From: Mike <vr27553@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 12:03 AM
Subject: War and Railways
To:
G’day all.
Yesterday was ANZAC Day so it’s an appropriate time to devote a Friday Dozen to railways in the two World Wars. Restoring some of these involved close up work on men’s faces, which got me thinking. I will let them speak.
During the war Newport outshopped H220, a truly remarkable locomotive. One of only three 3-cylinder 4-8-4&rs
Great pictures David, thanks for passing them on! “Lest we forget.”
Yes, the Air Force never loved the B-24 / C-87 like they loved the B-17, that’s one of the reasons they disappeared so quickly after World War Two.
Excellent photos! Of the 48th Highlanders, I wonder what the guy third from the right in front is saying to the guy fourth from the right? “Want to go to the Wheat Sheaf for a pint?” No doubt! The Wheat Sheaf is the closest bar to the CNE grounds, on King St at Bathurst.
You got to love Highlanders! Bad guys all over the world would hear those bagpipes coming at them and just know they were in deep “do-do!”
“The Ladies From Hell!”
And for those of you who wonder why it is called a ‘Pocono’ …
Bears discussing, aside from the fact that, somewhat akin to the P-class 2-8-2s in Britain, they were ‘too large for requirements’.
These suffered from Wagner’s misunderstanding of the contribution of the radiant section to steam generation on a modern locomotive, and as a result the fireboxes were chronically too small, and the frame and other construction unable to be revised to fix the issue – a bit like the situation with the PRR T1’s 92-foot grate, only much more so.
Still an evocative design, though!
Wow. Oh wow.
Overmod, that film’s fantastic! The locomotive sounds like rolling thunder, and even the air horn (air horn!) sounds good.
The stack was kind of smoky, but I suppose they were hamming it up for the camera.
Just amazing! WHY did they ever get rid of those things?
Well OK, I know why they got rid of those things. But WHY did they get RID of those things! [:'(]
Worse than you think. Scranton was apparently offered one free. With its own building. And perpetual care by the railroad personnel. They turned it down. What a centerpiece it would make now!
At least Harry’s been honorably preserved. And he is treasured!
A guy named Ernest K. Gann wrote a book about his experiences flying cargo planes during WWII. He flew the C-87 cargo version of the B-24 for a while, and he had no love for the C-87. He was used to flying DC-3s that could carry a lot of ice and keep flying. One statement stuck with me over the decades since I read the book - he said the C-87 couldn’t carry enough ice to chill a highball. If you like books about flying, I recommend his (if you can find it).
Ernest K. Gann wrote a lot of aviation fiction and non-fiction. SALfan may be thinking of “Fate Is The Hunter”, which is somewhat autobiographical. Also recommended is “The High and The Mighty”.
The B-24/C-87 had the “Davis wing” which had a higher lift to drag ratio than the wing used on the B-17. This allowed the B-24 to fly faster and have a longer range than the B-17. Being a “highly tuned” design, the Davis wing did not tolerate deviations caused by battle damage or icing as well as the wing section used on the B-17.
Another WW2 wing tidbit. The wing section used for the P-51 was chosen for two reasons, one being the laminar flow meant lower drag useful for making a long range interceptor. The other was that the NAA crew were well aware of the problems Lockheed had with compressibility on the YP-38, so they picked a wing section that had a high critical Mach number. This allowed the P-51 to outrun most opposing fighters in a dive.
I believe it was “Fate is the Hunter”. I thought it was more or less autobiographical; if I was wrong, I apologize. It has been at least 45 years since I read it.
[quote user=“daveklepper”]
New South Wales Government Railways troop train leaving South Brisbane in 1940 with soldiers destined for the Middle East. 1940.
Deutsche Reichsbahn 3-cylinder 06 class 4-8-4 (Krupp, 1938). Two were built, 06.001 and 06.002, both of which were based at Frankfurt and Hanau until 1952 when they were scrapped. The heaviest and most powerful steam locomotives of the Reichsbahn, there were issues with their boiler design which were not deemed worth fixing as post-war a locom