,As I read thru the recent posting of “double heading”, it reminded me of how did they apply extra power back in early steam railroading.
I’m referring to back perhaps to wood burners that had such a forward angled “cow catcher”…way ahead of any location for a front coupler.
With that “forward reaching” cow catcher…I don’t see any way they could have applied more than one engine per train…Surely there must have been some way of doing this with the many “grades” in routes back then…But how…?
That long cowcatcher had a long iron bar to couple with link and pin couplers. In effect the long bar was a coupling link. It was made as a round rod about 1.5" in diameter with a closed link feature forged on the free end of it.
The bar is not so apparent in photos because when it was not in use, it was dropped down to lay directly on the angled top of the cowcatcher. So the bar was hinged to pivot up to horizontal for coupling, and down to lie on top of the cowcatcher when not in use. So when lying down on the cowcatcher, the coupling link feature was resting right on the forward, bottom tip of the cowcather.
You can see the long coupling bar-link lying down on top of the cowcatcher in this photo of #999:
…Thanks Bucyrus…Good photo that clearly shows it. Looks small to do that work…but then, the engines were much smaller…In horsepower too.
999…Really nice photo of her…Wasn’t she an alleged speedser…setting some records.
Your’e welcome Quentin. Yes, it does look like a rather frail coupler link, but I would guess that the link & pin coupler era, where this type of front coupler rod was used, did not entail much pushing with locomotives as helpers on the hind end of trains. I had not really thought about that until now, but I don’t recall ever seeing a 4-4-0 of this era pushing on the train. However, I suppose the front coupling bar was used for switching operations, which would have entailed shoving cars. I think where it was commonly used was for double heading where it would have been in tension.
I am not exactly sure if there was a clear standard on this, but link & pin couplers were not as adept at withstanding shoving force, as are the automatic couplers that replaced them. With link & pin couplers, many cars had dead blocks on the end sills. So when you shoved on a cut of cars, the slack bunched against the dead blocks rather than bunching the couplers together. The couplers were only subjected to tension force of pulling the cars. It was similar to the European system that uses buffers for the compression or
Mainline pushers in that era usually coupled the tender to the caboose (or the last car in front of the caboose,) so there were two more-or-less standard car ends together. The caboose would tag along at the end of that long bar.
Note that locos which did yard switching had footboards, not cattle removers. They also had standard design link and pin coupler castings, frequently with multiple link slots so they could use standard links no matter what height the car’s coupler was at. Thus they had no problem pushing a long cut, or even an entire train.
While link and pin couplers vanished in the United States, one of my prototypes, the Kiso Forest Railway, ran with link and pin couplers right up to the end of service in 1975.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Yes, switching locomotives in the link & pin era had footboards and a conventional link & pin coupler on the front. When I mentioned switching with engines having the long cowcatcher and long coupling bar, I was thinking of road switching when it was necessary to handle cars ahead of the locomotive. It must have happened, although I don’t recall ever seeing a photo showing it.
Interestingly, a lot of those long cowcatchers also had little footboards, although they are often hard to see on photos because they were so small. I suppose trainmen got on and off of those while the engine was moving, which looks to have been incredibly dangerous.
Here is a photo of a switch engine of the link & pin era.
Thanks for the link, Bucyrus. The way the loco is gussied up, it looks as if it was the yard crew’s Christmas present.
Note, too, the three separate slots for the front link. I have seen as many as five.
Can’t help but wonder if there were footboard-equipped `designated pushers’ in some places.
Chuck
You’re welcome. Here are a few more showing some variation in the pilot and coupler arrangement.
Here is the full link & pin coupler applied to the long cowcatcher:
A variation with a pilot plow:
As I scrutinize thru these other photos of 999…I’m looking at the boiler skin and wonder…That looks like the “real” boiler “skin”, compared to one that would have some kind of material…{asbestos}, as an insulation material around it with a metal covering over that, and being the outer surface one sees.
Looking at the connection of the “boiler skin” where it connects to the steam domes…It appears to be a “real” metal continuation.
Am I seeing this correct, and if so, didn’t this era of locomotives use the insulating material and a metal covering over it for the outside surface on the boiler…?
I think what you are seeing is that the boiler jacket continues all the way to the front of the smokebox. I have seen other earlier locomotive with that feature. I don’t know if they did that for the function of retaining heat in the smokebox or if it was for aesthetics.
Most often, the boiler jacket and lagging stops at the joint with the smokebox because that is the end of the pressure vessel. And because that insulation is a couple inches thick, the visible diameter of the boiler steps down prominently at that joint. But, in the case of #999, that visual step down is missing because the jacket is extended over the smokebox. So that makes the whole boiler look like it might not have a jacket.
…Perhaps as you say {Bucyrus}, the jacket coming to the front of the smoke box was what fooled me. Then I got to thinking, I belive welding was not in use yet…and the boiler covering really does look smooth and no non fitting edges.
To get back to the original topic of the method of coupling on early locomotives.
The “Cow Catchers” that were applied to early Wood Burners and Coal Burners were modern technologies {of those times]. They were designed to lift the offending critter up and off the rails so they would not windup under the Locomotive. Remember, rails were light if all iron, or possibly iron strap on wooden ‘rails’; locomotives were light in weight and with small flanges, easily derailed. The long exaggerated ‘Cow Catcher’ was designed to prevent that. The long bars on the fronts of the locomotives of that era were, designed mainly to be able to tow a disabled engine to a point where it could be either refueled, or repaired. Trains were not long in the Heyday of the 4-4-0’American’ type.
One generally never sees a train ( powered with a 4-4-0 American-type) from the 1880 forward to early 1900’s with many more than four or five cars. Generally, two or three seemed to have been the rule. Trains were light and so were the engines, weight wise. The long link on the front was there to aid in recovery, or moving a disabled engine, so one was not just limited to recovery from the origin point, a spare could be sent if available from the destination terminal as well.
Switching in those early years was accomplished by “Poling” cars to 'spot them for whatever reason they were being positioned for.
Poling as a practice was supposedly, generally, ‘outlawed’ at some point in the late 1940’s.(I’ve not seen any ICC specific rule quoted, re: Poling) [ But that seems to fall under the per view of something that might be considered “Railroad Lore” (?)]
Here is a picture of BNSF Diesel- GP39 V built for GM&O in 1965- notice ‘Poling Pockets’ on front of engine.[:-^]
Sam,
Thanks for posting the link to that poling thread.
In more recent times, poling was only used for unique switching moves such as ones where the engine was blocked by cars fouling a switch, so it could not tie onto them. But, as you mention, poling was once a production method of classification yard switching that is relatively unknown today. It was basically a method of kicking cars without needing to accelerate and brake a whole cut for each kick. The cars were simply plucked off the end of the cut, and kicked with an engine pushing a poling car.
It is interesting that the thread touched on that largely for
…That little 4-4-0 has quite a string of boxcars. Must be relative flat territory or that power would not be able to handle it.
Front coupler on a Civil War era locomotive:
