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N&W Steam Development

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Posted by BigJim on Monday, February 10, 2014 6:50 PM

Here is one to chew on. Several Y3a's received front engines with the Y-pipe from Y5 locos. How do you think their performance increased? If nothing else, they were the toughest looking Y3a's going!

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Posted by Firelock76 on Sunday, February 9, 2014 7:17 PM

friend611
I meant to close this thread, having siphoned off the J discussion to a new thread. But I might as well allow the discussion here to continue, having asked beforehand for any last details before I closed the thread.
Oh well...
lois

Well that's N&W steam for you Lois, it didn't go without a fight!

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Posted by friend611 on Sunday, February 9, 2014 5:55 PM
I meant to close this thread, having siphoned off the J discussion to a new thread. But I might as well allow the discussion here to continue, having asked beforehand for any last details before I closed the thread.
Oh well...
lois
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Posted by Firelock76 on Sunday, February 9, 2014 5:22 PM

Hi Juniatha!  Always good to have you aboard!

As far as replacing the duplex coupling rod with a more simple conventional rod system I belive Big Jim addressed that several months ago, it was done strictly for ease of maintanance, no other reason.

Wayne

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Posted by Juniatha on Sunday, February 9, 2014 3:48 PM

Southern 154

That would again lead into discussion of mass inertia , balancing , proper frequencies in drive and frames structure - and the reason - so far as I have (not ?) seen - unresolved yet as to why duplex coupling rod system with interacting drive rod on main pin had been replaced by simpler and at the same time less high rpm suited conventional rod system in some N&W J class for their last years of service left before replacement by dieselization .

Good track can only mean track well suited for mass carried per axle plus possible maximum speed anticipated to be travelled .

Good engineer .. there is nothing particular it takes to run a locomotive faster than usual since it's the engine who does all the work by itself ;  you only have to keep the throttle open 1/1 , adapt c/o to suit boiler steam output keep a lookout on the signals and .. watch her accelerating until the rods come flying alongsides :  the speed just before that happens is the maximum speed before it really hurts .

No , seriously , as a first guesstimate :  for speed in daily service I would propose something around 440 to - perhaps - 480 rpm .

Regards

Juniatha

 

 

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Posted by friend611 on Sunday, February 9, 2014 3:45 PM
That is something that was never tested. And as I close this thread, this will be a subject that will be gone over in more detail in the new thread on the J's.
lois
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Posted by southern154 on Sunday, February 9, 2014 1:00 PM

How fast could a J run at (without hurting itself) if given good track and a good engineer and etc?

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Posted by Firelock76 on Sunday, February 9, 2014 10:57 AM

Yes Lois, N&W built the best, bar none, end of story!

OK, you can close the thread now!

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Posted by friend611 on Saturday, February 8, 2014 8:20 PM
However, I plan to eventually end this discussion and begin anew with discussions regarding various N&W classes. Are there any points of discussion regarding N&W steam before this thread is finally closed? lois
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Posted by friend611 on Sunday, February 2, 2014 5:42 PM
The N&W J's also had a record of service and reliability, as they kept the main line passenger trains they ran on time as well as quick turnaround as they were designed to be serviced quickly. The modern servicing facilities as well as the extensive mechanical lubrication contributed greatly to the high performance records of the locomotives.
lois
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Posted by puffy on Sunday, February 2, 2014 4:52 AM

Firelock76

nyc#25

No way would there ever be 100 mph running on Middle and Pittsburgh divisions.

PRR's racetrack was west of Crestline.

True.  Oh so true.  And it probably wasn't realistic to do too much of it there either.

See here's the thing, and I believe the same mistake's being made today with the obsession over high-speed rail with some people.  It's not high speed that's needed, it's reliability.  Delivering the passengers "on the advertised"  as it were.  Even if the fastest you go is 70 to 80 miles an hour, so what?  Get the folks there when you say you will, and do it all the time.  That's what gets the business.

In my years at Yale (1957-1963) the NYNH&H did an outstanding job in terms of service and reliability: on the advertised and there was no need for a times table because within an hour there was a train going your way NYC-Boston. Same on the PRR NYC-WashDC. Of course this was before Private Enterprise was tossed.

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Posted by Overmod on Wednesday, January 1, 2014 5:32 AM

Firelock76
On the other hand, the last battle of the Civil War WAS won by the South, but the Southern general's name was Margaret Mitchell!

