The reason why the Pennsylvania railroad was called the standard was for 2 things. They were the first to adapt as standard equipment both the automatic air brake system and the knuckle coupler in the late part of the 1800s. They also had standardized locomotive designs way before most other railroads. Take the K4 L1 they shared a common boiler in all aspects. The mountain classes had the same ones the 2-10-0 had the same ones regardless of sub class. Every consolidation on the PRR had the exact same boiler design. They literally had templates for each class and could reboiler a locomotive faster than tearing it down as they probably had a spare from a previous one lying around.
I seem to remember that detail as well.
A couple stories worth telling about me and the PRR. Iâve never known much of anything about it, having lived my lifedown in the deep south, but ever since the Lionel electric train days at age 5 I was aware of it by virtue of the Lionel model of the steel porthole window caboose, which I thought was the coolest thing in the World, I wanted one really bad, but of course I never had one.
But fast forward about 30 years ago when I went to ride the Western Maryland scenic Railroad on a trip up there. There were several Pennsy types In the car arguing about this molecule in that molecule of this is that, they kept talking about âP70â coaches. I had no idea what they were talking about so I asked one of them what that was. You shouldâve seen look on those guysâs faces, they were just astounded that someone didnât know such a detail about the center of their universe.
Maybe a couple of years later down outside New Orleans, the restoration of the T&NO 745 was complete and they were steaming it up periodically in their yard. I went to see it one Saturday morning, and one of the guys told me, hey, thereâs a guy over there all the way from up in Pennsylvania to see this engine. So I very quietly snuck up behind the guy, and said very loudly to my friend with me, man that thing looks better than a K4! That guy twitched like he had been hit with high voltage electrodes. HAWHAWHAW!!! Of course, I immediately went around and introduced myself and told him was playing a joke on him and he loved it, thought it was hilarious.
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At one time PRR had one of the most modern articulated designs â the infamous HC1. It soured them on articulated power in general. Given the option to adopt the nearly-in-house N&W A 2-6-6-4 under WPB restrictions, PRR instead chose the AMC 2-10-4 (with 69" and then 70" drivers as their J1/J1a) and then (for high-speed wartime traffic) the rigid-frame Q2.
Carleton Steins had a bunch of cockamamie designs for various kinds of locomotives, including the âtriplexâ that caused so much internal consternation with Loewy. It should be noted that the V1, which was supposed to be the follow-on wartime power to the Q2, was acknowledged as an âarticulatedâ locomotive (approved for production in 1944) â this had cast underframes with 40" drivers, acting like a couple of 4-8-0s arranged elephant-style, with two turbines and mechanical shaft drive, revived briefly in the late '40s with the Bowes tugboat drive (and then given Mr. Toadâs wild development ride on N&W, a whole story in itself).
A case could be made that rejection of an explicitly Mallet-style chassis for a modern locomotive reflected a fundamental ignorance by PRR motive-power personnel of the fundamental change in guiding and equalization of the forward engine that was implemented in the A locomotives and that Alco claimed they had invented for subsequent Challengers. Quite a bit of the problem with older Mallet (compound) articulateds was that the hinging to the forward engine operated in both the lateral and vertical planes, which led to dynamic instability when equalization could not be carried across the hinge. This was solved expediently by restricting vertical play so that the engine acted as a 2-12-4 or 4-12-4 in the vertical plane, with equalization rigged to accommodate any vertical curvature. To my knowledge this would not have posed insufferable problems on the parts of the PRR where six-coupled articulateds would be run⌠and it was well-understood by the mid-Forties that six-coupled easily reached the horsepower limit beyond which water range went in the toilet for a single-unit no condensing steam locomotiveâŚ
I didnât know that about the air brake and the knuckle coupler. But not everything the Pensy did was adopted as standard by other railroads, Like the Belpaire fire box, only a few other roads used it. And those very peculiar position light signals. To my knowledge, only the Norfolk and western had anything similar.
And I like to know what the Pennsylvaniaâs problem was with the superpower concept developed by Lima.
I still have to laugh about what some PRR manager said about freight trafficâŚ..â if it doesnât fit in our boxcar, we donât need the businessâ. Now THATâS Customer Service.! HAWHAWHAW!!!
N&W was effectively owned by PRR when it installed the Position Light signals. The dividends from then N&W stock portfolio was one of the things that allowed PRR to show a âprofitâ in the lead up to creating PC. Smoke and Mirrors.
A number of railroads did. ATSF in particular not only had some but actively considered using their boilers on 4-8-4s in the immediate postwar years that everyoneâs fancy alloy boilers started crackingâŚ
⌠no road that got these (admittedly Y3s or other primitive versions) shared the N&W propaganda that modernized 2-8-8-2s were the very last word in fast freight power. PRR was certainly not going to believe anything with that low a driver diameter⌠disc centers or not! ⌠was going to be anything more than a pusher, and certainly not much of a snapper.
