I’ve seen a few things in Morning Sun books that were incorrect, but I can’t say it’s bothered me all that much. In my opinon the Morning Sun books are railfan “slide shows” that have been converted to a hard-cover format, and well done too, they should last for decades.
When I puchase a MS book I’m buying it for the photography, not particularly for any hard data. Honestly, I haven’t been disappointed with any of them.
Kip Farrington’s books aren’t that hard to find in this part of the country. It’s a rare train meet I go to where I don’t see several of them for sale from various exhibitors.
I am a design engineer, unfortunately mostly highway, but I can do rail…
This is only my personal opinion, but I think we owe it to future generations of railfans and historians to get the facts of steam locomotive horsepower curves, maximum starting tractive effort, etc.correct. I have seen people quote data from Morning Sun and other books, online and elsewhere, as being correct when in fact it is not and some of the errors have been huge…then this causes confusion for folks like steamlocomotive.com who are honestly trying to assemble factually accurate online databases.
Santa Fe was very conservative in rating their late steam classes and the actual dynamometer test data published in Farrington’s book reveals the engines actually performed better than is generally reported. In particular peak drawbar horsepower of the 2-10-4 was higher than is normally quoted…I think an astounding 5600 hp at about 45 or 50 mph but I no longer have that book…Farrington’s book is truly remarkable because few railroads did actual drawbar horsepower tests, and even fewer saved the data for posterity, and he was there as a firsthand witness and was allowed to publish the results.
I am not even particularly a Santa Fe steam fan as for aesthetics I just prefer Alcos, but those final Santa Fe steamers were simply amazing machines by any standard.
The preceding is my opinion only and others may freely disagree.
Best regards–
John
P.S. www.steamlocomotive.com is continually updating their site and now shows starting tractive effort for Santa Fe 5001 and 5011 class 2-10-4 as 108961 pounds with peak cylinder horsepower over 6000. This matches up well with the actual drawbar horsepower curves as reported by Mr Farrington in his book.
That’s OK John, people can disagree without being disagreeable, in my own particular view anyway.
I’ll say this about Morning Sun and let it drop, for me the books are entertainment, no more, no less. For serious study I realize I have to go elsewhere. Kind of like “History versus Hollywood,” if you know what I mean.
S. Kip Farrington, Jr. signed and presented many of his books to railroaders and friends alike. They might be considered “rare” but by no means were they limited edition printings. I found my first Farrington book in a school library while attending jr. high in the 50s in Dallas.
I agree that books printed by Morning Sun, Four Ways West, and other publishers which feature vintage color of trains should be considered entertainment and in no way a source for accurate information.
Many historical societies as well as some publishers continue to release books that specialize on specific railroads, the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific to name two. The SPH&TS released a book that covers the “Krauts”, the diesel hydraulics that they along with Rio Grande imported from Germany’s Krauss-Maffei in the early 60s. A fantasic book to say the least! Other examples are Farrington’s Santa Fe’s Big Three which has been mentioned and Paired Rail’s Santa Fe Waycars.
The color publications contain a wealth of information for model railroaders to help accurately paint their models. Two diesel locomotives where no color photographs have surfaced to date is the Cotton Belt GP7 delivered in SP’s Daylight scheme and Texas & Pacific RS2 which was the ONLY Alco diesel model rostered on the Teepee. It went to the jointly owned, with Mopac, Texas Pacific-Missouri Pacific Terminal Railroad of New Orleans.
Wonder what a color negative or slide of either one would fetch today? Beware of anyone offering one of either. They are most likely fakes!
Lloyd Stagner misquoted the Santa Fe horsepower curves, as published by Farrington, specifically for 2-10-4’s, in the Morning Sun books. I do appreciate that most people today are only interested in the photos, and I get that. For myself I am more interested in the original sources or those who extensively intervie
wed those people, authors like William Kratville and of course S. Kip Farrington. Yes I know Lloyd Stagner was there too, but I dont trust him whenever he mentions numbers.
Based on Farrington’s book the 6000 plus peak cylinder hp on steamlocomotive.com is correct. It matches very favorably with the drawbar horsepower, after friction losses, etc. as was reported by Mr. Farrington in The Santa Fe’s Big Three.
PRR8259: Nothing wrong with being a design engineer doin’ highways is there? I spent my military duty with the US Army Transportation Corps in Germany assigned to the German Army Transport Command Ansbach (Verkehrskommandantur Ansbach) and was responsible for coordinating US Army convoy traffic with the Bundeswehr’s military traffic over the Autobahns and highways.
I was a member of the 49th Transportation Group Mannheim, Branch Transportation Movement Office Nuremberg, Highway Regulation Team Ansbach. Gads, what a mouthfull; I’m out of wind!
No nothing wrong…except today lots of people think they could do better and dont fully appreciate what we do.
I ordered Stagner’s Rock Island Steam Finale book… despite my misgivings about his memory of numbers…I got a Rock mikado in brass and wanted to learn more, and there are limited sources about the last years.