Dumb question but have to ask it. It wasn’t/isn’t uncommon to see diesels lashed together in a consist. However, how were steamers “syncronized” so that they ran together smoothly?
Was there some sort of syncronizer to do this, or was it just dependent upon the talent and experience of the engineers to keep both locomotives from pushing and pulling one another? Did they use hand signals or flags for starting and stopping together?
I appreciate the info…
Tom
Tom, except for some modern excursion steamers set up for it (running a slaved helper diesel behind them), [I am not personally aware of any like that] consisting was just as you surmise; two crews who listened for signals from each other, and who watched each other for hand signals. The rest relied on two crews who were familiar with their orders and with the route. Included would be the trailing tonnage they were required to lift and what it was going to be like as a ride once the brakes were released.
One thing I am not sure of is if pushers at the back of long tonnages of coal hoppers, for example, could use the rail telephones for quick bursts of information exchange between the head end and the pusher. I have DVD’s showing long coal drags on the Norfolk & Western, for example, with two Y’s on the head end and a single pusher about a mile back.
-Crandell
Mostly the feel of the train, feeling the slack running in or out, feeling and listening to the effort the engine was putting out. I have seen pictures of trains with 6 or 8 engines one them, each one with a crew, all independently operating their engines together.
When operated as a doubleheader, two steamers on a train were controlled separately and independently by the two engine crews.
If the train needed more tractive effort than the rear (usually road) locomotive could supply, the road engineer would handle his controls to control train speed upgrade if maximum power was not required. The helper engineer would operate for maximum power. Logic behind this was that the helper would cut off, and could then be re-serviced. The road engine might have to travel some distance before getting more water.
The same applied with divided power, and with pushers. The engineers who couldn’t see worked at maximum, while the road engineer controlled speed as necessary.
(Verified by talking to JNR engineers at Agematsu, the low end of a 2.5% grade)
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Tom,
And to add to the excelent info so far, during the transition era many roads ran steam and diesel together.
The B&O used its new diesel sets as helpers so a steam powered train, which may already be double headed would approach a grade and have an ABBA set of F3’s pull up behind it and the three crews would push/pull the train over the grade by feel and with whistle/horn signals - no radios.
The Western Maryland often used 6-8 locos on 100 car coal drags out of several of their branch lines. The curves and grades did not allow for anything bigger than their large 2-8-0’s, so 3-4 2-8-0’s and 3-4 ALCO RS units could be seen all mixed up, pushing/pulling and/or mid train to move the coal out to the mainline yards.
It was all just done by “feel”.
Sheldon
Good stuff, guys! [Y] I really appreciate the responses! [:D]
Tom
Just a side note…not all first generation diesels were set up to m.u. with each other. Many railroads figured if they were buying a diesel to replace a particular job that a steam engine was doing, like working a branch line, they didn’t need to pay extra to have m.u. capability installed on that engine. So once in a while you would see a diesel “doubleheader” where two diesels - each with a crew - would be running a train together.
I believe 765 is, though one one seems to like using it. the Grand Canyon Steamer is for sure. 261 might be, but I don’t know for sure, I know 4449 is not. I asked about steam to diesle control earlier, and osmeone said that they thought the Southern equipped theres before getting totally converted to diesel.
As a side story, after TrainFest in Owosso was finished, the task of putting away the dead-in-tow 1225 was given to Viscose 6 and FLag 75 (two tank engines) They were coupled up nose-to-nose with Viscose leading. 6 hit her whistle, three shorts, and then 75 throttled up. It was something hearing the slack run out of the couplers between 75 and 1225, and slam into the, still stationary, Viscose 6. Yo can tell what engine crew was on the ball that day…
Clinchfield #1 was one of the first, if not the first, steamers to have a diesel control stand in the cab. The two B units, painted Pullman green and masquerading as baggage cars, did the lion’s share of the pulling, while #1 provided the smoke, burning-coal aroma and whistle. If anyone really believed that a light old-timer could pull a long train of heavy cars up the Clinchfield’s grades…
As for the side sto
Baldwin for one was developing a steam MU throttle when the era ended, quite a bit of physics was at work when mutliple steam power was required, tonnage , placement of loaded/unloaded cars and operating profile and conditions. Typically ,the engineers would time the exhaust for each locomotive, typical too was to have the largest driver diameter locomotive in the lead , most enginers aquired the abilty to do this by ear and no doubt decades of experience.
SP had this procedure: Rear helper(s )would shove against the train until all slack was eliminated, mid train helper(s) would then shove until all forward slack was eliminated, finally the lead locomotive(s) would release the brakes for a smooth start, all this was communicated with whistle signals and by feel . If it wasn’t timed right, things could messy in a hurry!
Dave
Largest driver in front? May I ask then, why was it that 587 lead 765 in their excursion, as well as leading 611 and 1218 in that tripleheader? I know 587’s drivers aren’t bigger than 765s and 611s. 1218 maybe, but I doubt it. It also has twice as many.
Both 611 and 1218 have 70 inch drivers.
In regular service, if it became necessary to put a 58 inch drivered Y6 in front of a 70 inch drivered A, it was done. More usually, the Y was used as a pusher.
In the example I gave, both locos had the same driver diameter. However, if a C11 class 2-6-4T was assigned as a pusher, it would have had the higher drivers - 1520mm versus the 2-8-2’s 1400mm.
Freight locomotives were often assigned to help passenger locos with higher drivers - and were usually put in front of the road loco. The road loco would have been fitted with train heat and signal lines the helper didn’t have, so it had to remain coupled to the train. Management preferred to have the helper on the point, rather than risk having a rear-end pusher do nasty things to cars carrying paying customers. However, passenger pushers were not unknown. I recall looking out the rear vestibule door of a train in Japan and getting a close-up view of a smokebox door. The road loco was a C62 Hudson, one of the fastest narrow-gauge locos anywhere (one holds the Japanese speed record for steam.) The pusher was a D52, the biggest, heaviest Japanese 2-8-2.
How did the two ‘d’raiba’ coordinate their efforts? With whistle signals.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Here’s three Mikados in a consist in the Rockies at the spiral tunnels. I’ve been told lash ups used flags to signal and pushers used the whistle.
Brent
Tom,Double heading was done by the engineers and not really by skill seeing engineers was trained for this service and assigned to the “helper pool”…Of course all engineers would be qualified for double heading regardless…
As a side note it didn’t matter if a 2-8-4 was being double headed with a heavy 2-8-2,2-10-4 ,4-8-2,4-8-4 or whatever since double headers operated under speed restrictions…Of course double headers in passenger service would need to maintain the schedule.
A story that I was told by my Grandfather.
A lot of times the Fireman could be a qualified engineer and would help a rookie engineer on his first “help” or “double”.
According to my Grandfather there was a reason for that…
Nobody wanted a close casket funeral.
Steam engines operated independently (each had their own crew) but cooperatived when powering a train. Before radios, whistles were relied on for communication.