The Allegheny is a good choice. Which brings me to the question, did mountain roads like C&O favor the two wheel leading truck because of the curves on the mountain tracks?
Geez, four kinda limits things a bit…thanks for including the “at least” part.
TH&B’s Class A-s Berkshires
CNR’s N-2-b Consolidations and their DW&P N-2-a cousins
CNR’s S-2-a Mikados, with the Vanderbilt tenders (the S-4-b Mikes would have made the list, too, if CN had sprung for a second air pump on the pilot)
Pretty-well any of CNR’s H-6 Ten Wheelers
CNR’s E-10 Moguls, especially #88, which I saw, as a six year old, laying on its side after a derailment on Ferguson Ave., in Hamilton, Ont.
Michigan Central’s (CASO) 1290 and 1291
NYC’s (and TH&B’s) Hudsons - J-1s, J-2s, and J-3s - the non-streamlined versions.
Pennsy’s J1
It’s difficult to stop…but I will.
Wayne
I Would think a four wheel truck would track better, wouldn’t it? Maybe there was a greater adhesion factor to consider?
Penny and Fr. Al,
Adhesion factor is proably the reason, a good many Consolidations had about half the axle load on the lead truck as they did on the drivers, kind of an upgraded 0-8-0. The tenders for these locomotives would often have a pair of 4 wheel trucksm further minimizing weight not on drivers.
Some new locomotives added on my top-20 list.
MILW Class S-2 #251
https://donsdepot.donrossgroup.net/dr541.htm
Southern Pacific P-14
Therein lies some interesting discussion.
Geometrically, a leading Bissel is dynamically unstable (just as a trailing one, including a Delta-framed one, is not) – any lateral perturbation tends to make the truck diverge rather then centering. This requires some form of active centering, like that for lateral in a good pin-guided truck, and for high speed a proper location of the pivot and truck length relative to the driver wheelbase, independent of weight distribution on the truck axle.
Remember that when the LS&MS took over from Atlantic City as having the fastest locomotives in the world, what they built instead of Pacifics were engines with good leading Bissels, 2-6-2s. That does not seem to have made them radically unsafe; in fact Wilgus got into some trouble by adopting the principle on electrics intended for much slower running that very promptly got into disasters in the first couple of days of service … one aftermath of which was Wilgus’ resignation on matters of principle. I don’t remember exactly when the New York folks took ‘local control’ of motive-power design out of Ohio hands and mandated conversion of all the Prairies into rather poor Pacifics … but it might have been after that.
Meanwhile, by the time of the AMC Berkshires and the N&W A, a good two-wheel leading truck with isolated equalization and good springing (in those deep pockets) had been developed, and this was suitable right up to the speeds almost any road required. An additional consideration that has been discussed is the rod optimization possible on these engines, particularly simple articulateds, while keeping the locomotive wheelbase minimized.
With regards o AMC Berkshires, Trains published a picture, taken from a car falling behind, of a C&O Berk hauling a passenger train. The fellow who subimtted the picture said that the car’s speedometer was indicating 85MPH and the train was even faster.
One more engine added on my already-too-long list, the UP #815 with skyline casting:
This is not my video. I think the skyline casting look legit on the UP FEF-1.
I don’t recall having seen this either in Kratville’s book on the Streamliners (where he goes into front-end drafting and streamlining in some detail) or the Mighty 800s.
Obviously a test rig on the Ajin version pictured: see all the seams where the rectangular panels are cobbled together, and the frankly awful louvered 45-degree box at the front with the whistle sticking up awkwardly … it looks in fact as if the whistle has received a whack to make it sit at that silly angle; I sure hope so for UP’s sake!
But what is that weird casting just in front, with the fins? On the blurred historical photograph, this looks like a side view of lit ‘train-numberboards’ inside a glass enclosure, with what might be a headlight of some kind in the middle; it also appears that the edges of the skyline casing have been curved and ground smooth, at least smoother than in the model.
The pump shroud that works reasonably well on the FEF-3 is misapplied to the older engine; it gives it almost a James Cagney look – not to say anything against Cagney, but I don’t care for the pugilist bent-nose profile.
I predict this came out in ‘response’ to the smoke-lifting tests done by Gresley et al., and perhaps the NRC study about “increasing lift at the stack” – which, of course, was an inadequate answer to the wrong question. Be fun to see how they kept the various ‘things’ under the casing accessible to be worked on.
