Hey folks, looking for some advice on locomotives. For a long time, I’ve found myself torn between Moguls and Ten-Wheelers for my early '30’s short line freelance project. Was one type preferred over the other for shortline work (other than 4-6-0’s being perferred for passenger work due to the 2-axle pilot). Would you see both types rostered and then assigned where needed? Or would it just come down to what the line could afford to buy for their roster? My set up will be primarily freight with limited passenger service, set in mostly-flat areas with some low hilly country. (foothills).
From a layout-design standpoint, I’ll have max 2.5% grades, probably hauling 8 cars per train at NMRA standard weight on code 75 track.
And I know that steamers could be widely modified based on the individual railroad’s needs, and that in the end it’s my RR and I can do what I want with it, but I do try to stick with real-world reasoning where I can. Thanks in advance for any insights.
Driver size plays a roll here. Since yours has limits passenger service, they might get one larger driver loco with the rest being smaller drivers. Definitely also an affordability and what’s on the market. If the price is right. A 2-8-0 or 2-10-0 could end up there. Thinking along the lines that money wise management figured they could only get a ?-6-0 for the money they and found bigger one by surprise. A size they thought they couldn’t afford but could use one.
The four wheeler pilot was preferred for passenger operation to lessen the effect of hunting (the side to side thrusting from the forces of pistons and side rods.) A more comfortable ride was not necessary for freight service locomotives where weight on driver’s over speed was preferred.
Another consideration is track and bridges. For a shoestring operated road then more axles to spread the weight over a longer distance would be preferred over a shorter locomotive with just drivers concentrating all it’s weight on a short distance.
Just to be clear, a short line is a a smaller independent railroad, vs. a branchline which is a low volume piece of a bigger railroad.
A short line will have a more limited roster so engines will end up more generalized than on a larger railroad which can have engines for more specific purposes.
Generally 2-6-0’s were slower speed engines and were designed for higher pulling power. Generally 4-6-0’s were higher speed engines and could have a larger boiler, so have more steaming power. There were at least twice as many 4-6-0’s made as 2-6-0’s. 4-6-0’s in the 1900 era were fast freight and heavy passenger engines. They were replaced by 2-8-2’s in freight service and by 4-6-2’s in passenger service.
This is where one has to think about how big the short line is. Is it a short line with 5 engines or is it a short line with 50 engines? How big are the enignes? Some times engines are assigned to lines because of weight. A lot of 2-6-0’s were used in the 1930’s because they were more powerful than a 4-4-0 and lighter than many 4-6-0’s so were assigned to branches and lines with older bridges that couldn’t handle heavier engines.
For a short line that could be it. Were the engines bought new or were they bought used? Were they 1890’s engines bought 2nd hand or 1920’s engines bought new? Remember its the 1930’s, rail traffic
The two short lines I’m most aware of, the Rahway Valley and Bellefonte Central, were both using second hand 2-8-0’s by the Thirties. I think you’re looking for something like RV #14
To my knowledge, both were ubiquitous and could be used for pretty much anything. Performance was variable according to the type. There were also the 4-4-0s, that were still out there in the 30’s on many lines, pulling passengers and freight.
To me, it boils down to looks and performance of the model you will buy. The Athearn models have traction tires that will help you get through the grades (2.5% is not insignificant for a steamer). The Bachmann’s are really nice looking, but are not very good pullers. I love my Bachmann 2-6-0 (with new tooling). A good buy. You can double-head, but that’s not very appealing if you are running a small number of cars. The Athearn is a bit more spartan-looking, and harder to find at a low price. But the little buggers can really pull…
Bear in mind that if you are going to freelance a prototype, you could easily get higher performance out of a 2-6-0 just as you can with a modern Berkshire, at the front end, and some of the English booster experiment ‘technology’ at the tender end.
It has not yet been fully established whether or not the LS&MS high-speed Prairies were in fact stable at high speeds. Apparently they ran just fine until the NYC people took over the technical side and rebuilt them into goofy Pacifics, right around the time of the great Wilgus debacle with the electric S1s (with, remember, different stability arrangements on their original two-wheel trucks).
First: the only thing that matters with adhesion is the weight on drivers. A 4-6-0 and 2-6-0 with comparable FA will have comparable weight on drivers. Weight distribution will be a bit different on a 4-6-0, and of course there needs to be more overall weight to get the Adams truck to run and guide correctly.
Second, using the geometry of, say, an AMC Berkshire, or the front engine of a N&W A or even a Y6b, will give you all the control of hunting and high-speed metastability that you’d need for a lead truck. Add in a little carefully-considered damping or even snubbing and you’ll have an engine with less weight, less length, equal or better running and guiding, and (arguably) less overall construction cost.
At the tender end, push the front tender truck forward until it is as close to the drivers as you can manage, and put in a good Franklin radial buffer with the right drawbar pivot points (as determined from the Bissel formula). This keeps the back end of your engine from doing the G5/I1s dance at the speed the cylinders can push it. It will be important that this lead tender truck be capable of accommodating serious lateral force quickly and effectively – it probably shouldn’t be a typical three-piece design with only friction shoes between the sideframes and
This being a short line railroad, is there traffic density to warrant separate passenger and freight traffic? Or could there be several mixed trains with head end coaches? What would be the daily schedule? Three passenger trains to two freight? Would there be enough passenger traffic to justify a separate train? I would imagine said passenger operations would not be traveling at Blue Ribbon speeds. A short line railroad would probably not spend too much on heavy rail and deep ballast mainlines capable of high speed tonage. Saving the maintenance of another axle and going all 2-6-0 locomotives would suffice. 62 inch drivers for the heavy loads and drag freights with 72 inch or more fore the passenger runs.
