PRR Duplexes and Experimental Engines ( S1, S2, T1, Q1, V1 etc.)

Original message (April 2018):

I have been collecting photos, models and learning these two mysterious engines for about two years (another one is S2 #6200 turbine). I searched every corner on the web, but information about PRR Duplex S1 #6100 and Q1 #6130 are extremely rare. Take PRR S1 for example, I can’t even find its total mileage of her entire career.

I know there are some good readings in a few issues of “Keystone” magazine about T1s 4-4-4-4, but content about S1, Q1 are very rare and brief. There is not even one article about S1 in the most reliable source like the “Keystone”. Some books and web pages about S1 and Q1 are base on rumors and historically inaccurate. If you have any books, articles or files would like to recommend, please kindly let me know! Much appreciated! [tup]

Updates (Dec 2018):

Thank you all who participated in this thread in the past few months, helping me to understand the history of PRR Duplexes and experimental engines in-depth. Please feel free to join the discussion, sharing your thoughts about these fascinating projects

The main “rumour” about 6100 is its claim to have run at 141 miles per hour.

This is definitely unproven and likely to be false since it is based on one man’s estimate of times.

However, if a steam locomotive were to run at 140mph, something like the S1 would be needed to do it. I’d want it to have a dynamometer car attached with more than one speed recording device…

The various “Pennsy Power” books all provide basic details of the S1 and Q1 and show them as built and as modified.

There is a good book in German “Record Lokomotiven” which covers locomotives credited with speed records, NYC 999, PRR E2 7002, DR 05 002, DR 61 003, LNER Mallard and it has a full chapter on 6100. I’ll post more detail later…

Peter

Thank you, Peter. I have “Pennsy Power: Steam and Electric Locomotives of the Pennsylvania Railroad, 1900-1957” by Staufer, Alvin F, “Black Gold - Black Diamonds: The Pennsylvania Railroad & Dieselization” Volume 1 by Eric Hirsimaki and “Pennsy Streamliners: The Blue-Ribbon Fleet” by Joe Welsh, they did provide only basic information of them, but their official testing result and performance detail are nowhere to be found. There are some fragmentary stories about S1 and Q1 on the internet, but I want more than this. I have a feeling that the PRR was hiding something on these two experimental engines or maybe everyone was so busy working during the World War…so many questions unanswered.

Btw If the speed records of S1 above 100mph are all “fake”, I can say I have reasonable doubt that its wheel slip problem was also exaggerated too. S1 as a prototype served on Fort Wayne Division for at least 5 1/2 years (1941-1946), almost equal to the T1s (1945/46 to 51/52) and its Factor of adhesion is very close to PRR Q2 and Santa Fe 4-8-4 “Northern” according to steamlocomotive.com, (I understand that the duplex design probably made the wheel slip problem worse compare to a 4-8-4 design), I wonder what the PRR did to deal with the wheel slip problem of S1? Did they just sit on their office chairs and did nothing? I believe they did something, if not S1 wouldn’t have assigned to haul “The Trail Blazer”, a money tree of PRR. Unfortunately, I can’t find any official record about this topic. Anyway, please feel free to share your thought here! [tup]

PRR Q1 4-6-4-4

Classics Trains Photo of the Day a few years back. Always adored this photo… it is imposing, stunning and beautiful, even mysterious and haunting. Forum memeber David Klepper saw it in person when it was brand new and showed off at the 1939 Worlds Fair.

PHOTO OF THE DAY20140401

Pennsy’s “Big Engine” i

I assume November 1939 was between the 1939 and 1940 seasons of the New York World’s Fair…?

So they had to extract it by a fairly roundabout route and reinsert it for the following summer, as well as changing the lettering from “American Railroads” to “Pennsylvania” and back the next year…

As was posted above, it did quite a bit of work on the Chicago end, and no problems were attributed to the Walschearts valve gear and piston valves…

Peter

This is the one and the only one photo of S1 taken during snowy day, very rare and beautiful! I remember I read a story on a post about S1 was frozen during heavy winter, but the crews managed to start it up. I read forum member David Klepper’s post, I wish we could see more first-hand stories or info like his sharing.

