assumption in a famously quoted anecdote about reading 120mph on one.
All the T1s used Jones-Motrola speedometers, which were only calibrated to 100mph. The S1 went to 110mph. (Hudsons went to 120mph, but that was a 'standard' Valve Pilot component). The strong conclusion was that Mr. Crosby forgot, in the heat of storytelling, that the 120mph speedometer standard in most automobiles was ... not standard on the T1s. I have yet to find any indication (no pun intended) that a 'faster' speedometer was ever fitted to any T1.
Now look at the timing difference, in seconds, between, say, 120mph and 140mph, and consider the likely ride on jointed rail at anywhere near those speeds. Tell me anyone will be extracting consistent data showing higher continuous speeds in those ranges.
So they used stopwatches and quickly found crews were runnng the T-1s at 140 - on the jointed rail of the Ft Wayne Div. with no ATS or cab signals. The implication was these speeds were a regular occurrence. Maybe the crews were playing with the poor Franklin guys, or were always making up time - who knows.
Do you have a better original source than the passage in One Man's Locomotives? Because the implication there was, as I suspect is closer to the truth, that what was causing the 'overspeed' was transient high-speed slipping (i.e. something that would show up on typical rotary-encoding speed sensing devices) and not actual road speed (which is what the stopwatch method would provide if accurately done). From the standpoint of the Franklin engineers the transient-slip equivalent of "140 peak mph" causing mechanical failures of several predictable kinds was enough of an answer, as that's what they would see on their indicator traces. (Add to that the rapid deceleration stress/shock of repeated slip recovery under heavy load at high speed -- cf. Harley's description of high-speed slipping as 'felt' back in the train')
It's a lovely fantasy to assume that if a T1 could be run up to 132mph or so, with reports of increasingly bad riding in the last couple of mph, that it's just a pull of the throttle away from 140 (or 141.2 or whatever) mph. But the various physics involved don't work that way.
"It's a lovely fantasy to assume that if a T1 could be run up to 132mph or so, with reports of increasingly bad riding in the last couple of mph, that it's just a pull of the throttle away from 140 (or 141.2 or whatever) mph. But the various physics involved don't work that way."
An English website (whose name escapes me right now) has a report from a crewman on 05 002 on the day they got to 200km/h.
They'd been running tests all week, and they'd just stopped to check some recording gear and the locomotive appeared to be running more smoothly than usual, for no discernable reason, so they just kept increasing the speed until they got to 200, but then thought that they didn't want to push their luck and came back down to more normal speeds (140 km/h) which were officially sanctioned.
As someone who had run various tests (none related to speed) that agrees with my experience. Sometimes, it all works. Other times you don't even walk back down the track to collect the expensive equipment that has fallen off for unknown reasons.
Overmod ...Because the implication there was, as I suspect is closer to the truth, that what was causing the 'overspeed' was transient high-speed slipping (i.e. something that would show up on typical rotary-encoding speed sensing devices) and not actual road speed (which is what the stopwatch method would provide if accurately done). From the standpoint of the Franklin engineers the transient-slip equivalent of "140 peak mph" causing mechanical failures of several predictable kinds was enough of an answer, as that's what they would see on their indicator traces. (Add to that the rapid deceleration stress/shock of repeated slip recovery under heavy load at high speed -- cf. Harley's description of high-speed slipping as 'felt' back in the train') It's a lovely fantasy to assume that if a T1 could be run up to 132mph or so, with reports of increasingly bad riding in the last couple of mph, that it's just a pull of the throttle away from 140 (or 141.2 or whatever) mph. But the various physics involved don't work that way.
...Because the implication there was, as I suspect is closer to the truth, that what was causing the 'overspeed' was transient high-speed slipping (i.e. something that would show up on typical rotary-encoding speed sensing devices) and not actual road speed (which is what the stopwatch method would provide if accurately done). From the standpoint of the Franklin engineers the transient-slip equivalent of "140 peak mph" causing mechanical failures of several predictable kinds was enough of an answer, as that's what they would see on their indicator traces. (Add to that the rapid deceleration stress/shock of repeated slip recovery under heavy load at high speed -- cf. Harley's description of high-speed slipping as 'felt' back in the train')
I agree that this was what happened about the "140mph" thing; high-speed slipping causing mechanical failures instead of T1 operated at 140mph road speed to make up time. As many forum members pointed out in this post before that at such high speed, several hundred tons of passenger stock behind them would have shaken like a house during a magnitude 7 earthquake, passengers would complaint about that if they noted the ride quality got worse on a speeding train or worried about their own safety, these were something that any RR wouldn’t want to see. Moreover, the average schedule speed of many if not all prime named trains in 40s seldom excessed 60mph in the States, I don’t think S1 or T1 needed to operate at their design top speed, 100mph or above on a daily basis to staying on schedule. They could go faster than that, but they didn’t need to. Safety comes first!
M636C ......An English website (whose name escapes me right now) has a report from a crewman on 05 002 on the day they got to 200km/h. They'd been running tests all week, and they'd just stopped to check some recording gear and the locomotive appeared to be running more smoothly than usual, for no discernable reason, so they just kept increasing the speed until they got to 200, but then thought that they didn't want to push their luck and came back down to more normal speeds (140 km/h) which were officially sanctioned......
......An English website (whose name escapes me right now) has a report from a crewman on 05 002 on the day they got to 200km/h.
They'd been running tests all week, and they'd just stopped to check some recording gear and the locomotive appeared to be running more smoothly than usual, for no discernable reason, so they just kept increasing the speed until they got to 200, but then thought that they didn't want to push their luck and came back down to more normal speeds (140 km/h) which were officially sanctioned......
I believe they were experienced crews, their professional insight and rich experiences told them that 200km/h was very close to the limit after a couple of runs which probably can apply to most of the reciprocating steam locomotive all over the world.
http://www.gerdboehmer-berlinereisenbahnarchiv.de/Bildergalerien/19850000-db/1985oooo-851509.html
From ebay:
Raymond Loewy with his S1 model.
Kuhler was referring to American streamlining attempts, and specifically had Kantola's and some of the other 'bathtub' shrouds in mind (I had this discussion with him back in the early '70s, and he did mention the 'wind tunnel' issues with 3768 producing too much enclosure then). He was referring to those attempts that shrouded the works in many thousands of pounds of unstyled tin, or implemented streamstyling 'tropes' that made maintenance or operation worse (including smoke-"lifting" devices that didn't do the right job) -- you might remember the quote about him looking under the running boards of one of those amusing Lackawanna Disney-style jobs "to see the mechanism that made the wings flap".
We can argue about his aesthetic taste compared to others in the period; I don't care for some of the designs (including the B&O engine pictured). On the other hand I don't like the original parabolic-nosed Loewy T1s nearly as well as the late postwar engines, so we may have to agree to disagree on that point.
It has been my experience that most United States railfans don't care much for the Reichsbahn full streamlining; it's worse aesthetically than the usual inverted-bathtub designs and that's saying a mouthful. Arguments about how effective it actually was at economically-achievable train speeds (this justifying use of a pure aerodynamic design over a 'streamstyled' one) are somewhat dubious even in the case of the 05s, arguably the fastest European locomotives built. (BTW, want to see an illustration of a working definition of 'cognitive dissonance'?look at the unshrouding job done on members of that class after the war, with the 'bottom' completely open while the 'top' remains contoured...)
I believe many would agree that it is almost impossible to reach any consensus when different people trying to share their own aesthetic perspective, just as some if not many railfan dislike any streamlined or shrouded steam engine no matter where they came from or what the purpose of the streamlining was, some railfan love the same engine class but like or dislike their different appearances in different time period.
If Kuhler was referring Kantola's works on the first NYC streamlined Hudson, I agree with him partially that it was not the best-looking engine at the time, but I wonder if he ever imagined what it would be like if all decorative paint jobs and elements of his streamlined MILW Class A and F7s were removed? It would just looks like another "Commodore Vanderbilt". A renowned scale model manufacturer tried to make NYC's "Commodore Vanderbilt" a product since 2 years ago but still haven’t got enough pre-order for it, their Loewy’s K4s model shared a similar fate, Kuhler’s engines is not even on their product list, meanwhile scale models of EMD’s E8, UP’s Big Boy, SP’s GS-5 are still selling like hotcakes for decades.
If the main goal of the shrouding, especially on those prewar engines, was trying to save energy or improve efficiency and performance base on aerodynamics principles, I would choose to not judging it simply base on an aesthetic perspective, even though these goals were considered impractical by many RRs after the war; those shrouding were not a piece of art in the first place. Unlike the streamlining on DL&W 4-6-2. If DL&W really thought those Disney-style wings alike decorative plates could make the train run faster, they were world-class fool, but I think even Kuhler himself knew DL&W didn’t, so what was the point to name names or tried to mock other’s works in his own article with such an euphemistically way?
Class 05 was never mass-produced and the “semi de-skirted” thing DRG did to them were really funny, but it wasn’t a permanent measure. I think many readers already knew the popularity of these German streamlined locomotive in the scale model market (in EU) and the reason behind it. Speaking of 'cognitive dissonance', it was hard to beat the PRR in terms of scale; from their treatment on their duplexes, execution of their dieselization plan to their insight of the industry, were so embarrassing that even many PRR fans or “Pro-PRR” authors gave them harsh but fair criticism.
Edited for horrific typo.
More:
Sep. 13, 1944
PRR Board authorizes the expenditure of $375,000 for a 4,000 HP EMD E7 A-A set; track changes at “Q” Tower at Sunnyside Yard; approves a contract between the railroads and the General Electric Company for a coal-burning steam turbine electric locomotive of 5,435 HP. (MB)
Dec. 5, 1944
PRR begins one month of tests with borrowed N&W Class J 4-8-4 No. 610 in freight and passenger service on Fort Wayne Division; tests made at request of VP-Western Region James M. Symes, who is not impressed by performance of T1's and Q2's; makes 2 freight and 12 passenger runs at speeds up to 94 MPH; less power than a T1 at speeds over 42.5 MPH but better acceleration. (Hirsimaki)
Dec. 20,1944
PRR Board authorizes the construction of 50 Class T1 locomotives for $14,125,000.
Bonus:
July 29, 1948
Raymond Loewy’s office makes final settlement for its work on Penn Center and the models and plans are turned over to the PRR’s Chief Engineer; the PRR is unable to obtain financial backing or commitments. (CDY)
Interesting that Chris Baer has PRR Board of Directors approving production of the GE steam-turbine electric, but not the internal V1 direct-drive project. All the 'conventional' documentation I remember seeing (admittedly often with that red-flag caveat, use of the same uncommon term 'greenlighting for production' for what took place) indicates the V1 received approval in 1944, and I have to wonder on other grounds if the WPB would approve a STE locomotive design with, for example, the same copper requirements as a comparable diesel-electric over a mechanical system with lower war-priority diversion cost...
It would be interesting to see the details of the GE design, as it would have relatively little in common with the Union Pacific/GN high-pressure condensing locomotives of the late Thirties. When I was researching boxes at the Hagley I saw no engineering references at all to a coal-burning steam-turbine design developed enough for construction competitive to the V1, which of course is no guarantee the documentation involved had not been lost in acquisition or simply filed in different locations. On the other hand, substantial lengthening of the trackpans would be exactly something I'd expect to be required for the vastly increased water rate of something like an 8000hp V1 in appropriate (wartime appropriate to its horsepower and speed capability) service.
Just as with the Q2, much of the rationale for a high-speed very-high-horsepower single locomotive in freight service 'went away' when war priority traffic did. Thereafter, a 70"-converted J class did a steam-locomotive's work just about as well, and more cheaply, for the short while steam still made economic sense.
I was not keeping careful notes on this, but the V1's official cancellation did not come until later in the '40s, and largely over the water-rate operating economics (far less favorable vs. economics of F units even net of acquisition costs and so forth). What I have not seen is explanation why actual construction of parts of a V1 was not undertaken between 1944 and the late '40s, even though PRR was promoting the idea of by-then 9000hp turbine locomotives (not practical with a Q2 boiler, please note) that late. I consider it unlikely that this was due to a GE design for which little if any detail design appears to be documented in the same period (whereas we have a detailed Bowes-drive discussion for the V1 chassis in 1947) but that would certainly be near the top of a list of potential reasons why even a smaller-scale test of the V1 approach was not made.
I assume you have acquired and read the PRR report of the N&W J testing. It is interesting reading, and I believe at least a synopsis has been provided here in the forums. Contrary to some of the typical railfan wisdom, the report seems quite fair and does not disparage the J design, although some of the finer points of the balancing philosophy seem not to have been comprehended well. One point is that PRR still expected reasonably larger drivers for high-speed service superior to M1s (obsolescent even at 72" unworn) and adapting a J even for 77" drivers would put it as far out of many PRR clearances as the duplexes were. (See our previous discussions on why a double-Belpaire required 76" or lower drivers as designed.)
What might have been fun would be to adapt Glaze's balancing, and Timken rods, to one of the PRR J's (the 2-10-4s) and see the effects of the faster running. I suspect there were very good reasons this was not seriously undertaken, starting with Chapelon's implicit conclusion regarding roller-rod practicality that very serious cycling lateral flexure in the Timken rods was a necessary everyday operating occurrence. Much more discretion and care against short-term overstress would have been required for lightweight rods on a ten-coupled engine of that size and power than typical PRR crews were likely to maintain consistently without exception. If that gets solved, we can move to issues of flange force and two-wheel lateral guidance under conditions of limited overbalance...
... but considering what the English found they could do with speed of ten-coupled power with a two-wheel lead truck a decade later, it might have been interesting.
Overmod…All the 'conventional' documentation I remember seeing (admittedly often with that red-flag caveat, use of the same uncommon term 'greenlighting for production' for what took place) indicates the V1 received approval in 1944, and I have to wonder on other grounds if the WPB would approve a STE locomotive design with, for example, the same copper requirements as a comparable diesel-electric over a mechanical system with lower war-priority diversion cost...
Overmod It would be interesting to see the details of the GE design, as it would have relatively little in common with the Union Pacific/GN high-pressure condensing locomotives of the late Thirties.
Overmod Just as with the Q2, much of the rationale for a high-speed very-high-horsepower single locomotive in freight service 'went away' when war priority traffic did. Thereafter, a 70"-converted J class did a steam-locomotive's work just about as well, and more cheaply, for the short while steam still made economic sense………….why even a smaller-scale test of the V1 approach was not made.
OvermodI assume you have acquired and read the PRR report of the N&W J testing. It is interesting reading, and I believe at least a synopsis has been provided here in the forums. Contrary to some of the typical railfan wisdom, the report seems quite fair and does not disparage the J design, although some of the finer points of the balancing philosophy seem not to have been comprehended well.
Overmod …What might have been fun would be to adapt Glaze's balancing, and Timken rods, to one of the PRR J's (the 2-10-4s) and see the effects of the faster running. I suspect there were very good reasons this was not seriously undertaken, starting with Chapelon's implicit conclusion regarding roller-rod practicality that very serious cycling lateral flexure in the Timken rods was a necessary everyday operating occurrence... ... but considering what the English found they could do with speed of ten-coupled power with a two-wheel lead truck a decade later, it might have been interesting.
Jones1945Two experimental Class K5 4-6-2 passenger locomotives built with poppet valves and Caprotti valve gear; designed by W. F. Kiesel.
Just as a note, only one of these was built with the Caprotti poppet-valve gear (and was perhaps inevitably nicknamed 'Mussolini'); there were several other test installations of this kind of valve gear in this general time period, with none being markedly successful. (This was around the time that Baldwin acquired the rights to Caprotti gear and tried it on a wide range of product -- equally unsuccessfully.) If I recall correctly it was in connection with K5 testing that Caprotti noted 'your locomotives pull houses, not cars' -- and the detail design of the Italian version of the gear was in some respects not up to North American loads.
I have found it interesting that no attempt was made, even for test purposes, to fit any version of the Franklin System to one of the K5s, or for that matter to one of the M1as where the better volumetric efficiency might have meant something important. How much of that was a bad taste left from the Caprotti 'experience', I can't directly say.
Overmod Just as a note, only one of these was built with the Caprotti poppet-valve gear (and was perhaps inevitably nicknamed 'Mussolini'); there were several other test installations of this kind of valve gear in this general time period, with none being markedly successful. (This was around the time that Baldwin acquired the rights to Caprotti gear and tried it on a wide range of product -- equally unsuccessfully.) If I recall correctly it was in connection with K5 testing that Caprotti noted 'your locomotives pull houses, not cars' -- and the detail design of the Italian version of the gear was in some respects not up to North American loads. I have found it interesting that no attempt was made, even for test purposes, to fit any version of the Franklin System to one of the K5s, or for that matter to one of the M1as where the better volumetric efficiency might have meant something important. How much of that was a bad taste left from the Caprotti 'experience', I can't directly say.
Jones1945I wonder why PRR picked Caprotti poppet-valve gear for their first attempt to max out the potential of a Pacific, was there any poppet-valve gear available and proofed successful in America or EU?
Caprotti was THE hot thing in the latter 1920s, one of the follow-ons to the three-cylinder craze. Keep in mind this is very little like the 'British Caprotti' system of the 1950s. As noted, Baldwin thought it would be the 'wave of the future', bought a license, and advocated its use widely ... for a few years, anyway.
From what I saw from a YouTube video, the basic mechanical principle of Caprotti poppet-valve gear was simple and easy to understand.
You wouldn't say that looking at the 'nightmare box' that was actually used on some of those locomotives. Bad enough that it was a complex mechanism with many finely machined components, relatively easy to derange. Now imagine it located between the frames and subject to road dirt and damage!
Franklin’s poppet valves was tested on a K4s but T1 was a completely different design to K4s, PRR was act[ing] on impulse in T1’s case
As far as cylinders and tracting is concerned, 'steam is steam' and there is little difference with the possible exception that the short-stroke relatively small-bore duplex cylinders inherently have more dead-space percentage than a larger block should. In any case, part of the Lima 'second rebuilding' (with the larger superheater and better flow) was to eliminate some of the prospective performance loss inherent in the K4 boiler design, which most critics seem to think it did.
I don't think it is fair (or right) to accuse PRR of impulse-buying the Franklin System valves wholesale. You will note they were never applied to 6100, and while several variants were tested on K4s, never applied to fleet quantities of any other PRR classes in the years between the original K4 and the mass orders of T1s. There was considerable cost, including royalty expense, in buying the proprietary Franklin components, so the perceived value to PRR's motive-power department had to outweigh that cost. Certainly it seems to be factual that Baldwin tried to talk PRR out of using poppet valves on 'their' part of the T1 order, or at least providing competitive piston-valve-equipped T1-size locomotives to test, and was unsuccessful. (They also failed to get a 102-104 sq.ft. grate installed, which is another set of stories...)
Let me repeat here that I think it has been established beyond a doubt (both in original testing and in the reviews made by Joe Burgard in recent years) that the advantages for poppet valves (whether type A or B-2 drive) were present in quality for T1s just as they were observed on the Lima K4 'demonstrator' -- you will see this if you know where to look in the results for the T1 vs. T1a at high cyclic rpm under load.
The mistake that seems to have been made by other roads was to set up and tune performance of a Franklin-System-equipped locomotive for economy at 'equivalent' performance, rather than optimize free running at high speed. This is of course not a "mistake" in terms of how most railroads could or did operate reciprocating steam power... it's that even significant operating economies were eaten up by maintenance issues: witness the NYC poppet-valve Niagara. (You can in fact extract the relevant data from LeMassena's '80s article on the subject in Trains, but you need to do a little work to realize how Kiefer and the Franklin people scaled the installation.)
One of the flaws of K5 that many pointed out was its low FA, the higher TE played a role for her low FA, but why didn't PRR test it on M1, which had 4 pairs of drivers with smaller diameter.
Starting factor of adhesion is kind of a spurious quantity for a locomotive intended for high-speed express service with heavy trains, as most of the higher power is only useful at very high speed ranges. The problem is that some (probably most) operating departments think that the fancy modern technology they paid for ought to be able to start any train it can pull, and make up trailing load accordingly -- then rely on horse-out-the-throttle engineers from the days of dome throttles to get them started.
Where the K5s wound up being operated, the relatively low FA was more than usually problematic: many curves and relatively poor track meant often-compromised adhesion, especially with trailing load sized to suit the theoretically greater capability of the larger Pacific. But I can't help wondering if the conditions there were worse than experienced (proportionally adjusted) by N&W Js in typical service; those had a factor of adhesion lower than a K5.
By the way, despite the low FA, it seems the wheel slipping was not a problem of K5, but I don’t have [much about] them in hand.
The reports I've read all indicate wheelslip was a chronic problem much of the time, but that's just the normal starting wheelslip, not the kinds of high-speed slipping that the T1 would be accused of. It would also be relatively easy to control or arrest slipping with a piston-valve locomotive that has direct throttle and reverser controls. I suspect some of the kvetching would be made by comparison with K4/E6 performance, which would be far less affected by ham-handed impulsiveness in throttle opening.
OvermodCaprotti was THE hot thing in the latter 1920s, one of the follow-ons to the three-cylinder craze. Keep in mind this is very little like the 'British Caprotti' system of the 1950s. As noted, Baldwin thought it would be the 'wave of the future', bought a license, and advocated its use widely ... for a few years, anyway.
Thank you, Overmod. I just found out that I was watching the wrong video , which was an computer animation of “Britich Caprotti” system. I wonder why Baldwin “had a crush” (but not Alco or Lima) on the Caprotti gear which was “more complex and needed expensive maintenance” even though, from my shallow understanding, it was widely used on 400 locomotives in Italy, but wasn't the operation envrionment in Italy was very different from US? three-cylinder steam locomotive wasn't common in the States as well.
OvermodYou wouldn't say that looking at the 'nightmare box' that was actually used on some of those locomotives. Bad enough that it was a complex mechanism with many finely machined components, relatively easy to derange. Now imagine it located between the frames and subject to road dirt and damage!
Overmod I don't think it is fair (or right) to accuse PRR of impulse-buying the Franklin System valves wholesale. You will note they were never applied to #6100, and while several variants were tested on K4s, never applied to fleet quantities of any other PRR classes in the years between the original K4 and the mass orders of T1s…… (They also failed to get a 102-104 sq.ft. grate installed, which is another set of stories...)
Jones1945 ... Caprotti gear which was “more complex and needed expensive maintenance” even though, from my shallow understanding, it was widely used on 400 locomotives in Italy ...
You've heard of 'not invented here'? Fascist Italy was the 'here' for native son l'ing. Caprotti, just as Germany was a fertile place for Diesel engine development...
Here is the nightmare box in action. Just think about keeping this running in American service long-term:
It bears remembering that the New York Central C1a duplex design, presumed as late as April 1945 to be THE high-speed postwar NYC passenger steam power, never had poppet valves even as Kiefer anticipated their use (for economy) on Niagara 5500. That was a decision taken early in the design process, and it is particularly interesting since the 64-ton tender was specifically intended to take advantage of the better thermodynamic performance of the duplex design to permit unrefueled Harmon-to-Chicago service. The fuel consumption in 'typical' NYC service with poppets would likely have been lower, yet Kiefer happily uses long-travel Baker. Tells ya something, doesn't it?
Don't forget the ATSF duplex (oil-burning, cab-forward 6-4-4-4) which as it turns out resembles the B&O and Q1 cylinder arrangement, cylinders at the 'corners' of the driver wheelbase. This would likely NOT have constituted a viable competitor to the evolving diesel-electrics...
Overmod Here is the nightmare box in action. Just think about keeping this running in American service long-term:
Wow I didn't expect I learned so many things today! Thank you for sharing the video, Overmod!
The first thing that came to my mind when I watching the vid was that I guess the box must be filled with a lot of lubricant, oil and stuff in the past or those spinning part will worn out very soon, I don't know what speed of the box was trying to simulate but I played the vid at 10X speed by using a Browser add-on, I think such device were too "exquisite" that it looks like a music box, a clock or something you can find in a kitchen in 64AD more that a device which could control a 200 tons locomotive moving 800 tons of passenger stock at 80mph! Compare to the Walschaerts gear, it is really a bit too much! More parts mean higher chances of malfunction, I bet the frequency and loading of train service were much lower and lighter in Italy, so it worked there but not in the States. It is hard to believe one K5 was equipped with it and served for so long.
Overmod .......and it is particularly interesting since the 64-ton tender was specifically intended to take advantage of the better thermodynamic performance of the duplex design to permit unrefueled Harmon-to-Chicago service. The fuel consumption in 'typical' NYC service with poppets would likely have been lower, yet Kiefer happily uses long-travel Baker. Tells ya something, doesn't it? Don't forget the ATSF duplex (oil-burning, cab-forward 6-4-4-4) which as it turns out resembles the B&O and Q1 cylinder arrangement, cylinders at the 'corners' of the driver wheelbase. This would likely NOT have constituted a viable competitor to the evolving diesel-electrics...
.......and it is particularly interesting since the 64-ton tender was specifically intended to take advantage of the better thermodynamic performance of the duplex design to permit unrefueled Harmon-to-Chicago service. The fuel consumption in 'typical' NYC service with poppets would likely have been lower, yet Kiefer happily uses long-travel Baker. Tells ya something, doesn't it?
By the way, I never heard about the proposed ATSF duplex 6-4-4-4, is it possible to find any drawing or rendering of her? Thanks!
Jones1945The first thing that came to my mind when I watching the vid was that I guess the box must be filled with a lot of lubricant, oil and stuff in the past or those spinning part will worn out very soon
All these camboxes ran with what was essentially bath lubrication; I think that some of the British Caprotti videos show their version of the cambox 'opened up' and you can see the amount of lubricant involved there, too. Interestingly, the T1 camboxes were a very infrequent source of failure; the problem was much more one of inspection (particularly on the one for the rear engine!) than actual breakage. That couldn't be said about the stunted little valve gear that was intended to implement cutoff on type A OC gear. (If you think about poppet action a moment, you will come by first principles to appreciate why conventional SHM valve-gear drive wouldn't really work well on an OC engine with sustainable cam lift profiles, but that's a different discussion...)
I don't know what speed of the box was trying to simulate but I played the vid at 10X speed by using a Browser add-on
You can deduce the necessary speed by looking at the cams and extrapolating that to anticipated road speed based on driver diameter. Diameter speed for the Mussolini K5 would have been 80mph. I suspect the particular advantages of Caprotti's poppet valves would become meaningfully evident at a higher speed than that, probably no less than the 90mph or so that a conventional K4 would top out at.
It is hard to believe one K5 was equipped with it and served for so long
MUCH bigger locomotives were equipped with it -- the list of test locomotives that received a Caprotti experiment is surprisingly long. Part of the premise of cam drive of the poppets is that the force required to operate them is dramatically less than what's involved for piston valves driven via SHM gear like Walschaerts or Baker (I believe for Lima "type C" on the order of 3hp vs. about 35hp). This becomes a meaningful amount of power at very high speed, but is more significant in that relatively lighter components are appropriate for reasonable life. Franklin experience in the '30s made much of their equipment reasonably robust, I think camboxes included (the main issues early on with the T1s being first valve bounce and then spool breakage, neither of which is a real cambox issue as the valve drive is not desmodromic)
ah, yes: Dave Klepper's adored I-5. Not a bad locomotive, and representative of Baldwin's contemporary production (see the similarities to the ATSF 3460 class under the streamlining?)
Pity NYNH&H, after all those wrecks in the Mellon years, was such a slow railroad. These girls never really got to stretch their legs...
Do you mean Harmon, Illinois Overmod? I can't find the service between Harmon, IL to Chicago by New York Central.
I will restrain from snarky remarks.
Harmon, New York was the location where trains to and from Manhattan (New York City) changed between electric and steam power, about 30 miles north (railroad west). So all range calculations for NYC passenger power are made relative to Harmon and not, say, Mott Haven yard, as Harmon is where the steam power would be put on the trains. The required range is 'that much less' than the 999 miles or so that technically separate Chicago and New York on the Water Level Route (either through or around Cleveland -- the unrefueled range being most important for trains like the Century that did not change engines for the short Cleveland electrification but ran through on the lakefront route).
Earlier report shown that PRR S2 Steam turbine and T1 once managed to beat early diesel, but they can't catch up with E7. I refused to accept this as the final result, but it won’t change the fact. ( I wish T1 Trust's 5550 will show the whole world an extraordinary result)
Were you to operate either an S2 or T1 in the same service as the Niagaras used in Kiefer's testing, they would very likely have equaled or bettered the performance vs. E7s. (The C1a design is very powerful evidence if you need it!) The preference for E7s on Pennsylvania is largely driven by other factors, some physical and some political; it was a different railroad with a number of factors decidedly unsuited either to mechanical direct-drive turbine or short-stroke duplex power, especially between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg.
That said, no steam locomotive was competitive against E8s, or E9s, or what could have been provided as second-generation or later high-peak-speed passenger power had the need for that developed. (The closest to that, I think, would have been the C636P; regardless of what the CSR/SRI propaganda may imply, I don't think any reciprocating steam engine would meaningfully sub in for even the original Genesis AMD-103s, let alone Chargers)
There were a couple of threads about bashing up a model of this, but the result didn't resemble the actual proposed design. I'm a little surprised there isn't at least one Web-stored image of the available drawings (of which I have seen two) -- the canonical 'source reference' is in the "Iron Horses that didn't make the trail" section of Worley's Iron Horses of the Santa Fe Trail
Another easy solution for Pennsy: Hudson 4-6-4, but Pennsy wanted something better...
and yes, this design looks like a finger.
Overmod Interestingly, the T1 camboxes were a very infrequent source of failure; the problem was much more one of inspection (particularly on the one for the rear engine!) than actual breakage.
Overmod ...... ah, yes: Dave Klepper's adored I-5. Not a bad locomotive, and representative of Baldwin's contemporary production (see the similarities to the ATSF 3460 class under the streamlining?) Pity NYNH&H, after all those wrecks in the Mellon years, was such a slow railroad. These girls never really got to stretch their legs... …Harmon, New York was the location where trains to and from Manhattan (New York City) changed between electric and steam power, about 30 miles north (railroad west).
Overmod There were a couple of threads about bashing up a model of this, but the result didn't resemble the actual proposed design. I'm a little surprised there isn't at least one Web-stored image of the available drawings (of which I have seen two) -- the canonical 'source reference' is in the "Iron Horses that didn't make the trail" section of Worley's Iron Horses of the Santa Fe Trail
Overmod Have to confess I'm looking for the popcorn to make when Dave Klepper reads this......... ......Ah, well. Artistic license is fun, sometimes. As long as it doesn't reflect engineering 'judgment'!
Jones1945What a way to “…make the duplex a hopeless engine…” ... Both camboxes of T1’s gears were “almost” inaccessible, what in the earth they were thinking when they decided to mass produce T1?
Part of the problem, I think, was that they may have believed what the folks from Balmar were telling them about the integrity of the Franklin System. Not the first time proprietary device performance was somewhat overstated.
The way the rear cambox was located was particularly amusing; it is a principal reason that no gear or shaft conjugation of the type A-equipped T1 could be practically considered. With this removed, there is actually a 12" lightening hole in a diaphragm transom that a shaft could pass through...
During PRR S1’s first general overhaul after she racked up 150,000 miles around 1942, she was extensively de-skirted for better accessibility for daily maintenance and heat dissipation, but on the other hand, from the two prototypes T1 to the 50 production T1, the streamlining casting on the front end of T1 was still fully streamline shrouded ...
This is a little unfair, as the steel of the smokebox was that shape, analogous to the front of the A4 Pacifics in Britain, and there was little point in tinkering with it as, if anything, the front end was too efficient already (the ejection of combustion gas at perfectly suitable rate not rising high enough to escape being pulled down by the aerodynamics along the boiler). For that matter there was little point in modifying the 'prow' on a production T1 to something less "streamlined" like a flat door.
The original 'porthole' front skirting was removed on most engines with almost uncanny speed, replaced with simple (to me, elegant) enclosures for the compressor aftercoolers. There is probably some indication on what this cost, but it certainly indicates PRR was well aware of things impeding maintenance access, and still had the 'will' to modify them actively.
I believe none of the production T1s were actually built with side skirting as on the two original locomotives, and the aesthetics are in my view greatly improved by cutting the skirting back to how the engines appear in general service.
... the streamlining never tested in wind tunnel and unable to “lift the smoke up” ...
This requires a little more discussion, as there are multiple issues.
First, it is almost indisputable that making these engines with small (and non-enlargeable!) grate area, thinking that the combination of greater machine/thermodynamic efficiencies and good passenger gas coal would suffice, was a badly false economy. In an era where even the AAR started advocating washed, sized, good quality coal for locomotive fuel, PRR slid into providing more and more junk, and it is not surprising that you get burning-of-Rome smoke shows when things were even a bit less than perfect.
Second, we need to separate the issue with smoke drifting down the lee side from the issue of smoke coming in through the cabin ventilation in the roof. The latter, really the more serious problem, could have been addressed a number of ways, including a little bit of wind-tunnel analysis to see how airflow was actually being preferentially induced. Meanwhile, to my knowledge no "smoke-lifting" device intended to physically lift airflow or stack plume with air displaced around the upper front of the smokebox ever worked, more than accidentally. And while some brute-force elephant-ear 'smoke deflectors' certainly had effect on other railroads, the actual reason they worked seems not to have been fully understood even by Witte, and perhaps even by Quellmalz half a century and more later, and (as I believe Quellmalz indicated) there are easier and less drag-inducing ways of creating the necessary trailing vortex to move a smoke plume out of the engineer's line of sight.
Harmon of NYC was similar to Harrisburg of PRR wasn’t it? Both of them was a place to switch electric power to steam or diesel power for long distance through trains.
The differences are more significant. NYC used comparatively slow-speed third rail and locomotives for its terminal electrification, something PRR changed out for its major trains (getting rid of those awful L5s in the process) by the early Thirties. PRR to Harrisburg represented a major portion of the trip, and the prospective extension of that electrification to Pittsburgh (likely a priority even with PRR losing money had effective-enough diesel-electrics not been developed when they were) promised some interesting time savings.
It is easy to forget that NYC was actively considering wiring the railroad all the way up to Buffalo after the war; you can see one of the proposed locomotives prominently displayed in that 1947 review of motive power (it has a whole-page plate in the book) and this would be roughly competitive with a PRR Pittsburgh electrification, not incidentally solving the Albany Hill problem on the way...
I read the 6-4-4-4 was supposed to power the Super Chief, it is interesting to know Santa Fe was looking for Alternative power to haul their prime trains after the war.
This was very, very much a 1930s proposal, and inherently dependent on an abject failure of internal-combustion power to perform reliably on an appropriate scale. As the opposed-piston duplex configuration was far from the success anticipated, and the history of EMD on ATSF largely successful from the 'twins' onward in the middle '30s, it ain't surprising that this concept went nowhere fast (especially after the 3765 class with modern balancing proved perfectly happy well up into the duplex top-speed range!)
I believe Dave adored the real I-5 but not her “artist impression drawing" or “conceptual design drawing”. That pic of I-5 just like many other early renderings from different manufacturers, including the streamlined S2 by Westinghouse you posted before, they had nothing to do with engineering 'judgment' and their main function or “existential value” were to impress the potential buyer or used for publicity purpose and usually looked nothing like the real thing.
Yes, but the popcorn was for the comment you made about what you thought the streamlining on the I-5 looked like. (For the record, I agree with you; to me the streamlining looks pudgy although nowhere near as reprehensible as the Mae West treatment on the ATSF 3460 class, but Mr. Klepper I believe likes it)
The I-5 repressents the best 4-6-4 streamlinineg for me, better than Dryfuss, and better than any 4-6-2 as well. Both sides of the Atlantic too. Better than the Greseley A-4. (Not fond of an inverted bathtubs, even one as elelgant as the A-4, the best of the type.)
But, overall, I like the Norfolk and Western Js and the SP Daylights much more. Any streamlined Pacific or Hudson seems "pudgy" compared to a Northern. Or compared to a T-1.
OvermodPart of the problem, I think, was that they may have believed what the folks from Balmar were telling them about the integrity of the Franklin System. Not the first time proprietary device performance was somewhat overstated. The way the rear cambox was located was particularly amusing; it is a principal reason that no gear or shaft conjugation of the type A-equipped T1 could be practically considered. With this removed, there is actually a 12" lightening hole in a diaphragm transom that a shaft could pass through...
Overmod This is a little unfair, as the steel of the smokebox was that shape, analogous to the front of the A4 Pacifics in Britain, and there was little point in tinkering with it as, if anything, the front end was too efficient already (the ejection of combustion gas at perfectly suitable rate not rising high enough to escape being pulled down by the aerodynamics along the boiler). For that matter there was little point in modifying the 'prow' on a production T1 to something less "streamlined" like a flat door.
Overmod The original 'porthole' front skirting was removed on most engines with almost uncanny speed, replaced with simple (to me, elegant) enclosures for the compressor aftercoolers. There is probably some indication on what this cost, but it certainly indicates PRR was well aware of things impeding maintenance access, and still had the 'will' to modify them actively.
Overmod I believe none of the production T1s were actually built with side skirting as on the two original locomotives, and the aesthetics are in my view greatly improved by cutting the skirting back to how the engines appear in general service.
Overmod …In an era where even the AAR started advocating washed, sized, good quality coal for locomotive fuel, PRR slid into providing more and more junk, and it is not surprising that you get burning-of-Rome smoke shows when things were even a bit less than perfect. …And while some brute-force elephant-ear 'smoke deflectors' certainly had effect on other railroads, the actual reason they worked seems not to have been fully understood even by Witte, and perhaps even by Quellmalz half a century and more later, and (as I believe Quellmalz indicated) there are easier and less drag-inducing ways of creating the necessary trailing vortex to move a smoke plume out of the engineer's line of sight…
Overmod …It is easy to forget that NYC was actively considering wiring the railroad all the way up to Buffalo after the war; you can see one of the proposed locomotives prominently displayed in that 1947 review of motive power (it has a whole-page plate in the book) and this would be roughly competitive with a PRR Pittsburgh electrification, not incidentally solving the Albany Hill problem on the way...
Overmod Yes, but the popcorn was for the comment you made about what you thought the streamlining on the I-5 looked like. (For the record, I agree with you; to me the streamlining looks pudgy although nowhere near as reprehensible as the Mae West treatment on the ATSF 3460 class, but Mr. Klepper I believe likes it)
daveklepper The I-5 repressents the best 4-6-4 streamlinineg for me, better than Dryfuss, and better than any 4-6-2 as well. Both sides of the Atlantic too. Better than the Greseley A-4. (Not fond of an inverted bathtubs, even one as elelgant as the A-4, the best of the type.) But, overall, I like the Norfolk and Western Js and the SP Daylights much more. Any streamlined Pacific or Hudson seems "pudgy" compared to a Northern. Or compared to a T-1.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Dave. I also like SP Daylights, although I prefer GS-3 to double headlights GS-4.
Jones1945I also like SP Daylights, although I prefer GS-3 to double headlights GS-4.
My introduction to the GS-3 came early, as I suspect it did for some others of you:
But I didn't care much for how fat, almost pig-eyed, the locomotive looked with the single small headlight vs. the conical GS-4 door with the two lights. I spoze de gustibus non disputandum est and all that.
(Later, of course, when the show switched to color, they also switched the train to Diesels; funny that I remember this in amazing bright saturated Daylight paint, not what the current YouTube cuts show... kids' imagination, I guess.)
Overmod My introduction to the GS-3 came early, as I suspect it did for some others of you: But I didn't care much for how fat, almost pig-eyed, the locomotive looked with the single small headlight vs. the conical GS-4 door with the two lights. I spoze de gustibus non disputandum est and all that. (Later, of course, when the show switched to color, they also switched the train to Diesels; funny that I remember this in amazing bright saturated Daylight paint, not what the current YouTube cuts show... kids' imagination, I guess.)
Now I know the shocking reason of why you monopolize that cup of sweet smelling fresh double butter popcorn and refused to share it with me Overmod! You were watching Adventures of Superman and eating popcorn all day long! I am still thinking if I should feel disappointed or not...... But note that George Reeves was not the best Superman I am sure, he can't even stop a SP 28-car consist powered by a 6000hp EMD E8 within 6.5 secs when trying to rescue a street clerk ! Undeniable evidence here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeyqyKDLDLY#t=01m58s
Overmod-- Thanks for the Caprotti video. Now is there something on par for the Franklin Type B along with an explanation as to why it would be better, especially for the T1's and the 5550 project.
Keep in mind that when referring to T1s it is always "Franklin type B-2". There is a substantial technical difference in the arrangement and operation.
The original Franklin carried over from Lentz not only oscillating cams (which they thought suitable to be driven from a standard type of continuous-cutoff valve-gear reverse, in part to indicate attractive economies of construction cost to railroad buying agents!) but also the arrangement of valves seen in the corporate emblem (and Kirchoff's "shield") with two smaller admission and two larger exhaust valves per cylinder end (that's eight per cylinder block and sixteen per T1)
'Regular' type B (which is a rotary-cam gear) was developed differently; you will note that in the example fitted to ATSF 3752 there are only three valves per cylinder end. The problem for the T1s was, of course, that the cast engine bed cleverly included all the ports and passages for the type A valve arrangement. So B-2 was 'ginned up to have appropriate bridges and offsets to allow the shifting-cam spherical followers (as illustrated in the '47 Cyc) to work the existing valve arrangement (which in my opinion was better suited to very high speed working anyway), rather than do a T1a-style cutting off of the whole cylinder block across the dead space, making up four brand-new 'catalog' type B compatible castings and jigs to keep them aligned, and firing up the electroslag machines.
I suspect any videos that actually show B-2 in action will have to wait until the T1 Trust has finished more of the virtual models (both for multiphysics and for 'train simulators') that will be used for the initial rounds of testing. I expect one of the things generated then will be an analysis of the Franklin gear, with 'animated illustrations', all the way from the development in the '30s through to type D (the Vulcan 'kits' for the Army).
You and Jones1945 are welcome, of course, to sign up for the engineering task force at the Trust, which will give you access to the repository there.
Well Thank You! Sounds like a capital idea.
Overmod I suspect any videos that actually show B-2 in action will have to wait until the T1 Trust has finished more of the virtual models (both for multiphysics and for 'train simulators') that will be used for the initial rounds of testing. I expect one of the things generated then will be an analysis of the Franklin gear, with 'animated illustrations', all the way from the development in the '30s through to type D (the Vulcan 'kits' for the Army). You and Jones1945 are welcome, of course, to sign up for the engineering task force at the Trust, which will give you access to the repository there.
Yes, when I say 'train simulator' I'm talking about the "Microsoft game" style products, where the virtual model is assembled in 3D graphics and extensive physics can be specified. There were several private efforts documented and coordinated within the Trust technical discussions.
This is different both from the use of Dassault 3DS and software like COMSOL to perform multiphysics analysis on a 3D structural model of the locomotive made from actual drawings and materials characteristics, where the physics emerges from the design rather than being specified or calculated as in the game, and from the use of software like ADAMS or VAMPIRE where the physical response of the device, for example at high speed, can be determined. Note that when the 'smart drivers' are installed, it will be possible to analyze road shock, compliance, and augment in realtime at high speed, which is likely the only way high-speed running at the Pueblo test facility would be permitted.
Extract from "Penny Power I". One of the clay models of 3768 for wind tunnel test. There were more than 20 (I forgot the exact number) different designs of it before finalization.
An advertisement of Franklin Railway Supply Limited in 1947:
Jones1945An advertisement of Franklin Railway Supply Limited in 1947:
It is possible to be a bit cynical about coverage of technical issues in trade publications, but there are a number of accounts of the Franklin System in articles in publications like Railway Mechanical Engineer -- a good one discussing the actual meaning of 'long compression' being found very close to one of the articles on the ICC speed order of 1947 in the first few months of enactment.
There is also a fairly substantial spread by Franklin in the '47 Cyc that covers the system; it clearly shows the continuous-contour cam that finally provided reasonable stepless cutoff control to RC setups, and the spherical follower design needed to make this work ... to the extent it did. There is a technically better, but alas! smaller coverage in '50-'52 ... then all was gone.
It's easy to forget that a whole generation of the Franklin System was designed, tested, proved buggy, and re-engineered without a single customer in these years. That is why I always mention "type C" (shifting-cam RC using long-compression principles) in quotes -- to my knowledge there was never a service engine equipped with this, and the Vulcan conversion kits for Army engines are so different as to be type D. Yes, it's a bit sad that Col. Townsend couldn't even get a demonstrator built ... even at the model scale represented by the double Belpaire 'test article' ... that would show all the late stuff the way 1111 did for roller bearings, and auxiliaries, and Alco, etc.
Overmod…a good one discussing the actual meaning of 'long compression' being found very close to one of the articles on the ICC speed order of 1947 in the first few months of enactment... it clearly shows the continuous-contour cam that finally provided reasonable stepless cutoff control to RC setups, and the spherical follower design needed to make this work ... to the extent it did. There is a technically better, but alas! smaller coverage in '50-'52 ... then all was gone.”
OvermodYes, it's a bit sad that Col. Townsend couldn't even get a demonstrator built ... even at the model scale represented by the double Belpaire 'test article' ... that would show all the late stuff the way 1111 did for roller bearings, and auxiliaries, and Alco, etc.
I found this pic on http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=4934659, the date of this photo taken was Aug 15, 1946, but the site also stated that "The date and the location are approximations.".
This photo was taken by an unidentified photographer. Judging by the style and angle of how this photo was taken; the skirting of lounge-baggage car was still attached, I suspect it was taken by Penny's staff for official record, probably during PRR S1's first general overhaul after she racked up 150,000 miles around 1942. During the general overhaul, most of her side skirting were removed. PRR updated their drawings of S1 for this. Note both cylinders were freshly painted and overall the engine and the tender look rather clean in this pic. The front coupler cover was lifted up and hidden inside the frond end shrouding, probably still had the sliver strips attached.
There were different versions about S1's retirement date in the past, some said 1944, some said 1946, but after more files was revealed these years, it is quite sure that she served until the 100th anninsery of PRR and got withdrawn from service in the same year. Her role of hauling the Trail Blazer was replaced by PRR S2 6-8-6 Stean turbine engine and newly arrivered T1s.
I don't have solid evidence, but I believe some pics or important documents were leaked and destroyed during the establishment of Penn Central, there is a article on Classic Trains, titled " Donald Dohner: The man who designed the Rivets" By Hampton C. Wayt, mentioned that during the Penn Central merger, quote: "One day the man was asked to clean out the PRR office in Philadelphia where the model was stored. Everything was to be thrown away, but the man didn’t have the heart to dispose of the model." The model mentioned in this article was a conceptual design of GG1 in wooden model form; painted with color and had a skirting as part of it streamlining. It is not hard to imagine how many important files, pics, videos, models were destroyed during the merger. I wish some people did try to save as many files as they could during the merger.
Reader could download the free sample of this article via this link (Classic Train Free Download Section): http://ctr.trains.com/~/media/files/pdf/ebooks/electricrailroads.pdf
Thank you for the management of Classic Trains for sharing this article for subscriber!
As good as an EMD E-8? To replace a T-1 with diesels, even just to fully replace a K-4, at least two E-8 units are required.
As good as an F40P might be better.
Jones1945PRR’s electrification of the Northeast corridor was their biggest contribution to America, the positive affection of Penny’s decision is still there. If things went according to plan, NYC, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington D.C, Pittsburgh would have become the largest HSR network at the time.
Only just seeing this by reading on a larger screen.
I don't even think Martin Clement could have arranged HSR to Pittsburgh. That was a different line altogether from what became the NEC. diverging from the high-speed line via a cutoff through North Philadelphia, and even with the proposed tunnel under Horse Shoe would be a difficult proposition for true high speed sustained long enough to make an important difference. (Not that it wouldn't have been fun to watch them try!)
"Balmar" (for Baltimore, Maryland) was the Franklin plant where the poppet-valve equipment was manufactured. I don't remember the full story of the fascinating interlocking ownership of the Coffin empire in locomotive auxiliaries and components, but there are some people like Dave Grover who have teased it out in all its seamy glory, including the Westinghouse role in taking down Baldwin as a locomotive manufacturer, and I encourage you to research this for a side of the 'business' that most railfans never saw.
The only conclusion I was ever able to reach about the T1 smoke was that when the locomotives were designed and tested, the assumption was that they would always be using good PRR passenger 'gas coal' and not the sort of dirty run-of-mine stuff used for lesser power. Trying to run a high-speed 4-8-4 equivalent on unwashed, unsized coal on a 92-foot grate was always going to be an exercise in soot generation, and what was inconvenient aerodynamics with a clear stack became prep for the minstrel show ... can I make fun of it like that in this new post-#metoo world? didn't work out for Schnatter even though he was quoting Harlan, so perhaps we have to watch it. We do know that PRR played with smoke deflectors (I remember them on K4s and of course the 6200) but I have no idea if their versions worked, and I'd surmise not well enough since they were not applied in the widespread fashion they were on, say, NYC.
PRR wouldn't buy Hudsons from Baldwin for the reason I gave earlier: they had just spent to get 475 K4s, including 200 from Baldwin, some as late as 1928 (into the real Hudson era). By the time they were looking at better power, it was into the era of the true high-speed 4-8-4 and there was no point in considering anything but eight-drivered power -- had the divided-drive 84"-drivered locomotive worked out there would have been no need for a trivial little Hudson, and modern balancing made an 80"-drivered locomotive perfectly fast enough for what 'used' to demand an 84" wheel. (You will note the somewhat lamentable history of 84" drivered Hudsons in practice, with C&NW notable for being unable even to reach 100mph in AAR testing, and Santa Fe getting little faster even with much more heroic proportions; no one claims comparable top-speed limitation for the S1 if they are even borderline sane. The question was getting that fast, not sustaining it...)
I might mention, in passing, that studies were done to examine whether the nose of the Trust's 5550 could be built, like the nose of the Chezoom, as one piece of composite that would fold up on hinges to allow access to the components (including, if used, a more standard type of feedwater heater) on the pilot beam. That would have made the porthole type front end much more practical, had it been used, and was considered not a meaningful deviation from historical accuracy for the purposes of the Trust's replication, at the time. It might be interesting to have seen how materials like Cycolac or "Endura" might have been used if streamlined steam had persisted a decade or two later than it did... or, for that matter, if the soybean-fiber-in-phenolic used for the body panels in Ford's hemp-powered Volkswagen analogue had panned out.
daveklepperAs good as an F40P might be better.
Had there been any in the late Forties.
You'd still need at least two F40s, even F40Cs, to approximate the high-speed power of a T1. Even a single Charger doesn't quite get there on paper.
Of course, even a single E8 can be a 'fair comparison' if you don't care how quickly the train accelerates or what its balancing speed turns out to be... especially if the E8 'just runs' much more of the time without needing maintenance or service attention.
daveklepper As good as an EMD E-8? To replacd a T-1 with diesels, even just to fully replace a K-4, at least two E-8 units are required. As good as an F40P might be better.
As good as an EMD E-8? To replacd a T-1 with diesels, even just to fully replace a K-4, at least two E-8 units are required.
Yes, I think an EMD E8, maybe a A/B set, was a good candidate to compare with T1 in late 1940s. As Overmod stated in pervious post that even renowned steam engine like NYC Nigeria was barely as good as an E7 base on the result of Kiefer’s test in 1946. RRR T1 and S2 could outperform early diesel at high speed but the latter didn't have the chance to be mass produced. If 5550 can prove that a T1 using Franklin B rotary cam poppet valves can outperform and as economic as an E8, Pennsy might kept developing coal burning steam engine a few years more. (enough time to give S2 a new firebox and make it works)
Note that In 1937, AAR wanted to see what power was needed to get 1000 tons of passenger stock up to 100mph, thus a test was undertaken in 1938 and the result showed that 3370-3400 dphp were needed to maintain 100mph along the level with 1000 tons, 4000 dbhp was needed to accelerate the train to that speed within acceptable times and distance. I don't know if a 1000 tons passenger consist was still a common thing in PRR system or not after the declining of ridership since 1946, but I think an EMD E8 or A/B set (or even the E7A/B ordered in 1946) were powerful and economic enough to handle PRR's postwar (shorter) passenger consists. T1's high TE and dbhp will always be a fascinating thing on paper, but operation cost was Pennsy’s main concern, not to mention the "79 mph speed limit" thingy, thus they did pick EMD E8 and some “interesting” diesels from Baldwin and Alco instead of building more T1s.
Overmod Only just seeing this by reading on a larger screen. I don't even think Martin Clement could have arranged HSR to Pittsburgh……(Not that it wouldn't have been fun to watch them try!)
Overmod The only conclusion I was ever able to reach about the T1 smoke was that when the locomotives were designed and tested, the assumption was that they would always be using good PRR passenger 'gas coal'…… We do know that PRR played with smoke deflectors (I remember them on K4s and of course the 6200) but I have no idea if their versions worked, and I'd surmise not well enough since they were not applied in the widespread fashion they were on, say, NYC.
Overmod You will note the somewhat lamentable history of 84" drivered Hudsons in practice, with C&NW notable for being unable even to reach 100mph in AAR testing, and Santa Fe getting little faster even with much more heroic proportions; no one claims comparable top-speed limitation for the S1 if they are even borderline sane. The question was getting that fast, not sustaining it...)
Overmod I might mention, in passing, that studies were done to examine whether the nose of the Trust's 5550 could be built, like the nose of the Chezoom, as one piece of composite that would fold up on hinges to allow access to the components (including, if used, a more standard type of feedwater heater) on the pilot beam.
Jones1945Yes, he probably couldn't. But once the electrification was done, the facilities won't disappear after Clement left the office. How to max out the potential of the electrification was depending on PRR’s wisdom.
The issue was not the electrification; it was the railroad itself. Not for nothing was the 1928-on improvement plan contingent on substantial straightening and line relocations, and even then I have strong doubts that sustained fast running between slow points would have been practical for many years, far longer in the event than PRR would have had even had the Depression (and the political priority of the Washington electrification) not intervened.
I don't know if it is possible to extrapolate the rather cryptic data on the 1943 electrification to high speed. My impression of the plan was that it would reduce time by 'snapping' trains that would otherwise be horsepower-limited on grades, and reducing absolute grades (e.g. via the tunnel), rather than being the sort of line revision seen between New Brunswick and Trenton around the time of the Civil War (with station facilities that still look modern today... except for the primitive track!) which translate into high default speed potential. For PRR, that was always more of an electrification priority; examine the actual 'passenger' Main Line west of Philadelphia, and the Atglen and Susquehanna 'low grade' line, and you'll get a sense of what the massive Clement/Rea improvements were often intended to do.
Anyway, what happened in the history told us that Pennsy and Budd can’t even get the Metroliner to work properly, it wasn’t entirely Pennsy’s fault though.
That was a squirrelly time for industrial electronics, let alone complicated control systems for complicated trains (developed in complicated Government programs). It also pays to remember how many times the Northeast Corridor had to be 'rebuilt' before it would actually support very-high-speed operation without an exordinate amount of shock and vibration to the equipment...
Smoke deflector was not something the PRR management wanted to see on their engines, I am still wondering why.
Overmod You will note the somewhat lamentable history of 84" drivered Hudsons in practice, with C&NW notable for being unable even to reach 100mph in AAR testing... C&NW’s Hudson was almost identical to MILW’s F7, if the former’s engine couldn’t reach or hardly reach 100mph with normal passenger stock behind her, this may explain the short life of MILW’s F7.
Overmod You will note the somewhat lamentable history of 84" drivered Hudsons in practice, with C&NW notable for being unable even to reach 100mph in AAR testing...
NYC’s Hudson could reach 95mph max during a publicity test run in 1938 and they seldom and didn’t need to brag about top speed of their trains.
Even in 40s, it wasn’t hard to calculate the average speed of passenger trains, the fastest one was “merely” 71mph.
RRs needed their engine capable to maintain tight schedule; they were not looking for locomotive which could run faster than light. Even Pennsy stayed low-key or simply ignored all these speed claims from railfans.
If there are components inside the “porthole front end” than there should be some way to access to these components. If the production T1 of 1945 had feature like this (foldable front end), Pennsy didn’t need to waste so much time and man power to modify 52 of them.
“Project T1” of 1940s (not 5550) was supposed to be a demonstration of cutting-edge technologies; showing the public the future of coal burning steam locomotive. But unfortunately, it has become an imperfect full stop of steam locomotive.
OvermodThe issue was not the electrification; it was the railroad itself. Not for nothing was the 1928-on improvement plan contingent on substantial straightening and line relocations, and even then I have strong doubts that sustained fast running between slow points would have been practical for many years, far longer in the event than PRR would have had even had the Depression (and the political priority of the Washington electrification) not intervened.
OvermodThat was a squirrelly time for industrial electronics, let alone complicated control systems for complicated trains (developed in complicated Government programs). It also pays to remember how many times the Northeast Corridor had to be 'rebuilt' before it would actually support very-high-speed operation without an exordinate amount of shock and vibration to the equipment...
Overmod I call your attention to the fact that none of the fancy tin applied to this locomotive worked out in practice, except circumstantially in that cinders didn't preferentially accumulate under the front of the boiler where the angled plate was installed.
Overmod Note that I suspect the F7 could, and did, regularly reach speeds the E-4 couldn't, but these are in the very low 100s, about the same as the valve-limited ATSF 3460 class. My personal and somewhat uncharitable belief is that neither one would get much above 105mph on level track, with maybe 110 as an extreme top speed. (And an ATSF 3765 or better would probably go faster than that!)
Overmod Suspect this was conservative, as you'd be likely talking about the 'improved' J3s with roller rods and (various) disc centers. I don't particularly trust Haas (of 142+-mph-with-the-Trail-Blazer fame) when he says that both Hudsons and Niagaras regularly ran at 120mph, but I do think they would easily run well faster than 100mph when let out.
At this time, the Japanese were building locomotives that looked just like this for the standard gauge in Korea: PS5 Pacific and MT1 Mountain...
M636C At this time, the Japanese were building locomotives that looked just like this for the standard gauge in Korea: PS5 Pacific and MT1 Mountain... Peter
That's very interesting, Peter. I can't find a pic of them until I use the google translator to seaching in Korean, they really looked like PRR K4s #5038 of 1942!
Overmod…So that "71mph" is a VERY different thing in practice from a train that spends much of its time running around 70mph. (Meanwhile, conventional recip steam efficiency drops off remarkably fast above around 85-90mph, slightly above effective diameter speed, so it makes little sense to run much above that unless you have ways to monetize the actual speed or its associated time savings or can create the perception that you can (as with the Hiawathas).
Overmod I would not-so-humbly submit that the lion's share of the time reductions on the Century culminating in the low 15-hour range are attributable to operating improvements made possible by diesel-electric power. (And not just the sort of improvement that, say, a C1a with 64T tender would produce!)
Overmod As early as the 1880s (remember the context of the famous W.H. Vanderbilt quote?) railroads understood that competitive high speed was a waste of money and a source of pointless danger and damage. Technological changes coupled with the cutthroat economics in the Depression led to streamliner competition; see how fast most of that speed went away as soon as it couldn't be made to pay a premium. As with most else about a railroad, it's about the money. (And arguably should be.)
Overmod In all fairness, the situation is completely different. 5550 is explicitly an excursion locomotive, and won't be subjected to lowest-dollar operation by indifferent people in cheapest-cost service, with road damage left unattended unless and until critical. A production locomotive in the '40s needed substantial construction 'up front' and couldn't involve anything that might crack or break and let stuff fall off or, worse, get under the lead truck or the leading driver flanges.
Overmod But in the half-decade from 1945 to 1950 not just the T1, but ANY high-speed coal-burning steam locomotive became at best obsolescent, with any reciprocating power at all, including Roosen motor locomotives, becoming a dead letter. (It might have remained to be seen if the TE-1 could be evolved into a meaningful 'diesel alternative', but as it was built and operated it most certainly was not.) ……I would also note that in all the intervening years ... and not for want of brilliant design work, or trying ... heavy reciprocating power has never made a comeback on American railroads. "Plandampf" is cute, but most of it has to be 'rightsized' to work, and the least little complicating factor usually throws a wrench in the economics.
Jones1945This was why PRR paid so much concern on the makeup time ability of N&W Class J.
The real 'missing link' was PRR applying high-speed balancing and running gear to an M1 or M1a in the mid-Thirties, with the evocatively numbered UP 7002 together with 2906, and some of the C&NW work done for the 400 power, as all the technological proof-of-concept and technology necessary. Note specifically that much of the UP work did not necessarily involve the very light-weight rods and expensive roller bearings as used on the T1s; in particular the application of floating bronze liners over the main pins as designed for the FEFs would give a good, positive 'tandem' solution. The immediate effect of the rebalance would be the practical achievement of the speed range for which the 77" drivers of the posited M1-replacement Q1 were intended, while specifically retaining the acceleration advantage of 72" drivers. (And all the paid-in capital relating to the dual-service M1 fleet...)
If there were a firm body of research showing just how much actual PRR passenger requirement was served by this kind of improvement (vs. 80" or 84"-drivered fantasy power) the revelation of what was possible with Glaze balancing principles would likely have resulted very quickly in application of the methodology to M1s. This together with front-end and firebox improvements might have resulted in a locomotive able to handle many upsized PRR consists as well as a brace of K4s without going to a nominally larger and heavier (with circulators and whatnot) rear boiler construction necessitating a two-axle truck. And capable of 100mph dash with the lower machinery speed of the M1 wheel...
I always mention about my fantasy HSR route in 1940s between Chicago and New York, offering 10 hours schedule for travelers, leaving both ends in the morning and arrive in the evening, or leaving at night and arrive in early morning, it probably only could happen in a sci-fi novel… or maybe a movie?
Would you settle for the 1870s? (Well in advance of the Chicago and New York Air Line, or the very well-developed plan for 18-minute-headway high-speed service between New York and Philadelphia from the late 1890s.)
That was the Weed electric railroad, which is notable in more than a few respects as an interesting idea. It starts with the idea that real high-speed service was necessary for packages and mail, not people ... and that streamlining a vehicle with small cross-section was far easier, and power and stability requirements far easier, than building de luxe express trains to run at high speed (even less cost-effective than either of those by itself!)
So, similar to a telpher or pneumatic-tube container, the Weed proposal involved small 'containers', here running unattended on narrow-gauge track. This reduced all the land-acquisition, grading, construction, and tax consequences to an extreme minimum, while preserving all the likelihood that "100%" of the lucrative business-paper market between various Eastern and Midwestern points" would go by the fastest means. The chief issue I always saw with this was security, but I think there were expedient ways (in the 19th Century, at least) to provide reasonable assurance against the usual kinds of damage or theft.
There is at least one picture 'out there' of field testing of one of the example cars, showing the general scale of the installation.
As an amusing aside, I thought when I first heard of the actual Weed proposal that it would be nifty to have the high-speed lines converge on a few central points, where the M&E would be resorted for maximum speed or minimum dwell in going to what would presumably be an REA-scale number of destinations in minimum end-to-end time. This would not be too different from what subsequently came to be the Federal Express model, but with 'mail-stop' aircraft rather than separate flights from all the originating points...
What I feel regret was that when the production T1s were put into service, they weren’t going as smooth as other steam engines like N&W Class J or NYC’s Niagaras; due to its innovative design and carelessness of Pennsy, quite a lot of rebuilt, modification and fine tune was needed ... at least one T1 [was] equipped with Franklin Type B poppet valve after rebuilt, if Pennsy thought it was as economic as diesel electric, they wouldn’t switch to diesel in 1948.
Speaking of N&W TE-1, I remember N&W wanted to order 19 more of this class, but the price of the engine was raised thus N&W given up…
Sayeth Overmod, ....
"T1 is all the indication you need to understand that fixing the valves and steam distribution wasn't the fundamental economic issue facing the T1, or most other large Eastern steam outside of the artificial world of the N&W. I firmly believe it was not the 'slipperiness' or the differential maintenance cost of four cylinders over two that led to failure; it was the overall economics-falling-in-a-hole of the high-maintenance provision of big steam that did."
Respectfully disagree. First off N&W was far from an "artificial world", in fact the opposite. They lead the way, especially in maintenance with their lubritoriums, design, applications and construction methods of steam. If they were the only ones flipping the bird to Diesel well good for them and others should have put their egos aside, taken serious notice, and joined in. I would say they were the only ones not chasing their tail and tripping over themselves backwards and dreaming of huge profits from 'them thar cost savin Diesels'. Group think. Sanctioned too. They had to send the Vandel himself and his addle brained crookiness steeped in lawyer juice to murder the N&W steam. Atta boy, good job, wanna tear down Pennsylvania Station as a reward? Big money for you and your buddies. We can call you Vandel.
Secondly, the statement " overall economics -falling-in-a-hole of the high maintenance provision of big steam". The roundhouse crews and craftsman had their craft honed to a science, those guys just came through the war and they knew very well what they were doing, efficiently and skillfully. You going to deny the mega-fold-more cost of all those garbage Diesels, breakdowns, lost time and an enourmous capital expense down the drain that makes the T1's cost a blip. How long did all the PA's. PB's, FM anything, Baldwin Sharks and Centipedes, 244 anything Alco , Baby Faces and so on last on the Pennsy, Central and others. How much down time? Throw in lost good will, degradation of service and morale? Big bucks. Huge. Come on, it's a joke, you think this is better?
Also your closing statement is very thin.. sort of like 'because, that's why'.
It kind of reminds me of UFO stuff in the late 40's 50's, where the government convinced all that we were all just sharing an illusion and those that got too close to the truth somehow suffered a fatal accident.
Sorry can't get deeper tonight, been a tough 2 weeks, unable, Will pick up the challenge tomorrow.
The reason I say N&W was its own little world is that they artificially sustained steam 'for its own sake' (or rather, coal burning power) long past the era it became de facto impossible for lesser roads to maintain all the little proprietary devices that were no longer manufactured -- the arch brick, the feedwater-heater parts, the mechanically-governed steam turbines, etc. You watch these firms dropping off, self-destructing, 'retasking' themselves in the pages of the trade press, even as you read about the soaring cost of all the labor as the consumer economy got ramped up in the late '40s. SOME of the roundhouse people had their craft honed to a science; the problem is that for each skilled person there are a plurality of scut positions, with advance being very slow, and a growing range of careers (not just job positions) available to people with even slightly more than a detectible pulse. We think big steam is noble and nostalgic ... ask the guy in the aluminized Nomex suit crawling backward into his nth hot firebox of the night whether he thinks the same. Even on railroads that tried their hardest (Nickel Plate being a dramatic example) there came a time that steam no longer worked even where it was best suited. And, significantly to me, that time was far shorter than most hard-headed industry people thought would be possible at the end of WWII.
As with the discussion of Kiefer's report we had earlier, the correct benchmark for dieselization wasn't the rush to try squirrelly first-generation power; it was the systematic implementation of second-generation horsepower and associated control systems that led all the remaining railroads with any credit (and some decidedly without, like NYO&W) to pick reasonable diesels and then standardize on what they could afford. Note how fast the door slams between 1956 and 1960, and how no one ever goes back with any scale as soon as they dieselize. Yes, that's empirical, and yes, I don't have full access to the reasons why each particular road did things the way it did. But none of the late innovations in modern steam survived more than about a decade, and I think that someone with the time and patience to investigate the actual data behind the actual trend toward dieselization would not find anything surprisingly different from the 'common sense' understanding of the factors that can be understood from essays and pieces in the trade press. There are some minor aspects of conspiracy (e.g. in saying EMDs required less care and maintenance tinkering than was the actual case in the early years) but there doesn't have to be some NCL-like conspiracy to get rid of steam. Everyone loves it in their backyard... for the weekend, until the novelty wears off. Find your 18th load of washing in a row speckled with soot and sporting the occasional scorch or burn mark ... not so much.
Problem with fat Saunders was that he was a lawyer, and he was expedient. But the whole management trend at N&W after the years Newton apprenticed was a string of lawyers with bean-counting tendencies. Who, unfortunately, knew what the beans meant when they counted them. That fooled PRR/PC into giving the Vandal the keys to a decidedly UNmaintained cluster-in-progress masquerading as a wedding. But I almost can't imagine PC trying to survive with large amounts of typical steam power, even with large numbers of Mohawks refusing to abdicate and all that. Would have been grand as long as it ran ... but it wouldn't be long, sooner or later, before it didn't. And diesels tend to fail less catastrophically, spectacularly, and finally than large steam driven economically close to its working capacity...
It gets worse. Look at power-by-the-hour plans and other guarantees associated with Welch's dash-9s and the power that came after them. Can you imagine approximating that level of routine performance with steam locomotives built to a price?
Overmod …Note specifically that much of the UP work did not necessarily involve the very light-weight rods and expensive roller bearings as used on the T1s; in particular the application of floating bronze liners over the main pins as designed for the FEFs would give a good, positive 'tandem' solution.
OvermodThe immediate effect of the rebalance would be the practical achievement of the speed range for which the 77" drivers of the posited M1-replacement Q1 were intended, while specifically retaining the acceleration advantage of 72" drivers. (And all the paid-in capital relating to the dual-service M1 fleet...)
Overmod Would you settle for the 1870s? (Well in advance of the Chicago and New York Air Line, or the very well-developed plan for 18-minute-headway high-speed service between New York and Philadelphia from the late 1890s.) That was the Weed electric railroad, which is notable in more than a few respects as an interesting idea. It starts with the idea that real high-speed service was necessary for packages and mail, not people ...
Overmod …I certainly expect to find out much of the objective data as the T1 Trust project proceeds…
Overmod…I suspect you will then agree with me that this would have been one of the great disasters of the contemporary railroad world, far outstripping the T1 in ghastliness, after no more than a few years in "service"……Then we can get into the fly-ash and ash dump concern, the excessive working length and visibility problems, the lies about realizable top speed with a train, damping and lateral control of the trucks, and a host of other little gotchas, which were likely waiting in the wings but never got the chance, a bit like why cancer incidence was low in the 1300s because so few people lived to the age past the Hayflick limit where cancers become more prevalent...)
Miningman It kind of reminds me of UFO stuff in the late 40's 50's, where the government convinced all that we were all just sharing an illusion and those that got too close to the truth somehow suffered a fatal accident. Sorry can't get deeper tonight, been a tough 2 weeks, unable, Will pick up the challenge tomorrow.
