Ok, thank you very much for the correction. When I initially searched I did not find any information at all on PRR 3396, and figured the number must have been in the CC-2 group, but I did find some info. now.
Some of the PRR websites don’t even mention that engine, apparently because they are devoted to photo images, and photos that far back are most assuredly rare in any case.
I was not aware PRR had ever had a 2-8-8-2 prior to the N&W engines–and many of the folks here in Central PA are in the same boat. Most everybody knows about the HC-1 2-8-8-0–but the other beast is definitely much less known among the local fans.
Yes, the USRA 2-8-8-2 was based on the Y-2A. As I related above, it is discussed in detail in Huddleston’s book Uncle Sam’s Locomotives.
The USRA 2-8-8-2 book originally published by N.J. International has been rewritten twice now, and a drastically updated/expanded edition is available today.
PRR did test an A class engine and the results are in Balls book the PRR in the 40’s and 50’s. Basic philosphy of the PRR was toward using multiple engines when needed and not articulateds. To the best of my knowledge the Y6b’s came along to late for the PRR to have much interest. By then the railroad was heavily invested in split drive engines like the T1 and Q2.
Did the early Proto 2K HO models of any of the 2-8-8-2 come with two sets of front cylinders? I believe I had a Virginian model of that loco that had 2 sets of cylinders in the box. Did the Virginian operate as a compound??
I have read many sources on the USRA 2-8-8-2, including all the NJI books and the updated book published by others since, and to the best of my knowledge none of the USRA or N&W engines was ever simpled, for any railroad. They were designed and operated their entire lives as compound articulateds.
Rio Grande rebuilt similar pre-USRA 2-8-8-2’s with new boilers, but they remained as compounds. Rio Grande Class L-107 (the 10 USRA copies) served their entire lives as compounds.
Union Pacific installed a few Challenger-style pilots on ex-N&W and ex-C&O 2-8-8-2’s, the C&O ones being actually H-7 simple articulateds, but UP did not simple any of the ex-N&W compounds they received. Instead they remained as compounds.
It was too late in the steam era, the diesels were coming, so at the end of WWII, nobody was interested in rebuilding to simple configuration engines that were only a stopgap until more diesels arrived.
Most of the ex-N&W and ex-C&O engines that did go west were retired and scrapped by 1948 at the latest (or in the case of Santa Fe were sent east to Virginian). The C&O ones, again, were simple H-7 class 2-8-8-2’s.
Union Pacific did have a big fleet of 2-8-8-0’s that was rebuilt from compound to simple operation, but none of them was ever a 2-8-8-2, and they have a very unique-to-UP look with a tapered boiler. They were all unmistakeably UP engines and look like nothing else except a vague resemblance to B&O EL3 and EL5 class engines.
Santa Fe did produce a concept sketch drawing of a 4-8-4 with an ex-N&W Y-3 class boiler (they reportedly loved the free steaming N&W boilers, but the Y-3’s were too slow as mainline helpers on Raton and Cajon) but it was never actually constructed. No known
John, they may have been compounds, but were able to take in high pressure steam into the compound cylinders which in the case of the Y6b as unmodified raised their tractive effort from approximately 126,000# as a compound to 152,000# when operating as a simple articulated.
Yes, I am well aware, but the question posed above was regarding a change out of front cylinders, which is a different matter entirely. Thank you for reminding us that N&W designed a special valve to allow low speed simple operation.
That is not true either.
All of the compound 2-8-8-2’s built by ALCO, and the N&W engine was based on that design, had a valve that allowed the engines to be used in simple. This was designed at ALCO by a man named Mellon: http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/mallet.Html.
Because of maintainence issues related to the reducing valve, later on Bob Pilcher of the N&W designed an external reducing valve that improved reliability along with providing a method to operate in compound and provide the low pressure cylinders with a small amount of live steam in order to add heat to the steam in the receiver pipe. This has come to be known as the “Booster Valve”.
As for the Y3 locos, don’t be fooled if you see one with the big “Y” pipe. After rebuilding the Y5 engines, some of the Y3’s were rebuilt with a Y5 front engine.