The closure of 39 World Fair was in October 1940

(From Wikipedia) The fair was open for two seasons, from April to October each year, and was officially closed permanently on October 27, 1940

Peter

We’ve discussed this fairly extensively in the past, and I attempted to verify the ‘supposed’ story by contacting the FRA to determine what, if any ICC “police” action was taken (the high-speed run was supposedly made on the Trail Blazer in 1947 prior to enforcement of the ICC speed restrictions imposed after Naperville). There is no Government record of this (and no formal enforcement at the time) but we should recapitulate some of the details.

The story is attributable to Arnold Haas, who is better known as a NYC man … one who is on record as having seen Niagaras regularly exceed 120mph in regular service, so make your own assessments. The mentioned speed is not 141mph but 141.2, which should make all you non-metric railfans highly suspicious that this is in fact a converted number from a more ‘round’ Germanic speed, even before you start looking at likely observation error for recording that speed using the watch and milepost method (the speed recorder for 6100 pegging higher than other PRR engines at 110, the T1s in particular being 100mph, about which more later, so no way to observe ‘directly’ and no Valve Pilot fitted to either engine). A good story also involves a certain lack of interest in the riding characteristics of the trailing consist; admittedly I have nothing but anecdotal evidence, but even the best PRR business cars were increasingly hard-riding as slow as 110mph, worse than the locomotive, and it is hard to believe that a long Trail Blazer coach consist even with Dave Klepper’s favorite homemade lightweight coaches would have produced tolerable riding at the speed Haas claimed.

It is possible to model the S1 in software and do multiphysics and kinematic analysis on the chassis to

That’s a very good point, not until 45 (or later?), the first batch of post-war light weight coaches and sleeper arrived and were put into service. Before that, the Trail Blazer used a full set of rebuilt P70 cars with the original truck. I remember I read a story that in UK 1938, when the streamlined “Coronation Scot” reach 113mph, all the foods or drinks carried on the plate by the waiters in the diner were thrown all over the place (haha), and many China in the kitchen car were broken because of the hunting oscillation effect ! S1 was a preferred engine for hauling The Trail Blazer, I wonder how fast could those rebuilt/betterment cars can handle. But compare the massive size of the boiler and total heating surface area with T1s, if the latter can haul 800-1000 tons at 100mph or above, I believe S1, even without the poppet valves and is much heavier, should be capable to go at least 110mph. A German source says it can go around 120mph, I do believe it can, but not went that fast every day.

Some years ago Feltonhill had recommended the following article on the S1:

“The S1’s history was covered in a 7-page article by the late Charlie Meyer in the Jan 1992 (Vo.10, N0.1) issue of Milepost, a magazine published by Friends of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. I believe they’re still in existance, maybe out of Strasburg, and this is available as a back issue. It’s well worth trying to get. It’s probably the only detailed account written at this point.”

I managed to find a copy on eBay and as he states, it’s the most detailed account I’ve seen on the S1.

–Reed

Oh no, the story is FAR more amusing than that, and someone should provide a link to one of the contemporary accounts as they contain some fun Britannic prose.

As I recall the story, the 114mph (to beat Silver Fox) was attained running downgrade, within a couple of miles of Crewe station, where it then developed (somewhat astoundingly when I first heard the story, and somewhat astoundingly still) that for some reason the Press Run Coronation Scot had been lined across not just one but several crossovers to put the train several tracks off any sort of straight line through. Very sharp crossovers, probably 20mph crossovers. Taken at what was supposed to be about 57mph.

I am still not quite sure how the train made it through this, hunting oscillation playing a comparatively small objective role in the kinematics. But certainly very clear it was that a great deal of the crockery didn’t. Certainly stopped any great tendency for the superior four-cylinder LMS Pacifics to be raced up to compete with Mallard later.

As I recall this was mid-1937.

The Vol 45, No. 3 Keystone has a pretty decent article about #6200 if you don’t already have that issue.

It is still available as a back-issue:

http://www.prrths.com/estore/keystone_magazine.html#2012

Regards, Ed

Beautiful covers on the Keystone. They truly capture the spirit of the Pennsy.