Jones194518 minutes from NY to Chi-town is very impressive, but it won’t fit the tone and plot of my forthcoming sci-fi movie!
Ayaaaah, no! The 'eighteen-minute headway' was the time between trains on the proposed 'super-interurban' between New York and Philadelphia ... one of the specific points of the service being that you wouldn't have to wait long for the next train, vs. an hour for a 'Clocker'. You should research this as an extensive amount of the engineering work, including much of the requirements for the grading, was published as proof-of-concept, iirc around 1897, and is available (some in color!) on the Web. It would have been completely practical to build it and it would likely have been interestingly improved in the ensuing years...
Not quite sure how you have a love scene on a Weed train, but you'd have much more time to build up to it. Top speed of the equipment was estimated as around 150mph, but of course the train wouldn't run 'straight through' most of the time, and the times I recall seeing were in the 9-to-10-hour range. That of course is enough for 'business overnight with morning delivery' most places in the financial East even net of switching or network-routing considerations.
The problem you face there is there's really only room for one at most in a given cross-section of those cramped little cars ... no room for most kinds of romantic action even if you had a pair of claustrophiles in the mood. I also suspect that the ride would be less than comfortable, as would the 'space conditioning' provided (although I'd expect controlled-atmosphere and -temperature shipments to be recognized early on as an advantage, the ducts required for them would even further cut into the usable part of the loading gage).
On the other hand, it should have been possible for the Weed cars to run directly into an augmented version of the Chicago freight-tunnel system on arrival, giving some interesting plot possibilities...
Meanwhile, the Q1 never made sense except as a passenger or dual-service M&E locomotive, which made its nominal design as 'follow-on improvement to M1 capability' more telling. It's important to note how very different the detail design of the Q2 (which was expressly designed as a high-capacity wartime freight locomotive) was, and not just in dealing with the discovered issues with the Q1 configuration. One example: the rigid wheelbase, even before accounting for lateral-motion accommodation, is shorter for the Q2 than for any of the production ATSF 2-10-4s.
The TE-1 comes directly out of the V1 project, but it's instructive to piece together what happened to the V1 after 1944 to understand why. In this connection it helps to have read the somewhat one-sided correspondence that survives at the Hagley involving first the contretemps over the Loewy 'triplex' and the secret Baldwin project to get around the Steins patent (the 'take' at PRR was that Baldwin did hurry-up engineering to be the 'first' with a steam turbine-electric and the results sure showed, but the presence of the drawing you posted from Yank clearly shows the Baldwin, not the Steins/PRR configuration)
There is clear indication that N&W took up the idea of the V1 after PRR abandoned it (again, nominally for pure considerations of water rate) -- there is at least one cut of a 4-8-0+4-8-0 in a contemporary trade press article that can be nothing but a V1 adaptation. However, by 1950, the reports of steam-turbine development at N&W had firmly switched to the siren call of electric traction (among other reasons to motor the axles of the engine trucks; you'd think the PRR experiment with the P5b would have been a cautionary tale to them, but it wasn't. There are reports as late as the early '50s ('51 for sure, perhaps '52) that show detail work on this version of the turbine-electric, which I believe was even at this point being optimized for the Babcock & Wilcox chain-grate high-pressure watertube boiler.
The change to bogie trucks mirrors developments in electric and diesel design both at BLH and elsewhere in world practice, promising 100% adhesion, true bidirectional operation, and supposedly better riding and guiding than the V1 chassis design would provide, with cheaper construction and promised compatibility with production diesel-electrics to sweeten the pot. That in turn changed some of the carbody requirements but not the overall length, which was acceptable competitively for 1954 but not into the second-generation era which effectively started only a couple of years later. Note that derating the locomotive even from its original 8000 nominal hp (let alone the fantasy 9000+ that PRR started touting, probably to justify the reduction in train length that the huge water rate of that power would imply) to a measly 4500hp, with all that complexity, makes little more operating sense than the Heilmann locomotive did in context. (And remember that people I trust looked into the idea of expanding the B&W boiler detail design to serve 6000hp and concluded it wouldn't work...)
You may have concluded by now, as I did, that the subsequent Krauss-Maffei Amerika-Lok experiments (and then Alco's DH-643 etc.) established that mechanical Cardan-shaft drive to multiple bogie trucks was fraught with both engineering and economic issues, so even if the original V1 had been modified to that kind of undercarriage it would have been at most a highly conditional 'success'. One that shared many of the characteristics that turned out to doom conventional steam, such as even the revised issues about steam-boiler maintenance that direct-steam plants, good water treatment regimens, welded shell construction, and coherent servicing plans couldn't fully address.
Still, I'd have liked to see them try.
Overmod Ayaaaah, no!...It would have been completely practical to build it and it would likely have been interestingly improved in the ensuing years...
Overmod Not quite sure how you have a love scene on a Weed train, but you'd have much more time to build up to it.
OvermodTop speed of the equipment was estimated as around 150mph, but of course the train wouldn't run 'straight through' most of the time, and the times I recall seeing were in the 9-to-10-hour range. That of course is enough for 'business overnight with morning delivery' most places in the financial East even net of switching or network-routing considerations.
OvermodThe problem you face there is there's really only room for one at most in a given cross-section of those cramped little cars ... no room for most kinds of romantic action even if you had a pair of claustrophiles in the mood.
OvermodOn the other hand, it should have been possible for the Weed cars to run directly into an augmented version of the Chicago freight-tunnel system on arrival, giving some interesting plot possibilities...
Overmod Meanwhile, the Q1 never made sense except as a passenger or dual-service M&E locomotive, which made its nominal design as 'follow-on improvement to M1 capability' more telling. It's important to note how very different the detail design of the Q2 (which was expressly designed as a high-capacity wartime freight locomotive) was, and not just in dealing with the discovered issues with the Q1 configuration. One example: the rigid wheelbase, even before accounting for lateral-motion accommodation, is shorter for the Q2 than for any of the production ATSF 2-10-4s.
Overmod There are reports as late as the early '50s ('51 for sure, perhaps '52) that show detail work on this version of the turbine-electric, which I believe was even at this point being optimized for the Babcock & Wilcox chain-grate high-pressure watertube boiler……Note that derating the locomotive even from its original 8000 nominal hp (let alone the fantasy 9000+ that PRR started touting, probably to justify the reduction in train length that the huge water rate of that power would imply) to a measly 4500hp, with all that complexity, makes little more operating sense than the Heilmann locomotive did in context.…Still, I'd have liked to see them try.
So are you saying the N&W TE-1 Jawn Henry was an improved version of anything the PRR would have come up with had the V1 been built?
One VP at N&W was impressed enough to push for 19 more TE-1's but got overruled. As you say a likely failed end and the same fate would have occurred to any follow up orders of the proposed V1.
The verdict is in. This is how it will be. Obviously the concept is flawed, best to buy Diesels. Buy now, pay later. Credit available because you blew all your wartime profits on reequipped passenger trains and steam of the future. Too bad. That's our territory now. Big oil, Big rubber, Big auto.
Quite genius I would say.
How many steam locomotives nationwide were scrapped owing to Diesels, 100,000? 600 Mohawks on the Central alone. Gads Zooks!
Steam survived 2 decades more all over the world, even in England, Western Europe and Australia. 3 and 4 decades elsewhere. Not a total expensive out dated flop after all.
We all suffered the same massive hallucination. Bring in an 'ex-spurt' and call it swamp gas. Of course, its swamp gas. Steam is no good. Diesels much better. We have not been visited by extraterrestrials, no such thing.
Miningman So are you saying the N&W TE-1 Jawn Henry was an improved version of anything the PRR would have come up with had the V1 been built? One VP at N&W was impressed enough to push for 19 more TE-1's but got overruled. As you say a likely failed end and the same fate would have occurred to any follow up orders of the proposed V1.
MiningmanHow many steam locomotives nationwide were scrapped owing to Diesels, 100,000? 600 Mohawks on the Central alone. Gads Zooks! Steam survived 2 decades more all over the world, even in England, Western Europe and Australia. 3 and 4 decades elsewhere. Not a total expensive out dated flop after all.
Miningman We all suffered the same massive hallucination. Bring in an 'ex-spurt' and call it swamp gas. Of course, its swamp gas. Steam is no good. Diesels much better. We have not been visited by extraterrestrials, no such thing.
I'm trying to draw a parallel with the reasons for the end of all steam in all forms, mercilessly, recklessly, without reason, even the most advanced that won the war, with other mass cover ups, whether the truth or not. One was the interests of big business that was anything but railroading, the other was government, not wanting us to know stuff, whatever it be. ( I've seen things in remote exploration camps in isolation that can't be explained )
A functioning system of Interurbans, streetcars, steam roundhouses everywhere, passenger service with dining and sleeping car service to every corner of North America from your own local station. All lost.
Folks will never give up though. The Steampunk movement is quite a little phenom even if it is just fashion and fantasy at this time. At least people are thinking. Perhaps we wil come to our senses.
I was going to jump in, but wow, the water's gotten awful deep!
I'll say this about Norfolk and Western steam and no more. The men running the N&W back in the Fifties weren't starry-eyed kids, they were mature men and seasoned railroaders. They knew the end of steam was coming, it was just a matter of when, but as long as their steamers, which they were very proud of by the way, were running well, were maintainable, and were making them money they weren't in any great rush to retire them. They took a "wait-and-see" attitude toward dieselization and paid close attention to how it was working out for everyone else. It paid off too, when they bought diesels at last they were good ones, in this case Geeps, even though trains like the "Cavalier" and the "Powhatan Arrrow" looked lousy with a Geep on the head end instead of a Class J.
It was that living embodiment of the "Peter Principle" Stuart Saunders that rushed the process and put the N&W in the red for the first time in its history. Needless to say the N&W being a coal pipeline and a guaranteed money-maker that "red" period didn't last too long.
It's possible that without Saunders coming along N&W steam might have lasted until 1965, possibly 1970, but certainly the environmental laws that were passed in the 1970's would have put an end to it. That was inevitable.
PS: I know about "Steampunk." I haven't been to one of their festivals yet, but maybe I shoulld go one of these days, it looks like fun!
Alright Wayne, let's get deep.
Ayn Rand writes the following:
"The demand to restrict technology is the demand to restrict man's mind. It is nature, ie reality, that makes both these goals impossible to achieve. Technology can be destroyed and the mind can be paralyzed but neither can be restricted. Whether and wherever such restrictions are attempted, it is the mind, not the state, that withers away."
Could this possibly be an explanation for the wholesale demise of advanced steam technology, and all steam, after WWII? How did we use the authority of government to divert technologies, energy and so on and let it be so intrusive. The federal takeover of science. Prior to WWII there was little government involvement in science. A scientocracy was formed after the success of the Manhatten project.
Could it explain brand new T1's sabotage, S2 failed with no actual attempts of improvements, S1 scrapped, assured failure of coal turbines afterward... and so much more?
The end of coal in any way to power the Nations railroads. The military industrial complex imposing their will on the railroads and not allowing even a sliver of light. Guaranteed failure and new energy source aimed at the very heart of Railroading itself.
Resistance is futile!
Please. I know the clout of the oil firms that shaped foreign policy, a walkl away from USA energy independence, and eventully led to the World Trade Center - Pentagon disaster, El Quada, etc. But dieslilzation of railroads?
Note that every major railroad system in the world has dieslized or electrified or a combination of both, with the choice based on economics. No major railroad system, world-wide, relies on steam power today.
Perhaps it has a 1% chance of being a viable explanation but maybe that was the 1 time. It fits in its own way.
I full well expect harsh blowback and many groans. Yet as pointed out steam survived even in Western countries around the world for decades yet.
They survived where it made economic and fiscally responsible sense. When it didn't, steamers were cashiered. There are older diesels still being used, far less efficient than those designed to replace them. Same diff.
MiningmanCould it explain brand new T1's sabotage, S2 failed with no actual attempts of improvements, S1 scrapped, assured failure of coal turbines afterward... and so much more?
The BCR coal-turbine project WAS the product of that scientocracy, and became the scam that it was when the "scientists" did the analogue of grant swing and kept mooching on the member railroads for work that locomotive builders or other 'interested parties' should have taken up on their dime.
If Union Pacific couldn't get it to work, on the shoestring of shoestrings that was the locomotive 80 and then 8080 project, I suspect no one could have gotten it to work. And by the end of that effort you had no 'locomotive' builder even remotely interested in direct coal combustion who would undertake building it in quantity. A good thing, as there is NO way it could be adapted to even 1970s pollution standards within contemporary gage limitations and working conditions.
And then we can take up how miserable a thing it would be to run.
The problem with so much of 'advanced steam technology' was that it had all the materials and fabrication expense of more sophisticated approaches, but none of the practical thermal efficiency and not enough maintenance 'saving'. Lubritoria were a wonderful idea, but the gains were relative to total-loss lubrication in the first place; many water-treatment regimens were dependent on ghastly continuous blowdown, and so on: it's romantic to see one steam locomotive operating, quite another thing to have a fleet of maintained-to-a-price examples going by every day (or not going by, broken down expensively somewhere).
In my opinion the road that used modern steam best was the Nickel Plate, which to this day operates fast bridge trains at speeds right at the horsepower peak of their best locomotives. I believe the Brown paper used data from just before the time Nickel Plate dieselized; if you look at why that road gave up Berks when it did (and for what) you will have a good understanding of why the transition became inevitable by that point, for that era.
A case could be made that interurbans failed because their proponents (usually utility combines looking to capitalize on uses and excuses for wiring out their regions - something increasingly unnecessary and non-lucrative after the War) were less popular than the far more convenient and useful automotive cartel. Part of the success is documented in 'The Insolent Chariots' -- how could increasingly rattletrap trolleys compete with that juggernaut? If Los Angeles, of all places, could get rid of its system, why invoke conspiracy when the sheep did the job themselves?
Consider, again, that the Niagara was only competitive with diesel power in a very specific service; when that ceased to exist either for marketing or economic reasons, let alone a combination of both, all the collateral expense of that particular 'weapons system' increasing dramatically after 1947, you should not be surprised at unwillingness to continue.
Now, it is possible that had there been "modern" small power, perhaps the sort of thing Steins was developing in the early Thirties, with some of the advantages of modern maintenance and servicing on an appropriate scale, you might have seen more use of steam until it had been 'costed down'. But this is precisely the sort of place that dieselization became established where continued operation of small-scale railroading made sense. Steam disappeared coincidentally with All Those Canadian Railroads that are gone when you look around, not in isolation. It may be hard to distinguish which of them was doomed the more.
Well that was gentle Overmod. I full well expected a good thrashing and holes blown in my little rubber dinghy out in the ocean like that, so thanks.
Makes everyone think a bit though.
One of the illustrative pieces of history is: what became of the engineers who so carefully worked out that New York to Philadelphia high-speed interurban? I thought, when I read it, imagine what would happen when the 'boom' in eastern Pennsylvania/New Jersey with cheap Portland cement concrete got going. What would those engineers have done with gleepsite?
And the answer is: as 'visionary' they saw very well what the use of concrete would be: they got into the good roads movement, and the engineer became one of the original authorities in paving equipment. As far as I know he never considered another railroad project...
Almost the only thing that could have replaced a government-assisted good-roads program would have been government ownership (not just regulation or subsidy) of a strategic network of 'electric railways' serving regionally. But (judging by the efforts made by steam railroads to electrify over part of their routes, most of which were pretty much done by WW1) that would need to have been done prior to the Wilsonian excuse for federal control ... and it would have been tough to apportion revenue with the then-budding power-company magnates like Insull. Whether we'd have had the excuse to use federal money for something like TVA, who knows?
People tend to forget this, but by 1928 it was very clear that the United States would be running out of gasoline-producing reserves very soon. So clear that one of the Standard Oil spinoffs spent an ungodly amount of money licensing the Fischer-Tropsch process to synthesize gasoline from coal. This would raise the cost of gasoline ... but you didn't see the rate of development in the automobile industry damped by this in the late '20s, right up to the point that the Depression arrested it for other reasons.
The other thing was the rise of 'reliable' used cars very, very cheap -- in part, a consequence of all those Model Ts produced better and cheaper each year. An interurban depends upon a large enough volume of people who don't care much when they get to someplace a few miles away, all going at the same time, without needing to transport very much. A streetcar depends upon people willing to take a long time, stopping and starting, to get someplace without walking. In both cases, when you have a cheap set of wheels not only do you have a convenient alternative to transportation but you can take others along, probably for more than a streetcar fare as you can dogleg off the car route to accommodate passengers or get over to the curb. Success of the proto-Uber jitney movement, in the teeth of City Hall taxi preservationism, is some indication of the power involved. But one of the things that kept jitneys a fad was the evolving ease with which everyone could have their own...
Dave K. -- I invoke Ayn Rand only for that post war era when there were huge investments in not only Duplex Drives, based on what had previously been built, and coal Turbines but also Alleghenies, exceptional switchers, some remote controlled, outstanding 4-8-4's, some rebuilt steam such as C&NW Zeppelins, CPR Selkirks and simple but advanced and highly efficient branch line Pacific's and on and on.
I still have my Trains magazines where it was reported that every record in the book was smashed by the T1's on the test beds in Altoona. The look of the future was put forth in steam and it looked like the future. 6 months it lasted. Suddenly just like that it's all no good and junk. Something really smelled here. Something was stifled.
Of course Diesels in all likelihood would have been the order of the day but much later, decades perhaps.
Miningman I still have my Trains magazines where it was reported that every record in the book was smashed by the T1's on the test beds in Altoona. The look of the future was put forth in steam and it looked like the future. 6 months it lasted. Suddenly just like that it's all no good and junk. Something really smelled here. Something was stifled. Of course Diesels in all likelihood would have been the order of the day but much later, decades perhaps.
Jones1945 Miningman I still have my Trains magazines where it was reported that every record in the book was smashed by the T1's on the test beds in Altoona. The look of the future was put forth in steam and it looked like the future. 6 months it lasted. I really appreciate and absolutely agree with your points about the T1s, Vince. Regarding T1s prototypes’ “glowing” test report, it was either the Pennsy lied to the shareholders and even to themselves by a rigged report ...
Miningman I still have my Trains magazines where it was reported that every record in the book was smashed by the T1's on the test beds in Altoona. The look of the future was put forth in steam and it looked like the future. 6 months it lasted.
I still have my Trains magazines where it was reported that every record in the book was smashed by the T1's on the test beds in Altoona. The look of the future was put forth in steam and it looked like the future. 6 months it lasted.
On the other hand, EMD kept improving their diesel electric products since mid-1930s thus T1s, a late-1930s design couldn’t catch up with engine like E7, E8 in terms of lower operating expenses and other economics advantages.
... early mainline diesel products from BLW, ALCO and FM were something worse than a scam, the trouble they created made the situation more complicated for RRs who purchased them.
What our forum members pointed out was right that even though Class I RRs in the States kept using the steam engine until late-1960, they probably wouldn’t survive after 1971 due to the environmental law.
Ok and around we go again.
If the test bed was incapable of simulating real conditions then why bother with it. If the technology was not advanced enough to do this then a mathematical correction could be easily applied. Surely all those scientists and engineers, Pennsy and Baldwin, knew this. So not buying it fully. Besides they had the S1 and Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon as a functioning out on the road in real conditions in all weather, in wartime conditions to boot! as the test bed. So not buying it even more now.
Up here in the Great White North steam was in abundance right up until 1959, even beyond, but less so, until spring 1960. Recall the account of a Forum member from Buffalo who visited a roundhouse in Niagara Falls that was full packed with active steam one weekend and the following weekend nothing.. all gone. That is how it happened here. Both the CPR and CNR got together and decided on a final day. Just like that. Both John St and Spadina roundhouses were full of steam in Toronto in pictures from 1959, then poof gone. Brand new overhauled, paint still wet locomotives sat in dead lines at Stratford and Angus and Winnipeg. So perhaps 5-10 years lag with the US, but neither CNR or CPR showed any adverse economic effects. I cannot believe that steam into the 60's would have seen massive NY,O&W copycats. There were specific irreversible reasons for the demise of that road. You could cost cut that road down to a dog pulling kids carts and still lose money. Besides we already have the Penn Central bankruptcy with now second generation Diesels that did nothing to save their sorry state. To think steam would have made it worse is too bizarre to forward. Maybe the merger would not have happened at all if steam was advanced.
As to non EMC builders and Jones' claim, well the government directly influenced that outcome by disallowing anyone but Electro Motive from building the real stuff. They all had to play catch up and cut corners and rush and, worse still, they knew it. Fingers crossed and all that. Too bad, the table was already set. Again up here in Can-a-der the government mandated fairness between Alco/MLW, EMC/GMD and to a lesser extent CLC/FM but even they still got a good whack at it. The CPR liked them enough. GM was in a minority position up here.
I agree 100% about conjecture as to steam in the future and how things unfold and the consequences of prevalent steam. Better mergers, more end to end? Longer hauls, more competing big systems. Railroad power exempt from environmental laws? Perhaps eventually but quickly Federal 'forgive it' loans for massive electrification projects. That would make up for the St. Lawrence Seaway, Interstate Highways, Roads and bridges, Airports and so on. Fully justified in levelling the field. It would look like peanuts today. However all that is historical speculation.
Beware the Scientocracy.
OvermodAh, no. You can figure this out with a little applied thought, remembering that the test plant doesn't simulate cross-level defects or low joints/frogs, and changes in both speed and wheelrim load are relatively slow and usually monotone increase or decrease at a give point in the testing.
Overmod Don't run these two EMD designs together. It was specifically proven in 1947 that a good 4-8-4 in the right service was the equal of the somewhat squirrelly, overexpensive E7. There's much more in the E8/9 than a few more working horsepower. Comparable is true of F and GP units after the Forties.
Overmod You'd likely have had far more failures than NYO&W by the Sixties, and probably much worse ones, had steam been the only effective road power. Whether that would have served as a wake-up call to an earlier Congress or Cabinet, or whether it would lead to better mergers, is something only alternative historians should tinker with.
Last night I pullled out my copy of "French Steam", an English (Ian Allen) book covering the period from 1946 to the end of steam in France around 1969, to check up on some aspects of the 230K, mentioned in another thead.
It has captons in French and English, but the French captions are usually more detailed.
There was a photo of 242A1 at its depot, indicating that it ran in a roster with a group of 141P four cylinder mikados. The french caption, but not the English caption, indicated that 242A1 was withdrawn and scrapped before its running mates because it cost too much to maintain. That a three cylinder compound stood out among four cylinder compounds as too expensive to maintain is a statement in itself. Many such locomotives were superseded in the 1950s by the two cylinder 141R, which was recognised as cheap to maintain, if less economical on fuel and which could be run without releying on regular crews who undestood a particular locomotive's foibles, thus providing much greater availability.
The SNCF was criticised for building the 241P instead of Chapelon's 242A1 for the PLM main line which was planned for electrification anyway. Electrification took place as far as Lyon by 1951, the magazines greeting electrification with "Paris-Lyon, les trains plus vite du monde" (the fastest trains in the world) which was true at the time. It was again when the TGV was introduced on a new line years later.
But the 241P was a development of the PLM 241C which meant that the crews unserstood the locomotives and all the controls were in the familiar places.
M636C The SNCF was criticised for building the 241P instead of Chapelon's for the PLM main line which was planned for electrification anyway. Electrification took place as far as Lyon by 1951, the magazines greeting electrification with "Paris-Lyon, les trains plus vite du monde" (the fastest trains in the world) which was true at the time. It was again when the TGV was introduced on a new line years later. But the 241P was a development of the PLM 241C which meant that the crews unserstood the locomotives and all the controls were in the familiar places. Peter
The SNCF was criticised for building the 241P instead of Chapelon's for the PLM main line which was planned for electrification anyway. Electrification took place as far as Lyon by 1951, the magazines greeting electrification with "Paris-Lyon, les trains plus vite du monde" (the fastest trains in the world) which was true at the time. It was again when the TGV was introduced on a new line years later.
Back to PRR experimentals. It would be interesting to compare the PRR K-5 with the contemporary NYCentral J-1 to see why the PRR never considered a Hudson.
And I think the post-WWII Reading Pacific might also well be included in the comparison. Not the CP Post WWII Pacific, which was specifically a light-duty branchline locomotive.
daveklepper Back to PRR experimentals. It would be interesting to compare the PRR K-5 with the contemporary NYCentral J-1 to see why the PRR never considered a Hudson. And I think the post-WWII Reading Pacific might also well be included in the comparison. Not the CP Post WWII Pacific, which was specifically a light-duty branchline locomotive.
The PRR K5 #5698 had a much higher TE (54,675 lbf) than NYC J-1 or even J-3a Dreyfuss Super Hudson (41,680 lbf). Overmod mentioned the main reason of why there was not a single Hudson in PRR system. Let's review a quote of his reply:
"PRR wouldn't buy Hudsons from Baldwin for the reason I gave earlier: they had just spent to get 475 K4s, including 200 from Baldwin, some as late as 1928 (into the real Hudson era). By the time they were looking at better power, it was into the era of the true high-speed 4-8-4 and there was no point in considering anything but eight-drivered power -- had the divided-drive 84"-drivered locomotive worked out there would have been no need for a trivial little Hudson, and modern balancing made an 80"-drivered locomotive perfectly fast enough for what 'used' to demand an 84" wheel. (You will note the somewhat lamentable history of 84" drivered Hudsons in practice, with C&NW notable for being unable even to reach 100mph in AAR testing, and Santa Fe getting little faster even with much more heroic proportions; no one claims comparable top-speed limitation for the S1 if they are even borderline sane. The question was getting that fast, not sustaining it...)" (quote end)
Note there was a lot of surplus K4s during the electrification from 1928 to mid-1930s as well.
Reading Class G2-sa
PRR K5 4-6-2 # 5699 with Caprotti Valve Gear
NYC Class J-1e #5336
The G2sa is pretty, but Mr. Klepper meant this:
This from a railroad with some of the best 4-8-4s ever built, and if there were any use for a 4-6-4 over it, they'd have built it.
I was expecting someone might raise the idea that PRR did not use Hudsons because Alco was not a usual supplier. Remember that the 'first' Hudson design wasn't Alco's, it was Baldwin's, to C.H. Bilty's spec, probably the first locomotive truly documented to run over 100mph sustained -- and a logical example for PRR to study if they had wanted a 4-6-4.
Note that almost any conceivable Hudson (or Baltic) would require a stoker. PRR didn't even put stokers on the K5s, by intent (and it's arguable whether they would have if the Government hadn't mandated it as late as the mid-Thirties) and that in my opinion was a shortsighted waste, but I think it's a strong argument why PRR did not adopt one at the time.
Yeah, just a matter of timing really. Like all things in life and history, it's all about timing.
I suppose they could have scrapped 100 or so fairly new K4's for Hudsons like later PRR management did with the T1's and Q2's for Diesels, but management at that time wasn't so reckless.
Certainly could have used better timing here and there in my own life but the arrow points one way and one must deal with the consequences as to where you place your markers along the line. C'est la vie.
Overmod...This from a railroad with some of the best 4-8-4s ever built, and if there were any use for a 4-6-4 over it, they'd have built it.
OvermodI was expecting someone might raise the idea that PRR did not use Hudsons because Alco was not a usual supplier. Remember that the 'first' Hudson design wasn't Alco's, it was Baldwin's, to C.H. Bilty's spec, probably the first locomotive truly documented to run over 100mph sustained -- and a logical example for PRR to study if they had wanted a 4-6-4.
Milwaukee Road class F6 by Baldwin which served in MILW system for 24 years! An early Hudson class built in 1930 got overshadowed by the overrated F7 by Alco. The first thing caught my attention was the design of the leading truck of this class, reminds me of the trucks using on PRR T1 and C&O M-1. By the way, If PRR wanted to order Hudson in 1930s, why didn't they keep purchasing from Baldwin or build them in their own shops instead of buying them from a company which they wanted to keep their distance from it.
Jones1945, your NYCentral T.E. for Hudsons is without the booster operating, I presume. With booster, then equal to RR K-5?
daveklepper Jones1945, your NYCentral T.E. for Hudsons is without the booster operating, I presume. With booster, then equal to RR K-5?
Thank you for the question, Dave. As you may note that the booster engine was not a device fitting the style of PRR management; when I compare K5 and NYCentral's Class J Hudsons, I used the T.E without the booster engine. If I estimate the TE of K5 with a booster engine, that would be 65000 to 70000lbf! Note Pennsy and Baldwin successfully increase their Pacific's TE from 44,460 lbf of K4 to at least 54,675 lbf of K5 #5698, even though the FA was a bit "below average".
I wonder what kind of powerful monster we would have had if Pennsy decided to make a 4-6-4 base on a K5.
I wonder what kind of powerful monster we would have had if Pennsy decided to make a 4-6-4 based on a K5.
If you compare an NYC J3 to an NYC L3, they look pretty much the same...
So since the M1 basically used the K5 boiler with an added combustion chamber, I'd expect Pennsylvania P6 (or would it be a P1?) to look similar to an M1, with a longer firebox and one less driving axle...
M636CSo since the M1 basically used the K5 boiler with an added combustion chamber ...
Don't you have that kinda backward? The M1 with internal steam pipes predates the K5, and my understanding has always been that the K5 boiler was derived from that, rather than the other way round.
Hard to believe that a boiler suitable for an eight-coupled wouldn't be sufficient for any six-coupled locomotive without going to obligatory larger fireboxes requiring stokers. When PRR went to larger fireboxes it was for 'enlargement' of the M1 (into a design with five driving axles instead of a booster), so presumably the point of any "P6" would be to implement the moral equivalent of a fourth driving axle via a high-speed booster ... something PRR didn't make nearly the use of as the it-was-invented-here NYC.
Meanwhile, of course, with all those K4s and then increasingly little for them to do with the high-speed electrification progressing, cheap doubleheading was FAR better use of capital than some Hudson with only enhanced starting TE and some high-speed nominal economy to recommend it.
Meanwhile there is the parallel, and far more important, question why PRR never considered a 4-8-4 in those critical years, the logical follow-on to Pacifics so many other places. At least part of this is timing (and in this respect PRR was spared the kind of horror it encountered with, say, the L5 electrics) in that true express Northerns weren't really 'there' until the advent of proper balancing knowledge, several years into the Thirties, but cost effective roller rods and the like not until much later (PRR having firsthand experience via N&W, so a great deal of this is circumstantial and not conservative hidebound balking at the considerable added cost) when the siren call of duplex low augment was at its height and as yet untainted by practical road experience.
Don't you have that kinda backward? The M1 with internal steam pipes predates the K5, and my understanding has always been that the K5 boiler was derived from the I1 Decapod design.
Hard to believe that a boiler suitable for an eight-coupled (let alone ten-coupled size now with deep water legs) wouldn't be sufficient for any six-coupled locomotive without going to obligatory larger fireboxes requiring stokers. When PRR went to larger fireboxes it was for 'enlargement' of the M1 (into a design with five driving axles instead of a booster), so presumably the point of any "P6" would be to implement the moral equivalent of a fourth driving axle via a high-speed booster ... something PRR didn't make nearly the use of as the it-was-invented-here NYC.
Overmod Meanwhile there is the parallel, and far more important, question why PRR never considered a 4-8-4 in those critical years, the logical follow-on to Pacifics so many other places.
Porthole window which you can find on the lower front end of T1s was one of the common characteristics of Streamline Moderne. But a ship-prow-style smoke box was not common for streamlined trains. Loewy's design for the two prototypes T1 of 1942 reminds me of The McKeen Railmotor. Note in Loewy's conceptual design for T1, there were 4 portholes instead of 3. Probably a coincidence.
Moving it from Trains Forum for the record:
Overmod selector Is that report available for reading/download? Here you go: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001615135
selector Is that report available for reading/download?
Here you go:
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001615135
Jones1945what we could have had if Pennsy canceled their last 100 K4s (#5400 - #5499) in 1927 and 1928 and replaced them with M1 or M1a?
The answer is likely what you get when you fill in the missing part after realizing 'cluster' is only half a word.
The practical beginning of modern balancing, Eksergian's paper, came out in 1928, and even in the mid-Thirties some people who should have known better* had not figured out what was involved. In order for a locomotive with 72" wheel to be able to run at "full K4 speed" more would be required, and the PRR motive-power people would have been highly aware of that. (Note that they did not recognize much of the point of Voyce Glaze's balancing even as late as the AAR testing, even with the anomalously high speed staring them in the face.)
By the point in the 1930s that the implications of good balancing, even 'retrofitted', was fully realized, PRR was on to the 'bigger and better' thing, rather pointedly avoiding the characteristics of something like a C&O T1 at the time in favor of a piece of experimental science fiction justifying its "M1-plus" cost with M1-plus available features (including a reasonable compromise between M1 and K4 wheel size combined with lower augment).
They certainly figured out about the T class, even if it had to be a learning experience partway shoved down their throats; they never did try improving the M1 even though the N&W J was legitimately in their corporate control and other railroads, UP being one that came to mind, did precisely the kind of kit-of-improvements on their 4-8-2 (suggestively numbered 7002) that PRR should have considered when the time came for state-of-the-art balancing to be applied.
Overmod The practical beginning of modern balancing, Eksergian's paper, came out in 1928, and even in the mid-Thirties some people who should have known better* had not figured out what was involved... ...PRR should have considered when the time came for state-of-the-art balancing to be applied.
The practical beginning of modern balancing, Eksergian's paper, came out in 1928, and even in the mid-Thirties some people who should have known better* had not figured out what was involved...
...PRR should have considered when the time came for state-of-the-art balancing to be applied.
I absolutely agree. Many say Pennsy's management style was conservative and slow on the uptake, I partially agree that since they were the only one railroad "had the guts" to use a fleet of the duplex and built a direct-drive steam turbine engine in the States. But at the same time, it seems that they were very slow on updating their knowledge of various cutting-edge technologies. This caused them a lot of troubles and cost them a lot of money; from simple things like the mechanical stoker to balancing, front end throttle etc. They were not only underestimated the potential of M1; probably the only Mountain Class in the States that could fit into the "superpower" category; they also underestimate their capacity to lead the railroad industry.
Back to 1944, upgrade the design of the M1 with all up-to-date technologies: lightweight rods, roller bearings, state-of-the-art balancing, front end throttle, Franklin poppet valves, Q1-style streamlining etc. The new M1 should be powerful and fast enough to handle the post-war passenger traffic. But I can understand that during the peak of wartime traffic, PRR's management thought there was a need to build a fleet of powerful and fast engine like T1 and Q2.
Anyway ...... I still prefer the looks of Q1 to M1
Jones1945I still prefer the looks of Q1 to M1
Provided, as you do, it's the version without the goofy side sheets and bullet nose.
Similarly, I'd like the look of the Q2 much better if it didn't have that ghastly open space with nothing in it between the front running-board side panels and ... anything near them ... at so many angles it was seen in service.
Here, though, it's shown as intended...
Overmod Similarly, I'd like the look of the Q2 much better if it didn't have that ghastly open space with nothing in it between the front running-board side panels and ... anything near them ...
Similarly, I'd like the look of the Q2 much better if it didn't have that ghastly open space with nothing in it between the front running-board side panels and ... anything near them ...
This is exactly the reason why I prefer the looks of Q1 to Q2; it looked like something was missing at the front end. I am not impressed by the as-delivered version of Q1 though. I love how Pennsy removed those cumbersome plates from her and kept the streamlined "skyline", the cab and the lower front end. Those 77 inches drivers also make her looks sexier than her younger sisters. (bigger is better? )
(Nice model of Q1, but the pilot wheels should have made larger)
Jones1945 Was it really called “the weed electric railroad”
No, in fact, it was the WEEMS Electric Railway, as covered in the contemporary trade press, as here
http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/odweems.Html
and in
patent 376567
And I was wrong. Testing reached the 150mph range, but actual service speed would be quicker than that. Think mail and express from New York via Philadelphia to Chicago in less than four hours, before 1890...
I retrieved the correct information on this 'late' while looking up references to that cockamamie Hyperloop predecessor touted, during the great age of LBJ's Keynesian stimulus of ground transportation, by the inimitable WHOOSH corporation. (It's patent 3630153, if you're curious...)
Interestingly enough, there is something I had not known about, an actual passenger interpretation of the system. This in fact might be the thing that so inspired that unsung science-fiction author John Jacob Astor in the early pages of A Journey In Other Worlds. Patent 406804.
Overmod No, in fact, it was the WEEMS Electric Railway, as covered in the contemporary trade press, as here http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/odweems.Html and in patent 376567 And I was wrong. Testing reached the 150mph range, but actual service speed would be quicker than that. Think mail and express from New York via Philadelphia to Chicago in less than four hours, before 1890...
Very interesting and inspiring! It was probably one of the most ambitious and forward-looking designs in the era. Note that the patent was filed when Albert Einstein was a child.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution."
But but but....how about the ride quality?
Jones1945But but but....how about the ride quality?
You cut right to the heart of one of the probable issues with achieving high speed with these things.
Note that many of the discussions of issues with HSR will also apply to practical high speed of the magnitude these plans involve. This is implicit in the discussions by the early 1890s that put single and double track on high trestlework when the service is established; I think it is likely that a fairly careful system of adjustment in the field would be developed with a little hard experience.
But looking at the machine that was given to the Smithsonian, you immediately note that the suspension travel and compliance are too low, and the likely weight too high, for extended high-speed running on trestlework as light as that indicated. This also applies to both the pressure and the current transfer through the 'top contact' that was originally intended to 'hold the lower wheels on their rails' to the extent that the slight lowering of the point would not give aerodynamically -- that the three-point rail contact was essentially abandoned after just a couple of years of design and test indicates to me there were problems there that neither the Baltimore nor the New York versions of the company could solve. Comment has already been made that the drilling of the wheels on the preserved 'locomotive' is evidence of careful dynamic wheel balancing, another indication of attempted solution problems associated with or observed with increased speed.
I provided the security picture to note that the date of issue is past the financial trouble in 1893-4 that I thought was the principal reason for 'disappearance' of implementation of this system. I am looking to see if more has been put up on the Web and via more recent scholarship regarding the fate of this attempt, which represents a far more sensible application of very high speed service than a full-scale human-carrying system would be at that time.
Reply by Jones1945
Overmod ...that the three-point rail contact was essentially abandoned after just a couple of years of design and test indicates to me there were problems there that neither the Baltimore nor the New York versions of the company could solve. Comment has already been made that the drilling of the wheels on the preserved 'locomotive' is evidence of careful dynamic wheel balancing, another indication of attempted solution problems associated with or observed with increased speed. ...I provided the security picture to note that the date of issue is past the financial trouble in 1893-4 that I thought was the principal reason for 'disappearance' of implementation of this system. I am looking to see if more has been put up on the Web and via more recent scholarship regarding the fate of this attempt, which represents a far more sensible application of very high speed service than a full-scale human-carrying system would be at that time.
...that the three-point rail contact was essentially abandoned after just a couple of years of design and test indicates to me there were problems there that neither the Baltimore nor the New York versions of the company could solve. Comment has already been made that the drilling of the wheels on the preserved 'locomotive' is evidence of careful dynamic wheel balancing, another indication of attempted solution problems associated with or observed with increased speed.
...I provided the security picture to note that the date of issue is past the financial trouble in 1893-4 that I thought was the principal reason for 'disappearance' of implementation of this system. I am looking to see if more has been put up on the Web and via more recent scholarship regarding the fate of this attempt, which represents a far more sensible application of very high speed service than a full-scale human-carrying system would be at that time.
I am still fascinated by these conceptual designs including Patent# 3,630,153. If it had overcome all those technical obstacles in the 1890s, It had the potential to become something that could have changed the world, as well as the definition of Trains. Besides all the technical difficulties you mentioned from previous posts, I believe it was quite a risky business since one single crack or defect on the rail within the 900 miles system could ruin the whole business by one single serious accident; especially a passenger "container" travel constantly at such high speed (150mph+), high frequency on a daily basis.
There weren't any easy solution which wouldn't increase the operating cost. During that era, Stagecoach was still playing an important role and many horse carriages didn't have leaf springs for suspension. Instead, thread or leather strapping was used. Making the "passenger version" of Weems electric railway as comfortable as early Pullman sleepers seems impossible with the technologies available in the 1890s. But a 4-hour schedule from NY to Chi-Town is very compelling!
A birth control device in 1890s.
Unanswered Questions
Raymond Loewy never ever shared his thought about some of his most iconic works for railroading, S1 and T1. At least not in the books I own. Why the smoke box of T1 looked like a ship prow but not a Roman helmet, a sharp pencil, a fountain pen or a banana. Why there were three portholes but not five? Why made all portholes the same size? Did Mr. Loewy think that the de-skirted S1 looked much better than his original design?
More unanswered questions:
Did Mr. Loewy designed or involved the streamlining of the four K4s built for the South Wind and the Jeffersonian; as well as Q1. If he did, why Mr. Lowey never claimed they were his works? did he think they were not good enough?
Did he suggest alternative options when the PRR management decided to kill the F.O.M color scheme in 1947? Did PRR give him enough time and a high degree of freedom to finish his works? Did Pennsy alter his works without notice? What was his thought when Pennsy decided to dieselized all prime trains by 1948? Where did you hide your "Triplex" drawing Mr. Loewy?
Some Franklin advertisements on Railway Age. Better posting them here than storing in my Hardrive.
Inevitable Fate
When folks working in Franklin were busy improving their products to max out steam engines performance, the rich and famous in the city were driving their new fancy cars traveling from city to city.
Can't afford a new car? There were tons of second-hand cars waiting for you!
Forget it, this one is not for sale.
Meanwhile, the standard railroad of the world was using some beaten up; state-of-the-art duplex steam engine to power their prime train --- the Broadway Limited. Observe! Mr. Loewy, this is your fascinating work.
"Daddy, can I take a photo with the new engine?"
"I am afraid not my dear son, it looks like your abused toys......"
Moving the post here from Trains Magazines Forum for reader's convenience.
Link of original post:
"An assessment of the benefits of the application of Franklin valves on the PRR K4 and T1 classes".
http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/740/t/272776/reply.aspx
Dreyfusshudson You folk have been very helpful to me in the past, and I’m posting this in the belief that you will have some further useful commentary. Its aim is to throw some light on the development trajectory of latter-day US steam. I was recently sent copies of the PRR test reports on the Franklin valve K4, the T1, and Q2- something of a holy grail for me finding these. There are also snippets of information on the tests of the K5, which I see as the missing link in the PRR chain. The particular interest for me was whether the supposed benefits of the Franklin poppet valves were real. I have written a report on this, and what is below is a rather lengthy summary of what I discovered. The bottom line is that much of the hype about the poppet valves is unjustified. They did change performance characteristics, but, at that time, the leakage problems that had dogged such designs since they were introduced in the 19thcentury were not solved, and they provided no advance in engine efficiency. There were in addition well known mechanical issues on the T1s. In addition to the test reports themselves, my additional sources are primarily a random selection of ‘Keystone’ articles, and several from Railway Mechanical Engineer, plus articles by distinguished US authors in the post-steam era... But some of you may have access to other primary sources. Please do not interpret this as in any way a criticism of the T1 new build project. This is an amazing effort which deserves everyone’s full support. I would be happy to forward the full report to anyone interested, though fear its primary use would be as a cure for insomnia. Summary · This paper analyses plant and road test data in Altoona Bulletins on the PRR K4 and Duplex T1 classes with Franklin A poppet valves, to see what benefits the valves gave. Comparators are the original K4, a 1930s modified K4 and a Walschaerts Duplex, the Q2. · The context of this work was the belief in the late 1930s that US passenger trains of the future would need to run at 100mph, and load to 1000 US tons. · A 1930s piston valve K4 was tested on a 1000 ton test train for the AAR. It developed about 2800IHP at 75-80mph in a 40% cut off, a steam rate in the high 40000s lbs/hr. It could not reach 100mph on the relatively flat PRR main. It was noted that the steam rate achieved was some way short of the 65000lbs/hr achieved on the test plant and that this could not be achieved without use of excessively long, inefficient cut offs. · The resistance of the coaching stock was established on these tests, which showed that over 3000EDHP would be needed to move a 1000 ton train at 100mph on the level. With 2000HP for the locomotive, plus acceleration needs, this gave target cylinder power around 6000IHP. · It was believed that poppet valves were to be preferred for high speed running and would use steam more efficiently in part because more is admitted at a given cut off, allowing more economical cutoffs to be used. This also helps to deliver the enormous power required. · Lentz poppet valves, initially with oscillating and then rotary cams had been tested in the UK, with Gresley taking the lead. Oscillating cams were unsuccessful, rotary cams on the D49 showed more promise, but showed no efficiency savings, and were quickly removed from P2 2001. Leakage was the suspected problem. The D49s would likely have been rebuilt had other priorities including WW2 not intervened. · In the US, the Franklin valve company visited Lentz in London and produced their own oscillating cam version, the Franklin A valve. The Franklin Valve company fitted K4 5399 with these valves and improved steam circuit, and it was road tested in a similar fashion to the standard K4. It produced about 3400IHP and achieved speeds of 85-90mph. Later plant tests imply the steam rate was 55000+lbs/hr, much higher than the original K4, with cutoffs again approaching 40%. That is, the higher power was mostly due to the higher steam flow the poppet valves allowed, in turn allowing the boiler to be steamed harder. · The increased performance of 5399 meant it was sufficiently powerful to eliminate wasteful double heading of K4s on premier trains. So although the boiler would be operating inefficiently at the high steam rates required, it was likely overall much more economical. · Before being tested on the Altoona plant, 5399 was then fitted with a new sine wave superheater, which eliminated much of the serious pressure drop to the steam chest on earlier versions, and a much wider exhaust. · It proved possible to steam this machine at 77000lbs/hr (1100lbs steam/ sqft grate/hr). It showed marked improvements in engine efficiency over the Standard K4 at a steam rate of 70000lbs/hr, with particularly marked advantages at high speed. This was taken as a resounding endorsement of the suitability of Franklin valves for a future high-speed design and was a critical factor in the decision to fit the duplex T1 with Franklin A valves. · There was clearly a great sales push by the Franklin Valve company to recoup their development effort, but it reads like the PRR’s desire to gain a breakthrough technological lead made them more than willing partners. · However, as a number of contemporary observers had suggested, analysis of the test plant results with modern techniques says: o The increase in engine efficiency on the test plant over the Standard K4 was entirely due to higher steam chest pressure and wider exhaust, not the Franklin valves. o The higher steam flow at a given cut off allowed by the Franklin valves ought to have given a further significant improvement in efficiency by reducing the very long cutoffs needed to work at high steam rates. This does not appear, and analysis of the data says that, as with other poppet valve setups of that era, steam leakage was occurring which negated any benefit that the lower cut off gave. o The enhanced efficiency benefit of 5399 at very high speed was again not due to the poppet valves, but rather that 5399 was operating at much lower back pressure, thus lowering the over compression that occurred at high speeds on the original K4. o In any event, 70000lbs/hr is quite impracticable in service from a 69 sqft grate. o By inference, the superior performance of 5399 in road testing was almost entirely due to the fact that the greater steam flow at a given cut off given by poppet valves allowed 5399 to be steamed at higher rates than the standard K4. A similar result could have been achieved by raising the boiler pressure to 250 psi, and indeed Altoona testing of a 250psi K5 Pacific showed it had superior efficiency to all K4s tested, but changes to the boiler design on the K5 made it a temperamental beast. o It is not possible for 5399 to have averaged 100mph for 25 miles on end as claimed, nor does the time course data support this claim. · Based on the contemporary interpretation of the 5399 results, two prototypes of a futuristic high power high-speed Passenger locomotive, the T1, were built, incorporating both Franklin A valves and also a four-cylinder Duplex drive. Both features would enhance the flow of steam at a given cut off, hence increase power at that setting. Driven in the same cut off as a K4, a T1 would produce nearly twice the power at speed. · Prototype 6110 was tested on the Altoona test plant. It proved able to meet the 6000+IHP at 100mph brief, although the boiler performance was deteriorating quickly at the high steam rates needed, with low efficiency and high levels of black smoke. Maximum service IHP would likely be have been no more than 5000-5500IHP. · The high steam rates required needed a narrow blastpipe, acknowledged to be sub-optimal. · Even at 5000-5500IHP, and with a target load now reduced to 880 US tons, a T1 could have comfortably averaged 100mph over long stretches of the PRR Crestline to Chicago main, had the necessary investments in infrastructure been made. (They never were). · At a more realistic 4000-4500IHP, major schedule improvements with plenty of 100mph running would still have been possible. · Its higher pressure, superheat and large grate meant the T1 was far more economical in coal consumption than double-headed K4s, hence a major step forward. Note however Altoona felt the need to test 6110 with reduced superheater area, reducing efficiency because superheat was ‘somewhat higher than is desirable from a maintenance perspective’. · The massively high powers achieved by 6110 were far higher than anything needed on PRR schedules of that era. The Altoona report acknowledges this in as much as it was recognized that at the very low cut offs needed in service at full boiler pressure (due to valve design and four cylinders) ‘the action of the valve was not entirely satisfactory’. For this reason, tests were done at 150-170 psi steam chest pressure to establish what was needed in practice, this negating the efficiency benefit of 300 psi boiler pressure. At these lower in service steam rates, too high superheat and back pressure would not have been problems. · As with 5399, analysis of the results says that the engine was not as efficient as it ought to have been. Using test results on the Walschaerts Q2 and K4 as a comparator, it can be shown that the Franklin valves on the T1 were also leaking to a degree which significantly reduced overall engine efficiency, negating the benefit of shorter cut off, so contrary to even recent commentary, did not provide an efficiency benefit, even at full boiler pressure. This coupled with the fact that four valves and cylinders will inevitably leak more than two means that the T1 was likely no more efficient than a PV 4-8-4 working in longer cut off, and under typical service conditions, quite possibly worse. · The combination of two radically new technologies, Duplex drive and Franklin valves led to a number of operational issues with the 50 T1s purchased on the back of the 6110 results. Development work was done to eliminate these problems, including a newly designed rotary cam Franklin B valve, but the T1s were made redundant before they were even built by the purchase of diesels, so it was all irrelevant. The leakage problem was not recognised, and whether it was a tractable one is not known, nor whether Franklin B solved this problem. · Overall, one can say that the misinterpretation of results on 5399 meant the speed and economy logic for poppet valves on the T1 was quite spurious. Further, leakage of the poppet valves, which paralleled earlier UK experience with both oscillating and rotary cam valves, had not been solved at that time. · More fundamentally, one may speculate that the creation of 5399 was a consequence of the failure of the K5, which could have matched 5399. This failure has been linked to deficiencies in its boiler design, consequent on the firmly held belief that, since greater evaporative capacity was needed the evaporative surface area of the K4 boiler had to be increased. Modern analysis says this is not so; heat transfer does not limit evaporation and power. · The British persisted with poppet valves, and a class of about 30 4-6-0s was built with valves to a modified Caprotti design in the 1950s. They worked in service for a decade without adverse comment, the right kind of compliment! A Pacific with the same set up showed good efficiency when tested. It was suggested that the modified Caprotti valves might seat better (i.e. be more steam tight) than the Lentz arrangement because their weight is not carried on the valve spindle.
You folk have been very helpful to me in the past, and I’m posting this in the belief that you will have some further useful commentary. Its aim is to throw some light on the development trajectory of latter-day US steam.
I was recently sent copies of the PRR test reports on the Franklin valve K4, the T1, and Q2- something of a holy grail for me finding these. There are also snippets of information on the tests of the K5, which I see as the missing link in the PRR chain.
The particular interest for me was whether the supposed benefits of the Franklin poppet valves were real. I have written a report on this, and what is below is a rather lengthy summary of what I discovered. The bottom line is that much of the hype about the poppet valves is unjustified. They did change performance characteristics, but, at that time, the leakage problems that had dogged such designs since they were introduced in the 19thcentury were not solved, and they provided no advance in engine efficiency. There were in addition well known mechanical issues on the T1s.
In addition to the test reports themselves, my additional sources are primarily a random selection of ‘Keystone’ articles, and several from Railway Mechanical Engineer, plus articles by distinguished US authors in the post-steam era... But some of you may have access to other primary sources.
Please do not interpret this as in any way a criticism of the T1 new build project. This is an amazing effort which deserves everyone’s full support.
I would be happy to forward the full report to anyone interested, though fear its primary use would be as a cure for insomnia.
Summary
· This paper analyses plant and road test data in Altoona Bulletins on the PRR K4 and Duplex T1 classes with Franklin A poppet valves, to see what benefits the valves gave. Comparators are the original K4, a 1930s modified K4 and a Walschaerts Duplex, the Q2.
· The context of this work was the belief in the late 1930s that US passenger trains of the future would need to run at 100mph, and load to 1000 US tons.
· A 1930s piston valve K4 was tested on a 1000 ton test train for the AAR. It developed about 2800IHP at 75-80mph in a 40% cut off, a steam rate in the high 40000s lbs/hr. It could not reach 100mph on the relatively flat PRR main. It was noted that the steam rate achieved was some way short of the 65000lbs/hr achieved on the test plant and that this could not be achieved without use of excessively long, inefficient cut offs.
· The resistance of the coaching stock was established on these tests, which showed that over 3000EDHP would be needed to move a 1000 ton train at 100mph on the level. With 2000HP for the locomotive, plus acceleration needs, this gave target cylinder power around 6000IHP.
· It was believed that poppet valves were to be preferred for high speed running and would use steam more efficiently in part because more is admitted at a given cut off, allowing more economical cutoffs to be used. This also helps to deliver the enormous power required.
· Lentz poppet valves, initially with oscillating and then rotary cams had been tested in the UK, with Gresley taking the lead. Oscillating cams were unsuccessful, rotary cams on the D49 showed more promise, but showed no efficiency savings, and were quickly removed from P2 2001. Leakage was the suspected problem. The D49s would likely have been rebuilt had other priorities including WW2 not intervened.
· In the US, the Franklin valve company visited Lentz in London and produced their own oscillating cam version, the Franklin A valve. The Franklin Valve company fitted K4 5399 with these valves and improved steam circuit, and it was road tested in a similar fashion to the standard K4. It produced about 3400IHP and achieved speeds of 85-90mph. Later plant tests imply the steam rate was 55000+lbs/hr, much higher than the original K4, with cutoffs again approaching 40%. That is, the higher power was mostly due to the higher steam flow the poppet valves allowed, in turn allowing the boiler to be steamed harder.
· The increased performance of 5399 meant it was sufficiently powerful to eliminate wasteful double heading of K4s on premier trains. So although the boiler would be operating inefficiently at the high steam rates required, it was likely overall much more economical.
· Before being tested on the Altoona plant, 5399 was then fitted with a new sine wave superheater, which eliminated much of the serious pressure drop to the steam chest on earlier versions, and a much wider exhaust.
· It proved possible to steam this machine at 77000lbs/hr (1100lbs steam/ sqft grate/hr). It showed marked improvements in engine efficiency over the Standard K4 at a steam rate of 70000lbs/hr, with particularly marked advantages at high speed. This was taken as a resounding endorsement of the suitability of Franklin valves for a future high-speed design and was a critical factor in the decision to fit the duplex T1 with Franklin A valves.
· There was clearly a great sales push by the Franklin Valve company to recoup their development effort, but it reads like the PRR’s desire to gain a breakthrough technological lead made them more than willing partners.
· However, as a number of contemporary observers had suggested, analysis of the test plant results with modern techniques says:
o The increase in engine efficiency on the test plant over the Standard K4 was entirely due to higher steam chest pressure and wider exhaust, not the Franklin valves.
o The higher steam flow at a given cut off allowed by the Franklin valves ought to have given a further significant improvement in efficiency by reducing the very long cutoffs needed to work at high steam rates. This does not appear, and analysis of the data says that, as with other poppet valve setups of that era, steam leakage was occurring which negated any benefit that the lower cut off gave.
o The enhanced efficiency benefit of 5399 at very high speed was again not due to the poppet valves, but rather that 5399 was operating at much lower back pressure, thus lowering the over compression that occurred at high speeds on the original K4.
o In any event, 70000lbs/hr is quite impracticable in service from a 69 sqft grate.
o By inference, the superior performance of 5399 in road testing was almost entirely due to the fact that the greater steam flow at a given cut off given by poppet valves allowed 5399 to be steamed at higher rates than the standard K4. A similar result could have been achieved by raising the boiler pressure to 250 psi, and indeed Altoona testing of a 250psi K5 Pacific showed it had superior efficiency to all K4s tested, but changes to the boiler design on the K5 made it a temperamental beast.
o It is not possible for 5399 to have averaged 100mph for 25 miles on end as claimed, nor does the time course data support this claim.
· Based on the contemporary interpretation of the 5399 results, two prototypes of a futuristic high power high-speed Passenger locomotive, the T1, were built, incorporating both Franklin A valves and also a four-cylinder Duplex drive. Both features would enhance the flow of steam at a given cut off, hence increase power at that setting. Driven in the same cut off as a K4, a T1 would produce nearly twice the power at speed.
· Prototype 6110 was tested on the Altoona test plant. It proved able to meet the 6000+IHP at 100mph brief, although the boiler performance was deteriorating quickly at the high steam rates needed, with low efficiency and high levels of black smoke. Maximum service IHP would likely be have been no more than 5000-5500IHP.
· The high steam rates required needed a narrow blastpipe, acknowledged to be sub-optimal.
· Even at 5000-5500IHP, and with a target load now reduced to 880 US tons, a T1 could have comfortably averaged 100mph over long stretches of the PRR Crestline to Chicago main, had the necessary investments in infrastructure been made. (They never were).
· At a more realistic 4000-4500IHP, major schedule improvements with plenty of 100mph running would still have been possible.
· Its higher pressure, superheat and large grate meant the T1 was far more economical in coal consumption than double-headed K4s, hence a major step forward. Note however Altoona felt the need to test 6110 with reduced superheater area, reducing efficiency because superheat was ‘somewhat higher than is desirable from a maintenance perspective’.
· The massively high powers achieved by 6110 were far higher than anything needed on PRR schedules of that era. The Altoona report acknowledges this in as much as it was recognized that at the very low cut offs needed in service at full boiler pressure (due to valve design and four cylinders) ‘the action of the valve was not entirely satisfactory’. For this reason, tests were done at 150-170 psi steam chest pressure to establish what was needed in practice, this negating the efficiency benefit of 300 psi boiler pressure. At these lower in service steam rates, too high superheat and back pressure would not have been problems.
· As with 5399, analysis of the results says that the engine was not as efficient as it ought to have been. Using test results on the Walschaerts Q2 and K4 as a comparator, it can be shown that the Franklin valves on the T1 were also leaking to a degree which significantly reduced overall engine efficiency, negating the benefit of shorter cut off, so contrary to even recent commentary, did not provide an efficiency benefit, even at full boiler pressure. This coupled with the fact that four valves and cylinders will inevitably leak more than two means that the T1 was likely no more efficient than a PV 4-8-4 working in longer cut off, and under typical service conditions, quite possibly worse.
· The combination of two radically new technologies, Duplex drive and Franklin valves led to a number of operational issues with the 50 T1s purchased on the back of the 6110 results. Development work was done to eliminate these problems, including a newly designed rotary cam Franklin B valve, but the T1s were made redundant before they were even built by the purchase of diesels, so it was all irrelevant. The leakage problem was not recognised, and whether it was a tractable one is not known, nor whether Franklin B solved this problem.
· Overall, one can say that the misinterpretation of results on 5399 meant the speed and economy logic for poppet valves on the T1 was quite spurious. Further, leakage of the poppet valves, which paralleled earlier UK experience with both oscillating and rotary cam valves, had not been solved at that time.
· More fundamentally, one may speculate that the creation of 5399 was a consequence of the failure of the K5, which could have matched 5399. This failure has been linked to deficiencies in its boiler design, consequent on the firmly held belief that, since greater evaporative capacity was needed the evaporative surface area of the K4 boiler had to be increased. Modern analysis says this is not so; heat transfer does not limit evaporation and power.
· The British persisted with poppet valves, and a class of about 30 4-6-0s was built with valves to a modified Caprotti design in the 1950s. They worked in service for a decade without adverse comment, the right kind of compliment! A Pacific with the same set up showed good efficiency when tested. It was suggested that the modified Caprotti valves might seat better (i.e. be more steam tight) than the Lentz arrangement because their weight is not carried on the valve spindle.
http://ctr.trains.com/photo-of-the-day
Pennsylvania Railroad class T1 4-4-4-4 duplex 5536 shows the effects of hard service at Chicago in the late 1940s, but the engine is, in fact, less than five years old.
Classic Trains coll.
Judging by the beaten up but an un-modified lower front end, I believe T1 #5536 in this photo was less than 2 years in service! If you never heard about steam locomotive being tortured by workshop, please kindly take a look at this photo. *BUT, I won't blame the workshop for that! Never! It was because the design of T1's streamlined shrouding was extremely user-unfriendly!
Imagine every morning after you wake up from your bed, your bathroom door is automatically locked, enclosed by a solid plastic box. After you destroyed the box and find your master bedroom toilet key, every single thing you can find or use in the toilet is being packed like a Christmas present; even a roll of toilet paper has 4 layers of patterned wrapping paper. But you only have 27 mins left to get in your car or you will be late......By the way, your car is also wrapped like a mummy, what would you do?
Pennsylvania Railroad class T1 4-4-4-4 duplex 5536 shows the effects of hard service at Chicago in the late 1940s, but the engine is in fact less than five years old.Classic Trains coll.
5536 was a Baldwin built one. It sure looks like hell in the picture. Metal ripped off and holes cut all over. It's dirty, unkept and the boiler jacket is a mess. This would be a disgrace on the CPR at John St. Roundhouse, or the Glen in Montreal, the foremans head would roll.
Yes, it's quite likely this is 1947 and it's only 2 years old. The PRR has lost it's mind, it started here, never ended, deranged and devoid of any class or pride tore down their wonder in New York City, deferred everything and in a fit of mercy was obliterated off the planet. Not a proud Railroad, not at all.
Miningman 5536 was a Baldwin built one. It sure looks like hell in the picture. Metal ripped off and holes cut all over. It's dirty, unkept and the boiler jacket is a mess. This would be a disgrace on the CPR at John St. Roundhouse, or the Glen in Montreal, the foreman's head would roll. Yes, it's quite likely this is 1947 and it's only 2 years old. The PRR has lost it's mind, it started here, never ended, deranged and devoid of any class or pride tore down their wonder in New York City, deferred everything and in a fit of mercy was obliterated off the planet. Not a proud Railroad, not at all.
5536 was a Baldwin built one. It sure looks like hell in the picture. Metal ripped off and holes cut all over. It's dirty, unkept and the boiler jacket is a mess. This would be a disgrace on the CPR at John St. Roundhouse, or the Glen in Montreal, the foreman's head would roll.
I agree with you, Miningman. It is hard to find another example in that era where the new mainline steam engine was beaten up like this, #5536 in the pic looked like a 30 years old engine instead of 2 years old. Compare to the pics of CPR's steam locomotive in service, they were always looked clean and tidy, unlike T1s of PRR, they were as messy as a tank in the front line of the battlefield. "A straw shows which way the wind blows". A beaten up T1s showed the dead end of PRR.
"Hey Clement, good job making your new engines looks like my unwashed underwear. Do you have time to talk about the deal of our diesel thingy we discussed...."
Rule #1: Always keep your fleet clean and tidy.
Miningman
Does it occur to you judgmental Philistines that (1) the locomotive may have just come off a train, and (2) it is suffering from what appears to be a serious rear gland leak on the visible cylinder of the forward engine, something it likely wouldn't be showing for more than the time it would take to drop pressure for repairs after getting to an appropriate service location?
Covers might be off for a related reason -- the one in the 'prow' to access the smokebox door would almost certainly not have been removed in running in this era. Nothing is missing that wouldn't have been taken down for access, and there is little if any visible sheet-metal damage.
I suspect this is how ANY contemporary PRR engine may have looked after a road trip, given the coal quality in the strike era.
As Kalmbach Classic Trains headline states... Timeworn! In less than 5 years, and Jones and I say 2 years. If your stated response was the case then the commentary would reflect that as would have the photographers notation.
Reading the story of the famous, alleged, 140mph? ( memory) run down the Fort Wayne Division captured by a Gil Reid painting and familiar to all railfans, it clearly is written on how forelorn, beat up, disgraced, filthy the engine was once assigned to the crew. They couldn't even read the words 'Pennsylvania' on the tender, revealed only by swiping away the grime. The engines appearance was a shambles and there were cutaways all over. The cab was a mess. Story was somewhere 47-49 can't remember.
If you think the numerous appearances of T1's in photographs looking like crap on a stick when these were practically brand new reflects a company that has pride well go right ahead and delude yourself.
I recall you defending the tearing down of Pennsylvania Station, being some dark dank urine stained eyesore.
With perhaps the exception of some electrified lines, the railroad after 1947 lost it mind... its tracks, its yards, its towers, its stations all a disgrace. Not content yet it managed to take a bouncing back New York Central with it. So this Philistine calls horse feathers on your rebuke.
MiningmanThe engines appearance was a shambles and there were cutaways all over. The cab was a mess. Story was somewhere 47-49 can't remember.
Toward the very end of their service -- if I recall the semantics, evoking words like 'if we don't see what she'll do now, we'll never know.'
Too small a grate, pathetic excuse for coal, issues with drafting pulling down all that smoke and soot that shouldn't have been there. And yes, formal acknowledgement after 1948 that they had no effective future, no matter how clean you could get them between runs.
Compare this with the state of the J1s and ATSF leased engines on the Sandusky branch after just a short time, particularly the amazing evidence of priming and water-treatment 'failure' that seems to have characterized so many of the engines there. I don't think PRR was really renowned for shiny engines ("Smoke and Mirrors" and the various publicity shots aside) and yes, pictures of the S1 in service are even dirtier and more forlorn than most of the T1 movies evidence.
Do I think they deserved better? Clearly.
Do I know how to fix them to be right? Probably. And to run them better, and to train others to run them better. Not the locomotive's fault.
Do I know specifically about the coal and dirt problem? Yes, and so does much of the contemporary press.
All I'm pointing out is that this one, specific, T1 might easily be in the typical shape any contemporary PRR locomotive, steam or diesel, might have been in after a hard run where lots of cheap coal was being burned. I'd bet if I caught a candid shot of you in the morning, or after a hard day, you might not look as dapper as you'd prefer, too; why not extend a lady a little courtesy?
I blame PRR for far more than dirty engines. And it is amusing, to say the least, to see you defending Al Perlman's Niagara/Hudson-torching NYC as the better half (not just 'less sickly') of PC; at least PRR respected its historic collection. You might as well try to claim that management from even-better-bouncing N&W would have made PC work ... oh wait, we know how that worked.
1992...Denver, Colorado. Room service, ordered, came up to my room, a lovely gal, let's call her Leslie. I'm in my housecoat, quite unwashed and unkept, needed my cofffee real bad ( no cheapo coffee maker in the rooms yet). Leslie looks at me and says " no one should look that good first thing in the morning". Honest to gosh, that's what she said.
So once again I rebuke your assertion.... at least about the morning thing.
She proceeded to write her phone number down on the stationary, handed it to me and said " I would be fired for this, strictly against the rules...give me a call and I'll show you around town".
I did and she did, visited her many times and she came up to see me a couple of times. Went on to be a jazz and blues singer and eventually we drifted apart and that was that.
MiningmanSo once again I rebuke your assertion.... at least about the morning thing.
So she recognizes quality, regardless of circumstance. So should you.
Well regardless, Happy Thanksgiving to you and all South of the 49th.
What did the turkey say to the computer?
.....google, google google
Oh MY......a tossed stone raises a thousand ripples! I didn't expect a post of an "ancient" T1 pic would cause so many inconveniences. I hope it didn't damage you guys friendship!
I love PRR's DGLE and F.O.M livery; the Keystone plate; how they placed the headlight; how they insisted to use the Belpaire firebox and refused to use steam booster engine and smoke deflector; I love how they designed the smokebox door; I am fascinated by the beauty of S1, S2, Q1, Q2, T1, and Streamlined K4s; I admire they made the most powerful Mountain Class 4-8-2; I love they hand-picked Raymond Loewy but not other industrial designers; I love their network and how they named their limiteds; I love how they gave steam-powered locomotives the very last chance... I just don't like how they treat S1 and T1s. They weren't perfect but really deserved better treatment.
If you scroll down these 2 links that NDG just posted on the NYC thread you will see beautifully kept locomotives, picture after picture all clean and shiny. Some just off a run, some heading out, some in the middle of a hard run...look at Jubilee 2929 pulling 60 cars! ... and that's hand fired and actually despised by crews, but the pride and discipline is showing. Jubilee 2920 going through cow flop Saskatchewan, dusty, rural, light branch line track, but looking good in the neighbourhood.
Many of these pics are at the end of steam '58-'59 when everyone knew their time was up and they were just using them up. The CPR and many if not most roads never allowed appearances to go to pieces.
The only exception would be Jubilee 2911 which was the only one painted up in freight colours of all black and it is dirty after a run, but nothing that was not part of a deferred the heck with it and a general philosophy of not caring about who they were.
I would also have to say that the Diesel era continued a shabby practice after a short period of not doing so, all the way into the Penn Central era and early Conrail. Many of the E's and F's were a total disgrace.
http://www.trainweb.org/oldtimetrains/photos/cpr_steam/jubilee.htm
http://www.trainweb.org/oldtimetrains/photos/cpr_steam/royal.htm
-Accidentally deleted my post- Sorry, please remove.
In case you missed it:
A post was made for a handmade PRR S2 #6200 6-8-6 Steam Turbine Locomotive in Model Railroader forum. Some forum members of Classis trains may remember that I posted one of the videos in this post. The new post contains new updates of the model. Note that the model itself is powered by steam turbine as well!
Direct link to the post:
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/273199.aspx
Summary: The S1, S2, T1's, Q1, Q2's, 1947+ PRR... throw in the Niagara as well, NYC
Miningman Summary: The S1, S2, T1's, Q1, Q2's, 1947+ PRR... throw in the Niagara as well, NYC
Oh my dear Miningman, the list should be much much longer:
All these things were either still store in Hagley, missing or being destroyed during the merge of PC and Amtrak's take over. (GG1's model was saved by a staff during PC merge)
(non copyrighted pictures from rrmuseumpa.org)
Anyone notice how that dumpster fire is chugging away just like a steam locomotive. Observe far right end chugging away even few seconds.
