Trains.com

CPR Steam Last stand ..1960 Royal Hudsons

12436 views
145 replies
1 rating 2 rating 3 rating 4 rating 5 rating
  • Member since
    September 2003
  • 21,669 posts
Posted by Overmod on Tuesday, March 19, 2019 7:06 AM

NDG
Streamlining? http://www.trainweb.org/oldtimetrains/photos/cpr_steam/S.L.%202.JPG

For when you absolutely, positively, have to get shopped locomotives to their stalls overnight.  Without getting smoke in your eyes going into the roundhouse at high speed -- thanks, NRC!

Does S.L.2 denote "shop locomotive"?  (And isn't it amusing there apparently was no "S.L.1"?)  This was the Weston shop switcher after 1930.  Rebuilt out of what was originally a compound 4-6-0 of 1892.

To me, shows great pride and interest even in small details.

Was not scrapped, apparently, until 1958.  Certainly a shame it was not preserved. 

  • Member since
    September 2013
  • 6,199 posts
Posted by Miningman on Tuesday, March 19, 2019 10:23 AM

1892, imagine that. Certainly shows the pride and skill of the shop.

Ran across this, another rather surprising shop switcher. 

Yes, that is the its number! 0000 is used for shop work. Winnipeg 11/20.2004 Terry May 
Ex MP-1 ex 401, ex 7601 nee 7254 SW900 GMD A1385 3/1958

 

 

 

 

  • Member since
    June 2012
  • 284 posts
Posted by Fr.Al on Tuesday, March 19, 2019 3:48 PM

[quote user="Overmod"]

 

 
Miningman
Here is a one-of only... A Jubilee in the freight paint scheme of all black. The logic of a high speed passenger locomotive used in freight haulage escapes me. The second batch built were not the 'real ones' as designed. They were hand fired to boot which must have been quite the workout. I have posted a pic a while ago of a Jubilee pulling 60 cars on the Smith Falls division. Must have been an ordeal getting underway.

 

 
Miningman
Here is a one-of only... A Jubilee in the freight paint scheme of all black. The logic of a high speed passenger locomotive used in freight haulage escapes me. The second batch built were not the 'real ones' as designed. They were hand fired to boot which must have been quite the workout. I have posted a pic a while ago of a Jubilee pulling 60 cars on the Smith Falls division. Must have been an ordeal getting underway.

The thing to remember here is that the 'small' Jubilees were not intended as high-speed anything; they were smaller and more economical power with the same sort of 'overkill' in firebox capacity as the Lima 4-8-6 style designs were at larger scale.

Illinois Central had quite a history of designing and modifying locomotives for freight service, some of which I believe we were discussing a few days ago: converting high-drivered Atlantics and Pacifics with ridiculous-seeming lower drivers (with no reduction of nominal cylinder dimensions!) as well as constructing a freight-only 4-6-4 (for fast limited-length manifest service, something that merits its own discussion).  These were not particularly intended as 'dual-service' and I suspect it was understood that engineers would use care in starting.

SP had some interesting elderly Atlantics equipped with boosters (I believe they were 81"-drivered to boot!) that were observed running trains that seem in the realm of fiction -- is not one of these described in that trains-of-the-1940s book we discussed a while ago?

In Britain it was well-recognized that a good 4-6-0 could cover any service assigned to a nominally-larger Pacific -- the difference being in things 'other than performance'.  It does not surprise me that a good 4-4-4 could start a train of 60 loads, and of course that it could "pull any train it could start".  Of course that presumes knowledgeable and professional enginemen,  

Liima never actually built a 4-8-6, did they? I think there was a proposal for a 4-10-6, which never saw the light of day.

NDG
  • Member since
    December 2013
  • 1,620 posts
Posted by NDG on Tuesday, March 19, 2019 4:05 PM

 

For when you absolutely, positively, have to get shopped locomotives to their stalls overnight.  Without getting smoke in your eyes going into the roundhouse at high speed -- thanks, NRC!

 

 

The following from Above IS Funny!!
 
" For when you absolutely, positively, have to get shopped locomotives to their stalls overnight.  Without getting smoke in your eyes going into the roundhouse at high speed -- thanks, NRC! "
 
Streamlining for the short distance to the the Stop Blocks w @ Santa Fe coupled rolling free! 
 
 
 
CN
 
When alluding to CN 7311 and it's Steam Chest Throttles, I was asking if there were more than one locomotive so Applied? as in a Global Context?? 
 

 

The Kit-Bash Linkage would be very noticeable, if duplicated.
 
