Yet another one for my Forum friends. I have a few Harriman passenger car questions. Am I correct in thinking that Harriman passenger cars were steam powered? If that is the case, can someone provide me with some links/pictures of steam tenders modified into steam generator cars? I have a tender I think I can modify to fit the bill but I need some pictures to get the details right.
As usual, thank you for any assistance that can be provided.
Harriman cars were steel coaches built to a common plan to save money. They were not steam âpoweredâ but they were steam âheatedâ, with a typical system that used two-stage pressure reduction to âcondensing vaporâ. I believe we had a recent thread about the pressures and valves involved; you can read the appropriate section of one of the âfreeâ Locomotive Cyclopedias (1941 and 1950/52).
A typical steam-generator car would have used '40s or later technology â probably Vapor-Clarkson or similar units. These are called âsteam generatorsâ to distinguish them from âboilersâ â they use oil firing with multiple gas passes through a nest of tubing with âonce-throughâ circulation. The likeliest approach would be to install fuel and water tanks in an old baggage or express car, mount the steam generators with easy access to the roof for the necessary stacks and vents, and probably use an engine-driven genset for the necessary electrical power to run the various systems used for semi-automatic operation.
Steam generators on diesel locomotives were usually administered by (no surprise!) the fireman; he would go back periodically to check them or respond to problems. I donât know if special employees were used on steam-generator cars.
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Most passenger equipment in North America was heated with steam until the mid 1970;s when âHead End Powerâ began to replace steam on new passenger equipment.
Prior to that, most railroads had diesel locos equipped with Steam Generators for this purpose. And Steam locomotives used in passenger service had the necessary connections and equipment to supply the cars directly from the locomotive boiler.
Separate steam generator cars were used, but they were not the common or standard approach. Some roads in cold climates used them to have greater capacity. Other roads built them to allow locos not equipped to supply steam to be used in passenger service.
Most were home shop made, some were in baggage cars, others were purpose built or converted from other types of cars.
Sheldon
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A common use was on the âfar endâ, to supply decent mass flow to the rear of long trains in severe cold and windy weather.
Note that Vapor systems were not intended to work with the HP train line open, but you often see pictures of steam pouring from a partly or fully opened cock at EOT, or leaking between cars, in an attempt to move more steam to the rear cars. It would not be surprising to have locomotive steam-generator capacity, or fuel and water, run short in such circumstances â considerably more of the latter can be carried on a purpose-built heater car.
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Yes, I did use the wrong term. My apologies on that.
The engines that these cars would be pulled with are definitely not equipped for steam. (S4s and an RS1)
These are coaches are run as second-hand for use on a car ferry during nice weather or they can be run on a common carrier by a run-through agreement if the weather doesnât allow the car ferry to operate. This is mid 1970s era that the cars operate.
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I believe RS1s were often set up with steam generators in the short hoods; RS2s and 3s certainly were.
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I too would like to know more about Harriman cars and steam heating, but Iâm having a hard time finding any information.
Regarding Harriman Cars, the Nov. 1972 issue of MR magazine states that MDC used blueprints from circa 1910.
Regarding Steam Heating, a Japanese rolling stock engineer wrote the following in a book published in 1929:
In 1870, a hot water circulation system (made by Baker Heater Co.) was introduced.
In 1881, high-pressure steam heating began, and in 1905 (some say 1903), atmospheric steam heating (made by Vapor Car Heating Co.), which had no temperature difference between each car, was developed and became widely used. The pressure was adjusted to 40 - 140 pounds per square inch (2.8 - 9.8 kgf/cm2) depending on the number of cars connected and the outside temperature, and 2" diameter steel pipes were used, including the joints between the cars. The two types of steam heating could be interconnected.
âEssays on passenger and freight cars in the US and Europeâ by Otani Suetoshi, 1929, p108-149
P.S. At that time, steam locomotives were used, so it is correct to assume that high-pressure steam was in abundant supply.
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The one I have unfortunately is not so equipped.
@BN7150
Those are exactly the ones I have, repainted of course.
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So in your original post you did not indicate that you were asking about, or refering to, a specific prototype situation or your own freelanced model world.
Harriman cars were used by the SP and UP, used all over both lines, and were built mostly from 1909 to 1912.
Commuter coaches built later for the SP are of similar design but are not true Harriman cars.
Sheldon
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Did either the East Bay or Oregon âRed Electricsâ (as distinct from the PE âBig Red Carsâ even though some of them went there as âblimpsâ later) share construction details with Harriman cars?
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The captioning for this photo states that the passenger car on this float was the Superintendents and doing his inspection run. Not sure what kind of coach it is though.
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Not something I have any knowledge of.
Sheldon
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Joe Strapac has a book on the Red Electrics (I donât know if this is The Big Red Cars) that may shed light on this â but I donât own a copy and canât easily arrange to read one. There is also a book by Dill and Grande from 1994.
Richard Thompsonâs picture of equipment circa 1915:
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My impression has been that the East Bay cars did not share much if any construction details with Harriman coaches. For one thing, the roofs on the electric cars are flatter than Harrimans.
NB: I pulled out my copy of Red Trains in the East Bay and looked up the construction details of the East Bay cars. The text said that the cars were built by ACF and designed specifically for suburban service. Other than riveted construction, there isnât much shared with the Harriman cars. The cars were well built, as the Blimps in Perris still seem to be a good structural shape.
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I found an article on TrainWeb titled âSouthern Pacific commuter train, c1947-1956â which specified that the coaches were âsteam heatedâ and not air conditioned. I also understood that they were made by Pullman Standard between 1923-1927 and were very similar to the Harriman style.
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Hereâs the thing: a steam-generator car would have to be long enough to be stable-running (which means at least two three-piece 'high-speed freight trucks, and more commonly drop-equalizer passenger trucks which are longer-wheelbase) and that represents âone less carâ that can be carried on the ferry. This is a more severe restriction if the steam trainline is kept unbroken during the ferrying (I.e. that the train is kept coupled and not broken into sections connected by longer steam hoses).
In my opinion youâd put the steam generator and a lighting genset into the auxiliary car so youâre not relying on axle generators for power and battery charging â no gaps in lighting or heating as the train is stationary all that time. Presumably the cars youâre using arenât typical lightweight âstreamlinerâ cars with sealed windows and all sorts of electrical mod cons. If they are, even if youâre not concerned with Amtrak compatibility it probably pays to provide some form of HEP independent of a locomotive.
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@Woke_Hoagland
As said earlier, these are old Harriman cars. My car ferry is a single track one.
Just out of curiosity, I decided to double check my car ferry and the passenger cars. Two cars will fit ⌠barely. One of those is the combine car. Is there some sort of detail part that I can add to the 3D printed interior to replicate an in-car unit as you described but still prototypically still make the car inhabitable.
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I donât know of anyone that makes a Vapor-Clarkson generator as either a detail part or a kit.
Here is a picture of part of the detail to give you an idea of the frame size and appearance.
The cabinet side panels are removed to show the internal detail; normally these would have sheet metal panels as covers.
Iâll bet Ed (gmpullman) will have many more details. You may want to buy one of the operatorâs manuals for these units (there is one on eBay now for $20 asked) which has reasonably complete documentation on the construction.
There are smaller steam generators, and if your train only runs one combine and one coach you may not need even the smallest Vapor-Clarkson generator. Likewise the lighting load for even a âmodern amenityâ rebuild of a Harriman car should be low, especially with retrofit to LEDs. So a small 4-cylinder genset and small SG would fit in the head end of the combine and still leave substantial baggage spaceâŚ
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