The entire Duplexii, Steam Turbine, Modern Steam Era was a dumpster fire.
Miningman Anyone notice how that dumpster fire is chugging away just like a steam locomotive. Observe far right end chugging away even few seconds. The entire Duplexii, Steam Turbine, Modern Steam Era was a dumpster fire.
TOP DEFINITION
Dumpster Fire
1. A complete disaster.
2. Something very difficult that nobody wants to deal with.
eg. This project is a complete dumpster fire!
In entertainment or sports, a laughably poor performance usually caused by:
1. Lack of planning, preparation or talent.
2. Random events that effectively sabotage the effort (i.e., technical problems).
eg. Dumpster Fire is the kindest thing I can say about Oakland's game against San Diego.
Jones1945Yes, I think dumpster fire is an appropriate word to describe all of them.
None of them (with the possible exception of the Q1) really qualifies as either a 'dumpster fire' or the military use of cluster as half a word. That is properly reserved for something like the N&W K-3, the wrong answer to a question nobody asked and nobody tried to fix. These are more like railroading's answer to the steamship Great Eastern, or 'not realizing the definition of insanity is not trying more and harder with the same non-working approach' (which PRR and NYC did with first-generation diesels just as with steam). Let me take up some of these in your order:
S1: Powerful and fast enough but designed only for the World's Fair, too large and troublesome for revenue service. Perfect engine for a HSR which never happened.
This actually wasn't done for the World's Fair; the timeframe doesn't fit. The Fair was the ideal place to show off the world's most magnificent passenger engine for two years, though: the point should be noted that the whole rigmarole needed to get the locomotive out to Long Island and back was repeated twice during that period and the engine presumably run in testing during the 'off season'.
As you note, there was really no place in the United States other than Wisconsin that actually used an 84" wheel to anywhere near its potential. That the situation in running wasn't viewed as utterly intolerable can be seen from the (frankly rather obvious in hindsight) refusal of PRR to retrofit four pairs of 80" drivers and revise the equalization and frame fits of the lead and trailing trucks to test the engine with a less wild running gear. And revise the front end to something with better gas entrainment at low back pressure (with or without Kiesel nozzles) -- perhaps something with vanes of appropriate contour and a lower position on a blast stand than what we see in the pictures.
The trick (as noted in part in the other thread) was to find some service that actually used the high-speed capability more gainfully. Or to install something like a Lewty booster to enhance the low-speed acceleration without compromising high-speed running (this puts the 'engine' of the booster on the frame of the locomotive, and minimizes both the unsprung mass and the high-speed motor efficiency of anything on the driven axles...)
T1: Top tier world class dumpster fire ...
As far as I know, nothing about this design was major-league unfixable, including the aspects of Franklin gear that were carried over into B-2 use. We know two things now: that reducing the stroke of the oscillating cams wasn't the answer for broken valves (although it certainly compromised performance, for reasons either the English commentator or I don't seem to have quite recognized) and some combination of changed valve-spring strength/variable rate and research by 1948 had definitively solved the breakage issue in PRR's mechanical-department opinion, going forward. The engines were demoted to second-tier service without making the recommended changes (whether or not the 'fix was in' by then to make them out to be dogs, I don't know, of course) and after that the whole don't-care momentum was on, for all big steam -- that's not a dumpster fire as much as a 'perfect storm' of changing costs and priorities. Would you blame Boeing for the unworkability of the 2707 because the aircraft world evolved differently?
,
... firebox grate area was too small; the whole project was building upon a misinterpretation of the test of PRR#5399, hated by some PRR high-ranking officials. Failed to challenge any EMD product after 1945
Firebox grate area could have been bigger. Feed it the fire expected when designed and you'd have no trouble in service. Put Snyder preheaters on it and you might just have solved some of the issue, too. Yes, I would have tried using a Baldwin-recommended grate size (as NYC clearly did in the same war years with the C1a) and indeed that was an assumption at the T1 Trust ESC until Dave Griner worked out how many changes would be needed to provide it. On the other hand, even a quick computation of the weight increase involved in a 100-104' grate with all the bell-and-whistle circulators, plus an external Cunningham circulator and the aforementioned Snyders, gets you dangerously into Lima-style six-wheel-trailer territory. Not that that's a bad thing, mind you: just that in a world that turns as quickly and definitively to diesels even in the presence of near-perfected conventional steam, that would have constituted even worse overkill than the small grate provided.
Although I have not made the claims here, I am not at all a subscriber to the 'sine-wave superheater was the only improvement on 5399' theory. There were reasons PRR did not go wholesale to these, or to Houlet-type elements in general, and you can easily work out what some of them would be (igniting any piston-valve lubricants at high horsepower being among them). Remember again that Cover et al. were not fools, no matter how their work may have misfired at times, and sometimes what was not built does not mean a demonstration of what was not tried. I am reserving many of my comments on the four-valve Franklin system until more of the practical simulation and construction of the arrangement for 5550 has been conducted, as I think there is far more to poppets even of this type than has been proven so far.
Note also by implication that if the Niagara was superior to E7s, the C1a would have been 'more superior' to them (as the prospective water rate was lower and the unrefuelled range was sufficient to make the full distance from Harmon to Chicago without a stop at Sidney and 'fast enough' refuelling as with Milwaukee-style 'coal shoots' to increase the necessary tender content of fines, which would have resulted in that many absolute minutes of schedule reduction or available padding...). By 1948 practical magnetorheological conjugation becomes practical (and the knowledge mainstreamed through a wide range of industry) so even if high-speed slip turned out to be a real problem in that design, full solutions were available short of automating the independent brakes by engine for control.
But as you readily understand from 'reading between the lines' in NYC practice, there was as much or more animosity to steam in place of 'more diesels' at NYC after 1948 than there could have been objection to high-speed passenger steam from a large fixed-by-then investment. "Dieseliners" became a major marketing pitch ... years before the whole Young/Perlman era wiped big steam out definitively in all contexts.
Q1: Abandoned by the management before built due to better performance available from PRR Class J1, PRR wasted her potential as a dual function engine. Racked up only 65,000 miles in total
The real problem here is that the locomotive was the wrong approach to a 'lab rat', perhaps by having to fill the wrong set of shoes with the wrong combination of acquired wisdom and technology at just the wrong era.
What you had was the same sort of approach that had worked so well for the AMC on C&O: scaling up a successful 8-coupled approach by 5/4 to get something nominally synergistically better. (Ignoring the subsequent advantage of de-scaling the result to 4/5 with some of the 'lessons learned' to produce some of the best Berks in the world, but note how this for good or ill became 'rolled' into the T1 project... throwing out dual-service effectiveness in the bargain...)
As we've discussed, the right answer to what PRR was actually asking involved little more than applying Voyce Glaze's theories on balancing to a slightly glorified M1. Even without going to a two-axle trailer (which might have been needed to steer the chassis effectively, as on the N&W J, with the required stiff compliance for low overbalance correction, even without accommodation of better radiant-section uptake means) this could have been done to great and useful effect.
Instead, PRR used the 'backward' configuration that up to then was the agreed 'standard version' of duplex drive in the design world (even the ATSF duplex design used it, so you have to conclude it was canon or there was something in the Depression-era water). That combined with the decision to have no less and no more than 5 driver axles was really 'it' as far as practical advantages other than reduced augment were concerned -- for some first-principle and some emergent reasons. As one example: PRR pretty well solved the issue of where to hang the rear cylinders without compromising maintenance access to them, something B&O either couldn't or didn't do ... but at the cost of radically reducing the ability to cure issues of inertial augment by having the mains for the rear engine so far outboard. Steam circuit couldn't possible produce 'automatic action' across even the useful running "powerband" of a locomotive with 77" drivers even if its 'dual service' freight service was in M&E or (later) container service not subject to the arbitrary 50mph freight restriction. It was unfortunate in the extreme that the development work fell precisely into the 'donut hole' between the imperative toward reducing reciprocating inertial mass and the adoption of the logical follow-ons from Eksergian and the retrofit 'kits' of the mid-Thirties that worked so well for roads like T&P and C&NW.
Q2: The most successful duplex, very powerful and fast for freight service but overall operating cost is too high, the rate of water and coal consumption is very high.
Built as war babies, and while wartime traffic incentives were 'on' meaning it could run long distances around its practical horsepower peak, there was likely no better engine that didn't have worse effect on the track. (At least not one that wasn't articulated and very, very, very expensively (in union terms) heavy... neither of which PRR management would care for.
Much of the maintenance problem with the locomotives would likely have been fixed with two comparatively simple things: better materials to increase the service interval on the cylinders and valves, and development of a proportional activation for the otherwise-excellently-conceived antislip system. We could further presume that by the time significant boiler replacement was required, mainstream adoption of welded boiler shells would have been available (not just to Alco) and this would in turn have handled the issue with leaks at the waist. Had these things survived to the TrucTrain era where they could actually have used high horsepower with restricted hours at low speed and command more premium coaling policies, history might have a very different conclusion. But the locomotives surely don't qualify as failures in the sense they have been condemned in 'railfan history', if anything deserve it less than the T1 which we have increasingly seen to be propaganda at best.
S2: Overweighted when built, but very close to success. Got ditched when Pennsy was low-key as broke as a beggar in 1948
You are getting carried away by flights of fancy. Look carefully at what actually happened to PRR in 1947, and more specifically why it concerned them. A large part of the concern involved uncompensated wear in the wartime years, and loss of the large guaranteed fast traffic in those years, and they were very, very far from "broke" at that point, just receiving a potent wakeup call about their up-to-then-a-bit-complacent attitudes and priorities.
And the S2 was a clever design, but in the hands of people who sometimes couldn't run T1s it was a bit like one of the turn-of-the-century fast ocean liners: a disaster just waiting to happen with irremediable damage on comparatively little provocation. You see this from 'outside' in the correspondence preserved at the Hagley: they are all gung-ho on how effective this new wonder locomotive concept is going to be, and debunk 'conventional wisdom' on some of the misconceptions (like low starting torque due to 'slip') ... but oh brother, watch the tune change as the staybolts start to pop! (And no, there is no market basket of incremental fixes to get around that; as subsequent history regarding Westinghouse sales of direct-drive steam turbines effectively shows.)
The answer even in the Forties was a V1 layout, two 'articulated engines' powered separately by their own turbines, making better use of the capacity of a Q2 boiler. (Apply all the changes listed above to the slightly-modified boilers used on V1s...) This failed not so much for hard technical reasons as a somewhat-delayed recognition that you either needed to haul an ocean or arrange expensive water-treatment dosing (that your crews would likely botch necessary consistency in application of) if you wanted a range much more than one division without stopping for a good, solid fill. Whereas a bunch of Fs, with no augment and no piddling caustic substances onto the track, and no statistically-detectable explosion hazard, could make it across four or five without refueling, and (in that era) without even a need other than 'political' to come to a complete stop (and recharge and release, etc.)
PRR: Management was chaotic since WWII, better let me take over, asap
Unless you were born and raised in Philadelphia, or were extremely successful in the financial markets (much more so than even Mr. Young!) you had little chance. I would argue (with some pain, as I have ties to Philadelphians) that proximate cause of the true dumpster fire that was PC was the inherited red-team management, including that cost-cutting mouthpiece from down south.
However, if your idea of sound management reflects, say, the suggestions you made in the other thread on postwar passenger service -- you'd have thrown the balance sheet in the toilet far faster and probably far more irremediably than any potential PRR management team would, let alone could have done. What you show is precisely the sort of 'fighting-the-last-war' thinking that actually produced the Great Streamliner Fiasco of the late '40s and '50s, almost all of it money irrevocably and uselessly thrown away on something that just wasn't going to work in that era of the real world as it came about. And yes, we could logically have fixed all the underlying issues (given 20/15 hindsight, something we usually aren't provided far enough in advance) but that's not PRR management, it's thousands of people at all the levers of power in American industry, society, and government, sometimes doing things that would guarantee loss of career if implemented in a kind of suicidal and counterintuitive series.
And just as a heads-up: sometimes English expressions are faux-amis. Perhaps the best, or at least terrifying, misuse of idiom in my long and fruitful experience with the language, and only partly conceivable as a malapropism, is
All she needed was a longer track for her to spread the legs!
That is certainly NOT what you meant to say -- the expression is 'stretch her legs' and what you actually said means something ... not the same, not the same at all.
I could buy 'spread the rails', as the duplexes were wont to do in places, but....spread their legs?
Naaaaaaaawww.
Give Jonsey a break... he was likely thinking of ' spread her wings' meaning to let run free.
My native students say 'Skoden' to which the response is 'Kayden'
( lets go.. ok then)
MiningmanMy native students say 'Skoden' to which the response is 'Kayden'
Sounds like the Swedish in this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1TlAd6M-xU
Earlier this year, the term 'Skoden' was painted on the water tower in Sudbury. Police say a 31-year-old man has been arrested and charged in connection with the incident. (Waubgeshig Rice/CBC)
Miningman Give Jonsey a break... he was likely thinking of ' spread her wings' meaning to let run free. My native students say 'Skoden' to which the response is 'Kayden' ( lets go.. ok then)
Thank you for the kind words Miningman. But I blame you and your silly dumpster fire. gif! I was trying to please everyone but once again it didn't work, the trick of legs spreading never work neither for obvious reason. Now your dumpster fire is being put out by Overmod with his essay; worth reading but I hope people keep in mind that who was the person or company treated the duplexes like a dumpster fire.
Overmod PRR: Management was chaotic since WWII, better let me take over, asap ...the suggestions you made in the other thread on postwar passenger service -- you'd have thrown the balance sheet in the toilet far faster and probably far more irremediably than any potential PRR management team would, let alone could have done.
...the suggestions you made in the other thread on postwar passenger service -- you'd have thrown the balance sheet in the toilet far faster and probably far more irremediably than any potential PRR management team would, let alone could have done.
Post it here one last time for the record.
"No Please. No need to spend your precious time writing a 1400-word essay to analyze how my fantasy is divorced from reality, how historically inaccurate it is etc. Especially when I told you clearly in the message I sent you that I firmly believe that my "900 miles fantasy HSR between NYC and Chi-town" is mechanically and economically impractical just a few days before I post it on the forum. Any person with a basic knowledge about HSR knows its limits.
If you really think I want to run the PRR, a dead company, like a monarch, I suggest you take a longer vacation or "sit back, relax and have a glass of something fine ..."
I am going to ride a train which is pulled by Bee birds to the moon with one compass and two oranges in my pocket. Yes right now.
Thanks to everyone who contributed to the theme. "
https://www.2kgames.com/cultofrapture/article/benmauro
Jones1945 ... I firmly believe that my "900 miles fantasy HSR between NYC and Chi-town" is mechanically and economically impractical just a few days before I post it on the forum. Any person with a basic knowledge about HSR knows its limits.
Ah yes, but the fun is figuring out how it might have been made mechanically and economically practical within credible recent history. You went a long way toward doing that, but some of the details needed revision to make them work. In another place you said it was a 'rough draft' -- take this as some thoughts about a first revision of something that may be of considerable interest.
Now, I'd admit I wouldn't route the true-HSR line by way of Washington as it would involve some of the same compromise that Amtrak currently has with LD New York to Chicago traffic. It would be tempting to use the old South Penn 'artifacts' including the tunnels for the high-speed route from the Pittsburgh area east ... but there's a problem: the South Penn as designed and initially surveyed was not a high-speed route but a relatively low-grade one and has waaaaaay too many curves and hiccups in its routing to be very quick. Likewise it might be fun to use Truesdale's Lackawanna Cutoff, but that has too many curves where it matters, although the construction and architecture sure have an attraction, and concrete is cheap to produce and place in northeastern Pennsylvania. (If it helps, routing through roughly the area of Sunbury produces what I think the likeliest orientation of what is essentially a high-speed bridge line with much construction on viaduct and large fill or in tunnels). That leads me to wonder if there is a sensible place for a 'new city' that is a junction point between several logical major depot or terminal points in the East and the high-speed mountain line, that could be served by regional and private trains as well as 'feeder' HSR.
The 'there's your trouble' moment is that you seem to think I'm criticizing you when I edit one fantasy plan into another. The only really critical takeaway there is that you might not want to mock the dead, as you did the management of PRR, without having something alternative that reasonably does things better than they did ... which the fantasy plan, in some respects, manifestly would not.
Thing is, once you've gotten government buy-in on retaining passenger service, much of the remaining discussion becomes both 'facilitated' and potentially interesting ... as the designs for high-speed ground transportation did when the Johnson administration threw money at it in the '60s.
One question that might have come up in a 'government HSR network' would be the question of gauge. I don't know if anyone remembers 'the case for the double-track train' (amusing as it was to the professional engineers!) but it might have been possible to implement something of the kind for late-'40s ideas of high speed ... not that dissimilar from war-booty Breitspurbahn implementations (we did it with rockets, why not with trains? ). Who wouldn't love the ability to run three-level restaurants, real entertainment cinemas, cruise-ship suite amenities and parallel drive-off automobile carriers all in the same consist? (And taking a leaf from White Star, plenty of Trail Blazer coach-class "steerage" at high speed, too...)
Now we should take up what the western side of the postwar passenger service might involve ... trains like the CZ prominently figuring into it, in my opinion, and perhaps a similar de-emphasis of pure speed on many of the nighttime stretches. Remains to be seen how you and others make this come out!
You were the one who said you could do a better job than the 'fools' ... I'm just pointing out some objective problems with getting into that position.
Note carefully why I suggested that the 'first' alternate-history change had to be how the Government separated the HSR project from anything the PRR would be doing with either its own money (as with the New Main Line just before the Depression started) or with RFC 'pump priming' (as with expansion of the electrification from Philadelphia to Washington and Harrisburg/Enola). Now I would expect that one thing that would be well under way under 'federal control' by VE Day would be the formal PRR electrification to Pittsburgh, including in all probability great progress on the tunnels, and none of that would apply to the HSR route that would have to be used. So we have a 'privatized' PRR proceeding in the late '40s to an optimized freight-driven future (with some optimized-profitable passenger, probably a mix of regional and Trail-Blazer-like coach trains in large part) with much of the 'postwar streamliner push' being either stopgap up to the opening of the true fast passenger lines, or (as some have claimed for our Avelia Liberty trains) built to full high speed standards (or easily retrucked to accommodate them) and operated "as fast as possible" in some fun places like west of Fort Wayne or between AY tower and Elida for a few interesting years...
One thing that bears examination: We know the 1943 proposal involved locomotives with quill drive and 428A motors (along the lines of what was used in the DD2) in several different sizes. Presumably some, but not all, of these would have been built by the end of the War; a question of some technical interest might be what the subsequent history of motor (electric locomotive) design might have been (1) during the years when PRR actually tried modernizing to feeble success, and (2) in the 1960s when expedience gave us the E44s (and Metroliners) and perhaps the cautionary tale of the Jet EP5s as too much in too frail a box...
All this of course being colored more than a little by the 'joint standards' developed as a kind of more modern version of the USRA locomotive committee for the HSR network. That all by itself is a promising, interesting subject.
OvermodAh yes, but the fun is figuring out how it might have been made mechanically and economically practical within credible recent history. You went a long way toward doing that, but some of the details needed revision to make them work. In another place you said it was a 'rough draft' -- take this as some thoughts about a first revision of something that may be of considerable interest.
Overmod Now, I'd admit I wouldn't route the true-HSR line by way of Washington as it would involve some of the same compromise that Amtrak currently has with LD New York to Chicago traffic. It would be tempting to use the old South Penn 'artifacts' including the tunnels for the high-speed route from the Pittsburgh area east ... but there's a problem: the South Penn as designed and initially surveyed was not a high-speed route but a relatively low-grade one and has waaaaaay too many curves and hiccups in its routing to be very quick. Likewise, it might be fun to use Truesdale's Lackawanna Cutoff, but that has too many curves where it matters, although the construction and architecture sure have an attraction, and concrete is cheap to produce and place in northeastern Pennsylvania. (If it helps, routing through roughly the area of Sunbury produces what I think the likeliest orientation of what is essentially a high-speed bridge line with much construction on viaduct and large fill or in tunnels). That leads me to wonder if there is a sensible place for a 'new city' that is a junction point between several logical major depot or terminal points in the East and the high-speed mountain line, that could be served by regional and private trains as well as 'feeder' HSR.
OvermodThe 'there's your trouble' moment is that you seem to think I'm criticizing you when I edit one fantasy plan into another. The only really critical takeaway there is that you might not want to mock the dead, as you did the management of PRR, without having something alternative that reasonably does things better than they did ... which the fantasy plan, in some respects, manifestly would not.
Overmod…One question that might have come up in a 'government HSR network' would be the question of gauge. I don't know if anyone remembers 'the case for the double-track train' (amusing as it was to the professional engineers!) but it might have been possible to implement something of the kind for late-'40s ideas of high speed ... not that dissimilar from war-booty Breitspurbahn implementations (we did it with rockets, why not with trains? ). Who wouldn't love the ability to run three-level restaurants, real entertainment cinemas, cruise-ship suite amenities and parallel drive-off automobile carriers all in the same consist? (And taking a leaf from White Star, plenty of Trail Blazer coach-class "steerage" at high speed, too...) Now we should take up what the western side of the postwar passenger service might involve ... trains like the CZ prominently figuring into it, in my opinion, and perhaps a similar de-emphasis of pure speed on many of the nighttime stretches. Remains to be seen how you and others make this come out!
Overmod You were the one who said you could do a better job than the 'fools' ... I'm just pointing out some objective problems with getting into that position.
In that case may I suggest a new thread for the Fantasy HSR Chicago- New York.
With the straight as an arrow, no grade CASO, the NYC has a big leg up. Only terrain difficulties would be making the tunnel Detroit/Windsor bigger ( no prob, I have crackerjack miners) and some kind of pre arraigned custom clearance so zip delays at the borders.
Thinking we should lighten the mood a bit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh0ess0Qzxk
What the heck is an "HSR"?Sorry if I am lazy in asking, I just can't swim through all of the reams of blibbity-blab.
"HSR" is "high-speed rail" (which I am using in the modern sense as meaning a line meant to run at greater than 125, and properly greater than 150 (now 160) mph.
There will probably always be a few threads that have more than the usual 'blab' content. I enjoy alternative history (and high-speed steam) so I like the sort of future Jones1945 proposes, fleshed out in detail. Is there much harm in that?
MiningmanThinking we should lighten the mood a bit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh0ess0Qzxk
Actually, I prefer this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f6GHbe-mdU
(which if I recall correctly was actually the original A-side for the record that had "In The Still of the Night" on it -- and if you like Western-Swing-derived rock and roll as much as I do, you'll understand why.)
I want to discourage any disparagement of Jones; he's upset because he thought I was disagreeing with him, when little could be further from the truth.
Nobody is disparaging Jones, I'm attempting the mediator role with a little humor.
I'm wondering how long you would last at a Steampunk convention before they gave you the bum's rush whereas Jones would be still oohing and in awe and exclaimining 'wonderful'.
The best side of Capitalism is it's ability to have tremendous imagination and its following innovation. So the best of both worlds, both Jones and Overmod.
Yet it is stunning beyond belief that Japan came out with the Bullet Train in 1964 while we were wondering 'Who shot the Passenger Train'.
By 1964, most households in N. America had a well-used automobile at their disposal. That meant passenger rail, already in rapid disuse, was moribund by the time the Japanese thought to build their bullet trains.
(Updated/edited Dec 2, 2018)
OvermodActually, I prefer this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f6GHbe-mdU (which if I recall correctly was actually the original A-side for the record that had "In The Still of the Night" on it -- and if you like Western-Swing-derived rock and roll as much as I do, you'll understand why.) I want to discourage any disparagement of Jones; he's upset because he thought I was disagreeing with him, when little could be further from the truth.
Not upset but feel a little bit annoyed to be honest, as I pointed out in my first very brief reply on Nov 30, 2018. But I want to emphasize that I don't mind what happened between you and me, I let it go, wish we can move on and I hope I can keep sharing ideas and thoughts with you in the future!
I think you note reader doesn't like these "blibbity-blab" materials and I didn't see any regular forum member wants to join or already joined, besides you and me. So I think there is no point to start a fantasy HSR thread in this forum, as Miningman suggested. I would join the discussion if other member wants to start it and I will keep update my 100% fantasy plan in my profile page for fun. Remember when we suggested Peter create a post for the France Steam Engines Photo not long ago; where is the thread now and how many replies that thread got?
Moreover, I remember within this 12-page thread, we had discussed similar things a few months ago like how to shorten the travel time and the schedule of PRR's NY - Chi-town named trains, and the possibility to strengthen or extend the Fort Wayne race track, you clearly stated that you didn't see there is a need or place to do so when schedules like the Broadway Limited and 20th Century were carefully designed to fit the patron's pace of living in 1930s-1950s, and there is no room to upgrade the Fort Wayne race track.
If we want to discuss the possibility of such HSR thread in a serious manner, like making a feasibility assessment for an already Dead RR company from almost 50 years ago, it will require a lot of researches and resources, definitely not a two-man project and I am not interested and don't have the energy to do it. I hope you understand.
Miningman Thinking we should lighten the mood a bit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh0ess0Qzxk
Wow, Miningman, you are really good at lightening the mood.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwfLQRpiMnw
Miningman Nobody is disparaging Jones, I'm attempting the mediator role with a little humor. I'm wondering how long you would last at a Steampunk convention before they gave you the bum's rush whereas Jones would be still oohing and in awe and exclaimining 'wonderful'. The best side of Capitalism is it's ability to have tremendous imagination and its following innovation. So the best of both worlds, both Jones and Overmod. Yet it is stunning beyond belief that Japan came out with the Bullet Train in 1964 while we were wondering 'Who shot the Passenger Train'.
Thanks for the kind words, Vince.
For the future of this forum's sake, I think the following opinion worth to be noticed. I have been joining and leaving different internet forums or groups on and off for 20 years; just like many senior forum members here. Sometimes people didn't get someone's humor or jokes due to cultural differences and it would cause misunderstanding and unnecessary drama. That's why I mentioned the differences between communication in real life and internet forums (or even email). There is a reason why Overmod thought someone was low-key disparaging me, and you didn't notice there was any.
Anyway, I think we should move on and go back to the topic: "PRR Duplexes and Experimental Engines Discussion"
It is doubtful and that no more than a very very few would join in and it would be dominated by 2. That's just the reality, folks simply do not have the time nor inclination.
But!...If you put all the responses, threads and comments together from day 1 regarding the T1's, S2, and so on you would have a book and a thick one at that, from many many contributors, many who are no longer with us or active any longer. An awful lot of it was top notch reading.
It's like a sedimentary deposit and I suspect a few but not many go back and analyze all of it, or at least parts.
There is man made 24 hour time which we live in, Geological time which is barely comprehensible ( what's 2.2 billion years?) and then there's Classic Forum time, where a few of us pop in and out and a smaller core of regulars.
Miningman It is doubtful and that no more than a very very few would join in and it would be dominated by 2. That's just the reality, folks simply do not have the time nor inclination. But!...If you put all the responses, threads and comments together from day 1 regarding the T1's, S2, and so on you would have a book and a thick one at that, from many many contributors, many who are no longer with us or active any longer. An awful lot of it was top notch reading. It's like a sedimentary deposit and I suspect a few but not many go back and analyze all of it, or at least parts. There is man made 24 hour time which we live in, Geological time which is barely comprehensible ( what's 2.2 billion years?) and then there's Classic Forum time, where a few of us pop in and out and a smaller core of regulars.
Exactly. Earlier when there was only me and Overmod exchange ideas on PRR's topics here or other thread most of the time, I imagine I am actually riding on the Broadway Limited in the late-1960s where only less than half of the train is occupied. Though I am still enjoying the adventure on Classis Trains forum when I am typing this message.
I have the same thought about the "Book" idea, I will keep updating my threads, let's see how it goes. I still want to create an index for this thread.
By the way, there is a thread on Trains.com forum discussing T1 and Franklins poppet valve gear. Some new discoveries and analysis, please take a look if you are interested; a must read for Pennsy fans:
An assessment of the benefits of the application of Franklin valves on the PRR K4 and T1 classes
http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/740/t/272776.aspx
Jones-- There is a lot of stuff in older threads. Compiling all that together would be quite a challenge.
I use this picture as part of a slide show that acts as a screen saver at work ( not all of it is trains, lots of Field School stuff and students, that sort of thing)
What is striking is that absolutely everything in this picture is gone. The T1, the K4, the heralded Trail Blazer tail car. The tracks are gone, the platform is gone, the passenger trains are gone. Not only that but the PRR is gone.
Been trying to reconcile that for a long time but the math does not come out right...ever. I know what I'm told as to why, and it's not as if I'm not trying my darnest to understand and keep an open mind.
There is more to it than what we think or know.
Darth Vader stuff I tell 'ya.
Miningman Jones-- There is a lot of stuff in older threads. Compiling all that together would be quite a challenge. Darth Vader stuff http://cs.trains.com/ctr/f/3/t/263084.aspx Posted by Miningman on Saturday, May 20, 2017 7:40 PM I use this picture as part of a slide show that acts as a screen saver at work ( not all of it is trains, lots of Field School stuff and students, that sort of thing) What is striking is that absolutely everything in this picture is gone. The T1, the K4, the heralded Trail Blazer tail car. The tracks are gone, the platform is gone, the passenger trains are gone. Not only that but the PRR is gone. Been trying to reconcile that for a long time but the math does not come out right...ever. I know what I'm told as to why, and it's not as if I'm not trying my darnest to understand and keep an open mind. There is more to it than what we think or know. Darth Vader stuff I tell 'ya.
You are right, Vince. I think the Google search engine is good enough to play the role. But I will pick some interesting threads and simply put the link of them in the index for reader's convenience. Thank you for your contribution.
I believe as time goes on, the number of people who want to search for things about Pennsy will keep slowly decreasing. Not sure if 5550 will change the trend or not, but the basic general premise is 5550 successfully get built. However, we will never know what will happen next hour. From today to the year 2030, a lot of things could happen, "A castle can only have one king". If the castle is the earth, who is the king right now?
I found the original links of this post "Darth Vader stuff" on google - http://cs.trains.com/ctr/f/3/t/263084.aspx - and I read all replies in the thread, I found some very profound or meaningful discussions. I do believe the demise of passenger train service of America was not a 100% natural cause; It was probably an organized and premeditated Homicide. Yes, there was no doubt the conventional steam engine was not as economical as other motive power thus it was only about time for them to disappear in the railway system. but the post-war US government never distributed enough money and resources to develop new motive power for the American's passenger train.
It was very obvious that The post-war US government chose to concentrate the nation's resources for aviation and automobile development, including construction of matching facilities like Airports and Highway. But for passenger trains, they looked on with folded arms, waited for it to die. There was a project like UAC-TurboTrain but it was negligible and lack of matching facilities, compared to the SST projects. After the failure of SST projects in the late-1960s, the US government still had no plan to develop High-speed rail system like TGV or Shinkansen. US citizens didn't have many choices except buying and driving a car or taking the plane for long distance travel, unlike people living in Europe and Japan, or even developing countries like China in nowadays, travel on high-speed trains is a common thing for them or you can say, part of their daily life.
Lack of modern trains development was supposed to boost the sales of America brands automobiles and related products after WWII when the States was still leading the automobile industry. But after cheaper car and products from Japan and China became mainstream stuffs in the market, it hurts the national interest of America. What the Darth Vader will do to his rival will inevitably change the fate of humanity.
If the photo Miningman posted was taken in 1947, the Trail Blazer in the pic was probably hauled by the PRR S2 #6200 or another T1. Imo, better than anything you can ride in America nowadays.
It's a very haunting picture. Something so important, so advanced and so permanent just vanished off the planet. Inglewoods railroad importance is gone now too, the platforms, all the PRR track.
Why it all ended has been discussed in several different lights and ways but the fact remains this scene was all gone in short order.
After almost a week of an involuntary break due to some unknown technical difficulties, I can log in to the forum again with the help of Classic Trains' customer service! Now I can post in our lovely community again!
Thank you very much to Overmod, Miningman and Dave replied to my emails and helped me to kill some time during the break! I will reply to all of them in detail as soon as I am available! I want to say that I miss every single forum members of Classic Trains! Even though we might not agree with each other on some topics!
I wish our regular forum members will be able to continually support our forum --- our lovely community in the future by posting and sharing ideas without encountering any troubles. I understand that many of our forum members are retired or semi-retired, they contributed a lot to the country and deserve to have a free railroad community. I believe the management of Classis Trains would agree with this point. I wish I still have the chance to exchange ideas with many regular members very soon!
Thank you very much!
Back to the topic of this post.
Here is some non-copyrighted photo of the PRR S2 #6200 6-8-6 6900hp direct-geared steam turbine locomotive from Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania online archive, enjoy!
Westinghouse 6900hp turbine(forward)
(Touched up publicity shot)
2nd and 3rd Drivers (68 inches) with the gearbox.
Why a steam booster engine was not equipped? #6200 was a testbed, her 6-wheel trucks were big enough to house any steam booster engine. Even though Pennsy probably didn't want to use a steam booster engine of the never happened 4-8-4 steam turbine engine, it still worth a try especially when PRR had some spare booster engines removed from locos like T1 #6111 and some K4s. I heard that some mechanical engineer working for PRR asked the same question at the time.
It does appear that Jones1945 has gotten through to the 'new' Customer Service (Penny, I believe) and they have almost immediately resolved the login problem. Others who have been unable to log in might want to confirm that things are copacetic. A big THANK YOU to Penny and to whoever she contacted that has worked so well and so fast to restore access!
A common issue regarding the Franklin Booster/Bethlehem Auxiliary Locomotive sort of 'power adder' is that the practical value of its starting aid was not worth the additional capital and maintenance costs and special training to use effectively. Perhaps the best discussion of this aspect I have seen is in Fryer's book on experimental steam, regarding the testing LNER conducted. No one seems to have made a multiple-axle booster work very well at high speed (not unlike the various flavors of geared truck used on diesel-hydraulic road locomotives) and without that, applying a typical booster to one of the three axles on the S2 (almost certainly the one at extreme rear) would contribute little more than the expected "one driver axle equivalent" to low-speed TE ... I think that would help very little with the drafting issues due to turbine slip at the required power to start trains proportioned to what the S2 design was supposed to do.
My own opinion is that what should have been tried was a variable nozzle or baffle arrangement that would bypass some of the large exhaust plenum and hence draft induction in that four-stack arrangement. Even blowing bypassed steam to atmosphere would be preferable to inducing stay bolt failure... which is really the Big Issue the PRR mechanical department had with the design over the critical years.
Better than a 'Franklin Booster' would be a Lewty booster running on that bypassed steam -- which would have no problem driving multiple axles right up to six off a suitably compound-expansion engine probably hydraulically. But a nuclear lower-cost and probably better approach would be to provide either a magnetorheological clutch or Bowes drive somewhere in the reduction geartrain to allow the turbine to spin up at low road speeds, or provide some sort of torque multiplication at starting and low speeds.
The PRR certainly supported the S2 and was very proud of it. Then suddenly turned its back on the whole project, not because it was hopeless and beyond successful modification but because steam/coal was over in every way with them.
Overmod It does appear that Jones1945 has gotten through to the 'new' Customer Service (Penny, I believe) and they have almost immediately resolved the login problem. Others who have been unable to log in might want to confirm that things are copacetic. A big THANK YOU to Penny and to whoever she contacted that has worked so well and so fast to restore access!
Absolutely agree! I also note that some forum members who can't access other forums under Trains could log in again since yesterday. I wish this is like a turning over a new leaf before 2019.
OvermodBetter than a 'Franklin Booster' would be a Lewty booster running on that bypassed steam -- which would have no problem driving multiple axles right up to six off a suitably compound-expansion engine probably hydraulically. But a nuclear lower-cost and probably better approach would be to provide either a magnetorheological clutch or Bowes drive somewhere in the reduction geartrain to allow the turbine to spin up at low road speeds, or provide some sort of torque multiplication at starting and low speeds.
Interesting idea. The S2's massive tender, roomy space under the smoke box and boiler as well as both massive 6-wheel truck provided enough space to install a Lewty booster system( I am searching for a detail drawing of it ) or any modified booster engine.
I think any method which could have shortened the time for her to reach 30 mph or above for the economic reason was worth a try. If PRR didn't drop the project of S2 and V1, they might have to rebuild a whole new engine and all the things they learned from the S2. The new engine, probably the proposed but never fully built V1 might have answered all the questions regarding other disadvantages of S2. But V1 was designed for freight service, wasn't it?
A drawing showing the Lewty booster system:
https://www.martynbane.co.uk/modernsteam/ldp/usa1978/ga-large.html
LIFE (magazine)
PRR's rendering of V1
Miningman The PRR certainly supported the S2 and was very proud of it. Then suddenly turned its back on the whole project, not because it was hopeless and beyond successful modification but because steam/coal was over in every way with them.
Nice poster! Miningman. Yes, there are quite a lot of Patent drawings specially made for the S2 project; different kinds of gears and devices were designed to fix her problems. But due to an unprecedentedly financial problem of Pennsy in 1947, they couldn't afford an experiment at such a scale and dropped it. The last publicity event the S2 attended was the Chicago Railroad Fair 1949.
Her name was not in the promotional flyer but there are some photographic evidences and a very short clip showing she was in the fair.
After some complaints (of me) about how difficult it is to find a "new old" pic of PRR S1 #6100, someone sent me a pic of S1 which I have never seen. (Thanks a lot) Probably taken not long after the first overhaul of S1 around 1942 in the early morning (5:33 am) if the train was not late. The de-skirted big engine was seen stopping at Lima, OH station, heading to Fort-Wayne.
Lima Station was the 13th station (westbound) of the Trail Blazer; judging from the skirted PB70ER lounge baggage (betterment) car behind her, S1 was hauling the Trail Blazer westbound in this photo, 60 miles away from Fort Wayne, 200 miles away from the Chicago. I believe a photo of the Lima Station in the early 1940s is rare as well.
http://www.trainweb.org/usarail/lima.htm
Amtrak Lima Station (June 1978)
Betterment car, the PB70ER lounge baggage and POC70R observation car specially built for the Trail Blazer. (https://digital.hagley.org/)
LIFE 1939
I wish I know the model of the Radio on PRR's Betterman cars... I want to search for one for my house's decoration!
Pennsylvania Railroad Class S1 (#6100) 6-4-4-6 "The Big Engine" in Trainz (Simulator)
This video showing the Pennsylvania Railroad S1 #6100 "The Big Engine" in TrainZ Simulator hauling The Trail Blazer (1360 tons) a deluxe all-coach train, inaugurated between New York and Chicago via Pittsburgh, PA.
The 3D model itself was created as freeware by a railfan from quite a long time ago and the original config file of the engine was borrowed from an SP GS-4, if you are interested, you could download it on the download station for free. After various updates from different parties in the last few years, it has a new engine file now and I updated it, as well as the skin of it in 2018.
Since there is no suitable US route for the test, the Settle-Carlisle Railway was chosen. Please note the gradient changes. After editing the engine config file of it with historically correct data, the engine is capable of reaching 100mph within 14 mins with 1300 tons passenger stock behind her on the Settle-Carlisle Railway northbound, starting from Skipton station.
This video is an attempt to pushing the engine to the limit and to find out how fast the PRR S1 #6100 can go on a real route, therefore all speed limits were ignored. The Train in this video is running on "realistic mode" with functions like "auto fireman" activated and "derailment" deactivated.
After editing the config file of it with historically correct data, the engine showed wheel slipping when starting at full gear and full throttle. I keep an open mind on these suspected bugs or glitches. If you have any question or tips about how to improve the realism of the train, please feel free to leave your comment, thanks for watching!
Oh hi ... I have been struggling and fighting with the annoying flu virus for almost a week. Finally, I feel like I am 95% recovered. If only there was a heavy train can run over all those ugly fluffy little virus and their ugly dirty protein spike thing or let me throw them all into the firebox!!
Anyway, I found this "Transitioning of the design of PRR Q1" pic when I managing the railroad folders on my computer. A lazy Photoshopped pic for this mysterious experimental engine.
Set one:
Set two: The Q1 itself.
I believe all of these drafts and drawings came from PRR. If you know their background and source, please kindly let us know. All of them have missing details.
The top one showing a 4-6-4-6, probably made in the early 1940s. The streamlining shared some common characteristics with PRR S1 like the decoration around the headlight and the S1-style one-piece huge front end nose and the bow shape neck between the bullet nose and the front end as well as the air deflector around the smokestack.
The middle one is another 4-6-4-6 drawing. Compare to the drawing on the top, the front end design was changed where the headlight was placed above the smokebox door. it had a higher smokestack, a S1-style skyline of the boiler, the teardrop-shaped marker light was replaced with square shape number board. The shape of the cab window is almost identical to the four streamlined K4s of 1940 and 1941.
The last one is a 4-6-4-4 scaled down from the 4-6-4-6 design. At least 3 ft shorter than the 4-6-4-6 version, we can see even more redesigning on the front end, the skyline as well as the size trailing truck. Some of the detail of the streamlining doesn't match the final product. None of them have the dog house on the tender.
It seems that the firebox was also scaled down from the 4-6-4-6 version. But I don't have, and probably could never find more detail about all the design changes and the reason behind it of this project.
Q1, together with S1,T1s and Q2s were Pennsy's epic answers to the concept of the superpower and Northern 4-8-4s. But Q1 was born in wrong times and didn't become the successor of PRR M1s. She was outperformed by some much simpler and trouble-free 4-8-4s duel-service engines like N&W Class J.
Middle one is really a 4-6-4-4.
Edit: Did you mean the middle loco in the first set? If so, you are correct. I failed to see that there are only two images.
selector Middle one is really a 4-6-4-4. Edit: Did you mean the middle loco in the first set? If so, you are correct. I failed to see that there are only two images.
Thank you very much for pointing it out. Extra info is added to improve the typesetting. : -)
With all discussion on what could have been or why the PRR did this or that, I remember some years back in the PRR Keystone someone did a similar study. One of the things this person did was to create the R2. A steam engine that used the S2's boiler with either a expanded M1a chassis or a drivetrain from one of the Santa Fe's big 4-8-4's. He even had a painting to show what it would have looked like along with his proposed Specs of speed, HP-TF etc. Does anyone remeber this article??
rrlineman With all discussion on what could have been or why the PRR did this or that, I remember some years back in the PRR Keystone someone did a similar study. One of the things this person did was to create the R2. A steam engine that used the S2's boiler with either an expanded M1a chassis or a drivetrain from one of the Santa Fe's big 4-8-4's. He even had a painting to show what it would have looked like along with his proposed Specs of speed, HP-TF etc. Does anyone remember this article??
With all discussion on what could have been or why the PRR did this or that, I remember some years back in the PRR Keystone someone did a similar study. One of the things this person did was to create the R2. A steam engine that used the S2's boiler with either an expanded M1a chassis or a drivetrain from one of the Santa Fe's big 4-8-4's. He even had a painting to show what it would have looked like along with his proposed Specs of speed, HP-TF etc. Does anyone remember this article??
Thanks for the useful information, rrlineman. I remember there is at least one, probably only one article on Keystone Magzine about Q1 (but not even one about S1). I wish more railroading document and historical material will come out of the surface (Not only Pennsy) before they were forgotten or storing in different universities for another three hundred years.
By the way, do you mean using the Q2's boiler on a M1a chassis? We have some very intensive discussions no long ago about why PRR "skipped" the development of Hudsons and Northern. The M1s were so powerful and reliable that this class could have been the only Mountain class which is epic enough to fit into the "Super Power" category. If Pennsy wanted to make 4-8-4s their prime power, there would have been no difficulties for them to build one or a fleet of it.
I think I can call it a consensus that PRR was so ambitious to make something more than any RRs can imagine. But turn out all these new prime steam power development plans had a lot of set back and didn't go according to plan.
I believe Q1 was designed base on the concept of CN/Grand Trunk Western 4-8-4s of 1938, but Pennsy wanted to make it a lot more powerful than it and let it become the successor of M1s. Both class using 77" drivers, streamlined and was a dual-service engine.
locomotive.wikia.com
30 years earlier before the arrival of PRR T1 prototype (#6110, #6111), we had PRR E6sa #1092 using an experiential rotary valve designed by O. W. Young. According to Wiki, It was actuated by regular Walschaerts gear (?) and was not a completely unsuccessful experiment.
PRR #1092 in 1912:
PRR #1092 in 1937:
Source: HAGLEY DIGITAL ARCHIVES
Liberty Limited powered by the PRR S1 #6100 in April 1941 (78 years ago). Meanwhile, B&O is winning the game with their diesel-powered Royal Blue and Capitol Limited in the Washington D.C - New York and Chicago market.
The Train of Tomorrow vs The Train of PRR's Tomorrow! 3600hp vs 7200hp! It was a good game well for all railfans anyway!
This new video is from my family's hobby YouTube channel. I think I found the answer regarding the capability of PRR S1.
= 138 mph = PRR Class S1 Duplex Steam Locomotive
"We heard about a lot of tales and rumors about how fast the 7200hp PRR S1 could go in the past. I think It is the right time to show the whole world about her power, her top speed, and her capability to break any speed record created by any other steam locomotive in the world at any time.
- 100 mph (06:42)
- 120 mph (10:58)
- 130 mph (12:26)
- 138 mph (16:45)
Pennsylvania Railroad was a responsible railroad, they encouraged safety driving and paid attention to the comfort level of their premier train. Therefore, The PRR, as well as many other great railroads in the States like MILW and NYCentral never claimed any speed record during and after World War II.
But with the help of computer simulation, like Trainz, we could show you which steam engine was supposed to be the fastest steam engine ever made in human history! In this video, PRR S1 is hauling a historically accurate 1939 standard 8-car consist of the "Broadway Limited". I added one 13 double bedroom Pullman sleeper (re-skinned from a sleeper made by K&L Trainz) on it for heavier loading. The engine's config file has been carefully tuned for historical accuracy.
Just like other speed test video, the train won't obey any speed limit on the route and the "derailment" function is off. The feature of "Auto Fireman" is activated, so maybe you can make the PRR S1 run even faster with better fireman skill! Do you wanna try? :P
Thank you for watching!"
The is PRR form 109-J 1948 provided by Charles Crawford, the official spec of Q1, Q2, S1, S2.
"!HEAD TO HEAD! - PRR S1 vs PRR T1"
The "Big Engine" PRR S1 6-4-4-6 Duplex, a locomotive built for the 1939-40 World's Fair to show off all the cutting edge technologies of America at the time, racing head to head with the "practical version" of her, The PRR T1 #5500, the production version of PRR's last steam locomotive; she was the answer of PRR to the concept of "superpower" "Northern 4-8-4s" from the 1930s.
*The T1 in this simulator is using the default engine config file by the game developer. *S1's engine config file is adjusted base on the real S1's spec, figures like the boiler size, cylinder's volume, firebox size, total heating surface area, fire temperature and the number of cylinders etc with the help of many nice people from Classic Trains Magzine Forum. ( http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/740/t/2727... )
==If you are good at computer programming and computer simulation and willing to provide a more accurate engine config file to us, we are more than willing to do another race with different kinds of trains by using your engine config file for an even better result==
At the end of the video, it is also the end of the map, so I stopped recording once we know who is the winner.
In this video, the T1 and S1 was hauling the historically accurate consist of 1943 The Admiral and The Trail Blazer, so you can see the Admiral is a typical American style mixed consist with old and new cars in the video: )
Suggestion and advice are always welcomed! Thank you for watching! :D
That's cute how the T1 blows bubbles out of the cylinders!
Wow. The T1 WAS blowing bubbles out of the cylinders!
"OK, who's the wise guy who put Ivory soap in the boiler water?"
The T1 engine in Trainz is a payware DLC which user cannot adjust, modify or upgrade its setting. The silly bubbles thing can be removed if some pc guru willing to share the trick to modify this 7 years old official content. Or maybe they tried to render the leaking in the Franklin poppet valve gear in a funny way.
The estimated completion date of T1 5550 (without bubble blowing) will be 2030 which is only 11 years later, let's wait for it and see the real T1 running without bubbles blowing
By the way, if the bubbles can make you happy, I have at least one more video to show you :-P
Redwards Some years ago Feltonhill had recommended the following article on the S1: "The S1's history was covered in a 7-page article by the late Charlie Meyer in the Jan 1992 (Vo.10, N0.1) issue of Milepost, a magazine published by Friends of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. I believe they're still in existance, maybe out of Strasburg, and this is available as a back issue. It's well worth trying to get. It's probably the only detailed account written at this point." I managed to find a copy on eBay and as he states, it's the most detailed account I've seen on the S1. --Reed
Dear all,
I extremely regret to let you guys know that after a half year of eBay hunting, I cannot find a hard copy of Reed's suggestion: Charlie Meyer, Jan 1992 (Vo.10, N0.1) issue of Milepost, published by Friends of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.
If you have this issue and willing to "share" with me in any form, please kindly let me know! I would appreciate it greatly if you could help me to find this last piece of the puzzle of my dream engine PRR S1!
Thank you for your attention!
Old News:
I believe many Pennsy fans already knew this for years but in model railroading world, this information is always omitted, which cost them a lower sale due to lack of Raymond Loewy's fame.
According to Keystone magazine vol. 26, number 3, Autumn 1993, an interview of John W. Epstein, Special Projects Manager and vice president, Raymond Loewy & AssoC., he mentioned that not only K4s 3768 and PRR S1 which both were displayed in 1939-40 World Fair, the four K4s streamlined for the Jeffersonian and South Wind, the streamlining of PRR R2, Q1, Q2, V1 as well as T1s were all designed by Raymond Loewy & AssoC., (with involvement of Clement). But I believe that due to WWII, there was no publicity about it, let alone some of the original design was altered according to President Clement's idea.
In 1939, PRR requested Raymond Loewy to design the proposed streamlined E6s, it didn't happen but the similar design was applied to the South Wind and Jeffersonian Scheme. President Clement involved in Q1's design including the appearance of the front end which he wanted the headlight placed above the smokebox center and the Keystone plate should be placed right under the headlight, it is like a tradition of the "Pennsy look".
Streamlining of R2 4-8-4 steam turbine due cancelation and S2 was proposed to be streamlined by Loewy, but PRR made a smart choice to not streamlining it like Q1.
Before:
After:
The proposed streamlined PRR E6s, note the similarity of the placement of Keystone plate and headlight compared to Q1's design.
Copyright: THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD, RAYMOND LOEWY's STUDIO.
Speaking of Q1, accord to another issue of the Keystone magazine, this dual service duplex's front engine seldom have wheel slipping problem, but the rear engine's drivers constantly slip. The performance of her was above average which the engine NEVER received a complaint from the crew and management after accumulating 165,000 miles of service. Thank you for your attention.
(For the record) I never heard about this but I just found out that the S1 once hauled a 90-car freight consist and hit 73mph during a test outing, according to the Keystone Magazine Vol.27, No.2, summer 1994. I don't think we discussed such testing of S1 before but the T1s towing freight train for testing was mentioned in several posts.
If that road test was conducted during the break of the World Fair, the result of it might affect the design of Q1 later in 1940. Many say that the 77" drivers on Q1 were too large for a freight engine (It was a dual service engine actually) but the result of S1 towing the 3600 tons (presuming all cars were loaded, 40-ton* 90) freight train probably encouraged Pennsy to not using the smaller driver on the Q1.
I still believe that Q1 was one of the most ambitious plans of Pennsy during the transitional era. If the Q1, as the successor of the M1s 4-8-2, was good enough to be mass produced, the PRR didn't even have to cooperate with Baldwin or other steam engine manufacturer anymore. Pennsy could have built their own duplex and set the price of the new engine independently, that means Baldwin would have lost their largest client.
If Pennsy really had such intention, once Pennsy obtained all the data of the S2 turbine, as well as the T1s, they would have ditched Baldwin afterward. How Baldwin would have had reacted to such a situation? the plot thickens......
Designed and built by PRR.
^The supposed to be the new Pennsy face, designed by Raymond Loewy and altered on Clement's request.
Fast, strong, flexible and stylish.
Not as slippy as the T1s,
not as oversized as the S1,
dual services ready,
built by Pennsy's own shop,
the mother of the Q2s,
long forgotten outside this forum......
Very short lived and under utilized (165,000 miles). Do you remember 2015? Of course, seems like yesterday almost.. from then until now that's how long it lasted.
Q2's fantastic performance and as Overmod calls them " win the war now locomotives" also ridiculously short lives.
Followed of course by rows and rows and rows of unreliable super high cost Diesels that didn't last much longer than the Q1 and Q2's.
Wonder if someone was hauled on the carpet for this unbelievable folly.
Don't think so, they were all in on it, and couldn't rid themselves of their steam fast enough. Blink and you missed it all.
Nothing new here that hasn't been stated previously but the whole thing S1 thru to T1's was a darn shame. When Pennsy turned its back on its best moment and then destroyed it all what can you say besides ridiculous.
Jones1945Pennsy could have built their own duplex and set the price of the new engine independently, that means Baldwin would have lost their largest client. If Pennsy really had such intention, once Pennsy obtained all the data of the S2 turbine, as well as the T1s, they would have ditched Baldwin afterward. How Baldwin would have had reacted to such a situation? the plot thickens...
To paraphrase the sense of the Easter service, 'thickens indeed'!
Baldwin was a principal player in the 'intellectual property' development of the duplex idea (perhaps overly so) -- this being one of the key post-Eksergian efforts to eliminate the evil effects of augment. How much the railroad world was pawing around in the half-dark is evidenced by the infamous R1 story; how clearly they got a good answer is not much later (in the 'refit kits' on, for example, the T&P 2-10-4s, the rebuilt 3751 class; the double rebuilding of the Hs into world-class glory matched (imho) only by the Niagaras). But in the world of the Q1, anything larger than -- say -- the M1a was going to be hopeless at dual-service speed, and so...
There's an old riddle about 'what's a camel?' The answer to which is 'a horse designed by a committee'. Here's PRR designing a 5/4 M1 but deciding to get more and more carried away with the fun, evidently forgetting Leonor Loree's lesson about practical technology on the way.
Part of the 'key' here is to note why the driver size was ramped up all the way to 77" instead of using disc centers and better balancing at 72". -- it's highly likely lower water rate a la Golsdorf was not part of that design decision, considering the priorities in the Q2 and V1 designs. Instead, as in the B&O locomotive (and I suspect the putative ATSF 6-4-4-4) you have conventional drive on normal wheels which now can have smaller balance weights and overbalance consequences.
PRR was, according to some of the notes at the Hagley, proud of the way it handled the steam'pipe and snifting valve arrangements at the rear of the Q1 to avoid the kinds of problems B&O had on their locomotive. If you look at it from pure engineering, they did a pretty good job. Just that nobody told the steam, and the dirt, and the things in casual collision with items located near the limits of the loading gage, about how to respect products of superior intellect ... as it were.
End result is interesting precisely because the design didn't try to do what the Q2 did, produce very high horsepower at elevated speed, so you wound up with a super locomotive hobbled by just the wrong constraints to realize the promise of the 'good bits'. Most of the issues of backpedaling drive were not particularly difficult to address (ahem, cough, cough, cab-forwards?) probably including the issue of crap rammed into the multiple-bearing crosshead surfaces, so you may be looking at T1-failure-duplicitous levels of railfan-led-by-the-nose mythology there. On the other hand, limiting the locomotive to M&E as its prospective 'dual service' (in a world where PRR freight never topped 50mph) can be seen without particular reference to accurate hindsight as a relative waste of time and money.
Nobody seems to have thought very carefully that a locomotive that required the same cylinder care and maintenance as two M1s had better be capable of doing more things better than two M1s as possible (particularly if it cost more than three M1s to build, but I digress). We see the same issue repeated for the Q2s as soon as no one needed 150-car trains pulled at meteoric speed over wartime-maintenance track: in a normal PRR world, the J1a (no slouch of a design itself, particularly with the upsized driver diameter) did about everything a Q2 could do on any particular practical train but with Ferrari-level maintenance for Ferrari performance the job no longer called for.
MEANWHILE ... back to the Baldwin story.
You will remember how the order for the T1s was split, half to Baldwin and half to Altoona, with the expensive valve-gear and technological bits outsourced (so Baldwin had no technological 'lock' on the market as they would have, via their controlling Westinghouse connection, on steam turbines). Behind the scenes, here comes the future! as Steins et al. duke it out with Loewy over the 'triplex' plan and then develop the magic solution that would replace reciprocating steam with a three-box configuration that didn't involve Baldwin Locomotive Works. (Although it did involve Westinghouse, about which more anon).
Baldwin, seeing its own future more than a little closely aligned with that of Steins et al., decides to implement its own 'hush-hush' design effort to end-run around the Steins patents ... the result of which comedy was (as no one I suspect will be surprised to learn) the C&O M-1 turbines. (In case you were wondering why there were three, and so little testing was done to debug the first one...) This essentially threw down the gauntlet to PRR Motive Power in a way that makes it potentially easier to see why no further direct-turbine work was undertaken at that critical time that turbine steam power was the wave of the future... and the compound-expansion answer to the whole double-maintenance problem of the duplexes at a stroke.
In my opinion, had there been no turbines we might have seen some attempt to de-sow's-ear the Q1, probably involving a switch to smaller drivers and perhaps some rebushing of the cylinders to adjust the cyclic water rate upward to suit (and perhaps some application of RC poppet gear in a reverse T1a change to three-valve Franklin type C as on ATSF 3752, but I doubt it). At this point I am tempted to speculate a bit and note 'what if we put a welded boiler and better firebox on the chassis, and geared in a couple of smaller V1-style turbines with the full-proportional version of the Q2 slip control' which still wouldn't have solved the lethal water-rate problem but would give us a highly interesting testbed... just don't expect Baldwin to build the pieces.
I suspect much of the correspondence over the design options here would make interesting reading
Miningman Very short lived and under utilized (165,000 miles). Do you remember 2015? Of course, seems like yesterday almost.. from then until now that's how long it lasted. Q2's fantastic performance and as Overmod calls them " win the war now locomotives" also ridiculously short lives.
Definitely, Miningman. The Q2 and T1 actually participated in two global conflicts, at least. The Korean War somewhat extended Q2 and many steam engines' service life of different railroads.
I do remember many details happened in my private life as well as my civil service in 2015, but there is one thing I almost can't remember its existence, which is justice.
Miningman Followed of course by rows and rows and rows of unreliable super high cost Diesels that didn't last much longer than the Q1 and Q2's. Wonder if someone was hauled on the carpet for this unbelievable folly.
What folly?? Sticking with an overdesigned steam locomotive in an attempt to make up for lost time caused by ignoring improvements not originated by PRR?
Most PRR diesels lasted until they were fully depreciated (15 years) or even longer. Except of course for such disasters like Baldwin's Centipede.
Jones1945The Q2 and T1 actually participated in two global conflicts, at least. The Korean War somewhat extended Q2 and many steam engines' service life of different railroads.
I suspect the major contribution of the Q2s to the Korean War (which started in 1950) was the alloy steel and other metals in their composition. Were any even seriously running at that point?
It would be highly interesting to see where the T1s were used, and how useful they were (even in the sense of allowing other steam or diesels to work more strategic services). Again, though, this was probably into the equipment-trust-saving part of the T1 retention effort, so I wouldn't expect much voluntary reactivation of stored power for main trains or other explicit wartime traffic.
Oh my! Thank you for your amazing response, Overmod. I will need some time to write a thorough response to your awesome post.
Using Q1 or even S1 as a test bed to further the steam engine development is one of my fantasy. On the other hand, I am still trying to figure it out what really happened between the PRR, Baldwin (& Westinghouse), Loewy, GM, etc. Even though we already know the official stories.
When critical information is inaccessible on my side, imagination mixing with logical reasoning might bring me closer to the truth.
CSSHEGEWISCHWhat folly?? Sticking with an overdesigned steam locomotive in an attempt to make up for lost time caused by ignoring improvements not originated by PRR?
You have to put the folly in context. F units were demonstrably better than anything PRR had in the steam-development pipeline, and most of the first-generation follies involved taking nearly-untried competitive approaches (244-engined FAs being one that comes to mind more forcefully than any four-axle Baldwin power, interestingly enough) that were not built following EMD's design and quality paradigms. So the argument isn't dieselization -- that was established definitively by 1949 by the economic forces only becoming evident by about 1947 -- just incompetent dieselization forced by "the market".
Although I often moan about it, PRR fixed this problem pretty definitively in 1963, when they bit the bullet and got rid of all the old 'orphan' units, even those that were running reasonably well in service or had 'rebuild potential' (the BP-20s in particular as I've noted offering some interesting possibilities). It is difficult to imagine working a railroad with steam, any steam, as well as it could be worked with SD40s, let alone SD40-2s ... and we need not go much more modern than that. There are reasons not one of the modern-steam-revival programs, including those I participated in, went much of anywhere, and those reasons only get stronger each year.
That doesn't mean that losing All That Steam so quickly isn't a shame for all us non-railroaders at trackside. Tracksiders pay few bills and incur few responsibilities, but they know what they like.
Just as a heads-up: At the beginning of this thread, back in 2018, Peter Clark was going to look up PRR S1 6100 in Reuter's Rekord-Lokomotiven. I don't remember what the actual result of that check was.
Perhaps if Mr. Clark is away from the references, or if someone else wants to comment on this, here is the amazon.com listing for the book. (There are of course other sources; it's not a 'rare book' yet.)
Overmod That doesn't mean that losing All That Steam so quickly isn't a shame for all us non-railroaders at trackside. Tracksiders pay few bills and incur few responsibilities, but they know what they like.
Overmod I suspect the major contribution of the Q2s to the Korean War (which started in 1950) was the alloy steel and other metals in their composition. Were any even seriously running at that point?
This is probably the truth, Mr. Overmod. Although most of them were not retired by 1953. The S2, Q1 and the Q2 phototypes were all dropped from the roster in Jan 1952. Compared them to other freight engines in the PRR system, steam, electric and diesel, Q2's contribution to the Korean War were negligible. I think it was discussed many times before but it would be nice to review the history of railroading during the Korean War if our forumer could share with us their first-hand experience or research.
I wonder how much money would have saved if PRR chose the N&W Class J instead of the duplexes. It can be calculated since the total cost of all of the duplex engines was recorded. The Js could have been the successor of both K4s and M1s, the best dual-service steam engine ever made. But sometimes the reality is a playground of no-fun-allowed, this is why I still love Q1 and Q2 better than the Js (both N&W & PRR).
Too perfect for *me!
OvermodIn my opinion, had there been no turbines we might have seen some attempt to de-sow's-ear the Q1, probably involving a switch to smaller drivers and perhaps some rebushing of the cylinders to adjust the cyclic water rate upward to suit (and perhaps some application of RC poppet gear in a reverse T1a change to three-valve Franklin type C as on ATSF 3752, but I doubt it). At this point I am tempted to speculate a bit and note 'what if we put a welded boiler and better firebox on the chassis, and geared in a couple of smaller V1-style turbines with the full-proportional version of the Q2 slip control' which still wouldn't have solved the lethal water-rate problem but would give us a highly interesting testbed... just don't expect Baldwin to build the pieces. I suspect much of the correspondence over the design options here would make interesting reading
That would have been a fascinating major rebuild. Though I strongly believe that it wouldn't be an economic and flexible engine which could challenge the diesel F units, it would have been a very cute white-elephant. A Q2 size welded boiler, a chassis long enough for 4-10-4 or 4-10-6, V1-style turbines, alloy steel rods, 70+ inches drivers with the best balancing, roller bearings here and there, anti-slip control, an attractive semi streamlining.
I am still obsessed with the 6-wheel truck design. If the 4-wheel trailing truck of the Q1 could be replaced by the 6-wheel truck, it would have had more space for a larger firebox or provided more room for a completely new firebox design without sacrifice the room of the cab. But that means my fantasy white elephant would have been as gigantic as the S1 (Cool!). Yes, I admit that the duplexes of Pennsy were white-elephant outside my fantasy world. It wasn't because they had a bad design, but there wasn't a strong need to build such a powerful engine after the war in the PRR's network, in hindsight once again.
However, I think they were not powerful nor fast enough in my fantasy world!
A GTW 4-8-4 with one more pair of the driver
OvermodPRR was, according to some of the notes at the Hagley, proud of the way it handled the steam'pipe and snifting valve arrangements at the rear of the Q1 to avoid the kinds of problems B&O had on their locomotive. If you look at it from pure engineering, they did a pretty good job. Just that nobody told the steam, and the dirt, and the things in casual collision with items located near the limits of the loading gage, about how to respect products of superior intellect ... as it were.
I am delighted to know that PRR Motive Power actually knew what they were doing when designing the Q1 since many critics Pennsy repeated the same mistake of B&O's N-1. Even though it was not good enough to be mass produced, but in Baldwin's eyes, the Q1 was at least a symbol of Pennsy's bargaining power, a potential competitor to Baldwin's ill-fated duplex product.
With the help of our forumer Reed, I have the chance to read the 7-page article about the S1 in Milepost's back issue of 1992. It seems that the wheel slip problem, probably mostly occurred at high speed, wasn't solved. There were so many wheels and drivers needed to be replaced during her short service life. I can see the author also noted that the S1 was *probably built exclusively for the World Fair, (the whole construction progress was unnaturally kept as a secret) but he couldn't find any solid evidence to back up this point.
The idea of the duplex, a by-product of the competition between the New York Central and PRR, was one of the most expensive, overbudget drama in NA's railroading history. If Pennsy low key constructed a 4-8-4s base on the N&W Class J or their own M1s or K5, Pennsy would have had won hands down.
Overmod...Baldwin, seeing its own future more than a little closely aligned with that of Steins et al., decides to implement its own 'hush-hush' design effort to end-run around the Steins patents ... the result of which comedy was (as no one I suspect will be surprised to learn) the C&O M-1 turbines. (In case you were wondering why there were three, and so little testing was done to debug the first one...) This essentially threw down the gauntlet to PRR Motive Power in a way that makes it potentially easier to see why no further direct-turbine work was undertaken at that critical time that turbine steam power was the wave of the future... and the compound-expansion answer to the whole double-maintenance problem of the duplexes at a stroke...
I really don't understand the transaction between C&O and Baldwin for the M-1 turbine electric, I can understand why Baldwin rushed the fubar M-1 before PRR's "Triplex" can be built, but for C&O's management led by Robert Ralph Young, it was probably one of the most reckless decisions ever made by the leader of a class I railroad in the western hemisphere. I won't be surprised if all three of them were actually gifted to (or 70% off) C&O but I am just assuming and do not want any people getting offended.
When we read about the history of many class I railroads which survived the decline, they seldom or never introduce any experimental steam engine during the transitional era, that was a tough time for the whole industry, steam and diesel engine development were struggling (except EMD), traffic is declining, trackage and engine worn out, passenger had way more travel options than before, risky investment was not a normal option, but somehow, the fubar M-1 was born in this era.
Jones1945I wonder how much money would have saved if PRR chose the N&W Class J instead of the duplexes. It can be calculated since the total cost of all of the duplex engines was recorded. The Js could have been the successor of both K4s and M1s, the best dual-service steam engine ever made ... Too perfect for *me!
But you are forgetting the most important lesson imparted by the high-speed testing: the class J just didn't fit enough of the PRR. Boiler was too big, for example, to run anywhere near Chicago.
Likewise you couldn't start with a Q2 boiler less one course; that was at clearance limit with only 69" ... not even 70" ... drivers.
So a putative PRR 4-8-4 would likely be more like a Niagara's running gear with a slightly downsized big Belpaire boiler that would 'just fit'. We can't use the T1 trailing truck as it's only sized for the 92' grate and structure; if you want we can modify the Q1 casting design. While it doesn't help that Baldwin, not Alco, is the 'design partner' it does have to be said that the experience with Timken rods and bearings ... and with the #4 driver pair extended crankpins cracking on the PRR-controlled N&W ... would have produced the equivalent of NYC's 6000-hp driveline right through to the hollow piston rods, probably with centrifugally-cast pistons using the 1948 T1 valve improvement techniques.
Take the cab design off the 2-10-4 for a start; if you adjust it, do so based on crew needs rather than outside aesthetics. (But keep those semilune windows!)
You have the same issues for the smokebox and front as with the Niagara, avoiding the Frankenstein "outer door" arrangement but of course preserving the 'beauty treatment' generator and headlight swap... perhaps with the two-light vertical Pyle treatment as applied to one of the T1s (to me it looks pretty good). I leave it up to you whether it gets smoke deflectors, as I personally think a Niagara looks a bit like a mobile package boiler plant without them, and this is a comparable shape.
The drivers are the fun part. Remember that 72" is M1 country and a Fleet of Modernism 4-8-4 had better have more potential; remember also that 75" on a Niagara was throwing away money and even with Central's uber-restricted loading gage they couldn't get 79" (the NYC equivalent of 80") high wheels on it fast enough. The 77" of the Q1 would (based on documents like the review of the N&W J) be about the minimum Cover et al. would have tried; the good news here is that repurposed T1 driver centers wouldn't have worked because of the designed-in short stroke, so you have a clean slate picking high-wheel cast centers or even Web-Spoke if you swallowed ... I think Baldwin had a finger in that pie ... the Fla-Vor-Aid of that approach on the non-main wheels. There is a sweet spot at 76" (see the H class and the aborted Lima 4-8-6s) and I'd be sorely tempted to exploit it with lightweight gear ... BUT it would leave you just that little notch down on the NYC for perceived high speed, with little or no true incremental gain over the Niagara in any aspect of running gear (since Alco already optimized it a bit too far)
That [a double-turbine Q] would have been a fascinating major rebuild. Though I strongly believe that it wouldn't be an economic and flexible engine which could challenge the diesel F units, it would have been a very cute white-elephant. A Q2 size welded boiler, a chassis long enough for 4-10-4 or 4-10-6, V1-style turbines, alloy steel rods, 70+ inches drivers with the best balancing, roller bearings here and there, anti-slip control, an attractive semi streamlining.