A Nadir Day for me, and you made me laugh!
 
FYI.
 
 

Thank You, Sir.

  • Member since
    January 2019
  • From: Henrico, VA
  • 9,728 posts
Posted by Flintlock76 on Tuesday, March 19, 2019 6:47 PM

No-one ever built a 4-8-6 Father, not in this country anyway.  Overseas, maybe.

There was a proposed Lima 4-8-6 and I believe drawings were made, but the project never got anywhere. 

There were,  however, some 4-6-6's!  Watch closely, but ignore the music, it doesn't suit the geographic location at all!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07dxgFsKZCY  

  • Member since
    September 2003
  • 21,669 posts
Posted by Overmod on Tuesday, March 19, 2019 7:49 PM

Fr.Al
Lima never actually built a 4-8-6, did they? I think there was a proposal for a 4-10-6, which never saw the light of day.

This is actually two things.

Lima did, in fact, go a long way toward actually building a 4-8-6; Col. Townsend was actively advertising it long beyond the practical end of new steam-locomotive orders, and in my opinion it was really the consummation of the BLH merger (and the nearly-immediate utter disassembly of Lima as a builder) that kept at least one developed design (added to the cleverly-retouched picture in the ad) from being developed.  The double-Belpaire boiler was actually test-fabricated (at 1/4 scale, very large for a model) and in fact survives today in a museum collection.

Meanwhile, a 4-10-6 drawing that I was told was derived as an expanded version of the 4-8-6 was published, I think in Trains Magazine.  I don't remember the actual issue, but someone drew a pencil copy of it which is in the possession of the Casey Jones Museum in Jackson, TN. 

  • Member since
    September 2013
  • 6,199 posts
Posted by Miningman on Tuesday, March 19, 2019 11:16 PM

Really? I do remember that 4-8-6 and they offered steam late in the game in their catalogue. Yeah Lima got the short end of the merger for sure. Did Baldwin not highjack their Centre Cab transfer locomotive as well and sort of flubbed it up. 

Would Lima not have been in a very good cash position at the end of WWII? They certainly had the smarts. They just seemed so independent in their thinking from the rest. If FM could make such a splash you would think Lima could make a bigger one. Was there any development at all toward a road Diesel besides the road switchers LRS-1200's for NYC and those monster transfer units? 

Well one things for sure, they sure knew how to build a long lasting powerful and beautiful steam locomotive many of which are still with us. SP, T&P, C&O, PM, NKP the Diamond builders plate lives on.

 

  • Member since
    January 2019
  • From: Henrico, VA
  • 9,728 posts
Posted by Flintlock76 on Wednesday, March 20, 2019 8:41 AM

Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton.

Why does that remind me of three drowning men grabbing each other in a vain attempt to keep their heads above water?

Sad.

  • Member since
    September 2003
  • 21,669 posts
Posted by Overmod on Wednesday, March 20, 2019 5:44 PM

Miningman
Was there any development at all toward a road Diesel besides the road switchers LRS-1200's for NYC and those monster transfer units?

Therein lies, in my opinion, the secret of what happened to all the 'advanced' steam being developed by them in the late Forties.  It involves something called the free-piston engine.

This involved using pistons in cylinders solely as a gas generator, running the resulting combustion gas through a turbine.  Reasonably good success was had with this in making air compressors for submarines in the Thirties, in Germany, and among the entities embracing this nifty idea as producing very high, very scalable rail horsepower at diesel economy and quite low mass per hp was the Hamilton Engine Company.  Personally I suspect Lima, interested in Super-Power, acquired Hamilton for this instead of their reliable old boat-anchor line of switcher-class inline motors; I also suspect that this was the underlying jewel in the crown for the acquisition of Lima-Hamilton by tired old Baldwin and their Westinghouse taskmasters.

This is the great age of the diesel-hydraulic, for great lightness in passenger power, as well as the short period the great Ingalls combine was considering the Bowes drive for light, effective drive in a relatively small 2000hp PA competitor.  And you see repeated reference into the early 1950s about a 4000hp free-piston engine from them ... as well as reference to free-piston rail developments elsewhere in the world.

All this came to a screeching halt (pun not exactly unintended) sometime in the middle Fifties, when issues with intake noise and stroke synchronization noise made high-power free-piston gas generators a VERY unpleasant subject.  GM actually went so far as to build a carbody for their version (look up "FG9") before It Became Abundantly Clear The Neighbors Would Complain.

