M636CI have "Die Baureihe 61 und der Henschel-Wegmann-Zug" by Alfred Gottwaldt, published by Eisenbahn-Kurier in 2005.
I was lucky to find a copy of that book, although I have not worked through to translate Gottwaldt's sometimes interesting prose.
If I remember correctly some of the description of the retrofitted air shift device is in his larger book on streamlined steam locomotives of the Reichsbahn (Franckh, 1978, I think) and there was a brief discussion of it in a book I can't cite (but with the datum that a stable speed of 81mph was possible with bunker leading, or wasn't possible without the arrangement, I disremember which). Nothing was said (or I didn't see it) regarding stability of the six-wheel truck leading, which leads me to believe it might have been more inherently stable in yaw with better side-bearing locations.
This is one of those things like the heavy torque struts installed on the Roosen 19 1001 motor locomotive, a modification that isn't explicitly discussed but that may be critically important to operational success.
The specific engine with the air adjustment was the German 4-6-4T built to run with the Henschel-Wegmann-Zug trainset (where the locomotive in intended service could easily run around the train for the return trip without having to be wyed or taken to a turntable). I do not remember what the arrangement on the 4-6-6 (which later became a large part of 18 201 if I remember correctly) in this regard was, and I'd like to hear from someone who knows.
What is your reference for this feature?
I have been unable to find any details of 61 001 having anything other than conventional centre pivots on both trucks.
I have "Die Baureihe 61 und der Henschel-Wegmann-Zug" by Alfred Gottwaldt, published by Eisebahn Kurier in 2005. This reproduces the general arrangement drawings of 61 001 as the front endpapers and 61 002 as the rear endpapers, so to a metric A3 size. These both show the front and rear trucks of both locomotives to have conventional centre pivots. Photos of the trucks of both locomotives back this up, the trailing truck of 61 002 having the pivot directly above the centre axle.
Ok just a different kind of Mars light. Yes indeed they do make sense. Car dealerships, some kind of attraction in town, they used those war surplus spot lights to denote something going on and the location. Pretty obvious and easy to see anywhere in town and some distance away.
gmpullman I can't say that the vertical lamp in the Comet was stationary or oscillating. Perhaps someone here knows?
Never heard it was anything but fixed.
Kratville has a discussion of the UP use of this idea on early Streamliners.
The basic idea always seemed appealing to me: the vertical beam showed where the head end of the speeding train would be, as well as indicating to 'the public' that a special high-speed train was approaching a given crossing. It does not seem that any railroad that tried them retained them for any length of time, however, whether the beam were vertical or angled (as on the "400" in Ed's picture). The usual reference says they were 'ineffectual' but doesn't go into much reason why.
MiningmanWhat is the tight beam of light projecting straight up from the Comet?
Yes, indeed. Scroll about 2/3 down here:
http://mikes.railhistory.railfan.net/r012.html
It seems some railroads embraced the vertical "searchlight" beam. Similar to the C-P FP-7 & 9 roof-mounted Mars lights and the C&NW 400 Pacifics as shown below. I can't say that the vertical lamp in the Comet was stationary or oscillating. Perhaps someone here knows?
CNW_400_Chi by Edmund, on Flickr
The Comet also sported a siren!
Regards, Ed
Beautiful, stunning. All of them.
What is the tight beam of light projecting straight up from the Comet?
— a little eye candy.
CP_FP-4040 by Edmund, on Flickr
NYNHnH_Comet1935 by Edmund, on Flickr
Pullman by Edmund, on Flickr
Express by Edmund, on Flickr
Thank You,
Regards — Ed
If I am not mistaken, the plane in the UAL poster is a DC-4, which probably cruised under 250MPH. The DC-6's and DC-7's could cruise faster as they were pressurized and could operate efficiently at higher true airspeed (though similar indicated air speed).
Miningman Hmmm.. thanks Penny Some more very cool posters Can HSR beat 22.5 hours when built to Hawaii because of the Green New Deal outlawing air travel!
Hmmm.. thanks Penny
Some more very cool posters
Can HSR beat 22.5 hours when built to Hawaii because of the Green New Deal outlawing air travel!
Imagine doesn't hurt! The fastest HSR operating right now could hit 218 to 248mph, that would take the train about 19 hours to travel from Chicago to Hawaii on a straight track. For the Hyperloop, that would be within 6 hours.
Jones 3D Modeling Club https://www.youtube.com/Jones3DModelingClub
Good stuff all around!
Thanks for the info Becky. Sounds silly, but if some people have dirty minds what can you do?
The posters are great! Educational too, I didn't know Air France had a flying boat service.
And of course we can't beat Overmod's and M636C's engineering expertise.
Now if we could only get Mike back...