As a side note: you need neither the high drivers nor the 'best balancing' on one of these turbines, as the drive is almost entirely balanced and there is of course no overbalance surge. There are a couple of ways, including a modification of the Langer balancer, to get around the quartered augment of the side rods used; as you probably know, the S2 originally had coupling rods only on the outer pairs, but very quickly acquired a full set, so we know more about the gear arrangement than history lets on, so we design from the start for full rod beams per side plus thin Timken bearings, run as close inboard as we can make them. That's really good enough for any practical PRR working speed, which was over 90mph for the 68" drivers on the S2, especially since much of the mass advantage from the duplex principle carries over to conjugating rods in a lateral direct-drive turbine layout.
You likely wouldn't use V1 style turbines (unless the V1 design was jiggered by Westinghouse to be usable in the transverse configuration, which at the least would require some interesting exhaust-plenum design). From what we know, those were axial-flow and fairly long, with lots of room at the LP end for good exhausting. What you would want to use instead would be something like a paired-turbine arrangement (symmetrical around the main pinion in the center) -- HP admission inboard, with relatively short and inflexible HP branch manifold that easily clears the spring rigging, and large outside plena and exhaust trunking. Since you have what are in essence four blade nests, they can individually be very small; of course they are in two sizes but most of the blading itself will be common.
Reverse in this design is NOT via a separate geared turbine, it would be via an interposed idler in the main gearbox and bath. Since this would not move other than 100% from forward to reverse, it is unlikely to require either 'sprung' construction or heavy shock-tolerant mounting; it will be as high up in the gear train as possible to reduce tooth and stress forces (which is fine because we care little about how fast the idler will have to spin). Important for a dual service engine: you have the same torque, responsive to the same throttle adjustment, in reverse as you do in forward; if you want to design the engine for bidirectionality (with, for example, FM-TV from the end of the Castor/Aphrodite project for vision off the tender) you certainly could. The main implication is for the trailing truck: it will need to be stable in guiding in both directions, which a normal Delta trailing truck really isn't. I leave this as a solution for the alert reader.
I am still obsessed with the 6-wheel truck design.
Don't be. Unless you have to -- and I suspect with the more 'efficient' firebox and chamber construction you will have to.
Just as a point: the six-wheel truck costs. In the first place, for construction and fabrication with additional mass and casting complexity. In the second place, with 150% additional tread and brake-rigging wear. You lose length, have increased swing, need better steering and weight-transfer accommodation at the rear, and all for what? the ability to blow through water faster and have to make more stops. The only real advantage is the weight-bearing capability ... and weight minimization is always a good idea on modern power, especially toward the rear; you can use every pound for better auxiliaries or better circulation.
The point here is that a good modern boiler will have some version of Snyder combustion-air preheaters, which are like coils of brake-air 'radiator' pipe in weight, and a full Cunningham circulator, which involves saturated-water manifolding nearly the length of the water legs with multiple ports and vanes into the waterspace. Consider this all (on a PRR 4-8-4 design) completely aft of the rear drivers for weight-distribution purposes.
If the 4-wheel trailing truck of the Q1 could be replaced by the 6-wheel truck, it would have had more space for a larger firebox or provided more room for a completely new firebox design without sacrifice the room of the cab.
Something I guarantee you will NOT need or want is a "larger firebox", at least larger in terms of grate area. That needs to be about 100 to 104' ... but... you have the thermodynamic gains from the air preheat and then the enhanced radiant-section circulation, each accounting in tests for about a 10% increase in boiler steam-generation efficiency and neither affecting much of the potential gain from the other. Add to this the practicality of operating with sliding-pressure firing while maintaining full superheat to the turbines and you wind up with little need to go to enormous, heavy, water-filled structure or increase the actual radiant uptake surface dramatically to try to take advantage of the higher grate limit from a larger box. Fuel costs; if the additional fuel is used to boil 'more' water, the water costs; delivery of both to an engine in service is the chief rock that sank big advanced turbine steam on PRR in the first place.
But that means my fantasy white elephant would have been as gigantic as the S1 (Cool!).
Cool, yes. Necessary, no. You will note that none of the Lima six-wheel-trailer proposals had need of equally long structure at the smokebox end; in fact, the more advanced ones were only 2-8-6s (in part to gain back the length and reduced siding capacity imposed by the six-wheel rear truck). Since the firebox improvements are mostly spring-borne by the trailer arrangements and only secondarily equalized with the drivers, there are no implications other than some inertial-accommodation issues with having relatively little weight forward of the third driver pair compared to the rear, even at high speed.
Now PRR for reasons of its own will insist on a pin-guided leading truck. In my opinion what you'd get on a converted Q1 (which of course no longer has its cylinders to require low truck sideframes or outboard clearance) would be an adapted T1 outside-frame engine truck. If you wanted to have some fun here, I suspect you could easily hang one of the air compressors per side neatly in the space where the front engine cylinders had been, giving you all the accessibility needed and involving only slight adjustment to the brake piping. Then if you wanted to see if an ACFI heater arrangement works better than, say, Worthington you have room for it on the pilot beam.
Even in a fantasy world, you have to remember the implications of basic physics and the assumption (in part driven by your stockholders) to get the greatest revenue (long-term, too) from a given capital investment. That means picking the least cost per reliable horsepower, and efficient operation over the range of loads and speeds that your railroad's profile and anticipated trainload characteristics impose.
The good news is that a PRR 4-8-4 or 4-8-6, turbine or otherwise, is unlikely to be more than a M&E 'dual service' engine; it specifically can be designed to spend a high percentage of its service life at or close to design speed with an appropriate load behind it -- the same criterion that made the Niagaras so famous and so able to run up high reliable mileage. Now, if we utilize some of Voyce Glaze's balancing conventions in a relatively high-wheel 4-8-4 we begin to have an engine PRR had little practical need for ... but was beginning to look at definite applications for. By the mid-Fifties this would have been right in the sweet spot for passenger-trucked TrucTrain consists ... run 'em as fast as the trailers will take. This in the same timeframe the Nickel Plate could make Berks pay with conventional interchange car trains. Makes you think, doesn't it?
With the help of our forumer Reed, I have the chance to read the 7-page article about the S1 in Milepost's back issue of 1992. It seems that the wheel slip problem, probably mostly occurred at high speed, wasn't solved. There were so many wheels and drivers needed to be replaced during her short service life.
Now this is important: did he say "drivers" or "driver tires"? And note that the enormous inertia of the locomotive, and the long distance from the truck pivot to the leading driver flanges, didn't make it easy for slip forces to be accommodated when (not if) they developed.
Are there answers? Yes, and many of the ones developed for the T1 are applicable on an S1. Even if we treat the 84" drivers in Golsdorf fashion and make no expectations of speed above the 110mph of the speed recorder, we need nothing more than proportional steam throttling off the Q2 analog-computer mechanism and lateral-acting rim brakes to solve the issue definitively. Just that there's no point in optimizing a 140' engine that weighs as much as a Big Boy to pull just one money-losing train.
I can see the author also noted that the S1 was *probably built exclusively for the World Fair, (the whole construction progress was unnaturally kept as a secret) but he couldn't find any solid evidence to back up this point.
The best evidence, to me, is that all the major locomotive builders conspired in the construction process. That means the engine was intended as a kind of Four Aces on steroids, a proof of the duplex 'concept' that was over the top in the same way many show cars with over-1000-horsepower quad-turbo engines are. It just happened that PRR wanted such an engine, and nobody else did. So they got the demo built to their particular wishes.
The idea of the duplex, a by-product of the competition between the New York Central and PRR ...
That is almost certainly not what it came out of. You will note that little B&O started building theirs not long after the idea was first floated, and NYC based most of theirs on PRR's second-generation design ... only to abort the whole idea before any metal was even cut or cast to make one.
Think of the duplex as the last gasp of '20s-style design, aimed at increasing practical horsepower and capacity through multiple cylinders while reducing old-school augment force on the track, and keeping all the cylinders and presumably their valve gear nicely outboard and familiar to maintenance forces. For 1933 it was a marvelous innovation; the point was that better ways to achieve high horsepower out of a 4-8-4 were only just being practically tested out -- with one glaring failure still almost a half-decade in the future.
The biggest thing PRR did with duplexes, in my opinion, was how to get four rear-facing cylinders accommodated with minimal impact on the rigid wheelbase. In a cast engine bed. The solution on the Q2, and it was a very conscious and experienced solution, was so good that its rigid wheelbase, for almost 8000hp at high speed, is actually less than an ATSF 5011-class 2-10-4 of markedly lower capacity. But, of course, unless you have an actual need (and commensurate bottom-line return on investment) for that kind of power, you're better off providing yourself with...
Pennsy low key constructed 4-8-4s based ... on their own M1s or K5...
Would have been nice to ream out important gage restrictions on suitable main lines to make larger engines possible. In particular had the stack revolution started at the end of WWII instead of waiting until the '70s, the additional clearance could have made a high-wheel class J a practical thing. Of course it would be impossibly top-heavy and head for the ditch every chance it could take, but that's another story...
It is interesting to consider what an improved Mountain could have offered PRR -- or more precisely what you'd get by putting a modern welded boiler together with Snyders and Cunningham on an M1a with a lower back-pressure front end. Remember the extra axle for carrying? Now you have a locomotive with appropriate cylinder capacity needing only the lightweight running gear to thrive ... and how many of them had PRR (over)bought by the Depression era?
And disc mains on 72" with the lightweight gear is all the improvement needed for balancing up well past 110mph...
Just no fun even thinking about streamlining one, let alone a fleet of them. Could be done, of course, but it's a waste of the weight, much like the Blue Goose shroud slated for ATSF 3765.
I really don't understand the transaction between C&O and Baldwin for the M-1 turbine electric...
It's really simple: Baldwin essentially lied through their teeth to get C&O to buy in to their project for a 6000hp single-unit turbine. Probably pointing over at the idea of N&W getting modified V1s, which is still one of those inexplicable road-not-taken stories of the mid-1940s.
Now, I'd thought (from reading the story on the Chessie in Trains) that one of the ideas behind that train was that it would be a rolling palace, something like 32 cars long assembled outside its origin station and disassembled and multiple-switched into adjacent tracks on arrival. A train that size going over C&O's grades needs a steam-turbine electric of that size to avoid double-heading or worse, even if we ignore all the slipping and other limitations of 2-cylinder simple steam locomotives doing that job.
It turns out that the plans were scaled back (and nearly everyone could get C&O ordered cars for a good price up to a couple of years later!) and of course nobody really needed a supertrain to Cincinnati (just ask B&O and N&W, who actually geared up for the potential competition in this period but to my knowledge didn't make anything much out of it) so it wound up being the capacity to take a train quicker over the mountains that could then be handled by, say, a 490-class streamlined Hudson on the flatter portions. And I really don't doubt that Baldwin told them the same lie they told N&W over the 'final solution' TE-1 design: that it was capable of high horsepower at 65mph or better.
Which of course it wasn't -- neither of them was. The turbine is relatively fixed-horsepower as designed, if it has to exhaust to atmosphere; even if it weren't, the output is pegged by generator capability. And by traction-motor limitations. Even in the absence of conductive and abrasive coal dust and liberal amounts of moisture and high sulfur in some of the coal... and so on.
A full-welded boiler, already becoming a trade possibility as the M-1s were being assembled, might have helped the design. But little in the driveline was going to 'thrive', and practical alternatives would have involved technology that really didn't mature until this century.
I'd like to have seen a destreamlined version of the M-1 run, though. That would be cool.
... for C&O's management led by Robert Ralph Young, it was probably one of the most reckless decisions ever made by the leader of a class I railroad in the western hemisphere.
I don't know if the Leader class then a-buildin' in Blighty technically counts as being in the Western Hemisphere (it would of course be very close even if not) but that makes an M-1 look like a gold-edged bond by comparison. And this was FAR from the wackiest thing the little weasel inflicted on C&O, or NYC for that matter -- by the way, you have him more or less directly to blame for why there are no preserved Hudsons or Niagaras. Just so you and Vince know.
I won't be surprised if all three of them were actually gifted to (or 70% off) C&O but I am just assuming and do not want any people getting offended.
You know, I never even thought about that angle.
My guess is Baldwin got full price both for 'development' and construction, as C&O was a cash-rich 'sucker' with only incidental exposure to more than conservative motive-power development up to that era. More interesting is that even an 'improved' J-3 type Greenbrier wouldn't have been capable of the turbine's anticipated performance; it's difficult to imagine any eight-coupled doing the work or any ten- or twelve-coupled making the time.
What I find reprehensible is how quickly Baldwin left C&O twisting in the breeze after all the showstopping problems turned up. But by then the diesel revolution and the free-piston extravaganza were in full swing there, and the finances going swiftly to hell.
When we read about the history of many class I railroads which survived the decline, they seldom or never introduce any experimental steam engine during the transitional era...
Oh, there were many; they were just stillborn and then their records were lost or disposed of. You'd have seen quite a bit more interesting steam in the late '40s and perhaps into the early '50s had GM not bought EMC and Winton in the early Thirties and then turned those talented people loose on commercializing large road power. I for one would have liked to see exactly what LV planned to do with a Q2-style duplex in a world where Alco and Baldwin weren't spurred to diesel production and Lima wasn't castrated in a merger-of-convenience.
Overmod-- " by the way, you have him more or less directly to blame for why there are no preserved Hudsons or Niagaras. Just so you and Vince know."
Well thank you for that. Have read much the same previously but no details. He certainly was an innovative and forward looking character but a victim of the times and his own addle minded visions. Did not survive the stock spiralling downward of the New York Central.
As the adage goes " there but the grace of God go I".
Interesting to speculate and arm chair quarterback motive power and make the necessary adjustments. A more cautious approach would not have stopped much and 1960 was just around the corner.
Way way too much to say about that. It's in my book!
Thanks a lot, Overmod and Vince! I am busy handling some people's emergency situation right now (no worries, we are ok) I will write a response to you guys later!
Overmod Just as a heads-up: At the beginning of this thread, back in 2018, Peter Clark was going to look up PRR S1 6100 in Reuter's Rekord-Lokomotiven. I don't remember what the actual result of that check was. Perhaps if Mr. Clark is away from the references, or if someone else wants to comment on this, here is the amazon.com listing for the book. (There are of course other sources; it's not a 'rare book' yet.)
Overmod,
Could you indicate what aspect of the S1 you wanted information about from Reuter's book? I'll be back home some time next week.
I can recall pulling the book out and checkng it last year, but I may not have answered your request.
I've been showing another Trains forum member around much of New South Wales, if that is an excuse...
M636CCould you indicate what aspect of the S1 you wanted information about from Reuter's book?
This was really more of a 'bump' than an actual request for something. Anything that 'jumped out at you' as being valuable, say to Jones1945 who loves this particular locomotive, would probably be useful.
One "emergent" thing I'd like to see on 6100, although it almost certainly isn't in Rekord-Lokomotiven, is the set of acceleration curves taken with that reported 73-car freight train. Particularly in the region above about 35mph (where the T1 was reported to 'come on the cam', as it were...) There ought to be a 'sweet spot' in between low-speed and high-speed slipping where the engines can develop high torque with relatively little instability, and if the engine were worked strictly in this region it might have realized some of the expected potential.
I only wish I could be there too.
Dear Overmod and Peter, I have Reuter's book, but I can only giving short replies right now. Once everything settles down on my side, I will write a thorough reply to you guys. Thanks a lot!
"I wish you would have somebody get to work designing a fast passenger engine of even greater capacity than now established.
You will observe that the New York Central is advertising that their new engine is capable of making 100 miles per hour.
Keep me posted on the progress of the work.
J.F Deasy
May 22, 1936 "
Overmod But you are forgetting the most important lesson imparted by the high-speed testing: the class J just didn't fit enough of the PRR. Boiler was too big, for example, to run anywhere near Chicago. Likewise you couldn't start with a Q2 boiler less one course; that was at clearance limit with only 69" ... not even 70" ... drivers.
Sorry for the late reply, what a week! I really have forgotten the clearance restrictions in PRR's network, Mr. Overmod! Even the M1s were not allowed to operate on part of PRR's network. When Pennsy was designing the new prime steam power to rival the newly design NYCRR 100mph engine, later the S1, clearance was an important factor and Pennsy did pay a lot of attention to it. Turn out it is still exaggeratedly long and heavy. I think we discussed before of a 4-8-4 base on the K5 and M1b, it was fun!
Overmod With the help of our forumer Reed, I have the chance to read the 7-page article about the S1 in Milepost's back issue of 1992. It seems that the wheel slip problem, probably mostly occurred at high speed, wasn't solved. There were so many wheels and drivers needed to be replaced during her short service life. Are there answers? Yes, and many of the ones developed for the T1 are applicable on an S1. Even if we treat the 84" drivers in Golsdorf fashion and make no expectations of speed above the 110mph of the speed recorder, we need nothing more than proportional steam throttling off the Q2 analog-computer mechanism and lateral-acting rim brakes to solve the issue definitively. Just that there's no point in optimizing a 140' engine that weighs as much as a Big Boy to pull just one money-losing train.
The Author, Charlie Mayer said that after the S1 racked up 161,000 miles, Pennsy "dropped at least 18 pairs of driving wheels, removed trailer wheels 8 times and engine truck wheels 4 times (within 4 years). " I suspect that the heavy loading on all axles with a bad weight distribution of the rigid frame of S1 caused both driving wheels and tires worn out or broken within a short period of time. It is hard to believe that an engine designed by the three largest steam engine manufacturer of America made an engine that "impracticable".In hindsight, the PRR #5399 was the best answer to J. F. Deasy!
The Author also mentioned that a railfan named David A. Hill observed front engine slipping in 1944 and wrote a letter to Pennsy. His theory was that the center of gravity of S1 was higher than the drawbar line caused the engine "to rear up on its hind legs", David suggested increasing the relative weight of the front engine. Pennsy's ME replied to him patiently explaining why the problems were not easy to be solved. I wonder if this was the reason why Pennsy enlarged the sandbox on the S1 which was the only thing they could do to increase a little bit of weight on the front engine. I am looking forward to a 3D computer model of S1 which could simulate and demonstrate how slippy she was!
Overmod I can see the author also noted that the S1 was *probably built exclusively for the World Fair, (the whole construction progress was unnaturally kept as a secret) but he couldn't find any solid evidence to back up this point. The best evidence, to me, is that all the major locomotive builders conspired in the construction process. That means the engine was intended as a kind of Four Aces on steroids, a proof of the duplex 'concept' that was over the top in the same way many show cars with over-1000-horsepower quad-turbo engines are. It just happened that PRR wanted such an engine, and nobody else did. So they got the demo built to their particular wishes.
I love the metaphor of Four Aces on steroids. It was so obvious that S1 was built for the global event, the 1939-40 World Fair. Oversized, overpowered, over-modded. According to the Milepost magazine, one of the things Pennsy concerned a lot when designing the S1 was the clearance of the new engine which makes me believe that Pennsy and the related department of the World Fair wanted to build a steam engine which could wow the public but also could have been operating in PRR's network instead of a completely useless white-elephant.
OvermodThe idea of the duplex, a by-product of the competition between the New York Central and PRR ... That is almost certainly not what it came out of. You will note that little B&O started building theirs not long after the idea was first floated, and NYC based most of theirs on PRR's second-generation design ... only to abort the whole idea before any metal was even cut or cast to make one. The biggest thing PRR did with duplexes, in my opinion, was how to get four rear-facing cylinders accommodated with minimal impact on the rigid wheelbase. In a cast engine bed. The solution on the Q2, and it was a very conscious and experienced solution, was so good that its rigid wheelbase, for almost 8000hp at high speed, is actually less than an ATSF 5011-class 2-10-4 of markedly lower capacity. But, of course, unless you have an actual need (and commensurate bottom-line return on investment) for that kind of power, you're better off providing yourself with...
Another careless mistake of me. I should have said "the idea of S1 and T1". It would be interesting to see a chart comparing the operating cost of PRR Q2 and ATSF 5011, their TE was close but the Q2 had almost an extra 3000hp more power output than the 5011 class. In actual operation after WWII, the PRR Q2 probably seldom needed to be pushing to their limits. But I don't have the figures.
Speaking of B&O's N-1, I read somewhere that one problem of it was the extra heat of the firebox affected the lubricant in the rear cylinders. I am not sure if it was the case and if the lubricant was affected, did Pennsy find the solution four years later when they were designing the Q1.
OvermodI'd like to have seen a destreamlined version of the M-1 run, though. That would be cool.
OvermodI don't know if the Leader class then a-buildin' in Blighty technically counts as being in the Western Hemisphere (it would, of course, be very close even if not) but that makes an M-1 look like a gold-edged bond by comparison. And this was FAR from the wackiest thing the little weasel inflicted on C&O, or NYC for that matter -- by the way, you have him more or less directly to blame for why there are no preserved Hudsons or Niagaras. Just so you and Vince know.
OvermodWhat I find reprehensible is how quickly Baldwin left C&O twisting in the breeze after all the showstopping problems turned up. But by then the diesel revolution and the free-piston extravaganza were in full swing there, and the finances going swiftly to hell.
OvermodOh, there were many; they were just stillborn and then their records were lost or disposed of.
Overmod M636C Could you indicate what aspect of the S1 you wanted information about from Reuter's book? This was really more of a 'bump' than an actual request for something. Anything that 'jumped out at you' as being valuable, say to Jones1945 who loves this particular locomotive, would probably be useful. One "emergent" thing I'd like to see on 6100, although it almost certainly isn't in Rekord-Lokomotiven, is the set of acceleration curves taken with that reported 73-car freight train. Particularly in the region above about 35mph (where the T1 was reported to 'come on the cam', as it were...) There ought to be a 'sweet spot' in between low-speed and high-speed slipping where the engines can develop high torque with relatively little instability, and if the engine were worked strictly in this region it might have realized some of the expected potentials. I've been showing another Trains forum member around much of New South Wales, if that is an excuse... I only wish I could be there too.
M636C Could you indicate what aspect of the S1 you wanted information about from Reuter's book?
One "emergent" thing I'd like to see on 6100, although it almost certainly isn't in Rekord-Lokomotiven, is the set of acceleration curves taken with that reported 73-car freight train. Particularly in the region above about 35mph (where the T1 was reported to 'come on the cam', as it were...) There ought to be a 'sweet spot' in between low-speed and high-speed slipping where the engines can develop high torque with relatively little instability, and if the engine were worked strictly in this region it might have realized some of the expected potentials.
I forget to mention about Reuter's book. The author says a speed record of S1 was made in March 1946 when the S1 was hauling a Trail Blazer trying to make up time. The S1 hit 141.2 mph in this run according to an ICC official's estimation. I think we heard about this story or myth too many times.
I couldn't find too many "new" material about S1 in the book. Many passages are about PRR's brief history, the idea and the development of the duplex steam engine, B&O's N-1; the design, construction, operating history of S1 and its capabilities, the specification of S1, comparison of the BR 05 to S1 from a German's point of view, T1 phototypes and Q2's brief history...etc,.
The only interesting thing I found in this book is that the indizierte leistung of the S1 was ca.5890kW (8000 PS), which I don't know where and how the figure was obtained by the author. According to the formula used by ALCo, the power output of S1 was around 7200hp. I posted a pic before, showing how accurate the formula is.
I think Reuter got his information from Arnold Haas -- probably thinking Haas was as 'expert' on PRR as he was on NYC. The 141.2 is obviously a translation from metric (as you can quickly determine based first on the 110mph speedometer, and second on the timing precision you'd need to discriminate tenths of a mph with any stopwatch from mileposts at that speed ... one of those things that trips up a good story, like T1s with 120mph speedometers just like cars.
"Indizierte leistung" is just the German translation of ihp, the horsepower that a device called an 'indicator' calculates from characteristics of the valve gear. (You can get a good idea what the device looks like, and how it works, from the Internet better than I could describe it)
The point here is that ihp, while a good theoretical number, is usually exaggerated over directly-measured wheelrim or dbhp. Angus Sinclair had some amusing comments back in the day on how locomotives with perfect indicator diagrams sometimes failed to perform better than those with diagrams resembling 'a small leg of mutton'...
Overmod "Indizierte leistung" is just the German translation of ihp, the horsepower that a device called an 'indicator' calculates from characteristics of the valve gear. (You can get a good idea what the device looks like, and how it works, from the Internet better than I could describe it) The point here is that ihp, while a good theoretical number, is usually exaggerated over directly-measured wheelrim or dbhp. Angus Sinclair had some amusing comments back in the day on how locomotives with perfect indicator diagrams sometimes failed to perform better than those with diagrams resembling 'a small leg of mutton'...
Exactly where did you study engineering?
An indicator is far from theoretical.
The indicators I was taught to use were small cylinders which rotated against a spring using small cables connected to the piston rod at the crosshead end. The stylus operated vertically against spring pressure measuring the pressure in the cylinder.
So the diagram was far from theoretical, being based on actual piston travel against actual pressure in the cylinder. However, there was plenty of room for errors of various kinds in producing a diagram, particularly on a moving locomotive.
But experimental error does not make a measurement theoretical. It is just harder to draw the correct conclusions from the data.
The best examples of indicator diagrams which clearly show the power output are Chapelon's diagrams showing high and low pressure for the P-O Pacifics before and after his modifications. The high pressure diagrams were similar, but the low pressure were entirely different.
The power is measured by calculating the area inside the indicator diagram, so the "thin" and "flat" diagrams represented low power.
The main difference between indicated and drawbar horsepower is the internal resistance of the engine itself and the power required to move its own weight. But it is an actual measure of engine power, just not the same as drawbar horsepower.
Crosby Indicator on 600 HP Snow Pipeline Compressor Engine
The indicator: 08:40
The Story of the Steam Engine Indicator
https://www.farmcollector.com/steam-traction/story-steam-engine-indicator
M636CAn indicator is far from theoretical.
It does not measure mass flow, only secondary characteristics. If steam were more like an ideal gas, this might be less significant, but it is not.
That said, I'd certainly rather have a set of cards from a well-calibrated indicator than not.
Overmod M636C An indicator is far from theoretical. It does not measure mass flow, only secondary characteristics. If steam were more like an ideal gas, this might be less significant, but it is not. That said, I'd certainly rather have a set of cards from a well-calibrated indicator than not.
M636C An indicator is far from theoretical.
I am happy to agree that the indicator does not provide every parameter desirable for evaluation, but it does measure real locomotive characteristics and pressure against piston stroke is pretty useful.
The indicator diagrams of Paris Orleans 3566 show pretty clearly the effect of Chapelon's modifications when comparisons are made between the before and after diagrams. The differences in the indicator diagrams were reflected in tests of the locomotive's performance on the main line. While additional data might have shown more clearly which characteristics were influenced by which changes, The P-O were able to determine this by making changes to critical parts of the steam circuit without the costly poppet valves on other locomotives which showed less heroic performance improvements.
The indicator was able to measure critical parameters and provided the best information available at the time (the late 1920s). And it was always true experimental data.
M636CThe indicator was able to measure critical parameters and provided the best information available at the time (the late 1920s). And it was always true experimental data.
You will never hear me saying either that indicated data are worthless or that running a properly-calibrated indicator as an integral part of a test program shouldn't be done.
There is a bit of a fundamental issue here, in that a steam engine is less a "heat engine" than a pressure engine, but we call it that because heat energy is what makes the pressure that actually performs the work. The difficulties start when people start making decisions about Rankine efficiency and heat balance based on pressure data, without doing the necessary thinking. (This is part of why thermodynamics went to 'entropy', which has caused so many generations of students to tear their hair wondering "WHY???" without ever having it explained to them).
If you wonder, for example, what became of the French experiments with ether bottoming circa 1850... not all pressure represents the ability to do much work. In my opinion it becomes difficult to understand what a pressure measurement denotes when you are studying compression in an engine running at 9rps or higher, as the peak measurement (while of considerable importance!) is taken in such a short time interval that other effects may interfere. [Yes, I think that this or something similar is related to what I consider the grossly-excessive dead space in the PRR Q2s and some other designs - so far as there is in fact a rational basis for it.]
I have a suspicion, without yet seeing the reference, that the 'steam flow indicator' is not actually related to event indicators at all; could it be part of the drifting arrangements on that locomotive? I will check and confirm later.
Some concept drawings by Raymond Loewy I found recently:
Click on the pic to enlarge
The draft on the bottom was probably the concept of "modern" 4-4-4-4 Camelback.
Draft on the bottom likely related to the direct-drive turbine, with coal bunker leading. It is interesting to me that he does not bring up the 'Triplex' layout at all here.
Amusing how he points out the difference in 'covering up' the two things. We could easily extrapolate this to 1947, the year we got the C&O streamlining ... and Bikini testing...
Gotta love the svelte Gallic curve of that question mark!
Overmod Draft on the bottom likely related to the direct-drive turbine, with coal bunker leading. It is interesting to me that he does not bring up the 'Triplex' layout at all here. Amusing how he points out the difference in 'covering up' the two things. We could easily extrapolate this to 1947, the year we got the C&O streamlining ... and Bikini testing... Gotta love the svelte Gallic curve of that question mark!
Working with Loewy's team in the 1930s must be a fun thing, but even the most talented industrial designer at the time couldn't foresee things like racing swimsuits aka competitive swimwear. (at least not in the drawing posted) Though I can understand that nude beach probably was a better fit to Loewy's lifestyle (No offense intended!) and that is a wonderful, slender question mark.
The draft of the direct-drive turbine looked so much better than the finalized proposal given to the Pennsy and the C&O M-1. It is interesting to see that so much effort was put by Loewy to cover up his secret weapon... I mean his "Triplex".
Some patent drawings of the proposed PRR Unit Train designed by Raymond Loewy:
Background history of the PRR Unit Train (From PRR Chronology):
Jan. 1935
PRR establishes the "Unit Train Committee" of representatives from Pullman, Loewy, GE, Westinghouse, and Gibbs & Hill to consider developing lightweight articulated streamliners for New York-Chicago (13 cars) and New York-Washington (14 cars) routes similar to those being adopted on western railroads. (possibly very late Dec. 1934) (CMP)
Mar. 4, 1935
VP C.D. Young for PRR engages exclusive railroad services of industrial designer Raymond Loewy for $20,000 per year plus expenses; Loewy is to design for no other railroad or railroad equipment manufacturers without PRR's consent and PRR is to have use of all Loewy's railroad designs; PRR not to employ another designer; Loewy's first big assignments are to streamline a K4s and work on the New York-Chicago Unit Train. (SMPE)
June 1935
Unit Train Committee also explores possibility of converting surplus P70's into high-speed (90 MPH) MU cars to be operated in combinations of 2- or 3-unit articulated sets; eventually rejected as requiring expensive modifications; also consider high-speed MP54's for use between New York and Trenton and Baltimore and Washington; Raymond Loewy does styling for both proposals. (CMP)
==============
Jan. 7, 1936
Unit Train Committee makes report with design of a 14-car articulated train of aluminum construction capable of operating between New York and Washington in 3 hours; estimated cost $715,000 each for 2 units; special locomotive similar to City of Denver (of Union Pacific) is replaced by GG1; plans are displayed in Philadelphia for private viewing by selected industrialists and civic leaders. (VPO)
Mar. 29, 1936
Unit Train Committee reports on alternative scheme for 14-car Congressional of modernized heavyweight equipment; cost put at $717,000 for 2 trains vs. $1.43 million for 2 unit trains; leads to Loewy commission for modernized P70s; better flexibility in high-density corridors with wildly fluctuating demand. (CMP)
Oct. 26, 1936
Unit Train Committee presents plan for new deluxe New York-Chicago coach train consisting of 6 rebuilt P70's, baggage and dining cars. (CMP)
Nov. 17, 1936
Unit Train Committee reports on proposal for a fast coach train between New York and Chicago to cost $228,800; will require rebuilding 12 coaches, 2 baggage cars and 2 diners for 2 trainsets; to be similar to Union Pacific's Challenger and operate as advance section of Golden Arrow on 17:40 schedule; to use Scheme 3 rebuilt P70's with 360 seats, with one car reserved for women and children and to carry stewardess and porter; should be placed in service as soon as possible; plan results in the Trail Blazer of 1939. (CMP)
Dec. 17, 1936
Unit Train Committee reports on 90 MPH truck tests between Fort Wayne and Valparaiso; also tests lightweight and rebuilt heavyweight cars from Milwaukee, Union Pacific, Santa Fe; tests continue into early 1938. (CMP)
Mar. 27, 1937
Motive Power Dept. committee submits report on modernizing The Congressional in place of the Unit Train of 1936; calls for a 14-car train of modernized heavyweight equipment, which can be reduced to 11 cars in periods of light traffic; total cost $717,200; includes two diners and cafe-coach. (CMP)
Aug. 3, 1937
Raymond Lowey and Warren R. Elsey of PRR patent the design for the streamlined electric locomotive and observation car from the never-tobe-built Unit Train. (CMP)
Nov. 23, 1937
Memo to Chief of Motive Power F.W. Hankins notes that Raymond Loewy is developing a new exterior color scheme for both lightweight Pullmans and Budd diners; becomes distinctive two-tone red "Fleet of Modernism" scheme with Futura sans-serif lettering first used in 1938. (CMP)
The "Unit Train Committee" dissolved in 1937, after the much more practical and economical new brand "Fleet of Modernism" that consisted of about 400 new and rebuilt cars was established.
Raymond Loewy signed a contract with PRR since 1935, presuming Loewy worked with PRR until 1948 and his salary increased by 15% each year on average, PRR spent around $410,000 (equal to $7,357,537 in 2019) on Loewy, excluding expenses. Somewhat reasonable price compared to a golden handshake of multinational corporations' CEO nowadays, though Loewy kept working after he ended his business relationship with the PRR. Was money well spent? I think there was plenty of room to maximize the influence of Loewy's works. Like the "battle" between PRR, NYC, and B&O in the New York to Washington D.C., Chicago passenger trains market; besides a new livery and streamlining or the cars, Pennsy could have done more to change the overwhelming domination by New York Central. The F.O.M brand; the fleet needed more than one streamlined K4s to lead them west of Harrisburg. The fleet of GG1 was streamlined, good looking and popular, but they were not exclusively built for a named train and somewhat not as distinctive as the Dreyfuss Hudson or steam engine like the Daylight GS series. The Broadway Limited needed not only more windows on the dining car but also more gimmicks and talking points of the train's service and hardware.
The design of the patented Unit Train itself is not that impressive, to be honest, it might look great in real life, but I think Loewy could have done better than those drawings. Yes, he did a magnificent job on S1 6-4-4-6 and T1 4-4-4-4 after the Unit Train project. They were unforgettable and symbolic, but unfortunately, the S1 engine itself was a "concept car" showpiece instead of something practical and built ready for smooth daily operation. The fleet of "passenger shark" had the potential to be a perfect full stop of Loewy's business with PRR, but once again, the fleet was problematic...
https://digital.hagley.org
Some new historical photos of the construction of PRR 6110, 6111 uploaded to rrmuseumpa.org:
The poppet valve gear cambox?
All the pipes were stuffed under the streamlining side skirt. Can you see the "unaccessible cambox" in this pic? I can't... : )
PRR 6111 was the only T1 installed with a booster engine on the trailing truck.
PRR 6110 and 6111 had a longer service life than the production T1s.
Thank you.
Yes, that's the forward-engine cambox. See the two 'shafts' to either side, with sufficient diameter that torsion won't affect their angular precision? Those go to the actual cams, with followers that move the valves. On this engine there are four of them, one for each valve position (exhaust outside, inlet inside, as you see in the cylinder-block pictures) and they rock (OC) rather than rotating as you might think.
You know, I think you might actually see the corner of the 'upright' rear-engine cambox in there. I'll have to look at the drawings when I can to confirm it would be visible from that position.
These are among the first pictures I remember seeing on the Web that show the layout of the actual cam housings and associated lubrication without the cylinder casing applied.
I now understand a bit better why more of these locomotives didn't have boosters, even though (in my opinion) they needed that sort of assistance badly...
Overmod Yes, that's the forward-engine cambox. See the two 'shafts' to either side, with sufficient diameter that torsion won't affect their angular precision? Those go to the actual cams, with followers that move the valves. On this engine there are four of them, one for each valve position (exhaust outside, inlet inside, as you see in the cylinder-block pictures) and they rock (OC) rather than rotating as you might think. You know, I think you might actually see the corner of the 'upright' rear-engine cambox in there. I'll have to look at the drawings when I can to confirm it would be visible from that position. These are among the first pictures I remember seeing on the Web that show the layout of the actual cam housings and associated lubrication without the cylinder casing applied. I now understand a bit better why more of these locomotives didn't have boosters, even though (in my opinion) they needed that sort of assistance badly...
I remember the prototype T1 once stuck before leaving the station and require a helper to push it, and the booster on 6111 was removed later due to the unloading problem caused by the long equalizing beam between two engines. Baldwin wanted to sell the duplex to other railroads like Atlantic Coast Line, if PRR's T1 had a very smooth operation track record, they might have found some buyers besides the PRR (And NYC/C1a). When I was looking at these pics, I feel like looking at a very successful steam engine installed with all the state of the art goodies...... the rest is history. :P
I found this recently: from C&O Historical Magazine May 2006 (Available for download for free). Somebody has enough time can make an animation base on this one.
Link: https://cf.cohs.org/repository/archives/web/cohm/cohm-2006-05.pdf
Please put up the exact URL you used to get these, as it's been impossible to reach the old C&O Magazine issues Dave Stephenson used to reference for a few years. (The 'actual' accounts of the T1 testing on C&O are also available there, which should interest and enlighten those who read them).
This is the first time I've heard that the reason for the 'booster delete' was associated with the equalization-conjugation beam. The odd thing about that as a reason is, of course, that the beam was undesirable for further reasons, and was appropriately removed (and snubbing ties at the center of the driver wheelbase substituted) in all the production engines. So it would have been logical to at least consider limited application of some kind of boosting to the engines, particularly as the slipping problem began to appear critical.
That is, unless the cost would be 'good money after bad' ... or the slipping were somehow important to getting rid of the locomotives quicker rather than later...
Personally, I never quite agreed that Stauffer's comment about boosters on Niagaras -- that they needed a clinkety booster about as much as a Christmas tree sticking out of the stack -- quite applies to T1s, which were poster children for auxiliary locomotives for being short-stroke engines alone, never mind all the other low-speed uses an added low-slip driving axle equivalent ... or two, now that you mention it... might furnish.
Those drawings you have are probably for the RC Franklin as applied to the L-2 Hudsons, judging by the cam profiles. OC cams, as on most of the T1s (and I think 490 and her sisters had them on C&O) would be largely symmetrical relative to the followers. Note that the drawings show neither nested counterwound 'snubber' springs to return the valves, or any kind of progressive winding to control debounced unporting and seat or spool breakage simultaneously. That would indicate they're either 'oversimplified' for the press (cf. that 'Simplified for Clarity'), or purposely not drawn to show 'trade secrets' in design... that is, if we assume Franklin knew what they were doing, something that has been disproved repeatedly in the history of poppet-valve gear in America.
You know boys, I look at those construction photos of the T1 and all I can think of is...
"All that design genius, all that foundry work, all that machine shop artistry, all that sweat, patience, and probably a little blood, and then wrapped up in a Raymond Lowey gift-wrap, gone for scrap, like it all meant nothing. Nothing at all."
What a shame. Like trashing the "Mona Lisa" because her hair and dress are out of style.
Flintlock76"All that design genius, all that foundry work, all that machine shop artistry, all that sweat, patience, and probably a little blood, and then wrapped up in a Raymond Loewy gift-wrap, gone for scrap, like it all meant nothing. Nothing at all."
And if you think THIS was something ... look at the outlay (in pre-Bretton Woods dollars, no less!) PRR made on the S1. That was real money.
To an extent, though, these were the high-maintenance women of the railroad world. And, not to put too much of a point on the metaphor, these were ladies who had to work for a living with little proper attention, an increasingly poor diet, and the wrong sort of johns entirely. When they failed to produce, they were let go...
And, truth to tell, when you've had enough of the prima-donna or diva issues, and you've had a better offer from a sturdier or more down-to-earth gal, you might come to a point where enough's enough, and less drama for the 'hit' on your wallet might be better... when you come right down to it, PRR got much better use out of braces of E8s than they ever would out of T1s, for far longer, and well into the decline into dotage of the railroad itself. Can you imagine trying to run T1s in the late '60s ... let alone under Penn Central?
At least the harm is being redressed, in part, by the Trust. We'll see the effect of one again.
Well hey, they could have run a T1 or two in the steam-starved 60's and called it a ride, not transportation. I'll betcha that would have gotten some "butts in seats," as the airlines say!
But as John Lennon once said, "You can call me a dreamer, but I'm not the only one..."
Flintlock states " Like trashing the "Mona Lisa" because her hair and dress are out of style."
Now that's worthy of some kind of David P. Morgan award!
Of course Overmod is correct if looked at in that light. How about they stick with them, make it right and never spend the enourmous capital outlay plus interest on the E8's.
T1's on the PennCentral ... whooo boy, they wouldn't be able to keep them on the rails, maintenance would likely go to nil. The E8's looked like hell enough!
Flintlock76Well hey, they could have run a T1 or two in the steam-starved 60's and called it a ride, not transportation.
If the Reading stopped doing it with theirs, what would keep the PRR in the ramblin' biz?
While we're in shouda-woulda-coulda mode, what PRR might have done is what UP actually did: take one of their special first-line engines and, instead of relegating it to the dead collection in Northumberland, kept it alive as a special project and 'show of pride'.
Would have involved no more special equipment and planning than the T1 Trust feasibility plan already calls for. And when Penn Central came to be, you'd have a happy market for the fire-sale shuck that would probably have happened ... without some of the risk involved with a Dick Jensen-style fall through the cracks. Heaven knows provision of adequate spares could have been arranged for very little money!
(Regrettably for Jones, and me, and a few others: you see why you would NOT do this with the S1, right? ...)
Well, the Reading stopped doing it because the flue times had expired on the T1's so they just decided to call it a day, or so I've heard. Aside from that, I like your thinkin' about the PRR adopting a UP-style steam program, certainly do-able, and with very little effort.
Why they couldn't do it with the S1 is no mystery, it was good, but too damn big! Kind of reminds me of the old gag of the guy who builds a boat in his backyard and then can't get it out past the house! Which actually happened in one case I know of, to a certain Major (at the time) George S. Patton! Patton's son said his dad's profanity at the time was truly remarkable! He said it was also one of the few times he saw his mother collapse in hysterical laughter!
They still should have sent the S1 to Northumberland. Pity they didn't. Or a T1. They saved an example of darn near everything else.
Flintlock76They saved an example of darn near everything else.
Pointedly, no L5s. Which were a whole long part of PRR history.
Or L6s either. Even one of the completed carbodies could have been used.
Not even the R1. And only one P5, and that only because St. Louis stepped in. We won't go into Baldwins...
(At least we have Rivets... but why not 4801?)
Flintlock76 You know boys, I look at those construction photos of the T1 and all I can think of is... "All that design genius, all that foundry work, all that machine shop artistry, all that sweat, patience, and probably a little blood, and then wrapped up in a Raymond Lowey gift-wrap, gone for scrap, like it all meant nothing. Nothing at all." What a shame. Like trashing the "Mona Lisa" because her hair and dress are out of style.
Exactly. I wish there wasn't any serious industrial accident involved during the construction of S1 and T1s. But if there was any, I wish their names would be remembered when the 5550 will be built. Minor injuries are probably inevitable, knock knock on wood! All the effort and money spent was flushed or purged like the brown fish in the toilet...... though I can understand that many people who are not railfan or railfan who never liked the T1s never see them as "Mona Lisa" or something that they would cherish.
Overmod (Regrettably for Jones, and me, and a few others: you see why you would NOT do this with the S1, right? ...)
Yes. The book value of the S1 just before scrapping was $500,000. Scrap value was $14,291. I don't think there was any buyer who wants to buy an engine that couldn't run on their system, or to spend that amount of money to place it inside a department store or someone backyards. Pennsy could have donated the S1 or even the whole "Raymond Loewy steam engine collection" to colleges or museums, but there was a man in PRR who wanted to get rid of all of them so badly, the New VP of Operation, Jim Symes. He wanted the N&W Class J instead of the T1s before his promotion. He was probably right about the choice of engine type, though. I don't blame him since I have been working on helping our younger folks to bring the S1 back in 3D model form and scaled model form at an affordable price. Maybe someday there will be a S1 Trust in America or other countries, or other planets... and the Promised Land.
Miningman Flintlock states " Like trashing the "Mona Lisa" because her hair and dress are out of style." Now that's worthy of some kind of David P. Morgan award! Of course Overmod is correct if looked at in that light. How about they stick with them, make it right and never spend the enourmous capital outlay plus interest on the E8's. T1's on the PennCentral ... whooo boy, they wouldn't be able to keep them on the rails, maintenance would likely go to nil. The E8's looked like hell enough!
I am still interested in calculating the total amount of money that PRR spent on purchasing mainland passenger diesel engines from 1947 to 1967, the overall maintenance and operating cost of it, and compared it to the figures if PRR kept using the T1s and Q2 until the 1960s. I do believe that some Pennsy fans have done this before but I am distracted with many other things recently. Anyway, it was just less than 16 years between the T1s all sent for scrap and the end of PRR.
From: rrmuseumpa.org
Jones1945The book value of the S1 just before scrapping was $500,000. Scrap value was $14,291.
But look at the numbers for the aggregate amount PRR paid on the S1 project from inception through the great number of apparent 'change orders' Baldwin came up with. I think the total is well north of $3 million (!!!) which was amplified in both effect and opportunity cost substantially by the Depression.
If that money had to be 'kept on the books' while the asset was intact, it wouldn't be surprising to see the now-inevitable taking its course...
I think it's documented that Symes disliked the S1 because of its impact on regular operations, and that includes its tendency to go on the ground at the least provocation when hostling. That perception may be a Chris Baer artifact, but I suspect he's looked at the issue more than anyone else.
Note that much of the "HSR optimization" that would have been done from the 1920s through the 1940s would still be useful today if extant... and explicitly designed for speed or 'snapping' rather than decreasing freight grade or the need for 'helping'. That would likely be particularly true for Amtrak service from New York to 'the west' as, even by way of the Philadelphia area, there was no practical alternative other than the NYC, much longer. Combination of the Sam Rea line with electrification would only enhance this, even given the necessity of substantially and perhaps completely rebuilding that electrification for constant-tension to be of maximum worth.
The cutoff around the Philadelphia issues is likely as significant in improving timing as a great many miles of curve reduction via tunnelling. And for PRR this would become important with the rise of TrucTrain business even in the early Fifties...
Note the stylistic 'bullets we dodged' in not adopting the more highly 'styled' versions of the PRR duplex 4-4-4-4. We'd see that ribbed stainless nose love patch again on the Olympian Hi's Erie-builts ... but it worked there. (I do have to wonder whether Old Man Thunder was thinking of that other one when designing the nose of the first-generation Shin Kansen trainsets...)
Inspect that 'near' driver pair carefully, as it's an education in itself. The absolute minimum of stroke reduction on an engine this size, even considering the reduction of main-pin thrust from the duplex principle; the carrying of side rods as close to the locomotive centerline as possible; the provision of large-diameter very thin roller bearings for lightweight rods; the use of controlled lateral motion; and, of course, Baldwin Disc: both the double-disc and folded-plate aspects of the design are clearly visible here...
Q2, T1 in front , many others ... gone gone gone ain't never coming back.
Took their 30 pieces of filthy lucre, gained in a dishonourable way then lost the Company itself!
So the scrap value of the S1 was $14, 921? Just how many minutes of PRR operations would that have paid for? And the scrap value of a T1 was probably even less.
Which is why I say saving the S1 and a T1 wouldn't have affected the PRR's bottom line all that much, if at all, and not doing so was a tremendous lapse in judgment, especially for a company with so much self-pride.
The actual scrap value was something in the 35,000 dollar range (with gold-standard dollars) which is nontrivial. Point is the utter irreplaceability of the locomotive and all the history behind it ... never mind that PRR in general and Symes in particular wished a lot of it had never been...
There was probably a successful marketing career open to the Big Engine with far more return than scrap... the T1 is far less astonishing and still wicked cool to millions. But there was not even a Jones Tours in Travelers Rest to pony up the required dollars when it mattered.
Overmod But look at the numbers for the aggregate amount PRR paid on the S1 project from inception through the great number of apparent 'change orders' Baldwin came up with. I think the total is well north of $3 million (!!!) which was amplified in both effect and opportunity cost substantially by the Depression. If that money had to be 'kept on the books' while the asset was intact, it wouldn't be surprising to see the now-inevitable taking its course... I think it's documented that Symes disliked the S1 because of its impact on regular operations, and that includes its tendency to go on the ground at the least provocation when hostling. That perception may be a Chris Baer artifact, but I suspect he's looked at the issue more than anyone else.
Yes, the S1 project went over budget for so many times. According to an article in the back issue of the Milepost, when all Baldwin bills added up, the final book value of the S1, including construction, had more than doubled to $669,000 in 1938 (= $12,182,395.11 today), as expensive as a Bugatti Centodieci 2019. But the locomotive was supposed to be the highlight of the 1939 1940 World Fair when the staff in the Juniata Shops didn't even know how the engine looked like until the components were sent from Baldwin one after another, so I think it worth the money and effort.
Baldwin probably knew that the S1 was not going to work well on any railroad, but someone or a group of people in power probably asked Pennsy and Baldwin to build something "Great" enough to WOW the pre-war world, including many honorable guests from the UK. Your insight into Chris Baer's interpretation of the "relationship" between S1 and Symes is interesting. I wish I could visit Harley in person to find out things that "non-Pennsy fans" may miss. Chris Baer mentioned the name of S1 in the interview of this article about Harley's PRR historical records. ( http://www.prrths.com/newprr_files/Hagley/salvaginghistory2005.pdf )
Overmod Note the stylistic 'bullets we dodged' in not adopting the more highly 'styled' versions of the PRR duplex 4-4-4-4. We'd see that ribbed stainless nose love patch again on the Olympian Hi's Erie-builts ... but it worked there. (I do have to wonder whether Old Man Thunder was thinking of that other one when designing the nose of the first-generation Shin Kansen trainsets...)
Yes, the ribbed stainless nose on MILW's Erie-builts was extraordinary, I see them as a transformation of the "wings" on the MILW's Class F7 and Class A's nose. I don't and I won't believe that the design of the first generation of Shinkansen (0 Series) wasn't inspired by any American's diesel engine like the Erie-Builts and UP's M10003-6.
Jones1945According to an article in the back issue of the Milepost, when all Baldwin bills added up, the final book value of the S1, including construction, had more than doubled to $669,000 in 1938
The number I saw recently, and I have to go back and find it again, was that the full amount that went to Baldwin on the S1 project was over $3 million. That was real money back then!
Jones1945
Any idea of the date of this photo?
How early were C&NW running E6 and DL109 in multiple?
Is that the "400" observation car just behind the DL109?
M636C Any idea of the date of this photo? How early were C&NW running E6 and DL109 in multiple? Is that the "400" observation car just behind the DL109? Peter
Judging by the extra mars light installed on the Union Pacific "City of Denver", the photo should be taken between 1948 to 1953. I am not sure about the "400" trains (some photos of the C&NW E6 and 5007A in MU: please click here )
M636C Jones1945 Any idea of the date of this photo? How early were C&NW running E6 and DL109 in multiple? Is that the "400" observation car just behind the DL109? Peter
Weren't E-6's and DL-109's both manufacturered pre-War - 1940 ish.
I think - CNW painted the ends of their cars to match how the sides were painted. Can't think of a reason that the 400 Observation car would be coupled next to the engine consist.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Weren't E-6's and DL-109's both manufactured pre-War - 1940 ish.
Having checked with Scribbins' book, the four E-6 and the single DL109 arrived att the same time, in 1941. My concern was the ability to run the Alco and EMD units in multiple, since in those days different control voltages and different control cable pin arrangements were used. I know that ATSF were able to run their Alco #50 with EMDs by the end of WWII. So I suspect this photo was towards the end of operation of M 10003 type units on the City of Denver.
At the time, the 400 cars all had full width diaphragms which show up as black in B&W photographs, but it appears the leading end of the combine was painted green and yellow. I found a photo in Scribbins' "400 Story" that confirms this.
It had occurred to me that they might have coupled locomotives onto the rear of a 400 for this obviously posed photo, but this was not the case.
Interesting point about the potential MU incompatibilities. It would be interesting to see (although, perhaps, impossible by now) the original order contract to see if the Alco engine was ordered with specific EMD pinout compatibility; I'd suspect that it would be if intended to work with EMDs.
It's also possible that the engine was ordered as a 'test' and only wartime expedience required its use as part of a multiple-unit combination. We seem to see it leading a mixed consist as well as trailing, so whatever the modifications they produced at least working compatibility in more than just trailing-unit control with 8-notch governor logic.
Certainly the mixed consists wouldn't have appeared in publicity pictures if not acknowledged as both working and railroad-preferred. (There may also be a consideration of 'promoting' both locomotive builders as valued)
We might remember that the City of Denver consists continued on this run until 1953, even as elsewhere on UP more modern lightweight postwar consists were being implemented, so it is at least possible that postwar publicity shots might feature them.
With regard to the car question: Do I not clearly see the top of a vestibule door with the top left corner of a window on the side of 'whatever it is'? That ought to be a reasonable spotting feature for C&NW fans...
OvermodInteresting point about the potential MU incompatibilities. It would be interesting to see (although, perhaps, impossible by now) the original order contract to see if the Alco engine was ordered with specific EMD pinout compatibility; I'd suspect that it would be if intended to work with EMDs. It's also possible that the engine was ordered as a 'test' and only wartime expedience required its use as part of a multiple-unit combination. We seem to see it leading a mixed consist as well as trailing, so whatever the modifications they produced at least working compatibility in more than just trailing-unit control with 8-notch governor logic.
EMC and GE control systems were pretty compatible. The main difference would be the jumper socket - the modern 27-pin socket wasn't universal until the late 1960s. Early EMCs used a 16-pin socket, Alco(-GE) used a two-socket setup with 12 and 21 pins. Either the DL109 had a 16-pin socket (not crazy) or the C&NW shop crews made up a jumper with different plugs on each end. More important were compatible brake hoses - the hoses required for MU seem to have been standardized fairly early - probably since almost all brake systems were produced by WABCO or under WABCO license.
Overmod ...With regard to the car question: Do I not clearly see the top of a vestibule door with the top left corner of a window on the side of 'whatever it is'? That ought to be a reasonable spotting feature for C&NW fans...
...With regard to the car question: Do I not clearly see the top of a vestibule door with the top left corner of a window on the side of 'whatever it is'? That ought to be a reasonable spotting feature for C&NW fans...
From:Brasstrain.com
Is that extra streamlining on the rear-end roof a feature for an observation-leading consist?
Overmod The number I saw recently, and I have to go back and find it again, was that the full amount that went to Baldwin on the S1 project was over $3 million. That was real money back then!
$3,000,000 in 1939 equals $55,415,611.51 in 2019! Very expensive indeed......
That's not at all what I see for the car end adjacent to the engines in the picture. Roof makes 'square corner' vertically with top of end bulkhead; grabirons adjacent to what has to be a door in the front corner, no outside end window where there is obviously a huge visible swath of yellow. Find the forward end of a 400's baggage car and I'll bet you get a closer match.
(Incidentally, either somebody's got a heavy hand with the touch-up brush or those full-width diaphragms really, really match the roof color!)
Suspect that 'cowl' at the end of the car is intended as an air scoop, taking the slipstream and perhaps boundary layer over the top of the train (where the air is at least nominally least dusty) and using some presumable ram air effect to aid ventilation.
OvermodSuspect that 'cowl' at the end of the car is intended as an air scoop, taking the slipstream and perhaps boundary layer over the top of the train (where the air is at least nominally least dusty) and using some presumable ram air effect to aid ventilation.
Think car wash. With the roof scoop on the observation car, the rear windows were kept clean by airfow, a nice competitive feature (contemporary MILW beavertails were notoriously dirty.) On-board AC would have been more than adequate for ventilation.
Incidentally, C&NW's diners built for the "400" seated 56 - the highest capacity in a single unit car. Except for a few built to UP specs for Overland or City service, all of C&NW's diners had that density.
Well I'll be jiggered! Window washing -- but it makes sense.
More details about the freight train lead by PRR S1 can be found in the book "The Pennsylvania Railroad, 1940s-1950s" By Don Ball, P.185, the author says the PRR S1 "roared through Plymouth, Ind., with ninety freight cars at 73 miles per hour! A local law officer took to the parallel highway to confirm suspicion and the mayor of the town called Philadelphia! Engineer of tests, Lloyd "L.B." Jones, was onboard enjoying the Pullman-like-ride until arrival in Fort Wayne!"
VP of Operation, Jim Symes also requested PRR to assign the S1 to freight trains, which might have prevented breakdown caused by high-speed operation (or probably wheel slip at high speeds) of passenger trains, but the PRR insisted and rejected his request.
Jones1945If it is not a fabrication and really happened in 1942, I believe the test result contributed useful data for the design and construction of the PRR Q1 4-6-4-4, which made 70mph when hauling 125 freight cars (10000 tons) at 40% cutoff.
Nothing as late as 1942 is likely to have had much impact on actual development of the Q1, which likely began in advance of the 1940 'greenlighting' date and contained just about as many blind-alley approaches to locomotive design as any other engine.
While it is somewhat less implausible that the testing helped with design of the Q2, a far more successful design, I think that any data would have been negative rather than positive: establishing, for example, that a higher FA, a shorter rigid wheelbase, and the smallest practical driver diameter were all valuable considerations for a working duplex-drive locomotive.
Overmod Nothing as late as 1942 is likely to have had much impact on actual development of the Q1, which likely began in advance of the 1940 'greenlighting' date and contained just about as many blind-alley approaches to locomotive design as any other engine. While it is somewhat less implausible that the testing helped with design of the Q2, a far more successful design, I think that any data would have been negative rather than positive: establishing, for example, that a higher FA, a shorter rigid wheelbase, and the smallest practical driver diameter were all valuable considerations for a working duplex-drive locomotive.
Taken by Bliss B. Straight Jr. around 1941.
South Shore Gauntlet Bridge (South Shore - Penn-Wabash Bridge), Gary, Ind.
I guess the train was the Eastbound Liberty Limited with mixed heavyweight and lightweight cars, including the baggage-lounge and a Budd coach. (But the real question is: who was on the train?)
https://bridgehunter.com/in/lake/bh61275/
A GENERAL CHRONOLOGY
OF THE
PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD COMPANY
1940
http://www.prrths.com/newprr_files/Hagley/PRR1940.pdf
"July 1940 William E. Woodard of the Lima Locomotive Works, Incorporated, prepares preliminary plans for rebuilding a PRR Class M1a 4-8-2 into a poppet valve equipped 4-8-4. (Hirsimaki)
A few weeks later:
July 30, 1940 PRR orders two T1 4-4-4-4 duplex passenger locomotives from Baldwin Locomotive Works; modification of a Baldwin design; shorter and more practical than the S1; are designed to haul eleven 80-ton cars at 100 MPH on level tangent track; to run Harrisburg to Chicago with only one stop for coal at Millbrook, Ohio, with a tender containing 41 tons of coal and 19,500 gallons of water. (Trains, BldwnLocos)"
Too bad that It never happened. That would have been one of the top five best 4-8-4 ever made in America.
Jones1945That would have been one of the top five best 4-8-4 ever made in America.
The sad part is that I don't think more than a preliminary sketch of the modifications was made. The detail design of this would be the interesting part.
Remember this would still not be to build a high-speed alternative to T1s ... that part of the picture 'hadn't been invented yet'. Woodard would have been designing something for the same general envelope as the Q1: a marginal improvement on the capability of the M1 design itself. As such, the likely driver diameter would have been comparable to that in the Niagara design 'as built', not more than 76", and the immediate question becomes whether PRR would fit lightweight Timken rods of heavier non-duplex section and do careful high-speed balancing. My guess is that at that date they would not, and the engine that resulted would not be a Niagara-grade full success.
And why not? I think you are denegrating PRR's engineering abilities.
Overmod The sad part is that I don't think more than a preliminary sketch of the modifications was made. The detail design of this would be the interesting part. Remember this would still not be to build a high-speed alternative to T1s ... that part of the picture 'hadn't been invented yet'. Woodard would have been designing something for the same general envelope as the Q1: a marginal improvement on the capability of the M1 design itself. As such, the likely driver diameter would have been comparable to that in the Niagara design 'as built', not more than 76", and the immediate question becomes whether PRR would fit lightweight Timken rods of heavier non-duplex section and do careful high-speed balancing. My guess is that at that date they would not, and the engine that resulted would not be a Niagara-grade full success.
This left a roomy space for the imagination! The PRR #5399 was so successful that it was seen hauling the Trail Blazer after the production T1 was put into service, it is not hard to imagine a "Northernized", Franklin poppet valve gear equipped M1 would be a success. As you know it wasn't rocket science to upgrade the M1 to something capable for higher speed, Pennsy probably would have tried, and compared the performance of a "Steam-powered R1" with a T1. It would have been a battle between Lima and Baldwin, just like what happened on the R1 and GG1 (BLW/Westinghouse Vs. GE/PRR)...
In history, Pennsy wanted more than just a perfect Northern type, thus they "innovated" and jumped to the Q1, and then the Q2. It was quite obvious that PRR wanted to build the next-gen Super-Superpower all by itself (why not), and there was probably some discussion and negotiation between Lima, Baldwin, and PRR when they noted Pennsy was building the Q1 by its own, a dual service engine that was powerful and fast enough to handle both freight and (maybe secondary) passenger train. If the decline and dieselization never happened, all freight engine (Q2) and 50%+ passenger steam engine (T1s) would have been built by Pennsy itself (or 100% 1f Q1 was a successful dual service design). That is not something Baldwin and other steam engine builders wanted to see.
I'm with you on that, a good analysis.
daveklepperAnd why not? I think you are denigrating PRR's engineering abilities.
We know PRR's motive power department considered the N&W J to have too low a wheel for an express locomotive at a later date than this design, and I know of no organized plan to improve an M1 or M1a as NYC did with the two test Mohawks (and then of course the improved L3/L4) to get true high speed out of them. The Q1, delightful as it is, was an utter blind alley in most respects regarding steam distribution, rod design, and a variety of other details if the goal was to produce a 'better M1' (which was a stated objective of the project) and of course this was greenlighted October 1940, so in a sense can be considered exactly PRR's in-house 'engineering ability' response to Woodard's proposal. I don't think the detail design of a freight or M&E locomotive would have involved the Timken light rods, and without them the new design would have been reasonably good, but not extraordinary.
If the locomotive had been built with type A gear, which is certainly what NYC's had (when everyone knew far better about it, too) it would have been less a success than the T1s, and probably less a success than the NYC engine which in every other respect shared in her sisters' running gear and, of course, did not have the valve gear drive imbalance. Practical Franklin rotary-cam gear and three-valve layout didn't come about until postwar (as stillborn type C), and any conversion of a steam R class to RC would have been made as B-2, with the same bridges and keeping the same high-maintenance four-valve-per-cylinder-end layout as the older system. With eight-coupled layout there would have been less high-rpm slip breaking valve spools, but all the other fun would have been present; it would be fair to say that any results of the the 1948 proposed improvements would apply to such locomotives too but that presupposes the mass production of T1s that would have been R2s or whatever. It also presupposes that the NYC locomotive would have been a technical success had dieselization not ensued, which is a far more dubious thing considering 5500's post-testing history.
The problem here is that it's difficult to assess, even with hindsight, what technical changes in the technology (which was very fast evolving at that point) would have taken place after Woodard's design would have been greenlighted for blueprinting and detail design. It is also difficult to assess PRR's needs had the Second World War not intervened, spawned the ability to design and build Q2s for service that no peacetime PRR would ever use or value, and of course go through the entire painful exercise in re-redlining drawings that ultimately gave them the J1a. It's pure 20/20 hindsight to invoke the comparison between Q2 and J1a postwar as giving lessons that 'could' have been used to produce a better 4-8-4 starting in 1940.
Now, this is right in the era that the AMC had moved on to the Alleghenies, and some of the detail design there might have been useful in formulating an 'upsized M1' for the mail and express. Any K4 replacement in that era would have been duplex and there's little getting around that; it would also have had 80" drivers 'no matter what' and there's little getting around that; if designed as Baldwin wanted it would have had a sensible grate area and less tetchy valve gear, but still had relatively short stroke -- even the C1a retained that, and that detail shows more than almost anything else how even Kiefer viewed the evolution of high-speed power as late as April 1945). So we're looking at a 50 to 70mph engine, likely on no more than the 77" drivers of the Q1, and so we come to the stroke question. By that time I'd expect Woodard to be firmly in the small bore/lavish stroke era we'd see in the later Berkshires, so he'd likely call it something like 26 x 34 (and we'd have found out firsthand whether the type A OC gear facilitated or hampered practical cutoff precision and control on such a layout). Whether PRR would follow this philosophy and increase stroke so radically in 1940 is less clear to me; it seems to go against the grain of their thinking since as early as 1933. Control dimensions and construction-- take them as close to those used on the Q1. Appearance very similar to it, too, which should give no end of joy to Jones1945.
Now, in hindsight, the very obvious course of events would be that PRR would see the success of the lightweight arrangement on the Niagaras and duplicate some part of that (using the experience on their subsidiary N&W and perhaps some of the rod-eye dies) and what you'd get then would be no less, and perhaps more, effective than the Niagaras. It would have been an interesting counterpoint.
On the other hand, had PRR wanted to preserve effective M1 performance in a new locomotive, they had the J as an example, and even tested it to show the prominence. The question of whether it would have been a 'better M1' appears not to have been considered; only its use as a T1 alternative seems to be reflected in the test memos and policy discussions that have survived at the Hagley. Just as PRR didn't replace K4s with superior K5s in the prewar era that 'mattered', I doubt it would replace M1as with something better -- were the engineering decisions to change, Depression conditions and the emphasis on electrification that would have gone to Pittsburgh made the necessary funds less likely.
A 4-8-4 designed in the mid-Forties might look very different, for example if able to share dimensioning and detail design with the Q2 development. Imagine for example a locomotive built as a shortened Q2, with appropriately strengthened passenger rods but still on common stroke for 69".
Jones1945Pennsy probably would have tried, and compared the performance of a "Steam-powered R1" with a T1. It would have been a battle between Lima and Baldwin, just like what happened on the R1 and GG1 (BLW/Westinghouse Vs. GE/PRR)...
This is a highly interesting thing, but the parallel really goes the other way: the R1 was the tested 'invented here' alternative rather than the imported GG1 approach, and its design philosophy was not particularly apt.
It's interesting to consider a 'simple T1' as a test article, but perhaps notable that if such a thing were ever considered there is no record of it, and no mention in any correspondence I have seen (or anyone else appears to have seen). 1940 was still the era ATSF was feeling out how high-speed large 4-8-4s would be built; it was by no means clear that augment could be reduced to the degree PRR would need for the engines to operate at "perceived T1 speed" and therefore comparatively little likelihood that the prospective very real improvements in expensive track maintenance for high-speed operation -- representing far, far more over time than the savings in tech on a nonduplex locomotive -- could be realized. By the time of the N&W J testing, PRR had clear evidence of the value of lightweight rods on an eight-coupled locomotive; if they understood this, it appears to have been thrown out along with the too-low-wheel-for-express-locomotive opinion rather than embraced for M1 follow-ons. Which is really the great road not taken in this era -- a M1a refitted with disc or Web-Spoke drivers and given lightweight rods might have been a highly interesting testbed. One might even argue that across much of the PRR system, a boiler-improved M (say, with Snyder preheaters, better circulation, and more reliable feedwater-heat arrangements) would have done as much of the business as PRR needed or could actually use, comparable to how NYC found the latest Mohawks suitable. (We might remember that the Niagara success was largely predicated on its ability to produce high sustained passenger speed with axle-driven air-conditioned consists with fast turnaround and guaranteed utilization, something that rapidly got leveraged out after the late Forties as everyone's passenger-centric steam designs became obsolescent).
In history, Pennsy wanted more than just a perfect Northern type...[/quote]
The real question, though, is what a 'perfect Northern type' only a few years later would have looked like, especially if WWII had not intervened and enforced the development of the Q2s and then their operation 'as intended', with long consists and allowed high speed. It is possible that the PRR people would be watching the rebuildings of the 3751 class to see the advantages of an actual high-speed 4-8-4, but again I see little proof this influenced their design development or even measurably affected their design process. NYC certainly came late to the party, even smart enough to recognize that high drivers could be a 'thing' and allowing adequate frame spacing, Kiefer had the locomotive built and initially tested with the 75" drivers from the corresponding designs, as if it were nothing more than an incremental capacity improvement on a 4-8-2.
, thus they "innovated" and jumped to the Q1, and then the Q2. It was quite obvious that PRR wanted to build the next-gen Super-Superpower all by itself (why not), and there was probably some discussion and negotiation between Lima, Baldwin, and PRR when they noted Pennsy was building the Q1 by its own, a dual service engine that was powerful and fast enough to handle both freight and (maybe secondary) passenger train. If the decline and dieselization never happened, all freight engine (Q2) and 50%+ passenger steam engine (T1s) would have been built by Pennsy itself (or 100% 1f Q1 was a successful dual service design). That is not something Baldwin and other steam engine builders wanted to see.[/quote]
Meanwhile, we have to ignore the parallel development line on mechanical turbines in order to do this hypothetical 4-8-4 thing -- there clearly being at least some interest in pursuing the design of the S2 for freight and M&E along the same lines as the S1 becoming the T1 design. I have little real hesitation in saying that a debugged direct turbine with either Ljungstrom configuration and a reversing gear rather than dedicated turbine or a Bowes drive would have been a better answer than any reciprocating engine for the presumptive purposes PRR would have had for a 4-8-4.
There are alternatives, of course, for reciprocating engines, perhaps the most interesting of which would be a 'new' 4-8-4 design circa the state of the art in the era of the '47 Cyclopedia. This might be approximated, to start, by looking at something like a WM Potomac and putting RC poppet-valve gear on it. But you could get to it another way, which is to tinker slightly with a Q2 to produce a 69"-drivered eight-coupled sharing as many components as possible with 'regular' Q2s. This would be an obvious candidate for refitting with lightweight rods, and it might be a highly interesting thing to compare with the N&W J design. I'd expect to see a Langer balancer tested to reduce the surge component of any overbalance; I'd like to think the PRR motive-power people recognized the value of keeping overbalance in the main to a minimum.
