Continuing the series I now offer the attached speed log of Donald Steffee on the PRR Detroit Arrow which ran between Detroit and Chicago. At this time it was the fastest steam train in the world in terms of average speed point to point, slightly beating the Hiawatha.
This was from Railroad Stories Timing The Fast Ones from 1939.
Interesting.
I’m not even close to being an expert in railroad history. Since many of the old trains were so fast, was there any kind of accident statistic related to the speed?
Statistics - we don’t need any statistics pre-War. Life is cheap. Death is even cheaper.
You know I saw a video somewhere of a PRR streamlined K4 on the Southwind, up until a few days ago I had not known the PRR had streamlined K4 steam locomotives.
They had several different styles – see the version used on the Jeffersonian. In addition there were several with various kinds of partial streamlining.
In my opinion there was not much point – 3768 always looked to me as if it were wearing a clown suit with a dump in its pants. On the other hand, the faster E6s never had, to my knowledge, any functional streamlining at all.
The prospective E8 Atlantic would have been quite a different story!
Low air drag is more than just a bullet or sloped front end. It’s also all the clutter festooned all over the locomotive. That E6 might have had a blunt front end but it was remarkably clean of clutter. Almost looked like a typical British steam engine. The E6 was definitely a classic.
Did 3768 come before or after the S1? They definitely had the same overall style. I’m guessing Loewy designed both.
Loewy’s design for 3768 was early 1936. As I recall there were 24 models that were wind-tunnel tested; I think there may be pictures at the Hagley.
The four for the South Wind and the Jeffersonian were not ‘scientific’. They certainly were easier to maintain!
I do not know to what extent the contemporary German approach to functional streamlining (which dates as early as 1930) was a factor in Loewy’s treatment. He certainly took pains not to step on Kantola’s toes…
Given his background, I somehow doubt if Loewy was a fan of the Deutsche Reichsbahn in the 1930s.
He had no reason not to be until 1933, by which time the streamlining experiments (including those with light steam and short trains that produced the Hiawatha formula here) and quite arguably the BR 05s were streamlined by 1935, not far enough into the Nazi era for DR to show much of the political weaselry in design or engineering.
After 1940, perhaps; after 1942, likely, perhaps. I never heard him speak ill of German railroading.
He fought in the (First) World War and received the Croix de Guerre. He was understandably not a fan of German anything. Although his father was a Jewish Austrian, he grew up in Paris with his French mother’s relatives and identified himself as French.
How about the other Loewy designs?
What about or who designed the streamlined B&O P7s? C&NW streamlined Hudsons? CMStP&P streamlined Baltics?
Olive Dennis a female engineer was responsible for the design and implementation of Streamlining on the entire train of The Cincinnatian - both cars interior and exterior as well as streamlining for the four P7d Pacific’s that retained their streamlining until they were replaced by diesels in 1956.
Cheers, Ed
That would be German WWI veteran Otto Kuhler. (Of course that was only one P7, 5304, which was later restreamlined with the Olive Dennis Cincinnatian look).
It would be great to see a comparison of the two streamlined P7 looks.
They really weren’t at all like each other. This was one of Kuhler’s earlier efforts, where the bullet nose and shrouds are still actively ‘streamlined’ – see the picture Ed provided of the locomotive with the Coronation Scot on the Thomas Viaduct:
The Dennis scheme was this:
Here are shots of the K4 streamlining for the South Wind, prior to the Jeffersonian:
Nice!
Some more Cincinnatian:
