Jones1945Thank you everyone for the great effort. I thought it was Pullman who built the lightweight train set for B&O in 1935, but it was ACF instead. Those cars look great when new but they really remind me of commuter cars because of their size.
My understanding was the Pullman built one trainset and ACF built the other trainset. They were near identical as possible despite the differences in main construction materials.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
It's not June any more, you're still mistaken, we've all long since moved on. But since this is your thread I removed the post in question.
Friends tell friends if they think they're wrong. Friends also know there's no sin if they ignore what they get told.
We certainly need to get back to discussing Cincinnati if the thread continues.
Overmod advise you correct the error of your ways even if you choose not to follow everyone else's convention. There is no such thing as a generic noun for a type name, and never has been; even generic copouts like Ten-Wheeler are properly capitalized...
advise you correct the error of your ways even if you choose not to follow everyone else's convention. There is no such thing as a generic noun for a type name, and never has been; even generic copouts like Ten-Wheeler are properly capitalized...
Dear oh dear. I arrive back from Kuala Lumpur after few weeks contentious work looking forward to relaxing and catching up on these forums and this is the welcoming sight that greets me.
Let's have a recap here. We were all breezily discussing CUT in the good old days and of course this had diverged and converged a few times – excellent – and a member noted that he hadn’t seen a decent picture of the bogies used on the Royal Blue so I added a link and used the word baltic, all lower case, hoping I may be helping the fellow out. This word seemed to provoke quite an abnormal reaction and I disagreed with this. I still do. Thought no more of it and went off to work in the Far East.
Obviously not agreeing was deemed out of bounds as I am now being treated to grammar lessons on a railroad forum, not an English language one, but again I disagree with the analysis. The use of the word baltic referred to the whole and not the specific and is a common noun and is therefore not capitalised.
What has not been contemplated here though is the very real possibility that I simply didn’t hold down the shift key. I am guilty of that. Most of us are at times. Had that been what had happened would it seem reasonable to give such sneering advice? No. That is never acceptable, we are meant to be interacting here as peers.
One final thing. I won’t be reading this thread again, so………..
Thank you everyone for the great effort. I thought it was Pullman who built the lightweight train set for B&O in 1935, but it was ACF instead. Those cars look great when new but they really remind me of commuter cars because of their size.
Jones 3D Modeling Club https://www.youtube.com/Jones3DModelingClub
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I'm afraid we will need to agree to disagree on this one. As far as I am concerned any 4-6-4 is a baltic. I understand that there are sub-sets to be considered but generically the name applied to a particular wheel arrangement takes it's genesis from the first user. In this case it was first known as a baltic from the French. The first 4-6-4 wheel arrangement as I understand it in the US was on the NYC who then named it Hudson. To me that doesn't change the generic term.
TheFlyingScotsman,...there is some footage of the 1935 Royal Blue pulled by the Lord Baltimore Baltic.
Cor-Ten set or the aluminum [note, American so spelled thus] IDK but if someone can point out the difference...
According to White there is very little difference externally between the aluminum and copper-bearing steel construction, but there is a pronounced difference in weight.
Re the trucks:
I had a look through the ACF archive but I couldn't find anything about the Royal Blue specifically, having read the following:
"In the 1935 the PRR fully completed its electrification and that same year saw the B&O purchase two streamlined trainsets from the American Car & Foundry via a loan from the U.S. Reconstruction Finance Corporation"
There are many many cars from that era and likewise hi-def pictures of their trucks and I am thinking most likely those cars wouldn't have bespoke trucks so you may well find a match from the picture in there.
Here's the link to the archive:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/barrigerlibrary/albums/72157649155982802
I am quite sure you fellas will have seen this before, but just in case there is some footage of the 1935 Royal Blue pulled by the Lord Baltimore baltic. Cor-ten set or the aluminiun IDK but if someone can point out the difference I would be interested.
Go to circa 2:45
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp3CtLzDrao
coalminer3 Have really enjoyed reading all of these posts. I recall Cincinnati very well; a magnificent building which I was fortunate to see before the murals got moved and the structure was "modified." Made more than a few trips to and from Cincinnati on the L&N's "Pan American." It provided a nice connection to the N&W's "Pocahonas" whiixh carried a 10/6 sleeper which, correct my memory here, please, if I am wrong, whiich one could get pace for coach fare plus $10.00 which included a dining car meal as well. The "Pocahontas" carried a dome car which provided an interesting perspective of activities in the coalfields of southern WV whoch were a lot busier then they they are now. Change at Roanoke ato ride what was left of the Southern's "Birmingham Special" from there to DC. I also recall trips from New York on the "Spirit of St. Louis/Cincinnati Limited" in the days of PC. This provided a connection to the Pan to get back to Nashville. work safe.
Have really enjoyed reading all of these posts. I recall Cincinnati very well; a magnificent building which I was fortunate to see before the murals got moved and the structure was "modified."
Made more than a few trips to and from Cincinnati on the L&N's "Pan American." It provided a nice connection to the N&W's "Pocahonas" whiixh carried a 10/6 sleeper which, correct my memory here, please, if I am wrong, whiich one could get pace for coach fare plus $10.00 which included a dining car meal as well. The "Pocahontas" carried a dome car which provided an interesting perspective of activities in the coalfields of southern WV whoch were a lot busier then they they are now. Change at Roanoke ato ride what was left of the Southern's "Birmingham Special" from there to DC. I also recall trips from New York on the "Spirit of St. Louis/Cincinnati Limited" in the days of PC. This provided a connection to the Pan to get back to Nashville.
work safe.
Thanks for that.
coalminer3Have really enjoyed reading all of these posts. I recall Cincinnati very well; a magnificent building which I was fortunate to see before the murals got moved and the structure was "modified." Made more than a few trips to and from Cincinnati on the L&N's "Pan American." It provided a nice connection to the N&W's "Pocahonas" whiixh carried a 10/6 sleeper which, correct my memory here, please, if I am wrong, whiich one could get pace for coach fare plus $10.00 which included a dining car meal as well. The "Pocahontas" carried a dome car which provided an interesting perspective of activities in the coalfields of southern WV whoch were a lot busier then they they are now. Change at Roanoke ato ride what was left of the Southern's "Birmingham Special" from there to DC. I also recall trips from New York on the "Spirit of St. Louis/Cincinnati Limited" in the days of PC. This provided a connection to the Pan to get back to Nashville. work safe.
The trip on the Pocahontas would have been subsequent to the 1964 N&W's buying of the Wabash, Nickel Plate as only the Wabash owned dome cars from their operation of The Blue Bird and The City of St.Louis.
rcdryeMany later designs had inner and outer coils "nested" to dampen the bouncing.
One of Nystrom's observations was to really firm up the spring restoring force for some of the high-speed planes of motion. As he was assuming completely passive suspension he came to the hard conclusion (pun not intended, but pretty funny in context) that trucks riding well above 85mph would always be harsh below 40 or so mph. It is highly interesting to look at what is required to build a truck and bolster system that rides well at high and low speed however loaded... still more interesting to make it cost-effective and safe to run in the absence of attentive maintenance.
The real joy in the '30s was the tacit assumption that the track would be little improved over what Juniatha called 'nailed' construction, replete with 39' sticks, luck-of-the-draw tie integrity, etc. We can all recognize when this was lethal to success (e.g. with any of the Michelines in the USA, or the "Eagle of the Rails", but we can also identify it in the Alco Hi-Ad design, 30 years on, when everyone really ought to have known better.
They look a lot like trucks from semi-lightweight commuter coaches of the same period. Nystrom's contemporary Hiawatha trucks had cylindrical rather than tapered treads for high speed service - incidentally also preferred by the North Shore line. Two coils at each end of the equalizer, leaf springs between the spring plank and the bolster. Many later designs had inner and outer coils "nested" to dampen the bouncing. Later photos of the cars on the GM&O suggest that the trucks were replaced at some point by postwar models.
Jones1945 Overmod For full-size cars like the ones B&O got, the 'reference designer' for true high-speed trucks was Nystrom of Milwaukee Hiawatha fame, and one of his conclusions was that a truck optimized for 85mph and above would be necessarily hard riding at lower speeds... this being complicated by the low tare weight. IIRC, the 1935 lightweight Royal Blue was built by Pullman, wasn't it? What happened to the trainsets after the heavyweight betterment cars were assigned to Royal Blue and replaced the lightweight one (or two)? Did B&O assign the lightweight streamlined cars to secondary trains? Thanks a lot. I am also searching for a close-up pic of the truck of the 1935 lightweight Royal Blue but can't find any... It seems there is a pair of springs for each axle box as primary suspension, leaf springs for secondary suspension.
Overmod For full-size cars like the ones B&O got, the 'reference designer' for true high-speed trucks was Nystrom of Milwaukee Hiawatha fame, and one of his conclusions was that a truck optimized for 85mph and above would be necessarily hard riding at lower speeds... this being complicated by the low tare weight.