Overmod states " A considerable effort was made to preserve the S1 ‘Big Engine’ for the collection, it being arguably the most famous and recognizable PRR engine aside from 7002 and 460. In the end it was the sheer (over)size of the project that tipped the balance; PRR was still having balance sheet problems and had prioritized acquiring more diesels stat, and the scrap value of the engine was over $35,000 (considerably more impressive converted to modern dollars). Again much of the correspondence on this survives at the Hagley and it might make an interesting article for Classic Trains."

Well isn’t that just lovely that a bunch of executives can send each a whack of memos to cover their butts regarding scrapping. Maybe that’s a bit harsh but a billion of dollars company is showing their greed and quite frankly, stupidity. There is no justification, you can play the Northhumberland Card, or the Diesels Now Card, poverty Card is ridiculous, but none of it justifies just a bunch of greedy yes men all lined up to prove how old fashioned steam was. What brave men!

Just as bad the New York Central Hudson’s and Niagara’s. New sheriff in town I guess, dumb and insensitive. The two 4-6-0’s in St Thomas, much beloved, and very late in the game to be retired in the Spring of '57, were scrapped for $4,928.57 in scrap value. The only engines that still existed that were built for CASO/MichiganCentral/NYC in the St. Thomas erecting shops.

Obviously the $4,928.57 did not save the mighty Central, bu

Oh no, the story is FAR more amusing than that, and someone should provide a link to one of the contemporary accounts as they contain some fun Britannic prose.

This is the internet version:

Between 1937 and 1939, two significant records were set by locomotives of the Coronation class. Before the introduction of the Coronation service, No. 6220 headed a special train of invited guests from London Euston to Crewe on 29 June 1937. Just south of Crewe, the train (disputably) achieved a speed of 114 miles per hour (183 km/h), narrowly beating the previous British record for a steam locomotive (held by the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER)). Insufficient braking distance had been left before entering a series of crossover points at Crewe, and although the train held the rails, much crockery in the dining car was smashed.

THe LMS invited Cecil J Allen…

http://www.steamindex.com/library/allen.htm

which was something like coupling a dynamometer car to the train…

Cecil J Allen was a Civil Engineer who worked for the LNER and inspected rails prior to delivery. His hobby was timing trains and he had a pass that allowed him to travel all over Britain as part of his job. The photo in the link above shows him sitting next to Sir Nigel Gresley on the trial of the LNER train Coronation not to be confused with the LMS locomotive of the same name being discussed here.</

Thank you so much, Reed! This is exactly what I am looking for!

[quote user=“Overmod”]
Very sharp crossovers, probably 20mph crossovers. Taken at what was supposed to be about 57mph.

Sorry for my late reply Peter. I missed your post! So there was a 5 months break between two seasons of the fair. I bet PRR just left the “big engine” there instead of moving this giant back to the system. Please correct me if I am wrong. : ) (Edit: I was wrong, according to the picture posted by forum member Miningman, “6100 shrugs off an early Chicago winter snow storm as it pauses at Englewood Union Station with the eastbound Manhattan Limited in November 1939.” Which mean PRR did put S1 back to the system between the break of 39 World Fair. PRR ordered two T1 prototype from Baldwin in mid-1940, I believe they did think that the idea of duplex is practicable base on the operating result of S1 during the break. (assuming that the date of the photo is correct)

Another topic I just started studying recently is the use of roller bearing of steam locomotive. According to Timken’s advisement during the 39 World Fair, Timken’s roller bearings were equipped to the

Well a 65,000,000 dollar investment in duplex drives and they worry about $35,000 and destroy the best public relations tool they had? Not for the bottom line, no way.

It was image, dirty, smokey steam was outdated now, old fashioned, ridiculed, and Pennsy wanted a progressive image for the future. Besides it was all part of the brainwashing that had started, see the thread of 'Commander E. Jay Quinby’s 1945 warning", and culminated with Ike’s warning of the ‘Military-Industrial Complex’. Big auto, big rubber and big oil won.

A very brief glimpse of a future that never happened, or better yet, was not allowed to happen. The T1’s were soon sabotaged with bad coal, poor training, corporate wink and nod. GM standing on the sidelines with their expensive Diesels and easy peasy credit. Buy now, pay later. Baldwin, Lima, frantically abandoning steam and going down the drain. Took a bit longer to kill off Alco, and they retreated up here to Canada, a niche market.