Still a step backward both in dynamic augment and in power per unit from a Q2, so you'd have to look to shopping and maintenance concerns, especially those that 'double' on a four-cylinder simple engine, for a good reason to go with such a 4-8-4.
Thanks Dave for your support and Overmod for another thorough reply! A lot of questions came to my mind, I am gonna share with you guys when I feeling better (no big deal, just caught a cold, hopefully not flu!)
Regarding PRR team-power acumen, look at the K4s in the Winter '19 issue, pages 58 (1954) and 60(1941). Count the differences, the modifications! Admittadly, the visual ones do not make much difference in performance, just maintenance and ability to operate through snow. My memory tells me that I was informed that the K4s' real capability on the road was only realized after mechanical stokers were installed.
9,
daveklepperRegarding PRR team-power acumen, look at the K4s in the Winter '19 issue, pages 58 (1954) and 60(1941). Count the differences, the modifications!
The chief problem I have with this hypothesis is that I don't think PRR ever really tried to 'implement real silk' fleetwide with what was increasingly a 205psi sow's-ear by comparison with everybody else's modern power. You see them trying just about every version of disc driver (including Web-Spoke); they try lightweight rods and angle balancing; I think they even try engine beds. They even get a taste of what a good sine-wave superheater and proper front-end throttle arrangements can do ... in the Lima-modified poppet-valve demonstrations ... and then attribute the gains to the valves and make no further attempt at either higher pressure or better superheat. If they attempted high-speed suspension modifications for better riding or lower augment, I do not see any evidence of widespread adoption.
Government made them put those stokers on K4s, and as I recall PRR fought them tooth and nail over it. It is hard to say that 'forcing' a K4 beyond what a good fireman could hand-bomb is necessary; long before that point PRR would just doublehead two together for the ultimate articulated passenger locomotive at suitable firing rate...
The much better argument on stoker necessity involves the K5, which couldn't even remotely reach its potential without one, and the absence of stoker firing in that design makes the comparison between PRR's people and Kiefer even starker.
None of this meant to indicate that the K4, especially with slightly larger piston valves, wasn't a spectacular engine, dramatically ahead of its time (as was the E6) and remaining relevant as a high-speed locomotive all the way into the Fifties. Just that there were very, very many ways they could have been improved over the years, some proceeding to the point of actual construction and experiment, but never quite applied coherently.
Admittedly, the [visible] ones do not make much difference in performance, just maintenance and ability to operate through snow.
Might make sense to list the important mechanical differences, as I suspect I still have something to learn about this era of K4 service. If some of the mods were associated with decreasing coal quality (after the era from about 1948 to 1950 of emphasizing higher-quality washed fuel), that would be highly interesting.
Speaking of PRR K4s' upgrades and stokers, I am still looking for a trustworthy source about the mechanical stokers on the Loewy K4s #3768. I have seen some brass train models, some in HO scale some O gauge, having a dual mechanical stokers on the #3768, I mean stoker like this:
I wonder if other Streamlined K4s had the same treatment. Not even a gigantic show car like the PRR S1 nor the much more powerful T1 had dual stoker like this.
In hindsight, If PRR chose another path; upgraded the K4s, K5 like how C&O rebuilt there F-19 Pacific (in 1947), instead of design and built the T1, they would have saved a lot of resources. Imagine a K4s like #5399, not only had poppet valve gear and front-end throttle equipped but also with roller bearings on all axles, Baldwin disc drivers, light-alloy rods, all-weather cab... or simply built a K6 instead of T1; larger firebox, higher boiler pressure, 84" drivers... That would have been looked like a B&O Class V Husdon without the watertube firebox...
Overmod If they attempted high-speed suspension modifications for better riding or lower augment, I do not see any evidence of widespread adoption.
Would you mind explaining the difference between high-speed suspension and the lower-speed one on reciprocating steam locomotive? Do you mean using the high-speed pilot truck used on T1 and MILW's F-6 Hudson?
Jones1945... I am still looking for a trustworthy source about the mechanical stokers on the Loewy K4s #3768. I have seen some brass train models, some in HO scale some O gauge, having a dual mechanical stokers on the #3768, I mean stoker like this ...
I cannot get that link to display, but you're describing a Duplex stoker, which is not an uncommon design. See this thread for some associated discussion.
http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/740/p/249407/2783285.aspx
This is not a 'dual' stoker so much as it is a dual-elevator stoker. In most stoker designs there is one 'table' to which the coal is delivered, centered under the firedoor, and you can see the jet (or scoop or whatever) action by looking in through the door or peepholes. The Duplex left the firedoor area clear, bringing coal up 'around' it to either side, which theoretically would allow a higher mass delivery of coal from the worm up to the table(s). This would not have increased the capacity of a K4 any more than even the most primitive of the early stokers designed for it (see the detailed information and drawings of Street stokers available on line) as the grate limit was comparatively low on even the most modernized of those locomotives.
In hindsight, If PRR chose another path; upgraded the K4s, K5 like how C&O rebuilt their F-19 Pacific (in 1947), instead of design and built the T1, they would have saved a lot of resources.
But you'd still have a locomotive needing to be doubleheaded on any substantial PRR consist ... except now, improved with a bunch of expensive components to be even more overkill than before.
Imagine a K4s like #5399, not only had poppet valve gear and front-end throttle equipped but also with roller bearings on all axles, Baldwin disc drivers, light-alloy rods, all-weather cab... or simply built a K6 instead of T1; larger firebox, higher boiler pressure, 84" drivers... That would have been looked like a B&O Class V Hudson without the watertube firebox...
... or, perhaps a little more pointedly, like an E8 Atlantic stretched by one axle, exactly the sort of thing I expect the PRR did with the E6 and K4 back in 1914.
The 84" drivers would be a colossal mistake on PRR, and would have been more so than on other roads with more 'necessity' for them. There is no need for greater than 80" on a working PRR express locomotive; in fact, I consider there to have been adequate evidence that a properly-balanced 72" M1a variant would have been a far better thing for PRR to 'modernize' than any Pacific... for what PRR needed its locomotives to do most of the time.
Why in fact no 'M1b' was ever built with the front-end throttle and sine-wave superheater elements, etc. is a mystery, although I suspect much of it is just as much 20/20 hindsight as the ability to discriminate gains from the Franklin System from gains due to better superheat or steam-generation effectiveness. An M1 with disc drivers and alloy rods, a good cast bed, full high pressure, capable passenger superheater, and a front-end throttle would have been every bit as fast -- practically speaking -- as anyone's 4-8-2, and with the relatively slight enhancement of N&W-style balancing woiuld give you 'enough' of a higher wheel to get rid of the machinery-speed concerns expressed over the class J wheel size as tested.
OvermodThe 84" drivers would be a colossal mistake on PRR, and would have been more so than on other roads with more 'necessity' for them. There is no need for greater than 80" on a working PRR express locomotive; in fact, I consider there to have been adequate evidence that a properly-balanced 72" M1a variant would have been a far better thing for PRR to 'modernize' than any Pacific... for what PRR needed its locomotives to do most of the time.
Thanks a lot for the thorough explanation, Overmod! Yes, the PRR S2 had 68" drivers, even smaller than N&W Js driver by one inch, but still capable to pull a 17-car train over a distance of 30 miles (level track) at a speed of 110 mph, so a properly-balanced 72" driver on M1a/b variant should have been adequate for express passenger train. But not only PRR's S1, MILW, CNW's, and ATSF's 3460 Class Hudson also had 84" drivers, I wonder why Alco, Baldwin, and RRs had blind faith on driver larger than 80" for their express passenger steam engine?
Jones1945Yes, the PRR S2 had 68" drivers, even smaller than N&W J's driver by one inch ...
Two inches. Very important inches for a number of classes of power...
but still capable to pull a 17-car train over a distance of 30 miles (level track) at a speed of 110 mph, so a properly-balanced 72" driver on M1a/b variant should have been adequate for express passenger train.
The problem is that these are not comparable.
The S2 is manifestly not a reciprocating locomotive. There is a certain amount of 'statutory imbalance' in the quartered connecting rods, but they can be balanced rotating, so the only real augment-inducing couple that 'matters' is the difference laterally between where the center of mass of the counterweight in each driver is a bit 'inside' the center of mass of the net rod mass for that driver. So there is a bit of induced hammer-blow, but it is rather obviously a tiny fraction of adhesive weight up to substantial rotational speed; far more speed,likely, than the corresponding much higher (fixed by the reduction-gear train ratio) speed where windage, exhaust clearance and other losses begin to seriously beset the steam turbine doing the rotational drive.
The situation with the 72" M1b driver is quite different; it has all the augment forces described in Johnson's book. For example you have the reciprocating mass of the mains to deal with, plus the rotating component of the mains carried proportionally far outboard, so the balancing is more complex; there is also the small vector component of the piston thrust in the vertical plane (which is the thing Voyce Glaze left the 80lb of reciprocating balance in the main driver to deal with) -- for 'maximum speed potential' you calculate this for open throttle at about 40% cutoff, which would correspond to peak achievable balancing speed.
We assume well-adjusted Franklin wedges with appropriate spring pressure, so there is no slack in the longitudinal 'fit' of the axleboxes/lateral-motion devices in the pedestals. We further assume a good spring pressure on the Franklin radial buffer between engine and tender ... which raises the spectre of surge at high piston thrust or resonant conditions. This is what the Langer balancer is designed to counteract, and geometrically it ought to do so very well; this leaves nosing and hunting to be compensated as Voyce Glaze intended, with stiffer lateral and better lateral damping, including better lateral-motion control of the lead driver pair in curves.
But not only PRR's S1: MILW, CNW's, and ATSF's 3460 Class Hudson also had 84" drivers, I wonder why Alco, Baldwin, and RRs had blind faith on driver larger than 80" for their express passenger steam engine?
It was not blind faith, it was conventional wisdom. That it was erroneous wisdom, and relatively quickly overcome by events, does not detract from its validity as a topic for discussion.
As far back as the Monster of 1836, the idea was that a good honkin' tall driver diameter would translate into high speed. In fact the spokes on Monster's drivers were paneled in to avoid strewing levitated ballast at lethal velocities ... something I do think would have been observed. You have Cramptons. You have geared-drive engines of various kinds that spin drivers faster 'by other means'. You have all the 'singles' that constitute the early age of 'duplexing' with single axles in an age when side-rod clearances and bearing technology meant 'coupled wheels would be slower'.
And yet, even then it was clearly recognized that high speed came from boiler steam-generation capacity, not from high drivers. Each inch over about 78" results in a severe toll in 'default' tractive effort, with the 86" on NYC 999 clearly putting the engine over the line into skittish-racehorse performance. And the presence of side rods capable of sharing Super-Power levels of piston thrust pretty well meant relegation to slow speeds, or the use of three-cylinder drive to keep the thrusts down and augment better distributed... and so we come to Eksergian, in 1928, carefully analyzing the different components of balance.
Now, in the early Thirties it was 'common knowledge' that the only true high-speed power was going to be at most six-coupled. In the absence of a careful analysis of balance the 'solution' for 100mph had to be 84" drivers (ideally with the main in line on the lead driver pair, and four-coupled to keep mass and bending stress in the rodwork bearable) and ... in some cases ... it was a reasonable prescription.
One of the great catastrophes of steam design happens right at the cusp of this: the ACL R-1s as initially balanced. Wrong understanding, wrong formula ... revealed "I told you so" wisdom producing amazing levels of track wrecking from a locomotive that should have been one of the best. While the conventional practice puts together the C&NW E-4, which couldn't even get its test train over 100mph, or the ATSF 3460 class, which fell off the porch between 102 and 106mph or so as its inadequate valves and passages ran out of ... well, steam. And the ominous lack of true high-speed test data for the Milwaukee F-7s, suspiciously similar to E-4s in many significant dimensions, which would run all day at 100mph but ... perhaps ... not that much higher.
ATSF now turns to rebuilding the sow's-ear 3751 class to larger drivers, better valves and passages, suspension and bypass valves ... and lo! winds up with a high-horsepower locomotive that is just as fast, in fact faster, than the 84"-drivered short-stroke conventional-wisdom speedster. They take a leaf from this to build 2-10-4s with relatively high drivers (the 'sweet spot' for freight or most dual-service being somewhere in the 74" to 76" range) with a longer rigid wheelbase than a PRR Q2 duplex ... and we get into the world in which the C&NW works over its H-class 4-8-4s not once, but twice, probably winding up with an engine the effective equal in speed of the E-4 but dramatically more useful in just about every context where the track could handle the additional weight and forces of a locomotive that size.
What happens at the end of the Thirties is that across a wide range of designs, it becomes clear that large-firebox eight-coupled power is capable of going just as fast as a given railroad will permit. In the case of the PRR, that meant that an 80"-drivered duplex would not only reach the speeds expected of the heavy improvements in the Sam Rea Line and other 'new main line' improvements, but the highest speeds safe to reach with reciprocating power of any practical driver diameter. The only reason to go to 84" drivers would be to preserve the (driver-center structurally limited) 26" short stroke on a T1 'follow-on' (likely not a derivative of the E8 Atlantic design, but something like an improved S1 with all four sets of rods common and very little if any formal overbalance) and by then it was increasingly recognized that 26" was ridiculously short for what modern balancing could give you...
By the time of the 'late' AMC Berks, the NYC L-4 (and prospective later power) and the PRR re-tiring of some of the J1as, we see the interesting formula of drivers somewhere in the low 70s 'new', comparatively long stroke (suicidally long by even late-Thirties standards; sometimes 34") but smaller bore to lower reciprocating mass and peak piston thrust, and lightweight rods ... with or without roller bearings and dramatic thin section/deep web. (Note carefully the main-bearing design on the UP 800 rods, which accomplished many of the real-world ends of rod rollers without either the first cost or the careful twitchiness necessary in maintenance.)
It is difficult to imagine 'cost-effective' M&E on PRR, even with some form of palletization or containerization that would work with such trains, involving even peak speed above 90mph; on the other hand, the ability to accelerate quickly after checks and over difficult profiles without corresponding expense of fuel and water is nearly as quickly and easily recognized as it was in the France of the artificial socialist speed limit. Which leaves two things: the future of nonreciprocating steam power, which is succinctly the story of the S2 and V1 with proper drive technology, and the use of high-horsepower locomotives with limited water rate. On the latter would founder all the advanced design of the Forties: the contest was still there, barely, in 1946, but even by the time Kiefer's report was issued the game was visibly over. For steam to 'look good' you needed the appropriate traffic -- long distances, very high speed, guaranteed profit margins, very quick turnaround, well-organized maintenance from guys in asbestos suits willing to use them. Remove almost any of those factors -- and in the late Forties all of them were disappearing at an accelerating rate -- and the opportunity costs of dieselization look as compelling as history bore out.
Which is where a sensible-dimensioned locomotive capable of extraordinary performance beats the tar out of a high-wheeled prima donna. Even a Niagara could be operated fast, strong, or almost inconceivably cheaply depending only on the service expected of it. A Kiefer-corrected C1a would still have had some of the limiting faults of obligate high-speed design, most particularly the 26" preserved stroke (which was almost certainly a necessary part of the design in giving true run-through on 64T) and ... knowing what we know about Dieseliners ... would likely have suffered the fate of the poppet-valve Niagara and the PRR T1 as a first-line express locomotive. On the other hand, any driver greater than 69" that would fit under an A-2a shell would have been interesting in a great many ways...
... were even a couple more years given to modern Eastern steam.
Yeah, that's a good way to end it, on the possibilities. I've often just shrugged at the C1a concept, another beautifully designed piece of engineering pointing to the future but scrapped in 3 years time over a mad rush to buy some crappola, expensive, poorly designed latest and greatest from one manufacturer only to find out you have to buy an even more expensive one from another to keep your mainlines moving.
Gimme those money saving Diesels.. fast.
What could go wrong?
Yeah baby, diesels sure didn't save my Jersey Central, even those Baldwin "Babyfaces" that could pull anything out of the yard including the yard office, and they sure didn't save the mighty New York Central, hey, even Al Perlman couldn't save it!
Stuart Saunders sure could kill it though, and the Pennsy too for that matter. Fat lot of good diesels did him!
I'm not sure that anything could have saved Jersey Central, a glorified terminal road with no long hauls.
David Bevan and creative accounting had more to do with the collapse of Penn Central than Stuart Saunders' incompetence.
CSSHEGEWISCHI'm not sure that anything could have saved Jersey Central, a glorified terminal road with no long hauls.
Compounded by its heavy reliance on anthracite traffic and service of dying regions of the country...
Interestingly enough, the Baldwins lasted long enough to be photographed ... running ... in Scranton in 1965 (as I recall, in an A-B-A set but different paint).
I don't think even Enron-level accounting creativity could have saved Penn Central from itself -- the operating side alone would have imploded down into disaster, I suspect with about the same ultimate timetable. (And in my opinion, that's with or without the New Haven being shoehorned in at the last minute to ensure nonprofitability without extensive reworking of operations priorities.)
I am of the opinion that the spectacular nature of the Penn Central debacle, whether or not it was financially accelerated, was something of a very good thing: I doubt we'd have had Staggers or USRA/Conrail without it, and had things taken even a few more years to degrade, the situation might have ended with more abandonments and functional failures, perhaps dramatically more.
A little bit more of my 'take' on the CNJ (and the Central of Pennsylvania): this railroad was the brief and spectacular jewel of Archie McLeod's Reading Combine. See the building-for-the-ages improvements in the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton area, particularly some of the bridges. Consider the use of the CNJ as the effective northern terminal extension of the B&O to New York, connecting via the rapidly-improving Reading main in the process.
Had the wheels not come off the Combine so definitively (and off the rest of the US economy shortly thereafter) I think we'd have seen a very different CNJ, one with a physical plant not second to Cassatt's, one with a Narrows tunnel off Staten Island to Bay Ridge even in the absence of Lindenthal's joint bridge...
For those who don't know the sequence of events concerning the Poughkeepsie Bridge completion and the wheeling-and-dealing in the short time between its completion and the economic collapse, Chris Baer has a pretty good timeline on the Web; start here with this PDF timeline and work forward and backward as necessary. There is a PDF article here that describes the shenanigans in this short period in reasonably coherent detail.
It will pay those with patience, I think, to look over at what was still a relatively well-guided railroad strategy at Morgan's, as it's easy to get the impression that Morgan intentionally wrecked McLeod for little more than 'getting too big for his britches' with little regard for the ensuing consequences.
It does have to be said, though, that a non-overextended B&O with a Royal Blue Line speedway from Baltimore north to New York (and easy side trip across the harbor for freight, and only slightly more indirect service to Manhattan ... much less indirect, I might add, than the NYW&B thought it needed) would have been an interesting thing to contemplate. Particularly if subsequent motive-power development up to the Forties had been allowed to progress with ample capitalization...
OvermodOne of the great catastrophes of steam design happens right at the cusp of this: the ACL R-1s as initially balanced. Wrong understanding, wrong formula ... revealed "I told you so" wisdom producing amazing levels of track wrecking from a locomotive that should have been one of the best. While the conventional practice puts together the C&NW E-4, which couldn't even get its test train over 100mph, or the ATSF 3460 class, which fell off the porch between 102 and 106mph or so as its inadequate valves and passages ran out of ... well, steam. And the ominous lack of true high-speed test data for the Milwaukee F-7s, suspiciously similar to E-4s in many significant dimensions, which would run all day at 100mph but ... perhaps ... not that much higher.
Compelling! If MILW and C&NW rebuilt their E-7s and E-4s with 80" driver (or smaller), everything besides the size of the driver and all necessary alteration related to the change of driver size remained unchanged (including boiler pressure and size of cylinder), would their top speed have been significantly increased? Was Lima the only one major American steam locomotive manufacturer that never constructed any steam locomotive with driver larger than 80" during the "Superpower" era? (Lima involved the design of PRR S1 but it was PRR insisted to use 84" driver on S1 after they inspected the newly built C&NW E-4), I am not implying Lima knew something Baldwin and Alco didn't know at the time though, they probably put their focus on successful products like their 2-8-2 and 2-8-4.
More questions roaming in my head; did New York Central ever considered to use larger drivers on their Hudson to build a "84"- drivered short-stroke conventional-wisdom speedster"? Was the skittish-racehorse performance of NYC 999 inspired them to not blindly follow that conventional wisdom at the time?
Speaking of the handsome ACL's R-1, there is a photo showing the damage of the rail track on this page: http://www.trainweb.org/aclr1/
"Photo of Damaged Rails from Ralph P. Johnson's book "The Steam Locomotive"
Jones1945If MILW and C&NW rebuilt their [F]-7s and E-4s with 80" driver (or smaller), everything besides the size of the driver and all necessary alteration related to the change of driver size remained unchanged (including boiler pressure and size of cylinder), would their top speed have been significantly increased?
Probably not. I, personally, think that any design that is essentially hampered by poor steam mass flow is likely to be more hampered by the higher cyclic rpm than aided by the gain in tractive effort at top speed. There is a bunch of other stuff that would have to be modified to make this diameter change, as these are high-speed passenger engines where riding and guiding characteristics are critical.
Starting and low-speed work might have been another matter entirely, but I doubt that was a principal concern in the design of either class, as I think the choice of 78" for the Burlington S-4 clearly was.
The recognition that 84" drivers (or higher!) were not essential for high effective speed really didn't come until 'after the R-1s' -- up until then the wisdom that 84" drivers on nothing more than six-coupled was essential to running over 90mph was probably still well established.
Far more important would be good 'internal streamlining' in the Chapelon senses, perhaps involving larger and longer-travel valves to give prompt opening and unshrouding with high steam flow. Rigorous attention to detail design in the balancing would be a secondary concern, I think specifically including Timken rods and bearings.
Was Lima the only one major American steam locomotive manufacturer that never constructed any steam locomotive with driver larger than 80" during the "Superpower" era?
They certainly never needed larger drivers for anything they got a contract to build. However, all you have to do is look up the patents for Woodard's proposed express locomotives to know this was no 'choice' in the age before lightweight rods and full balancing. Whether or not Alco paved the way for effective high speed, or AMC derived a formula for effective speed in freight power, in the postwar period Lima chose to go with more capable boiler construction (e.g. Double Belpaire) with more economical and precise valve gear (Franklin type "C" rotary-cam poppets) and certainly accepted the logic of relatively long stroke and small lighter pistons/rods/crosshead and nominally smaller drivers.
(Lima involved the design of PRR S1 but it was PRR insisted to use 84" driver on S1 after they inspected the newly built C&NW E-4)
I'm pretty sure that was a wise decision based on 'what they knew then'; I'm equally sure that they sure figured out it was unnecessary by only a couple of years later (with the 'production' version of the passenger duplex). I'm also tempted to say that an over-the-top passenger locomotive needs over-the-top driver diameter to assure world's-fair quality 'over-the-top speed' if you can stand the pun...
Did New York Central ever consider [using] larger drivers on their Hudson to build a "84"-drivered short-stroke conventional-wisdom speedster"?
Not anywhere I have been able to find -- and that specifically includes any services like the Mercury that 'might have' been established with the equivalent of a Milwaukee A and dedicated five-car trainsets to get dramatic high speed with high-profile operation.
Most notably Kiefer went with many of the cardinal principles of the PRR T1 in his 'perfected' duplex, most notably the retention of 79" drivers and the same short stroke (determined by pin to axle seat dimensions in the driver centers). There was little question that this would have gone every bit as fast as NYC track and cars would permit, and done it efficiently enough to require no fuel stops between Harmon and Chicago (worth more than a few mph in potential top-speed capability right there!) I think that any possibility of the 'follow-on' to the (rather large) order of J-3as would have been late enough to establish lower-wheel duplexes with big 'common' boiler architecture as the real high-speed choice (up to any speed it would be safe to run reciprocating steam for 'the public' in the first place).
Was the skittish-racehorse performance of NYC 999 inspired them to not blindly follow that conventional wisdom at the time?
You'll recall that much of the 'point' of the 86"-drivered version (for extreme high speed) was undone a comparatively short time afterward, and more pointedly none of the vaunted 20-hour and then 18-hour trains had anything more high-wheeled than 'normal'.
PRR did have an 'express' locomotive with 84" drivers, but it was a cross-compound, and the large diameter was (as with Golsdorf) used to keep machinery speed minimized.
The boutique traffic to Atlantic City in the last decade of the 19th Century certainly resulted in some high-wheeled and successful power (even higher than 84"!) but you'll notice that subsequent high speed on that part of the Reading went back to nominally smaller drivers.
OvermodI'm pretty sure that was a wise decision based on 'what they knew then'; I'm equally sure that they sure figured out it was unnecessary by only a couple of years later (with the 'production' version of the passenger duplex). I'm also tempted to say that an over-the-top passenger locomotive needs over-the-top driver diameter to assure world's-fair quality 'over-the-top speed' if you can stand the pun...
Fair enough! At least PRR didn't pick a vintage 86" or higher to create even more talking points for the "show car of the decade", let alone 86" wasn't high enough to beat the 90.55" driver on the DRG Class 61 of German. The S1 was officially aimed to top 100mph "only", folks from the UK might have found this figure unimpressive, even though their A4 Pacific and Coronation Class usually operated at 90mph for their 300-short-ton-express.
I have been reviewing the PRR Chronology line by line in spare time, you are right that the S1 actually cost much more than $660,000. I will post the updated figure after data consolidation.
Personally I think that the S1 was a very reasonable 'take' on a huge passenger locomotive ... the problem was that PRR wasn't a huge-passenger-locomotive railroad at the time, and didn't really have the money to become one. It's really a late-Twenties design meant for late-Twenties New Era railroad rebuilding.
I think it's to PRR's credit that they went straight from the E8 Atlantic (perhaps recognizing they weren't going to have many places to run Hiawatha-size trains!) to putting two under a big common boiler. Fits right in with their high-speed policy at that time (and one big reason they supported an unconjugated duplex). All they needed was an effective autonomic antislip device, and they were about 95% there with the one on the Q2s ... just that they didn't make it servoproportional.
Rebuild it with mid-Forties tech and ... you'd really have something. Problem was it was too much 'something' for PRR, a kind of ballet-dancing 6'8" Jayne Russell that never got the right kind of dates because everyone who might have the touch was scared of her, and at times for sensible reasons.
Overmod Personally I think that the S1 was a very reasonable 'take' on a huge passenger locomotive ... the problem was that PRR wasn't a huge-passenger-locomotive railroad at the time, and didn't really have the money to become one. It's really a late-Twenties design meant for late-Twenties New Era railroad rebuilding. I think it's to PRR's credit that they went straight from the E8 Atlantic (perhaps recognizing they weren't going to have many places to run Hiawatha-size trains!) to putting two under a big common boiler. Fits right in with their high-speed policy at that time (and one big reason they supported an unconjugated duplex). All they needed was an effective autonomic antislip device, and they were about 95% there with the one on the Q2s ... just that they didn't make it servoproportional. Rebuild it with mid-Forties tech and ... you'd really have something. Problem was it was too much 'something' for PRR, a kind of ballet-dancing 6'8" Jayne Russell that never got the right kind of dates because everyone who might have the touch was scared of her, and at times for sensible reasons.
I still believe that S1 was the right, and was probably the best passenger locomotive to serve on the proposed Samuel Rea Line, even though she was built as a show car for the 1939 World Fair. From Rochester, PA to Lewistown, PA, there are another 180 miles of "straight" track or new race track on the Samuel Rea Line for her to spread her wings. So, from Fort Wayne to Lewistown, the length of the PRR race track would have been increased to 450-480 miles. Assuming the S1 could sustain 110mph for the whole 460 miles journey nonstop, it would have been taken her 6-7 hours to reach Harrisburg from Chicago! A few more hours later, the train would reach New York or Washington with the help of GG1. For passengers to and from Pittsburgh, sections or shuttle streamliner service could have been arranged between Pittsburgh and a new station on the Samuel Rea Line. Shuttle trains could be powered by upgraded + streamlined K4s or even E6 4-4-2!
If Samuel Rea Line was electrified, I wish there would have been something even more exciting than the S1. If not, let's save the money and keep using coal-burning locomotives on the Sam Rea Line. T1 or even the original Q1 could have been playing a similar role as the S1, but there was at least one thing about S1 that not even the N&W Class J couldn't beat: the riding quality in the cab! Not many steam engines could provide Pullman-level-comfort at a very high speed.
(Click to enlarge)
But you see, anywhere you have an improved New Main Line you also have mechanical turbines that blow any reciprocating locomotive out of the water. Electrification was understood to be needed for the longer tunnels, but the case for it in Ohio would not have to be made with V1s available... let alone versions with Bowes drives.
Overmod But you see, anywhere you have an improved New Main Line you also have mechanical turbines that blow any reciprocating locomotive out of the water. Electrification was understood to be needed for the longer tunnels, but the case for it in Ohio would not have to be made with V1s available... let alone versions with Bowes drived
But you see, anywhere you have an improved New Main Line you also have mechanical turbines that blow any reciprocating locomotive out of the water. Electrification was understood to be needed for the longer tunnels, but the case for it in Ohio would not have to be made with V1s available... let alone versions with Bowes drived
Some random daydreaming *crazy thoughts roaming in my head, sharing them here just for *fun:
There were 22 tunnels on the proposed SRL, the longest one would be 5.57 miles. If every express train needed to stop in front of the 22 tunnels and wait for the electric engine to pull them through the tunnel, a few hours of time would be wasted. (Even though some tunnels would be very close)
Changing power without stopping: For those longer tunnels that were not suitable for Steam engine operation, only the tunnel sections were electrified. The S1's tender (There would have been a fleet of them, maybe #6100-#6109) followed by an electric engine, probably a PRR Class AA2 B-B 2000hp unit or 3000 hp B-B-B-B unit, "disguised" as an extra tender for better appearance (optional). The electric unit could be controlled from the Cab on the S1, T1, S2, S3 and all steam engines assigned to use the SRL. 500 meters before entering the Tunnel, train crew shut off the throttle and slide the train into the tunnel, once the electric unit connected to the electric network, train crew control the electric unit and pushing it to the limit to maintain the trains speed in the tunnel as much as it can. Once the train left the tunnel, let the steam engine pick up the speed again and make up the time, that was one of the best things a PRR Duplex could do.
For shorter tunnels, just give extra attention to the ventilation system, improved Cab design and provide oxygen mask and tank for the crews!
The electric unit didn't have to follow the train for the whole journey. They could be attached to the train from major stops like Fort Wayne or any stop along the SRL, when they were not needed. No need to build completely new electric engines, rebuilt and convert the older one. Larger and more powerful until for longer and more important trains, smaller units for short consist...
Too complex and impractical? The most straightforward solution:
Call EMD for a deal! 1000 miles in 10 hours, no engine change!
I am reminded of a trip I made in early 1974 from Allesandria to Savona in Italy.
The train had three locomotives, an E626 3kV DC Bo-Bo-Bo, an E554 3ph AC E (0-10-0) and an E432 3 ph AC 1-D-1 (2-8-2).
The train departed Alessandria with the E626 working to the first station, which was still electrified on AC. the E626 coasted in with its pantographs down. The E554 and the E432 raised theirs, The E554 shunted the E626 out of the way and the train proceeded behind the E432 at a constant 35 mph (or so).
There were DC railcars that had rectifier trailers with twin pantographs for AC that ran through.
The EMD is no 'solution' to the exhaust concern, and the issue in the tunnels is much more with stalling than with 'making it through' (and it's the passengers that are the greater concern for the 'experience'.)
Might be a use for 'fireless storage' of heat in supercritical water, including better lagging.
I have, in fact, looked at the idea of traction motors and control gear on tenders. They need careful protection from waterscooping if that is to be done; lots of fun with stray current and conductive salts... but the possibilities of dynamic or regenerative braking.
Note that there is less 'dual service' use for the Rea Line improvements (just as there is no 'passenger' reason for the Atglen & Susquehanna) both because of the Pittsburgh 'bypassing' and the tunnels. I believe the page that covers the Rea Line also discusses possible extension west (to Fort Wayne and the 'speedway) and improvements east of Lewistown in particular a 'bypass' of Philadelphia and all the hassle to get to the 'NEC line' perhaps north of Trenton. These are important parts of one-speed grade and curve control.
There is a careful point to consider here. Most of the actual trains will still be sleepers, which implies much of the running will be at night where 110mph operation may be disturbing unless great care is taken; there is also a minimum reduction of time beyond which 'heroic' speed is counterproductive. To an extent the right track design will include proper geometry for comfort and smooth operation including at junctions and crossovers.
Some of the 1923 construction priorities might be different by 1943 (when the electrification alternatives were being proposed) and different again by the early Fifties. If we leave sleeping comfort out, the recognition during the early LGV planning (counterpart to TGV trains) that very steep peak grades can be worked by high-speed trains economically becomes a consideration.
It is difficult to propose much of this without as you note leaving out the diesel advantages, whether as touted pre-1927 (as to Clessie Cummins) or by the time of the Baldwin modular project. The use of EMD power designed for tunnel use would be an interesting exercise... as would 'dual mode' either in its full or 'lite' sense with limited catenary in tunnels or remaining grades. I do think that extension of Gibbs & Hill electrification to at least the passenger main line becomes a priority -- and that much of its cost would essentially be 'sunk' comparatively early in the postwar die off of passenger-train patronage, the question then becoming whether faster remains 'better enough' to preserve it. Personally I think there would not; the experience with the 'Broadway bubble' after 1958 (or conversely with the B&O competition with the Liberty Limited, which conclusively won the war on speed and amenities but lost the peace only a couple of years later).
Fast TOFC does have some better opportunity if bridged from the A&S via Enola and then the optimized Rea improvements. Here some improved gateway alignments other than Chicago begin to be interesting, and some of the high-speed potential outside passenger comfort might be of practical use. However this would involve 'monetizable' use of the quick service -- for example counterpart service to ATSF 'Super C' levels -- and it has not been demonstrated fully to me that this model has worked for most freight and even most M&E historically, well enough to justify the full sunk cost of improvements and maintenance to assure it.
Where you make the high-speed engine change from electrification remains significant, especially with the prospect of the Water Level Route being able to run steam through (with the 64T tender on C1as, and of course with ordinary diesels). That could be pushed relatively east with aggressive tunnel ventilation once you get past the severe ridges of the Alleghenies, but those kinds of fixed costs including the power to drive them may not bode well for profitability 'later'.
Electrification poses its own little issues. PRR had no earthly idea in 1923 how to build an effective high-speed electric locomotive, and really wouldn't figure it out well into the Thirties; I have the grim suspicion that pre-'27 heavy internal combustion would follow the same wacky chassis conventions even the larger locomotive companies were touting then. It might have been fun to see what could be done to save a fleet of AC L5s, but it wouldn't be pretty, it wouldn't be cheap, and it wouldn't have a long life -- conversely the switch to 428A traction motors might have been reduced had larger numbers of 'GG1s' been needed right away. To the extent electrification of a high-speed line west of Harrisburg had been provided (perhaps on the model of a passenger Big Liz) the evolution to "DD2" architecture inherent in the 1943 electrification plan might have been different or indeed as absent as it turned out to be in postwar design prioritization. It might have been fun to see a postwar PRR take up the best of French high-speed practice in the Fifties, with emphasis on 11 or 12.5kV AC to monomoteur drive on a railroad built to over 120mph standard...
Which further brings up the fun of a post-PC, post-Amtrak operation, largely with 'legacy' equipment but looking at the options available to electrified freight in the '70s (GM6C, GM10B) or '80s (the GE proposal for improved E44s embodied in 'test article' 4483).
All the usual caveats about 'writing alternate history' apply here; many things well-established in modern practice might have remained 'roads not taken' while other approaches with less ultimate utility (or familiarity!) might have developed or needed to be revised otherwise. It can be difficult to fix 'apostolic succession' in many things regarding evolution of the PRR in the respects we're talking about, and while there are certainly some clear wrong answers, there are few if any objectively right ones that could have been identified as such by logical people in authority at the time...
M636CI am reminded of a trip I made in early 1974 from Allesandria to Savona in Italy.
Of course the Europeans are famous for developing practical 'four-power' locomotives and systems of operation to run and maintain them correctly. I believe to this day there are TGVs built to run on multiple power sources.
We have discussed the existing proposals for dual-mode at 'equivalent diesel horsepower' including the very detailed one for Conrail. I do not think there is particular difficulty in adapting this to variable sections of from 11kv nominal at 25Hz to 25kV or even 50kV in places at 60Hz.
I doubt the big tunnels on the Rea and other lines would have either modern-high-voltage catenary clearance or easy attainment of 'double stack' clearance. That would involve possibly heroic modification scale and perhaps even preferential abandonment (a la A&S perhaps) in the bad old days...
Peter: I guess this is the three-locomotive train you mentioned: https://www.ilportaledeitreni.it/2019/05/26/253697/
Overmod: If the Sam Rea Line was built, I hope that it wasn't PRR built it alone because, in the cruel reality (with 20/20 hindsight), PRR should have cooperated with other RRs like NYC and B&O to beat the odds. The Sam Rea Line would have been the first high-speed rail in America that allow express passenger trains went through some rather long tunnels at high speed, therefore, from simple things like stronger or more flexible window frame and glass that could withstand the pressure fluctuation to evacuation plans and facilities for emergency situations in the tunnels, a lot of things would have been thoroughly discussed. There is one essential fact that put me off the topic, which is the inevitable postwar decline. The Sam Rea Line was financially impractical; It could have decreased the travel time from NYC/Washington DC to Chi-town (and St. Louis?) by merely three hours only (probably more than three hours if diesel engine was used), let alone the route bypass two major cities, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, I don't think the original Sam Rea Line would be competitive enough to attract the general public to give up their cars or travel by air in the late 1940s.
I wish there was a HSR that based on the idea of Sam Rea Line could provide a 9-hour schedule for New York/Washington DC to Chicago (and St. Louis) express trains. Day trains (all-coach train just like the SP Coast Daylight) depart from 6 am to 12 pm, arrive in both directions from 3 pm to 9 pm or later, night trains (sleeper, slower, like The Lark of SP) depart from 6 pm to 10 pm, arrive at the destination next morning. But I still doubt that it would be competitive enough, even SP's Coast Daylight couldn't withstand the postwar decline... I guess a 4-hour schedule would do it, but not even the never-existed-156mph-S1 could do it...
Jones1945Overmod: If the Sam Rea Line was built, I hope that it wasn't PRR built it alone because, in the cruel reality (with 20/20 hindsight), PRR should have cooperated with other RRs like NYC and B&O to beat the odds.
The initial problem with this is that NYC (and to a lesser extent B&O with NYC connection) had utterly no need for a super railroad running from Harrisburg to north of Pittsburgh when far less heroic engineering could have improved significant parts of the Water Level Route (or the B&O/Reading/CNJ route to New York from the West) to comparable speed.
Were there to be construction overruns, or difficulties, or ongoing maintenance problems or costs, any 'joint venture' might find highly leveraged expenses for (as you indicate) relatively small actual high-speed gain, and less 'monetization' potential. Incremental removal of the (many!) small and large bottlenecks either on the PRR Chicago routes or the 'Northeast Corridor' south to Washington would have produced essentially the same time savings with dramatically less work and risk (and quicker actual RoI).
True high-speed construction would have involved some very different details from what a Sam Rea Line would have received in 1923. A number of these, such as practical class 9 track structure, only evolved decades later, well after the LGV development got under way. In particular I think fairly substantial 'active tilt' would be required many places on the Rea line (and its prospective contemporary extensions to either side) and designng, providing, and maintaining that even in the headiest Fleet of Modernism days would have been near-impossible and perhaps often dangerous.
I'd have been amused to see a completed Chicago New York Air Line Railway built out to double track with proper high-speed overhead power (probably catenary rather than improved pole) and the degree to which it would compete with heavy railroads throughout subsequent "likely history". (My guess would be conversion to four-lane "Turnpike" at a fairly early date, following the example of the Pennsylvania Turnpike and possibly changing the course of the New York State Thruway as built.) Unlike the South Penn, a CNYAL would have been inherently straight-graded and have few curves...
Overmod I'd have been amused to see a completed Chicago New York Air Line Railway built out to double track with proper high-speed overhead power (probably catenary rather than improved pole) and the degree to which it would compete with heavy railroads throughout subsequent "likely history". (My guess would be conversion to four-lane "Turnpike" at a fairly early date, following the example of the Pennsylvania Turnpike and possibly changing the course of the New York State Thruway as built.) Unlike the South Penn, a CNYAL would have been inherently straight-graded and have few curves...
In case our younger reader missed our discussion about the CNYAL eariler:
"I am in!"
https://chicagology.com/transportation/airlinerailroad/
A farsighted project like the CNYAL would have encouraged the development of electric railroad equipment, including but not limited to electric traction motor, pantograph, and overhead lines or 3rd rail exclusively designed for highspeed railroad; suspension system, body structure for lightweight high-speed trains, let alone the development of infrastructure that would have required for running a high-speed railroad system, and the change of traveling habit of American long before the WWII era, the country would have been benefited directly without a doubt. The CNYAL would also have been used to transport troops during the WWII, at least 50% (or more) travel time saved between NYC to Chicago if the top speed of the trains on the CNYAL was improved and shortened throughout the early 1900s to the 1940s. The CNYAL would have been powered by steam indirectly by steam-electric power stations, but of course, my fantasy HSR for America would have been running by steam-streamliner, like the Pennsy duplexes and UP's steam turbine.
Some extensions of the CNYAL would be interesting: Chicago to Denver via St. Louis and Kansas City, Toronto to Chicago via Detroit (That would have made it an international high-speed rail and Miningman could use it). New York to Denver in 18 hours or less! Who wants to join?
Additional information about the PRR Q1 #6130 4-6-4-4 duplex as a dual service engine instead of a freight-only engine between April 1942 to June 1945:
Source: The Keystone Magazine Volume 39, Number 2, Page 30.
Q1 was always a dual-service engine; few freight engines in the world, let alone one on a railroad with a hard 50mph peacetime freight speed limit, use 77" drivers.
This even if we discount that wartime 'expediency' demanded nominal dual service capability to get something new like this past the WPB construction restrictions ... remember certain GS engines on Southern Pacific?
Note that the 'class repairs' date is a month after VE Day, at a time it was probably becoming very clear that there was little prewar advantage to the Q2s (a far more successful freight duplex capable of most PRR M&E freight speed if required). Big order for T1s had been approved over 6 months ago.
Who needed that thing as a passenger engine by that point? It certainly wasn't reliable enough in a number of respects... (might be a touch of irony in there somewhere, as things turned out)
...and I strongly suspect the bronze bell may have gone to one of the T1s a-buildin'. That would represent a substantial savings of cost, even in those days...
Overmod Q1 was always a dual-service engine; few freight engines in the world, let alone one on a railroad with a hard 50mph peacetime freight speed limit, use 77" drivers.
We know that Q1 was definitely a dual-service engine, but many railroad historians, authors, brass train manufacturers are under the impression that it was designed as a freight engine from day one. Before I updated Q1's wiki page, there wasn't a single word about 'dual service' or 'passenger train' in the context, but only the conventional belief about Q1 that the 77" driver was unfit for freight service. President Clement actually enquired the MP dept twice about the size of the driver on Q1, it wasn't a reckless decision.
"Coal-Burning Steam Freight Locomotive"
Regarding the performance, Neil Burnell, the author of the Keystone article said that he has previously suggested that the Q1 might have been successful as a passenger locomotive, hauling the heaviest consist, and he believes this is consistent with its power output of 4800dbhp, equivalent to the corrected dphp of T1 #5539, when tested on the C&O. His conclusion is backed up by Q1's revenue run records from May 1942 to July 1942, which is included in the Keystone Magazine. When Q1 was hauling 5000+ tons freight trains, its rear-engine always slipped when starting, which sometimes led to stalling with sandbox empty!
I don't remember the source, but the Q1 wound up being an incremental increase in power over the M1a Mountain, but they increased the diameter speed at the same time they took down the dynamic augment, not something you do unless you have a very good idea you'll be running heavy trains at far over PRR freight speed. I think they thought of it as being an incremental step past a double-Atlantic for highest speeds: a piece of motive power that would do the work of doubleheaded K4s on everything but hell-fast trains. And that, it would have done.
It needed to be conjugated for serious freight work, just as the S1 would have had to be. And it needed precisely the emphasis on long TOFC consists or extended M&E at elevated speed that constituted a hole in the late-Forties operation -- no more long, high-speed freights as in wartime; no reason to accelerate conventional track-pounding interchange freight past 50mph...
... and of course when the time came, F units on the one hand and surplus E units on the other hand filled any gaps the Q1 would have excelled at.
Overmod ...I don't remember the source, but the Q1 wound up being an incremental increase in power over the M1a Mountain, but they increased the diameter speed at the same time they took down the dynamic augment...
...I don't remember the source, but the Q1 wound up being an incremental increase in power over the M1a Mountain, but they increased the diameter speed at the same time they took down the dynamic augment...
Yes, the Q1 was in part due to President Martin Clement's request for a feasibility study as to the possibility of expanding the TE of the M1 by mere 10000lbs. After a thorough study by the Mechanical department, they replied that although some improvement in TE could be obtained, it wasn't an economical option since it would reduce the efficiency of the M1's boiler. A trailing truck booster could be applied to increase the engine's ability to start a heavier train, but this would be an expensive appliance only suited to use at low speed. They thought it was impractical to upgrade the M1s. Lima offered a proposal to rebuild one M1 into a 4-8-4 with poppet valves equipped, but PRR rejected. That would have provided much of the additional power Clement desired.
Neil Burnell, the author of Keystone Magazine's Q1 article, stated that he read official files of Q1, but he didn't have access to the actual design information. I believe the engine was build as a competitor to Baldwin's T1 4-4-4-4, given that the project was executed and carefully monitored by Clement himself, with Raymond Loewy involved for the streamlining. Note that the design work of Q1 started as early as 1939. It seems that Pennsy wanted to build something a bit smaller than S1 and much more practical, a dual-purpose engine that could have handled both fast freight service and passenger train service, all by Pennsy themself.
Neil Burnell also stated that most of the PRR Test Department files were destroyed by an NYC official in the PC era, we probably never know if Q1 ever hauled passenger train for testing, why and who stopped the engine from becoming a passenger train engine, also could have been seen as Baldwin's duplex competitor between 1943 to 1945. Did Baldwin negotiate with PRR, persuaded them to use their patented duplex design, the T1 prototype in 1942 exclusively for PRR's passenger trains, instead of PRR's duplex design, the Q1? We will probably never know.
One last thing, Clement suggested equipping Frankin poppet valve gear on Q1's rear-engine but was rejected due to inaccessibility for maintenance of the cambox. Ironically, the poppet valve gear cambox on the T1's rear-engine was also inaccessible for maintenance!
Overmod It needed to be conjugated for serious freight work, just as the S1 would have had to be. And it needed precisely the emphasis on long TOFC consists or extended M&E at elevated speed that constituted a hole in the late-Forties operation -- no more long, high-speed freights as in wartime; no reason to accelerate conventional track-pounding interchange freight past 50mph...
Just as those Southern Pacific GS-3, GS-4, and ATSF's Northern with 80" drivers. They were assigned to haul freight trains in the late 1940s. TE of PRR T1 was 64,653lbf, much higher than the L1s 61,465lbf, but they didn't have the chance since there were already 574 L1s, let alone the I1s/I1sa were much more powerful in terms of TE...
Be careful here because "TE" and power are not at all the same thing. What you want to examine is not 'starting tractive effort' but the development of that additional 5 tons of tractive effort at some particular speed.
This is well-remarked in discussions of the early Berkshires, whose TE might be only indifferently higher than a predecessor Mikado (for a sizable increase not only in overall engine weight but in non-adhesive weight) but whose over-the-road performance with tonnage might be definitively better, and faster.
Part of the issue with PRR not doing a 4-8-4 is that, of course, the Q1 is a locomotive with 5/4 the adhesion of a Northern, with the same front and rear steering characteristics and at least equivalent firebox capacity, but with far less augment than any contemporary one. Another part of the issue is that for high-speed passenger work PRR was off in a different duplex direction, but one that was not viewed as 'overlapping' what the Q1 represented.
(Note that the two Baldwin T1 'adaptations' of the double-Atlantic passenger duplex were ordered in late June of 1940, well in advance of the October 9th 'greenlighting' of the Q1 for production ... this is not just an example of 'ours' vs. 'theirs' production. In this light the option for 'common' Franklin type A gear for the rear engine may make a little better sense, and the difficulties with packaging the cambox not yet as obvious as they would become.
Perhaps the most interesting detail involves the Q2s, which were far over the horsepower the Q1 could ever develop, and which included boosters as part of their design. I find I can't locate a copy of the TE-at-speed graph I found for the V1 turbine (which is, in color, at the Hagley Museum in Delaware) but I've posted it in at least a couple of threads and someone may be patient enough to locate and repost it here. It is interesting to consider what the TE recorded for that locomotive (there is a very distinct 'kink' in the plot where the booster cuts out) represents ... or what corresponding figures for the Q1, which essentially would have become the near-equivalent of a 77"-drivered Challenger at starting, would have been...
Overmod Be careful here because "TE" and power are not at all the same thing. What you want to examine is not 'starting tractive effort' but the development of that additional 5 tons of tractive effort at some particular speed. This is well-remarked in discussions of the early Berkshires, whose TE might be only indifferently higher than a predecessor Mikado (for a sizable increase not only in overall engine weight but in non-adhesive weight) but whose over-the-road performance with tonnage might be definitively better, and faster. Part of the issue with PRR not doing a 4-8-4 is that, of course, the Q1 is a locomotive with 5/4 the adhesion of a Northern, with the same front and rear steering characteristics and at least equivalent firebox capacity, but with far less augment than any contemporary one. Another part of the issue is that for high-speed passenger work PRR was off in a different duplex direction, but one that was not viewed as 'overlapping' what the Q1 represented. (Note that the two Baldwin T1 'adaptations' of the double-Atlantic passenger duplex were ordered in late June of 1940, well in advance of the October 9th 'greenlighting' of the Q1 for production ... this is not just an example of 'ours' vs. 'theirs' production. In this light the option for 'common' Franklin type A gear for the rear engine may make a little better sense, and the difficulties with packaging the cambox not yet as obvious as they would become. Perhaps the most interesting detail involves the Q2s, which were far over the horsepower the Q1 could ever develop, and which included boosters as part of their design. I find I can't locate a copy of the TE-at-speed graph I found for the V1 turbine (which is, in color, at the Hagley Museum in Delaware) but I've posted it in at least a couple of threads and someone may be patient enough to locate and repost it here. It is interesting to consider what the TE recorded for that locomotive (there is a very distinct 'kink' in the plot where the booster cuts out) represents ... or what corresponding figures for the Q1, which essentially would have become the near-equivalent of a 77"-drivered Challenger at starting, would have been...
Speaking of that "distinct 'kink' in the plot" where the booster cuts out, here is a graph and data from Keystone you might find interesting:
It would be even more interesting if T1 and Q2's data is included, and a graph that can compare the change of dynamic argument of a duplex and "nonduplex" (including doubleheaded K4s).
Pennsy insisted to develop their own dual service duplex engine instead of asking Baldwin to design and build one for them in 1940 after they placed the order of two prototypes from Baldwin just a few months ahead. One interesting fact many missed was that Pennsy did require Baldwin to design a 4-4-6-4 frigid frame duplex as early as 1936!
Pennsy was so determined to Ralph P. Johnson's idea, the T1 prototypes #6110 and #6111 cost $600,000 while the Q1 alone cost $595,000, all three of them cost $1,195,000 (= $22,019,667.50 today) in total. I wonder how much did an EMD E6 A-B-A set cost in 1940... I only have Paul W. Kiefer's 1946 steam-versus-diesel trial figures, which show the "Approximate relative first costs" of EMD E7 A-B-A set was 214% of a single NYC Niagara, but the overall maintenance and operation cost of a Niagara was very competitive. E8 came and put a full stop to almost everything...
I believe Q2 IS listed; it's the 'fifth' line on the chart, the top one.
This chart is also proof that the Q1 was built with a booster: the notched trace proves it. This is where the steam overflow going into the booster at high speed is redirected to the main cylinders once they are operating at a cyclic rate sufficient to make 'better use' of what was being directed to the small, full-cutoff engine operating at excessive speed.
Whether a Q2 could effectively exert the near-starting TE corresponding to that trace under 'real-world' PRR conditions is another thing! But there is no question why PRR didn't think it needed a 'bigger' articulated design...
Hello Jones1945 and Hello All,
this very thread has convinced me to enter this forum!
The S1 and T1s were always among my favourite engines and as I am not from the USA, the beginning of my learning curve about these beauties - many years ago - was with the German "Lok Magazin", a monthly magazine usually packed with well-researched information. Whilst the main focus was on European prototypes, sometimes some USA locomotive types were featured by Arnold Haas, who, IIRC, was a Swiss journalist.
In the 1970's, he wrote two articles about the S1 and T1 locomotives, and in his essays quite a few things turned up which caused some irritation for years, to say the least. According to him, the S1 was painted dark red for the World fair, where its four driving axles were moved by electric motors, and in March 1946 it received a fine for speeding at 141,2 mph by the ICC.
As well, according to Haas, the S1 was put into freight service from October 1946, and after retirement no museum wanted to have it for free, as it was too big.
So this is where it is from!
Now the figures from the Reuter book about the S1/T1 are mainly the same as those in the Haas articles, and as to your question, Haas also wrote that the S1 had developed more than 8200 ihp in Altoona. No indication was given when (or if..) this event might have taken place.
So the accuracy of the Reuter text is mainly, lets say, influenced by the numbers from Haas.
So much for today!
aboard Hermann! This is a good place to be, we have a lot of fun here and certainly do learn from each other!
HermannIn the 1970's, he wrote two articles about the S1 and T1 locomotives, and in his essays quite a few things turned up which caused some irritation for years, to say the least. According to him, the S1 was painted dark red for the World's Fair, where its four driving axles were moved by electric motors, and in March 1946 it received a fine for speeding at 141,2 mph by the ICC.
He is also famous for noting that NYC Hudsons and Niagaras operated regularly at 120mph (in Memories of New York Central Steam).
We very carefully debugged the ICC story; it's not right, for a number of independent reasons that all converge. It is possible that the engine could have been revised to make the necessary power to reach comparable speed, but PRR would have required cars capable of riding properly at that speed, which they did not have. Note that the "141.2" works out to a suspiciously round metric number...
I will not judge him for thinking the S1 went to the fair in Tuscan; I was around for the heroic restoration of 4935, was there when Loewy signed her with a flourish, rode back on the rear platform of Pins' 120 (which was Tuscan) ... and distinctly remember the engine as being painted red. Sometimes what you see is shaped by what you expect to see.
I was at the Worlds Fair in both summer 1939 and 1940, saw the S-1 many times, and my memory has it either Brunzwick green, like most GG-1s, or a very dark redish-brown-black, sort of ultra-dark Mehogny, but definitely not Tuscan Red like PRR-120. It may have had both colors, one each year.
daveklepper I was at the Worlds Fair in both summer 1939 and 1940, saw the S-1 many times,
I was at the Worlds Fair in both summer 1939 and 1940, saw the S-1 many times,
Oh, I'm jealous now!
and my memory has it either Brunzwick green, like most GG-1s, or a very dark redish-brown-black, sort of ultra-dark Mehogny, but definitely not Tuscan Red like PRR-120. It may have had both colors, one each year.
Hello Daveklepper,
your last sentence sounds interesting! Never thought of that.
There is at least one color-photo in the web showing the S-1 in glossy black, as well as 5548 on an exposition in Harrisburg in 1949 seems to be glossy black. Some 20 years ago I had an email exchange with a guy who also remembered the T-1 and S-1 locomotives first hand. He saw the S-1 in black, the two prototypes in DGLE and about the serial T-1s he wasn't so sure as they were too dirty to tell..
Probably all those now debunked myths about the speed may have created at least part of a supporting climate that led to the establishment of the Trust which is therefore dedicated to build a T-1 and not, say, a Dreyfuss Hudson. Not that I would mind seenig another beauty in action; I just feel there may not be enough donators for two big projects at one time out of the UK.
By the way (here's my chance to ask those in the know):
Are there any reports about when heavy overhauls of the T-1 happened to which engine? Did somehow the assignment of locomotives from 1946 - 1948 show up lately? And, if as of march, 1952 as cited here in this thread, 19 T-1s were "stored in good running order", did these happen to be the same 19 units which had their lateral motion modified to operate between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh?
If there was a 'red' color the S1 "should" have been painted, it was the bronze that was applied to 3768.
On the other hand, I can't find a hard reference either way on how long 3768 might have appeared there in this paint at the Fair (as I recall as part of the Pageant of Transportation). Most sources indicate she was repainted to DGLE fairly quickly, possibly before the S1 was finished. That and other available evidence strongly indicates that the S1 itself would have been 'green' both years ...
Of course, very famously Lionel took to calling their tubby little 3768 the "Torpedo" (going so far as to characterize it in a children's book as 'the fastest locomotive in the world' or some such language) and this may have led people to conflate, over the years, the streamlined locomotives they might have seen at the Fair.
And there were ten Pennsy K4's painted Tuscan Red at one time to match the new Tuscan Red passenger cars, but how long they kept that color I don't know.
I found some color footage of the "America's Railroads" exhibit from the 1939 New York World's Fair, including "Railroads on Parade." No sound though.
Some good shots of the S1, but the color footage doesn't tell us much. It certainly looks like it was "Brunswick Green," you know, "Two parts black, one part green?" But not even Kodachrome was right 100% of the time.
No, there's no shots of a young railfan named David Klepper running wild through the railroad exhibits with his exasperated parents chasing him. Sorry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NySKJczYKUQ
Hello and welcome, Hermann.
Speaking of the S1 painted red, I found this brass model from the bay a few months ago:
I thought the model was painted like that on request by the model's owner, but now I understand why it was painted red.
The S1 was assigned to haul a 90-car freight train for testing before she was officially put into service. James M. Symes requested to make it a freight engine due to her unstable performance (probably caused by constant over speed), but PRR HQ rejected it. She was retired from passenger service around May 1946, and there was no photographic evidence showing she was put into freight service after May 1946. Maybe Arnold Haas had found some evidence that no longer existed, maybe some people have mistaken S1 for Q1, just as people confused the K4s 3768 with S1 6100.
I would have to see very specific correspondence from Symes indicating his intent to continue this locomotive in service but restrict it to 'freight only'.
I am not quite certain from first principles why anyone, on or off PRR, would think that a comparatively short-stroke engine with 84" drivers would have effective adhesion at relatively low speed, let alone proper train-starting characteristics with divided drive, let alone the ability to make reasonable horsepower in the appropriate speed range for PRR peacetime freight.
Presumably at least part of the 'instability problem' involved improper starting procedure with an engine using a front-end throttle (in other words, much the same problem that was reported, well after mid-1946, for the T1s) but again, unless by 'freight operation' is meant generally leisurely operation with fairly restricted consists, it's difficult to see why Symes in particular would be trying to wring additional ton-miles of this kind of service out of a locomotive in which PRR had invested so very many hundreds of thousands of development dollars. It is also nearly impossible for me to see what advantage to PRR could result in seeing the World's Fair Famous Future of Passenger Trains engine plodding along like some 70'-drivered incarnation of 999 on milk trains.
In any case, the fix for the 'unstable' divided-drive performance would be relatively more simple than for the T1, due to the more limited distribution at higher mass flow in the Walschaerts gear; something no more complicated than the divided proportional application of independent rigging we propose for T1 5550 would have done the job even without implementing 'trim' (or separate throttling) of steam distribution or reverser positioning to one of the engines.
Now on the other hand Symes would have had no reason whatsoever to 'make a freight engine' out of the Q1 because it had explicitly been one since its inception, albeit one intended more for heavy fast M&E on a railroad where passenger traffic was handled with full double Atlantics. Here the situation was complicated by the fact that F units would outperform the Q1 in almost any respect in practice; if there was going to be a future for the M1 legacy on PRR outside what diesels could do better, it would be in 5/4 scale updesign of Berkshires instead of Mountains, in other words via the 70"-drivered J1as PRR already had in such numbers. Those might not be able to reach anywhere near the theoretical speed of a Q1, or offer the low peak augment promised ... but they could be relied upon to run any heavy train otherwise involving doubleheaded M1s about as fast, and of course with far less consternation and overhead maintenance and potential for various and relatively spectacular failures. And of course there were turbines waiting in the wings to replace any reciprocating locomotive with augment ... and F units better than the turbines almost from the beginning.
The problem I have with Haas from the NYC side is the same I have with him claiming ridiculously high metric speed for the S1: I suppose what it really comes down to is that I've never really forgiven Freeload Cubbard and his ilk for having taught me from a very early age that PRR had locomotives that ran the Pennsylvania Special from Alida to AY at over 127mph.
There is a distressing tendency elsewhere in the United States to think that just because something runs a certain speed, with a little hot-rodding you can 'obviously' go much faster. And if a locomotive is just a bigger car, with a little superior knowledge (in America) or Stakhovite effort (in Russia) a faster and faster performance will result. Only much later, and usually by banging up firsthand against the cruelty of the physics and materials of 'the world as it is', do people begin to appreciate just what is required to achieve the higher speed. Certainly wishful thinking was not going to get Hudsons regularly well over 120mph, but Haas went beyond that and talked about it as if it were commonplace ... but underremarked. Stan Repp not only went on about testing speeds on ATSF up to 150mph, but how crews avoided getting into trouble with a match between key contacts of the "speed recorder" equipment. All this makes for good Railroad Magazine stories, or for bull sessions in the caboose ... but one strongly suspects that actually producing these results out on the railroad was a different story, and one much more difficult in its 'telling'.
Now, something that might be interesting and fun at the same time would be to model the ROW from Lewistown west over an improved Sam Rea/Ohio cutoff line, with its low grades and minimum curves allowing greater sustained speed and perhaps better duplex train-handling, and see just what would have been required for an S1 run in its proper context. I have the grim suspicion that electrics would still have been 'better' all the way west of the Alleghenies, and of course the S1 already had level-playing-field advantage from Crestline all the way until almost into Chicago.
Syme's request is mentioned in the article "The S1 - Biggest of them all" by Charlie Meyer, but the specific reason is not well documented. A reasonable estimate is that Symes wanted to get rid of the S1 for the reason you stated, but since PRR HQ insisted to keep using the S1 between Crestline and Chicago, he had no alternative but to settle for the second best by requesting the HQ to put S1 into freight service. That means the S1 could have been operated within the speed limit of the freight train and that would have prevented her from the constant breakdown on the route caused by wear parts and over-speed operation. I don't think Syme thought that S1 was an ideal engine for freight service.
According to The Keystone Magazine Volume 39, Number 2, Syme's complaints on the S1 are well documented. The author couldn't find any complaints on the Q1.
Part of the reason I bring this up is because an awful lot of the motive-power correspondence in those years survives ... and is accessible from friendly people ... at the Hagley in Delaware. I spent some time researching the V1 turbine and, incidentally, saw quite a bit of the correspondence regarding the S1 and S2 in the postwar years, including the detailed correspondence about preservation and the ultimate failure thereof.
It certainly looks as though I need to spend a coupla days in there about what was done year by year in the postwar period. I don't have the impression PRR thought it was going to get anywhere near its money's worth out of the big girl after the War, became increasingly resigned to it, and may have resorted to excuse in getting the hellish allotted expenses blotted off the books -- perhaps a dry run for doing something similar with the T1s?
You kind of wonder if anyone was really thinking straight. I still say a lot of post war trauma ran through all of society and that combined with rapid changes all around made it difficult day to day to understand and make solid decisions, but I say they did not recognize that.
A lot of ' give me those money saving Diesels' thinking was the order of the day in the entire industry. Legions of layoffs ensued. The loss of steam lost a lot of jobs, friends, people that won the war. This had to have an effect on morale at the railroad. That had to be bad. Was any of that considered? The romance and charm disappeared from the public and quickly.
Now these men at the top of the PRR were not immune but I think they thought they were. It's like the story Overmod told of the British Upper Crust fellow who thought Syphilis was a disease of the 'lesser' and injected himself to prove it and died.
There was a rush to judgement and damn the consequences. It all just added to the chaos and trauma.
Many first generation Diesels from several builders soon proved unreliable adding to the pool of confusion. The difference between 1950 and 1960 was incredible, shocking and unforeseen. Governments turned their back on the railroads and an aggressive campaign of 'railroads are old fashioned, but a Chevrolet isn't' by Madison Ave. ... and they meant the trains not just the steam. Then GM sold the Diesels to those very railroads ... in effect the railroads took their own poison.
They must have been slapping themselves silly at GM HQ.
Did the men at the top have a clue? Did they think rationally, or were they chasing their own tail. Did they see a dim very soon to be future?
No NYC Hudson was saved , not the S1, all the T1's were scrapped far too early and to put a cherry on top they tore down the greatest symbol of the PRR .. the Pennsylvania Station.
This was not rational thinking by the better men and leaders of society and in Railroading.
This thinking added to their own demise.
The S1, S2, T1's, Q2's Hudson's , Niagara's , the rest of the East, fell victim to group think... and they were swindled and betrayed .. never saw it coming.
The Fix. Stick with what you know , stand by with unflinching loyalty to your troops, get every top notch lawyer across the system and a few good real slippery ones to fight the local, State and Federal governments like a crazed weasel. Push for Government funded research into next generation intercity rail resulting in beating the Japanese to the punch with the Bullet Trains. Go into partnership with cities on commuter services, retaining ownership of the rails and operations while assured of a reasonable rate of return. Keep all steam for at least ten years, maybe 15 or 20. Work with GM, Alco and Baldwin on those next generation intercity trains, don't buy what they are offering.
If the bombed out Japanese and French can do it then surely to heck we can do it 5 years earlier. Fund everything with higher gasoline taxes and chill out.
Now I realize all of what I have written here can be blown away by 'rational' thinking and ' you don't get it' or 'you're nuts' but there is the spiritual side, the human side, something you can't grab and show, something we all know but don't acknowledge as 'rational thinking'.
I believe that was all overlooked and never considered. Think we are doing better though.
Hello Jones1945!
Did you buy them all?
Jones1945The S1 was assigned to haul a 90-car freight train for testing before she was officially put into service. James M. Symes requested to make it a freight engine due to her unstable performance (probably caused by constant over speed), but PRR HQ rejected it. She was retired from passenger service around May 1946, and there was no photographic evidence showing she was put into freight service after May 1946. Maybe Arnold Haas had found some evidence that no longer existed, maybe some people have mistaken S1 for Q1, just as people confused the K4s 3768 with S1 6100.
Probably Symes just wanted to take the S-1 out of passenger service now he had enough T-1s and he just looked for another occupation for that rather unreliable (look at her mileage..) single-piece just as long as her boiler ticket ran. Some of the first serial T-1s, delivered nov/dec 1945, were assigned to Crestline.
Charlie Meyer mentioned in his Milepost-article, that WWII prolonged the life of the S-1.
Haas surely must have known a lot, but as he mixed up or exaggerated so much so often, none of his information can be seen as credible unless confired by official sources, leaving all of his speed claims as "hearsay". "Fake news" is not a new invention, and the style of his writing tells a story about a guy who liked to show off.
T do not have the knowledge to contribute to this discussion, but I d find it the most fascinating and interesting on the website. Hats off to all of you!
Miningman The Fix. Stick with what you know , stand by with unflinching loyalty to your troops, get every top notch lawyer across the system and a few good real slippery ones to fight the local, State and Federal governments like a crazed weasel. Push for Government funded research into next generation intercity rail resulting in beating the Japanese to the punch with the Bullet Trains. Go into partnership with cities on commuter services, retaining ownership of the rails and operations while assured of a reasonable rate of return. Keep all steam for at least ten years, maybe 15 or 20. Work with GM, Alco and Baldwin on those next generation intercity trains, don't buy what they are offering. If the bombed out Japanese and French can do it then surely to heck we can do it 5 years earlier. Fund everything with higher gasoline taxes and chill out. Now I realize all of what I have written here can be blown away by 'rational' thinking and ' you don't get it' or 'you're nuts' but there is the spiritual side, the human side, something you can't grab and show, something we all know but don't acknowledge as 'rational thinking'. I believe that was all overlooked and never considered. Think we are doing better though.
I love your ideas. We have more than enough points and content to make a very good Hollywood movie base on your ideas. If it would be a sci-fi movie, let's call it "Morning Broadway Limited" or "Fleet of the 20th Century".
Overmod but how crews avoided getting into trouble with a match between key contacts of the "speed recorder" equipment. All this makes for good Railroad Magazine stories, or for bull sessions in the caboose
BigJim Overmod but how crews avoided getting into trouble with a match between key contacts of the "speed recorder" equipment. All this makes for good Railroad Magazine stories, or for bull sessions in the caboose Supersonic speeds aside, this practice was not "story", but, was actually used by enginemen. All of the old heads knew how to beat the speed recorder!
Supersonic speeds aside, this practice was not "story", but, was actually used by enginemen. All of the old heads knew how to beat the speed recorder!
And N&W enginemen would also make time in selected areas between Roanoke and Bristol.
Johnny
Charlie Meyer mentioned in Milepost Jan 1992, that WWII actually prolonged S-1's life due to the need for passenger engines. As unreliable as the S-1 was - only 161.000 miles in four years - it is no wonder to me that the S-1 disappeared from passenger service as soon as the more reliable T-1s arrived in Crestline from November, 1945. IIRC, Crestline was the first shed to get serial T-1s.
The request to put the S-1 in freight service may be just the pragmatic intention to use her as long as her boiler ticket runs, with affecting the schedules of passenger trains the least possible.
One main drive behind the construction of the S-1 was a letter by J.F.Deasy to Fred Hankins, saying basically: "the Pennsy guys are building a 100-mph-locomotive". So as to the end of the T-1 about ten years later- there may have been a conspiration or not - probably all these known factors, plus the coal strikes, have been met by the same pressure from the competitor about a decade before, now in the form of the motto:
"The Pennsy have bought diesels!"
In an interview in the late 1970's, Andre Chapelon spoke of conspiracy of the diesel producers as he said that there had been failures by diesel locomotives, "but they would be kept secret.."
So unless other data comes up, I personally think the end of the S-1 may just as well have been set by the boiler ticket running out....
