F-7 vs. E-4 is ALCO vs. Baldwin and at that point ALCO knew far more about high speed running. You should not dismiss the speed claims about the F-7 so quickly.
As a kid in the early 50’s I rode in my Uncle Ed’s PRR K-4 at over 100 mph in south Jersey west of Williamstown. Both my dad and I were quite scared and hung on to anything we could find in the swaying and rocking cab. No safety chains, and the loco was hand fired. The roar and power of the draft was quite noticable…all on small flanges. I did not go back for a second ride and settled for my other steam driving uncle…Ike who ran a rather docile Erie K1 on a slow commuter run to Jersey City. It is sort of like my Corvette…don’t think about the family jewels just inches above the ground at 90 mph.
I did hear tales of track damge from steam locos at speed so I doubt seriously that any road today would allow a T-1 these speeds. Just a bit off balance…call the track crew at a huge expense.
I have less than no intention of flaming or denigrating Ed, who knows more about historical railroading than I do. It’s the attitude that the T1 Trust is ‘doing a model railroad build’ that has me so hot – that they’d get a passel of detail drawings and think building the locomotive is just a matter of fabricating everything to scale and screwing it together the way Fine Art Models or Mr. Kohs might do. That was not the design process for any of the generations of duplex at Baldwin, and it is manifestly not the design process at the Trust – the point is that the public doesn’t see the depth or scope of ongoing work in things like multiphysics simulation or working with Lehigh to perfect side-rod alloys and fine geometry. Now, no small part of that has been by intent; you have to be registered to access the repository, for example, or see the extensive discussions conducted over elements of the detail design or fabrication so far. If Baldwin were developing this design today, they would almost certainly use the kind of tools and methodologies the Trust is, and in many cases the result wouldn’t have needed the fine-tuning and improvements PRR conducted over the several years after completion (and would have continued with, had the engines not been pulled from first-line service when they were).
There’s an old saying in the United States about what happens when you ASSume something like that, and I would venture that you have embodied it.
I’ll certainly grant you there was a certain element of ‘we’ll wipe Gresley’s nose with this’ in the very early days of the effort, when it was much like a bunc
I thought the moderators would have at least moved this thread to the Prototype Information category already.
Some of this discussion has rekindled my recollections of other prominent efforts to “modernize” steam technology.
Anyone remember Ross Rowland’s ACE 3000?
https://www.american-rails.com/ace-3000.html
and his earlier efforts with C&O 614:
https://www.co614.com/main/history-of-614-2/#.Xe77SehKjRY
How about the Coalition For Sustainable Rail?
https://newatlas.com/csr-project-130-steam-locomotive/22670/
I applaud any effort to resurrect steam technology and apply 21st century advances to it. I wish the good folks at the T1 trust every chance for success.
Regards, Ed
That ability has been lost for more than a month now, Ed, along with a number of other forum functions. We’ll see if the new promised software next year will address those issues.
Tom
I don’t understand the end game for the project and I probably won’t be here for the conclusion.
However I would argue that if it is built from plans, with modern materials and upgrades in design, technology or manufacturing, it isn’t really a 1:1 model. It’s an upgrade. One of Sam Colt’s inventions, that I can’t mention is currently manufactured in what is called the 3rd generation. John Browning’s inventions have been constantly upgraded for more than 100 years and are still in use my the military. The changes are evolutionary.
Unlike other places in the world, high speed rail just isn’t a thing in this country. If it ultimately can go 200 or 300 mph, are we going to have high speed steam, or even solar or electric?
And yet,PRR engineers would hit 90-100 mph between Crestline and Ft.Wayne even with K4s. Back then railroads and passenger engineers pride theirselves when their crack passenger trains arrived on the advertized.
On the other hand…Should something go afoul the engineer would get the blame citing excessive speed and rule infractions.
I believe some comments were made above regarding the advisability of spending hard earned cash on a T-1 venture, and respectfully, I must ask the question:
So what about the millions of dollars spent each year on automobile racing?
Desiring to make a T-1 live again, and race against time, is a drop in the bucket by comparison. I hope the engineers and technicians succeed!
John
This is a bit strange. In the world I grew up in and the steam community I know, I thought it was well-established that the E-4 is an Alco locomotive, built at about the same era as the F7s and sharing a suspiciously high number of dimensions and construction details with them. We all bend over trying to believe before breakfast that the F7 couldn’t possibly have E-4 issues… but barring the existence of magic spells (and for that matter any high-speed testing of the sort that established Burlington Hudsons as over-112mph engines) it becomes increasingly difficult to believe in fairies. (We might also note that Mr. Bruce says nothing about them as notably fast, whereas…)
About the speed and capability of the As there can be little doubt, and were it not for the fact that there is utterly no practical use for one in modern railroading, high speed or preservation, I would have long ago spearheaded some effort to rebuild one. Before the PRR ‘standardized’ its high-speed future on double Atlantics it was working on an E8 that would have 84" drivers, oil firing, drive on the leading pair, and doubtless show Baldwin’s take on the Alco high-speed formula… I hesitate to use the words ‘rip off’ as there was other similar high-speed design work in that brief period, and PRR was notorious for espousing four-coupleds as the only true high-speed approach (hence the reverence for the Lindbergh Engine), but it does occur to me that NIH was as suspended then as it had been when Alco essentially invented the K4 a couple of decades before…
Yes, but I humbly submit for different reasons than those which follow…
The effect of which can, and has, been calculated. A far greater reason for debate is how badly the inside big end came apart as a direct result of poor valve-gear drive action at high speed and necessary cutoff. I only excuse it because the detail design was promptly fixed… but then again, the new design was never tested to anything like 125mph.
