Are there any Pensylvania RR T1 still surviving, or have they all been scrapped?
How many were originally built? They are my favorite steam locomotive, aside from the Y6a.
Thanks! Acela
None were preserved…they all came apart chunks at a time under the cutter’s torch.
According to this source, my only recourse on the subject, two groups of 25 were produced.
http://www.steamlocomotive.com/duplex/
-Crandell
You need to read W. A. “Bill” Gardner’s account in Trains about delivering the first two E7As to the Pennsy. The E7s kept making the daily runs from Altoona to Detroit while the T-1s became overnight shop queens.
A total of 52 T-1’s were built, 6110-6111 (Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon) and 5500-5549.
And, not to be a picker of nits [swg], the Pennsy was one of the railroads that didn’t use a hyphen in its model designations. So, it has K4, J1, T1, and not like the Chessie that had H-8…and so on…
-Crandell
" Buck" and “Flash” were put in service in 1942 as experimental prototypes. The Pennsy liked them well enough to order fifty more slightly modified versions that came on line in 1945-46. Once the whole fleet was operating there were lots of maintenance issues leading to high operating costs that had not been so obvious with the two originals. When they were in good working order and manned by a skilled crew they did a fine job but they needed too much TLC which was fatal with diesels coming on.
You need to read Gardner’s account with a large grain of salt. It’s a glaring example of the myths surrounding T1 mileages. It shows how unsupported hearsay can get much wider distribution and have more influence than dry, dusty old facts. I’ve found considerable reason to question the quoted T1 mileage during the time from Sept 1945 through April 1946, the 6-month period mentioned in article. During that time, the E7’s ran 69,000 miles, about 11,500 miles per month. The author was told that the highest mileage T1 during that period ran only 2,800 miles. According to mileage reports I have which were internal correspondence from PRR Chief of Motive Power’s office, 5504 was the highest mileage T1 at the time, posting 40,642 miles since its in-service date of 12/5/45. This is an average of about 8,294 miles/month. For the month of April 1946, it posted 10,793 miles, only slightly less than the E7’s at that time. Also during April, 5512 posted 11,442 miles and 5508 posted 10,942 miles, also about the same as the E7’s. Maximum mileage figures for the T1 fleet stayed in this range until March 1947. I could never understand where the 2,800 mile figure came from. It’s certainly not supported by any existing data.
Caveat lector.
It doesn’t really matter how many miles the T1s were running. According to steamlocomotive dot com most T1s were laid up by 1949 and all were scrapped by 1953. The Pennsy wasted its money on 50 obsolete machines that never should have been built. If depreciation was set at 15 years the Pennsy at best got four years out of most of these locomotives.
Making inaccurate comparisons that distort history and are contrary to facts definitely matter. Gardner was misled by hearsay, took it uncritically as fact, published it in a reputable magazine, and there you have it - instant facts based on nothing. It’s certainly much easier than doing years of research to find out what actually happened.
IMO, all steam locomotives built after WW2 were obsolete because diesel-electric technology was developing at a very rapid rate. The economics were obvious. At best, the finest steam locos were little more than stopgap measures to tide the railroad over until enough diesels could be bought. The T1 had no corner on obsolescence during the 1940s. They just had a bit more visibility, style and crankiness.
I agree, they weren’t what PRR needed (or any other railroad for that matter). A nice reliable 4-8-4 perhaps similar to UP FEFs or ATSF 3776/2900 classes may have been a better choice in 1944.
Acela026,
Hope you’re still following this. I looked at your bio and saw that you were a younger member of this forum and you deserved a better answer than I’ve given when addressing specific T1 issues. There are several T1 articles written for and published by the PRRT&HS in its magazine The Keystone. These articles are well researched by their respective authors over many years, and include first hand interviews with the men who actually ran the T1’s in service. They present detailed information that you will not find anywhere else. Popular publications cannot present the detailed information because they must appeal to the general readership. Railroad historical societies are about the last place where thoroughly researched articles on a given locomotive class can be found.
The best sources for recent research dedicated entirely to the PRR T1 are the series of articles published in PRRT&HS’ magazine, The Keystone, and two articles on the PRR T1 tests on other railroads published by C&OHS and N&WHS. The two authors have amassed a huge file of original source documents. Burnell has interviewed the crews that actually operated the T1s over the road and written en extensive series of articles for The Keystone. The other two articles explain two relatively unknown tests that were conducted on C&O in 1946 and N&W in 1948. Large amounts of information survived on each of these tests.