Baldwin, meanwhile, having experimented with high-speed German engines and Mekydro transmission as a (decidedly dubious!) alternative to soon-to-be-deprecated Westinghouse railroad electricals, and then losing a large PRR second-generation order to EMD, gave up on domestic production entirely, even in 'their own name'.  And most of the rest is predictable history, except for the premature orphaning and death of the Lima-Hamilton switcher and road-switcher line, which was truly unfortunate -- my understanding is their build quality was literally second to none in most respects.  If pathetically underpowered by actual Lima locomotive standards...

  • Member since
    September 2013
  • 6,199 posts
Posted by Miningman on Wednesday, March 20, 2019 8:10 PM

Thank you Overmod for that perspective on the way things unfolded.

Yes long time and faithful friend Pennsy snubbed their go to builder Baldwin with a contract award for 600 Geeps to EMD opposite Baldwins tender of an equivalent number of RF or AS something's. This was all for the last push in the Dieselization across the system. 

Obviously it was clear to Pennsy by that time that depending on  600 more Baldwin locomotives out there would be a nightmare. 

Likely Alco was given lip service consideration as their, lets say, PA's were giving them fits and really no match in reliability to EMD. It would have been spiffy though to see 600 RS-18 types out there instead of Geeps. 

So perhaps the Lima-Hamilton company seemed a good thing and  should have rebuked and fought off anything to do with anyone else. 

Who knows what they could have come up with on their own, even with advanced steam designs that were being touted elsewhere in the world. 

  • Member since
    January 2002
  • 4,612 posts
Posted by M636C on Thursday, March 21, 2019 3:26 AM
When alluding to CN 7311 and it's Steam Chest Throttles, I was asking if there were more than one locomotive so Applied? as in a Global Context?? 
 
 
This view shows the steampipe throttles applied to "push-pull" fitted BR Class 2 2-6-2T locomotives. These were vacuum operated using the locomotive vacuum brake system.
 
This allowed the train driver riding in a coach at the opposite end of the train to cut off steam to the cylinders when stopping the train. Very similar valves were applied to the almost identical LMS Ivatt Class 2 2-6-2T locomotives.
 
The view above shows the system , which appears to include a counterbalance weight.
 
Peter 
 
  • Member since
    April 2018
  • 1,618 posts
Posted by Jones1945 on Thursday, March 21, 2019 9:25 AM

A rendering of C&O 4-8-6

In the book "Perfecting the American Steam Locomotive" By J. Parker Lamb, page 166, there is a "rendering" of C&O J3a using rotary cam poppet valve, double Belpaire firebox and a 6-wheel trailing truck frame with only 2 wheels on one side. The author mentions that Lima didn't put a lot of effort to promote the new engine but a model of double Belpaire firebox was built within 1948.

Lima probably couldn't find enough railroad to invest their 4-8-6 and could smell a dead-end of steam engine ahead. Therefore, they changed their approach and tried to interest the NYCRR to replace the boiler of their Hudson with the double Belpaire firebox. The book is available on Google Books. Coffee

  • Member since
    September 2003
  • 21,669 posts
Posted by Overmod on Thursday, March 21, 2019 10:09 AM

M636C
The view above shows the system , which appears to include a counterbalance weight.

Unless I'm badly mistaken, that's the vacuum diaphragm housing.  Look carefully in the shadow "below" for the vertical pipe connection.

At one time I had some technical details on these in conjunction with discussions on 'steam locomotive MUing'.  For some reason I'm now having difficulty finding the references again.  Can someone please post links?

  • Member since
    April 2018
  • 1,618 posts
Posted by Jones1945 on Thursday, March 21, 2019 11:14 AM

Overmod

Unless I'm badly mistaken, that's the vacuum diaphragm housing.  Look carefully in the shadow "below" for the vertical pipe connection.

At one time I had some technical details on these in conjunction with discussions on 'steam locomotive MUing'.  For some reason I'm now having difficulty finding the references again.  Can someone please post links?

In your last respond of this thread "Steam that could have been" on Trains dot com forum: 

http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/740/t/228310.aspx?sortorder=desc&page=2 

you mention about MUing and "...Note that much of the automatic control in the Cook '219 patent was presaged by Doble's and Besler's work on steam automobiles." Is that the reference you are looking for? Coffee

 

 

  • Member since
    September 2003
  • 21,669 posts
Posted by Overmod on Thursday, March 21, 2019 1:03 PM

Jones1945
In your last respond of this thread "Steam that could have been" on Trains dot com forum:

http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/740/t/228310.aspx?sortorder=desc&page=2

you mention about MUing and "...Note that much of the automatic control in the Cook '219 patent was presaged by Doble's and Besler's work on steam automobiles." Is that the reference you are looking for?

