Some railroads built many of their own locomotives. And many railroads purchased used locomotives from other, usually larger, roads. But did any U.S. railroad ever contract with another (not a parent or subsidiary) to build locomotives for it?
ChuckAllen, TX
I am not aware of any during the steam era, but Conrail assembled some SD70MACs for BNSF.
The Virginia and Truckee #18, Dayton, on display at the old V&T Virginia City freight house, has a HUGE builder's plate from the Central Pacific Sacramento Shops. It's in the filigree skirt between the drivers , below the running board.
I believe that other V&T locos were also built at Sacramento.
Chuck (Nevada resident)
The Reading built several classes of steam locomotives for the Central Railroad of New Jersey. These were virtual duplicates of locomotives which the Reading built for itself.
DS4-4-1000The Reading built several classes of steam locomotives for the Central Railroad of New Jersey.
Was CNJ controlled by RDG at the time? I ask because, although it didn't happen, it would have been perfectly normal for PRR Belpaire fireboxes to have shown up at various times on new B&O or N&W power.
But corporate relationships like that were not what I was wondering about in the first place. I was wondering if there were any locomotive vendor/customer relationships between two independent railroads. I don't know of any control of CNJ by RDG so maybe this was one example.
The PRR built 50 electric switching (shifters) of which 15 were built for the LIRR, which was under PRR control.
Ed Burns
cefinkjr Was CNJ controlled by RDG at the time?
Probably more appropriate to say that B&O controlled both Reading and CNJ in that respect -- that was how the B&O reached the New York area. If I recall correctly, B&O controlled the Reading, which controlled or owned CNJ.
Of course, B&O spent so much on the New York arrangements that they quickly fell under economic control of the PRR, but that's another story...
Reading controlled the CNJ until around 1944 or so, that's when the markings of CNJ engines changed from Reading style "Central Railroad of New Jersey" lettering to the Statue of Liberty herald.
In a way, the Norfolk and Western built some locomotives for other railroads. The N&W built some 4-8-2's in the 1920's that just didn't work out for their purposes. They sold them to another 'road, don't recall which one.
Pennsy built G5s and D16b engines for the Long Island. The B&O had consolidations based on PRR H6 class and Atlantics which were duplicates of E3 class. I'm not sure if Altoona buillt these engines or (more likely) Baldwin.
Firelock76 The N&W built some 4-8-2's in the 1920's that just didn't work out for their purposes. They sold them to another 'road, don't recall which one.
Those God-awful K3s. As far as I recall they went to the Rio Grande, the RF&P, and in 1948, the Wheeling & Lake Erie. Suspect they pounded the hell out of the track geometry in those places, too.
The RF&P wasn't too crazy about those things either, having to limit them to a 35mph speed wasn't so good, being a two track main freight as well as passenger traffic had to MOVE on the RF&P. They unloaded them to the W&LE as soon as the war was over, presumeably speed wasn't a factor on the W&LE.
The K3 class had the main rod connected to the third driver, as opposed to the K2 class having the main rod connected to the second driver. For you engineering types out there, might that had something to do with the pounding with the added weight reciprocating?
K3...
K2...
And K2 after streamlining...
kgbw49The K3 class had the main rod connected to the third driver, as opposed to the K2 class having the main rod connected to the second driver. For you engineering types out there, might that had something to do with the pounding with the added weight reciprocating?
I'm not an engineer, but my answer is succinctly DEAR GOD, YES!!!
The combination of this feature with little 63" drivers that couldn't accommodate full counterweight in the mains, let alone reciprocating overbalance for All That Main Rod Mass, and then ponderous weight from the big boiler, compounded the felony. (And then you have the question of how effectively that trailing truck controlled lateral hunting from the unbalanced longitudinal forces...)
