ValorStormUP used high quality coal at all times.
Dimovski, you should find some of what you're looking for by clicking here: http://www.steamlocomotive.com/misc/largest.php
Keep in mind that in North America tractive effort is typically reported in pounds. Simply divide by 2000 to get US tons. You'll be hard-pressed to find a TE curve for the 9s. But their performance is nearly identical to 1st generation Challengers. Just not quite as fast. 96,650 lbs is in some books listed as the "maximum" tractive effort.
Contrary to what was implied in other posts, the 9000s were some of Union Pacific's most successful steam locomotives. They were UP's 1st true giants of steam. And as they were fast freight engines, their introduction in March of 1926 makes the 4-12-2s the very 1st fast freight giants of steam...anywhere on earth. They had no inherent problems, & they're said to have been the easiest engines to fire on the entire system. They predate the Challengers by a decade. & in that decade the 9s were mountain climbers in Wyoming & Utah. Later they came into their own as reliable prairie sprinters. & they lasted virtually to the end of steam.
Speaking of firing, please understand that it was the Northern Pacific that used bad coal, not the Union Pacific. "Montana Rosebud coal" was cheap & the NP had easy access to it. The UP used high quality coal at all times.
The "Union Pacific Type" is my all-time favorite freight hauling steam locomotive. Thanx, Dimovski. I'm really stoked.
Juniatha,
by no means did I wish to sound offensive by comparing the N&W (love Your version of the name) J class with the Union Pacific 9000, I was just wondering why the maximum speed of a steam locomotive would be limited by driver size. Thank You for Your explanation! However, I have to argue (even if I'm not very knowledgable) that some of the 9000s came with roller bearings for sure, 8 of the 1st batch were converted to "Bald faced Nines", but the rest of the batch got roller bearings from 1940 on.
My source isn't really great, but the article seems very well researched:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/UP-Klasse_9000#cite_note-3
" Bei den ab 1928 gebauten Lokomotiven hingegen wurde die Gresleysteuerung des Mittelzylinders mit Rollenlagern ausgerüstet, bei den älteren, nicht auf den „third link“ umgerüsteten Lok wurden ab 1940 Rollenlager in dieser nachgerüstet."
Translation: By the locomotives built from 1928 on, the conjugated valve-gear (Gresley-gear?) of the middle cylinder were equipped with roller bearings, the older locomotives, not modified with the "third link" were equipped with roller bearings from 1940 on.
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Firelock76,
thank You for the warm welcome, I have to agree with You! I had a blast just reading all of these highly interesting topics, and I hope it's going to be even more fun when I can participate, too!
Yes, the connecting rod, the 3-cylinder motion, the huge, beautiful boiler, and especially the 2 air compressors(?) on the front! I always had a weakness for these, and because of that, a weakness for USRA Mallets, GN S2s... and You get my point
Yes, I'm grateful that one of these wasn't scrapped. I hope however, that it won't be running, too much fear of destroying something important. Imagine Yourself this happening to it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E54HUQYeFNg
Outright terrible! Thirty seconds of pure horror, just by watching it from a nice armchair, years after it happened! Poor driver broke both of his arms trying push the cutoff(?) back.
I indeed thought they were fairly succesful aswell, but Juniatha didn't really praise the locomotive, and obviously I can't know as much as she does - so I found it a better option to simply accept that they weren't extraordinarily succesful. And yes, roughly 30 years of running sounds very impressive, but I believe that a lot of the bigger loco classes were running right to the end of steam. I might be wrong however.
I'll keep an eye out for these, but taking into account that the average (netto) Croatian monthly pay is around a 1000 dollars, less than 20% of US pay, for example, so I usually can't buy books which are out of print. Buying the new ones is straining my budget
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I realized that I used the wrong formula, instead of P=v*F, I used P=W/t=F*s/t=mv*v/2/t, with a t of 1... I really should think a bit more when calculating ! But with this formula, a somewhat optimistic guess (I believe, no facts to prove it) of 80% TE from 48% cutoff, multiplied by anything between 0,75 and 0,9 (tractive effort reducing at speed, in this case 42mph) gives around 65000lbf. Which is around 290kN.
However, 3665kW=(42*1,6/3,6)*F
3665kW/18.8**=F
200kN=F
F=45000lbf! That's a difference of 20000 pounds-force!
