Hello Ranier:
Wes Barris' site that now has support from other steam
loco buffs is very handy. Considering the amount of
work involved in maintaining it, especially since they
have decided to embrace Bob LeMassena's calculation of
theoretical, and "real power" available from a given
class of locos, is tremendous. I have heard that Wes
is considering returning to our hemisphere , but do not
know if that is so. Has anyone heard something
specific about this?
With respect to the naming of steam locomotives by
wheel arrangements, that has always been a matter of
who got there 'firstest', and also if competing railroads
were also operating the same wheel arrangement. 2-10-2s
might have been Santa Fe types, secondary to their being
the first to order them in any numbers on this continent.
However, the SP,UP, CB&Q,and IC were damned if they were
going to call a loco after a major competitor. The 4-8-2
became a Mountain because the C&O bought the first onfor express passenger
service in the Appalachians.
New York Central Lines , that would operate more than half
the locos of this wheel arrangement on the continent,
called them Mohawks so that carried some weight. They had
a stake in promoting their "Water Level Route", and
chose names accordingly, for their power. At least if
it would be associated with passenger train operation
and likely to appear in the press associated with that
service, mountains were out.
Their Mohawks were magnificent dual service
locos, as were the Pennsy's 'M' class 4-8-2s that
numbered around 300, and made up somewhat less than
a quarter of the type on the continent.
The Pennsy, had another distinction,if you want to
call it that, namely that because they had randomly
numbered locomotives - their enginemen tended to talk
about locomotives by class designations. Elsewhere
crewmen talked about "the 4000s", or "300s", or
"Goats" for 0-6-0s, and so forth.
The idea of naming 4-6-4s Baltics ,
came from their appearance on Prussian
lines prior to the NYC's acquiring one here in NA.
Once again, the Central had well over half of all
4-6-s on the continent. Also of note is the Milwaukee
Road Historical Society's recent book on their 'F-6'
4-6-4s is entitled MILWAUKEE ROAD HUDSONS so while
someone somewhere on the late CMStP&P, entitled
them "Baltics", it didn't make the final cut as they
say, with the homers. That was more common than not
because many railroads handed out non standard names,
not just the NYC. The C&O, for one was a partisan
of this, naming every loco type that showed up after
the Great War for themselves.
A really curious name is Mastodon for a 4-8-0, that is
because the railroads that ran lots of them never called
them that, and neither did the guys who ran them.
On the Lackawanna and Jersey Central that had about
60 or so camelback 4-8-0s and they called them twelve
wheelers or 'K's, or the class numbers.
The SP once had a loco named
"mastodon", but that had nothing to do with the
pile of 4-8-0s of the 'Tw' class, that ran all the
coastal rainforest SP logging lines from ToC to
the 1940s. They were, as you might guess from their
class designation, twelve wheelers on the SP. On
smaller roads where they played a more prominent
role such as the MONON, and N&W, no one ever called
them a mastodon. I thought maybe the Great Northern
that had a 100 or so belpaire boilered 4-8-0s
might have called them mastodons, but I was disabused
of that at a joint meeting. Interestingly, a GN
steam fan thought that John Allen was to blame
for the persistence of the erroneous nomotype
because he called them that.
Could be, I just can't understand that one at all.
In the case of the Selkirks they are distinctive
in that they were the only ten coupled passenger
locos built to serve on this continent(i.e.
excluding multi-engined articulated and duplex
locos). They were, like the first 4-8-2s designed
to haul passenger and express through the mountains,
without assistance. They also were an alternative
to articulated freight power in the Rockies and
Coastal Range, for moving manifests or drags.
Curvature, and rail weight, as well as gradients
played a role in the decision to use these 2-10-4s.
Canadian Pacific had very limited experience with
mallets. Those they had were compounds, of unsuperheated
designs, sans: arches, lateral motion devices, and any
device invented in the twentieth century.
They represented old technology, and were built with
inadequate steaming capacity.
High performance articulateds were extant at the
time when the Selkirks were built, so it is not
readily apparent as to why they were not used.
Most likely, the root cause was that economic conditions
prevented strengthening the right of way with
heavier rail, and even the expense entailed with
changing turntables and shop facilities were too
burdensome to justify, as an example ,
4-6-6-4 Challengers.
It was not because Canadian Pacific was
technologically unenlightened.