Thanks all!
Overmod ...The specific engine with the air adjustment was the German 4-6-4T built to run with the Henschel-Wegmann-Zug trainset (where the locomotive in intended service could easily run around the train for the return trip without having to be wyed or taken to a turntable). I do not remember what the arrangement on the 4-6-6 (which later became a large part of 18 201 if I remember correctly) in this regard was, and I'd like to hear from someone who knows...
...The specific engine with the air adjustment was the German 4-6-4T built to run with the Henschel-Wegmann-Zug trainset (where the locomotive in intended service could easily run around the train for the return trip without having to be wyed or taken to a turntable). I do not remember what the arrangement on the 4-6-6 (which later became a large part of 18 201 if I remember correctly) in this regard was, and I'd like to hear from someone who knows...
I love the discussion about locomotive trucks and suspensions. I am still looking for a closeup photo or drawing of the "trailing truck" of the DRG 61 001 and 002. On the brass model of the 002 (4-6-6), the steel pin was set between the second and the third axle of the 6-wheel truck. I believe it was more complicated in real life.
Miningman 3) The Dude can show you the Prairies and how to look like this
3) The Dude can show you the Prairies and how to look like this
Volunteer at a railway museum, it's that easy! But your shirt will get a lot dirtier than that!
I'd love to fit a flying boat in here too, but unfortunately the pond out back isn't quite big enough for it.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
2) NDG can be your guide!
4) Now this is a cool poster
In a documentary about the Super Chief narrated by Michael Gross they mention a timetable that had to be recalled because the image of a waiter was "suggestive". What it was, was a shadow on the man's pants, but it looked a bit on the pornographic side for the time. I've seen the photo in question and today no one would care. But, needless to say, that particular timetable is in high demand among collectors.
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
Mod-man, when it comes to engineering you certainly know your stuff!
Flintlock76All I knew was a they tried a 4-4-4, it didn't work, it scrambled the head-end crews brains at speed, so they reverted to a 4-4-2, which did work.
Here's the relatively short version, and it's important to remember that the 'modern' two-wheel truck as we know it hadn't been invented at that point; the design of trailing trucks was not much advanced beyond the original dodge of using smaller wheels in a 4-6-0 chassis to produce a 4-4-2, and some part of that was use of Cartazzi-style axleboxes to produce the effect of radial steer without positive weight-assisted guiding (as would become a fundamental principle of the Delta truck, which you should study if you're unfamiliar with it). There was a brief excited flowering of various kinds of patent trailing truck that, with more or less success, managed weight distribution and good guiding together, sometimes with complex and lightweight systems of levers and framing. Some of these worked quite well: the N&W in particular kept fabricated trucks on the streamlined Mountains, which would make little sense if they didn't perform 'as advertised' with decent maintenance.
As far as I can tell, the Reading decided to minimize all the adjustment and maintenance involved with a fabricated trailing-truck arrangement by going to a simple and parts-saving expedient: use the same pin-guided truck on the front under the firebox. This had been tried on the largest locomotives in Europe only a couple of years earlier (which is why a 'Baltic' has pin-guided trucks on both ends, but a 'Hudson' has a Bissel on the rear, by convention) and apparently there was no perceived problem with putting a frame socket and side bearings under the ashpan (it wouldn't be until Woodard in the early '20s that the idea of getting structure out from under a big ashpan and adequate free air for a big firebox would become famous design points).
The problem is that a pin guided truck leading is dynamically stable, even if the only restoring force applied to it is lateral springing rather than some arrangement of levers or rockers to use weight as a restoring force. This has been known from at least the time of Adams ... but no one seems to have done much thinking about precisely why "rolling out the road" was good design. A pin-guided trailing truck is not dynamically stable unless (1) its pivot is ahead of the first axle, and (2) there is effective steering of at least the trailing axle directly (not indirectly via the pivot and the side-bearing friction). This was of course grossly exaggerated on the Reading engine by the short rigid wheelbase and the probable lack of adequate overbalance (or whatever) to remove high nosing force at speed.
Moving the pin acts to 'bias' the truck so it "trails" whichever way the locomotive is going, and this also helps damp any resonant augment that comes up when the flanges try to 'walk' the truck at high speed (btw, attempting to control this with friction at the 'center pivot' doesn't work any better than it does for freight cars.)
Returning to the fast Atlantics, we do see some European four-coupled tank engines (notably some in Hungary) that depended on good guiding in either direction. Most of the ones I've seen were in commuter service where true high speed might not have been seen ... but I believe high peak speeds, perhaps as high as the 80mph range, were at least contemplated.
No disrespect intended toward the Reading, they were a class act. As a matter of fact they were once referred to as "The most exclusive men's club in Pennsylvania!"
All I knew was a they tried a 4-4-4, it didn't work, it scrambled the head-end crews brains at speed, so they reverted to a 4-4-2, which did work. That's all.
I didn't know about the Germans, but I'm not surprised they made it work, they could make just about everything work. Hey, the people in the old Eastern Bloc countries used to say "Those damn Germans! They even make Communism work!"
At least until the Berlin Wall came down and East Germany died a long-overdue death, and the dirty little secret came out. They couldn't make Communism work either!
Flintlock76And it goes without saying the CP made the 4-4-4 concept work when the Reading couldn't.
Whoa there, buddy! That was a wrongheaded experiment in the first place (pin-guided truck, before the invention of even the original defective Delta truck), and Reading never had the need for a four-wheel truck even on a six-coupled express locomotive all the way to 1948. (On the other hand, when given the opportunity to specify power for a 5-car lightweight express train, they adapted Pacifics rather than going to the contemporary four-coupled high-speed option)
The Germans were the ones who 'figured out' how to make double pin-guided trucks work stably at high speed -- it involves using an air cylinder to physically slide the pin location relative to the rigid wheelbase.
Reading is also famous for their clever approach to putting heavy control springs on the lead axle of a 2-10-0 to "improve stability". As I recall, on the first test the arrangement worked so disastrously that after about 50 miles the spring assistance was physically welded out of contact. (Can you say "inadequate snubbing or damping"? I knew you could...)
There's no particular wizardry in using a four-wheel truck on a four-coupled locomotive... except that you have to wonder if it were truly necessary. (Lima certainly would have thought so.) Remember that this has comparatively little to do with considerations of 'adequate grate area' even for indifferent coal firing -- it's the carried weight of all the firebox and chamber paraphernalia, including syphons to augment circulation and radiant uptake area.
Most railroads faced with this would (and I suspect did) just add the third axle to produce a Hudson, which in most cases would give a much more flexible locomotive. The brief era of four-coupled for true high speed was largely over by the late Thirties (except in the minds of the folks at PRR), as was the market for those locomotives (as successful streamliners rapidly became too large for them to pull reliably).
You will note that although CN had 80"-drivered Hudsons, CP did not. Canadians know why.
Penny Trains Flintlock76 It never would have passed a censor in the '30s! Ever hear about the Santa Fe timetable recall?
Flintlock76 It never would have passed a censor in the '30s!
Ever hear about the Santa Fe timetable recall?
Uh, no. That's a new one on me.
I do remember when the Virginia Railway Express, a Washington D.C commuter service was established here in the '90s one of the rejected ads for the same was...
"Easy in, easy out, with the Virginia Railway Express!"
They thought it was a little risque'.
Please enlighten us!
Flintlock76It never would have passed a censor in the '30s!
Cool engines those Jubilees, a nice blend of American and British practice into something uniquely Canadian.
And it goes without saying the CP made the 4-4-4 concept work when the Reading couldn't.
The Louis Marx toy company was fond of the Jubilees too, check this out...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A2OJ5gDDx4
Thank You.
Miningman 3) Another poster featuring the S1. If nothing else it certainly projected power and the future ( alas not to be )
3) Another poster featuring the S1. If nothing else it certainly projected power and the future ( alas not to be )
This was probably one of the last poster featuring the S1. "The Great All-Weather Fleet" replaced the much more elegant branding "Fleet of Modernism", the scaled down T1 would replace the S1 as the new face of Pennsy but didn't last very long.
One mystery remains unsolved: Pennsy never placed the Keystone number plate on the S1 (and the Loewy K4s as well).
One of my new favorites, the SP SunBeam:
https://www.classicstreamliners.com/npt-sunbeam.html
I was under the impression that "Peter Witt" was more of a generic term describing the interior layout of a car, such as "Pay As You Enter". Specifically, Peter Witt was, IIRC, a commisioner of the Cleveland street railways and the prime manufacturer would likely have been Kuhlman.
Yeah I would have to agree with you on the Peter Witt ad. Not sure the company would direct ads to the public, be more inside the industrY, trade magazines and such. It's kind of fun though .
Super posters, especially the "Crusader" and the "Jubilee."
The "Peter Witt?" That looks like one of the currently-produced slightly salacious "gag" posters produced for todays railfan market. It never would have passed a censor in the '30s!
1) Forward vision in a 'short' dome is always the best!
2) The recently discussed Reading Crusader
3) A saucy Peter Witt Ad
4) Canadian Pacific loved their 4-4-4 Jubilees. Thinking this is for the Edmonton-Calgary service.. looks like Prairie and big sky.
Gorgeous! Real "Antiques Roadshow" material!
I wonder what the originals are worth, if you could luck into one?
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