One thing I might be able to contribute to this discussion is a question:
Is it my imagination, but did not the S1 carry the lettering:
AMERCAN RAILROADS
at either or both 1939 and 1940 Worlds Fairs, instead of the in-service
PENNSYLVANIA
??
Quite right David, you remember correctly, the S1 was labeled "American Railroads" at the World's Fair.
As a matter of fact, several years ago O Gauge model maker MTH put out an S1 model in two versions, one labeled "Pennsylvania" and one labeled "American Railroads" after the World's Fair display. Beautiful models too, but I couldn't afford 'em!
Here's a six minute video of one of the models. Probably more than anyone wants to see, unless you're like me and Mr. Jones!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exKL1L7VOBc
By the way, I've never read anything concerning the S1 and mechanical issues. As I understand it the problem was it was just too big! Too big for any of the Pennsy's turntables, and almost too big for any of the wyes. Turning an S1 on a wye required "kid glove" handling, and even that was no guarantee against derailing, which the S1 did frequently.
Hermann Hello Jones1945! Did you buy them all?
If only I had more money, time and space, I would create a fleet of S1 in my display cabinet! I only have one HO NJC Brass full-skirted and an O gauge Sunset 3rd Rail full-skirted S1. I have been looking for an unskirted version of it, but it is extremely rare. I love how those 84" Baldwin Disc drivers fully exposed under the modified "mini-skirt." But at the end of the day, the skirted version was Raymond Loewy's original design that looks unbelievably futuristic.
Hermann Charlie Meyer mentioned in Milepost Jan 1992, that WWII actually prolonged S-1's life due to the need for passenger engines. As unreliable as the S-1 was - only 161.000 miles in four years - it is no wonder to me that the S-1 disappeared from passenger service as soon as the more reliable T-1s arrived in Crestline from November, 1945. IIRC, Crestline was the first shed to get serial T-1s.
Exactly. I have been looking for a complete monthly mileage figure of the S1 from Dec 1940 to May 1946 (5 years and 5 months), but I will have to go to Hagley. S1 stayed in the shop quite often, but whenever she was "recharged," she exclusively hauled some of the most important named trains of PRR (General, Trail Blazer, Golden Arrow) instead of "lower tier" passenger trains. PRR made the best use of her, unlike the T1 and Q2...
Hermann One main drive behind the construction of the S-1 was a letter by J.F.Deasy to Fred Hankins, saying basically: "the Pennsy guys are building a 100-mph-locomotive".
One main drive behind the construction of the S-1 was a letter by J.F.Deasy to Fred Hankins, saying basically: "the Pennsy guys are building a 100-mph-locomotive".
PRR's Vice President of Operations J.F Deasy wrote to Chief of Motive Power Fred Hankins on May 1936:
Keep me posted on the progress of the work."
I don't know which 100-mph locomotive Deasy referred to because I really doubt that the streamlined Mercury K-5 Pacific or the Streamlined Hudson Commodore Vanderbilt could make 100 mph, but this was probably how NYC advertised the Mercury train! IIRC, even the Dreyfuss Hudson couldn't make 100mph, and there was no need to. As we discussed before that overnight long-distance train's time schedules were very well designed base on passenger's pace of life, and the quality of sleeper services. The average speed of all NYC-Chicago overnight trains were way below 100mph.
If the Sam Rea Line was built, and the entire route allows high-speed passenger trains running at 100mph or above, there would have been a few day trains leaving NYC and Chicago in the early morning, so that business person could have arrived both cities within the working hours (leaving at 6 am, arrive around 3 pm). But base on various research, a 900 miles or above high-speed rail is unprofitable even in today's standard. The Sam Rea Line would have been a better stage for the S1, T1, or even the streamlined K4s to show off their capabilities, but I agree with Overmod that even a 9-hour high-speed train ticket wouldn't sell well.
Hermann In an interview in the late 1970's, Andre Chapelon spoke of conspiracy of the diesel producers as he said that there had been failures by diesel locomotives, "but they would be kept secret.." So unless other data comes up, I personally think the end of the S-1 may just as well have been set by the boiler ticket running out....
Interesting point about the boiler ticket! I can't find much information about boiler ticket in the States, and I wonder what the regulation was. Please enlighten me. : )
The 100mph locomotive is the Kantola J1e as rebuilt with the "100mph" Timken rods (and disc drivers and carefully-done balancing).
Note that it would have been a 100mph capable engine unstreamlined; the speed was in the relative absence of augment.
Note that PRR really did little more than toy with this prior to the T1s; the duplex principle and year made Milwaukee A style lightweight rods the 'done thing' on the S1 as built, and it was ridiculous to expect more than low-90s real-world speed out of a K4 chassis.
As noted it would have been fun to see a leaf taken from N&W practice and a set of Timkens with disc main put on a M1 or M1a ... with the sine-wave humongo superheater scaled to fit in the latter case. You'd get 100mph out of that with a little care with equalizing snubbing, and it would do it with gusto with fairly minimal acceleration run... of course it would also top out proportionally above the J, say about 115mpg if the lubrication tolerated that... and by that time PRR had something with both higher speed and nominally-available HP at that speed, and far better guiding and suspension, in the pipeline...
"Boiler ticket" is the pre-Part 230 thing now rolled into the 1472-day inspection. Quarterly inspection is denominated in 92-day increments (imho for the same kind of enforcement 'legality' that produces 79mph Esch Act based speed) and four quarters times four years means... time to check the boiler metal carefully inside and out. Which implies pulling all the tubes to be able to see the surface... and hence an effective full boiler rebuild, in practice.
Jones1945S1 stayed in the shop quite often, but whenever she was "recharged," she exclusively hauled some of the most important named trains of PRR (General, Trail Blazer, Golden Arrow) instead of "lower tier" passenger trains. PRR made the best use of her, unlike the T1 and Q2...
Yes, and/but from March 26, 1945, the S-1 even got a competitor in 6200, which usually ran the Trail Blazer east and the Admiral west.
Hermann Yes, and/but from March 26, 1945, the S-1 even got a competitor in 6200, which usually ran the Trail Blazer east and the Admiral west.
The S2 also hauled lots of crack trains that the S1 seldom pulled, like the Broadway and Manhattan limited. I read somewhere that people saw the S2 once appeared in Pittsburgh, the "forbidden city" of the S1. On the other hand, I have seen pics of the T1 phototypes powered the Trail Blazer.
Jones1945The S2 also hauled lots of crack trains that the S1 seldom pulled, like the Broadway and Manhattan limited. I read somewhere that people saw the S2 once appeared in Pittsburgh, the "forbidden city" of the S1. On the other hand, I have seen pics of the T1 phototypes powered the Trail Blazer.
Hi Jones1945,
interesting thing that for three long years, the two prototypes ran into and through Pittsburgh without any reported troubles.
Only in Summer 1945, the first derailment took place im Pittsburgh. Then, just one month after delivery of the first serial T1s, 5502 derailed on December 1, 1945, and another serial T1 the very next day.
Did somehow, tragically, the two prototypes have the edge over the 5500s in curves?
Or is it possible that the track was not as well maintained?
I rode behind a T-1 on the Trail Blazer on my way to work for EMD in late June 1952 into Chicago. Do not kbow if it came from Hattisbutg, Pittsburg, or Cteatline.
And, then, which I now find was rare, behind a GP-7 to La Grange. I think I was able to rent a shower room at Union Station before boarding the Q's scoot, which had the GP-7, generatr car, and two Budd galleries.
All trains were on-time but for arrival in Chicago a few minutes early.
daveklepperI rode behind a T-1 on the Trail Blazer on my way to work for EMD in late June 1952 into Chicago. Do not kbow if it came from Hattisbutg, Pittsburg, or Cteatline.
Hi Daveklepper,
as to Charlie Meyers reports, your train should most probably have been powered Harrisburg - Pittsburgh by a T1, Pittsburgh - Crestline by a double set of K4s and Crestline - Chicago by a T1.
After the Pittsburgh derailments in summer/december 1945 and about March 1946, some design changes were made to get a bit more lateral movement on the driving axles so that the T-1s could go into Pittsburgh, but still could not pass the curve west of the station safely. Ironically, the curve was relaid after the T-1s were gone.
And late June 1952, you were lucky to have a T-1 on your train.
@Jones1945,
I found a pencil sharpener in the form of an S-1. Are you jealous now?
HermannOnly in Summer 1945, the first derailment took place in Pittsburgh. Then, just one month after delivery of the first serial T1s, 5502 derailed on December 1, 1945, and another serial T1 the very next day. Did somehow, tragically, the two prototypes have the edge over the 5500s in curves?
If I remember correctly, the problem was caused at only one switch location; I dimly and perhaps imperfectly remember it as a double slip switch. It is possible that the 'problem' was created by track maintenance of some kind, but I think the situation is more likely what Hermann notes.
Thw two original engines had radically different equalization arrangements from the 'production' engines -- for, I think, very good objective reasons. It's been known since around the turn of the century that equalization of eight-drivered locomotives is better if the equalization is interrupted or 'tied' between the second and third driver pair, with the lead truck equalized with the forward sets and the trailing truck with the rear ones. This, with some progressive improvement in snubbing and auxiliary springing, is what was done with the production engines right up to 1948. The original design had a prominent walking beam carrying the equalization from front to rear engine, and this was thought to be causing some of the riding and slip issues -- I have not read the surviving correspondence and source material on this, but it is very clear that substantial changes were made to the arrangement during the war-years testing.
Now, something that is interesting when you look at the T1 spring-rigging arrangements is that a great amount of tinkering went on with the permitted lateral of the driver pairs, sometimes on the order of sixteenths of an inch -- there is a long list of emended numbers, perhaps notable in that by late 1947 there was free lateral on all four driver pairs. I find it highly suspicious that this would be done on a high-speed locomotive with lateral-motion devices unless it were intended to permit a certain amount of float, at low speed, over the kind of obstacle resulting in derailment in terminal trackage. (Note that this is very different from the reported issues with T1s losing critical adhesion over frogs and low joints when pulling long consists out of station traffic.)
Now, it would be one thing if Glaze-style stiff lateral compensation on lead and trailing trucks were applied to T1s to keep their required overbalance low (or, in fact, zero, which is a condition likely necessary for T1s to reach the speed their steam generation and valve gear would allow). That never, apparently, became the case; the assumption seems to have been that the long effective rigid wheelbase and duplex kinetics would keep nosing/hunting minimized. Interestingly the very large tenders might likely have minimized in-phase surge, too -- so a certain amount of overbalance might have been tolerated that 'shouldn't have been'. (The effect of increasing augment on propensity to high-speed slip should be no mystery to anyone following along with T1 history!)
There are stories from the Crestline history that describe how much of a penchant 6100 had for derailing (usually somewhere in the driver wheelbase, if I remember correctly) while being run around that servicing point. To my knowledge that situation was never satisfactorily worked out, even by restricting the engine to particular tracks and stalls. It would be interesting to examine experiments, if any, with lateral motion on the driver pairs to see what did and didn't help with that.
Hermann @Jones1945, I found a pencil sharpener in the form of an S-1. Are you jealous now?
It depends on the quality of it. Loewy's pencil sharpener:
Jones1945It depends on the quality of it. Wink Loewy's pencil sharpener:
OK, you won!
Mine is made in China...
HermannOK, you won!
Adding insult to injury -- and perhaps as an awful unintended consequence of the Lionel 3768 Torpedo scam -- item SK-3280 is labeled a "K-4" (yes, Virginia, with the hyphen) on its box and in its description.
Overmod Hermann OK, you won! Adding insult to injury -- and perhaps as an awful unintended consequence of the Lionel 3768 Torpedo scam -- item SK-3280 is labeled a "K-4" (yes, Virginia, with the hyphen) on its box and in its description.
Hermann OK, you won!
DeggestyIs that a steam-powered pencil sharpener?
But the faithful rendition of the twin stacks makes up for it...
... and we know in principle now how to implement the ditchlights.
Jones1945 Hermann @Jones1945, I found a pencil sharpener in the form of an S-1. Are you jealous now? It depends on the quality of it. Loewy's pencil sharpener:
Jeez, that's some pencil sharpener!
It looks like if you crank the handle a death ray is going to shoot out of the pencil!
I hope anyone who used that thing made sure no-one was standing in front of it!
I would think that pencil sharpener was the inspiration of the ray-guns used in the likes of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers.
Erik_MagI would think that pencil sharpener was the inspiration of the ray-guns used in the likes of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers.
Likely more the other way around -- look at the dates on the strips, and some of the contemporary pulps/covers. Now, when you get to the Fifties rayguns, there will be more design influence to trace.
To me the influence is much more obviously from aircraft nacelles and spinners -- turn that support pylon upside-down and it gets much clearer.
Now, a more interesting question (which I've asked before in a different sort of context) is the influence of the '30s version of rocket ships on the kinds of bullet-nosed steam streamlining -- including the excesses -- we saw in the '30s and that might have proliferated more had there been no WWII and subsequent diesel rage. (Or perhaps vice versa in some cases?) Part of this is a topic in design history that might be partly described by 'what does a culture think is 'modern' in design?' -- see for example why everyone saw 'saucers' in the late '40s instead of all the other kinds of likelier planform. If clumsy torpedoes that circle slowly and blow sparks are the Miracle Ships of the Future, it won't be surprising to see slowly-cycling and spark-emitting locomotives far behind...
(BTW to Hermann and perhaps others: opportunity is knocking to test your whittling skills. Just as George Washington got lovely shaped teeth made like piano keys, you can make a sort of 'bridge' to replace the missing part of the S1 'smile' between those funny little wheels. With a little filing you could gin up correct front and rear sideframe portions, too. Not that much work, but a dramatic improvement in 'prototypical verisimilitude'... )
Diesels were coming anyway, the FT, any number of switchers and various E's all predated WW2. The war just speeded up the process. LST's were powered by 567 engines and submarines had OP's for surface running, which was most of the time.
CSSHEGEWISCHDiesels were coming anyway, the FT, any number of switchers and various E's all predated WW2. The war just speeded up the process. LST's were powered by 567 engines and submarines had OP's for surface running, which was most of the time.
But it's also true that, as Baldwin pointed out in 1940, the actual return on equity of a 6000-horsepower locomotive's worth of FTs, given the enormous capital cost over modern steam, might be better for steam given the large sunk cost of support for the existing steam locomotives.
We might have gotten to 'dieselization' without the combination of factors in the late '40s ... but it would likely have followed the path nearly everyone expected in the mid-Forties: gradual replacement of serviceable steam power as it wore out, with replacement of a 'class' being accelerated when its net 'contribution to profitability net of depreciation, deductions, tax rebuildability, etc. became negative. What wasn't expected was that the overhead costs for any steam, no matter how modern, would balloon for so many roads as they did.
What else was not likely expected was that many banks were more willing to loan or trust the high purchase price for diesels, knowing from a banker's perspective that the locomotives were 'fungible' with little more than a new coat of paint. And if the banks weren't fully willing, GM might have plans that would help...
I periodically speculate on what would have happened if Baldwin had had the combination of chance and financial savvy that GM-EMD did regarding 'bringing down the cost' of the Essl modular locomotive, which was the only thing really competitive with a good modern eight-coupled main line locomotive up to the war years. Instead they looked at the numbers and went with EMD-style carbodies on bogie trucks... with slow-turning runs-forever tugboat derived engines of strictly limited horsepower-to-weight in them. And waited for the free-piston turbine revolution ... that, when it came, didn't even completely come to GM-EMD.
It is true that Dilworth's vision for building-blocks-of-'units' MUed power was really better than anything that could have been developed with similar combination of capability and reliability in steam. By the end of the war this had essentially obsoleted high-pressure flash steam; by the end of the '40s it would essentially obsolete all but the most sophisticated turbines ... and in improved second-generation form would prove the kiss of death, had there not been others 'first', to even the most carefully promoted steam power.
Overmod(BTW to Hermann and perhaps others: opportunity is knocking to test your whittling skills. Just as George Washington got lovely shaped teeth made like piano keys, you can make a sort of 'bridge' to replace the missing part of the S1 'smile' between those funny little wheels. With a little filing you could gin up correct front and rear sideframe portions, too. Not that much work, but a dramatic improvement in 'prototypical verisimilitude'... Big Smile)
As I am a model maker, I actually could do that:
"A small step for my CNC mill, one giant leap for a Chinese pencil sharpener"....
But as to your thoughts about the financing of diesel power: what if in the 1940's the banks were more eager to give money for diesels because they saw a chance of the diesel having not the longevity of steam, thus needing to be replaced sooner, meaning the RR officials needed to visit the bank offices more frequently for more loans?
I'm stil waiting for someone to find and post the actual wording of the communication by Symes (ideally in the context of an exchange of communications) regarding specific use of the S1 in 'freight' service.
Among other things, such a decision -- on an engine which by that time probably had north of 3 million gold dollars of PRR money in it -- implies the service reliability on block-mail or M&E trains was no better than on passenger service. And that high-speed slipping was more of a problem even at 'typical mail' speeds than explicitly reported and recorded...
Overmod I'm stil waiting for someone to find and post the actual wording of the communication by Symes (ideally in the context of an exchange of communications) regarding specific use of the S1 in 'freight' service. Among other things, such a decision -- on an engine which by that time probably had north of 3 million gold dollars of PRR money in it -- implies the service reliability on block-mail or M&E trains was no better than on passenger service. And that high-speed slipping was more of a problem even at 'typical mail' speeds than explicitly reported and recorded...
I am also waiting for it. Syme's thought, mainly complaints, on the S1 is mentioned in the article "The S1 - Biggest of them all" by Charlie Meyer but he didn't quote Syme's actual wording. If I were in his position I would have complained too. I wonder if he would have complained even more (for mechanical failure caused by overspeed) if PRR picked N&W Class J instead of T1, since the Class J wasn't designed for 100mph daily operation even though the Js could hit 110mph or above in test runs.
Jones1945I wonder if he would have complained even more (for mechanical failure caused by overspeed) if PRR picked N&W Class J instead of T1, since the Class J wasn't designed for 100mph daily operation even though the Js could hit 110mph or above in test runs.
The issue with the 70" wheels on passenger power is carefully described in the 'official' PRR report of the J testing.
Part of the problem is that we're talking people who reached their positions of great responsibility having learned conventional wisdom about balancing, diameter speed, etc., and who may have been influenced negatively by the 'experts' in modern scientistic balancing coming such a cropper with the ACL R1s.
Even the Q1, which would have tremendously benefited from 72" wheels with disc centers and lightweight rods, "conventional" augment reduced by the duplex principle, was given what was tantamount to LV dual-service 4-8-4 driver diameter ... splendid, but excessively heroic for an "improved M1".
Now, just exactly what PRR thought would be a 'proper' high wheel for a dual-service 4-8-4 is a bit confused by perceived passenger-engine requirements: probably the 'sweet spot' is in the 74" to 75" range with modern balancing ... but we then have the example of Kiefer's 4-8-4, which was wasted with its sisters' 75" but magical at the moral equivalent of 80", so I think it is safe to assume that any contemporary 4-8-4 would be considered the "doubleheaded K4 replacement" just as the T1 would be ... and would be expected to have the 'high wheels' dictated by motive-power-department choice. Regardless of whether Virginia intelligence and magic gave well-over-100mph capability to a locomotive with M1-size drivers, and a great deal of 'normal PRR passenger-train' running flexibility to boot...
One thing I have to wonder, though, is what the effect of Glaze balancing on the Pennsylvania Js would have been. A postwar change on a great many of them was to increase driver diameter to 70" -- done expediently with fatter driver tires, I suspect... but it need not have been that. If we use lightweight inboard rods, crosshead, and pistons, we can reduce the operative overbalance in the main to something around 120lb (see what the peak vertical component of rod thrust at 'best speed' cutoff is, and use it) with the rest in the coupled wheels -- and this in turn reduces the need for a cast driver-center type that accommodates heavy angled weights. Then reduce the overbalance to what the lead and trailing trucks and longer driver wheelbase can 'stand' -- and you might get a surprisingly long way toward the J's tolerable maximum speed at acceptable vertical augment. All without compromising your desire for 125mph rayguns on wheels for the marvelous resumption of passenger traffic after the war...
Overmod It is possible to model the S1 in software and do multiphysics and kinematic analysis on the chassis to determine its stability and freedom from resonant couples (as was done, for example, for the German 05 class which had a calculated severe emergent critical speed close to 122mph, perhaps explaining why a run to outdo Mallard was never made).
It is possible to model the S1 in software and do multiphysics and kinematic analysis on the chassis to determine its stability and freedom from resonant couples (as was done, for example, for the German 05 class which had a calculated severe emergent critical speed close to 122mph, perhaps explaining why a run to outdo Mallard was never made).
The run on May 11,1936 was made as a demonstration to impress the government to invest in high-speed trains. It is proven that the emperor of that time was not interested in railroads at all, instead he preferred the Autobahn and the Volkswagen. Surpassing the 200 kph mark was just for public relation.
The Mallard run was in 1938, when orders were given by the Reichsbahn for 400 streamlined pacifics with slightly smaller dimensions than the class 05 prototypes classes 01.10 and 03.10.
The first of the serial streamlined steamers was delivered on a tuesday. Thursday the same week, September 1st 1939, the Volksempfaengers spread the news that from 5.45 "there will be shot back". Time for high-speed steam in Germany was over. Most of the streamline locomotive orders were cancelled and the Reichsbahn had neither interest nor time to improve the speed record, of which the 05 with its superior dimensions was surely capable of.
Happy 4th of July!
I have tried hard to appreciate the 03-10 and 01-10 [note correction; see discussion below ... it comes of trusting Germans on German locomotive-classification syntax ] classes, particularly the latter, but I've never thought of either as anything comparable to a class 05 for high speed. It was my somewhat naive assumption that roller rods plus three-cylinder drive were all that would be needed to match Mallard's speed on smaller drivers -- did any of the 01-10s in fact come anywhere near that speed range?
Now with ten of them preserved, it is something of a temptation to give one a comprehensive American high-speed balancing plus opening up of steam circuits, compression control, modern front end, etc. and see what the design could do.
I notice 01-10 1104 is in something of the straits the C&O 2-6-6-2 finds itself in, and with donations down due to the coronavirus; perhaps we should put out the call here and on RyPN to donate to the effort. This would be a fun engine to return to high-speed-capable excursion service.
As you know, the Germans were quite unwilling to surpass the 400rpm rotational speed, which is about 150kph / 93 mph with 2000mm drivers. (Compare this to a J going westward to Chicago....). The last batch of the 01.10 had been equipped with roller-bearings, but there was simply no experience with light-weight alloys that time (at least not with locomotives...). The standards for most locomotive parts, as they had to be exchangeable, were set in the 1920s, and the chief mechanical engineer of the DRG was quite conservative to say the least...
These streamlined pacifics were given a top speed of 150kph. After the war, when the streamlining - or what was left of it - had been removed, this was reduced to 140 kph. When 01 1102 was returned to life, it received just minor improvements, as a full boiler insulation due to concerns the blue color might suffer from the boiler heat in the long term.
After 01 1102 was re-streamlined, it was test-run and achieved 160 kph/99mph on February 9, 1996, so becoming the fastet 01.10 ever.
Surely, it would be the ideal candidate for Porta-or Wardale-style improvements, yet it depends on the owner, his financial capacities and his will. Luckily, there are no speed restrictions for steam here, but the track infrastructure has been cut back badly. Hardly any sidings to be found on many lines. You can run steam on the DB, but as you need slots between the scheduled DB trains, the faster the engine, the better! The usual steam specials are powered with locomotives going at least 80 kph/50 mph. The right place for the T1 is here...;-).
When we saw old 1309 in Baltimore the first time in 2012, no one then believed its fate might turn out as it did, but no matter how long this restoration might take - theft, lacking of funds plus the curve/turntable issues - 1309 is going to be a winner soon. For 01 1102 things look rather bleak, it will most probably remain cold. Heavy overhauls cost in the range of half a million here, and then you have six years only to go.
Roger Waller surely would know what to do if he had his hands on it. Wider steam passages, slightly higher boiler pressure, even better insulation of course (cylinders included), new blast pipes, may be even compounding.. probably poppet valves might be a "nice to have" too, of course Franklin B..
The one advantage 01.10/03.10 and 05s surely had over the PRR streamliners was a casing which had been tested before in a wind-tunnel. What they didn't have was the looks of a T1...
(double posting - sorry)
Arnold Haas - well, yes, uhm ...
He also wrote a Niagara would accelerate faster from 80 to 100 mph than from 60 to 80 - which would only be possible if the mean tractive effort would be larger in the higher speeds - which by itself is virtually impossible.
The Niagaras had comparatively very small cylinder volume for given boiler pressure (in relation to both their adhesion mass and their steaming capacity, that's why their highest indicated output was only reached around 75mph at 52% cut off - a very inefficient, long c/o. I think Paul Kiefer didn't want to take risks on too high a piston force and / or to long a piston travel. With a cylinder volume half ways more to the example set by the N&W J class the Niagara's ihp could have surpassed the 7000-mark easily and on the same coal consumption ... however maybe Paul Kiefer was wise not to overdo things - today substantially larger piston forces would be no problem with superior materials.
All those questions of 'how fast did she go' and 'how fast did she really go at maximum' and 'if we allow the engine to throw rods way ahead in the event - what speed at maximax could at-all ever have been reached for just a moment' are fine and exiting to those who do not take a closer look at what it takes beyond boiler power and ability of cylinders to operate the filling and exhausting in a half ways civilized manner - as is when the valve gear will work orderly and keep together by that. Mind that with a 20% over-revving, forces reach 144% of the design maximum. Who will tell me it can stand that for any longer than a few minutes?
If we take instead a look at the permanent road bed then we must ask where in hell should an engine have even reached such speeds before outrightly derailing? Name me the 1930s 1940s track if you can? I bet you there was none - not with the universal simple nailed rails and that sloppy joined rails and that minimum of 'dirt' embankment.
Some years ago I saw an advertising film by the Pennsylvania, it was to show how soft, caring and smooth the passengers travel on the PRR high speed mainline track. Now, I must say, they were being bounced around quite a bit and swayed sideways - and at what speed? watching the outside trees and houses go by it was some 80, 85 - at best! All in all it was more like on the - sorry - PKP, the Polish state railway when in the 1990s they had been cought by the fresh wind of change and had put on some speed, rising from 100 km/h mostly to more 120 km/h stretches, just like that, track upgrading only following year by year. That said, I had also witnessed an upgraded electric line travelling from Bydgosz to Warzawa: that was 100 mph on all-welded, straight and billard table level track, the neighboring rails were dashing by without showing any flares or buckles in the flow. Had the Pennsy had this sort of track I would consider 110 - 120 mph for some T1 rides - but still not like 'more often than not' or as last run of a worn down neglected engine! Let's ignore a number of points standing against these high speed claims and look just at the fact that over-revving would have soon worn down the cam surfaces if no more of the poppet valve gear. Now, it should be self-understood that from an engine no more having any precise - and even! - timings for steam exchange you cannot expect any extraordinary performance and speed because the erractic valve events cannot help but counterblock working quality of the engine. As long as things haven't gone too far, there is an interesting balancing happening: since the steam wasted is adding to the intensity of draughting the boiler can likely come up with the extra amount of steam asked - however what's wasted gets fully lost to cylinder performance - i e although the engine makes an extra amout of steam it gets weaker in cylinder power - and this very soon leads to it's failing to live up to demands, less so can it be extended to produce an extra amount of power output. Since wind resistance goes up by the square of speed increase and running resistance also tends to increase because it becomes less acurate, involves more flange / rail contact and generally more abortive movements of the train consist, we can roughly assume the extra power demanded to pull an existing train not at 100 but at 120 mph is about 40% larger. Where is this extra output supposed to come from? 6500 ihp - when 100% in good shape! does not make me all too optimistic for such a reserve!
Also, I must say, for any such very high surpassing of regular speed limits, the engines all lacked drive wheel diameter. At some 2 metres (79") riding diameter and 200 km/h (125 mph) the rotational speed is 531 rpm - very, very high for any steam locomotive, let alone two cylinder engines. That was the only plus side of the PRR Duplex engines S1 and T1: they had four - the #6100 had a 7% larger riding wheel diameter - but for her capacity of boiler and four piston valves which were for once not cramped between distance of cylinder covers but had (a minimum of) proper exhaust chambers and more straight inner steam passages this was still clearly on the small side for any attempts to go 120 mph and better. 90 ins would have been nearer to it - myself, when I had put up a free design of a 6-4-4-6 engine with an 8-8 tender I gave her 100 ins wheels to run 140 mph regularly - with full equipment of roller bearings on axles and light weight rods - but with Walschaerts / piston valves on outside cylinders, if of ample steam passage cross sections since this still means 470 rpm - still very fast for a steam locomotive - more so for a very large and powerful one! No, she doesn't have four cylinders, nope, not six neither - but two times four cylinder compound engines with the HP outsides. That means the engines are self-balanced and I don't have interference of disturbing reciprocating actions nor any loss of adhesion with increase of speed above that which is due to the more vivid action of the wheels on rails (even with a smooth running locomotive where the drive sets are being protected by each the 6 wheel bogie and delta truck).
In the article by Arnold Haas that appeared in the German Lok Magazin #49 about 1971 he claimed that super fast run in 1949 - in other words when the engine if it had still existed at all, had been on the scrap track for years. If the engine drawn back out from there, just set to steam and put right on the line to make up a large lateness by going 'a little faster' this day would have come up with 140 mph - then it becomes fully inexplicable why she should have been put back there and scrapped - in other words as an American Hero, there is nothing to be expected! Or what?
Well, I believe someone just didn't like that plain Loewy 'farmer daughter's dress' drawn over the front - but it wasn't me folks, I wasn't even born for another 27 years ..
Juniatha
daveklepperOr is it possible that the track was not as well maintained?
==> YES <==
J
1.10 ?
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Ooooohhhh! I seeeeeeeeeeee-he-he-he - geeeeee!
You mean 01-10! (speak oh-one-ten, or after 1968: oh-twelve for 012)
Well, you don't know about the numbering system of the Reichsbahn / Bundesbahn - ok:
Express locomotives of the standard types (1925 / 1950) are numbered as classes 01 to 10. Mind the 'O'! Because these series designations are *always* two digit.
Then there is a free space, then the individual number of the engine within this class - started with three digits 001 to 999, it became obvious later on that this didn't suffice, so larger numbers of freight locomotives, mainly got four digits from # 1000 upwards. This meant there was a 44 290 and a 44 1290 or a 50 078 and a 50 778 and a 50 1778, for example. On the number plate, which shows class - two digits - plus individual locomotive number - three to four digits - there is no point, dot or spot. There is just the space as between two words. Note that in this classification the first locomotive is 001 (not 000 or rather xx00 as in the USA)
Now, it turned out that there were certain loco classes they didn't want to give a new number as they were rather seen as further development of the original class, they were given a new, as yet free (not used) block of hundreds or thousands for counting the individual engines. In quoting the new class 'variation' the first digit of the hundreds / the first and second digit of the thousands is noted as an index (high) - or simplified as a normal digit behind a dot (not a point, less so a sign of fraction)
As for instance class 01, heavy standard Pacific:
Original engines 01 001 to 01 231; added the rebuilt 10 class 02 four cylinder Pacifics as 01 232 to 241 - all these were class 01 engines
1960s substantially rebuilt DR 01s became engines
01 501 to 535 - they were 01.5 engines
The three cylinder variation of the 01 were numbered 01 1001 and 1052 - 1104 they were thus class 01.10 in short.
Since of the 44 class three cylinder Decapods almost two thousand were built there were numbers 44 001 to 010 prototypes (service tested against the two cylinder 43 001 - 010; then two 25 bar four cylinder compound engines were realized as part of another large scale test; then with # 013 to 065 came the intermediate design and from 066 to over 2000 came the final design. Since after 1945 all the earlier engines were no longer in service it remained simply the 44 class. When the Reichsbahn, DDR, rebuilt some engines with new welded boilers as replacement for worn orginals, there was no special series number given. However when DB renumbered all their engines, the oil-fired 44s became new class 043 (the original 43 was not in service on DB); when DR also did their renmbering the oil-44s became new 44.0 and the remaining coal fired engines of the class became 44.10 for 1001 or higher - some engines in each case had to be renumbered to fit to the new system.
The 52 class light Decapod brought the old system to its limits because of the original engines already some 7800 had been built (it is not exactly known how many to the engine had all in all been built since after 1945 several re-established railways had more engines built, so in France (at Gafenstaden), Belgium (Tubize) Denmark, Norway, Austria (Wien Floridsdorf) Poland (Crzanow - speak Chshanoh), Tchecoslovakia (Skoda, CKD), Yugoslavia (rebilding only), Bulgaria, Roumania (Resita) - on the other hand Russia had confiscated 52s by the thousands, known under the nickname simply 'the Woman' or 'the German Woman' she got highly popular with the Russian railroaders - well as a woman I could think of better .. but as a locomotive, that's probably something different). So the various railways in Europe for some time after '45 had some sorting out to do to get their 52s all properly numbered and put in service. In Austria there was the mysterious case of one 52 suddenly on the site and nobody knew how she had come there, all it looked like by the 33 class given she had come back up from Yugoslavia; in order to be sure to avoid doubling numbers they assigned her the quasi 'artificial' number 52 8000 - and when some Yugo railroaders appered then asking for 'their' 33 class locomotive the Austrians just said "No such locomotive here!"
But it didn't end there: in the 1960s the DR in DDR (Eastern Germany) decided not only to upgrade a number of 52s to full standard equipment but also to rebuild 200 engines with new combustion chamber boilers and re-number them class 52.80 - intriguingly thereby forcasting the decade when regular steam service would end on DR. One such engine - 52 8055 - was tested in Switzerland in the 1990s prior to rebuilding and developed some 700 ihp above the original - due to the superior steaming of the 1960s boiler when fired with good quality coal.
Yet this was still not the end since DR, always looking to fire brown coal or soft coal, rebuilt a number of locomotives into coal-dust burners and classsify them as 52.90 that were known to be very dusty indeed and crews always tried to avoid them. But the Wendler system worked well and saved DR a number of expensive coal imports.
No 52 was ever professionally rebuilt to oilfiring - if we don't count the rather makeshift arrangements by the Russian railways on individual engines and the lone 52 8055 that got diesel-oil firing in Winterthur, got rebuilt and rather heftily fouled up beyond recognition. Well, that showed how lucky the design and appearance of the 52 class really was - although from the start no one had - officially - been charged with the task of tuning this into a good looking locomotive and if you may look at Mr Degenkolb as her 'father' (design supervisor) he was a strictly logic and down to facts engineer, even rude in some ways and certainly no artist with a fine hand.
And yet ...
This post removed because perceived as 'insulting'. No insult was of course intended; I do not go back on my word.
Those who may remain interested in the history of American experimental steam, and other concerns, may PM me at their convenience.
All NYC did to the RDC trucks in the M-497 tests was remove the drive shaft and Spicer drive on each truck, an easy task as they were designed to be removable. I assume they did nothing to the 6-110 diesels, in fact they most likely were running during the tests so the crew would have air conditioning.
rcdryeI assume they did nothing to the 6-110 diesels, in fact they most likely were running during the tests so the crew would have air conditioning.
Overmod rcdrye I assume they did nothing to the 6-110 diesels, in fact they most likely were running during the tests so the crew would have air conditioning. If I recall correctly, it was one of them -- and there is a much more important reason than air-conditioning to run it!
rcdrye I assume they did nothing to the 6-110 diesels, in fact they most likely were running during the tests so the crew would have air conditioning.
If I recall correctly, it was one of them -- and there is a much more important reason than air-conditioning to run it!
Electricity?
SD70DudeElectricity?
Overmod SD70Dude Electricity? Air, Bob.
SD70Dude Electricity?
Air, Bob.
Duh. Of course, all that power and speed is pretty useless if you can't stop!
I'm going to guess that RDC's have a compressor directly driven by the engine. But now I'm curious, were any modifications made to enhance the braking performance of this unit? In particular I'd be concerned about brake fade (overheating).
Getting off track here - why not? The chase GP7 would have been able to pump up the air reservoirs. As far as I can find out they didn't do any brake mods. The good old Budd discs (presumably with Rolakron anti-lock system) were probably just fine. I think the track in use was probably cleared all the way from Toledo to Elkhart.
SD70DudeI'm going to guess that RDC's have a compressor directly driven by the engine.
... were any modifications made to enhance the braking performance of this unit? In particular I'd be concerned about brake fade (overheating).
Remember that this was not intended as a 'service train', nor was it expected to make the equivalent of 'touch-and-go' acceleration and deceleration. Much of the acceleration from high speed would be in part aerodynamic resistance, well down into the range the existing disk brakes would serve nicely.
We had some discussions about the APT designers' perceived need for hydrokinetic braking (from 150mph) in light of what these jet trains could achieve. In particular this was a relatively light test article, running on a dedicated (and traffic-protected) stretch of track without fixed speed restrictions or slow orders. And it used proportional passenger braking. As I recall, no untoward action from the braking was observed during the tests.
I remember thinking as a kid that it might be possible to use what was then called 'beta thrust' to help with the deceleration -- I think the Bennie Railplane was intended to do that by reversing the pitch of its propellers, and I suspect the Russian "HSR Listowel and Ballybunion" might have done the same. The ex-B36 pod did not have any provision for reversers, to my knowledge, but I suspect the capability could have been provided on following 'articles' without too much despair.
One change NYC did make to the trucks was to replace the standard wheels with cylindrical (non-tapered) wheels.
The track section was 127 lb. jointed rail. The test area was lifted and resurfaced, but was still below NYC standards.
Dear Professor (hon?) Overmod!
I must say, this is an especially boastful sassy effrontery! I must put this straight: there is little if any real arguement in all the many lines you shoved up to burry me under. So I regard this as a personal insult, an attempt to crush each and everything I have written - and have written orderly in full knowledge of the physical laws that play a part in these things I have described.
However I sense you felt obliged to jump to 'rescue' age-old so understood male tech talk superiority over so-misunderstood menace of today's feminist's attempts to intrude each and every remaining male resorts. How wrong you are - me, I'm in no way intending to intrude anywheres, I'm just interested in steam locomotives just as anybody else in this forum may be or may not. Only, due to my being a Diplom Ingenieur still with a classic study of Maschinenbau I can sort out some things that often get entangled in conversations - nobody needs to feel like I stepped on his toes. Cool down Over(sic!)mod! The world will be there tomorrow!
As things are, I can only recommend to all readers to ignore this lengthy, winding and at points illogical and conflicting reply and spare yourself to get confused.
Now, in order no one can say I make it too easy for myself, I will at least reply on some of the 'points' brought up against me within each the shreds of my text:
1. shred:
Quote: "This is not necessarily complete tripe; it is possible that, using the 'reservoir' of supercritical water and excess available superheat at high draft level, there would be 'enough steam' to produce the necessary acceleration. Not particularly cost-effectively, and with no guarantee that the locomotive would hold speed (or continue acceleration) beyond a few seconds or minutes, but the higher cyclic does translate into greater cylinder horsepower up to the point that the valves and gear cannot"
Yes, this *is* complete tripe! And the accusation right with it. What is a 'reservoir of supercritical water' in a conventional steam locomotive? do you know at all what the supercritical stadium of water implies? It is by faaaaaaaaar out of reach of a classic steam loco! Absolute rubbish, just meant to dazzle and deceive an unexpecting person.
'excess available superheat' - where is that and how does it come together? There is non - just baloney!
'there would be 'enough steam' to produce the neccessary acceleration. We learn here physics turned upside-down: in order to produce more ihp you just speed up the acceleration - that no-one has ever come about that! It's so simple! Sports car manufacturers rack their brains about super-powerful engines when all you need is to produce -first- the demanded acceleration - and -second- power output of the engine will follow accordingly! Gee - that's cute, I love it.
(My goodness - this is *not* about the amount of steam but about cylinder performance: *this* cannot produce *higher* t. e. at *higher* speeds even on the same c/o!)
Now, if you suggest to pull out c/o open (lengthen intake) at *increasing* speed you turn upside-down known sound locomotive handling. Of course this would go with a large increase of steam demand and the whole thing in fact means a sluggish (easy) loco working at slower speeds offset by an increasingly harder working as speed increases to the degree of even handling c/o in the *opposite* way of normal, and leaving much non-used t. e. and acceleration in the slower speed range. Now, who would drive a locomotive in this absurd way?
"no guarantee that the locomotive would hold speed (or continue acceleration) beyond a few seconds or minutes, but the higher cyclic does translate into greater cylinder horsepower " A few seconds ... gee! The 'higher cyclic' translates into greater cylinder horsepower: Again, it does not help to have *any* amount of steam - cyclic or not - if valve gear cannot pass it through cylinders. In regular driving the higher the speed the more throttling occurs in the steam passages and therefore less t. e. - excess steam will be blown off by safety valves in the good old way - wether this extra steam comes in cyles or continuously.
"Do I really think that acceleration all the way from "80 to 100" would be faster than "60 to 80"? Not really..." Now, what's that? First you claim it is possible - then you don't believe - yes: - yourself? Then, why should anybody else? This note goes around full circle.
2. shred:
"the old story about the Super Hudson design providing too much 'thrust or kick' and bending rods would be far more applicable to the Niagara. It might be interesting to run comparative numbers for the Niagaras at original vs. stepped-down pressure to assess what the 'right' cylinder dimensions for 265psi would have been."
Completely mislead beause the two classes were two seperate designs. The quoted would only have been correct if both would have been equipped with one unified set of rods! That was not the case, and thus which one was underdimensioned cannot be established by 'running comparative numbers for the Niagaras at original vs stepped down pressure' . How should that show correct cylinder dimensioning??? In regular locomotive construction question would rather be to correct rod dimensioning for 'what the 'right' cylinder dimension for 265 psi would have been' All in all this is completely off the topic. I never dealt with a 265 psi b. p. setting of the Niagara - it was never a question. If Prof Overmod thinks since some J-3a had been reduced, the Niagara should as well have been reduced the same way, this is his personal believe - there is no point against anything *I* said in this. How and why can the propper cylinder dimensioning only be determined at 265 psi? It's very simple mathematics to establish what cylinder volume for 275 or 290 psi or for 265 psi for each a desired t.e.
3. shred:
"But the issues with Niagaras did not involve "greater peak horsepower" -- the water-rate considerations even on a railroad with frequent track pans would have become significant "
There I wrote that the extra power output would have been produced just by a lower specific steam consumption and *no* more steam (btw: i e *less* steam on any lower than maximum ihp!) - and still here are water-rate considerations put up against what I wrote! And where did I write that 'issues with the Niagaras did involve "greater peak horspower"? To criticize a text it is of advantage to read it first - and understand that this was *my own* comment as to Kiefer's choice of cylinder volume for 275 psi (too small for best thermodynamic efficiency in my view)
"if you look at the assumptions behind the detail design of the NYC 5550 (and inherently in the April '45 spec for the C1a) you will see this very clearly. " NYC 5550? chee-chee-chee! Congratulations if you have information about the never-to-be C1 class - but what has that design ever to do with *my* contemplations about the Niagara? What will I see clearly?
"Reading between the lines, I suspect there were the same kinds of failure that N&W was seeing with the extended #4 driver-pair pins " Now it gets ever wilder: now the design of coupling rods interfere with steaming of boiler and with cylinder dimensions - O-M-G!
"#4 driver-pair pins on the original lightweight J rods; the Niagara design was somewhat more susceptible to priming " Now that's the peak: coupling rods design and priming in the boiler - another connection so far ignored by even the most notable steam specialists!?
4. shred
"found a point of failure that came up 'quicker' than valve-gear problems: insufficient valve lubrication (or dimensional clearances) .. and insufficient valve lubrication is not a valve gear problem? What is it then?
"as Ed King memorably put it, that was not a factor in the infamous test failure on PRR either by the noted results or later discussion of the testing by Cover et al. as preserved at the Hagley." Once again: "infamous test failure on PRR either by the noted results or later discussion" Failure by results or by later discussion! Great - I say nothing further! General: now, here you are! If that does't impress the last ignorat bloke! I'm only born in 1976 and by that must bow to the superior mass of historical name dropping here - may I know of physical technology whatever I may. Namedropping used at precisely the right moment has silenced many people - but what is the precisely right moment in a writing? Btw - what is it to tell us? Sorry, I'm always so unimpressed and down to earth.
5. shred
My writing: "Mind that with a 20% over-revving, forces reach 144% of the design maximum". and Overmod: "Especially if Chapelon was correct in his assessment of 'routine' lateral bending in the Timken narrow-section lightweight rods." Plain NO here! The increase I mentioned comes from increase of rpm only - no mechanical bending involved! Full stop!
"over-revved continuously, rather than (as was clear to me) repeatedly high-speed slipped without proper notice -- as in the case of the "130mph and higher" operation"
What is the dfference between the two? revving is revving - no matter if it produces speed over rails or slip over rails - especially when slipppage is "without proper notice" (i e goes on over longer than a moment's time). It's the centrifugal forces that matter here!
"The combination of inertial and shock forces on lightweight rods in high-speed slipping is, if anything, far higher in the deleterious senses than steady-state high speed would be, and probably makes your point even more compelling." Deleterious - hu-hu-hu! No, absolutely not! Again: inertia is *only* dependant of the level of rpm. What shock forces are there in slipping other than in regular high revving? *Far* higher? Seems, if the high speed slippage comes into proper frequency of the drive axle(s) there could be torsion forces and momentary lack of straight 'in line' running of wheels and an increase of over / under speed every 1/4 of revolution. Creepy, somehow, isn't it! That's why designers usually took more notice of that than of other forms of slipping
6. shred
"You're leaving out the enormous amount of maintenance that was used by railroads like the Pennsylvania or NYC to keep a jointed-rail mainline in proper shape. " No, I do not. First, such maintenance as would be needed to keep a jointed and nailed rails track without the typical low spots and bends certainly did not exist - I can say that because the American railroads were economic enterprises and such a sort of maintenance would have simply exploded their maintenance budget, it would have demanded revamping embankment under the joints in comparatively short intervals and straightening / replacing bent rails, really an enormous effort - for sure not in the economic interests of railroads making the bulk of income by freight trains. Further, I saw the real riding over the assumed best of these tracks in the advertising film: bounce-bounce-sway-bounce! Last not least logic (wow this is hard from a woman, I know!) must tell you that with this sloppy sort of track system (nailed rails with always some 15 - 25 % of these nails more or less pulled up) you can *never* compete with modern continuously welded track with sprung double screws on rails into much sturdier sleepers and embankment of defined and clean granite broken stone ballast with alongsides superelevated shoulders to keep the track where it was laid and precision adjusted - the result being a passenger in an ICE or TGV feels smooth like in an airplane in perfectly calm flying weather - no bouncing at all and that not at 120 mph but at 175 mph! Note: you may have a superior knowledge of old times - but don't even try to compete with me in today's technology!
"There are a number of reports -- whether anecdotal or 'doctored' I can't say," Well exactly that is the point - this way 'doctored' i e manipulated reports get involved and when that's the case I quit because then there is no way of sorting out what was true and what was not.
" one of these stories claims the ride on a T1 was considerably better than in 'the business cars behind'"
That would be a unique and really singular turning upside-down of what is normally found everywhere in the world! And oposite of what I saw in that video: the riding of the - fairly new! - T1 was certainly worse than that of the lounge car also filmed at about the same speed; it was rough to say no more: the engineer at one time was even lifted from his chair for a moment in a rebouncing action of the engine and the view along the boiler showed nosing and twisting more than on a run-down 012 Pacific: as much play they had developed in bearings, most all of them always ran dead straight ahead - to a part again result of really good track maintenance on federal DB back then (it is not the same today, off the ultra-high speed lines). In the coach compartment I could stand a 5 DM coin on the table on its edge in direction of travelling and it wouldn't fall for minutes on end before I finally lost patience and took it back again. I had done that when joining my father back then on a trip to Frankfurt - that was the quality of riding in an Intercity train with a 103 class twelve wheel electric at 200 km/h.
7. shred
" In any case my personal, and essentially unjustified, opinion is that PRR made a great more out of high speed running than their actual plant ever really permitted except in a few, fundamentally virtually unimportant, sections. Some of the discussions of doubleheaded K4s up against their practical speed limit (of about 92mph) mention the most alarming loss of compliance or guiding integrity on curves "
Oooops??? Now, there you are - and after a whole chapter of claiming the 'jointed and nailed rails track' to have been as good as .. oh, come on!
Btw - I saw an old super-8 film by a friend travelling the cab of a DR (DDR) two cylinder 03 Pacific (Berlin-) Buechen - Hamburg in 1970 when the driver had - as they then often did 'let her go' and see 'what she could do' on that stretch of well maintained DB track: in fact 145 km/h or 90 mph the guy had stopped them, with 12 coaches, some 500 t metric. Shortly before reaching Hamburg they ran straight line through a small station over high speed switches and then into a wide left superelevated curve. On the switches the engine joggled somewhat then fell back into her unimpaired straight forward running and entered the curve smoothly, maintaining her unimpeded running - no nosing whatsoever. Side remark: what all these engines had was a motion I called 'gallopping' due to the comparatively large mass of reciprocating parts with about just ~ 12% overbalancing, you could see that by the window cut-out vibrating in rpm mode when filming the driver sitting still. (added paragraph Jan 16th)
8. shred
"This is not a major factor for the PRR T1, at any rate, which used an OC gear with lower travel at shorter cutoff, and valves with comparatively low inertia."
My goodness, the other way around! there is much less inertia force in continuously rotating cams than in oscillating cams. This is so self explaining, I will not go into it here! Speed, rpm speed in this case! is a universal physical influence on anything - T1 or not - there are no exceptions in application of physical laws. Ok, I stop here, it makes no sense to pursue this to the very end - there is nothing else but always the same.
To be sure:
Anyone may have their own ideas and preferences or convictions - but the I claim the same right for me and please leave me alone with this sort of stalking really! Ever since the day you claimed the delta truck of my 2-8-8-6 to be "almost" where it should be it was like that: whenever I had posted something - anything! - popp! there was a criticizing comment of your's to it! Look, that six-wheel delta truck was not just 'almost' where it should be - that was an insult to an engineer. I can rightfully say that since I designed the layout of the whole locomotive I put things *exactly* where I want them to be and that is *exactly*where they belong because I know what I'm doing. Back then I really got weary of it and in the end I just quit posting here. Now, again the same! But now I will not quit again - you have to throw me out if you can't stand my words.
I offer you the following agreement:
You don't comment my postings anymore - and vice versa I do not comment yours!
Would that be an acceptable compromise to you, Mr Overmod?
In this sense
All the Best for the New Year 2021
(edited Jan 16th 21)
Well.
Gents I'll say this much, if DiplIng Juniatha says it, you can take it to the bank!
I don't know much about engineering (They wanted to call us "engineers" in the copier repair trade. I wasn't no engineer, I was a copier repairman, and proud of it!) but I DO know that to be a "Diplom Ingenieur" in Germany you've got to be "A-Number-One" smart as a whip! When I met David Stephenson* at a train show and we discussed Juniatha, out mutual aquaintence, we both agreed.
Not trying to start a fight with Brother Overmod, who I enjoy as a friend (I hope so! I love you all!) but I wouldn't mess with someone who's got a VERY ominous-looking B-52 in her arsenal.
That picture's scary!
* "Pennsy's T1 Reassessed." Classic Trains special issue "Steam Glory 3," from 2013. Kept it! No way was that issue going into the recycle bin!
While I'm in no position to argue the merits of any of the participants in the discussion of various and sundry engineering issues, the discussion is quite informative to me but the intensity of some of the participants convinces me of the merits of remaining a diesel (and straight electric) enthusiast.
Man, you want intensity? Get trapped in a room with some Civil War or World War Two buffs! Ay-yi-yi!!!
Makes steam freak intensity look positively mild!
Quote: "While I'm in no position to argue the merits of any of the participants in the discussion of various and sundry engineering issues"
See, this just exactly what I apprehended the risk will be: that regular members get uncertain about the matter at hand and don't know whom to believe - and that sends like 50% of my efforts straight up the chimney!
Quote: "the intensity of some of the participants convinces me of the merits of remaining a diesel (and straight electric) enthusiast."
Well - not too difficult to sort out me as the one having come on intense. However, please note that I had reason for it - see above! And before posting I had sorted out about 90, well 85 .. ok, 83 % of intense 'radiation heat'.
Direct electrics - uuh! There have been some very intense fi... - uhm - discussions about proper system to choose and adopt - about the everlasting project of how European railways could -if ever- understand each other to unify their systems into one and the same all over Europe. Main focus now are the super speed trains and their technical concepts - each one advertising their own.
And the Brits dream of getting back to the times of Sir Francis Drake - however they don't dream of getting back to the days of Robin Riddles and Roland C. Bond (not to be confused with James) and E.S. Cox - nor to the days of Jaguar when the saying was: 'they are good cars, but you got to have two of them: one for driving and one to repair' .
= J =
- edited once -
Juniathaplease note that I had reason for it
To the extent there was any, it has been relieved from the present discussion. Or any prospective further ones of similar nature.
JuniathaAnd the Brits dream of getting back to the times of Sir Francis Drake
I don't know, the way World War Two re-enacting's taken hold in Britain, to say nothing of all the Spitfire restorations I suspect now they prefer the era of Sir Winston Churchill!
At least the 1940's had electric lights and indoor plumbing!
We toured the replica of Drake's "Golden Hind" about 20 years ago. I couldn't imagine sailing it on a lake, much less around the world.
Either those 16th Century mariners were incredibly brave or they were out of their minds!
Flintlock76 We toured the replica of Drake's "Golden Hind" about 20 years ago. I couldn't imagine sailing it on a lake, much less around the world. Either those 16th Century mariners were incredibly brave or they were out of their minds!
All that warm beer probably helped too.
As for modern railroad arguments, GE vs EMD and is PSR Good or Evil can get pretty heated!
SD70DudeAll that warm beer probably helped too.
Well, the alcoholic beverages back then, beer, wine, you name it, were supposedly much more potent than they are today.
Could explain a lot of history when you think about it.
Flintlock - a bit of everything?
I believe it could be made an example of what people can take up and endure if only they be made to believe a huge treasury can be sacked in if they succeed.
And then this picture of Drake on board of his ship with a few comrades comes to my mind, when he saw the huge Armada. He looked them over through his telescope, cooly analysed their weak spot: They don't know how to sail! They are much to close to each other. So he cold bloodedly made one bold decission: to sail right there and set them all aflame! In the end the whole enormous Armada went up in one hell's fire and but the few ships of Drake's and his companions were left. So he returned to report to his queen ..:
"Job done!"
add.:
Oh, and Flintlock, you wrote
"Could explain a lot of history when you think about it."
Maybe: Could explain a lot of history when you drink about it.
Overmod:
Ok - accepted.
And the Brits dream of getting back to the times of Sir Francis Drake - however they don't dream of getting back to the days of Robin Riddles and Roland C. Bond (not to be confused with James) and E.S. Cox (Juniatha)
At least some Brits dream of that period...
https://www.theclanproject.org/Clan_Home.php
There is a long running British Soap Opera Heartbeat set in that period.
JuniathaOk - accepted.
Juniatha Flintlock - a bit of everything? I believe it could be made an example of what people can take up and endure if only they be made to believe a huge treasury can be sacked in if they succeed. And then this picture of Drake on board of his ship with a few comrades comes to my mind, when he saw the huge Armada. He looked them over through his telescope, cooly analysed their weak spot: They don't know how to sail! They are much to close to each other. So he cold bloodedly made one bold decission: to sail right there and set them all aflame! In the end the whole enormous Armada went up in one hell's fire and but the few ships of Drake's and his companions were left. So he returned to report to his queen ..: "Job done!" add.: Oh, and Flintlock, you wrote "Could explain a lot of history when you think about it." Maybe: Could explain a lot of history when you drink about it. = J =
The more common legend about Drake and the Armada is, from Wikipedia:
The most famous (but probably apocryphal) anecdote about Drake relates that, prior to the battle, he was playing a game of bowls on Plymouth Hoe. On being warned of the approach of the Spanish fleet, Drake is said to have remarked that there was plenty of time to finish the game and still beat the Spaniards, perhaps because he was waiting for high tide. There is no known eyewitness account of this incident and the earliest retelling of it was printed 37 years later. Adverse winds and currents caused some delay in the launching of the English fleet as the Spanish drew nearer, perhaps prompting a popular myth of Drake's cavalier attitude to the Spanish threat. It might also have been later ascribed to the stoic attribute of British culture.
I'm sure I've seen a painting of that scene and a plaque from 1883 illustrates it.
While there have been many Royal Navy ships named for Drake other names were more prominent, particularly after the first world war.
Then there's the legend of Drake's Drum. If England's threatened with invasion beat the drum preserved at Buckland Abbey, Drake's home, and he'll come back with his fleet to fight 'em off.
There's the tale that Prime Minister Winston Churchill had a Royal Marine drummer stationed at Buckland Abbey during the summer of 1940 when the German invasion seemed imminant to sound "Beat to Quarters" on Drake's Drum, just in case!
Juniatha what would be the right cylinders on the NYC Niagaras with 290 lb boiler pressure and 79 inch drivers. Gary
Flintlock76 Then there's the legend of Drake's Drum. If England's threatened with invasion beat the drum preserved at Buckland Abbey, Drake's home, and he'll come back with his fleet to fight 'em off. There's the tale that Prime Minister Winston Churchill had a Royal Marine drummer stationed at Buckland Abbey during the summer of 1940 when the German invasion seemed imminant to sound "Beat to Quarters" on Drake's Drum, just in case!
There is of course a song, to be sung with a strong Devon accent..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4HPWXEIKQc
I'm quite familiar with the Devon accent, about half of the technical petty officers in the Royal Australian Navy in the late 1960s spoke with that accent... (as do movie pirates...)
Of course the Armada wasn't a surprise attack. Drake had attacked the Spanish Fleet in Cadiz, Spain in April 1587, destroying between 39 (Drake's estimate) and 25 (Spanish estimate) ships. That delayed the attack and Drake met it again in the channel in July 1588.
Since 1588, "Armada" has had the connotation in English of a huge fleet, but in Spanish it just means fleet or Navy.
The RAN decided a few years ago to buy a number of major ships from Spain. My feeling is that the Spanish, like the Swedes some years earlier "saw us coming". (Is that term used in the USA with the connotation of a confidence trick?). But now we are buying ships from the UK again....
Hello Peter
Now this *is* a contribution - I didn't know of that project.
Thank you!
IA and eastern Juniatha what would be the right cylinders on the NYC Niagaras with 290 lb boiler pressure and 79 inch drivers. Gary
M636C"saw us coming". (Is that term used in the USA with the connotation of a confidence trick?).
Oh yeah Peter, it's used here in the US all right, and has been for decades, and for the reason you've guessed at.
You reckon the Spaniards are still holding a grudge against English-speakers for that affair in the Channel in 1588?
And yes, "armada" is the Spanish word for navy. In fact, the Spanish marine corps, the oldest in the world, is called the "Infantria Marina de Armada Espaniola." (I think I got that right.)
Their most famous veteran? Miguel de Cervantes.
You reckon the Spaniards are still holding a grudge against English-speakers for that affair in the Channel in 1588? - Flintlock 76
I would have thought so if I didn't know that the Spanish Armada's ships have the same problems as ours. We should have been more intelligent customers....
I think the British still have a grudge against Spanish speakers, but that dates from 1982....
The Spanish had ships at sea and we should have looked more carefully. But now we are buying from the British a design still on the drawing board. So nobody knows if it will work or what it will cost.
For years we built our own ships to British designs with a local design team that knew where the weaknesses were and quietly left them out (in a couple of cases by using Dutch radars instead of British units.)
Around twenty years ago I was involved in an effort to avoid buying the recent British Daring class destroyers. The Spanish destroyers aren't great, but they are better and much cheaper than the Darings which had technical problems we could predict years before they were completed.
Drake also burned shipyards and cooperages, leaving the Spaniards with green wood for shipbuilding and barrel staves. The barrel stave problem may have been worse than the leaky ships, since a very large proportion of Spanish crews suffered from dysentery during the Armada sailing. Just shows how important water supply is for more than steam!
I think it is fairly clear that the Spanish invasion plan left a lot to be desired, and was not carried out well.
I was looking at the text of Sir Henry Newbolt's poem, used in the song I posted earlier....
The second last line, which I've marked in bold, struck a chord.
A magazine for the RAN Submarine community is called The Trade...
For the fight with the Armada in 1588, Effingham, Hawkins and Drake brought their own ships as they were all privateers, twelve ships in all.
I suspect that the trade was piracy.....
M636CI suspect that the trade was piracy.....
Shhhhhhsh....
They preferred the term "corsairs." More respectable you know!
Juniatha Hello Peter Now this *is* a contribution - I didn't know of that project. Thank you! Juniatha
There is another from the Riddles, Cox and Bond period....
http://www.82045.org.uk/
Gary
at this time I cannot post a proper answer because I cannot post any picture / drawing / diagram - which I would need to lay out some connections between amount of steam / cylinder volume and the consequences on cylinder efficiency due to limits of valve gear. I wanted to post an indicated hp curve over speed which is essential to see the difference various cylinder volumes would make and the influence of more or less capable valve gear and cylinder steam passages.
Sorry for that. Maybe it will straighten out and I can then post the matter.
Ciao
Two color photos of the PRR S2 from the internet, both equipped with the B&M style smoke deflectors:
Jeez, I never noticed it had smoke deflectors.
Thanks Mr. Jones! I learned something today!
The S2 had not one, but two distinct styles of deflector, showing some of the history of deflector "effectiveness" in North American practice.
The small deflector system pictured (reminiscent of the system applied to B&M Berkshires) was only in use a short time; it was replaced by the more familiar 'Niagara-style' elephant ears by 1947.
Something you may not have noticed is that the B&M ears were not the only smoke/steam-lifting devices -- look for the deflector plate in front of the steam dome, which is visible in the top shot but not the second. A clearer view of it is here:
https://web4.hobbylinc.com/gr/bro/bro2695.jpg
I note that in the picture Jones1945 provided it appears that the plate is already showing some deterioration or damage (see the crack of daylight?) and there may be discussion of this in the surviving material at the Hagley, as 'optimizing the design' of this locomotive was still a priority at PRR for the duration of the 'early' deflector installation.
That the elephant-ear design worked for locomotives of this size and speed might be taken from their fitting to Niagaras, FEF-3s and the 6200 without, to my knowledge, removal once installed. On the original Niagara these had a vertical 'trailing edge' but the productuon engines had the angle; interestingly the "other" late Kiefer design, for the A-2-A Berkshire, showed these in the diagram before the locomotives were constructed.
Flintlock76 Jeez, I never noticed it had smoke deflectors. Thanks Mr. Jones! I learned something today!
You are welcome, Wayne. It was probably because Lionel's PRR S2 models never had smoke deflectors equipped. If you are not a Pennsy fan you probably didn't notice that.
I found the B&M style smoke deflectors looked very attractive on the S2. For the sake of aesthetic, PRR did a great job making the smoke deflectors as small as possible which fit the handsome front end of the S2. Too bad that it wasn't good enough to lift the smoke and lasted less than 2 years.
Here you can see the deflector plate in front of the steam dome that was mentioned by Overmod in the previous post.
That's a nice model! Really high-grade!
The S2 I've got is the old Lionel 681 from the '50s, which needless to say doesn't have that kind of detail. It's a very good runner though, solid and reliable even after 70 years!
I wasn't even planning on buying one myself but I was in Henning's Trains in Lansdale PA several years ago and there it was at a price too good to pass up.
The funny thing is the S2 worked out a lot better for Lionel than it ever did for the Pennsy!
Here's the 681.
http://www.tandem-associates.com/lionel/lionel_trains_681_loco.htm
While we are on the subject of the S2, we might look at some of the practical details of its successor, which Westinghouse was still touting well into 1948.
As I have said, implementing a practical multispeed transmission and eliminating the ridiculous reverse turbine were priorities, and it is not surprising to see patents (filed, in fact, the same day) which quite correctly demonstrate a two-speed planetary transmission and robust geared reverse (2435633A and 2469573A), together with an alternative by a different engineer (2447136A) that provides reversing via the planetary. Newton filed an improvement on the gearing arrangement a month later (July 1946).
Unfortunately the actual patents did not start to issue until early 1948, by which time both the societal factors and railroad 'exigencies' that led to the first great wave of dieselization were becoming well recognized. There was little place for large, relatively advanced steam power to be built new; what interest there was in turbines became directed first to different types of mechanical drive not involving rods and then, famously and unsuccessfully, into electric drive to all wheels...
(deleted, forget it!)
Jones 1945,
if you mean these small smoke deflectors on the photo: these are properly called Witte deflectors because they were a German invention by Degenkolb in 1942 on the 52 class locos. They were universally introduced in 1948 following on DB by Friedrich Witte who then was about the German equivalent of a CME, Dez 21. Even on East-German DR they were called Witte deflectors, DR had their version a bit more bowed outwards like a sail. You see them on most German steam locos after 1950.
But there was a big difference between the successful proper Witte deflectors, or wings, as Juni calls them, and the unsuccessful PRR type: simply the German wings were positioned at the width of the loading gauge and reached forward before the smoke box front to catch the wind, the PRR ones were closely hugging to the smokebox and did not reach further than the smokebox drum, so they dodged the wind and were useless. I believe they are the sort of smoke wings those people like who don't like smoke wings at all, because they almost get lost hiding so close besides the smokebox drum. PRR only learned with the traditional so called 'elephant ears' which are of course an offense to the 'blank front end lovers'.
One drawback of the S2 I was told was the turbine and gear box that was held on bearings on the two driven axles and that ways were unsuspended, they were fully prone to the kicking and rattling of the rails of PRR's 'high speed track' with nailed rails and staggered joints left and right alternatively. Considering the delicacy of modern turbine engines of modern planes I wonder this turbine did withstand the punishment for years - or did it? The end came when the turbine was (again?) damaged and the loco stood in the shed at Crestline. I believe it was the time when PRR was about to close the book on any steam loco that was not 100% standart and gave a minimum of a problem. I believe they didn't take no other look but just crossed them out for ever. Zzip and zzip and zzip! and in the end they crossed themselves out with one giant final ZZZZZIPP! and the whole system went PennCentral! Finally PC in agony also was about to suiczzzzzi..... but then there were others who's intentions differed. You know that better than me.
Sara 05003
Sara TOne drawback of the S2 I was told was the turbine and gear box that was held on bearings on the two driven axles and that ways were unsuspended, they were fully prone to the kicking and rattling of the rails of PRR's 'high speed track' with nailed rails and staggered joints left and right alternatively.
In practice it might be possible to implement quill drive as on the GG1s from a 'floating' gear case similarly mounted to the frame. Westinghouse designers were said to reason from maritime practice in high-power reduction-gear design, where unsprung mass of the 'final drive' is much less an issue. If the center rods are absent, the gear case can be pivoted on the locomotive frame, with the suspension accommodation being analogous to that for nose-suspended motors; keeping the gears and bearings aligned and the oil sealing good were considered more important than low unsprung mass.
In any case the difficulty with most of the turbine blading comes with axial shock, particularly that which is hard enough to deflect rotating blading into stator blades or vice versa. It is highly unlikely that a locomotive guided by coned tread and ¾" flanges will suffer transverse shock sufficient to accomplish that, let alone given the relatively high turbine shaft axis.
The situation on the N&W TE-1 of course was quite different, although the concern as described by Louis Newton was that a standing cut of hoppers was run in at over 8½ mph, something that no practical skid-based impact protection for turbogenerators or long-travel locomotive draft gear would likely be expected to absorb. Even then the issues that led to the TE-1's retirement were electrical, not turbine, related...
How the V1, both 'versions' of which were designed for longitudinal turbines, would handle this issue is less clear. In the Bowes drive variant there is no direct contact between the turbine shaft and the final drive... unless the lockup clutch is engaged, which can communicate backdriving shock. There would be a significant mass in the cast underframes that would essentially have to be accelerated before any transverse bending load on the blading would be developed, and while the shafting was part of unsprung mass the turbines (in part to keep flexible joints out of the steamlines) would be entirely spring-borne.
The issue of transverse shock factors more significantly into a counterrotating Ljungstrom turbine (where there are no fixed stator blades). But here again providing good bearing support and tribology in the turbine shafting would be essential, and ensuring proper mesh, crowning, etc. of a fully-enclosed geartrain more important than low unsprung driver mass... for transmission designers!
An analogue here is the mounting of the Besler motors on the B&O W-1, which in my opinion has many aspects of mechanical suicide. Roosen's alternative certainly seems to isolate a 'steam motor' better from direct road shocks.
Sara TI recall, that unsprung weight of steam loco driven axles was an issue against steam. Unfortunately, electrics with axle-hung motors presented an even larger unsprung weight and this caused some trouble with hammering into rail joints...
Many of the early references indicate there was far more damage from lateral impact than vertical. Among other things this caused damage to the 'nailed' track in directions it was ill-designed to resist effectively, and that would require additional care to re-line as well as re-surface.
The imposition of adhesion weight on the driver axle far exceeds its unsprung-mass inertia, which of course is also why overbalance is tolerable at all in conventional balancing. Since long-travel suspension is not easily accommodated in quartered-rod drive, much of the theoretical advantage in shock mitigation from lower driver mass (by false analogy with road-vehicle suspension) won't properly apply to the coupled wheelbase; in fact the lighter the driver, the greater the impact from hammer-blow once it develops past adhesive weight and you get into 'bouncing drivers' as in those AAR films of the hapless C&NW E-4 in the late '30s...
If the turbine loco had its all gear and housing fully on two axles (the mentioned electrics had their motors only 1/2 on axle 1/2 on bogie frame) that must represent a real rail hammering device and must be 'killing' rail joints in FFM (fast forward motion).
Nowhere in what remains of the S2 accounts do I find any discussion of untoward shock or impact; in fact there are a number of reports stressing the relatively good riding characteristics ... of course, this was assessed compared to contemporary reciprocating power, and reciprocating locomotives are never particularly likely to be kind to track in vertical shock, even duplexes.
It does occur to me that much of the modern detailed study of steam-turbine locomotives, specifically including the S2, is in fact in German, so you may already be familiar with details not readily known to (or remembered by) Americans outside a dwindling community of PRR specialists. If so please reference them.
