A blurb on page 87 of the spring issue states that Robert LeMassena in his new book wants to now group all ten-drivered steam locomotives under the “Decapod” name. Can’t this guy just leave history alone?
The book review on page 87 certainly caught my attention. Novel concept and the use of quotes around the word “decapod”? I don’t whether those were raised eyebrows or not. But just think, you only have to learn one name for at least five other wheel arrangements (Union, Decapod, Santa Fe, Texas, Mastodon). Most of his books (and I have a lot of them) are incredible compilations of information, and reflect a great deal of work. Why does he have to go over the top with this sort of thing?
In the past 20 years or so it seems that Mr. LeMassena has associated himself with unusual viewpoints, contrived controversy and marketing. That’s a far cry from Stagner, Middleton, Shaughnessy and many others who appeared in Trains over the past 70 years. They put history and accuracy first and foremost. They didn’t seem to have any need to tinker with the facts.
Sorry if this seems grumpy, but I believe that all published authors, particularly those of significant reputation, have a responsibility to set the record straight, including the use of established nomenclature. I’m sure the content of the book is monumental, and it’s highly likely I’ll buy it at the next train show here. But I still have to wonder why this sort of extrapolation is necessary. I’m really dismayed by the title.
After reading all of the references on these and other forums, I zeroed in on LeMassena’s “Big Engines” and “Was there every a Super 4-8-4” articles when I received the 70 years of Trains DVD last month. I’m realizing now that I should probably take a look at the letters sections in subsequent issues to see how much controversy they caused at the time they were published.
–Reed
There was little or no reaction to the 1968 article. No arguing at all, as I recall.
Having victimized myself and my readers once or twice using uncommon terms and then attempting to justify their use, or worse, assuming with no further explanation that my readers would just shrug and accept it, this is an example of success and hubris taking their toll in unintended ways. People who develop a following begin to take shortcuts of a kind that make others have to work much harder to believe them and to receive new information or analyses with an open mind.
I haven’t read it yet, but it would be a typical example of what I mean above…the use of quotes and an attempt to universalize terminolog, often in an attempt to solidify one’s fan base.
A person ought to be careful to cultivate loyalty and not to offend sensibilities in his readership, devoted and potentially so. On the subject of steam locomotives, which is largley ‘closed history’', tinkering with long-held and common names and concepts is a dangerous path to tread.
Crandell
I know LaMassena has put out some controversial stuff, and his modification of the Whyte Classification was doesn’t enjoy much acceptance, but I don’t see the problem with LaMessena using the word “decapod” for the title of a survey of the ten-drive-wheel equipped locomotives. After all, the word “decapod” does mean “ten footed”.
And it’s not as if the title of this book is going to cause any real confusion in any situation where correct nomenclature will really matter.
In that case, I would have expected him to use the more conventional, “ten-coupled.”
Crandell
But which sings?
The Age of the Ten-Coupled Steam Locomotives
The Age of the Decapods
Which misappropriates a specific name for a wheel arrangement for the purpose of selling books?Decapod=2-10-0 in the locomotive world, nothing else. This book was published by a museum. Historical accuracy comes first, buzzy-sounding titles a distant second, IMO.
Atlantics and Consolidations each have ten wheels, but neither comes to mind when you hear the term “ten wheel.”
But Atlantics have only four drive wheels, and consolidations have eight drive wheels. Not all wheels under a steam locomotive are created equal.
There is a direct line of development from the decapod to the 2-10-2. The first Santa Fe types were decapods fitted with trailing trucks to facilitate backing moves of helpers on the Raton Pass.
OTOH, the Texas type really owes more to the Berkshire than to the Decapod.
Any votes for the Octopods? [:-^]
This would clean up all that mess created by 0-8-0s, 0-8-2s, 4-8-0s, Consolidations, Mikados, Mountains, Berkshires, and Northerns. [swg][(-D]
Wayne
Maybe we should just start all over and re-name all of them.[^o)]
This brings to mind the furor not too long ago about whether Pluto should be called a planet.
Yeah, that’s the ticket!
And the six drivered are the Insectopods!
See what I mean. Just leave well enough alone.
Maybe he didn’t have enough info on the real decapods alone and needed something else to fill the pages.
[(-D][(-D][(-D]
The next thing you know, the diesels will get lumped in with the steam, too: Baldwin made the Centipede and there are all those Davenport, Plymouth, etc. “critters”.
Wayne
As I understand it, each one of the names is representing a clearly defined wheel arrangement, sometimes they do so better than the cypher-dash-cypher-dash-cypher formulae because of established comprehensive understanding of their meaning. For instance definition of a ‘Challenger’ comprises a front unit articulated by concept based on the Mallet principle. This is not strictly included in the 4‑6‑6‑4 formulae. Luckily there never were similar w/a in both Mallet and Duplex configuration or else there would have been a conflict, which by the UIC classification does not exist. Counting axles rather than wheels on the hardly questionable recognition that in railroad engines an axle rarely comes with less than two wheels, the Challenger would be classified as a (2’C)C2’ - with numbers for idling axles, capital letters for driven axles, (brackets) for articulated part of w/a, apostrophe for radial axles, delta trucks or bogies. Interestingly, the 2‑10‑0 becomes just 1’E, instead of 1’E0, omitting the obvious question whether a non-existing axle would be radially adjusting or not.
In case of now widening the representative meaning of one of these names to stand for a whole bunch of w/a but loosely connected by historic development the logic concept would be broken and this would leave to conjecture meanings of other names, too.
Bipod, or maybe “Hominem?” [swg]
Article at link was published on April 11, 2007, when Mr. LeMassena was 93.
Another article, published in August 2007, no longer available on the web but the intro remembered by Google, said he was 94. I guess he was born in the spring or summer of 1913.
75 years ago, he wrote this item for The Model Railroader…
The 1936 edition of the New York Society of Model Engineers Exhibition was a huge success, to your correspondent’s way of thinking. The lure of model railroading and models of boats and engines was sufficient to insure capacity crowds every day of the two weeks duration of the show.
Instead of “standing room only” the sign read “elbow room only”. There were 16 commercial exhibitors, and from the looks of things business was definitely good.
Again, I don’t think Le Messena’s use of the word “Decapod” in a title for a book amounts to “re-definition” in any meaningful way. This book is not going to have any influence outside of the railfan community, and serious railfans and students of steam are going to probably be aware that, strictly speaking, the name decapod applies only to the 2-10-0.
Some years ago, Le Messena found an ally in David P. Morgan in describing articulated engines as, for example, 4-8+8-4, and the Pennsylvania Railroad’s first duplex engines as 4-4=4-4s. Today, the only place one is likely to find Le Messena’s notations are in his own writings, and the engines I cited are now being described as 4-8-8-4 and 4-4-4-4. If Le Messena, with the assistance of the legendary editor of the most important magazine for North American rail enthusiasts, could not induce the hobby to change how it writes Whyte Classification, I doubt a single specialist study could effect the names of the wheel arrangements.
And given that steam locomotives are no longer in regular use, I don’t think there is
No problem,
AltonFan,
I was never intending to question a venerable author
(I have read some of his articles)
only I thought the book title was less then fully happy.