Burnell, Neil. “An Appreciation of the T1 - The Enginemen’s Perspective,” The Keystone (Autumn 2001, pp 19-59)
Stephenson, David R. “Rebuttal to ‘A Slippery Subject’,” The Keystone (Winter 2001, pp17-18)
Burnell, Neil. “The ‘Slippery’ T1,” The Keystone (Winter 2001, pp57-62)
Burnell, Neil. Response to 2 letters, The Keystone (Winter 2002, pp11-13)
Burnell, Neil. “A Reassessment of T1 6110 and 6111", The Keystone, Vol 37, No. 1, pp18-39
Burnell, Neil. "The Case f
Thank you feltonhill! I looked at the link, and it was very helpful and interesting. You were right, graphics would have made it easier to follow, but I think I got the gist of it. I have changed (much to my parents disliking) our home screensaver to a photo of a T1. But they changed it back. DARN!
Acela026
I sent you an e-mail based on this site. Did you get it? I have a spare copy of one of the articles I cited.
You are probably correct about the T1 and how it should have never been built, but I got to see them run and they were very exciting to see.
Our last T1 on the St Louis main was in 1951 and the K4’s took over again until the summer of 1954 when the coaling tower was removed west of town. I have many memories seeing several T1s on trains at speeds that you would not believe in Illinois. They would run once they got the train moving. Starting a train for them without spinning their front set of drivers was almost impossible. The PRR did have 52 of them including the first two test locomotives. None were preserved and no Q2’s or J1’s were preserved. It is a shame that the PRR even purchased diesels since they did not save the PRR like the ads for the diesels presented to railroads how great the savings would be.
The PRR made a lot of mistakes and spent a lot of money of duplex steam, but all steam went out the door when the diesels eliminated the coal, water and maintenance stops. I consider the greatest of mistakes of the PRR to be the day they became the PC.
CZ
They were wonderful locomotives to see and ride behind, and I would not give up the memories. But still, the PRR would have been better off with a good 4-8-4 that would fit its clearances (not the SP, UP, or AT&SF, which would not fit eastern clearances) such as the NYC Niagra or N&W J, the latter possibly with slightly larger drivers. Of course it would have a Belpair firebox!
While everybody seems to obsess over the checkered history of the T1, does anybody even know the track record of the other duplex-drive, the Q2?
I got to see one Q2 in Chicago near the roundhouse under steam but did not get to see it run. All of the books I have on the Q2 seem to point to a duplex that was much better than any of the other PRR trial and error locomotives, but was not ready for prime time against the diesels.
This information is from the Pennsy Q class book: PRR Classic Power
The Q2’s had an electrical controlled anit-slip device, a unique applicaiton of an electrical control to a steam locomotive. The control device was developed by Rosser L. Wilson of American Brake Shoe (ABEX) and it utilized a differential switch which was driven by small wheels running on the treads of the #2 and #3 drivers. When this switch sensed a speed difference, it suplied air to butterfly valves in the steam lines of the slipping engine. When the drivers equalized in speed again, the steam was returned to that set of cylinders. They did not work that well after a short time in service. It was a failure also since they would not reset immediately and the thottle had to be shut off to get them to reset if one of the set of drivers did spin.
It was a great locomotive that broke records in the HP range on the test plant, but was too expensive to maintain since the new diesels just passed up every water stop, ash cleaning and coaling tower. The article goes on to say that this butterfly steam valve problem probably could have been solved by modifications to the butterfly valves but the diesels came way too soon for that fix.
The Q2 was assigned to the Crestline to Chicago run only. They were eleven feet wide and this was a line that could handle the size. If you look at
Has anyone seen the movie: “Lemony Snickett’s A Series of Unfortunate events”? (sp?) It’s got a really neat scene of a T1 getting ready to run over a car full of kids at a crossing…How cool is THAT?
[?] OK My question is were they built on a straight frame or were they articulated, I cannot really tell from any photis dont laugh please Larry
All of PRR’s duplex drives were on rigid frames, not articulated. This would make the T1 a divided-drive 4-8-4 and the Q2 a divided drive 4-10-4.
I wonder if any other readers also actually rode passenger trains behind a T1? The reason I ask is that I remember a gentle oscilation motion at about I think 55 mph that seemed as if some drawbar along the train, possibly between engine and tender or tender and first coach, was underdamped. It was gentle and not very annoying, but still noticable, somewhat like a similar motion I notoiced when flying in Lockheed Electra turboprops much later. It came on only at a particular speed. And this was after the T1’s were on the road about one or two years, not when they were new.