I think there was a brief time when highly qualified wise elders were in charge of running the freight, passenger and motive power departments, you know, the guys that got them through the war, but a new group came in shortly into the post war years and a real duality existed but not for long.

A way of life started to disappear quite rapidly and now we have what we have today.

Overcrowded airports, overcrowded and dangerous highways, no rails to small towns, folks arguing about peanuts spent on Amtrak long distance, everyone clamouring for High Speed Rail that costs a trillion bucks. Double stacks of defective Chinese junk that end up in yard sales for 0.25 cents going from the West coast to the East coast and the East coast to the West coast.

I firmly believe we could have had the best of all worlds but we abondoned too much of one thing… local rail, intercity rail, downtown to downtown, freight and passenger.

Thank you for your deep sharing, Miningman. English is not my first language; would you mind telling me what is the $35000 was about? Anyway, PRR was a quitter of their “duplex movement” when their president Martin Clement announced to remove all steam engine from through passenger trains west of the electrified territory in 1948. At that time, they had 78 (T1s+Q2) brand new, next-gen duplex engine waiting for fine-tuning or modification in 1946 which would have allowed them to continue serving for 20 more years+ (1966) but they choose to ditch these brand new T1 and Q2 like trash.

In a long run, EMD’s diesel might have saved a lot of money for PRR, but tons of money already spent on the duplex. The total investment cost for Duplex’s plus Diesel (to replace Steam engine) and the money saved by dieselizing offset each other. Not to m

First, there is a distinction between rollers on the axles and rollers in the rods and valve gear. Most of the advantages for the former have little to do with reducing running friction, as a good hydrodynamic plain bearing will do fine at much less cost and complexity. One advantage (which really requires Franklin wedges or something like them) is 360-degree support for axle forces, A plain bearing only provides between journal and brasses, and very seldom allows any loadbearing support to arrest downward motion of the axle relative to the brass.

Difficult to keep oil-lubricated roller bearings running happily in some designs of trailing truck, where there is close contact with blowdown water, grate and ashpan heat, and various kinds of cinders and dirt. You sometimes see locomotives with rollers on all axles … except the trailing truck.

Note that some devices like Hennessy lubricators were supposed to provide much of the theoretical benefit of fancy rolling-element bearings at a tiny fraction of the expense.Note that the early Reading T1s were built with plain main bearings, but the last order (of which 2124 is the only surviving representative) was built with rollers – that probably speaks well of the practical superiority. The great advantage of rollers was i

The “$35,000” is the thirty pieces of silver received as scrap value for the 6100.

There is some evidence that PRR had solved, in principle, most of the operating issues with the T1 in 1948 (this being the Franklin type A poppet version, not wholesale conversion to T1a) including changes to the valves and seats to make them more resistant to damage at the higher ‘debounce’ closing pressure. Unfortunately this couldn’t make up for some of the design limitations like the 92’ grate (an issue that has carried over into the T1 Trust parameters) and the reliance on what turned out to be an overripe tomato of a feedwater-heater system.

Personally, I have come to suspect a far more likely conspiracy than that alleged for NCL killing off trolleys in favor of GM buses in the abrupt changes made from 1948 forward. There were enormous equipment-trust charges, going forward a substantial number of years, on All Those T1s, and the only way the bankers would let these go was if the locomotives proved to be hopeless, irrremediable dogs, engines that slipped all the time and broke repeatedly and could never, never be made to run reliably… oh wait, does this sound familiar to anyone?

The problem is, as a perusal of the contemporary trade press starts to show, that the costs involved with even the best steam power in the East were starting to balloon uncontrollably in the late '40s as other areas of the economy began to expand again. This is most notable in just the period between 1947 and 1948 that the drive to produce advanced steam on PRR goes bottom-up: you see an almost violent switch in motive-power assessment regarding not only the T1s but the mechanical turbines (both the 4-8-4 S2 followups and the V1 ‘centipedes’). There is something of a scam associated with Yellott’s development of coal turbines at BCR, which factors into that part of motive power options increasingly during the early Fifties, but that and the potential of free