Just saw a bunch of photos of this railway, just how big was this railway???they seem to have a mass of locos, and some of the strangest looking steam and electric engines ever. Did they manufacture their own locomotives, check out the monster M2, 4-8-0 #1100 what a beast, and what about TE-1 6-6-6-6 steam turbine, and even some stranger looking steam and electrics, did anyone ever make models of these monstrosities???
They made alot of there own steam engines and hoppers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norfolk_&_Western
EDIT: Bachmann manufactures the J class.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norfolk_and_Western_611
http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/products.php?act=viewProd&productId=132
and a GE E33
http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/products.php?act=viewProd&productId=247
It wasn’t the size but the purpose. A coal hauling railroad in rugged West Virginia, North Carolina, Virginia, etc. (then across Ohio & Illinois) all the way to St. Louis I think)
I actually didn’t realize they had any electric locomotives, must have come in via the Virginian. The reason for the interesting steam and especially the steam turbines was for exactly that reason they were a coal hauling railroad and didn’t want to bite the hand that fed them. Coal was cheap. They developed the most advanced coal powered locomotives and tried to buck the diesel trend withe new developments on the turbines (along with UP & C&O). They ran steam in regular revenue service up until March 1960 I believe.
The N&W was a class 1 railroad in the east but was well respected in steam circles. They simply built great locomotives and refined the service and maintenance of those locomotives beyond most any other railroad that I am aware of. They had a limited amount of main line engines and they got great use out of them. I got to visit Roanoke in 1956 for a few days of observing the N&W and their shops in action. It was amazing.
The N&W did build most of their modern locomotives, but the Y series all started with the USRA 2-8-8-2. In the end, the Y6b evolved into a great modern locomotive that would probably out perform two of the orginal engines in service and cost to run.
The Jawn Henry was built by Baldwin and only used about three years from 54 to 57. We got to see it in helper service east of town that week. There have been models of the Steam turbine but they are at a premium now when you find one. Good luck if you want one. You can model the N&W without the steam turbine since it was used such a short three years and in helper service after the initial tests.
The N&W in 1956 was as good as it gets.
CZ
In the early 1960’s, the N&W became the big winner in the reorganization of the rail network leading up to the Penn Central merger. They acquired the Nickel Plate, Wabash and Pittsburgh and West Virginia which transformed them from a regional coal hauler into a major trunk line.
In addition to routes to it’s home port of Norfolk, it utilized connections with the Western Maryland and the Reading to provide competitive service to Baltimore and Philadelphia as well.
If it weren’t for the iron fisted thugs at Chessie, the WM’s route in western Pennsylvania would likely have gone to the N&W, which could have saved the Reading from bankruptcy, and kept a viable port facility in Baltimore at Port Covington. (Chessie the Knife saw to it that Port Covington’s highest and best use would be a Walmart parking lot…)
The WM would have been just as gone, but it’s physical plant (arguably the best and shortest route between the midwest and the Atlantic) would still be intact.
Lee
N&W was at the start one line with branches from Norfolk, Virgininia to Cincinnati, OH.
N&W had their own electrics and the Virginian their own. N&W electrified a portion of the line due to tunnels and grades. Tho the electrics are not as celebrated as the steam, they fulfilled the N&W needs quite well.
Once the acquisition of Virginian happenned, N&W found a better way to route traffic without electrics and the wires came down.
1100 is an experimental 4-8-0 modded from a normal 4-8-0 M2c with a stoker and auto-lubrication with semi-streamlining applied. This engine was used for switching only. N&W also modded a 4-8-0 to an 0-8-0 tank engine, odd looking for itself.
N&W had 3 versions of
There will be lots of debating, but many consider the J 4-8-4 to be the best of the Northern type. Despite its smaller drivers compared to the high-stepping Niagara and UP’s FEF, for examples, it could keep up with the rest in terms of speed and efficiency, and it could do even better.
As for brute power for size and weight, the Y-series Mallets were peerless. About the only engine that could out-pull them were the Yellowstones on the DM&IR, a considerably larger and heavier beast.
Also, IIRC, they didn’t purchase their 1st diesel until 1955 or thereabouts.
This because the Js, and the Mallets ( I don’t remember which of the Alphabet soup it was)were designed to be as close to maintence friendly as a diesel. They semi-successfully converted EMD’s Diesel plant into a steam compatible assembly line repair shop. And got rid of almost 70% of the steam vs. Diesel issues. The problem was the other 30%
Crandell: Just to make your point, I;d ratehr have a GS than a J.
Is there anyone out there reading this and not wanting to model the N&W? If not, get a couple of the photo books by O’Winston Link. Wow such cool stuff to model!
Next to Uncle John N&W indeed had the most efficient of steam locomotive stables and they hung on to steam longer than most in the beilief that they had some sort of moral obligation owing to the coal industry–where else, may I ask, was the coal industry going to go for transportation? When you finally boil things down to the grit, in the mid-50s they took the inevitable look into transportation’s crystal ball and drew the inevitable conclusion, long since reached by almost everyone else, that the diesel could pull more and could do it more efficiently.
Lee said:
If it weren’t for the iron fisted thugs at Chessie, the WM’s route in western Pennsylvania would likely have gone to the N&W, which could have saved the Reading from bankruptcy, and kept a viable port facility in Baltimore at Port Covington. (Chessie the Knife saw to it that Port Covington’s highest and best use would be a Walmart parking lot…
Actually the B&O acquired a strong minority interest in the WM way back in 1927…Then 1967 C&O/B&O took control of the WM and that was 6 years before Chessie System.