IIRC, the 1935 lightweight Royal Blue was built by Pullman, wasn't it? What happened to the trainsets after the heavyweight betterment cars were assigned to Royal Blue and replaced the lightweight one (or two)? Did B&O assign the lightweight streamlined cars to secondary trains? Thanks a lot.
I am also searching for a close-up pic of the truck of the 1935 lightweight Royal Blue but can't find any...
It seems there is a pair of springs for each axle box as primary suspension, leaf springs for secondary suspension.
B&O had purchased two lightweight sets. One was put in service on the B&O controlled Alton as the Abraham Lincoln between Chicago and St. Louis. When the second set that had been operating on the B&O as the Royal Blue was determined to be unsatisfactory for that service it was also moved to the Alton and went into service as a companion train to the Abraham Lincoln and was name the Ann Rutledge (a Lincoln girlfriend from Illinois). The box cab diesel engine 50 went to the Alton and later got a 'face lift' to its appearance. EA #52 also went to the Alton. All that equipment was conveyed to the GM&O when the B&O got rid of the Alton.
White covered these in the American Passenger Car (noting that the aluminum train went straight to the Alton for the Abraham Lincoln, and the Cor-Ten train was the one that Lord and Lady Baltimore were built to pull). I don't recall him saying or picturing anything about trucks, and I suspect they reflected pre-Nystrom ideas about high speed (I.e. they were likely just as crappy as the early UP and Pullman 'experiments' in high-speed truck design as described... partly 'between the lines'... in Kratville's book on the Streamliners (which you should have at your elbow as this discussion progresses).
By far the best source is going to be the B&O historical society. There was a reasonably good Yahoo Group on B&O but of course Melissa ruined that; I think they've moved to groups.io but you'll have to join them there by yourself.
I expect in that era to find some analogue of those 'admiral hat' wing axleboxes and relatively long transverse leaf springs for secondary, perhaps made multiple and of varying width to get a better perceived spring rate and snubbing effect for 'soft secondary' across the range of live load in the now-lightweight car construction. But the trucks in your picture look disturbingly like plain old Commonwealth drop-equalizer trucks from the pre-WWI design era...
Look for primitive damping and 'default' compliance, although this was in the era of lots and lots of strategic rubber block stops.
I predict the riding trouble was a combination of short-period hardness conducted up into the drum of the stressed construction and a certain amount of wallow and hunting. Most of the bad stuff eould have been at least 'worked around' with OSH and three-axis struts an so on by the late '40s... but on heavier "streamlined car" construction at full size and height. As noted it would be a while... some might say 'decades'... before actual good riding on bad jointed rail could be passively provided in lightweight construction.
(Incidentally, tell me if you're familiar with the theory of snubbing as opposed to friction or hydraulic damping. This was an essential part of early GG1 suspension design which turned out to be either 'misguided' or inessential... I never really got a definitive answer which one was more significant...)
OvermodFor full-size cars like the ones B&O got, the 'reference designer' for true high-speed trucks was Nystrom of Milwaukee Hiawatha fame, and one of his conclusions was that a truck optimized for 85mph and above would be necessarily hard riding at lower speeds... this being complicated by the low tare weight.
TheFlyingScotsman Overmod TheFlyingScotsman So he was a chef with the B&O? He ran the whole damn department! So is he the J B Martin on this menu? http://www.cincinnativiews.net/images-3/Cincinnatian%20Menus.jpg
Overmod TheFlyingScotsman So he was a chef with the B&O? He ran the whole damn department!
TheFlyingScotsman So he was a chef with the B&O?
He ran the whole damn department!
So is he the J B Martin on this menu?
http://www.cincinnativiews.net/images-3/Cincinnatian%20Menus.jpg
My Grandfather was the predecessor to J B Martin. Superintendent of the B&O Dining and Commisary Department from 1937 to his retirement in September 1957.
The second menu pictured has his name.
TheFlyingScotsmanhave read something about that along the lines that their president didn't think much of the ride quality of the early lighweights and so set about the betterment programme so that the best of both worlds were incorporated and not for the reason of miserliness as some imply.
Remember the early lightweight trains were built in some ignorance of the actual principles needed to smooth suspension and guiding at lower tare weight -- the very early 'motor train' designs with low-profile carbodies (as with the early UP Streamliners) being almost a trial-and-error tinkering -- this being repeated with the unsuccessful 'lightweight trains of the future' in the decade after the Rush To Cincinnati failed to pan out. For full-size cars like the ones B&O got, the 'reference designer' for true high-speed trucks was Nystrom of Milwaukee Hiawatha fame, and one of his conclusions was that a truck optimized for 85mph and above would be necessarily hard riding at lower speeds... this being complicated by the low tare weight.