The first time I saw this unique odd-duck, or odd-iron-horse of the Union Pacific, I thought the skyline casting was almost identical to Southern Pacific’s GSs, MTs, and P14, except the angled number board case and the shutters on that narrow entrance of the skyline casing. Turn out the design of it was more ambitious than those built on SP’s steam-streamliner, even though it was a rushed design and a failed experiment. The design on SP’s skyline casing and the shape of the smokestack was very straightforward. The skyline on UP 815 looks like an attempt to draft the air current into a pair of the long tunnel inside the casing until the air current hit the end of the tunnel above the driving cab.
You are probably right that the skyline casing was so much smoother than the brass train model, I can’t see if there was any rivel on the outside, but since the only pic available on the web is so small, I can only trust Ajin’s interpretation.
[quote user=“Overmod”]
The pump shroud that works reasonably well on the FEF-3 is misapplied to the older engine; it gives it almost a James Cagney lo
I’ll take a stab at this:
NKP Berkshires 2-8-4
PRR T-1 4-4-4-4
N&W A 2-6-6-4
N&W Y6 2-8-8-2
N&W Y 4-8-4
NKP Mike 2-8-2
C&O/PRR 2-10-4
C&O H8 2-6-6-6
That’s enough for now.
Great list! [tup]
Was thumbing through my ‘Pictorial History of Motive Power on the B&O’ published in 1952 by Lawrence Sagle.
The one thing that sort of shouts out about steam was the absolute lack of standardization in virtually any aspect of the locomotives - especially over time. Virtually no two kinds of locomotives even shared the same cylinder diameters. Go into a individual class of locomotives and find that they were equpped with different fire boxes and boiler types, had different types of valve gear, feedwater heaters and the lack thereof.
In many cases a ‘rebuild’ was jacking up the Road Number and creating a whole new engine going from a fabricated frame to a cast frame, going from plain bearings to roller bearings and on and on.
"Balt, you’ve got to remember (and you probably do) that back in the steam era every railroad had it’s own ideas about what a steam locomotive should be, and what kind of requirements their own particular situation called for.
Builders like Baldwin and the individual companys that later merged and became ALCO did have basic “catalog” types, but always had an attitude like Burger King…
“Special orders don’t upset us!”
Standardization only came about when it was forced, either by the USRA during the First World War, and the 'roads went right back to their old ways once the war was over, or by EMD/GM when the “Diesel Revolution” came out.
EMD/GM would bend a little, but their attitude for the most part was “Take it or leave it! If you don’t want there’s plenty of others who do!” And it wasn’t a case of arrogance, they were hungry for the business after all, but it was the philosophy of standardization and efficiency. As it was their product line was so good and in such demand they didn’t get too many arguments.
The real answer is - No Bean Counters. Operations ran the show - more, better, bigger, faster and what ever ideas popped up to promote any one or more of operations desires.
Bean Counters and the first generation of diesels arrive at the same time. The initial bean counters costed out what steam cost vs. what diesels cost. Diesels won. Next the Bean Counters started costing the various manufacturers diesels against each other. EMD won. The the world headed into the Penn Central debacle and Red Ink won.
NYC J-3a Hudson. Non-streamlined, Boxpok drivers and PT tender
NYC L-2a Mohawk.
NYC S-1b Niagara.
AT&SF 5010 Class 2-10-4
“The world headed into the Penn Central debacle and Red Ink won!”
I LOVE it! [(-D]
And Mr. Taranto, you’ve got fine taste in locomotives! Impressive machines all!
Especially that Santa Fe 2-10-4! That thing looks like it could pull everything tied to its tail up to and including Los Angeles.
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The most beautiful 4-6-6-4 ever built toiled in relative anonymity in the desert west of Salt Lake City and east of the Feather River Canyon–the Western Pacific 4-6-6-4. It was rarely photographed at all.
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The Rio Grande class L-107 2-8-8-2.
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The Bessemer and Lake Erie 2-10-4.
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The Texas and Pacific 4-8-2 with Worthington fwh and “Russian Iron” green boiler.
There‘s so many good options to choose from that it’s hard to pick a favorite! Off the top of my head though, here’s some that stand out for me:
-New York Central L2/3/4 Mohawk
-New York Central J3 Hudson (w/ Worthington FWH & PT Tender)
-CNJ 4-6-0 Camelback
-L&N M1 “Big Emma” 2-8-4
-MP 6600-class 4-6-2
-B&O P7 4-6-2
-SLSF 1500-class 4-8-2
That last one is special to me because it was the first (and so far the only) steam locomotive I’ve ever seen run in person; I saw Frisco 1522’s last run as a kid. What an experience!
Glad to see another Mohawk fan! Also the 5011 class are great, definitely something to not be trifled with.