Obviously a suspension like that in the 'improved' V1, which would have used cardan-shaft drive to individual axle gearcases, ought to be somewhat better with respect to shock.
Roosen's design preserves the advantages of relatively tall wheels combined with the isolation of a reasonable quill drive (albeit driving only from one end of each driver pair). One of our great national shames was not preserving the example we looted... although it does have to be said that great efforts were made to get what was then DB to take it back -- no one there or here wanted any part of developing the idea by the late '40s, just as B&O dropped the Besler constant-torque almost like a brick nearly a decade earlier.
There must have been a lot of vibration in this device on the jointed, nailed track, heavy vibration.
Westinghouse claimed, and had, long experience in 'what worked' with geartrains on locomotives as well as in marine practice. I note that turbine gearing elsewhere in the world... where it was successful... featured very heavy gearing and good alignment and support, with comparable mass, in the final drive.
To have a very fast rotating turbine with its blades mounted in this casing cannot have been optimal. Perhaps this turbine was specially sturdy made to withstand this rattling, but good is something else and it must have gone on quality of efficient working which demands to keep clearances around the blades as small as possible.
Now whether there was cumulative blade-root or disk damage from cumulative shock effects, I don't know; whether this led to sufficient tip interference to induce circumferential bending failure if the blading I likewise have seen no records for. However, I doubt shock loading sufficient to Brinell the turbine-rotor bearing races or thrust-bearing surfaces, let alone deflect the shaft sufficient to cause blade strike, would be observed -- certainly the Westinghouse engineers who did the detail design and well understood the likely stresses would have considered this, and would have remarked on the need for design remediation if in fact problems were observed.
Why didn't these designers take a look at drives in electric locos which by then were much further advanced? They could have saved the flexible part in steam conduct also.
By no means does any of this relate to modern practice even in the 110-to-125mph HrSR range. Any modern high-speed design will involve low unsprung mass and very competent arrangements for compliance and damping. This has historically resulted in some strange decisions, the choice of long-wheelbase truck on the test E60 and the substitution of heavy drop-equalizer GSC trucks on the Metroliners being but two that come painfully to mind.
Sara TOvermod, you wrote:It is possible to model the S1 in software and do multiphysics and kinematic analysis on the chassis to determine its stability and freedom from resonant couples (as was done, for example, for the German 05 class which had a calculated severe emergent critical speed close to 122mph... I'm sorry but this is all wrong. There never was such a problem...
It is possible to model the S1 in software and do multiphysics and kinematic analysis on the chassis to determine its stability and freedom from resonant couples (as was done, for example, for the German 05 class which had a calculated severe emergent critical speed close to 122mph...
There is now a subsequent (and, I think, much better executed) study of the 05 kinematics, described here:
https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/4855279/the-hunting-stability-of-the-german-high-speed-steam-simpack
As their initial methodology appears similar to some of the analysis conducted for the T1 project (5550) I am comfortable in stating the results would be much more reasonable than "that other study". Note in particular the emergent behavior illustrated in their Figure 7 -- note the equivalent speed, and that the oscillation appears to be self-limiting when established.
As noted, they identify a problem with the engine-tender coupling, which they expect around 225km/h; as German practice is one of the places effective engine-to-tender coupling and guiding improvement can be found, I have little doubt that Adolf Wolff or others like him would have had little difficulty mitigating this were speeds that high deemed desirable.
I thought many years ago that a problem with the testing was 'quantization' to the metric 'double ton' -- testing was made to reach the magic 200km/h with little incentive to push the performance envelope further... as the Mallard people found the excuse to do. It is not lost on me that LNER, despite quickly and I think effectively fixing the detail-design problems in the inside big end never saw fit to operate remotely in that speed range again. Perhaps for the best; I thought then and still think now that most of Mallard's advantage was small frontal area imposed by the toylike British loading gage, a nominal advantage likewise possessed by the Milwaukee A class (which Alfred Bruce claimed in print, not something to take lightly from such a one in such a position, easily exceeded 128mph).
You will note the curious specificity of that 128mph number. That is not intended to compare with the verifiable British surge of 125mph or the fake 126.1: it specifically establishes a speed meaningfully faster than the likely-fudged PRR 'record' of 127.1 between AY and Elida, the American 'folk speed record' we all learned about as children.
It is readily apparent to me that the 05 is generally a more competent high-speed design than the Milwaukee 4-4-2 in a number of significant respects, and as far as I can tell inferior to it in none. While of course I don't expect to see the 'historic' locomotive released from Nuremberg any sooner than Mallard would be restored from York, we certainly already have recreated sufficient base of industry and skill to replicate the locomotive from plans, and indeed to improve its materials and some of its proportions and systems as for the T1. Some slight additional complications would be involved in testing this at high speed (e.g. properly instrumented wheelsets) but no particular problem in allowing operation to 165mph exists once the locomotive is 'in being'. (And note that this is barely over the point at which kinematics first identify a self-limiting resonance in guiding...)
While I confess my first loyalty is still to the Lost Cause of divided drives, the second project ought to be a revived 05 in all its optimized splendor. Whether or not it whips the tar out of 5550 on test.
What a truly wonderful collection of ideas and facts you have presented! May your dreams come true!
My comparable dream?
The rejuvinated GG!, with the motors and the frame from the best from all existing displayed, rewound motors with best possible insulation, high-capacity solid-state-diode rectification for DC operation of the original motors, special custom 25 Hz and 60 Hz tapped transformer (audio-transformere technology increased in scale), no asbestos, with original transformer-tap control restored, automatic changeover for change of power frequency, authentic Brunzwick Green with gold pin-stripes, and a matched set of Budd Senator-Congressional cars.
And I'd settle for 120 mph, just high enough not to bog down other NEC movements.
Sara TJones 1945, if you mean these small smoke deflectors on the photo: these are properly called Witte deflectors because they were a German invention by Degenkolb in 1942 on the 52 class locos. They were universally introduced in 1948 following on DB by Friedrich Witte who then was about the German equivalent of a CME, Dez 21. Even on East-German DR they were called Witte deflectors, DR had their version a bit more bowed outwards like a sail. You see them on most German steam locos after 1950.
Thanks, Sara. Speaking of Witte deflectors, I am a big fan of them when I was so much younger. In almost 80% of my locomotive drawings, I put them on the steam engine for decoration. When I was a kid, I thought they were a device for stabilizing the locomotive at high speed. I still found them looking cool on those German steam locomotives nowadays.
For the first version of smoke deflectors that were equipped on the S2, I considered them a unique type. They really reminded me of those small-size smoke deflectors installed on B&M's Pacific and Class R1 (mountain) more than those German wings. Maybe it was because they were not positioned exactly the same as the German wings.
B&M's Mountain and Pacific:
The smoke deflectors on those B&M locomotives ar OK, but that skyline casing on the R1 looks a bit weird.
So does that plate half-way back on the R1's boiler. I wonder what that's for?
Flintlock76 The smoke deflectors on those B&M locomotives ar OK, but that skyline casing on the R1 looks a bit weird. So does that plate half-way back on the R1's boiler. I wonder what that's for?
Do you mean the cover plate over the sand pipes?
The casing on the Pacifics didn't last long and the second batch wasn't fitted with the casing.
The B&M Pacific was the prototype for the Athearn model.
you may write pages and pages of blurrings and specialized special views. What remains, I must consent to Sara's remarks in general - and they were meant in general - there is no way to cover up:
1. - a heavy block unsprung - Westinghouse or other - on the two axles cannot be good for jointed rails
2. - hard vertical shocks on a rotating turbine - and it doesn't matter what exactly was the amplitude or the impact, it was heavy in any ways - cannot be helpful for keeping it in running order. Don't try to let on Westinghouse had tons of experience in railway application of turbines: where were the respective engines? Never heard of.
Full stop.
Juniatha 2. - hard vertical shocks on a rotating turbine - and it doesn't matter what exactly was the amplitude or the impact, it was heavy in any ways - cannot be helpful for keeping it in running order. Don't try to let on Westinghouse had loads of experience in railway application of turbines: where were the respective engines? Never heard of.
2. - hard vertical shocks on a rotating turbine - and it doesn't matter what exactly was the amplitude or the impact, it was heavy in any ways - cannot be helpful for keeping it in running order. Don't try to let on Westinghouse had loads of experience in railway application of turbines: where were the respective engines? Never heard of.
Westinghouse built turbines for warships, which would be subjected to hard shocks, especially in the case of a battleship with large caliber naval rifles.
Sara wrote "I feel like even the boiler pressure had been raised for this one run to increase acceleration but I have no details if 18 or 20 atm nor anything about the way the decissions for this run were made or by whom."
Considering the bureaucratic ways in Germany, this could only have been an incident "auf dem kleinen Dienstweg" - I have no idea how to translate that into English, the whole idiom may not exist outside Germany, maybe "on lower official channels" might give an idea, meaning to avoid to make something happening known to higher ranks: one "Abnahme-Inspektor" - acceptance report inspector - may have made that speed plate a basis for realizing his personal wish to "see what she could do". Officially, any speed above 100 or 110 km/h - ~ 60 to 70 mph - was then of no importance. It must have been on a section of track only recently rebuilt, I would be inclined to think for a save approach they had made several runs augmenting speed in steps. As to the increased bp, I tend to think it was 18 bars rather than 20 because with the boiler of formerly 20 bars, a temporary 18 bars would have been save in every aspect, and with a light load of 3 cars, it would have been enough. 18 bars was officially introduced with the class 10 heavy Pacific. From the boiler output with the standard 05 specifications of draughting which was likely considering the March 1945 rebuilding, the combustion chamber boiler with shorter tubes - of a different layout - would have reacted significantly more lively than the standard Wagner boiler and would support, say 53 -> 50% c/o for acceleration from 150 -> 175 m/h - 93.2 to 108.7 mph. This would produce ~ 3000 ihp at 175 km/h - quite 'enough' for good acceleration with that light load.
It should have been a great sight to see her run by at that speed with steam plume raised clearly above the boiler and a fast roar coming from the three-cylinder engine!
Eric, yeah, they were subject to hard shock when hit by a torpedo - sure. But then it didn't matter so much how many more hours turbines would make ...
Seriously: The shock caused by firing cannons cannot have been anyway near the shocks unsprung on rails - just check the relation of masses between the ammunition and the ship - and then there was flexing of the hulk: a long way between board cannons and a turbine deep down in the vessel. Very small vibration and subdued by the entity of the hulk in the water - no, I don't see any proper analogy to railroading.
Juniatha1. - a heavy block unsprung - Westinghouse or other - on the two axles cannot be good for jointed rails 2. - hard vertical shocks on a rotating turbine - and it doesn't matter what exactly was the amplitude or the impact, it was heavy in any ways - cannot be helpful for keeping it in running order. Don't try to let on Westinghouse had tons of experience in railway application of turbines: where were the respective engines? Never heard of.
It is a truism to observe that uncushioned running shocks are 'not helpful in keeping a turbine in running order'. The specific issue here is whether either the prompt or cumulative damage from transverse shock to this (comparatively small) turbine is less than axial shock would be, and I believe this has been reasonably established in both the steam and gas-turbine industry. Nothing beyond that is implied, certainly not that I personally think there would be little or no damage to any 'uncushioned' turbine over time. Certainly in my own designs (which use far better bearing technology than was practically available in the '40s) I have been very careful to account for potential shock and impact.
Erik_Mag Juniatha 2. - hard vertical shocks on a rotating turbine - and it doesn't matter what exactly was the amplitude or the impact, it was heavy in any ways - cannot be helpful for keeping it in running order. Don't try to let on Westinghouse had loads of experience in railway application of turbines: where were the respective engines? Never heard of. Westinghouse built turbines for warships, which would be subjected to hard shocks, especially in the case of a battleship with large caliber naval rifles.
Apples and oranges man, those warship turbines were WELL protected down in the bowels of those ships. The firing of the big guns wouldn't bother 'em at all.
In fact, when many warships with turbine engines were scrapped the engines were typically in as good a condition as the day they were made.
I would suggest that any issue related to turbines or gearing arrangements in warships is much more related to prospective shock from 'the other end' of naval rifles, and by extension torpedo hits as Juniatha indicated. Possibly-complex interaction of shockwaves communicated from high-order detonation on what might be highly-stressed machinery would be the thing of concern there, and it is my understanding that even the largest naval rifles have been installed not to communicate supersonic shock directly to the ship's structure when fired.
It occurs to me that Juniatha may know, or have thought about, the specific failure details of the Guy turbine in the LMS Turbomotive. This was arranged with transverse axis, but as I recall had a relatively larger rotor diameter. This was supposed to be a shaft fracture at relatively high speed under load, leading directly to catastrophic blade interference damage. It is quite possible that analysis of the failed shaft would exhibit signs of cumulative shock damage communicated transversely through the bearings; on the other hand, I think there are forces that could be applied via the rotor to the shaft in bending that might induce stress raisers in ways less likely for the longer, thinner Rateau-stage Westinghouse design to develop.
(deleted)
I found these photos of N&W TE-1's turbine from the NWHS Archives about a year ago and have been thinking of posting them here. Since you guys mentioned the potential damage to the turbine of the PRR S2 during operation, I would like to share them here to see if these photos might help to enrich the content of the recent discussions even though they are not directly related to it:
"N&W TE1 2300 turbine and components after failure" (no further context provided)
More: https://www.nwhs.org/archivesdb/listdocs/select.php?index=search&Searchword=Turbine
Remember that you are looking at the result of impact of a string of hopper cars, accelerating to over 8mph at impact, oriented directly along the turbine shaft axis while it was spooled up. It is difficult to think of an incident that would similarly stress the S2 main turbine. It is entirely possible that a continued series of unrecognizedly-severe shocks might produce repeated stick-slip damage in the turbine bearings, but it was my understanding that periodic teardown and inspection revealed no evidence of that kind of damage.
A specific point made about Bowes drive in the 'revised' V1 was that it allowed longitudinal compliance of the main turbine if shocked in buff or draft. As the Bowes drive is inherently noncontact there is relatively little tendency for reflected shock from the chassis to affect the turbine's internal structure; at least theoretically the primary and secondary suspension can be built to control off-axis shock, nothing involving control modality or construction not achievable by the late '40s.
Today of course you'd isolate the turbogenerator along the principles of a multiaxis tuned mass damper to help with vehicle stability, and use proper magnetic bearings. The whole of the high-speed drive need be no more than was implemented on the first generation of TGV; of course far better and more sophisticated options are currently (no pun intended) available basically OTS for electrical transmission. At least technically you could use a turbine in place of the expander in the Lewty booster, which can be aligned and shockproofed to a substantial extent. Mechanical transmission design need be nowhere as sophisticated as in modern automobiles, as there is no requirement either to run in constant mesh or to transmit load across ratio changes. As I pointed out some years ago, a magnetorheological coupling of suitable power for V1 use was theoretically available by late 1948; this has very little wear (and most of that in easily-replaced, non-dimensionally-critical components) and is easily proportionally controlled.
Keep in mind that this is Classic Trains, where there is a 50-year cutoff on the technology we're 'supposed' to discuss. It is interesting to look back on what STE designs even by the early '70s could feature, both in materials and operation... both 'pro' and 'con'.
But as a quick note: Sara, see if you can pull up the list of John Herbst papers in the repository of the University of Texas CEM. The MegaGen developed for SDI applications is a suitable design for high-speed locomotives; it was the basis for both CEM's and my ALPS locomotives back in the day the United States actually still cared about true high-speed design...
OvermodRemember that you are looking at the result of impact of a string of hopper cars, accelerating to over 8mph at impact, oriented directly along the turbine shaft axis while it was spooled up. It is difficult to think of an incident that would similarly stress the S2 main turbine. It is entirely possible that a continued series of unrecognizedly-severe shocks might produce repeated stick-slip damage in the turbine bearings, but it was my understanding that periodic teardown and inspection revealed no evidence of that kind of damage. A specific point made about Bowes drive in the 'revised' V1 was that it allowed longitudinal compliance of the main turbine if shocked in buff or draft. As the Bowes drive is inherently noncontact there is relatively little tendency for reflected shock from the chassis to affect the turbine's internal structure; at least theoretically the primary and secondary suspension can be built to control off-axis shock, nothing involving control modality or construction not achievable by the late '40s. Today of course you'd isolate the turbogenerator along the principles of a multiaxis tuned mass damper to help with vehicle stability, and use proper magnetic bearings. The whole of the high-speed drive need be no more than was implemented on the first generation of TGV; of course far better and more sophisticated options are currently (no pun intended) available basically OTS for electrical transmission. At least technically you could use a turbine in place of the expander in the Lewty booster, which can be aligned and shockproofed to a substantial extent. Mechanical transmission design need be nowhere as sophisticated as in modern automobiles, as there is no requirement either to run in constant mesh or to transmit load across ratio changes. As I pointed out some years ago, a magnetorheological coupling of suitable power for V1 use was theoretically available by late 1948; this has very little wear (and most of that in easily-replaced, non-dimensionally-critical components) and is easily proportionally controlled. Keep in mind that this is Classic Trains, where there is a 50-year cutoff on the technology we're 'supposed' to discuss. It is interesting to look back on what STE designs even by the early '70s could feature, both in materials and operation... both 'pro' and 'con'. But as a quick note: Sara, see if you can pull up the list of John Herbst papers in the repository of the University of Texas CEM. The MegaGen developed for SDI applications is a suitable design for high-speed locomotives; it was the basis for both CEM's and my ALPS locomotives back in the day the United States actually still cared about true high-speed design...
Remember railroads consider 4 MPH a SAFE coupling speed for freight equipment. Depending on the engineer and conditions, higher speed couplings are frequently made. Impact is reality in the operation of locomotives.
Sara T>>A specific point made about Bowes drive<< I had asked you to explain what it was, but got no answer. In a byline I mentioned your Bowes drive when talking to Juni, and what do you know? she told me she had also asked you about it earlier .. and got no answer neither.
Sara TIt appears to me that's your method: putting up things you know other members cannot comply to, like here you ask me: >>Sara, see if you can pull up the list of John Herbst papers in the repository of the University of Texas CEM.<< You know pretty well I live in Germany and it's absolutely safe and clear I will not come to that University and will never look up those papers or whatever I will find there.
Nearest I can find to the CEM index page as I last used it is here:
https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/29970/recent-submissions
I have no idea where or if the ALPS-specific papers are in this, but it will give you at least an idea of some of the underlying work. At least some of the titles, although not obviously hyperlinked, click through to PDF download links.
I will assume that your sarcasm means that you are actually interested in the Bowes drive and in reading papers from CEM respectively, and send you information via PM later when I have better access to the material and can forward attachments and not just links.
In case you missed it, I posted this on the second page of this thread one year ago:
"Archived Photos of Chesapeake and Ohio M-1 Steam Turbine Engines"
http://cs.trains.com/ctr/f/3/t/278688.aspx?page=2#3221257
Probably not the same thing, and probably I'm way off, but the Bowes drive sounds very similar to what the French used in the Normandie, that is, a turbo-electric drive.
The ship's steam turbines ran generators which in turn powered electric motors that turned the propeller shafts. It was a lot easier and simpler to build the propulsion system that way than it was to utilize a complicated gearing system.
Whether the ship went forward or in reverse was a simple matter of throwing switches.
The Bowes drive is very different from turbo-electric, which is not really different from what diesel-electrics do.
Look first at patent 2465006A
https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/3f/e0/fe/67f4a9eaa3f7ab/US2465006.pdf
and then at the 'improvement' patented in 1955, paying attention to some of the discussion there
https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/56/04/1d/232aa9a0107ee7/US2715689.pdf
Note the efficiency of conversion, observed to be very much greater than 'turboelectric' as in, say, the Heilmann locomotive with its progressive losses.
A locomotive's turbine governor can then be designed principally to control spoolup and spindown for best longevity of the turbine, using the multiple nozzles most efficiently as load comes on and off once operating shaft rpm is reached, and keep the turbine in the range of its most efficient steam consumption with simple speed following, while allowing varying the road speed by modulating the drive.
Meanwhile, while we are thinking about straight turbo electric drive, I believe there was a brief fad in the U.S.Navy early on for electric-transmission drive in warships. Probably discussed on-line in sufficient detail to confirm.
There is an interesting story about how easy operating a large turbo-electric drive could be. As I recall the details, during the fire aboard the Morro Castle, the crew made no attempt to get the ship near the shore. A couple of college boys went to the engine room, doped out how to pull the levers, and ensured the ship was beached. As I recall this saved lives.
Sara T Sorry, Overmod, you didn't write it is accessible in the internet and so I didn't think of it. Looks like I should have thought of it anyway. And on your later posting: ah-haa! there it is! Fine, thank you, wow, great, I'll tell Juni! Now I hope everything will become well! >>A couple of college boys went to the engine room, doped out how to pull the levers, and ensured the ship was beached. As I recall this saved lives.<< They were from your class, Prof Overmod? Sara 05003
Sorry, Overmod, you didn't write it is accessible in the internet and so I didn't think of it. Looks like I should have thought of it anyway.
And on your later posting: ah-haa! there it is! Fine, thank you, wow, great, I'll tell Juni! Now I hope everything will become well!
>>A couple of college boys went to the engine room, doped out how to pull the levers, and ensured the ship was beached. As I recall this saved lives.<<
They were from your class, Prof Overmod?
SS Morro Castle (1930) - Wikipedia
It was 87 years ago....
Other than the Normandy, where-else was the Bowers Drive used?
It appears to me to be a form of generator and motor within common electrical and magnetic circuits, and thus harks back to the rotary 3-phase AC to DC rotary converters used in some original electrifications' locomotives, including the three-phase, double-wire Via Alpina Sondrio - Tirano in Italy.
Again: Normandie (and Morro Castle and other prospective ships of that era) had conventional turbo-electric drive, not Bowes drive.
From what I have read, the Bowes drive was intended particularly as a tugboat drive, where very fast reversals at high speed and load are required for what may be long periods of time.
I'm sure some idea of actual installations, together with aspects of their detail design, are in the Bowes papers at ISM; the published finding aid strongly indicates that there are. I am checking regularly to see when they reopen access, as I have a list of box references literally printed out and sitting on my desk ready to go when they do...
It'll be interesting to see how the design for rail cars differs from that for the 2000hp high-speed locomotive. Since I have seen what Bowes sent to the PRR, I do expect comparable engineering detail to be present.
daveklepper It appears to me to be a form of generator and motor within common electrical and magnetic circuits, and thus harks back to the rotary 3-phase AC to DC rotary converters used in some original electrifications' locomotives, including the three-phase, double-wire Via Alpina Sondrio - Tirano in Italy.
Dave,
To me, the difference is that the converters you describe had electrical current as the both the input and the output, one AC and one DC.
The Bowes drive is the equivalent of a mechanical torque converter, such as a Voith hydraulic torque converter, in that the input and output are mechanical rotating shafts turning at different speeds with different torques.
In Italy, there were fairly commonly seen simpler three phase locomotives that simply varied the number of poles on the motor and had maybe two or three constant speeds. I travelled behind these as late as 1974 and I think they were more common than the locomotives with rotary converters. In 1974, there were many connections with the later 3000v DC system where arrangements had to be made to change engines, requiring a DC locomotive to be moved clear from its train by an AC locomotive after coasting into the station, or vice versa.
In England there were London underground trains with a form of stepless control called a "Metadyne" which was effectively a motor generator set that provided a variable voltage output. These dated from the mid 1930s, but were replaced by conventional camshaft control in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
interesting now that you posted details of the Bowes drive. However, as for electric traction, the interest is more historical than it has any practical relevance today since with the Synchron / asynchron technology time has gone on over it.
As for a steam turbine drive, the gears today possible with automatic gear change and torque converter would again cover its range of advantageous application.
=J=
Overmod Meanwhile, while we are thinking about straight turbo electric drive, I believe there was a brief fad in the U.S.Navy early on for electric-transmission drive in warships. Probably discussed on-line in sufficient detail to confirm.
Interest in turbo-electric drives started prior to WW1, with, IIRC, the first installation being the collier "Jupiter". Motivation for using T-E drive was allowing the use of high speed turbines, more flexible machinery arrangement and improved maneuverability. Development of high speed reduction gears in late 20's and early 30's led to the USN going that route with the naval build-up starting in the mid 30's.
Experience with building light weight high power steam turbines for desroyers may have been the inspiration for GE building the "Turbomotives" in the late 30's.
It's most interesting that the "Jupiter" was the US Navy's first turbo-electric drive when you consider its subsequent history.
CSSHEGEWISCH It's most interesting that the "Jupiter" was the US Navy's first turbo-electric drive when you consider its subsequent history.
I'd guess the "Jupiter," later "Langley" had that turbo-electric drive installed as a bit of an experiment. If it didn't live up to expectations a collier was a lot less expensive as a test bed than a battleship.
They built three with different approaches to power as a comparison test. One had reciprocating engines and one a reduction-gear turbine arrangement.
Supposedly the original proposal came from Fessenden circa 1908. Surely he would not have designed a twin-screw ship with both motors constrained to turn at the same speed!
There are any drawings for the turbo-electric version of V1 locomotive?
Could you post the images now unvailable, again? Kind regards
djlivusThere are any drawings for the turbo-electric version of V1 locomotive?
I don't believe Steins 'triplex' turbo-electric, which would have been much longer, is greatly related to the V1 chassis, which was designed around two turbines with mechanical drive to the axles.
djlivus Could you post the images now unvailable, again? Kind regards
Welcome to the forum! Please check PM, thanks a lot!
https://i.imgur.com/7yW84y7.png
https://i.imgur.com/gIMTLeg.png
the elongated body gg1 style turbine - if it is the succesor of the three-unit steam turbo electric locomotive project - it seems to be also a turbo electric locomotive design
Yes, these are turboelectric -- the key is the term "Steamotive".
This was the plan to compete with what was then developing 'streamliner' diesel power; at the time of origin this would have been the state-of-the-art of the early GM two-strokes, perhaps even before the advent of the 201A.
The design was fully mature by late 1936, and described at the 57th annual meeting of the ASME (Nov 30 to Dec 4 1936). A contemporary account describes this as a 'flash boiler' comparable to the one Barney Oldfield used in 1909 and notes that the version described used "a quarter-mile of small pipes all in a space the size of an office desk". The experimental plant was installed at one of GE's ex-Thomson-Houston facilities in Lynn, MA -- 1500psi, originally with a suicidal 1050 degree F temp, reduced to 900 in practice. Naturally this involved distilled water and careful automatic control of the firing, and full condensation (which, like the later enginion AG design, could be justified with the lower mass flow nominally required). Turbines in this system were quite small for the developed horsepower... they were dwarfed in mobile applications by their own exhaust plenum.
This is the system used, and reasonably well documented, in the two UP steam turbines of 1938. These made 2500hp at 40,000lb/hr, 1500psi/950F according to the B&W SM-9L dataplate. The system was originally designed to scale all the way to 10,000hp, and we might gauge the expected horsepower of the PRR designs by seeing the practical motor power per driver axle before slip set in to spoil the party -- these perhaps involve 428A motors which would have been common to what PRR planned to use with the electrification west to Pittsburgh after 1938.
Michael Duffy (in Electric Railways, 1880-1990, 2003) describes Steamotive as a market failure by 1940, but I think this is evidently an economic and not a technical assessment. What is obvious to me is that the practical introduction of the 567 represented a better way to use liquid fuel... and a great many PRR experiments in this epoch, from the E8 Atlantic through the Steins motor-truck designs to these turboelectrics, involved some form of liquid-fuel firing.
Those of you with a technical interest in watertube boilers might be interested in the July 1940 issue of the ASME transactions (v62 n5 commencing p367)
http://cybra.lodz.pl/Content/6095/Trans_vol.62_no.5_1940.pdf
The original full description of Steamotive in the ASME journal was in the Feb 1937 issue (v49 n1 pp78-82) but I can't find an online version -- I'd bet wanswheel can.
I have been looking for actual drawings of the E8 for many years. I suspect there is something at the Hagley museum in Delaware but I haven't had the time and health together to go researching.
What we know is that it would have 84" drivers, very lightweight running gear, and oil firing. This was at the time of the Hiawatha development and I suspect the rationale was the same: light extremely fast power for use on comparatively short and lightweight streamlined trains. I expect the tender wouldn't have to have the odd wheel arrangement of the Hiawathas, on PRR's nominally better track, but it would be just like PRR to try stretching their range at high speed... without NYC-style high-speed track-pan arrangements.
It would be hard to speculate on which of the likely suspects for ending development might be. Most successful streamline rapidly developed to where larger equipment and more powerful locomotives (with 84" drivers too) would give the best return on investment. The Steamotive concept,which PRR apparently embraced for a time, was publically revealed in late 1936, and the Westinghouse steam-turbine alternatives with more conventional pressure and atmospheric exhaust only a few years later. Of course the Baldwin depression-boondoggle that was S1 development was also developing as two Atlantics comparable to E8s under a common boiler, with the follow-on 4-8-4 sized locomotive capable of E8 speed on 80" drivers...
And then there were 567-engined E units -- PRR had a pair on order in 1941, but the War canceled it. By the time that order could be filled, it was as E7s, and even Niagaras were hard put, even with special circumstances all in their favor, to compete with those.
>>The tender had it the wrong way around: the four wheel truck belonged front because it guides better and adjusts better in curves.
Still more: putting a Commonwealth truck of that style leading on a tender is not a wise choice. Compare the general style used on the NYC Baldwin diesel Gravel Gerties ...
MILW had to use that truck because of the load of the oil fuel. Interesting to speculate on a true high-speed tender design.
That said: Alfred Bruce of Alco more than hinted that he saw the As run faster than 128mph, more than incidentally. I would not like to see Commonwealth truck behavior at that speed.
>> on PRR's nominally better track,<<
>What? that wobbly erratic nailed track on trifle sandy ballast was better than the Hiawatha's? How bad was that one?
PRR had lots of money and gangs for lining and surfacing, and used heavy rail. Looking at either the Milwaukee track or what CB&Q ran early Zephyrs over will curl your hair!
>>NYC-style high-speed track-pan<<
>80 mph max .. oohm ..
85 mph ... and could have been higher with a little better ducting and vent design in the cistern. Truthfully though, that was as fast as NYC needed to run trains at that time.
>>It would be hard to speculate on which of the likely suspects for ending development might be.<<
>That's one of your patented Overmod-sentences which leave me mind boggled. Ok, maybe it's my lack of knowledge of US parlance.
No, it's just too florid. What I meant was that even by 1935 many things were stacking up to give PRR a better high-speed steam locomotive for their actual railroad than the E8 would be. And that before we consider electrification for much of the real money-earning high-speed trackage.
>>Baldwin depression-boondoggle that was S1<<
>Wasn't it a combined effort by all the three builders, Chrysler, Ford and General Motors, oohm, sorry, you know what I mean?
It was, but it was Baldwin that apparently did the final detail design and much of the fabrication, and more to the point soaked and soaked and soaked PRR for development money, all in the throes of the second Depression. If I recall, Chris Baer went through the Hagley records and PRR paid something over $3.2 million (!) gold dollars on various projects and plans; much of the colossally useless size and complexity are almost surely associated too. One notes with some despair that neither Alco nor Lima seems to have even looked twice at what the duplex technology promised, unless you count the C1a which Alco didn't do the critical research on. For what PRR (over)paid on a locomotive that couldn't even access key parts of their system, they could have bought a fleet of eight-engine Essl Baldwins and had an actual 120mph passenger locomotive in 1939.
I'm glad, of course, that they built the S1, and I'm sorry they never had a real place or a real service to use it, and never came remotely near getting All That Money back out of it, and then sold it expediently for 30 pieces of silver in the end.
>Building a loco too long for the given railroad track and curves wasn't unique for them, Krupp in Germany managed the equivalent with the two 06 class 4-8-4: they just didn't make it to go around at least 180 m radius curves common on DR, they just made it to jump the rail in that case. The 45 class with even longer driven wheel base made it, but it was designed by Henschel. With the 52 class Degenkolb brushed away such fuss and she went through 100 m radius curves and even tighter, too.
I have never really quite understood how the key mistakes were made on the 06, which is one of my favorite 'fan' engines even though it didn't run too well. I'd love to get my hands on one to 'Chapelonize' it, and then find a service worthy of what it could do.
>>developing as two Atlantics comparable to E8s under a common boiler<<
>How should I figure that? as a Garratt 4-4-2 + 2-4-4...?
>I'm using PRR's language for the design. PRR had something of an obsession with four-coupled engines for true high speed well past the date modern balancing made F7 Hudsons and S1 Niagaras practical; they seem to have thought that mind bendingly high speed was reached by 460, the "Lindbergh Engine" for example. They thought of the Duplex as the engines of two Atlantics running independently, sharing one four-wheel guide truck and siamesing the two trailing trucks into one to carry the now-double-size firebox and circulators.
This being the original idea, of course, the one that was B&O 5600 Emerson duplex-proportioned, before the project ballooned into six-wheel trucks and 7800-odd nominal horsepower that couldn't be used at any speed PRR cars would ride acceptably.
>>even Niagaras were hard put, even with special circumstances all in their favor, to compete with those.<<
>.. even with special circumstances all in their favor? As far as I have heard it was the other way around if you are talking of the famous comparison tests with the diesels: the first choice favorable trains and circulation was given to the diesels, only what was then left was given to the Niagaras.
Re-read the test account (a version is free to read online at Hathitrust). What was rigged severely in the Niagaras' favor was precisely that they had guaranteed high-speed turns, a short time apart, with little necessary slow or dead time. The service density then justified the wonderful and sometimes heroic servicing that had to be done.
Meanwhike if you look at the maintenance expense and delays assigned to the diesel, they reflect an early version of E units, few in number on a road not fully invested in quick maintenance or spares and dependent on a great many specialty parts and a great deal of know-how not institutionalized yet.
Where your argument is better is after the testing, as NYC for pure marketing reasons touted 'Dieseliners' for all the best trains... and the overall patronage and profitability of much of the 'rest' of the Great Steel Fleet, particularly the guaranteed fast mileage promised by multiple sections, was falling off a cliff as early as the late '40s. It doesn't take much reverse 'leverage' on mileage or sustained speed before the enormous fixed costs of steam support are less and less favorable -- and meanwhile EMD produced the E8, which was enormously better and more reliable than the E7.
It is possible to replicate some of the tabular cost and performance data as presented in the 1947 survey forward into following years. Doing that, with accurate personnel costs year over year, shows how even efficient modern steam maintained as well as good management can provide for, is at a disadvantage, one which accelerates hideously as the many specialized auxiliaries cease to be manufacturable at any price a railroad will pay, and the labor market forever eliminates railroad shop service as a cost-effective cheap and dead-end career choice.
And then comes 1954, and the proxy fight, and that execrable banty rooster Young and his orders to Perlman and the cost-cutting everywhere. A future in which stripper trains with diner decor became the great shining promise for lightweight service... until four months later it's obvious less than nobody cares. No place for Niagaras in that world even if they ran consistently with indifferent maintenance and operation... which they certainly did not.
>And they still won the competition if you read the report properly (superficially it can be read the other way around, that was one of the shortcomings of the report; according to my earlier personal information from Juniatha)
They won the comparison in 1946. It is not likely they would if it were conducted in 1949. They would lose in 1954, and be unsustainable ... well, about the time they actually did, by 1956.
>>567-engined E units<<
>Add.: Why was it called the 5-6-7 engine? because that was the simplest naming and the best to remember by such plain minded guys like Pearlyman, Alfred (like the later Mad magazine character, heeheehee).
Think of it as 'easy as 1-2-3' but more advanced, like Arthur Clarke using HAL to get 'one up on IBM'.
By the time the engine got into C-block detail design it would run forever with comparatively easy maintenance. By the time it was practically turbocharged, it could supplant most of the remaining surviving steam, and then you got the 645E and early F, and then the 710. Consider the RB3600, which is basically little more than an E unit with turbos on the engines. Had there been the demand for truly high-speed passenger operation that the 1947 ICC train-control order slammed the door on, two of those could handle any consist the best and fastest high-speed reciprocating locomotive could -- or scale down to 1800hp just by isolating prime movers. Then consider the reasons the design was never built -- two-engine units ballooning to 6600hp on the one hand, and a single 645-20 easily making the power of the double-engined unit in the shape of first the SDP35 and then FP45... I didn't much care for what the cowls looked like, but they were very serviceable as first passenger and then 90mph freight engines.
1956 was also the year GE woke up to understand that enormous HP per cylinder could be efficiently produced out of the Cooper-Bessemer design that produced the 7FDL. In between the 645/710 and the GE engines, it has never been possible in all these years to promote a cost-effective steam design for production, and that's not because GM threatened to pull car deliveries from railroads keeping steam.
>steam stays at full 285 psi, I have to go take a drink of water, then go back, steam is at 280, creeps up to 285 again, safety valves start to sizzle, I have to move again .. and so on and so on .. Ambrosia - Drink of Water...You know, if you were on a proper direct-steam system, you'd be circulating at 285 continuously, with the pressurizer modulating electric heating elements as in a nuclear PWR, and you wouldn't need a fire until 20 minutes before getting up. Part of what was becoming common practice in the States... while there was still demand for it.
>>Press Run Coronation Scot had been lined across not just one but several crossovers to put the train several tracks off any sort of straight line through.<<
Especially directly following left /right alternating branchings are dangerous, the momentum built up in the first curve crushes at full force to the other side in the second curve (excuse my simplified explanation, I'm not an engineer), see the accident of an express on DB at Brühl in the year 2000, going too fast through an alternating branching in a station where the main track was under construction.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenbahnunfall_von_Br%C3%BChl
The speed was more than three times the limited speed set for the cross over, because the driver of the 101 class electric had believed he had a free road from now on. That was not the case and the electric ended up in the terrace of a nearby house, the coaches were folded and scattered all over the place, it was quite horrible. Cause: unclear setting of permanent signalling.
Sara TEspecially directly following left /right alternating branchings are dangerous, the momentum built up in the first curve crushes at full force to the other side in the second curve (excuse my simplified explanation, I'm not an engineer)...
https://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/MoT_Milton1955.pdf
A detail mentioned here is that a common factor observed in this and other crossover accidents was 'bursting' of the track toward the trailing points, without the locomotive either 'climbing the rail' or overturning. The interesting observation is that there was no gauge or other damage to the section between curves in the crossover, which leads me to wonder if the force on the track is in part complicated by train run-in against the engine, as in the Gulf Curve accident on New York Central in 1940.
Sara T. There was one railroad that did know and practise proper maintrenance of steam and also designed and used steam locomotives as optimum as possible, and that was the Norfolk and Western. Their routine measures did not need to be heroic to turn power in a few hours and maximize the return on investment in modern steam power. I suspect their dieselization, when it finally did come, was due as much to a new managemenet prejudice than actual economics. Of course, if they had waited lohg enough polution standards and even global warming might have forced the decision.
If they had wished, they probably could have secured the patents for the necessary applyances and made them in-house.
I found this one from the bay, no idea who made the model but I really want to see more pics of it.
>>MILW had to use that truck because of the load of the oil fuel. Interesting to speculate on a true high-speed tender design.
>No, they didn't! They only had to shift the trucks so that the now-at-the-rear six-wheel truck would take 3/5 of the tender weight and the leading truck just 2/5. That's simple, if I can tell that without having designed a locomotive.
I have always thought it interesting that many of the highest-speed American designs have had not just six-wheel, but eight-wheel trucks leading under the tender. (ATSF at least put a pivot on the sideframes to limit the effect of long rigid sideframes...) It is difficult for me to explain how they concluded this was a good idea vs. low-inertial-mass primary on a pair of two-axle frames and a span-bolster arrangement... but then again, in the early '70s I'd have supported chevron primary springs...
>>PRR had lots of money and gangs for lining and surfacing, and used heavy rail.
>I wish I could find that photograph of a Pennsy loco and her front wheel was right in what was an unbelievable "ditch" of a hammered down rail joint. The joint was still present but the rails both were really knocked down over half of the size of the joint and bent outwards. It was unbelievable.
During parts of WWII I can imagine deferred maintenance in some key areas -- parts of Enola yard, for example -- to get to the state you mention: a low joint allowing itself to be hammered increasingly lower. But that would be a curiosity on the PRR.
There are a number of historical accounts by section foremen and other responsible PRR track-maintenance figures that tell the amount of work that was required... I don't remember where they could be found, but a few questions on the PRR groups.io group would likely get the old heads talking. One very funny (although only in long retrospect!) story I was told involved a PRR train with an important official unexpectedly being run at speed over a section of track being supported on rail jacks. Somehow this didn't derail it, but you can bet everything inside the cars was well shaken, and the inhabitants stirred. The narrator was sure he was going to be fired, but the official said 'the ride was so smooth once we got to the part you had done that I couldn't fault you'.
Fine and smooth ... for three weeks, when it would be knocked out enough to go back and do it all over again.
>Yes, I doubt that Pennsy in contrast to the all-American "shareholder value" spent more than a minimum of maintenance on track upkeep.
>US railroads haven't learned even today what a huge contribution to lowering maintenance costs of both permanent way and rolling stock a well-maintained track can provide.
Where we're presently shortsighted is in perpetuating removal if multiple tracks, often for wacky legal or tax reasons, and tolerating more track-damaging operation than I'd consider sensible, for example with flat wheel policies. We never got out of an adversarial safety model, either. Remains to be seen how the various 'neo-privatized' passenger railroads manage the necessary high quality ... or fail.
>>soaked and soaked and soaked PRR for development money.
>Then they should have made a good deal, or did they lose the money the way they gained it?
I suspect there were reasons, perhaps between the PRR board or management and the capital consortium that controlled Baldwin at the time, for why PRR happily kept stoking away with the dollars. It was a HELL of a lot of money for one engine, no matter how large or how sophisticated.
>they could have bought a fleet of eight-engine Essl Baldwins...
Essl was Swiss; it might be fun to trace the actual etymology of his name. It might be Romansh, alsch'bereit.
>>The service density then justified the wonderful and sometimes heroic servicing that had to be done.<<
>No, not in my opinion! No way of density could justify keeping to an outmoded way of handling with extra manpower and work.
>As I wrote before, the technology was not up to date and the handling was neither, no wonder it fell behind diesel power.
>Had the diesels been handled in the same old-fashioned way, they would not have saved anything.
One of the very smart things Kettering and Dilworth arranged was the power assembly with unit mechanical injector and rack. If you look at a typical EMD 'station' in the early diesel years, it is often comparatively small... and largely occupied with a number of each of the parts that might be needed to repair the common things needing attention. That was not as well-evolved on E7s as it was on E8s; when much of the service involves expensive parts that are all replaced without holding the unit out of service more than hours, and there is no X-day sort of requirement to run extensive but optimized rebuild every 30 days or so, there get to be practical economies on labor that are worth far more than financed parts and materials.
Besides, with diesels the word always is like you knock off steam and install diesel and instantly you save money.
Standard arguments right through the Thirties were that using 64-odd precisely machined and very, very expensive cylinders to do the work of two was ridiculous. Baldwin gave up on selling the Essl locomotive because they couldn't make it at a cost that would let them sell it at a profit, and that was about as far as they went with it. EMD had to sell $625,000-odd dollars of fragile and somewhat maintenance-critical hardware to do a job that a good modern locomotive costing about $180,000 could often do. That was an understood given before an EMD salesman would even get in the door. Had the railroads in the United States not had great credit after the windfall boom of war traffic, it is doubtful they could have been able to dieselization either as quickly or massively as they did... and the fact that so many of them did, and quickly too, indicates there's more to the practical appeal than just the diesel starting any train it can pull.
I winced reading that story about export sales to DB. It reads as if the EMD salesmen didn't bother to understand the technical staff's needs and preferences, let alone show the effects of where the prospective economies on the one hand and potential operating improvements on the other -- or to demonstrate them effectively in a German context. They didn't deserve to make a sale even if their product had offered contemporary advantage.
>No word at all about costs of buying or leasing diesels, while really it laid the foundation for later bankruptcy of a number of railroads. Really to pay off the turnover costs by just some 10% lower running costs was like paying a Rolls Royce by your dishwashers salary.
>>neither Alco nor Lima seems to have even looked twice at what the duplex technology promised,<<
>And it was never realized, not even in the T1. Still, it is obvious that with four smaller cylinders (and adequate valve gear) power output cannot be but superior to a loco with two larger cylinders and inadequate valve gear.
The interesting conclusion on PRR, very irritatingly to me, was that for PRR's actual needs it was not superior. The Q2 was a magnificent achievement ... for running wartime freight in 150-car trains at high speed, then turning quickly to return on another such train. In a postwar world of 50mph freight, the added maintenance of the four cylinders didn't justify the improvement over, say, a J1a 2-10-4 with the drivers upsized to 70" via larger tires. No terrifying boiler steel shortcomings, no complicated and poorly-implemented slip systems, and a water rate assuring stops every division at full output (the thing that killed the original V1 cold as soon as PRR saw practical F-unit power). It could be argued just as strongly that advanced modern construction and maintenance with lightweight rods and good balancing practice on a 10-coupled was all that would be needed out of a single locomotive, just as a Mallet chassis with two six-wheel engines represented all that was needed out of a locomotive with two.
Had the 87-car law passed in 1937, or the decision about firemen on trailing diesels gone the other way, or turbocharging and then traction alternators and then reliable electronics and AC synthesized drive been adopted, we might have seen areas of steam renaissance long before now.
>I only learned the Niagara had an insufficient volume of cylinders for the boiler output and then the valve gear was already inadequate. Juniatha could have laid that down precisely, but: writes here no more!
She'll tell you, though, and that's what's important... In my opinion, one big issue with Niagaras was that you couldn't reliably get anything like 'nominal' high-end boiler output out of them in practice; you'd get carryover at some point and the lightweight drive components wouldn't survive that. Almost from the beginning you see the Niagara being reduced in potential, starting with pressure reduction and less exotic steel in boiler construction; when the vaunted five-valve poppet heads are provided, lo and behold! the installation is tinkered to provide lower horsepower with higher fuel and water efficiency. Baker with full Multirol pin-jointing ought to be fine for piston valves of appropriate construction up to 85mph, just as Walschaerts proved to be on the PRR T1a... again, could better results come from a more precise gear and twin valves? probably... but could the cost have justified the benefit for what NYC needed to make its money?
>For me, it suffices that full output was at 56% cut off, way too long for good use of the heat in the steam.
I suspect that this is an artifact from the original design of the locomotive as a 75"-drivered incremental step up from the L4 Mohawks. In part I see it as what you do to make a nominal 6000hp out of an engine more comfortable and probably far more cost-effective operating services that let its horsepower peak come at properly shorter cutoff.
>>It doesn't take much reverse 'leverage' on mileage or sustained speed before the enormous fixed costs of steam support are less and less favorable -- and meanwhile EMD produced the E8, which was enormously better and more reliable than the E7.<<
>Seen from outsides the Americans were mightily proud of their steam locos, one American I met over here on a steam special put it concisely as "We always had the biggest and the best!" On the other hand, you don't seem to trust them all that much, it is never questioned that any shabby old diesel was off hands better than the latest of steam. If that's your idea of US steam, where were they the "the best"?
>I wrote already that no extremely intense use of the locomotives could make up for or justify an out-of-date handling with many superfluous procedures, some even to the disadvantage of upkeep.
Note that it's really the other way around: you have to have the optimized maintenance, the equipment and parts, the careful training and supervision and creation of a spirit of eclat before you'll ever get intensive use out of modern steam power.
>It appears that European and especially, excuse me, German steam loco maintenance and running was much more to the point and organized to keep the locos at a minimum of maintenance work and manpower.
Little question in my mind that was so. Some US-American chauvinists may try to say 'it's because they had to retain steam' and, indeed, over the years for various reasons much of the 'commodity' use of steam has gone.
>That's why this comparison between a US diesel and the 03-10 class three cylinder Pacific went bad for the diesel.
I would also add in passing that the country that produced the Amerika-Loks had no reason to go 'desperately' anywhere for workable diesel solutions.
>>567-engined E units
>Your answer to that humoresque item is as earnest as all others before. Overmod, what's the matter, why are you so tight and straight? You should get more laid-back, more easy, maybe you should try Yoga, it makes you let loose all that burdens you, live now, take it easy.
>Same with my paragraph below my signature: it was a description of what happens to me ever so often: I can't sleep and do all kinds of things at night, even go to the forum. That's no complaint but tells you why I make a comment at dead of night 5h in the morning. Then again I sleep mornings till noon .. that's my twisted mess of time arrangement.
[Norfolk and Western] even made a promotion film of "the modern steam locomotive" explaining rationally why for them the steam loco was still the better choice. For a coal carrying railroad, the fuel came practically for free. ... it would have been interesting if with all the mergers Norfolk Southern would today run modern 2-6-6-6 and 4-10-6 (Juniatha's proposal) locomotives to be externally controlled in combination with the inevitable diesels. (ohh - what sweet music is coming up right now, sorry I got to stop, lean back and dream myself away - bye!)
... it would have been interesting if with all the mergers Norfolk Southern would today run modern 2-6-6-6 and 4-10-6 (Juniatha's proposal) locomotives to be externally controlled in combination with the inevitable diesels.
(ohh - what sweet music is coming up right now, sorry I got to stop, lean back and dream myself away - bye!)
Sweeter music still... the right locomotive for N&W wasn't an overweight tub of an Allegheny, it was the simple adoption of proportional boosting of the LP engine on a Y6 chassis to balance the thrust and compression, so it would behave dynamically like a good simple articulated up to reasonable freight road speed ... 45mph for sure, perhaps 55. With that one little change you can realize much of the silly hype in that movie; the engine that efficiently runs compound can also run freely. In the modern Norfolk Southern operation... almost everything runs 45-55mph, much of it needs monster starting TE, and would benefit from the short length of the time-honored 2-8-8-2 chassis with capable boiler perched above...
Sara TOh, yes it does. Provided, as I wrote before: you position the truck or the lead truck and the three fixed axles properly lengthwise so to take 3/5 and 2/5 of the total weight.
The concern is with placing the truck pivots at the appropriate balance points for weight distribution and still have them under the tender and able to pivot independently of each other. With much of the weight forward, the three-axle truck might have to be pushed forward to get its pivot under the rear 3/5 worth of mass, with the two-axle truck now having to be even further forward. Not that this is wrong; in fact there can be advantages to having the 'lead' tender truck far forward. I can think offhand of German, British, and Japanese prototypes that did so.
I don't remember whether this is a water-bottom tender with solid cast under frame or made lightweight. That might affect placement of the reversed pivots.
The colossal overhang at the rear of some of the pedestal tender designs is a different example of the concern. Not all of it is to shorten the tender so everything fits on a shorter turntable...
I don't know if a true balance study was made of the 64-ton "4-10-2" tender in the C1a proposal, but it would be interesting to see where that trailing axle wound up 'optimized' in position. I have read a number of different accounts of that 'next step' in pedestal-tender enlargement but I don't recall seeing any dimensioned drawings.
Sara T>>Besides, with diesels << .. and below to end: no comment? would you agree with me? you can't be earnest ...
05003
Yes, I saw and read them now. Ok, yes, nice. Loads / lots? lots of loads? loads a lot!
Meine Güte! Would there be danger one axle slips under the firebox or the last is rather with the first coach?
If this goes on, I will start drawing my first steam locomotive and with bogies free to swivel independently, I tell you!
Why, if you need eight axles, why not a 4'4' or if you prefer a 3'5' bogie arrangement (UIC system counting axles not wheels)?
The C1a tender (with 64T and a water bottom) could in theory have eight-axle trucks, since most of the 'overhang' effect on turntables (or in balance) is changed by the 'trailing' truck. Exactly where the two trucks for that would go is TBA, but we could get reasonably close... fthe stoker trough gets progressively plated off as the huge coal pile empties, so the fuel weight will stay reasonably between the truck bearing points over a long range of drawdown...
There are suspension and guiding advantages to the Centipede; some of the rationale is described (in an early version) in the Locomotive Cyclopedias. Interestingly Kiefer noted at one point that the 'lateral guiding' touted for the original Fabreeka-shear-spring lateral suspension was not observed to the extent claimed. This was also the conclusion when the same approach was tried by N&W on a Y-class with outside-bearing trucks.
... such a loco with a "big behind" could sweep off anything standing too near to the turntable, including a mighty punch to the front of a new E8 diesel - heeheehee.
Sara TLoads / lots? lots of loads? loads a lot!
Meanwhile excuse unedited quoted lines at the end; I have to save every 5 minutes or so or the page will reload and delete my loads and loads of posting.
Overmod, no, that's ok, no problem. I just picked it up, never mind. I don't care about little blops I got them too, only see them afterwards.
And did I mention I've wanted to hear Nancy and Ann do Stairway for... more years than I care to think about?
Sara THelp, he's asking me for a design!
(deleted, never mind, it won't happen)
Overmod Sara T Loads / lots? lots of loads? loads a lot! Lots and lots of lock and load... that ought to be a punk song. My crApple criPhone kept correcting 'lots' to 'loads' automatically just as I went to save the post; did it at least four times by actual count. Meanwhile excuse unedited quoted lines at the end; I have to save every 5 minutes or so or the page will reload and delete my loads and loads of posting.
Sara T Loads / lots? lots of loads? loads a lot!
Lots and lots of lock and load... that ought to be a punk song. My crApple criPhone kept correcting 'lots' to 'loads' automatically just as I went to save the post; did it at least four times by actual count.
Sounds like posting needs to be done from other than your phone.
BaltACDSounds like posting needs to be done from other than your phone.
Phone is what I have in the field; I'm seldom where I have wireless access on the laptops.
Overmod BaltACD Sounds like posting needs to be done from other than your phone. In the spirit of the base manager, back when the Air Corps was part of the cavalry, who became aware that trainees were making an alarming number of hard landings. His response was to post a standing order that henceforth no more hard landings were to be made. Phone is what I have in the field; I'm seldom where I have wireless access on the laptops.
BaltACD Sounds like posting needs to be done from other than your phone.
In the spirit of the base manager, back when the Air Corps was part of the cavalry, who became aware that trainees were making an alarming number of hard landings. His response was to post a standing order that henceforth no more hard landings were to be made.
Hard landings and erroneous postings are apples and carrots.
Novices will make a lot of hard landings until they are no longer novices (and even then a hard landing is still possible). Posting when you know your 'machine' is not up to your normal standards - that is on you.
I could post from my phone - I choose not to - not until I have access to a desktop or laptop.
Overmod
.. I sent you a pm ..
Sara
BaltACDPosting when you know your 'machine' is not up to your normal standards - that is on you.
Overmod BaltACD Posting when you know your 'machine' is not up to your normal standards - that is on you. It's not that the phone is up to my standards -- it's that Kalmbach keeps resetting the page without warning.
BaltACD Posting when you know your 'machine' is not up to your normal standards - that is on you.
It's not that the phone is up to my standards -- it's that Kalmbach keeps resetting the page without warning.
That has to be some sort of interaction between the settings on your phone, the settings on your phone's browser and the Kalmbach forum settings.
I don't have the answer.
Jones1945 I found this one from the bay, no idea who made the model but I really want to see more pics of it.
To get back to the subject of the thread, I'm surprised that nobody appears to have commented on this post. Despite the name of the organisation involved, this appears to be an HO scale model running on an English prototype oo scale model railway. It would not be surprising to find that the model was made in the UK.
BaldACDC that's very interesting for all the forum's community. Never write a pm about it, we are all tense to get to know the latest news about it.
What make is that phone of Overmod? What is your's? Where did you buy it, what did it cost and where is it where you use it? And why? You know, some people always have important things to tell, even if they have nothing to say. And: it's all so directly connected with the PRR Duplex types, your phone surely is one duplex too. You should go around and set up everybody's phone because there is no-one like you to know how it's done.
Great stuff, keep on forever and confiscate this thread for the best of everybody.
Ah, we admire you, Oldy Baldy, thank you, oh thank you forever, ..(deleted)
!
BaltACDThat has to be some sort of interaction between the settings on your phone, the settings on your phone's browser and the Kalmbach forum settings. I don't have the answer.
Then this stopped being a priority, and then became actively unsupported. The money went into lots of ads on devices with more screen real estate to display them, and common features that would run effectively on every kind of device. It was in the context of the failure of phone access to profile information or PMs that I received the reply that 'there wasn't enough return on investment for Kalmbach to spend tech money fixing free resources' (they didn't say, but I understood the development budget was on more and better dancing ad serving and 'marketing ingenuity')
To my knowledge the 'reset problem' only occurs with mobile connection -- my suspicion is that they don't store the page in the local client on a phone, so when they do something that refreshes the Internet page, it blanks or 'initializes' the text window.
I expect stage 3 of the trains.com site revisions at Kalmbach to fix it, if for no other reason that it will return mobile devices to using some kind of 'supported' code even if the new site isn't "designed for mobile". I don't think I will object to that even if navigating or reading content on small screens is inconvenient as a result.
M636C I'm surprised that nobody appears to have commented on this post.
It certainly seems right for the 1944 version. I copied side and end elevations from material at the Hagley, and I suspect many additional drawings were made before the V1 was formally abandoned at PRR.
OvermodIt certainly seems right for the 1944 version. I copied side and end elevations from material at the Hagley, and I suspect many additional drawings were made before the V1 was formally abandoned at PRR.
I have absolutely no idea how many versions of the V1 were designed. I thought it was the "finalized" version of V1, even though it doesn't look like something that could have been called "Triplex". I note Hagley uploaded some new old pics to their amazing digital archive recently, I can only hope that they will upload all files related to the PRR V1 there.
For an engine that gigantic, it wasn't easy for any designer to create a standout streamlining for it. The 44 version looks like a huge whale get stranded on the beach.
My reconstruction of the 'turbine research' so far is roughly as follows:
'Triplex' was originally a Loewy idea from the mid-'30s, partly related to questions of cab-forward running with coal firing. He divided the "locomotive" into three parts, a bit like a Garratt's arrangement, with the boiler and engine one unit, the fuel bunker another, the water a third. As I recall Loewy's discussion (it can be found at the Hagley) these could be coupled in any order, subject to a couple of relatively obvious constraints like keeping a stoker worm between coal fuel and the firing table inside the firebox.
Steins adopted the term for any locomotive with this general arrangement, apparently extending it to having drive wheels under various points, which was not as I recall in Loewy's scheme. In Steins' original mechanical-turbine patent there are, in fact, large drivers visible as in the S2; this gets changed to the familiar "4-8-4-8" rather quickly in the following patent (look at the filing dates, not the issue dates).
MEANWHILE along comes the Steamotive development, which became 'mature' as a technology around the end of 1936. Steins does a 'triplex' arrangement for this roughly comparable to the evolving V1, but now optimized to the oil-fired electric-drive system. The Steamotive idea starts to show its issues around 1940, as Duffy claims; the likely thing being in part the need for oil fuel (with low vanadium, etc) which was by then recognized to be much more efficiently run in diesels on an Eastern road like PRR that is heavily coal-centric.
What gets greenlighted in 1944, notably for the same heavy and high-speed service as the Q2s, is the mechanical turbine with two four-driver-axle underframes separated by the firebox, and a modified Q2 boiler facing backward. The 8000 nominal hp reflects the Q2 test-plant results extrapolated to the more efficient (at road speed) turbine drive.
This gets cancelled PDQ when the war winds down because PRR has no place for high speed at the water rate needed for 8000hp freight power -- that being the specific issue raised, although explained slightly differently in the decision record. This is little different from the real reasons the Q2s were no more 'successful' than the revised J1as with lower nominal maintenance cost and fewer expensive quirks.
The V1 gets a renewed lease on life in the late '40s -- largely put together from surviving records. We have the famous design patent. It is possible that some of this is intended to 'compete' with -- or establish patent priority over -- the Baldwin turbo electric design from 1945 (developed in somewhat suspicious haste and secrecy, in the PRR view) that culminated in the Chessie turbines. Note the famous 'design' patent for streamlining from 1947 that can apply only to a V1 chassis; this comes right at the time the Bowes drive proposal claims to address both the water rate and effective 85mph speed restriction of the 1944 design. It almost immediately founders in the whole complex of increasing costs and better opportunity utility of diesel power -- the thing that killed the S2 program and by extension any R development, but that's another story.
Whether or not the "revised V1" was partly intended to help N&W get something comparable to the C&O M-1s for 'the prospective race to Cincinnati' I don't know -- but it might be plausible; like the reason for putting expensive Timken rods on five As. Certainly by 1950 what N&W is building is all-wheel-electric drive and freight only; the water tube chain-grate boiler comes sometime later, and of course what actually winds up getting built (with all the length and half the power and effective speed) we know.
Thank you very much, Overmod.
Rendering of PRR "Triplex", patented by Carleton K. Steins from PRR in 1944, streamlining was probably designed by Raymond Loewy. Note the position of the front cylinder and wheel arrangement in the rendering is different from the patent drawing, let alone other design details including the truck design of the coal tender.
In the patent, it is basically a cab forward PRR Q1 with a reversed boiler, attached to a coal tender and water tender. I don't understand the advantage and selling point of such a design for PRR's system, like how such a design could "attain increased pulling power with minimization of slippage of the drivers incident to starting; to facilitate travel of track curves at high speeds without attendant unbalance".
The rendering is quite attractive though, it gives conventional reciprocating steam locomotive a modern look.
Jones1945...how such a design could "attain increased pulling power with minimization of slippage of the drivers incident to starting..."
...to facilitate travel of track curves at high speeds without attendant unbalance".
The other key difficulty is steering the rigid wheelbase, which in a normal design puts stress on the leading coupled flanges. This design steers the flanges much better, and in fact now provides a separate 'engine truck' that can be optimized to further reduce leading-flange impact and wear.
At least such were some of the advantages claimed.
Thank you for the explanation, Overmod.
This sounds almost as if he's conflating some version of the V1 with something like Bulleid's Leader (which was billed as a replacement for an M tank).
It is possible that an early version of a turboelectric locomotive (I.e. pre-Steamotive or Triplex) could have involved an M1 boiler instead of 'something larger' and have been designed as a large single unit. I have not seen any evidence of this, but I don't claim to know Mr. Duffy's sources -- I should add that I joined the Newcomen Society to get access to some of his articles (e.g. on the Velox locomotive) so I do not and will not disparage what you have read.
Note that any turbo electric locomotive of a size of interest to PRR would involve a significantly bigger, and probably more modern, boiler than an M1's. At this same general time, the duplex 'successor' to the Ms (which you could think of as 5/4ths an M1a) was being developed -- this of course being the Q1 with all its fascinating detail design. The point I want you to be thinking about going forward is not so much the horsepower but the associated water rate for a noncondensing locomotive.
By the time a 'buildable' version of the V1 is design-frozen (in 1944) it is mechanical (without the conversion losses of turboelectric drive) and uses a slightly-modified Q2 boiler (remember the HP achieved by the Q2 on the test plant) to achieve the nominal 8000hp -- BUT look at the water rate associated - necessarily associated - with that horsepower out of any turbine drive. There is no way to package the necessary water anywhere on a single unit using a nose bunker of adequate size followed by that boiler - hence the sensible adoption of a water-only tender as part of the 'triplex' arrangement according to Steins.
Presumably for wartime work (e.g. had Operation Majestic been necessary at full scale) the V1s could be operated with multiple tenders, but I have not seen any design confirmation and indeed the V1 was cancelled very soon postwar explicitly on water-rate concerns -- as far as I remember, before any comparative data on F-units had been obtained. (There is certainly plenty of discussion later on water saving by EMDs with adequate fuel to run across five divisions)
Now if you remember your PRR motive-power brochures you'll remember that PRR claimed to be working on a "9000hp" turbine. Even with the claimed economy of the Steamotive cycle this would have been a stretch; most notably there is no possibility of a single locomotive having anywhere near the condenser to accomplish 9000hp (see the drawing provided earlier) let alone something on a common rigid frame like the N&W TE-1 as evolved.
OvermodIt is possible that an early version of a turboelectric locomotive (I.e. pre-Steamotive or Triplex) could have involved an M1 boiler instead of 'something larger' and have been designed as a large single unit.
That reminds me of the drawing of the patent:
https://patents.google.com/patent/US2424676A/en?q=Turbine+locomotive&before=priority:19451231&after=priority:19450101
This is interesting in that it represents just what Duffy describes, but with mechanical drive in Steins' wheel arrangement.
Alben is a Westinghouse guy (this is why so many of his patents show up as assigned to CBS!) and they are turbine and final drive guys -- look carefully as you read and note he's not claiming the "4-8-4-8" arrangement as part of his claims, only as a preferred embodiment.
Note how the patent specifically refers to fuel and water carried on the single unit (presumably as pictured, complete with small turret cab). With the boiler dimensions pictured this would be a difficult job.
MEANWHILE it turns out that GE was apparently in active development of a 6700hp turboelectric using pulverized coal firing, which progressed to the point in 1947 that a test boiler was constructed; cost per mile was calculated at over twice that of 'comparable' diesels and the project was abruptly terminated after Deasy's replacement by you-know-who.
I know nothing about the technical details of this proposal. Who does?
That is a very interesting information. There are any drawings about it? It was ordered by PRR?
A little out of topic, the only giant diesel locomotives from cab unit age were Baldwin Centipede at about 270 tonnes and 6000HP Baldwin prototype with 8 diesel engiens at 310 tonnes. I know also John Yellot 3750 hp gas turbine locomotive project at 288 tonnes, 28 m long, of course not diesel. There were any other GIANT diesel cab locomotives projects?
djlivusThat is a very interesting information. There are any drawings about it?
The Essl locomotive really, really ought to have been 'proceeded with' but (reading between the lines) the el-cheapo capitalists controlling the Westinghouse/Baldwin takeover were either not interested in or incompetent at financing the very expensive first cost of fully-'populated' Essl locomotives (in favor of cheaper truss-carbody trucked designs using big slow-turning tugboat-derived engines). In my opinion the sensible design change... which contemporary Bakdwin build quality probably would NOT have delivered... would be to have the modular gensets feed some common bus architecture to the TMs rather than have all the fun of governing a full 750hp swing per individual axle... but things did not get that far before the experiment turned comical by putting tugboat engines in a 120mph chassis, connecting everything with hoses and driving it with combinations of cheap V-belts, and running the wiring safely under the floor out of sight with no drains.
Let's all go to live in Ground Fault City, shall we? People trying to run the production PRR Centipedes sure did... not as bad as their turbine-bound C&O counterparts, of course, but for similar reasons from the same nitwits...
Yellott's BCR was a scam. He was hoping that evolved technology (Hilsch tubes, etc.) would eventually solve the ash problems going into the gas turbine. Of course the least investigation into the mass flow and gas path involved will tell you of course there isn't a cost-effective way to do that... but Yellott thought he had 'live ones' in the various railroads that wanted to Burn Coal Without Steam, and he pulled the scam off for a surprisingly long time.
The railroad argument, when it came, was surprisingly intelligent: they argued that their support of BCR was only for proof of concept -- the locomotive manufacturers being the people to actually benefit from coal-turbine technology, and therefore BCR's ongoing rather expensive subsidy ought to be taken up by Baldwin, Alco, Westinghouse et al. rather than individual railroad handouts. Unsurprisingly the whole thing *** down promptly when the free money stopped -- and a good thing too; there was and is no practical way to remove EPA prrmissible levels of ash from the exhaust, let alone the other 'usual-suspects' pollutants...
Of the railroads involved, it was UP that saw the most to gain (remember crappy subbituminous blown over the grates? here's the dream application for it!) and this by a commodius circus or recirculation we found ourselves watching the fascinating science project that was UP 80 (later 8080). Interestingly perhaps, to this day UP corporate is tighter than a clam refusing to release any material it has about the thing...
The 'answer' to your question about giant engines has two parts. The first of course is the Erie-built sold to KCS as an '8000hp passenger locomotive' (in the era when it was still uncertain about firemen on diesel 'units') and the CGW numbering of certain F units to give a 'whole locomotive' with a single primary road number which had comparable output. The other is the pre-'double diesel' UP practice of carrying Dilworth's building-block MU scheme to almost ridiculous extremes... once you owned all the expensive little 1500 to 1750hp 'building blocks', of course... which was to lash up 17 or so and tie 'em to a suitable bunch of cars.
If you have not read Kiefer's 1947 report on motive power (it can be read online at Hathitrust) he has some very good comments about the builder options in late 1946, before 'the market' shook things out a bit.
If you want a fun thing to chase, look up the Ingalls Shipbuilding 2000hp passenger unit... for the pre-1947-ICC-order world where you could operate a 120+mph set of locomotives at 120+mph as long as you saw fit...
Thank you very much for this very complete answer!
In Kiefer 1947 report there is a stuning photo with a stunning 5000 hp electric "2-C-C-2 locomotive project intended for NYC line.
There is also a mention about a 3000 HP AT&Santa Fe gas turbine locomotive intended for passenger trains. Any more info (weight, lenght etc) or drawings about this project?
I also think it is a pitty Essl 6000hp locomotive project hasn't materialized. It would have been maybe one of the greatest diesels. An awesome design if not riveted. For me a giant locomotive is only a single unit locomotive, not a multiple units At least for diesel it was only a convention that 3 units coupled togheter are a single locomotive. Anyway, visually such a lash up lacks the unity, we don t perceive it as a single locomotive.
It took quite a bit of work to get to the story behind that electric, and why I think it was a full-size plate, larger than any other picture in the report, but not a line about it was in the text.
I am winging it a bit here, but there was serious consideration to electrifying a substantial part of the Water Level Route... not where you or I would expect it, including the poky third-rail section from GCT to Harmon, but west of Albany. This both eliminating the issues with West Albany hill and providing much easier sustained high speed without engine changes to the west. Interestingly I don't recall any proposal to wire the Hudson River part which I think was still 4 tracks with tight clearances and many limiting curves; I suspect ultimately that section would have come to be be wired on the overhead system BUT leaving the third-rail arrangement on the south end, perhaps all the way to Harmon, as it would be prohibitive to try to wire the Park Avenue tunnel and GCT approaches.
What killed it was the same thing that definitively killed the Harrisburg to Pittsburgh electrification: the advent of practical diesel-electrics.
