Price is not what keeps me from owning a Big Boy, or any other model, strictly for display.
I just don’t have the “collector” gene in that way…</
During our open-door events, the two locos that attract a lot of the attention are the Thomas train (younger crowd) and my Big Boy. And 99% of the folks don’t know its name… I should add that the Locksound decoder helps to make an impression.
Simon
But my question would be is anyone at your event running a C&O ALLEGHENY, or a B&O EM-1, or a DM&IR M4, or a N&W Y6b or Class A?
If not than your Big Boy has no competition…
Sheldon
I’ve been to the Henry Ford museum and walked around the C&O Allegheny. I’ve been to Steamtown and stood in the cab of the Big Boy.
Sorry UP, the Allegheny wins in my book.
–Randy
I found this picture of Alleghany 1604:
https://live.staticflickr.com/2922/14031124424_7dd06e3427_b.jpg
Anybody know where it’s located?
That’s a pretty old picture because that loco is now at the B&O museum in Baltimore. It has been there, and indoors, since 1986. Before that it spent some time in Russell, KY and Roanoke, VA.
Sheldon
Having also seen both of those, and the Allegheny in Baltimore many times, I agree.
Sheldon
Looks like the Roanoke Transportation Museum days (pre-1985 flood, and of course pre-VMT).
I tried to find pictures of the locomotive at the shopping center but couldn’t – someone like Mike will manage.
I assume you have actual proof of an E6s running that fast. Personally I’d doubt it. Neither the valves nor the exhaust tract of that locomotive would support it.
This is an example of the sort of ‘thinking’ that produced 127mph between AY and Elida with an E3. It’s easy to claim your favorite went fast as hell … somewhat more difficult to explain why it will run happily all day at 92mph, is choking at 97, and only goes over about 105 down a 30% downgrade with a tailwind… if then.
A K4s, which one can consider as an enlarged E6s with a few additional concerns, was similarly limited to somewhere in the 92mph region, and while it could be pushed to close to 100mph it wouldn’t be a pleasant experience. There are obvious places where a four-coupled engine has a high-speed advantage, and PRR of course famously considered this a desideratum for fast balanced running … on eight-drivered power. If you look carefully at the developed power/speed relationship of the T1 vs. the T1a, you can get an idea of the tradeoff of using a radial valve drive and piston valves vs. poppets, particularly above 85mph where the performance curves begin to diverge much as expected from the Lima K4 tests (when you adjust out the benefits of sine-wave superheater and front-end throttle in assessing actual improvement over a ‘stock’ K4)
It would have been interesting to see what PRR could have produced as the E8 Atlantic (their version of an 84"-drivered high-speed locomotive for light trains) – there is little question that that design would do over 115mph; I suspect considerably over.
Remember that far more
Overmod,
Completely agreed. The 115 mph claim during the Lindberg is strictly anticdotial from trackside PRR employees if I recall.
And you are most correct that the real skill of the Lindberg run was maintaining whatever max speed the trackage would support.
I have lived my whole life near some of that route, and simply holding 90 mph would be tough even today.
Sheldon
I watched them bring it to Baltimore and build the shopping center. I was selling MATCO TOOLS in those days, and that area was in my territory.
Sheldon
Overmod,
Another anticdotial story. Not to go too far afield here, and fully agreeing with your assessment of the engineering science, sometimes machines do defy our understanding of the science, or, often by luck or accident, fall into some perfect balance of the science.
My story: In 1977 I restored and hot rodded a 1963 Chevy Nova SS convertible. Powered by a warmed over 283, w/327 high output heads and cam, Holley, headers, etc. Likely in the 300 hp range, with maybe similar torque.
But my driveline was unusual. It had an M20 four speed with the lower first gear commonly supplied in larger, heavier cars like the Impala. And in had the typical auto trans 3.08:1 ratio 10 bolt rear axle.
The Nova was a light car, and even a V8 convertible was under 2400 lbs.
So here are the well tested performance specs of my little hot rod.
0 to 60 mph - 5.5 seconds
Standing 1/4 mile in street trim - consistantly just under 15 seconds.
Fuel economy - 13-14 mpg city, 22 mpg highway, both if you kept your foot out of it…
Now for the one only a few “experts” believe, top speed.
The car was equipped with a 160 mph speedometer made from Corvette parts and measured to be reasonably accurate. It was also equipped with a tachometer.
On only two occasions did I test its limits in this area, but both the speedometer and the math from the tachometer readings suggest that the car exceeded 130 mph.
RPM to road speed charts I worked up for the car back then suggest that the driveline combination optimized the power curve of the 327/350 hp heads and cam I had in the 283, giving it just the right balance of torque and power to achieve this speed without running out of rpm.
Did it really go 130 mph? I’m not sure, but it had to be close. And while it may have run out of power soon, it was still pulling when I let off the gas.
Sheldon
I guess it’s all in how you paint and finish it. Some of the pictures on the Internet look pretty good.
Paul
I have built and painted this kit, but there is no way you can get rid of that cheap plastic look of the wheels and the rods. The Revell engine may be OK to be placed in a roundhouse, where you can see only a small part of it. As a display on a shelf - forget it.
P.S. I “binned” mine after a few days.
Frankly I’d have little doubt a ‘built’ 283 in a car the size of a Nova with a 3.08 final drive would go 130+mph. Nor that the gear combinations you had wouldn’t facilitate it accelerating to that speed range reasonably. (I’d be tempted to have seen if ecomodder-style streamlining and gap taping might have increased the effective top ‘balancing’ speed still further…) Some of this will hinge on what your effective top gear in the box was – were the ratios wide, and was the final drive closer to OD than a ‘four-speed with a granny’ sort of design optimized around high torque close to the line…
The thing is that IC engine ‘speed’ only very imperfectly equates to reciprocating steam-locomotive speed, for a fairly wide variety of reasons that are mostly synergistic. Much of the issue of valves, for example, has to do with a combination of effective opening time vs. transfer-port characteristics vs. compression effects, and very, very often this explains best why locomotives have such a short range between ‘effective’ and ‘unachievable’ top speed.
Were the steam engine provided with a multiple-gear transmission, some of the cyclic-related concerns can be addressed, and the inherent characteristic of positive-displacement expanders to make good torque at low RPM much better employed. This is also true of some steam turbines when equipped with a Bowes drive or similar arrangement that permits varying shaft speed at constant output torque (without using brakes).
I had a '62 Thunderbird with an unmodified 390 that was good for just over 130mph, and had remarkable acceleration above… well, above first in whatever kind of Cruise-O-Matic and stall-speed converter was in there.
Yes, with proper paint and finish, the Monogram Big Boy model can look amazing. The handrails along the boiler MUST be replaced, but other than that, it can be carefully painted into a nice display model.
-Kevin
I think back in the day, many if not most railroaders didn’t bother with the ‘names’ of the wheel arrangements. They just used there number series or maybe their employer’s road class when talking about locomotives.
It’s like railroad slang. I’m sure it was used, some of it still is, but not to the extent that you’ll find in the old railroad-school fiction stories.
Jeff
I have worked among blue collar tradesman my entire life, and none of them talk like the idiots you see in movies and television. There are very few “slang” words that actually get used by the people who are serious about there profession.
It is like the “coke”/“soda” thing I keep hearing about in Georgia. I have eaten in literally hundreds of diners in Georgia, and never once heard a waitress say that. However, in every article I read about slang in the South, there it is.
-Kevin
nvm
When I was growing up we called it “pop” but our cousins from Milwaukee always said “soda”.