Would have been nice if that HAD been the last battle, but (as in the original 'unpleasantness') there had to be yet another one  raised in South Carolina, famed land of the mouth passing checks a sensible brain wouldn't honor, firing off a new salvo in 1991, and then another English actress pretending to be Southern, and... well, down goes the Cause again.  ;-}

I'm not altogether sure that the test results showed a 'resounding' supremacy, either -- according to Ed King, the performance reports were more of a draw (there then being no particular economic 'advantage' on N&W at the time for reduced maintenance cost, better ability to work across multiple divisions without engine change, higher road availability, etc. which were seen as critical 'drivers' of diesel acceptance elsewhere in first-generation dieselization).

Something parallel that might be an interesting topic in this thread:  By 1951, N&W had essentially accepted that any more modern steam was going to be turbine-electric, but had rejected either the mechanical or the Bowes-drive versions of the PRR V1 turbine (going instead to individual axle-hung motors on all axles of the V1's somewhat peculiar chassis}.  What N&W and BLH actually built used, as we know, a different running-gear arrangement -- but a VERY prominent cause of the failure of the TE-1 was how cooked those traction motors became in service (and I think it takes a heap of cookin' to ruin Westinghouse hexapole motors...)   Meanwhile, the TE-1 had been advertised as being 'almost' fast enough to replace an A, but turned out (surprise, surprise, at least to some people at N&W) not to be able to deliver that speed, and for all its advantages, mechanical and thermodynamic, it wound up not being much superior to a booster-equipped Y-class (which in Newton's account always seemed to be stepping in to rescue poor Jawn  ;-} ).

And, perhaps significantly, costs and such had reached a point by the time of the turbine and traction-motor failures that the logical response was dieselization... in large part with improved designs.  Even to the extent of replacing the class Js with... well, even with fancy metalflake paint, I can't quite bring myself to say it.  (And this AFTER leasing the E units, so they did in fact go in with their eyes open...)

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Posted by Firelock76 on Tuesday, December 31, 2013 3:20 PM

CSSHEGEWISCH

They may have won that battle, but they eventually lost the war.  N&W was dieselized by 1960.

Well that's OK, they're used to that down South.  At least no-one got killed in that skirmish, and N&W steam's got plenty of glory.

On the other hand, the last battle of the Civil War WAS won by the South, but the Southern general's name was Margaret Mitchell!

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Posted by daveklepper on Tuesday, December 31, 2013 2:43 PM

The abba F7 set tested by N&W was  intended for the UP bd wore yellow and brown and red UP colors on the N&W.  The tests were carefully evaluated at EMD and lessons learned applied to the F9, GP9 and SD9.  The GP9 was the standard all-purpose power that dieselized the N&W.

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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Tuesday, December 31, 2013 6:46 AM

They may have won that battle, but they eventually lost the war.  N&W was dieselized by 1960.

The daily commute is part of everyday life but I get two rides a day out of it. Paul
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Posted by Firelock76 on Monday, December 30, 2013 6:08 PM

friend611
Thank you for the corrections. Would any of you like to expound further on the tests with 2197? As some of you probably know, 2197 as well as A class 1239 were used in further tests, pitting them against a F7 set of diesels in 1952.
lois

The Norfolk and Western steamers kicked the butt of that F7 combo, resoundingly!   YAAA-HOOO!

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Posted by friend611 on Monday, December 30, 2013 5:10 PM
1239, like 2197 was unique, having the roller bearing rods that were only applied to the last five A's. 2197 was literally brand new at the time of the tests, being sent out for tests shortly after it came out of Roanoke Shops. Both engines were sent to Roanoke Shops for fine tuning before the 1952 steam vs. diesel tests, to make sure they were at their best for the tests.
lois
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Posted by friend611 on Monday, December 23, 2013 5:43 AM
Thank you for the corrections. Would any of you like to expound further on the tests with 2197? As some of you probably know, 2197 as well as A class 1239 were used in further tests, pitting them against a F7 set of diesels in 1952.
lois
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Posted by Overmod on Monday, December 23, 2013 5:30 AM

BigJim

friend611
The Y6 also had the ability to change from simple to compound operation.

Lois,
The Y class always had the ability to change from simple to compound or vice versa. Did you not go to the link that I provided on page 13 and read?

For heaven's sake, Ms. Lois -- ALL compound locomotives worth anything have 'simpling valves' of some sort, and use boiler steam in the LP for starting.  The point is that at some point -- pretty quickly reached! -- they convert back over to compound operation, or Run Out Of Steam.

