The PRR being practicle about its road engines did not like more non drivered wheels under locos. Front and rear trucks were put on for stability and high speed manuvers and took valuable weight from the drivers. Any thing rated for 50 mph and above got 4 wheel or 6 wheel lead trucks and trailing trucks and anything below fifty got a single axle lead truck. The M1 was a dual service loco got the 4 wheel lead truck. The I1, L1, and J1 were drag freights set for 35 mph got 2 wheel fronts. The C&O T1 which was copied by the pennsy got the 4 wheel trailing truck due to the booster whether they got them or were removed later. The J1 was copied so well when they first were built with a cast frame with a designe fault seen on the original C&O T1. Then came the J1a with steel fabricated frame. The book Black Gold Black Diamonds tells the story of the J.
What happened to classes P-1 to P-4? Were they still born projects, or what? (If the P-5’s were indeed the first Pennsy 4-6-4’s, why weren’t they P-1?)
Given that (AIUI) the Pennsy owned the N&W, there seems to have remarkably little interchange of ideas between Roanoke and Altoona, when one might have expected many designs to have been common.
And, yes, the ‘standard’ name or the 4-6-4 wheel arrangement over here (England) is Baltic.
Both the PRR and the N&W were run by very independently mnded people, and the PRR saw the N&W as a cash cow and didn’t want to interfere in a continual supply of new cash.
Yes. there was one electric R-1 4-8-4 ot 2-D-2 if you insist. It was built at the same time as “Rivets”, the original prototype GG-1, and compared with it. It lasted until well after WW-II and was frequently seen on the Lehigh Valley Hunter Tower-Penn Station-Sunnyside moves, and also to Soth Amboy on the New York and Long Branch Jersey Shore trains.
The PRR R1 was built at the same time as the first GG1 as an alternate design for the replacement of the P5 in passenger service. The R1 was originally numbered 4800 and the GG1 was 4899. A series of tests was run in which the GG1 was deemed to be the better design and was selected as PRR’s standard passenger electric locomotive. The GG1 was renumbered to 4800 and the R1 was renumbered to 4899, and later to 4999.
I wonder how much redesign work it would take to put 80 inch drivers on a N&W J class…and if you did, would it take too much away from that locomotives performance on grades…Just a random thought.
ATSF 2900 class would be about the best approximation. They have similar (but not identical) size boilers to a J, and 80" drivers. A big problem is sufficient clearance between the drivers and the main boiler course at the combustion chamber.
It probably would be impossible, the drive wheels are probably only a few inches apart at the flanges / tires. I know some NYC 4-8-2’s were designed to have larger drivers added later, so their drivers had larger-than-normal spacing.
I know it wouldn’t be as simple as just slapping new drivers on it and being done with it. You’d have to at the very least make the engine longer and taller to fit the wheels under it. I just wondered because none of the other 4-8-4s (to my knowledge) had the same boiler pressure and such as the J-class, so I guess I wondered what you’d get if you slapped a J’s boiler and cylinders on a bigger (though just as well balanced) set of drivers.