Like it or not that was a very wise move on the C&O/B&O part and it stopped the N&W cold at Hagerstown.Why give a major competitor a short route to Baltimore??
As far as the Reading I don’t think anything could save it from filing bankruptcy in 1971…Like the other Eastern roads its was in dire straights.
C&O/B&O began exerting its influence in 1964… The SD35’s were delivered with B&O numbers…
To me, this was the germination of Chessie, they just didn’t start using the name or painting kitty cats until '73…
Lee
The reason the B&O acquired its interest in the WM is that Henry Ford wanted to buy the WM and link it to his DT&I so he could avoid using other railroads and have access to an Atlantic seaport. The railroads opposed this plan so eventually Ford got rid of the DT&I as tired of fighting with the existing stonewalling by the other railroads as PRR, NYC and B&O.
Rick
Rick,The irony of it all is PRR got their paws on the DT&I in 1929…That would have been a excellent deal for the N&W since the N&W didn’t go beyond Columbus.
Ford’s biggest problem was with ICC interference with his operations of the DT&I and that when he decided to sell the DT&I…
Meanwhile, back at the Norfolk & Western…
I became seriously interested in the N&W when Trains did a big article back in the early '50s, and it is still the one US railway that I most respect. Of particular interest were two points made by David P. Morgan, Trains editor at the time:
- Asked if the Norfolk & Western had been approached about Lima’s post-WWII locomotive ideas (which culminated in the Alleghany), a Lima official replied, “What could we tell Roanoke about steam locomotives?”
- N&W so streamlined the process that they could ‘turn’ a steam locomotive - have it ready for a new assignment - faster than most railroads could ‘turn’ their new diesels. This included building ‘lubritoriums’ in which lube guns with the appropriate fittings were positioned to fall adjacent to every grease fitting of an A, a J or a Y3/6b class Mallet - not to mention having a roof over the heads of people who, on other railroads, were forced to work out in the weather.
From a modeler’s point of view, the late-day operations of the N&W can be modeled with four basic classes of locomotives:
- Class A 2-6-6-4, for fast freight and to protect passenger schedules.
- Class J 4-8-4, for all passenger runs.
- Class S (USRA) 0-8-0 switcher.
- Class Y 2-8-8-2. 30+ year old Y-3s were still getting road assignments as well as handling pusher and branchline duties. The later Y-6b was the road engine of choice.
Granted that N&W had other locos with other wheel arrangements. the Big 3 (A, J, Y) accounted for over 90% of all train miles in the 1950s.
A couple of comments on the pre-Western Maryland posts:
CAZEPHYR. The USRA 2-8-8-2 was based on the N&W Y-2 class, and was rostered as the Y-3. The first N&W 2-8-8-2s were Baldwin-built in 1910.
dinwitty. The original N&W electrification was rendered surplus b
THAT DOG DON’T HUNT!
The boys from Roanoke may well have opted to purchase a considerable number of their locomotive appurtenances from “aftermarket” suppliers but are you meaning to tell me that that 0-8-0 built in-shop in 1953(?) wasn’t good enough to be reproduced in 1960 when the road dropped the last fires on their steam fleet? The shops at Roanoke could easily have produced Baker valve gear had the railroad seen an economic advantage to be gained by doing so; Pilliod Corporation didn’t do in the N&W steam fleet but rather EMD; conveying coal to market may have been N&W’s bread and butter but burning coal just wasn’t putting black ink on the bottom line. It is not improbable to conjecture that in 1964 had N&W still been trying to make the coal industry happy by continuing to burn coal in their, say, Y7s they would have disappeared into someone else’s corporate structure linstead of being able to swallow up NKP, Wabash, and W&LE in that year. Close your eyes and imagine the New York, Chicago, and St. Louis Railroad dumping carloads of export coal into waiting colliers moored dockside at Norfolk.
The pure and simple fact is this: it took entirely too much energy to run a steam engine something EMD set out to prove with FT #103–and indeed did to most railroads satisfaction–in 1939 and 1940. It is unlikely that N&W would have survived as the Giant of Steam until 1960 had WWII not given its steam a temporary reprieve from the cutter’s torch.
It was not the demise of the mainline steam power that killed diesels on the N&W and NKP, they were very happy with their modern steam power and dynamometer tests they ran with steam versus diesel came out with the steam beating the diesels everywhere but at starting up a stopped train.
The main problem with these railroads was there were no replacements for the 2-8-0’s, 4-8-0’s, 2-8-2’s that fed the mainlines and handled the secondary trains. This eventually led to the steam engines demise.
In addition, the N&W did not buy any diesels until Stuart Saunders became president of the N&W, (he the same man that presided over the merger of the PRR & NYC). Just shows you what happens when a lawyer is put in charge of a railroad.
Rick
What a gold mine of misinformation!
The problem, pure and simple, is that Roanoke was NOT set up to make the parts for Baker valve gear, or for manufacturing staybolt
For those with a solid hour to kill sometime soon, the following thread is a highly entertaining and informative one that is now three years old. Some of the posts are very educating and lucid, and should settle the issue of the questionable decision to run helter-skelter to the diesel manufacturers with orders at the time it happened here and there in the late 40’s.