The interesting thing is that this is high on the list of designs that would benefit from the '30s-style "package" of lighter-alloy rods, disc main, etc., but I don't think it ever received it. I suspect that the lateral forces in that main would make it prone to buckling under a wide range of potential conditions if you made it "light enough" by any of the logical means.... Of course there are plenty of designs that effectively couple to the third axle ... any successful Berkshire I can think of, for example ... and 'reading between the lines' the A2a NYC/P&LE locomotives might not have been the balance dogs Classic Trains assumed they were (even with low, spoked drivers as here). All that I'd naively think would be needed for the K3 would be extended piston rods and crosshead guides to get the mains to Berk-like compromise of rod mass vs. angularity. And of course a trailing truck with more positive lateral control...
The important take-home message about the K3, though, is that it constituted a clear wake-up call to the N&W people to revise their thinking -- and they quite thoroughly, and quite effectively too, implemented much of what they learned.
Mr. Wislish, you make some really great points. I wonder if other railroads also might have learned from the N&W K-3 situation? I just did a quick check, and it seems like many, if not all, the freight engines developed with four wheel leading trucks and a third main driver had that extended piston rod and crosshead guides. Examples I saw that had what you explained included the UP 4-10-2, 4-12-2, 4-6-6-4 and 4-8-8-4, SP 4-10-2, and all the other 4-6-6-4 units.
UP 4-10-2 three cylinder...
UP 4-10-2 rebuilt to two cyiinder...
UP 4-12-2 three cylinder ...
SP 4-10-2 three cylinder...
About the only other example of a four wheel lead truck with a third main driver that I could find were the Rio Grande M-67 and M-75 Mountains.
Rio Grande M-67 two cylinder 63 inch drivers...
Rio Grande M-78 two cylinder (M-67 with booster applied)...
Rio Grande M-75 three cylinder with 67 inch drivers...
On the other hand, it seems like almost all other four wheel leading truck engines built primarily for freight haulage - Mountains and Northerns (though capable of dual service, of course) - had the second driver as the main driver. Based on your insightful comments I am intuiting that the shorter main rod and crosshead guides set up for a second main driver would typically allow for higher speeds because of less pounding.
Great Northern S-1 as an example...
Cotton Belt 4-8-4 819 builder's photo as another example...
Thank you for helping me connect the dots!
Having the rods connected to the third driver is one of the defining characteristics that distinguish freight Mountains from dual service and passenger Mountains. Because the Northern was a dual service locomotive on most roads they had rods connected to the second driver to allow for higher speeds.
Error
Shortly before Conrail was split, the Juniata shops assembled 24 standard-cab SD70s for NS and 15 SD70MACs for CSX.
Just thought of another example: PRR built 0-6-0 and 0-8-0 yard engines for Washington Terminal.
Steam locomotive ROD LENGTH to STROKE LENGTH considerations -
This can be a much more complicated engineering issue than first realized. Speaking from an automotive engineering perespective, the length of the rod in relation to the stroke is one of the modern areas of design study today.
Basically, the issue focuses around the question - How do changes in rod to stroke length effect the "dwell" time of the piston? How long it remains stopped or fairly motionless at the end of its piston stroke?
And the resultant effects on the "speed of the piston" as it travels through the cylinder and the "inertia effect" of its movement of acceleration while starting and stopping.
Inertia and acceleration that is too high can cause piston, ring and cylinder failure from the inertia loadings as well as affect design and performance issues.
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In the 1960's in the heyday of Japanese two stroke engine development as well as today's engine efficiency studies of, this "rod angularity calculation" becomes extremely important - because the breathing effects upon engine cylinder design.
That cylinder breathing performance is substancially effected by this "rod angle ratio." In effect the rate in which the cylinder intake and exhaust ports in the engine cylinder open and remain open and the effect of this for cylinder breathing.
Additionally, the inertia effect of gas flow moving through the port opening effects the nature in which the cylinder can be so filled with live steam and so cleared of exhaust steam - in effect creating horsepower.
The steam locomotive uses similar cylinder wall ports to a two stroke gasoline engine ports and the rod angularity would effect the rate in which the steam passages are covered and uncovered and the time in which they can effect the performance of the steam piston with regard to pressure.
Further is the involvement of piston dwell time relates to the effect of "steam expansion" on the piston because the longer the piston is fairly motionless the more energy from "steam expansion" is put to work compared to "steam flow."
