Somebody's nit really needed picking. Must have been one of the Witt brothers!
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Firelock76 Does it really, really matter whether Death Valley Scotty's train hit 106mph or not? I can think of a lot more important things to lose sleep over.
Does it really, really matter whether Death Valley Scotty's train hit 106mph or not? I can think of a lot more important things to lose sleep over.
It must have mattered enough to write and publish an article claiming to have proved that the record was a lie.
Here is a link to the story of the Scott Special:
http://cprr.org/Museum/Scott_Special_1905.html
Quoted from the link:
“From the little hamlet of Cameron to the still smaller one of Surrey is 2.8 miles. “She” made in one minute and thirty-five seconds at a rate of 106 miles an hour.”
From that description, they must have had the ability to count seconds.
I did the math and it comes out to 106.105 miles per hour.
I am very anxious to read Mr. Hankey’s article, but I will have to wait until the magazine hits the news stand, and that won’t be for another month. But as I gather from what has been said here, Mr. Hankey has refuted the claim of 106 mph based on some type of scientific calculation that supposedly proves the speed was not possible.
So, what is the maximum speed that Mr. Hankey’s calculations prove was possible with that train?
The previous record was 102 mph on the PRR about ten years earlier. It seems to me that if 102 mph was clocked for that record, 106 mph would not be far fetched.
Remember, scientific calculations prove that a bumblebee cannot fly.
Speed timings for this run would have been 'timed' by Operators reporting OS times for the train past their station. Those times are reported in Hour and Minute....NO Seconds are reported.
Can't speak to the road where the timing occurred, however, I suspect all railroads at the time had procedures in place for all 'Standard Clocks' to be synchronized on a daily basis. On my carrier this synchronization procedure was transmitted on the Dispatcher's Wire at Noon, daily. This leads to the question, were all clocks actually keeping 'the same' time. Was the operator reporting the time reporting 55-59 seconds as the actual minute or the next minute. We can time things to the nano nano second accuracy today - we could not then.
One minute (plus or minus) on a OS reporting can have a big difference on the calculated speeds between two points.
Hankey was referring to the direct heating surface (firebox and later combustion chamber) of the locomotive, not the grate area. 4-4-2's of the era would have had something in the range of 190 Sf of direct heating surface. This is where most of the heat transfer takes place. The tubes and flues constitute the indirect heating surface where additional heat from combustion gasses is transferred to the water in the boiler..
I just received my Trains today and may not get to read it until Monday or Tuesday. However, as to other railroads as well as the Sante Fe adapting locomotives to the same: simply the engine and railroad were specially prepared to allow for the fastest passage of the train. Quality coal and water, the most skilled engineers of the divisions, spiked switches, well cleared meets and overtakes, etc., all things that are too expensive and time consuming to do under ordinary operating circumstances.
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Paul,
I guess I will have to read the article, and also read up on that speed run. I think Trains covered that event in some long ago back issue. But I must say that I am skeptical of Hankey’s conclusion, as I understand your explanation of it. But setting that aside, I do not understand what reason there is to doubt a speed claim of 106 mph from a 4-4-2 locomotive and train of that era. I could understand the doubt if there were some type of timekeeping or mileage error that could be shown.
But specifically relating to your explanation of Hankey’s conclusion, why would there need to be a sudden acceleration to get up to speed within a limited distance before entering the measured mile? Do we even know that that was the case? I would assume that if one were to clock a top possible speed in a measured mile, one would make sure the train was running as fast as possible before entering that measured mile.
Also, I don’t understand the conclusion that if the run were credible, everybody else would have modified their locomotives to do the same thing. Was this particular locomotive modified in some unique way to achieve this speed?
If it was specially built to set this speed record, it would not necessarily follow that the company would then run their passenger trains that fast on a routine basis; nor would it follow that other competing lines would build the same design for the purpose of running their trains that fast. Locomotive speed potential is one thing, and safe speed limits is another.
For the time being, I won’t go into my intuitive reasons for questioning the motives of this debunking.
As I understand it: thermodynamics; the usual rules of physics for conservation of energy; the usual rules of mechanics for power used <= and balancing the power produced for a constant speed at a certain level of train resistance; and most critically, the huge increment in power needed to suddenly accelerate that train from the lower speed in the immediately preceding mile to the 106 MPH rate in the measured mile - where did that power come from all of a sudden ? Kind of like me jogging at my usual torpid pace, then all of a sudden going at a 4-minute mile pace, then back to the slower slog. Plus, comparing this loco and run to other similar locos and runs - it doesn't 'jibe'.
Finally, my point is that if this run were credible and repeatable, everyone else would have changed the proportions of their locomotives to match ASAP so as to also reap the same benefit - imitation being flattery, and all that - but that didn't happen.
- Paul North.
What is the basis of Mr. Hankey's assertion that the speed claim is untrue?
John Hankey presents a convincing argument against the myth of a Santa Fe 4-4-2 achieving 106 mph during the Walter Scott run. But there is an error in his description of the modest proportions of the engine. He says it has a "modest firebox area (190 square feet)."
Well, if he really means firebox volume, it would be cubic feet, not square feet. No big deal except you rarely see fireboxes described by their volume in cubic feet. More commonly we refer to grate area in square feet. If he really meant grate area, then the number 190 is wildly inaccurate. The largest ever grate was applied to the NP Z-5 Yellowstone - 182 square feet. Typical of 4-4-2s of the day, the Pennsy E3sd sported a 55.5 square foot grate and the E6s was slightly smaller at 54.75 square feet. Grate area determines the size of the coal bed and much of the airflow to the fire, so it is critical to engine performance.
So I hope Mr. Hankey or an editor will see this post and clarify what he meant to say. This is not to question or criticize his argument. He is certainly correct.
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