This would only really be overcome postwar (e.g. with outside swing-hanger trucks with soft secondary and good damping, and later with air suspension in the bolster arrangement) but unless you were running rocket service at sustained high speed a 'one-size-fits-all' mechanical-suspension truck with typical mid-Thirties crappy damping was NOT going to be a good answer.
Heavier car bodies and careful attention to spring rates in a typical six-wheel truck will give you a smoother ride, and while there's much more tare to pull, it's within the capability of the engine... which brings up, perhaps, why there weren't more Lady Baltimores (or 84"-drivered Hudsons... etc.) BUT constant-torque 6000+hp eight-drivered engines for high speed work...
By 1947, a modern six-wheel truck was very different, as was car construction that needed them (some diners, Superdomes, articulated cars, etc.) To my knowledge the B&O rebuilds didn't use any of that stuff. And part of the reason involved money or its relative absence.
TheFlyingScotsmanSo he was a chef with the B&O?
BaltACD Overmod Bet the food was among the best, too. Makes me hungry just thinking My Grandfather would have ensured that!
Overmod Bet the food was among the best, too. Makes me hungry just thinking
My Grandfather would have ensured that!
Overmod Jones1945 Those 12-wheel rebuilt heavyweight betterment cars of B&O are very elegant; beautiful livery and streamlining, probably ride like a Pullman sleeper as well. Remember that B&O got into 'real' lightweight streamlined trains very early. They did not ride satisfactorily and were sent (with the boxcab power) to the Alton. By 1947 B&O had a good evolved sense of what "their" competition in that hottest of developing late-Forties markets -- from somewhere to Cincinnati -- ought to involve. Bet the food was among the best, too. Makes me hungry just thinking
Jones1945 Those 12-wheel rebuilt heavyweight betterment cars of B&O are very elegant; beautiful livery and streamlining, probably ride like a Pullman sleeper as well.
Remember that B&O got into 'real' lightweight streamlined trains very early. They did not ride satisfactorily and were sent (with the boxcab power) to the Alton.
By 1947 B&O had a good evolved sense of what "their" competition in that hottest of developing late-Forties markets -- from somewhere to Cincinnati -- ought to involve.
Bet the food was among the best, too. Makes me hungry just thinking
This is the best site fot the Cincinnatian I have found. The interior renderings are fabulous. What I find fascinating is that all the features of a big daytime top notch streamliner are there but in minature.
http://www.cincinnativiews.net/the_cincinnatian.htm
OvermodBet the food was among the best, too. Makes me hungry just thinking
Jones1945Those 12-wheel rebuilt heavyweight betterment cars of B&O are very elegant; beautiful livery and streamlining, probably ride like a Pullman sleeper as well.
TheFlyingScotsmanThere's great footagr of the Cincinnatian here as well as EM-1s and a streamlined C&O 4-6 4 https://youtu.be/VyoOTgqM76Q
Thank you so much for posting this awesome video. Those 12-wheel rebuilt heavyweight betterment cars of B&O are very elegant; beautiful livery and streamlining, probably ride like a Pullman sleeper as well.
Yes I took that first scene to be the engine change at Grafton too. Mein Gott changed days there alright! And not for the best.
Mount Royal. That's a good tip. I'll look that up I was trying to figure that one out.
What about the big cement plant do you know where that is?
But yes what a period piece....
https://youtu.be/VyoOTgqM76Q
I have watched that video several times. A great testament to the train and its time.
I do wish someone with some B&O geographical knowledge had edited the footage together in geographical order. The opening scene appears to be a engine at Grafton before or after the engine change.
The routine operation of the Cincinnatian had a engine change at Grafton in both directions. There were four streamlined Cincinnatian engines. The routine operations kept three of the four busy on a daily basis. The spare, I believe, was kept around Baltimore and it is highly likely that the four were routinely rotated through the daily operations, with a different 'spare' being in Baltimore each day.
Mt. Royal station that is pictured before the early morning Westbound departure, is now operated by the Maryland Institute of Art.
Thanks BaltACD it's a great simulation isn't it?
I'm lucky enough to have a Key Imports Cincinnattian which is definitely the pride of the fleet. More than that it currently has pride of place on the living room mantle. Not sure my wife is as fond of it as I am though, or the dusting exclusion zone ;D. That was one of the things that drew my curiosity to CUT.
I seem to have come through on the Cardinal in 1988 but at that point in my life knew nothing about Cincinnati at all
There's great footagr of the Cincinnatian here as well as EM-1s and a streamlined C&O 4-6 4
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