Google "Piston motion equations" for in depth explanations and a visual model of changes cylinder stroke can make.
Engineering formulas are -
Horsepower = piston pressure x piston stoke length x area of the piston x number piston power strokes per minute / product of all these divided by 33,000.
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Mean Piston Speed = .166 x length of piston stroke x speed of drive wheel in RPM.
Maximum Piston Acceleration = drive wheel rpm squared x piston stroke lengh / divided by 2189 x times (product of 1 + 1/ 2 x times the ratio of drive rod length between centers to the piston stroke)
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Calculations of the "dwell time" the piston remains fairly stationary at the stroke end and the time the exhaust and intake are effective can be calculated relative to the drive wheel diameter using this formula. Which are highly useful for the comparison of one drive rod set up to another.
Time in seconds = degrees of drive wheel arc in which ports are open / divided by drive wheel rpm x times 6
"Time/angle/area" or time related effective usable area of piston port openings - these studies of stroke and rod length effects on piston ported cylinder engines were first given in SAE engineering paper done by Japanese engineers Naitoh and Nomura working for Yamaha in the 1960's.
It always seemed odd to me that New York Central kept the long rod third driver small drive wheel setup on its Boston And Albany 2-8-4 "Berkshires," while at the same time using a short rod second drive wheel set up on its New York Central 4-8-2 "Mohawk" locomotives.
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Connecting rod length related to drive wheel diameter and piston stroke can have other locomotive performance issues besides "wheel balance at speed."
Long rods have the advantage of a longer dwell time at the end of the stroke but cost in terms of piston speed and inertial load from constant acceleration and deceleration of parts relative to short rods.
Google "Connecting Rod length variations on engine performance" for endless discussion and argument and misunderstanding of this extensive subject.
Doc
Dr DBasically, the issue focuses around the question - How do changes in rod to stroke length effect the "dwell" time the piston? How long it remains stopped or fairly motionless at the end of its piston stroke? And the resultant effects the "speed the piston" as it travels through the cylinder and the "inertia effect" of its movement of acceleration, starting and stopping. Inertia and acceleration that is too high can cause piston, ring and cylinder failure from the inertia loadings as well as effect design and performance issues.
You went to all that trouble ... and missed an important boat.
What you have left out is the most important consideration, as it applies to double-acting steam locomotives. The point is not to overcome the 'inertia' effects through stress in the rod and bearings, as it is in IC engines, it's to control compression to do as much of that job as possible, with the right 'delta' at all points in the stroke.
For those who may not know: on a typical locomotive, not "all" the steam in the cylinder is exhausted by the time the valve closes to exhaust. That is often considered to be a 'bad thing', as the steam then goes way up in heat and pressure as the piston continues to move to its maximum position at crank dead center, and all this has to be accomplished with 'work' from the other expansions taking place or from momentum -- neither of which increase thermodynamic efficiency.
On the other hand, while this doesn't 'match' the force profile in the rods and bearings, it does counteract much of the inertial deceleration and need for re-acceleration across the dead center. There is also a potential advantage to having the higher pressure in the cylinder ... it equilibrates with pressure (and related temperature) in the dead space. When the valve subsequently opens, the admitted steam does not have to 'wiredraw' into an effective partial vacuum, or involve high mass flow to produce quick resultant pressure thrust on the piston.
Quite a bit of modern practice in small, fast engines -- including many that are intended to 'substitute' for IC engines in road vehicles -- use active compression control to take this a step up. These work in a manner analogous to Okadee 'compression relief valves', except that the flow is into an insulated reservoir rather than 'wasted to outside', and the valve that admitted excess compressed steam can open again to allow it to pass back into the cylinder space up to the next admission. I think it is easy to see how a relatively small set of sensors and some processing can determine the 'best' compression at all points, and work what is a simple proportional valve to achieve it. (Of course, if the valve breaks or sticks, in most cases the worst you get is an increase in effective dead space, as opposed even to a stuck cylinder relief valve which acts like a stuck cylinder cock...)