No.  The patent involved is this one from 1936, involving at least semi-automated firing.  What we are considering here are the arrangements used to control steam, both throttle and cutoff, when there is no 'hand' in the cab.  The British 'auto-trains' and the LBE sets in Germany feature this, and there are references that show some of the apparatus used.

This in turn is separate from the experiments done in the early Twenties to provide automatic proportional cutoff (something that becomes easier and somewhat more precise still if you have Valve Pilot installed and properly calibrated) and the approach Franklin Railway Supply used with the type-D conversion for USATC (components for the 'kit' made by Vulcan in Wilkes-Barre!) in the late '40s.

  • Member since
    April 2018
  • 1,618 posts
Posted by Jones1945 on Thursday, March 21, 2019 1:51 PM

Too bad... In case our newcomer or lurker doesn't know how push-pull steam train operated in the UK, please take a look at this animation (not my video):

A picture of the driving cab at the front of the autocoach. This is the place for the engineer to control the steam engine which is in the middle of the consist:

http://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/bluebell/locos/vis/1450/ericn_drives_kenu_16feb08h.jpg

Coffee

NDG
  • Member since
    December 2013
  • 1,620 posts
Posted by NDG on Thursday, March 21, 2019 3:20 PM

 

FWIW.
 
 
Re. Streamlining.
 
Near the End.
 
 
Another.
 
CN 6060 Class approaching Dorval from the West.
 
 
From Here.
 
 
 

Thank You.

 

  • Member since
    September 2013
  • 6,199 posts
Posted by Miningman on Thursday, March 21, 2019 11:27 PM

Yeah what's so striking about the Canadian experience with the end of steam was the great variety of engine types, the sheer numbers as they were everywhere, the full roundhouses, the condition and appearance of most all of them being kept up so nice. Steam was everywhere in abundance 1957, wee bit less 1958 but still plenty of variety and common and early 1959 still. It was that summer and fall you really saw the difference as entire roundhouses full simply vanished.

We have heard these observations from visitors to London and Niagara Falls. One weekend steam everywhere and bustling and the very next weekend everything is gone and only Diesels. Just like that. 

As NDG has pointed out some in new paint, still wet, beautifully maintained. CNR engines freshly shopped out of Stratford. Hundreds of small light engines serving branch lines up in the Bruce Pennisula overnight ..gone. 

Both CNR and CPR ...big systems, purged on one fatal date on the calendar ... and by mutual agreement! 

Familiar engines, familiar numbers. That is what was so traumatic.

As NDG stated, we waited, watched and listened.

A last late flurry around Montreal of a select few and then all went quiet. Stories of a run from Winnipeg to Kenora, was it true? 

Then the roundhouses, the water tank, the coal towers, the watchmans tower.

Then the passenger trains and the colours, maroon and green/gold. Then the telegraph wire, familiar freight cars, the station.

It was steam and all those engines that we knew that hurt the most. When the curtains closed on the theatre and the new show began it was only a mere shadow of its former self. 

You can't fool an old horse fly. 

  • Member since
    June 2012
  • 284 posts
Posted by Fr.Al on Friday, March 22, 2019 8:32 AM

I could be wrong, but I wasn't aware that Canada had a great variety of steam locomotives to begin with. CT not so long ago carried an article about Canda's only Mallets, later rebuilt.

      Certainly the beautifully streamlined Selkirks, Hudson's, and Jubilees were unique. The latter wheel arrangement I the States was found only on the Reading. Still, it must have been thrilling for US fans to experience Canadian steam at its finest during those last years.

NDG
  • Member since
    December 2013
  • 1,620 posts
Posted by NDG on Friday, March 22, 2019 1:50 PM

 

Streamlining.
 
 
Going Going........
 
From a wealth of photos.
 
 
Thank You.
 
  • Member since
    September 2013
  • 6,199 posts
Posted by Miningman on Friday, March 22, 2019 3:58 PM

Fr. Al.--Well yeah. Besides 4-4-0s. 0-4-0's, 0-6-0's, 0-8-0's, 0-10-0's, 2-6-0's, 2-8-0's , 2-8-2's, 2-10-2's, 4-6-0's, 0-10-2's, 4-6-0's 4-8-0's 4-6-4's, 4-6-2's, 4-8-4's, 2-10-4's, 4-8-2's, 2-8-4's, and most all of those in numerous sub classes from a plethora of builders, experimental things , Shays, Hieslers and Climax's and probably some more that  I left off, yeah not much variety. 