Remember they had, along with the New York
Central, attempted to bring the most advanced
mechanical solution to increasing throughput
that was seen on this continent. Using the
2-10-4 wheel arrangement along with NYC's
use of a 4-8-4 platform, and the Schmidt
Tri-Boiler system they had produced locos
whose efficiency was never matched in
self contained locomotives in North America.
Unfortunately, they required what amounted
to laboratory conditions to produce the
design potential. Simply put, they could not
alter the physical plant, principally as it
applied to maintaining uniform supplies of
treated boiler water for the low pressure
stage , and to the intermediate stage
boiler as needed. They had enormous appeal
since they did not require the rebuilding
and strengthening of the rail structure,
bridges, turntables, shops, etc. So they
took a chance under the aegis of the Locomotive
Superheater Company (a/k/a ELESCO) that
sold Schmidt designed superheaters and
locomotive appliances in North America and the
UK, with a cutting edge design. You can make
the case they should have realized the water
problems were insurmountable, and that cylinder
lubrication was also a roadblock to delivering
on the promise of the design.
Schmidt initially had produced a dual boiler
system locos with 850 psi and 205 psi at HENSCHEL&
SOHN in Germany , and a French 4-8-2 based
upon it were regarded as successful enough to
expand on the concept.
Canadian Pacific 2-10-4 #8O00 and
NYC 4-8-4 #800 were three stage designs that:
had a water tube firebox 1350 psi sealed unit,
using distilled water and transferring its heat
via heating coils to an intermediate water
tube boiler; this intermediate 850 psi unit also
received furnace heated gasses and was the main
boiler; further along the gas path was a fire
tube 350 psi unit. These were the largest of the
several locos built using Schmidt's Tri Boiler
system. The locos had three cylinders. A high
pressure central cylinder exhausted to
the two outer cylinders, that also received
steam from the fire tube boiler.
There is some stuff written in popular
magazines about people reacting to these locos,
and the like - that makes much out of the pressures
which are far greater than those found in
conventional fire tube locos (however, Bell
Geared locos that used Stanley Boilers ran
with 600 psi all day, every day, without
any untoward events). Pressures, for example
were like those in flash boilers in the
intermediate primary boiler, in that they would
surge up when demand was reduced, and quickly drop
fifty to one hundred pounds when loaded.
However, these boilers, whose main elements came
from Germany because ALCO and CLC didn't have the
expertise to build them, were built to take this
kind of strain.
There was one horrible accident with these
designs, but the problem lay in a faulty fire
box door design. The LM&S "FURY" which was based
upon a ROYAL SCOT chassis, had a fire box door
with only a small retaining lip (fundamentally
as in the fire tube Royal Scot or similar design).
They proof tested the boiler to 2400 psi which
was great, but when a water tube let go on
Feb. 10, 1930 it blew out the firebox door and
smashed the ELESCO test engineer there to a pulp.
Everyone else in the cab had to unload in extremis.
Only a crewman back on the tender who was KO'd by
the knock he got in the blast was OK. A man was
permanently maimed to a nonfunctional state, and
everyone else was injured to the state of being
permanently partially disabled. Lack of
critical thought in the design process... but
pretty damn bad for the poor men involved.
The rest of the locos outside the UK were
not man killers, but licking the water quality,
and tribological problems related to pistons
operating with the high pressures and
temperatures of the steam were never solved.
Hill's book RIDING THE LIMITEDS LOCOMOTIVES is
commendable, both because it is moderately priced
on the used book market, and because both the
main accounts of his riding the 20th Century
Limited, and Broadway Limited in the cabs of
Hudsons and 'K-4's give a fascinating look at
what was involved in running these crack
trains from end to end of their runs, but also because
Hill, who worked for MOBIL's lubricating oil
division, gives us an account of what was
involved in developing cylinder oil for
the N&W's 'A' class locomotives. It is almost
equally interesting, as the main subject, if
steamers are your thing.
Good-Luck, Peter Boylan
In cpsig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "b4cprail" <rr_auer@...> wrote:
Yet Consolidations, Pacifics and many others are the same for everyone.
You may find the http://www.steamlocomotive.com/ website
interesting as it gives an overview of associated types,
names and which North American railways had what.
Rainer Auer
Saskatoon, SK
--- In cpsig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Jeff Pinchbeck" <jpinchbeck@> wrote:
I heard of CPR consolidations being called Mudhens. The 4-6-4 is properly
known as the Baltic.