I 1st thought that my assumptions were wrong, and indeed, if I would gain only 48/75 TE from 48% cutoff (but I think I read somewhere that this isn't linear, so it doesn't make sense..), and say that I have around 0.8 TE because of the speed, I would get around 49000 pounds-force. That sounds appropriate, but then the problem is:
If a 120 car train really has a mass of 3800 tons (If anyone has an answer for this, I would be extremly grateful! These xyz-car listings instead of mass confuse me a lot!), as again it was mentioned that Nines pulled 120car trains on straight track over Nebraska at 50mph, I thought I could check which TE the locomotive would have at 50mph (80km/h) by calculating rolling resistance of 3800 tons. So I used this calculator: http://www.smex.net.au/Reference/RollingResistance02.php
And put these numbers into the calculator:
And got 63900 pounds. That is an increase in TE as speed increases! I really have no idea what to do with these numbers now. Yes, the calculator could be inaccurate - but I don't see where that inaccuracy could be! I used average rolling resistance of a train car, which I obtained from here:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/rolling-friction-resistance-d_1303.html
"0.001 - 0.002"
I'm utterly confused now. I know I'm not exactly a bright light, but I don't think that I made any big mistakes here. (How ironical this is, when I was actually searching for a FUNCTION to determine the power curve, and can't even define 2 points to make sense!) Any help here would be appreciated!
**1,6 was eyeballing mph to kph conversion, book lists 68kph, which is around 18.8m/s
PS: Firelock, my last name isn't Dimovski, my intials are D.I.M., on which I added -ovski
Welcome to the Forum Mr. Dimovski! We have a lot of fun here and learn a lot in the process, I know I do.
I can appreciate your admiration of the UP 9000's, that mile long connecting rod going up-down-up-down-uuuuuuppppp-doooooooooown must have been a sight to behold.
Luckily one survives in the fairgrounds in California where the 4014 Big Boy was recently liberated. Sadly, I'm not holding my breath expecting THE 9000 to return to steam.
I do have to dispute slightly your contention that the 9000's weren't very successful. Au contraire, they were VERY successful, they lasted right into the end of steam in the 1950's on the Nebraska division. From the '20s to the '50s, that's not too shabby.
By the way, they were a big favorite of the late Don Ball. If you can find any of Don's railbooks there's usually a few 9000 shots in them.
Dimovski
You can't compare revving capability of even the later series ´Nines with a 'Normans & Wikings' J class 4-8-4 - *NO* way ! The N&W engine was a brilliant design and gave a sparkling performance proving Roanoke had done right just about what could have been done right in 1940s steam loco design . it also was a fully roller bearing equipped design while the Nines never had them .
60 mph was pretty fast running for a Nine , although the well balanced riding of a three cylinder engine would be inviting to do so - yet it resulted in aggressive forces within the valve gear and lateral levers , causing rapid development of play which in turn was abortive to cylinder performance . In the Kratville book the author mentions ALCO unsuccessfully tried to ‘slow down’ UP , yet UP often had their own ideas of how to handle engines . Principally the same happened to the Gresley three cylinder engines – the difference was monthly mileage was much lower with steam in Britain , leaving more and longer time slots for maintenance to attend to developing trouble before it became serious ; steam locomotive maintenance at the time of the Big Four – LMS , LNER , GWR and Southern must have been just short of immaculate – for UP steam the like was not on and so the Nines had to do with what they were given and inevitably that brought up the weak points in the conju-gear principle .
Regards
Juniatha
Well , comparing a Nine with a Mikado is simply taking account for the number of drive wheels having been 1.5 times those of the 2-8-2 - as were the cylinders ! That's what was pointed out by ALCO back then to emphasize the capabilities of the three cylinder engine .
Comparing the *later* Chally with the Nines : the Jabelman Chally *did* turn up some extra capacity since it was a revised and improved design by itself and the Nines had meanwhile been dropped from the drawing board . Attending to the three cylinder engine as it had been set up , substantial improvements would have been possible and then the comparison would yet again have turned out a different result .
What also tends to blurr the picture is Union Pacific learned to load engines closer to their limits as the years went by , they also amended some of the most severe stretches of their mountain lines and again this helped to increase loads . So , I wouldn't take that 6 % increase all too significant as indicating relative virtues of the locomotive types . Speed would tend to have improved , though not dramatically with the later type Chally , overall performance was on a steady way up with the three final types of big steam on the UP , the 4-8-4 , the 4-6-6-4 and the 4-8-8-4 . Or as you may put it : steam on the UP was never being replaced because of lack of competence , it was just being released by diesels as a train is handed over to another engine at an intermediate stop .