Such a small land, only between the Atlantic and Pacific and up to the Arctic Ocean just doesn't require variety!  But yes we didn't need no stinkin' mallets. 

PS I see I forgot the 2-6-2 Prairie Type.. not terribly popular or in great numbers but there would have been had the CNR's post war order of 300 of them happened... that would have been most interesting! 

  • Member since
    September 2003
  • 21,669 posts
Posted by Overmod on Saturday, March 23, 2019 7:04 AM

.

  • Member since
    September 2003
  • 21,669 posts
Posted by Overmod on Saturday, March 23, 2019 7:07 AM

Canada had 0-10-2s?  Let me see the pictures!  (Rebuilt from 2-10-2s?)

  • Member since
    January 2002
  • 4,612 posts
Posted by M636C on Saturday, March 23, 2019 8:58 AM

PS I see I forgot the 2-6-2 Prairie Type.. not terribly popular or in great numbers but there would have been had the CNR's post war order of 300 of them happened... that would have been most interesting! 

For some reason in various parts of the world not neccesarily communicating with eachother, the 2-6-2 was seen as the "way ahead"

In Poland, East and West Germany and even Japan new designs of 2-6-2 were prepared or built.

In West Germany, there was a 2-6-2 version of the Class 10 three cylinder Pacific seriously considered.

This might have related to the use of roller bearings reducing the risk of load related bearing failure and better methods of side control....

Peter

 

  • Member since
    September 2013
  • 6,199 posts
Posted by Miningman on Saturday, March 23, 2019 9:16 AM

in ...... Added (scroll down to links between yellow charts) 0-10-2 yard engine with cut ...

Overmod.. it's in here somewhere.

 
I'll find it if someone else doesn't soon enough. But I do see I forgot the 2-10-0's which were rebuilt from those 0-6-6-0 Mallets. 

 

  • Member since
    September 2013
  • 6,199 posts
Posted by Miningman on Saturday, March 23, 2019 9:46 AM

Overmod-- Here you go 

  • Member since
    June 2012
  • 284 posts
Posted by Fr.Al on Saturday, March 23, 2019 10:04 AM

What was that unusual Camelback we discussed a few months ago? Wasn't that a 0-10-2?

  • Member since
    September 2013
  • 6,199 posts
Posted by Miningman on Saturday, March 23, 2019 10:35 AM

1026 (re# 3230) Only 2-8-0 Camelback. Built by Richmond Locomotive Works #2804 3/1899 
Built as a compound with Wooten firebox to burn anthracite coal. 
This engine and five D11 camelback 4-6-0's all worked west out of Medicine Hat.

Only Camelbacks in Canada were these. Perhaps you were thinking of a Tank Locomotive of the St. Clair Tunnel Company, Grand Trunk RR which actually started life as a Camelback. They were 0-10-0's

600 0-10-0T specs. and photo credit Later rebuilt with tender. See below. 

St.Clair Tunnel Co. 1304 (ex 601) 0-10-0 Decapod with side tanks removed (1898) and tender added. 
Cyl. 22" x 28" Drv. 50" Press. 160 lbs. t.e. 58,500 One of four built as 0-10-0T Camelback by Baldwin 1891

 

  • Member since
    June 2012
  • 284 posts
Posted by Fr.Al on Saturday, March 23, 2019 10:46 AM

Yes, that's the engine I WAS thinking of.

  • Member since
    September 2013
  • 6,199 posts
Posted by Miningman on Saturday, March 23, 2019 3:28 PM

M636C--.Thanks for 2-6-2 Prairie type input. Logically you would think the 2-6-2 was a real winner and as popular as a Mike would be but that never happened. Just about everybody had a few, a very few, and they never caught on. 

I think they were an example of 'un-optimized' , if that's even a word, circumstance. What seems good actually is the worst of the features of those types bracketing it.

Something must have occurred in technology advances, as Peter has stated specifically, that fixed deficiencies and suddenly put them, post war, in a great light again.

Perhaps Overmod can shed some bright light on why they seemed to be such a weak sister and their sudden rock star status that never happened. 

SUBSCRIBER & MEMBER LOGIN

Login, or register today to interact in our online community, comment on articles, receive our newsletter, manage your account online and more!

FREE NEWSLETTER SIGNUP

Get the Classic Trains twice-monthly newsletter