You must have Swiss blood because there are so many holes in this sentence. What Gresley actually accepted was a true peak at 125mph (not for a very long distance on the trace, I think corresponding to something like 150’) but not an artifact; he explicitly rejected 126 as demonstrable surge artifact (and said so).
The records were taken with a dynamometer, which comprises a speedometer as part of the instrumentation, but the result was a pen trace and not a needle indication. This is the amateur mistake in that ‘low-flying’ T1 story that has the speedometer ‘pegged at 120mph’. Now, cars have 120mph speedometers, but the T1’s Jones-Motrola only read up to 100. Had the author not felt the need to get salty about the instrumentation we could just have believed it was timing mileposts with the ol’ 992B… but poof! wrong details instantly ruin verisimilitude.
Personally I think it is difficult to believe an A4 could possibly be faster than an 05 (at least 001 and 002), and we are deprived o
You sound as you have been there, but I think it is safe to assume you have not.
That is why the Western tradition invented these things called books. People who actually were there made a record of what was done and said, and if you read them, much as you would read texts in these posts, you can actually find out things not on the Internet without having to have been there! [PS for the future: note the correct use of ‘have been’ here; you should have said ‘had been’ in your sentence…]
My very dim recollection is that some of the discussion was in ‘Master Builders of Steam’ but there are some other similar sources that are in general accord. I have never seen anything, other than opinion, that said Gresley limited his understanding to 124mph, but if you have a reference for that I’d be interested to read it.
Overmod, I really wanted to follow this thread but the vitriol with which you respond to many of the posts here, especially if they question anything, is very off-putting. That’s too bad. I’m a little surprised moderators haven’t stepped in on some of your comments. Unnecessary.
Sorry about that. There are some little things that push my buttons a bit too much sometimes, and the usual ‘pronouncements’ about why the T1 replication is a problem are often more than usually in that category since they keep returning as if no one had addressed them.
I purposely didn’t answer the posts about dynamic augment because they show disregard for the whole point of the duplex development, so responses are not wholly a chronic example of worthless knee-jerk-response curmudgeonry. (It does not help either that I’m a native New Yorker who grew up in New Jersey, so both sarcasm and chop-busting are normal characteristics of conversation among friends with different opinions)
Good point, Randy. [bow]
I get the frustration completely and agree. I also learned the hard way that sometime folks could be working with different information or experiences that they wholeheartedly believe in.
Oh, that explains it! [(-D]
You indirectly point out one of the problems of the written word. No intonation to convey intent. Leaves things open to incorrect interpretation at times. Not like I’ve ever done that! [:-^][(-D]
Cheers,
My opinion on Ross isn’t that high personally, but I don’t think this forum is the appropriate place to discuss my opinions on him. But I think its worth pointing out a rebuilt T1 is less along the vein of modernizing a steam locomotive for comercial use like those projects were, and more a modernization for preservation’s and historical demonstration purposes.
If anything, the T1 project is more in vein to the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust and their projects to rebuild lost classes of locomotives in Britain. If the T1 is succesful in America, speed record or not, it could open up the doors for other lost cl
I didn’t find it to be that way at all. I have followed Overmod’s opinions and claims of fact for a few years now on other sub-fora here at trains.com, and perhaps have encountered him using other identifiers with which I am not familiar, but I have yet to see a testy or objectionable post authored by him. I did find that he replied rather evenly to Ulrich’s aggressive challenge, with which you appear to find no umbrage…?
-Crandell
Thanks for the defense, Crandall, but in actual fact he was right; there was in fact some undue testiness in there and he was justified to call me out on it.
Even if provoked, the ‘right’ response is to answer the substance of the criticism, no matter whether the tone is negative or not, and at least establish a way to the truth if there are misconceptions. As Mike pointed out, even the appearance that something is vitriolic can be enough to ‘turn people off’ from reading it – and the whole point of posting is to either inform or amuse people who stay reading.
Guys,A thought cross my mind… Does today’s steam engineers have the grit the old steam engineers had when it comes to running wide open? Seeing its a speical breed that races cars at top speeds? I’ve notice today steam engineers love to lean half way out the window and at high speeds I doubt if that would be possible because of the wind force. My Grandfather bragged about hitting 90 mph between Newark(Oh) and Columbus(Oh) more then once in his passenger service career.