The use of some form of very good compression control becomes very significant when using lightweight Timken-style rods, which have a very low resistance to lateral bending in compression, on locomotives running at very high speed. It may pay to keep in mind that very short cutoffs are not in use at 'ultimate speed' even with comparatively light consists; Mallard, for example, was at about 40% (to make enough power to overcome air and other resistances at the record speed) with concomitant mass flow and, very probably, disproportionally high degree of superheat.
This is not to disparage the very good point you made about reducing the absolute reciprocating mass -- that is critical for a great many more reasons than piston acceleration or lube concerns! One thing of concern is main-pin failures on high-speed locomotives, even comparatively light ones like the Milwaukee F7. I know some of the steam engineers on the forums have repeatedly commented on the rapid increase, and relative criticality, of "inertial" stresses of all kinds as the cyclic rpm increases.
Now, I don't think the lateral effect of rod angularity is as significant on a DA steam engine as it is in most IC practice. I do note that N&W's Glaze apparently accounted for the vertical component of rod thrust in balancing (at about 80 lb., and it is the only reciprocating-balance mass carried in the mains), with the effective vertical component of inertial force attributable to the main being incorporated (properly) in the rotating balance. The change in this number when the rod is shortened to T1 length is apparently less than 30 lb even if no further correction is made for piston size; I suspect there are balance calculations for the last 5 A locomotives with substantially identical Timken-rod specs, and Dave Stephenson should comment on this if he has them.
EDIT - since I now appreciate one of your points a little better. Matching accelerating mass flow during admission to the volumetric increase due to relative piston acceleration IS important, and my understanding so far is that, for conventional valve gears, it is 'overdone' a bit (at least with respect to classical Churchward 'long-lap long-travel' valves) by having the relative speed of the valve high at the moment the steam admission edge crosses the ports. So there is much more potential mass flow than the cylinder can 'take' even with high early piston acceleration ... and almost certainly cutoff occurring before there is practical 'starvation' of the steam supply leading to late wiredrawing effect. I don't really see rod-angularity concerns over the entire 'possible' range of second vs. third-driver attachment that would change this.
On the other hand, being able to vary exhaust timing and duration individually of inlet valve timing and duration has been often commented on, and is one of the supposed Great Reasons for poppet-valve adoption, far more so than the various reasons of steam economy. In part of course this is for better compression control where only the physical valve gear (and limited relief cocks for emergencies) performs that.
Be careful with "analogies" between reciprocating steam engines and transfer-port two-strokes. What is being admitted is very different, and acts on the piston in a very different way, from constant-high-pressure steam in properly-designed admission tracts...
Wizlish,
Glad I struck a nerve with you! - actually, I wasn't finished writing my post - I don't know about you but I write it then have to go back and edit it because the posting page on this site is so absolutely crude. I can't read more than a few lines and the "scroll of the box" is crude.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy some of the changes I was making - but you will have to go back to re-read them!
Also you made a good point on the effects of "steam cushioning" of inertia with regard to "double acting" steam pistons on moving parts! Something distillate fuel engine guys could just dream of having! This effect could have as you pointed out a negative consequence in that "too much cushioning" in effect is "negative work!"
Regarding the use of "drifting valves" - this was steam locomotive improvement - that was not widely seen in the age of American steam in my opinion. It was really fairly advanced piston valve concept appreciated by a few like AT&SF. Widely not understood and quite an intriguing subject as well, important, and hard to learn about. I believe the Europeans who kept steam longer came to use it along with the important "exhaust ejection" technology mostly foreign to Americans.
Regarding "Poppet Valve" steam admission systems - they were tried by American steam builders but the technical on them seems limited as does the understanding of the two existing historic locomotives.
I mean if the Pennsy T-1 project is scratching its head to understand the one remaining C&O 490 hudson and the last US Military "poppet valve" locomotive this speaks worlds to the working knowledge of what remains historically on the subject!
Have gone back for a little revision, too, in light of what you just said and did...