Most railfans associate higher drivers with ‘diameter speed’ and faster operation. But that is not the only reason for using comparatively tall drivers with comparatively short stroke – which in the United States was a common formula for high speed, sometimes taken to comical extremes as in the PRR T1.
One of the great European designers, Karl Golsdorf, designed an express locomotive for what we would consider laughably tiny axle loading – below even what we’d consider self-respecting branch lines (but with attentive geometry maintenance by their equivalent of sectionmen). This had a two-wheel lead truck, and very tall drivers with short stroke precisely to limit augment at normal speeds on the light rail. He had a large firebox and boiler, supported by a four-wheel trailing truck (to produce what looks like an insane 2-6-4, a Pacific turned backward, with the trucks doing the opposite of what we considered typical North American practice) – these engines ran long, and well, and one of them is currently restored to operation!
So in practice you might well see high 60 to low 70s driver diameter in branch service…if you weren’t using obsolete ‘mainline’ power from decades ago as hand-me-downs to operate the branch. If you had a savvy shop that did much of its own work (like casting driver centers) you could easily pattern for shorter stroke, right down to where the critical dimension is the web between the axle and the main pin (as it is on the T1s) and leave the valve gear with long lap and long travel but reduce the
I based my shortline loosely on the Ulster and Delaware RR which was absorbed by the New York Central in 1932. It used the Ten Wheelers as their primary motive power as do I. My shortline remained solvent and independent in 1956 when my layout is set.
Every kid (1950s and earlier) used to know that passenger locomotives had four wheel pilot trucks and freight locomotives had two wheel pilot trucks. As early as 1895 passenger trains were doing 100 mph (at least where the track was good). Freight trains seldom exceeded 30 mph. The higher speed required more weight on the pilot truck to lead the locomotive into curves and turnouts, and to dampen the side to side motion from the pistons. The greater weight required four wheels to carry it. The freight locomotives required much less weight on the pilot, they put all the weight they could on the drivers. So freight locomotives worked just fine with a two wheel pilot. Hence the recognition feature for small boy train fans. Back in the day all small boys were train fans.
They could, and often did, use passenger engines to pull freight trains. It didn’t bother the passenger engine to run at 30 mph. Less often they would use freight engines to pull passenger trains. Plenty of commuter routes and other routes were limited to 30 mph. In the old days Mom would drive over to the Wayland train station to pick up Dad off the B&M commuter train. Us kids usually came too. That commuter train was very often pulled by a B15 Mogul.
This is my biggest concern with this scenario. A 2-6-0 or 4-6-0 might have significant trouble pulling a train, even a short one, up a 2.5% grade.
Old metal boilers, like Wayne used, will help.
Are you willing to do that kind of work? If not, using 2-8-0s might be a better option.
This one can be found reasonable on eBay. It looks like it would be right at home on a 1930s short line. Converting it to DCC would be challenging if that is how you are operating.
I haven’t pushed it to 2.5% but parts of my shortline have a 2% grade and my Bachmann 4-6-0 has no trouble hauling 7 cars up the steepest parts. I haven’t pressed it beyond that but based on how easily it can handle 7 cars, I see no reason to think it would balk at 10. I’m sure there is a limit but there just aren’t enough customers on the shortline to require more than that.
One big factor is, what did your prototype (if any) do? The C&NW for example was a big believer in 4-6-0s and used them for a wide variety of service - local freights, mixed trains, branch line passenger service, switching, right to the end of steam in the mid 1950s. If the CNW had Moguls it must have been back in the 19th century.
The Southern Pacific had 4-6-0s but was a big believer in Moguls even after that wheel arrangement was considered out of date by other railroads, and had many classes of them, rather high drivered at that, and used them right to the end of steam in the '50s.
The Milwaukee Road was a big believer in Prairies – 2-6-2s – again running them in quantity even after the Prairie type was considered obsolete on most other railroads.
While ten-wheelers are often described as dual service locomotives, on the Pennsy in the 20th century 4-6-0s were commuter train passenger locomotives. While the Pennsy had had 2-6-0s and 2-6-2s, they didn’t last deep into the 20th century. The Pennsy had a vast roster of 2-8-0s that they used for a variety of services, including switching but also local freight and now and then one sees photos of Consolidations in slower speed passenger service.
And then there is the Hoopole, Yorktown & Tampico in Illinois that used an elderly ex-Burlington 0-6-0 for freight and passenger service, because it was their only locomotive!
For a 1930s (read … “broke”) short line, don’t forget the Ma & Pa which used its 4-4-0s `for a long time to the delight of railfans. But as another poster mentioned, if you really intend to model 2.5% grades, and if no particular prototype is being modeled, I’d say whatever small steamer can handle that grade should control, and you’d be safe knowing that somewhere, even on Class 1s, just about any wheel arrangement has a prototype.
The Ulster and Delaware RR, which my shortline is loosely based on, was nicknamed the Up and Down as it ran from Kingston Point on the Hudson, through and over the Catskills to Oneonta, NY, its western terminus. Their 4-6-0s were able to handle the traffic up those grades during the first part of the 20th Century. That was the reason I selected 4-6-0s to do the same on my shortline.
I’ll have to dig up my book on the U&D. It’s been at least ten years since I last read it and I’m a little fuzzy on some of the details. I knew they went over the Catskills but I’d forgotten about the 3% grades. I do remember in the waning years they had issues with their track maintenance.