The genius of the 'booster valve' (and the similar approach developed by Chapelon, in France) was that it allowed the mean effective pressure in the LP cylinders to be adjusted so as to equalize the piston thrust with that of the HP (and hence to ensure that the contribution made by both engines on the locomotive would be made equal) at a higher running speed.  The default 'one-size-fits-all' expansion ratio built into normal compounds, including Mallets, ensures a mismatch between developed steam pressure at almost any speed, with the actual horsepower developed by the LP engine sometimes being laughably small.  With the booster valve (or Chapelon IP injection) the effective pressure in the LP engine could be 'boosted' to where the developed thrust from the larger pistons matched that of the HP engine, thereby getting design performance out of the locomotive.  There are other performance advantages.

I'd still like to have seen N&W expand the control work done for the M2 Automatic into a fully-proportional boosting system for LP modulation (perhaps combined with a renaissance of the back-pressure-controlled automatic-cutoff system developed in the early Twenties).   THAT would give you a class Y fully able to make power at reasonable road speed... while maintaining the advantages of compounding, including reduction of effective water rate, at lower speeds...

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Posted by BigJim on Sunday, December 22, 2013 9:28 PM

friend611
The Y6 also had the ability to change from simple to compound operation.

Lois,
The Y class always had the ability to change from simple to compound or vice versa. Did you not go to the link that I provided on page 13 and read?

I think that you will find that the reason for the oval smokebox door on the first set of Y6b's was because the hot water pump had been mounted under the front of the smokebox. When the hotwater pump was relocated to the fireman's side of the smokebox, they returned to the round smokebox door.

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Posted by friend611 on Sunday, December 22, 2013 2:12 PM
The Y6 also had the ability to change from simple to compound operation. First tried out on Y6b 2197 was a type of booster valve, allowing the engineer to assist the engine in starting by admitting high pressure steam to the front (low pressure) cylinders. This proved to be successful, but lead had to be added to the front engine frames to prevent slipping. This was a modification that was eventually made to all the Y6b's, and most, if not all the Y6's.
lois
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Posted by friend611 on Sunday, December 22, 2013 2:05 PM
That I do not know. When the first Y6b's were built in 1948 and 1949, there was still domestic production of steam locomotives by the commercial builders, though the production for American railroads would shut down shortly afterward. The Y6a's were built during the war, so there may have been quite a few locomotives built with BL feedwater heaters after they were produced. On the N&W, classes A and J were produced from the outset with SA feedwater heaters, these classes using no other type of feedwater heater. Why the N&W kept the BL for the Y6 until the Y6b but had the A and J with the SA is a discussion of a different nature.
lois
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Posted by NorthWest on Sunday, December 22, 2013 1:06 PM

What I meant was that the Y6as were the last locomotives of any railroad to have the BL. Lois, I appreciate the explanation.

Big Jim, thanks for the link.

What other changes did the Y6b have?

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Posted by friend611 on Sunday, December 22, 2013 12:58 PM
The Y6a's were the last built with the BL feedwater heater. When time came to build the Y6b's, the SA feedwater heater had to be used, so the redesign of the smokebox was necessary for the mounting of the SA. This is what resulted in the odd smokebox door for the early Y6b's. When access to the smokebox became a problem, the design was changed again so that the Y6b could have the same type of smokebox door as was on the earlier Y6 classes. 2194, as stated before, was the first Y6b to be built new with this revised design, with the earlier Y6b's coming in for modification as they became available.
lois
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Posted by BigJim on Sunday, December 22, 2013 4:27 AM

NorthWest
I am interested in both.

I would suggest that you take the time and go here to learn more:

 http://www.icsarchive.org/icsarchive-org/bb/ics_bb_508d_section_2517_locomotive_feedwater_heating_equipments.pdf

.

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Posted by NorthWest on Sunday, December 22, 2013 12:39 AM

I vaguely remember that the Y6as were the last to be built with them, but also need a confirmation.

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Posted by friend611 on Sunday, December 22, 2013 12:18 AM
I have read that the change took place because the BL feedwater heater was discontinued, but would like to confirm.
lois
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Posted by NorthWest on Saturday, December 21, 2013 11:09 PM

friend611
However, the improvements that came with the Y6b are worthy of discussion. But is anyone interested in considering the change of feedwater heater, Worthington BL to SA?

I am interested in both.

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Posted by friend611 on Saturday, December 21, 2013 6:54 PM
However, the improvements that came with the Y6b are worthy of discussion. But is anyone interested in considering the change of feedwater heater, Worthington BL to SA?
lois

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