There are reasons why very few double-acting IC engines have been made. One of them is main-bearing thrust. Now, crank thrust in a DA crosshead engine is interesting, because the journal stresses are always acting on the crank the 'same way' even though the rod and its bearing surfaces do not. Unfortunately, the stresses on the mains don't, and the relative torsional stresses in the crank are also likely to be greater. And the valve and lubrication issues on that exposed piston rod are troublesome, particularly if the exhaust gas reacts in any way with the lubricant film. (Steam is bad enough in that regard!)
I don't see the distillate guys, or anybody else with pistons big enough to need multiple plugs or injectors, going by choice to a DA. (It's unfortunate enough to see the British getting torque out of both 'halves' of an OP engine mechanically 'in phase', especially as seen on Doxfords...)
Dr. D (and anyone else who a doctoral dissertation to post), have you considered composing your thesis in a word processor (which probably has the missing Spel Czecher) and copying it to the forum? (I doubt that any has a grammar checker, though.)
Johnny
Dr DAdditionally, the inertia effect of gas flow moving through the port opening effects the nature in which the cylinder can be so filled with live steam and so cleared of exhaust steam - in effect creating horsepower.
This bothers me in a couple of respects. I think you are reasoning by analogy with IC engine induction, and it's not as good an analogy as you think, for one because the charge in an IC engine is induced either by vacuum (for a NA engine) or with far less kinetic energy in the gas (for forced induction) than is the case with steam.
I would think that the effect of gas kinetics would FAR outweigh "momentum" (based on mass of the gas molecules and direction of their bulk flow) although I do not yet have the math to calculate the two for comparison. I suspect erikem and some others can provide this -- say, for 265 to 300 psi steam at a superheated temperature of, say, 750 degrees F? (Use better representative numbers for steam conditions at the ports if you have them at hand!)
There is no question that quicker opening of the ports, larger and better-streamlined ports, less turbulence caused by bridges, etc. increase the effectiveness of an engine at high cyclic rpm. That has been established by Chapelon, Porta, Wardale, etc. for good reasons, and in a different context (valves that go to full opening quickly when actuated) by Corliss and others for mill engines much earlier, although those lessons aren't as applicable to locomotives.
There are momentum effects in steam flow; one was reported in the PRR Q2 testing. There are some momentum effects in front-end design as described by Jos Koopmans. I wonder, though, if their importance is overshadowed by gas-kinetic effects in significant ways for the 'normal' conditions that prevail in a working locomotive.
EDWARD ROSENBERGShortly before Conrail was split, the Juniata shops assembled 24 standard-cab SD70s for NS and 15 SD70MACs for CSX.
These were full fledged Conrail locomotives that were delivered in Conrail's own colors. They simply changed their final SD80MAC order to these models at the request of their suitors so that they would better fit their rosters.
The SD70MAC's were earmarked for CSX but were delivered in the regular CR number series as CR 4130-4144. The SD70's were earmarked for NS but were delivered in the NS number series as CR 2557-2570.
Alan, Oliver & North Fork Railroad
https://www.buckfast.org.uk/
If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there. Lewis Carroll English author & recreational mathematician (1832 - 1898)
Great WesternWould the Milwaukee Road Little Joes qualify for this thread?
Why would they? The Joes were built for the SZD, but never went there, and GE regauged the ones that needed it before delivery (either to MILW or the South Shore). In no case did a railroad have anything to do with their actual construction, which is the requirement here. There are plenty of examples of locomotives built for one road that were not purchased for some reason, and resold to another, but there is nothing particularly unusual about a locomotive builder (or even an equipment trust) doing so.
My understanding was that the thread was limited to a sense of 'contract manufacturing', where one railroad's shops physically built new locomotives (or modified them extensively) for use by a different system.
WizlishMy understanding was that the thread was limited to a sense of 'contract manufacturing', where one railroad's shops physically built new locomotives (or modified them extensively) for use by a different system.
Thank you, Wiz. That was my intent when I started this thread; with the added condition that the builder of the locomotive and the recipient have no other corporate relationship. Because of their corporate relationships, PRR construction of locomotives for LIRR and WT would not qualify.
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