Just saw some old photos of NYC Niagaras (4-8-4) roaring down the tracks @ 400 miles per hour, the smoke from the stack was very high above the loco and still high behind the locomotive, those elephant ears were working as they should, but I hear they were never very successful on other railways, and were eventually discarded, any reason they were dropped? NYC seemed to make it work.
UP kept them for their 8000 series.
There was a thread about them about 3 weeks ago in “Prototype Information” forum, under the Model Railroader forums. Some more information if you’d like to read the thread. The link is:
http://www.trains.com/TRC/CS/forums/876165/ShowPost.aspx
Regards
Ed
Gabe and tatans -
You’re both a little free with the “naughts”.
I’m sure it was meant that the Niagara was doing 40 MPH instead of 400, and the UP engines were 800s instead of 8000s.
Ol’ Ed
Union Pacific and New York Central both used the elephant ear smoke deflectors. I do not think that I ever saw any Pennsy photos of engines with them. Southern Pacific, of course, opted for the cab forward to protect their crews in the snow sheds and tunnels. Are there any other roads that used this method[cab forward], or the elephant ears for smoke deflection to protect the engine crews?
Yes. This is an excerpt from a post by Andy Sperendeo in the thread that I referenced in my post above:
North American railroads that used smoke lifters on at least some engines included the Boston & Maine, Canadian National, Delaware & Hudson, Lehigh & Hudson River, Maine Central, Milwaukee Road, New York Central, Nickel Plate Road, Union Pacific, Wabash, and Western Pacific.
Regards
Ed
ED: It really was going 400 miles per hour, or is that 400 kilometres per hour (here in Canada), at least that’s what it looked like in the photo, and if you were standing 15 feet away when the photo was taken you can be assured it really was going that fast.
I guess I had not seen any photos and if I had I’ve probably forgotten…At any rate, thanks for setting me straight![oops][swg][(-D]
I doubt they invented it, but the elephant ear style seemed to show up most often on Alco built locos of the roads mentioned in the earlier post. Later series UP 800’s had double stacks and were the first UP loco’s to get them. Oil Burning Challengers used in passenger service in the Pac-NW also had them, so they weren’t strictly for coal smoke.
The skyline casing used on many SP locos was another design for lifting smoke. Santa-Fe had a telescoping stack extension that could be lowered for clearance in tunnels on some locos. Most of the streamlined steam designs had shrouding designed to lift smoke up and over the train.
The stack extensions used by Santa Fe were developed as a way of improving the draft and thereby gaining some extra horsepower. The improved draft would also lift the smoke better, which was viewed as a fringe benefit.
I think if I was standing next to the track when a Niagara when by at 40 it would seem like 400 - between the sheer size and the fact that it would have been gone (as indeed they are) way too soon…
Was standing next to the track when an Amtrak went by at close to 80 once - wow…
My understanding was that the UP FEF-3 series had twin exhausts derived from the French Kylchap type. They had reduced back pressure and increased power output, but at the cost of a softer blast. This meant that there was more smoke drifting about which obscured vision. Hence the lifters. The later Challengers had the same problem and solution.
As for the Niagaras, the low height restriction (15’ 2 3/4") of the NYC System meant that the top of the chimney was nearly flush with the top of the boiler. Without the lifters, the aerodynamics caused the smoke to follow the contours of the engine back to the cab.