Well, a mod still has to approve my 2nd post so I can't edit it, so I'll post it as a seperate post, hoping that he will join them.
I have found exactly 2 points for my chart:
1)Peak horsepower is reached at 68km/h, 48% cutoff. Indicated power is 3665kW. Later on it's mentioned that "the steam engine delievered 3542kW" which, I presume, translates to drawbar power? Some help would be appreciated here aswell.
2)The Union Pacific used them to haul 120 car trains at 50mph, and the wikipedia.de article adds "on straight track". I have found a mention on a 120 car train being pulled by a Big Boy at xyz mph, and the mass listed as 3800 tons. This gives a tractive effort of 101000 pounds however, which is 6000 to 7000 too much for the 9000.
I have also found 2 mentions of engine+tender weight of 354 tons, and one of 391. Is the 391 a typo, an engine equipped with the late-model tender, or simply US short tons, and 354 tons is 354 metric tons?
I also found it weird that the maximum speed is listed as 60mph (97 km/h) based on driver size. Isn't that only a rule of thumb? The N&W J class were running a lot faster than their driver size is.
Regards, dimovski.
timz and Juniatha, thanks a lot for Your posts! Indeed very informative and helpful. However, I am not that skilled (read: no skill at all here) that I could make a 4000ihp curve by hand and guesstimation. I was rather asking if it would be possible to use a mathematical function to draw the chart/power curve.
I am completely overwhelmed by Your post Juniatha, that is a lot of information! And a few words which I had to google - you always learn something new :) I'm very grateful for the picture! It is a shame that this locomotive isn't getting much attention - even if it wasn't extremly succesful. There are maybe less than 5 videos on youtube showing it in action (and these are hard to find because of their low views and usually have at most 40 seconds of UP 9000 material. And only one is in color) Now, we obviously like different tenders - my favourites are the huge PRR ones with doghouses and the U-shaped CSA-1/CSA-2 tender. (for the USA, that is). Here are a couple of my screenshots from video games - I know it's by far not the same quality nor the same authenticity, but they're good enough that I use them as background:
http://imgur.com/a/HAMKI#3
Regarding the comparison of the Nines with 4-8-4s - I'm sure that is all true, but the 4-8-4s do not seem suitable for the longer freight trains - the 9000 has/had about 30000lb more tractive effort than the FEFs have/had. So, I presume, a 4-8-4 could pull a 1000 ton passenger train at high speeds (say, 80+), but would be outperformed by the 9000 in pulling a longer freight train, correct? I've got to add that comparing a 4-12-2 to a 2-8-2 seemed somewhat shocking to me - I live in the colorful fantasy world in which the 4-12-2 is something too special to be compared with "ordinary" Mikados.
I have indeed seen Your topic, but the posts seemed somewhat messed up, I think I even found some regarding the ACE3000 trials (?) in that topic.
Regarding the books You mentioned, timz, I believe that both are sadly far too costly for my mid/south-European budget, and posting any pictures of them would probably break some copyright... too bad.
In that case, I have to reformulate my question, possibly reviving Your old topic Juniatha by it: If we compare the UP 9000 with the late Challengers (3900 class), the 3900 is listed as hauling, on average, 6.24% more tonnage. I do not find a difference of 6% too concerning, but how did the speeds of these trains differ...
Sorry if I'm sounding illogical, this is turning out a bit too complex for me it seems...
