What is a skyline casing? If I look at a photo of a Daylight Pacific, where should I focus my attention?
Look at the skyline of the locomotive from the nose back to the cab. It encases everything that is on top the boiler.
Of course, there are necessary openings for such as the smokestack and everything else that needs access to the open air.
Here’s a good shot by Gene Deimling of one of the three P-10s that had been ‘streamlined’ in the full Daylight colors and skirts in 1941. Here it is in the '50s, very dirty, but showing in a 3/4 view most of the relevant details of the ‘skyline casing’
Note the air horn tucked up behind the little Witte-esque elephant earlets that flank the stack. I believe a similar construction produces the Frankenstein-monster-like ‘forehead’ on the MT-1 casing treatment. You can see the panels in the casing and how they likely wrap around the various things on top of the boiler
http://espee.railfan.net/nonindex/steam-01/2485_sp-steam-p10-gene_deimling.jpg
Very nice, Overmod. I doubt that the train number boards caused much turbulence.
Here’s a good shot by Gene Deimling of one of the three P-10s that had been ‘streamlined’ in the full Daylight colors and skirts in 1941. Here it is in the '50s, very dirty, but showing in a 3/4 view most of the relevant details of the ‘skyline casing’
The curved fairing to the base of the funnel duct is not as clear as in the other photos but is still there…
The theory of the skyline casing is that it removes sources of turbulence due to the irregular size and shape of the domes and other projections, particularly in crosswinds.
In New Zealand they decided to just put up the sides of the skyline casing on the 1939 J class 4-8-2 leaving the top open. I’m told that the cinders collected in the open duct and ended up in the cab. It was at least easy to remove which happened quickly…
Stewart also noted the fun involved with the ‘streamlined’ recessed headlight on the K-class 4-8-4s as built, the ‘well’ for which was another ‘mahvelous’ magnet for cinders and soot. I wish I had my copy of ‘When Steam was King’ handy as he had quite a command of the language and used it there nearly as effectively as he did regarding six-cylinder simple Garratts…
I’m back home and have the book I referred to earlier handy.
It is Dampflokomotiven in den USA 1825 -1950 Band 2 by Heinrich Buchmann published by Birkhauser in 1978. I bought it in Amsterdam in 1991 at a marked down price but had to carry it back to Australia via the UK and USA. I should have bought Stefan Tzerbatich’s book on U Boats (also in German) but it wasn’t marked down…
The F-7 appears on page 107 and the E-4 on page 108.
The two locomotives have the same overall wheelbase, the same coupled wheelbase and the same boiler pitch.
On the E-4 the distance between the trailing truck axle and the leading coupled axle is 66" and on the F-7 it is 74". The E-4 cylinders are located 1’ closer to the driving wheels relative to the truck, both trucks being 88’ wheelbase.
So the cylinders are 9" closer to the main drivers on the E-4 than on the F-7.
Sadly the main rod length of the F-7 isn’t specified but it is 124" on the E-4. On page 109, there is a drawing of the ACL R-1 which also had a 124" main rod.
But despite all the similarities, the two 4-6-4 look as though the designers never spoke to eachother.
The E-4 grate is (roundly) 13’ by 7’. The F-7 grate is (roundly) 12’ by 8’.
The F-7 has a 44.5" combustion chamber (with its own thermic syphon) but that on the E-4 might be about 24". The F-7 boiler is 18’10.75" between tubeplates while the E-4 is 19’ exactly.
Partly due to the longer and narrower grate, the E-4 has a longer wheelbase trailing truck, 84" compared to 64" on the F-7.
I happy to believe that balancing of driving wheels changed between the two designs, but I don’t believe that ideas on boiler design changed in the same period.
The book has a number of other similar diagrams, ATSF 3460, NYC J3a, NYC L3b UP 800 and so on.
But its main feature is builder’s photos of many types fr
The Lark, the Shasta Daylight and the Cascade were all streamlined trains that ran along the West coast. These trains ran from Oakland north to Portland Oregon.
The Guide shows that the Lark was an overnight train between Los Angeles and San Francisco, with cars for Oakland. It did not run north of Oakland.
I think it is the application of different thoughts about best-practice boiler design that apply here.
i have not looked with careful enough analysis at this yet, but the steamlocomotive.com stats for these two show a relatively large disparity in heating surface for what nominally seem small differences in firebox shape and nominal grate area.
I have been proceeding on the assumption that the ‘issues’ with E-4 speed are related to valves/passages and to balancing – not to an inability to make steam above a certain required mass flow, or amount of available draft. I suspect at least some of the data to determine whether this is so would be in the detailed AAR test records … if those are accessible to one of us.
The Lark had two-tone gray colors with off-white stripes in the same general pattern as the red and orange Daylight paint pattern.
Gil Reid painted a great picture of the Lark coming out of the Santa Susana Pass tunnels pulled by GS-4 4454 that he titled “Gray Plus Orange and Red”. I have the print framed and hanging above one of my fireplaces.
You can see the print (and order one if you wish) here:
http://gilreid.com/product/gray-plus-orange-and-red/
I have this one hanging in my office, as I (as others do, too, I am sure) often feel like that Hudson working all out pulling the train of passengers along for the ride:
http://gilreid.com/product/79-mph/
And for you T-1 5550 fans, Gil Reid did this one about “120 mph plus”:
http://gilreid.com/product/1948-prr-t1-5536120mph-plus-unsigned-unnumbered/