For some reason ISTR PRR operating articulateds in the Columbus area, subsequently the stomping grounds of BP-20 B units as helpers in Shark freight-unit consistsâŚ
Kinda hard to operate under its own power in non-electrified territory, isnât it? Also, wouldnât it be maintained at the Wilmington Shops? That was an old steam backshop adapted for electric locomotives after the NYC-Washington electrification was finished.
The correct answer to this question is: J1/J1a.
The longer version involves an enormous investment by PRR in nearly 475 K4s, hundreds of hippos, and a passel of enormous Mountains right at the time Super-Power was transitioning from a better drag-freight engine to actual high-speed road power. It did not help that PRR did not trust 2-wheel lead trucks on fast engines until âsomebody elseâ did the detail-design work to get the details right â and by that time you had the Depression, mass electrification putting hundreds of obsolescent expensive power out of work, and a strict 50mph freight speed limit.
Then PRR got bamboozled into bypassing âgood enoughâ Super-Power straight into duplex-drive, alloy boilers, 300+psi MAWP, mandatory boiler water treatment that didnât work well with track pans, and turbines. After which came the F units, and then Geeps. Right as the deficits hit.
This is a great discussion! I appreciate all the replies from people that know stuff!
Ok. Correction: it was a Class A, number 1208 that PRR tested, and the C&O 2-10-4, which they decided on, with some modifications. This became the J-1 engines.Fantastic and massive engines!
Paul
There is that. I suspect the speed limitation applied to its being towed west of Harrisburg with the gears engaged. The thing that I found surprising when I read the account was that it wasnât towed more of the way.
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Also, wouldnât it be maintained at the Wilmington Shops? That was an old steam backshop adapted for electric locomotives after the NYC-Washington electrification was finished.
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What I read was Altoona â I suspect it was in one of the Pennsylvania Power books, thinking back to the general paste-up style I remember from reading the original story with that tidbit in it. I was struck by how far âout and backâ at 20mph would have been for the engine crew. Of course, it might also have been mistaken.
Note thst long after most railroads hadstiop;ped gettingvTen-Wheelers, 4-6-0s, the PRR built and bought over a hundred for suburban andclocal service, and many survived WWII in branch-line. Pittsburgh suburban, and LIRR and PRSL service. The 19th Century 4-6-0s hadfireboxed between drivers like most America-types, while the Belpair firebox of the PRRâs G-5 was above the drivers, as on gthe Consolidations and Decopads. A smaller engine if not a small engine.
Here are some PRR steam photsos:
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The G5(s) used an E6s boiler with âstandardâ 68" drivers shoehorned underneath â 205psi, 28" stroke. Supposedly capable of 70mph (but this was the railroad that said the I1s 2-10-0s with 50% limited cutoff were good for 50mph) but I suspect lateral compliance (or more accurately lack of it) kept most crews from trying to get it anywhere near that fast. What it would do, and very effectively, was accelerate commuter trains smartly between stops and eliminate need of double heading E6s locomotives in that type of service.
Absolutely correct added information. But for the shorter 1-4-car trains, the E-6 was preferered/ Less coal snd water to do the job.
Summer 1951 I rode behind an E-6, with one combine and one coach, from Little Silver (at the back gate of Fort Monmouth) to Princeton Junction. Ther normal doodlebug was being serviced.
Back to my original question about where are the lightest engines on the PRR. This is about the lightest one Iâve seen in all the pictures that have been put up.
And whatâs that engine with the elephant ears. Not that Iâve studied the PRR that heavily, but Iâve never seen that before.
Gotta say I find it mad interesting that PRR shied away from articulated locomotives, even if they did test out a few here and there. Kind of sounds like a Midwest/Great Plains railroad in that respect, where articulated locomotives were not generally needed. Itâs astonishing considering the (by comparison) more mountainous area Pennsy served than say the Frisco, CNW, or Rock Island, where the most mountainous areas were at the foot of the Rockies or the Ozarks.
Thatâs more interesting than I had thought. Supposedly K4 5038 was the one getting the âexperimentalâ smoke deflectors and skyline casing for âsmoke liftingâ. The engine pictured has no skyline casing⌠and as far as I can make out, the number on the keystone plate is NOT 5038.
Someone might post the picture on a PRR group or list, as the story might be told by knowledgeable fans.
In part this reflects the strategic decisions made when the state of Pennsylvania laid out the route of the canal and then railroad across the âAllegheny divideâ. By intent, the grade was made steep but relatively short, with attention over the years to keep the route on either side comparatively flat (if curving). Other relatively severe grades (as at Thorndale) were relatively short (see for example the history behind acquisition and then scrapping of the "FF2"s) and of course the whole Atglen & Susquehanna was built as a low-grade bypass.
In a sense, PRR did wind up trying comparatively large articulated locomotives on Horse Shoe⌠the de-souped Centipedes. I doubt they would have purpose-built such locomotives for that service, either for helping or snapping.
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Great pictures!