I am hazy on whether the ATSF 3000hp turbine was actually built as such or whether it developed into the Baldwin-Westinghouse 'Blue Goose' prototype. I seem to remember two different carbodies using that same four-B-truck arrangement (standardizing on multiples of a B truck was a hot idea in the late '40s -- have you seen the drawing of a PRR sharknose electric with EIGHT B trucks under it?) and the thing that comes to mind regarding it is Allis-Chalmers as the turbine developers. Perhaps very similar in internal arrangement to the '3000kW' version of this:
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/mobile-power-plant/
or see US patent 2575242.
Here's the original Alco-GE gas turbine (of 1949) which of course would go on to greater acceptance...
http://aliennard.free.fr/Up2_e.htm
The great Thing That Never Was has to be mentioned here; it was supposed to revolutionize practical use of a gas-turbine expander without the temperature issues and compressor losses. That is the free-piston combustor (which I personally think was a major reason for the Lima-Hamilton merger and then the Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton merger...) -- far superior to anything done with practical compression-ignition motors in the late '40s.
The operating idea as it came to Hamilton Engine was via the German development of bounce-piston air compressors for submarines in the 1930s. If you arrange two "diesel" pistons back-to-back you can fire them very quickly without any concerns for rod bearings, component acceleration etc. and generate a large volume of pressure exhaust at high (but not alloy-damaging) temperature, which can then be used in a simple-to-maintain turbine expander. It is easy to arrange nearly any number of gas generators on a common frame, giving better part-load economy than the Baldwin Essl (or any other design of that era using practical Diesel engines with marketable cost-effective construction) at light enough weight that very high power density, easily comparable to the best steam designs 'in a single unit' could be promised.
Baldwin dropped the ball when Westinghouse decided them on exiting the domestic locomotive market, but GM would go so far as to build a carbody for a test version a decade later -- the FG9.
I won't go into why the idea 'failed to thrive' even in shipboard practice... you can easily research it online and you'll find out much more interesting tech and history than I could cram in a post here.
OvermodMEANWHILE it turns out that GE was apparently in active development of a 6700hp turboelectric using pulverized coal firing, which progressed to the point in 1947 that a test boiler was constructed; cost per mile was calculated at over twice that of 'comparable' diesels and the project was abruptly terminated after Deasy's replacement by you-know-who.
I have been reading Hirsimaki's book again to find out if this project is mentioned, but I found nothing. What I found is something not related but you guys might also interested, which is the idea of PRR Q3:
"The railroad continued developing duplexes, though. It collaborated with Alco in the fall of 1946 on a 4-4-6-6 "Q3" with a welded boiler. Alco had the only furnace large enough to heat treat (to relieve welding stresses) a boiler of that size. Most likely boilers would have been purchased from Alco with Altoona building the engines. Preliminary plans were drawn up in November 1946, but the project died as the emphasis shifted to Diesels."
PRR wasn't satisfied with the overall performance of the Q2, especially the lack of superiority of the Q2 when compared to the J1, they wanted something even better and bigger!
Q2 locomotive is a giant of 5 meters height (to the top of the structure, without salient smoke stacks), so a larger Q3 could have been even more impressive!
Jones1945PRR wasn't satisfied with the overall performance of the Q2, especially the lack of superiority of the Q2 when compared to the J1, they wanted something even better and bigger!
It is difficult for me to figure out what the intended purpose of the Q3 would have been outside of wartime. There was no high value associated with low augment in a world of 50mph freight; this was long before TrailerTrain or similar low-tare intermodal would make high-speed freight useful (and in any case it is difficult to imagine a TOFC consist of a size, in the '40s, to use the Q3's probable horsepower.
What this looks suspiciously like is an attempt to build a 'better Allegheny' just as the Q2 itself was higher-horsepower-at-speed than any contemporary articulated already. My opinion is that you'd burn a phenomenal amount of coal and blow through scads of water on the test plant, and do the same on the road, making F units even more dramatically advantageous.
It would be interesting to see when this was abandoned. Likely very quickly after the Symes ascendancy -- in fact, I wonder if this was one of the reasons PRR induced Deasy and Duer to depart. Interesting that it wasn't peddled to anyone else...
The interesting thing about the "6700hp turboelectric" was that apparently a test boiler was built, tested, and then returned to B&W at the end of 1947. I suspect there wasn't any actual running-gear detail design (as GE understood what would have been necessary in small steam turbines by that time) which may account for Hirsimaki not covering it, but it is both an interesting 'missing link' in immediate postwar PRR design and yet another indication of how compellingly and quickly the emphasis shifted away from anything involving modern steam at a point between 1946 and 1947.
Overmod My opinion is that you'd burn a phenomenal amount of coal and blow through scads of water on the test plant, and do the same on the road, making F units even more dramatically advantageous. It would be interesting to see when this was abandoned. Likely very quickly after the Symes ascendancy -- in fact, I wonder if this was one of the reasons PRR induced Deasy and Duer to depart. Interesting that it wasn't peddled to anyone else...
Definitely. Your question is answered indirectly in Hirsimaki's book: "One of Symes' first actions after arriving in Philadelphia was to order a study comparing the cost of Diesels and Q2's in freight service between Harrisburg and Chicago. Dated December 11, 1946, it determined that either 80 6000hp. freight Diesels or 202 Q2's were required. The Pennsylvania was finally facing the fact that although Diesels had a higher initial cost ($592,147,29 for an ABBA F3 set vs. $200,000 for a Q2) their maintenance and operating costs were lower. More importantly, Diesels could run far more miles annually than the Q2 due to its higher availability. The conclusion was the Diesels would save the railroad $14,026,000 annually. This was a mortal blow to the advocates of steam power."
There was no way a Q3 would have changed the fact that this thirsty, slippery steam locomotive was inferior to the versatile EMD F3. Dieselization was not something a Steam fan like me want to see but it was the easiest and most straightforward answer to PRR during the transition era.
Hirsimaki also mentioned a proposal from Baldwin to rebuild the T1s with high-pressure boilers and compound cylinders in 1947, but of course, this proposal was dropped.
djlivusQ2 locomotive is a giant of 5 meters height (to the top of the structure, without salient smoke stacks), so a larger Q3 could have been even more impressive!
The improvement would be in the firebox and chamber, and (as in the Allegheny) the three-axle trailing truck is a guide to what would be there. Remember that welded construction gives lighter weight -- Alco in the '47 Cyc advertised several tons -- but most of this would be balanced over the driver wheelbase. I'd suspect multiple circulators in both firebox and chamber.
The most obvious thing, though, would be the Lima Double Belpaire chamber (as touted by Col. Townsend up to 1949) which is a 'natural' for a locomotive with 69" drivers. I don't remember the weight difference for this (but it could easily be scaled from the Double Belpaire test boiler preserved at MOT in St. Louis).
The length overall would ideally be kept as short as possible (for siding as well as turntable considerations) so expect the three-axle trailer to have short wheelbase a la T1 and a relatively close (but Bissel-geometry correct) pivot point. I expect the stoker engine and perhaps other auxiliary components to be on the tender to save weight.
I also expect at least a four-axle A-tank to add water capacity, as noted on the LV's proposed 4-4-6-4 diagram. As on NYC the tender proper would be optimized for coal, with a water bottom but minimal cistern, with most of the running water supplied via a separate car (with connections on both ends) similar to what was proposed for the V1. The engine could be hostled and turned in minimum length but given extended range; ash service then becomes a critical-path concern for extended range...
If the engines were built and supported to circa 1950 they would be poster children for Cunningham circulators (which draw from the actual 'downcoming' areas in the convection-section circulation and use jet pumps to transfer this into the high-uptake areas in the water legs; I also think they would assist circulator supply at the throat.
This business with high-pressure compound T1s is interesting... I don't remember any details about it. Presumably there would have been much more since this was after the alloy-boiler-steel cracking debacle, a higher-pressure firebox design for the restricted grate area (probably a waterwall design?) might be needed, and without conjugation of the engines (necessitating removal of the type A drive on at least the rear engine) some care and additional devices would be needed.
I think it very clear that Baldwin considered this a 'solution' for the perceived slipping propensity, and that the use of even conventional LP arrangements on the front engine eould give typical 'self-starvation' when that engine was the one slipping. The case is not so sanguine if higher-pressure slip on the rear engine then pressurizes the receiver... as might be the case for high-speed slipping near the practical adhesion limit, which would be good neither for rod integrity or driver-tire tread characteristics.
As an amusing aside: we might see hybrid valve-gear conversion on these, with some variant of the T1a conversion as part of the LP modifications but B-2 RC on the eight-valve castings retained for the (perhaps sleeved) rear cylinders... that might be interesting to watch at speed...
Incidentally I think the "6700hp" of the GE proposal is suggestive: that is likely 5000kW, and GE developed a turbo electric plant of that rating for Liberty ships/T2 tankers during the war. Having Babcock &Wilcox modify or respec a boiler for PC firing (marine would be oil with separately-fired superheat) would be relatively easy...
That is really interesting. Any data about the configuration of this locomotive? One unit and tender? Two-units locomotive?
I do not know.
I suspect it would have followed GE design and not PRR's Triplex/V1 layout, so roughly following 'two units' for the main locomotive plus water tenders. Probably not yet the B-B-B-B arrangement rather than the 2-C-C-2 as on the 1938 condensing STEs. Packaging would be very different if the coal is pulverized and distributed onboard from 'mine run' or even the touted 2" classified and washed coal AAR was advocating in the last couple of years of the '40s, vs. being (explosively) supplied pulverized to bunkers as road fueling.
I think there is much more to the boiler story than we think. Note that PC firing rules out chain-grate which was a prominent feature of the M2 'automatic' and then the TE1 on N&W, but I think I remember seeing references to pulverized coal with respect to the 'intermediate' STE design (with all axles motored) described in the trade press circa 1950...
OvermodI suspect it would have followed GE design and not PRR's Triplex/V1 layout, so roughly following 'two units' for the main locomotive plus water tenders.
I think I found the information of this proposed locomotive on Page 76, Hirsimaki's book:
"Although the Pennsylvania Railroad was committed to coal burning motive power, this didn't necessarily mean reciprocating steam locomotives. One early effort to study possible alternatives was a 1935 research effort begun in conjunction with General Electric to develop a steam turbine-electric locomotive. It was to burn pulverized coal in a high pressure boiler which would supply steam to a steam turbine. A conventional main generator/traction motor arrangement would then provide traction......
The locomotive's basic dimensions were finalized by late 1939. It would consist of three units with an overall length of 205 feet. The weight on drivers would be 600,000 lbs. and the total weight, 950,000 lbs. At each end would be a cab with a shortened GG-1 style nose. The turbine was to be rated at 6000 shaft hp. or 5000 drawbar hp. at 45 mph. This locomotive was designed to be the equal of the GG1 and the S1 of a few years later. It was to be capable of hauling a 1200 ton passenger train at 100 mph or a 4000 ton freight train at 60mph.
One cab would contain a condenser which would take the waste steam exiting the boiler and turn it back into water for reuse. This would provide what is known as a closed cycle in that the same water would be continually evaporated, condensed and evaporated again. The advantage of this was there would be no boiler scale of other impurities entering the system.
The middle, or "B," unit would house a coal pulverizer, the boiler and the turbine and generator set. The other cab unit would carry the train heating boiler and the coal bunker. There was only a small water tank because of the closed cycle......The locomotive would have had a 2+B-1+B+B-B+B+1-B+2 wheel arrangement......
By mid-1943 the PRR's steam turbine project had evolved from a three-unit locomotive to a single unit housed in an elongated GG1-style carbody mounted on a D-C+C-D chassis. Because of the Steamotives' problems with their condensers, a tender was added to supply water and simplify the design. Unfortunately, the project was cancelled within three years."
That three-unit design was pictured in an earlier post here. I cannot imagine a chassis of the indicated arrangement ("D-C+C-D" implying cast underframe with eight-wheel lead trucks!) being stable at speed, let alone under a single rigid frame, so I'd have to see an arrangement drawing to understand it.
Here is pictured the D-C+C-D version. I think the design was awesome, a really giant. Of course, I do not know if it was techically viable, but visually it was impressive for sure. Like a turbo giant, super GG1!
Good find!
Now when the Archives open back up I can look to see if I can figure out how the carbody goes on those underframes -- they are drawn as though articulated, but I'd think a C-D+D-C arrangement would guide better and have a bit less shock going into curve transitions.
Jones1945 By mid-1943 the PRR's steam turbine project had evolved from a three-unit locomotive to a single unit housed in an elongated GG1-style carbody mounted on a D-C+C-D chassis. Because of the Steamotives' problems with their condensers, a tender was added to supply water and simplify the design. Unfortunately, the project was cancelled within three years."
Are they visible in the d-c-c-d drawing pictured in the book - the height and the lenght of this locomotive? In the picture above it is blurred, so i can't see the numbers. I have ordered the book two months ago from abbebooks, but I havn't received yet because of US mail problems
I'm beginning to suspect several technical projects are being rolled into one here.
Steamotive involves flash steam generation, either in a mono tube or an evolved version of the 'generator' type used on the big International steam cars. I have not seen reference to any of these plants operating at under 900psi throttle pressure. As this is above the saturation temperature for damaging silica dissolution, distilled water is used, hence the obligate full condensation.
I don't find it credible that a Steamotive boiler could be effectively PC fired with appropriate fast load following without amazing difficulties with ash, erosion, and fancy desuperheating/tempering. And of course providing tender loads of distilled water, without the usual pH adjustment, deoxygenation scavenging, etc., defies practical credibility.
Meanwhile as late as 1947 the Baldwin secret project involved no more than 310psi, atmospheric exhaust, etc. and the V1 of course used common pressure for its derived Q2 boiler architecture, so I think that any design that involves a 'water tender' and atmospheric back pressure (i.e. 15psia or higher at turbine exit) would be lower pressure -- I think the stated 650F is right up at the top end of the 'possible'.
I also don't see the colossal condensation involved in a Steamotive installation of the horsepower being discussed. UP 1 and 2 were restricted to 2500hp apiece primarily due to condenser physics (look at the size of the exhaust plenum for a guide on the combination of volumetrics and heat-transfer effectiveness required!) and the PRR unit would involve at least this area -- probably with full shuttering but large free cooling-air area. I see nothing even remotely of the kind on the D-C+C-B drawing.
These info from below - from PRR chronology - could be related with that locomotive project: the last quote is about a gg1 body style D-C-C-D locomotive
"Nov. 6, 1936 PRR authorizes General Electric to proceed with its proposal to design one 5,000 HP steam turbo-electric locomotive, using the combustion of pulverized coal to power a turbine; project is put on back burner as GE concentrates on its "Steamotive" for Union Pacific; marks beginning of project undertaken by a group of nine coal-hauling railroads after World War II. (SMPE)"
"Apr. 1, 1937 Chief Electrical Engineer J.V.B. Duer rejects the offer of ElectroMotive Corporation to provide a twin-unit, 3,600 HP EA passenger road diesel for limited trains between Paoli and Chicago or St. Louis; says would need a third unit of 1,800 HP for mountain running and fluctuating loads; claims first cost, use of oil rather than coal, and operating costs will all be more expensive than the proposed (but aborted) General Electric steam turbine-electric locomotive now under development; instead, EMC makes a sale to the B&O which introduces streamlined road diesels in the East. (CMP)"
"Late 1939 PRR completes preliminary design for steam turbine locomotive burning pulverized coal; A-B-A units 205' long with GG1-type nose, one unit containing the condenser, one the boiler and turbine, and one the coal bunker; 2+B-1+B+B-B+B+1-B+2 wheel arrangement; designed to haul 1,200-ton train at 100 MPH."
"Apr. 12, 1944 Pres. Clement meets with heads of other coal-hauling railroads to promote the development of a coal-burning turbine locomotive."
"Sep. 13, 1944 PRR Board authorizes the expenditure of $375,000 for a 4,000 HP EMD E7 A-A set; track changes at “Q” Tower at Sunnyside Yard; approves a contract between the railroads and the General Electric Company for a coal-burning steam turbine electric locomotive of 5,435 HP. (MB)"
"Dec. 15, 1944 Bituminous Coal Research, Inc., the R&D organization of the coal industry, forms a Locomotive Development Committee, with representatives of the railroads, coal companies, and the American Locomotive Company and chaired by Roy B. White of the B&O, to develop a gas turbine-electric locomotive using powdered coal as fuel; thus retaining the railroad market for the coal industry in face of diesel threat."
"May 1, 1945 Development of steam turbine locomotive by Locomotive Development Committee begins under engineer John I. Yellott (1908-1986); plan calls for burning pulverized coal and screening fly ash to prevent damage to the turbine blades; locomotive to be housed in a diesel-type car body. May 1945 Dr. John I. Yellott (1908-1986), currently Director of the Institute of Gas Technology at Illinois Institute of Technology, is named to direct the Bituminous Coal Research project to develop a coal-burning turbine locomotive. (RyAge)"
"May 18, 1945 Illinois Central Railroad Pres. Wayne A. Johnston announces that the 9- railroad consortium’s steam-turbine-electric locomotive burning pulverized coal will have its boiler tests in June. (NYT)"
"July 1945: Boiler for Eastern Railroads' proposed coal-turbine locomotive tested at Altoona; cannot reach rated horsepower without slag formation and is returned to Baldwin for rebuilding; turbine locomotive is now conceived as a single unit on D-C+C-D trucks and a GG1-style body. (Hirsimaki - check - according to SMPE tests probably began in Aug. and concluded 11/20)"
"Nov. 20, 1945 Boiler for GE/Babcock & Wilcox coal-burning turbine completes tests at Altoona Test Plant, which had to be altered to test a boiler without chassis; tested with five types of bituminous coal; problems with fly ash and clinker; (tests probably began in Aug. or early Sep.) (SMPE)"
"Jan. 11, 1946 Partly disassembled boiler for proposed coal-burning turbine shipped from Altoona to Babcock & Wilcox Company for modification and further tests. (SMPE)"
"June 12, 1946 PRR Board approves northward expansion of Bay View Yard; authorizes an additional $91,000 for coal-burning turbine locomotive consortium"
"June 18, 1946 PRR and eight other coal railroads contribute $45,500 to Phase II of General Electric Company’s steam turbine locomotive project, which covers building a chassis for the turbine. (Rdg)"
"July 18, 1946 Babcock & Wilcox begins tests on redesigned pulverized coal-burning boiler for Eastern Railroads' proposed turbine locomotive at its facility at Kent, Ohio; features a water-tube boiler designed for 650 p.s.i., 850º F. steam; boiler efficiency varies from 60.2% to 68.75% in tests; this is less than the Test Plant efficiency of the conventional boiler of the PRR Class S2 turbine locomotive. (VPO)"
"Feb. 21, 1947 General Electric Company issues final report on coal-burning turbo-electric locomotive; was to have been 6,700 HP with estimated cost of $1.15 million each; compares unfavorably with four-unit 6,000 HP diesel at cost of $540,000 each; cost per horsepower $172 for turbine vs. $90 for diesel; concludes that the turbine cannot be competitive, and the project is scrapped. (SMPE)"
"May 28, 1947 John V.B. Duer of Mechanical Officers Committee informs other eight railroads participating with PRR in General Electric Company’s steam turbine project that the committee has received copies of all the patents, drawings and test reports, that there will be no further work, and the project is closed. (Rdg)"
http://www.prrths.com/newprr_files/Hagley/PRR1945.pdf
http://www.prrths.com/newprr_files/Hagley/PRR1944.pdf
djlivus https://i.imgur.com/gIMTLeg.png Here is pictured the D-C+C-D version. I think the design was awesome, a really giant. Of course, I do not know if it was techically viable, but visually it was impressive for sure. Like a turbo giant, super GG1!
That is what you will get from Hirsimaki's book. Actually, that is a scanned image from that book.
The end of an era......
https://patents.google.com/patent/US2306990A/en?inventor=Essl+Max
https://patents.google.com/patent/US2299420A/en?inventor=Essl+Max
2 patents for diesel locomotive from Max Essl. First: 1-D+D-1. Second: 2-C+C-2
There were any further developments?
The whole list of Essl patents is here:
https://patents.google.com/?inventor=Essl+Max
as it's almost impossible to search for individual Google patents via Google, for some reason best known only to Alphabet. There are some highly interesting items in this, for example 2299421A, issued the same day as the 'whole locomotive' modular patent but of highly different detail (it was submitted a half year later, in mid-May 1940, by which time some of the cost and complexity issues of the built locomotive might have become visible...)
Note that the '990 patent only involves seals for the modular engine construction, and not the details of the drive (covered in part in the '420 patent). What is valuable here is that the illustration only has six modules, which are either inline engines or representations of the earlier 412 motors, but shows eight distinct traction motors -- so the modular one-genset-to-one-motor design of the experimental 2-D-D-2 demonstrator was not being emphasized at that filing date (February 12 of 1941).
The earlier '420 illustrates the V8 configuration as built in the demonstrator (in which only 4 of the 8 carbody positions were filled) but as noted it only has six engines and, coincidentally as far as the patent language is concerned, six traction motors. Interestingly the patent indicates that the engines are spaced to have very little room between them, with the implied intent that the easy modular extraction and sealing would favor swapping engines rather than conduct even simple maintenance or repair in the locomotive. (In my opinion the modular one-engine-to-one-axle idea facilitates this.)
The demonstrator as built showed one of Essl's points that would later be remarked upon by Kiefer: the provision of high horsepower in a relatively short carbody and combination. Were all 8 of the 408s installed, the locomotive would have its rated horsepower of 6000 in a single carbody, with an underframe designed for 120mph operation. Relative longitudinal balance without ballasting could be achieved for combinations of 2, 4, or 6 physical engines at a time, if the whole carbody wasn't filled at order time, and of course any combination of engines could be started or idled for use with minimum consumption or 'keeping warm' in bad weather.
Apparently the cost of production of those things is what 'killed' the effort (with the underframe famously being recycled for the first Centipede). I have always found it strange that Westinghouse/Baldwin did not try to emulate some of the EMD financing practices to enable the high-horsepower-at-speed that one of these locomotives would have offered.
The effective thing that killed this conclusively was probably the ICC Order of 1947 that strictly reimposed the automatic train-control speed limits starting in the early Fifties. I attribute the cancellation of the Ingalls 2000hp passenger unit (which would have likewise enjoyed relatively high top speed independent of traction-motor considerations) to this same cause. Once the high horsepower needed for true high speed isn't necessary, there is less reason to purchase a large, heavy and complicated locomotive plus the appropriate number of 'spare' gensets and componentry, and railroads did not see the attractiveness of the 'flexible power possibilities' given the enormous cost of the locomotive up front.
Meanwhile, very quickly after the Essl prototype was built, Baldwin strategically went to light carbodies and swivel trucks, like the 'competition'. Of course what worked for Dilworth with a relatively lightweight welded-crankcase 2-stroke powerplant was much more -- shall we say 'difficult'? -- with tugboat power.
Thank you very much for these info!
It occurred to me afterward that you might not have seen the built locomotive:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lightning72/3967547669/
Parhaps the best of the Essl patents to get the 'feel' for this was
https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/b8/29/bd/57ae3c16c62d28/US2317849.pdf
which shows the underframe, gensets, and air-compressor compartment in the 'center' module very nicely.
Note the irony in his careful concern for the provision of adequate traction-motor cooling ducting for the right traction motors...
Combined the drawings (click to enlarge):
Nice work!
It seems that Max Essl applied 3 patents - first two for 4000 hp locomotives and the last for 6000 hp loccomotive
"Feb. 27, 1939 Max Essl, Chief Engineer-Diesel Locomotives of the Baldwin Locomotive Works, files for a patent for a 4,000 HP diesel on 1-D+D-1 trucks; the double-ended design reflects Baldwin-Westinghouse designs for electric locomotives and single large units over combining separate units of lower horsepower; Essl is also inspired by seeing the PRR containers to design a series of engines mounted transversely that can be lifted out through the roof for servicing. (Kirkland)"
"Nov. 14, 1939 Max Essl of the Baldwin Locomotive Works files for a patent for his modified design of a 4,000 HP double-ended diesel locomotive riding on 2-C+C-2 trucks with 6 model 408 engines instead of 8. (Kirkland)"
"Jan. 30, 1941 Max Essl of the Baldwin Locomotive Works files for a patent for a third design for a 6,000 HP single-ended diesel locomotive riding on 2-D+D-2 trucks with 8 model 408 modular engines; ancestor of the “Centipede”; construction of the underframe is begun in May. (Kirkland)"
All the patents make no mention of the actual number of engines. None I have seen so far discuss the one-to-one modular relationship of genset to driving wheel associated with it -- this was supposedly an important feature when the demonstrator was being promoted.
I was told that the original transverse engines were going to be transverse 412s, which match the six-cylinder-long blocks visible in the earlier patent. It will pay to look carefully at the timeline for evolution of the 400 series engines to see when the advantage of the 'shorter' 408 with the 'integral' walkway passing between engine and generator became the 'standard' option; this is to me clearly related to the maximum 750hp per axle that I'd expect the cost-effective antislip control of that era to work with.
That the locomotive actually built was 6000hp is not really surprising: as a demonstrator it would offer the full rated power to those roads interested in, say, three E units, but easily scaled back for roads wanting smaller locomotive peak unit horsepower (and less than ocean-liner overall length!) -- but there is a catch: much of the excessive expense of the modular design would be shared between the full 2-D-D-2 and a putative 2-C-C-2 (even, say, with GSC using some molds and cores from the GG1 pattern underframes) and in fact relatively little saving of either length or weight by omitting one axle's worth of underframe vs. leaving out two genset modules and their corresponding traction motors in the longer 8-wheel chassis and corresponding carbody. (The difference would likely be even less with the lightweight tubular construction...)
The Trains article on the Essl locomotive (in January 1963) mentioned that Baldwin went to the truss-frame swivel-truck design of locomotive relatively early, I believe before the demonstrator was rebuilt to give Seaboard its single-unit 2-6-6-4 replacement at half the horsepower with conventional DeLaVergne-style motors.
Very interesting info!
Two turbine locomotives patents:
https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/0a/a7/15/def403482b56f1/US2525490.pdf
https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/af/f2/83/7b760078716817/US2386679.pdf
Taking up the '679 patent first: it is somewhat surprising this issued in this form, as the layout of the components is scarcely novel by the application date (the Loewy's and Steins Triplexes having considerable priority) and the use of full condensing already being common on the Steamotive turbines (albeit for far more than feedwater recovery or Rankine heat recovery). That leaves the pulverized fuel as the principal novelty, which might lead to some interesting speculation regarding the stillborn GE pulverized-coal turbine canceled just two years after that patent was issued (to the inventor's widow).
Note that Edward Gray appeared to be blissfully ignorant of the plant size required to justify a practical STE, to say nothing of the physics of steam condensation of turbine exhaust. That he would think a plethora of little turbines is preferable to using electric motors for auxiliaries indicates he was not exactly aware of railroad-design reality...
The other patent is fascinating for certain implications. Look at the patent effective date. Then look at the date EMD introduced the traction alternator as an alternative to DC main generator. The Westinghouse patent claims involve the use of a three-phase alternator and Ignitrons for motor control -- interesting, since the very contemporary PRR ignitron locomotives operated off single-phase 11kV AC and single-phase is pointedly not directly mentioned.
I suspect the wheel arrangement is something of a red herring, as the comparable arrangement on the C&O M-1s was a demonstrable flop by then and the 'existing' Baldwin flat-deck arrangement of 2-D-D-2 articulated chassis as superior to the pictured 2-D-2 units as a GG1 was to the R1... which some have argued was a wash but no one familiar with the P5s for very long would.
Thank you for these very interesting considerations!
Jones1945 That is what you will get from Hirsimaki's book. Actually, that is a scanned image from that book.
One solution would be to take a photo to the picture with mobile phone. Many times I ve made some photos to book pictures with almost invisible writings and letters and I ve got pictures with huge resolutions and with tiniest details visible.
I have took a closer look at the photo above - after I ve downloaded in my phone (much better visibility of the characters on a small screen) and I am almost sure about these values: total lenght of the locomotive: 112 feet, that is 34,2 m and wheelbase lenght is 105 feet (32 m). Height is still to hazy, i can t see the numbers.
That would make it the longest steam locomotive ever (a few cm longer than N&W Jawn Henry) and - for sure - the longest single unit locomotive ever
What is more fun, calculate the lateral clearance at front, rear, and middle on -- let's say -- Horse Shoe (the detailed data for which are on Sam Berliner III's wonderful site). For those 'with eyes to see' this will tell you where the optimal pivot points for the undercarriage are likely to be... and how likely it is that buff, draft, and shock forces will be tolerably handled for the consist the locomotive would be expected to pull...
I swear that Jones1945 has, in the past, posted a ¾ view rendering of this locomotive, perhaps back in this very thread.
I can't recall I have posted a rendering of that locomotive before, but if I found any I will post it here asap.
15000 hp of power!
https://www.nscale.net/forums/cache.php?img=http%3A%2F%2Fi445.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fqq175%2Fnscalepennsyguy%2F35-044.jpg%3Ft%25201280157741
In the old prr publicity photo above they mention V1 turbine, GE turboelectric and a super GG1 succesor.
https://utahrails.net/up/up-diesel-story-1934-1982.php
Here is quoted a project from 1972 about a giant 7200 HP double engined SD45 project. It was "too long and too heavy" to be built.
It would be interesting to have Dave Goding's thoughts on a 'double SD45' -- there might not be that much more length required for the extra eight cylinders; I'd expect most of the fun being in the required cooling arrangements... and the higher fuel burn.
I'd think the real 'killer' was that the 645E3 could be pushed to 3300hp as in the Centennials -- something that might have been too much for a comparable V20.
Overmod There is an untold story lurking in here somewhere. Remember that the V1, developed between the late '30s, greenlighted in 1944, and suspended by 1947, was a PRR design for a PRR that no longer had interest in new coal-burning power. But PRR had nominal control over a railroad that DID have such an interest... and lo and behold, in 1950 we hear that N&W is signing a contract for a turbine-electric... the little 'artist's rendition' of which is EXACTLY the chassis of the turbine-mechanical V1, and not the Baldwin turbine-electric.However, by a couple of years later, N&W confirmed that the locomotive was to have electric, traction-motor drive (it's a whole article in Railway Age) and by that time the general details of the 600psi watertube boiler, chain grate like the M2 Automatic, and so forth were mature. I do not think, however, that the design had gone to span-bolstered trimounts like the ones that ultimately appeared on the TE1 (Jawn Henry)
There is an untold story lurking in here somewhere. Remember that the V1, developed between the late '30s, greenlighted in 1944, and suspended by 1947, was a PRR design for a PRR that no longer had interest in new coal-burning power. But PRR had nominal control over a railroad that DID have such an interest... and lo and behold, in 1950 we hear that N&W is signing a contract for a turbine-electric... the little 'artist's rendition' of which is EXACTLY the chassis of the turbine-mechanical V1, and not the Baldwin turbine-electric.However, by a couple of years later, N&W confirmed that the locomotive was to have electric, traction-motor drive (it's a whole article in Railway Age) and by that time the general details of the 600psi watertube boiler, chain grate like the M2 Automatic, and so forth were mature. I do not think, however, that the design had gone to span-bolstered trimounts like the ones that ultimately appeared on the TE1 (Jawn Henry)
This was an early version of Jawn Henry or a different locomotive never made? Only for freight or also passenger locomotive?
djlivusThis was an early version of Jawn Henry or a different locomotive never made?
The earliest description post-'47 is an item in the trade press, featuring a drawn side elevation of a locomotive with the PRR V1's wheel arrangement illustrating a blurb that a particular railroad (I believe it was characterized as a 'coal road') was considering the steam-turbine electric. Considering the PRR-N&W 'connection' it seemed obvious how and where the technology transfer was going. Certainly once PRR had deprioritized steam-turbine implementation (partially, perhaps, in favor of coal gas-turbine development) it would only be logical for N&W to build on what at that point was a project that had been greenlighted for construction in 1944.
By 1950, and then to 1952, there are reports covering how N&W was actively developing 'their' steam-turbine: I think it had progressed to electric drive by 1950 and was being given all-wheel drive (including the two 'smaller' trucks) by 1952. Considering the marked lack of enthusiasm around the PRR P5b 5702 experiment into powered small trucks of this sort, and the rather dramatic failures involved with the C&O M-1s, it is not surprising that the same thing that induced the Dutch to go to 'bogie power trucks' in their early-'50s electrics was also seen here in a 'revision' of all-wheels-powered chassis for a large steam-turbine-electric. In my opinion this was decidedly not a camel's-nose-in-the-tent for truck-compatibility with a diesel fleet, as would be a clear advantage on a railroad less decidedly diesel-hostile than N&W in the early Fifties. Certainly if it were seen as a major incentive for other coal railroads to adopt TE-1-style engines in lieu of diesels, the compatible-truck argument especially with Westinghouse motors ought to have been tried... however, since Westinghouse had abandoned the domestic railroad market by the time that would have mattered, and brought Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton along for that ride, it wouldn't have been that valuable (and the fact that N&W managed to irrevocably damage something like six of the Hexapole motors in what was basically extended testing is a very, very dangerous issue that I seldom see discussed in connection with this design).
A missing link involves the boiler design used in the early Fifties, before the adoption of the chain-grate 600psi design that essentially limited the locomotive to 4500hp, half or less of what PRR designed their 'comparable' post-V1 locomotive to develop. I had thought this would be a pulverized-coal watertube design, but I have neither drawings nor hard technical descriptions to prove this. I strongly suspect material is 'out there' that can resolve the question. Unfortunately I expect much of the necessary technical records were disposed of at the same time, perhaps in the same dumpster, that the main-turbine drawings for the TE-1, but none for the V1, were 'recovered from the trash' when Westinghouse purged some of its obsolete records.
Thank you for this very complete explanation!
Yes, double-thanks!
I have read the Keystone Magazine article by Neil Burnell's about the PRR S2 recently. Today I ordered another Keystone Magazine that contains two more articles (one of them is a letter from the reader, another one is "Problems with the operation of S2" by David E. Slee, a 10-page article. I will sum up my thoughts here after reading all of them. (Who would have thought wheel slippery was one of the problems that S2 had to fix?!)
Be interesting to see if he mentions the Westinghouse improvement patents on the S2-style drive system in the latter half of the '40s, particularly the two-speed planetary and the elimination of the unfortunate geared reverse-turbine idea.
It will be interesting to read whether the unsprung-mass concerns I had about the drive as implemented (see those expressed by Juniatha and Sara T.) turned out to be serious in PRR practice.
I just received the book on prr locomotives. I will scan it and send it to mail in one, two weeks. Using a lens to zoom in I have suceeded to see exactly the small numbers of D-C-C-D turbine. So: height is 16 feet, 0 inches (4,87 m), lenght between couplers is 112 feet (34,13 m), 105 feet wheelbase, 147 feet total wheelbase, 155 feet total lenght; weight without tender is 810.000 pounds (367,4 tonnes). Axle load is 45.000 pounds and 60.000 pounds (2X45.000 + 12X60.000). Tender axle load is 51.666 pounds
https://books.google.ro/books?id=PB-b8sql2B0C&pg=PA278&lpg=PA278&dq=Lima+coal+gas+turbine+locomotive+project&source=bl&ots=lfdJ5kL9TT&sig=ACfU3U09IhSA88koqy4khTWzvXDdHhP9hw&hl=ro&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwja3vzr2pLyAhX8_7sIHe6DCqQQ6AEwEHoECCYQAw#v=onepage&q=Lima%20coal%20gas%20turbine%20locomotive%20project&f=true
At the page 293 there are some interesting info about an 1982 steam turbine electric giant locomotive on 6 wheels truks, 1200.000 pounds weight
djlivusAt page 293 there are some interesting info about an 1982 steam turbine electric giant locomotive on 6 wheel trucks, 1,200,000 pounds weight
Note that some of the problems he encountered with the fluidized-bed combustion were and are addressable.
This was the era of 614T, when engineers had to 'rediscover' much of the art involved in practical locomotive boiler design.
Incidentally, note the bibliography a few pages earlier which contains an article by Steins in Railway Age on the proposed coal gas-turbine (Nov 27 1948, p.1029)
The history of coal turbines when I researched them in the '80s was fascinating. Note the version in the hearings testimony, built inside an Alco DL600 with fluidized pulverized coal blown into a vibrating reservoir in the short hood. With no sign of, say, cooled FGR passivating the pre-dried and pre-pulverized stuff, which was to be blown in from covered hoppers. I suspect this would have rediscovered the joys of high-carbon critical-mixture facilitated rapid unanticipated disassembly.
https://books.google.ro/books?id=qndCAQAAIAAJ&pg=RA2-PA129&dq=santa+fe+3750hp+turbine+locomotive&hl=ro&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiSjY7zrJPyAhXz_7sIHZvNCxEQ6AEwBXoECAYQAw#v=onepage&q=santa%20fe%203750hp%20turbine%20locomotive&f=false
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/13/t/40358.aspx
From these I understand that Santa Fe gas turbine was basically the same with J Yellot coal gas turbine intended to be built by Baldwin for PRR. But, the last was to be 3750 HP and have cabs at the both ends. Instead, Santa Fe,s would have been 3000 hp and would have used an oil gas turbine in a Centipede style body locomotive. There was also a project from Lima rejected.
Note that they've got two turbine locomotives for ATSF mixed up. The one you're discussing is the one on the Centipede frame, which I think has more affinity to the stillborn BLH free-piston locomotive than to anything out of BCR at that point (I think they were still testing the Hilsch tubes and final separation along with the turbine 'on the ground' in Dunkirk)
The missing B-B-B-B was the Allis-Chalmers turbine built for ATSF, which seems to have come and gone largely unremarked in railfan history, despite the fact that Allis-Chalmers had early competence in industrial gas turbines.
Much of the problem, including with the prospective 2-D-D-2 for ATSF, was the implicit concern that Really Cheap Garbage Fuel was the only thing making the gas turbine practical as a diesel competitor (read Charles Kerr, Jr's analysis for a better laying out of the real-eorkd economic argument). As noted the 'big' ATSF tender was cheap for the adoption at that point, and had the ginormous oil capacity (whether #5 locomotive fuel, or 'Bunker B', or that awful cheap-as-possible dirty residual) as well as large nonstop water for the steam-ejector air on the Long Trains that big locomotive would be running.
How you get around the noise and crap in the exhaust when pulling the luxury postwar successor to the Super Chief is less certain. I'd have liked to see at least one built... although by the time of actual construction it would have likely been span-bolstered trucks rather than colossal cast underframes...
Overmod http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/13/t/40358.aspx Note that they've got two turbine locomotives for ATSF mixed up. The one you're discussing is the one on the Centipede frame, which I think has more affinity to the stillborn BLH free-piston locomotive than to anything out of BCR at that point (I think they were still testing the Hilsch tubes and final separation along with the turbine 'on the ground' in Dunkirk) The missing B-B-B-B was the Allis-Chalmers turbine built for ATSF, which seems to have come and gone largely unremarked in railfan history, despite the fact that Allis-Chalmers had early competence in industrial gas turbines. Much of the problem, including with the prospective 2-D-D-2 for ATSF, was the implicit concern that Really Cheap Garbage Fuel was the only thing making the gas turbine practical as a diesel competitor (read Charles Kerr, Jr's analysis for a better laying out of the real-eorkd economic argument). As noted the 'big' ATSF tender was cheap for the adoption at that point, and had the ginormous oil capacity (whether #5 locomotive fuel, or 'Bunker B', or that awful cheap-as-possible dirty residual) as well as large nonstop water for the steam-ejector air on the Long Trains that big locomotive would be running. How you get around the noise and crap in the exhaust when pulling the luxury postwar successor to the Super Chief is less certain. I'd have liked to see at least one built... although by the time of actual construction it would have likely been span-bolstered trucks rather than colossal cast underframes...
Very interesting considerations!
Any info about wheels configurations of Lima proposal for gas turbine locomotive? Hirsimaki says it would have been single unit with 2 cabs. I think I have read somevhere it was a C-C locomotive, but could that be large enough for a turbine locomotive?
https://books.google.ro/books?id=mGBCAQAAIAAJ&pg=RA10-PA41&dq=lima+hamilton+free+piston+gas+turbine+locomotive&hl=ro&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjaq8rh9JTyAhWHgP0HHSJBBDo4ChDoATAFegQIBRAC#v=onepage&q=lima%20hamilton%20free%20piston%20gas%20turbine%20locomotive&f=true
It seems Lima locomotive was a C-C with only 360000 lbs weight
Thank you for finding this!
As a bit of history: the first major use of this approach to free-piston power was as a 'diesel' air compressor for submarines, developed to some success in the 1930s. I find it suggestive that Hamilton licensed the technology, was then acquired by Lima which staked its 'real locomotive' future on this idea while concentrating regular diesel development on glorified switchers, and then Lima-Hamilton was snapped up by Baldwin -- the official story being that 'parent' Westinghouse wanted the Lima heavy-construction business, but going to the free-piston construction for passenger engines may explain Baldwin's adherence to heavy slow-speed engines with little horsepower improvement upside during that era... only to embrace high-speed diesrls with Mekydro hydrokinetic transmission when it no longer mattered...
Note that the weight is still 30 tons per axle, only 'light' by comparison with relatively large steam locomotives. That seems heavy for 'only' 3200hp, which translates in both powered axles and rough hp to one-and-a-half E units.
Think of this a bit like a FM OP cylinder turned on its side, with the rack arrangement replacing the crankshafts for timing, the bounce pistons replacing the crankshafts for piston return against compression, the large pistons providing the scavenge air compression, and the 'horsepower' taken out in the exhaust pressure.
This as previously noted greatly relieved the practical issue of TIT in a practical railroad gas turbine while offering a way to run the turbine reasonably close to its critical speed range over a range of loads by using or idling some of the independent gas generator sections -- compare this to the Essl locomotive, which proposed similar savings by a very different method.
We now know well (from subsequent GM experience with free-piston engines in ships and cars, and the stillborn FG-9) what the Achilles heel of Pescara-style free-piston turbine power is -- and to me this came as something of a surprise, similar to the reason full-active suspensions were not more popular for automobiles or trucks. You will note the absence of a synchronizing method for the gas generators, and the need for a smoothing receiver in the drawing. Oddly enough the practical difficulty was not exhaust impulse noise (which to me would be like the grandmother of all unsynchronized multi-engine aircraft propeller noise!) but the inlet tract noise from relatively light wall construction for the prodigious amount of air required. (I am told that the technical results of the 'big' SNCF test of this approach exist, but I have not found them yet; that the idea was so well promoted, and disappeared so without a trace, indicates similar 'drawbacks' were encountered...
Technically the free-piston engine suffered somewhat from the use of a 'variable-speed transmission' involving a turbogenerator and traction motors (and remember that Westinghouse just at this time patented a drive with three-phase alternator and compatible motors, which could as easily be used with a gas turbine as a steam turbine). To me this would have been a good 'fit' for a couple of Bowes drives as in the stillborn Ingalls 2000hp lightweight passenger locomotive... although coordinating three axles per truck might have been costlier and not as effective as separate hexapole motors.
https://www.deviantart.com/futurewgworker/art/Breitspurbahn-steam-locomotive-688384620
One of the 41 projects of collosal locomotives proposed by nazi for a never made 3 m gauge system Breitspurbahn. Width is 6 m and height above 6.8 m
There is a book on this subject:
https://www.zvab.com/Breitspurbahn-Projekt-Erschlie%C3%9Fung-gro%C3%9F--europ%C3%A4ischen-Raumes/18464308188/bd
Other projects:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B5YOYbXCUAAhB7M?format=jpg&name=large
Ther is an article on these locomotives in Trains magazine (with the photo above enclosed) in 86 (I have surveyed their archive and found about these projects)
https://fritzfreiheit.com/wiki/File:Breitspurbahn_engine.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ee6XBeBWoAAl77K?format=jpg&name=4096x4096
https://www.deviantart.com/futurewgworker/art/Breitspurbahn-diesel-electric-locomotive-586250888
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ee6XD0eXoAI1uJV?format=jpg&name=4096x4096
https://www.deviantart.com/futurewgworker/art/Breitspurbahn-diesel-hydraulic-locomotive-688384342
https://www.deviantart.com/futurewgworker/art/Breitspurbahn-electric-locomotive-688385033
djlivushttps://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ee6XD0eXoAI1uJV?format=jpg&name=4096x4096
Someone with the Complete Collection needs to provide the link to 'The Case for the Double-Track Train', an American answer to the Breitspurbahn with a few additional possibilities.
We have an expert on the RRollway, in its 19' wide splendor... that's now within the year range for Classic Trains...
djlivus https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ee6XD0eXoAI1uJV?format=jpg&name=4096x4096
I'm real sure that I can run 15,200hp through four axles. On the other hand it will pull any train it can start up to 200km/h...
[/quote]
I understand that in Classic Trains magazine is an article about american version of this rail system? If so I have acces to Classic Trains archive, so I can check.
There were any projects for american locomotives with 19' gauge or it was only an ideea?
djlivusI understand that in Classic Trains magazine is an article about American version of this rail system? If so I have acces to Classic Trains archive, so I can check.
The basic idea, though, was to treat a double-track mainline as if it were a 'Breitspurbahn' with four separate running rails and cross-span-bolstered bogies each at standard gauge if desired. This would be fleeted to get directionality, and a four-track main of interesting characteristics would be needed even for the analogue of CTC, but the possibilities were interesting... and a given line still perfectly capable of being operated as two standard-gauge tracks for standard-gauge interchange traffic.
As I recall, Professor Milenkovic has considerable knowledge of RRollway in its various developments, and retains interest in the idea. My exposure to this was as a kind of transverse high-density rapid-throughput Iron Highway for automobiles: these would be staged in rows facing the track, driven on the platform transversely, then simply driven off the other side easily or en masse at any stop -- no circus loading, no skilled backing over ramps and between cars.
The version I remember had 19' gauge over the outside rails but one rail in the middle for support. We have had previous threads, I think findable across the Kalmbach forums with the 'community search' term, that had quite a bit of interesting information I hadn't known.
The thing about 'broad gauge' is that scaling laws apply to engineering just as they do to, say, entomology. You can't just scale proportions up, like in modeling -- some parts have to be reproportioned, and there may be size limits that make further increase pointless, much as with multistage rockets. Necessary axle strength and contact-patch size are two such for Bribdingnagian gauge inflation.
I have not read the book, but I understand that 3m was chosen as about the largest gauge that would make a cost-effective system -- some of the passenger interiors were designed around the width possible with overhang relative to the 'quarter points' over the wheels or the effective lateral points of suspension bearing.
Incidentally it turns out that for coned-tread wheelsets, it is NOT beneficial to run the wheels separately on stub axles a la Talgo. That imposes a limit on axle deflection and bending strength.
https://i.redd.it/rxaib6wqao361.jpg
One rendering of 5000 tons soviet atomic locomotive. Maybe just a kind of soviet propaganda.
I just have aquired a digital edition of Robin Barnes Broader than broad (I ve sent it via dropbox on mails ) Here says it could attain a speed of 300 km hour
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D8oDSKgUYAA_tJz?format=jpg&name=large
Another soviet proposal rendering here
There was no insurmountable issue with the 'double-track train' going around curves or cross-equalizing... and the test was done with HO snap track... Note that the 'four rails in 18' gauge -- I'd suspect 5m -- would give an interesting centerline distance if considered as double track, say of 5' gauge.
Did the Russian system note that the two 'subsidiary tracks' were each lined and surfaced separately for use? Or that the spacing of the four rails was not 'equal' spanwise?
An issue that came up with the 'double-track train' was the way superelevation and crossovers were to be handled. Note that the Breitspurbahn freight and these Russian systems do not emphasize high speeds (and presumably would be built with limited superelevation as with contemporary "PSR" optimization (?) to 40-45mph with minimized wear and deflection to the rails. That would simplify how crossovers, etc. are provided for the individual tracks.
I continue to presume that carbody-mounted motors remain a good solution for these enormous things, although I see very little mention of the idea explicitly either in the German planning or these Russian versions. You could easily have whatever final drive you wanted with transverse balance on either the upper or lower 'deck', with final drive to the individual span-bolstered 'bogies' running on their pairs of gauged rails.
I have learned more about this stuff in three months than in a whole lifetime of pottering research on some of this stuff.
The Lyle Borst tale is amusing. He assigned the design problem as a hypothetical exercise. Afterwards there was enough interest that he patented some of the design features... the AEC apparently being willing at the time to find alternative markets for uranium enrichment other than as constituents of explosives. It does not appear that security of what is basically weapons-grade U235 for use on the general system of railroad transportation was a cost concern.
There was a brief frenzy of transportation applications when submarine reactors became known. If FM engines worked in subs and were more or less successfully ported to locomotives... why not PWRs?
The Alco A-100, which I only know from a single drawing, may use a comparable cycle, although it is tough to dispense with ocean cooling (as some Erie-Built customers reputedly recognized!). While some improvements over the PRR S2 were needed, they were not critically incapable of solution. And there was the promised long running time between (subsidized) reprocessings...
German breitspurbahn project considered more than 40 locomotives - some designed for high speed passenger trains,some for freight. My question would be if a freight locomotive can be regeared for passenger trafic or, conversely a passenger one for freight use. If so, what such an operation would imply? I ask that questioon having in mind some examples like New Heaven Ef3 (adapted for pasenger use) or Baldwin Centipedes "rebuilt" for freight
djlivusMy question would be if a freight locomotive can be regeared for passenger traffic or, conversely a passenger one for freight use. If so, what such an operation would imply? I ask that questioon having in mind some examples like New Haven EF3(adapted for pasenger use) or Baldwin Centipedes "rebuilt" for freight
As you might suspect, suspension and guiding are key characteristics of true dual-service locomotives. The Centipede chassis was good for over 120mph by Baldwin's perhaps over enthusiastic figuring (they had touted the ATSF 3460 class as "120 mph locomotives" and Seaboard happily bought them for 85mph freight service (replacing rather good 2-6-6-4s). Most of the 1930s articulated-underframe high speed design -- originally serving a somewhat different purpose on the maid-of-all-work Essl locomotive) was not "as good" as evolved truck designs, like those attributed to Blomberg at EMD. Indeed, Westinghouse seemed to be proposing nothing but AAR type B trucks on all their locomotives -- advantages as you'd expect for B instead of C trucks in high-speed work, and plenty of easily-cooled span-bolstered motor power if you want to pull freight...
The poster child for dual-service electrics is the GG1, which evolved from the New Haven design. This was easily changed from high-speed passenger engine to capable freight locomotive with little more than a simple gearing change, as all the rest of the suspension and underframe remained substantially 100mph capable.
The Rc-4, on which the AEM-7 'toasters' were patterned, is a successful freight locomotive in Europe, albeit one that may require additional time in starting heavy trains. If I'm not mistaken, many features of the ACS-64 'Sprinters' are shared with Vectron electrics, although I do not know how detail-design differences for high-speed service might impair its suitability.
Informative and accurate reply/
Thank you for this very comprehensive answer!
https://mi3ch.livejournal.com/2637409.html?page=2 :
"After the materials on the Hitler super train were declassified, similar projects appeared in the USSR.
Deputy Director of the Institute of Complex Transport Problems of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Soviet scientist Vasily Zvonkov, in particular, wrote: “The existing generally accepted railroad gauge in our country - 1524 millimeters - was proposed by one of the builders of the St. Petersburg-Moscow road, engineer Melnikov. Already today it cannot satisfy us. A track gauge of 3 - 5 meters will allow us to build significantly more lifting wagons and use locomotives with a capacity of 40 - 50 thousand horsepower to ensure a speed of 250 - 350 kilometers per hour. The question of using nuclear reactors on such locomotives will be greatly facilitated. After all, as you know, only a significant weight of biological protection prevents nuclear locomotives from entering our roads today, The throughput capacity of BAM has been exhausted for today. The main problem of the inhabitants of the Far East is isolation from the center of Russia.
Nuclear reactors on trains are too dangerous. Today the train from Moscow to Vladivostok takes 7 days. At a speed of 250 km / h, this time will be reduced to one and a half days"
https://e-news.su/history/256660-zheleznodorozhnyy-futurizm-sverhshirokaya-koleya-i-bezumnye-proekty-voennyh.html
"At the same time, there was an active discussion of the construction of the Pan American Intercontinental Highway to connect the Americas, and with it the idea of ​​an intercontinental broad-gauge railway was considered. It was supposed to go from Alaska to Argentina and turn both continents into a single economic zone. Nuclear locomotives were the best fit for this project. Soon, negotiations began with the creators of the X-12 on the development of a similar locomotive for an ultra-wide gauge."
djlivusSoon, negotiations began with the creators of the X-12 on the development of a similar locomotive for an ultra-wide gauge."
https://www.mosafilm.de/CF/heftbesprechung/hobby/5706/superzug.html
See if this makes the link clickable:
Note the reference to 200km/h stability here, too.
Overmod See if this makes the link clickable: https://www.mosafilm.de/CF/heftbesprechung/hobby/5706/superzug.html Note the reference to 200km/h stability here, too.
Is it just me or does that Russian nuclear locomotive have styling cues based on the PRR T1? Quite apart from the "duplex" arrangement of driving wheels, look at the front casing and the shape of the casing over the wheels...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RusRdlE-gg
That video has some of the most splendid video quality I've ever seen in a YouTube video -- even before we consider the subject matter. It's well worth watching, and I think we should encourage his 'channel' with likes and subscribes.
You do know that was CGI?
BackshopYou do know that was CGI?
CGI can illustrate things that no longer exist as well as things that only exist in the mind of the creator.
BaltACD Backshop You do know that was CGI? CGI can illustrate things that no longer exist as well as things that only exist in the mind of the creator.
Backshop You do know that was CGI?
An actual render in modern CGI would be much closer to 'photorealism', both in ray-tracing lighting effects and resolution. See the 3D derived-pointcloud models that were produced for the T1 Trust about a half-decade ago, but in color...
I enjoyed the video! Authentic footage where available (and the rendition was excellent) and CGI where needed. A pretty good balance and a great end product.
I definately gave it a "Like!"
Question - On compound non-mallet engines. Are the low pressure cylinders quartered on the same phase as the high pressure cylinders?
BaltACD Question - On compound non-mallet engines. Are the low pressure cylinders quartered on the same phase as the high pressure cylinders?
Thing is that it would require 180-degree opposition on each side to get the engine to balance, and that is manifestly not true of a Vauclain compound (I presume you mean type 1, with the high-pressure and low-pressure cylinders outside, driving on a common crosshead). There are illustrations on the Web of the special piston valve and convoluted port and passage arrangement that is at the heart of this method of compounding, and although the porting and operation are complex to analyze, the system was certainly capable of developing near- if not actual world's-fastest speeds in the early 1890s.
I think the inside connections on a Cole balanced compound are quartered at something like 135 degrees relative to the (quartered) outside. Early compounds did not use the analogy to loop scavenging to lower effective HP backpressure going into the receiver, and I'd think dynamic balance would be a more important concern that equalizing MEP... especially with the actual condensation of LP steam in the receiver and then during expansion in the LP cylinders, which was often far more abysmal than manufacturers and designers seem to have realized.
The 'answer' of course can be seen first in effective steam-streamlined passages and superheating in modern compounds, and then in the 'booster valve' applied to some of the N&W Y-class engines (which of course were only circumstantially and accidentally 'in pnase' HP to LP). I still have no hard information on whether the LP reheat 'superheater' on 160 A1 was actually useful or not. In my opinion the 'best' approach is still that proposed by Chapelon, which is like a modulated version of the booster valve: high-pressure saturated or superheated steam is preferentially injected into the receiver at acceptable determined HP back-pressure excursion, so that not only the MEP but the instantaneous pressure on the LP pistons over the effective range of their stroke 'matches' what the HP cylinders are producing. That does not require that the HP and LP be co-phased at all; in fact my RSR engine design phases the front and rear soft-conjugated engines (via a detent) at 135 relative (both engines being simple 2-cylinder DA in quarter) so that there are eight controlled power impulses per revolution for the engine as a whole, which also should help eliminate objectional high-speed surge effects.
BaltACDOn compound non-mallet engines. Are the low pressure cylinders quartered on the same phase as the high pressure cylinders?
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x002211444&view=1up&seq=604&size=125
Next question: what was more common, four cylinders all driving one axle or low-pressure driving the lead axle and high-pressure the second?
Look up 'Plancher System' for a different approach to four-cylinder compounding (e.g. the early Italian cab-forward 4-6-0 design)
The de Glehn-du Bousquet design, one of the more successful compounds, had the HP drive on the main with a conventional axle and the LP on a cranked leading driver axle. Four sets of valve gear with the LP fully adjustable separate from the HP -- a reason the French called engine-drivers 'mecaniciens'.
Most of the balanced compounds (such as Cole and Vauclain type 2, the latter being the "Baldwin balance compounding' applied to the New Haven engines) had a cranked main-driver axle and all four mains bore on the same driver pair -- in other words, not divided-drive.
An interesting type that you'd think couldn't work all that well was the von Borries, which is a normal quartered 2-cylinder DA... run as a compound with HP on one side, LP on the other, and asymmetrical counterbalancing. The original PRR T1, with the 84" drivers, was made this way and there is a photograph of it at high speed with a considerable train -- the trick was that the two sides had separate cutoff so it was relatively easy to adjust running balance at a given throttle opening and HP cutoff.
I have read & reread this thread since 2018 & it still blows my mind well from what i understand , wow just wow . thank you guys so much for deep diving for us that arent as knowledgeable on this subject
just bumping this to the top to reread
I WANT TO BUILD THIS IN HO
Tell me more about this.
Original V1 - two Westinghouse turbines, 1 impulse and several reaction stages (similar in principle to the unit on PRR 6200) each driving four axles connected by Cardan shafts (see the Krauss-Maffei Amerika-Loks for some representative detail).
Nominal 8000shp, using a slightly-modified Q2 boiler. The original design was approved for production in 1944 (when fast, efficient power for long heavy westbounds was becoming a priority) but was 'not proceeded with' because the water rate was abysmal -- you'd have needed multiple water tenders, not just the one in the design.
Subsequently the design was revamped to utilize the Bowes drive, which would have permitted 120mph+ road speed -- this is at the same time the suggestive 'design patent' by Loewy et al. for the streamlined 'passenger' body was filed. This was stillborn when all the rest of big complicated steam development was abandoned on PRR, between 1947 and 1948.
However, at the end, 'someone' in PRR publicity ghostwrote an expansion to "9000hp" (literally; the locomotive is in ghostly outline in a PRR brochure about modern steam power!) which might have been interesting to see attempted. It is possible that something like a good double Belpaire with Cunningham circulation and Snyder preheaters could produce the required mass flow... if Operation Downfall had followed the expected course.
Even with the Bowes drives, there might have been a need for Ferguson clutches between the axles, to prevent the wheel diameters needing frequent dressing to keep them commonly profiled. Note that the early work in magnetorheologics was in the late Forties and would have been highly attractive for this purpose.
You could, for fun, design a larger nose-mounted coal bunker, and adapt the FM-TV system used for the Navy's version of Aphrodite as better view of the road...
Hermann Jones1945 The S2 also hauled lots of crack trains that the S1 seldom pulled, like the Broadway and Manhattan limited. I read somewhere that people saw the S2 once appeared in Pittsburgh, the "forbidden city" of the S1. On the other hand, I have seen pics of the T1 phototypes powered the Trail Blazer. Hi Jones1945, interesting thing that for three long years, the two prototypes ran into and through Pittsburgh without any reported troubles. Only in Summer 1945, the first derailment took place im Pittsburgh. Then, just one month after delivery of the first serial T1s, 5502 derailed on December 1, 1945, and another serial T1 the very next day. Did somehow, tragically, the two prototypes have the edge over the 5500s in curves?
Jones1945 The S2 also hauled lots of crack trains that the S1 seldom pulled, like the Broadway and Manhattan limited. I read somewhere that people saw the S2 once appeared in Pittsburgh, the "forbidden city" of the S1. On the other hand, I have seen pics of the T1 phototypes powered the Trail Blazer.
The performance of Flash and Buck seems to vary compared to the production T1's, but they certainly didn't have an advantage in lateral motion! They did run Harrisburg to Chicago for several months, but suffered repeat derailments at Federal Toward heading east. Not every time, but often enough to be confined in 1943 to the Ft. Wayne Division like the S1. They ran towards Pittsburgh a few times between then and '45, as did the S1, but would've been cut off before the tower and get turned and/or serviced at Scully Yard across the river.
Still find it humourous that the Q1 had more clearance into Pittsburgh (and more range overall) than the passenger duplexes for a year or two. It might not have been in service as much as it could've, but it was a Panhandle regular, plus runs on the Sandusky Branch. Well over 600 miles if I did my math right. Also did some math regarding its lifetime mileage and for kicks compared it to the early records of the L-4 Mohawks. The Q1's annual average is lower that of the L-4's within their first four years, but it's higher than their mileage in passenger service during that period. Quite impressive given the lower range and speeds. The design says Shop Queen, but the mileage says Large Cruiser.
Most of the early duplex designs (B&O, ATSF, PRR Q1) were built with the assumption of minimizing 'rigid' (I.e. driver) wheelbase. The Q1 is a peculiarly interesting case, as it was specifically intended as a 5/4 expansion of the M1/M1a 4-8-2, with 77" drivers so clearly intended as dual-service, not just M&E. You would not have gotten this engine through any restricted trackwork if it had the rear cylinders a la Q2 -- even necking the cylinder support. Even a "duplex" version of an ATSF 5001/5011 class would have had a shorter driver wheelbase!
The real trouble with the Q1 in my opinion is that PRR had no idea what to do with it, certainly after 'standardizing' on T1s for all the fast passenger trains, and keeping the 50mph freight restriction postwar.
Might be a wild take, but I think the best thing for the Q1 would've been to put it in passenger service at that point. Sure it lags behind the T1 in most aspects, but it has a bit more range and availability compared to the S1 and S2. Its power curve is seemingly ahead of most 4-8-4's, and doing better than a Niagara until 45 mph while suggesting it could catch up to an N&W J at 70 mph if not a little later.
I typically think the PRR could've done with a 4-4-4-6 if they wanted to make a step up from the M1, but the fact the Q1 could still generate that much power as a 4-6-4-4 with its "restrained dimensions" is still quite impressive. And to its credit, not only does its tractive effort eclipse all the 4-8-4's, it also has an ace or two above the J and the Niagaras. As well as having higher drivers than a J, and not needed tandem rods like a Niagara, the duplex layout lends the Q1 a bit better to high speeds. Firstly in safety; as much as people like to point out the duplexes propensity to slip, none of them broke large components on the running gear. The T1's broke valves often from excessive speed, but the gear itself wasn't damaged too often. Compare that to the numerous 4-6-4's and 4-8-4's that bent or threw their rods at least once. Secondly, there's a perfomance benefit.
Rather than raising the pressure and stretching the cylinder (smaller bore, longer stroke) the duplexes use shrunk cylinders; comparitively short strokes. I recall one advert of the S1 using "switcher cylinders!" Closest comparison that comes to mind are the Bulleid Merchant Navies, quite similar to the T1's in their original form (for another time haha) but in their rebuilt form retained the quite small 18x24" cylinder dimensions, as well as a free-steaming boiler tied to a Belpaire firebox. The next closest Pacific with the same pressure and wheelsize (and cylinder count) was the 30 "shared" LNER A2's. The Peppercorn iteration managed 101 mph with a Double Kylchap and 19x26" cylinders, while the earlier Thompson A2/3's (identical TE dimensions) could match the timings of the A4-hauled Coronation to the minute, so they likely could make 101 mph as well. However, 3 of the rebuilt Navies were clocked at or slighlty above 105 mph! They're probably the highest speeds recorded for 74"wheeled locos, as both the authenticated speed records (streamlined and not) and the next loco after them to break 100 mph had 80" drivers.
So back to the Q1, even with the crowded space of its cylinders and firebox, it would be a better option for running west of Pittsburgh compared to a 4-8-4 of similar power. Could've made a good pinch-hitter on trains a T1 wasn't ready for, rather than repeatedly scrambling to hustle K4's to the task and explain to management why the Blue Ribbon trains didn't have their newest investments on the head end. At least 6130 would've only had 3 years under her frame instead of...15 at the minimum
Two initial points:
The Q2 was just too big for any conceivable passenger train PRR could have run cost-effectively... and it still would have had issues above 85mph 'making up time' -- duplex drive isn't magic -- unless you rebuilt it to zero overbalance. You also have to deal with the higher water rate of the relatively large boiler at 'passenger' mass flow with excessive dead space and 69" drivers.
The better answer across the board for passenger work was to use the Q2 boiler as the V1 with Bowes drive -- even if it involved far more independent-brake shoes and foundation!
There was no need for a 4-4-4-6 on PRR to make the greatest single-unit horsepower practically necessary. The Q2 didn't have the Lima-style double Belpaire (which was the thing most 'necessitating' that six-wheel trailer on Townsend's stillborn 4-8-6) and easily made over 7600dbhp with a four-wheel trailing truck. I doubt that the added weight of Snyder preheaters and Cunningham-circulator manifolds would constitute 'too much back-end weight gain' to require the extra axle.
What you WOULD want on a double-Atlantic duplex is the general firebox size and construction Baldwin originally intended -- 102 to 104 square feet. This was very pointedly included in the May 1945 C1a design -- which let's face it would have been a lower-augment locomotive using a little-modified Niagara boiler and good optimized piston valves. No need for the cost, weight, length, etc. of a six-wheel unpowered truck.
I follow most of these points though I'm baffled by bringing the Q2 into it. It had power for days up to medium speed, but I wouldn't consider it for passenger work, even as a last resort. The boilers had trouble holding water on freight runs, heaven forbid how much water they'd use on passenger work. Crews worried about the J's rpm over 100 mph, no way the Q2 would be better. Only the Q1 should've been "bumped up" after the war was over, the Q2's power was far more valuable on freight, even if they didn't quite run fast enough to use all of it.
I want to be clear though, I mean 4-4-4-6 not in the same way at Lima's proposed 4-8-6, but as an alteration to the Q1's 4-6-4-4 arrangement. For an enlargement over the M1, a duplex could've done just fine with 8 smaller but sizeable drivers. The C-1a's firebox seems to be about the same 101 sq.ft. as the S-1b/S-2a, which makes sense given...everything else. I can only assume Altoona learned their lesson from the S1, as the Q1's firebox is just over 98 sq.ft, and the extra trailing axle is more to keep the engine balanced base on those dimensions. Narrower than the S1 and T1 fireboxes but between them in length.
But even with a firebox a few inches longer than a Niagara, not only is the Q1's trailing truck strangely spaced, but the rear trailing axle also has the "9000's" issue of carrying far more weight than the other axles. Most of that is probably the fault of the booster, but the Q2's and even 6111 don't have such an imbalance.
The idea of a 4-4-4-6 stemmed to make the Q1 more available quickly without changing anything above the frame. Placing the rear cylinders where the 5th drive axle was leaves it far too long to ditch one driving axle and still have only two trailing axles. Might not have a Double Belpaire, but that long combustion chamber...
The aforementinoed wheelbase reduction kind of deterred me from thinking of the more conventional arrangement. Flipping the rear cylinders and making a slightly longer T1 (rear cylinders placed where the 3rd driving axle was) would make things simpler. There's still the overloading to worry about, but I recognize there's far less need for an extra trailing axle at that point. A new pair of cylinders in the same dimensions of the rear pair would put its tractive effort slightly ahead of the T1 and M1 as well. Hmm...might need to try that for a redesign.
That's a beautiful drawing, but didn't your momma tell you that putting pin-guided Adams trucks on the rear of a locomotive is a formula for disaster?
The Reading tried it, in an effort to improve a (good) 4-4-2 into a 4-4-4. The tales of how bad the result was, alone, should dissuade you. The Germans did it at high speed and found, at least according to one account, that you had to modify the position of the pivot point of the truck frame relative to direction to get even ~80mph out of the things.
In any case, Withuhn conjugated duplexing is not something you really want to perpetuate in practice (compared with Deem conjugation). With proper lateral motion, a double-Atlantic with acceptable main-rod angularity on both engines doesn't have that much disadvantage with nominal 'rigid wheelbase' and a whole lot fewer issues with steam-line routing and clearance.
Something else to do (although it would be a bit tedious) would be to use the Bissel formula combined with weight distribution to figure out exactly where the pivot point, steering arrangement, and axle spacing of a proper Q1 trailing truck might have been. Normally on a two-axle Delta trailer, you'd have the opportunity to equalize the axles and connect with the levers forward to the engine equalization. That means at least in theory you can space the axles correctly to get proper wheel-to-rail alignment for both axles in curves. Then figure out how to get the longest steering lever arm back to the rear corners that you can shoehorn into your loading gage (it may no longer be fully outboard at the chassis corners).
The firebox on the C1a is exactly that of a Niagara, because the boiler is in all possible dimensions the same as a Niagara (this is specifically mentioned in the May 1945 discussion. The chassis is very similar to the PRR T1 in many dimensions, except that it uses piston valves and Walschaerts gear -- I don't think development of the C1a detail design included whether some dimensions were adapted from what wound up on the PRR T1a, but it "could have been used" and at least for purposes of modelmaking can be.
All you need is proper viscous-clutch conjugation, implementation of the independent via floating lateral calipers and cheek plates (for traction control) and some other tinker to get rid of the effect of high- and low-speed slipping entirely with practicable 1940s technology...
...but the stroke is still too short to prevent stalling, which was the real problem C&O had with the T1. If you have a 6400ihp locomotive, the temptation is going to be to load it to suit the horsepower at your anticipated operating speeds. That will bite you if you combine fixed cutoff with very short stroke and no booster.
The 'more correct' answer in any case if you want side-rod drive is going to be the PRR R2 (which is the S2 with proper suspension to the gearcase, and the planetary transmission patent-specified by Westinghouse in 1948 which gets rid of the ghastly low-speed mass flow and the reverse-turbine shortcomings together.) I don't think there is a showstopping reason you couldn't use this drive on a ten-coupled chassis if you wanted the incremental adhesion.
Jones1945 those seats look ergonomically correct Overmod http://digital.hagley.org/PRR_11454 Knew if I dug into some of the records, I'd find it. This is the S1 backhead view. Such delicate interior! S1 is like a 1925 Rolls-Royce Phantom 1 in my heart.
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