Hi Dimovski
Considering the point of development steam locomotive technology had reached at the time of birth of the UP 4-12-2 – boiler design incl. draughting , cylinder tribology and conjugated valve gear with all its inherent drawbacks and imperfections concerning steam distribution – and taking account for the historical major design error made extending the already long 4-10-2 by yet another set of drive wheels and *still* clinging to the well-known two-wheel delta truck instead of readily picking up Woodard’s successful train of thought having led to his replacing the 2-8-2 by a 2-8-4 wheel arrangement ( which then would have resulted in a 4-12-4 , without my extending this discussion on consequential boiler design ) power output offered by the Nines could not be what it was in later , more compact 4-8-4 types . It was non the less very respectable and with engine in good mechanical condition and draughting aligned to the point was able to attain 5000 ihp pretty closely with the low quality of coal used by UP ( in view of the limited area of grate with design having to use that Gaines wall feature in the firebox some extra ihp could have been attained by using good grade of black coal – not a sensational amount though , because of front end incapable to aspire the amount of combustion air then needed for reasonable combustion of the extra fuel heat contents offered )
We had earlier tried to evaluate the relative virtues of the late series Nines against the early Challenger series and although the thread went without definite conclusion I think it was felt early Challies had little to offer over final Nines design as concerns effective starting tractive effort nor output at speed . It rather reflected UP’s decision to end three cylinder venture and in view of curving mountain lines go for divided drive anyways , i.e. SE Mallet instead of rigid frame three cylinder types . As it turned out with the Big Boys , the SE Mallet concept offered a wider scope for further development of size than had the rigid frame concept – at least on UP’s mountain mainlines any further extension of the three cylinder rigid frame concept beyond the 12 coupled Nines would have been impossible , i.e. no such thing as the Russian 4‑14‑4 ( lack of success of which had least to do with number of coupled drive wheel sets but all the more with political decisions around renewal of permanent way and mass construction of standard locomotives instead of special design , for here to leave it at that ) or an adaptation for maximum grate and firebox size on a 4-14-6 wheel arrangement .
As for development of power curve over speed , in view of the Nine’s three cylinders driving six sets of wheels , you principally have pretty much the situation you had in a 2-8-2 with two cylinders also with a comparable cylinder volume by live steam factor of adhesion – thereby proposing for simplification the middle cylinder would turn out work fully equivalent to that of the two outside cylinders , which unfortunately was *not quite* the case at all speeds ( it was somewhat inferior at starting and *could* become superior by over-travelling of valve due to malfunctions of the conju-gear’s lateral set of levers up front ) The typical rise and fall of ihp output over speed of a 1925 vintage Mikado of equivalent mass per set of drive wheels is well known and could be used here for a first approximation of a Nine’s performance simply enlarging it by factor of 1.5 with the Nine’s boiler performance having been about as well up to demands of cylinders .
The looks – yes , the line of six sets of drive wheels must have been a sight to behold . However what compromised the design’s balance were two features :
-a- the downward bending of the boiler top line with the conical decrease of boiler barrel diameter upsides only ; the boiler of the SP version of 4-10-2 was much better in this , having same decrease of diameter on the lower side only , thus retaining a straight , level top line ; later , standard practice was to make it concentric with level boiler center line .
-b- the firebox extending over last set of drive wheels , having to use a Gaines wall this way effectively making part of firebox cut off grate into another form of combustion chamber ; so , boiler proportions as concerns grate , direct and indirect heating surfaces are not what they look like at first glance , with combustion chamber incl. firebox ex Gaines wall having been largely over-extended , at least for firing of low grade coal as used by UP .
However , I like the cylindrical shape water tank of the tender and the cute fitting in of the coal compartment – definitely more shapely than the later U-section types of tenders ( dictated by need for increasing capacity , sure, sure .. )
In case you may want to check out my former thread on the Challies and the Nines , see
http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/740/t/196442.aspx
On page 3 I had posted a picture I had colored and intensified , see
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/8051/9029rsfrontlowviewoncom.jpg
If "via maths" means making a guess at it, then sure, you can always do that. If you want to know if it's right, you'll need empirical evidence, which isn't common.
Don't recall if Kratville's Vol I has a TE curve-- think Railway Age had one, but don't recall when. If you assume 3500-4000 maximum drawbar horsepower you can draw a graph that's about as realistic as anything you'll find in print.
Hello everybody,
this is my 1st post. I already searched the web for answers but couldn't find much. I'm a big fan of the Union Pacific 9000 class, it is, to me, simply beautiful. I would like to recreate some operations made by this locomotive in the train simulator RailWorks, and I already found a model for the locomotive. However I have realized that it uses the Union Pacific Challenger characteristics (for example boiler pressure is listed as 280psi instead of 220psi the Nines had). I would like to create proper specifications for this locomotive, and because of that I have to ask these 2 questions:
a)where could one obtain a tractive effort chart of the UP 9000? Something like this one
b)if it is impossible to obtain such a chart, or way too expensive, is it possible to create such a chart via maths instead of using empirical evidence?
Regards, dimovski
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