Scant information. Can we narrow down a date pretty close? The full skirting/streamlining has been removed. Seems like the front has some kind of horizontal cutaway, overall a bit banged up. Also there appears to be a cover removed on the steam cylinder/valve covering exposing internal workings but perhaps at this time this was normal? I kind of doubt it.
So has it completed its run? or on to Crestline or Chicago? It must be on a service track. Is it doubleheading with the locomotive ahead of it?
How much time does this fairly young gal have before it’s off the roster?
We need some expertise and detective work to expand the story here.
“The Pennsylvania Railroad station in Fort Wayne, Ind., was busy each afternoon and evening as the railroad’s eastbound passenger train fleet rolled in. Here, a distinctive T1 class 4-4-4-4 receives some attention under the lights.”
Yeah, that “Photo-O-The-Day” leaves a lot more questions than it answers.
I’d guess considering what’s missing from that T1 it’s probably near the end of its service life, all the sheeting that’s been removed would have made it easier for the shop crews to keep it alive until the diesel replacement shows up.
When did the curtain ring down on the T1’s? 1954? 1955? The photo’s probably close to those dates.
The engine looks to be in steam, but is doubleheading, and not leading either. Perhaps this one was in an accident or suffered some failure out on the road, and the train needed to be rescued.
Is it on the Main on it’s Scheduled train, or on the Shop Track awaiting servicing?
Lots of lighting and hose and valve, left.
It’s headlight is ON.
The Experts or ’ Experts ’ could identify the Class, Year AND Construction Number of locomotive coupled ahead by it’s Tender Truck, 4 wheel, ergo this engine’s coal and water capacity, driver diameter and speed capability re requirements if on there to Double Head from originating point on Scheduled train.
An 0-6-0 not likely? ( Tender not sloped. )
Could very well be an engine coupled to bring train in after breakdown of road engine?
Overmod, rcdrye or possibly Jones could give us a range of years, but I would think 1947 or later for this picture. Probably on a mail and express train. I think a lot of T1’s were put away for good, stored waiting for their equipment trusts to run out 1951 and 52.
Also think it’s unusual for a T1 to doublehead on passenger service although I have seen a clip going around horseshoe and it was not in the lead. Their glory years were very short indeed.
If I were going to guess at a train I would agree, especially if it was in the period before Christmas, when mail volumes were huge. PRR ran very heavy mail trains in multiple sections in November and December. I think the tender belongs to a K4s. They were still common enough in the early postwar era. PRR’s practice had been to doublehead K4s(s) on heavier trains before the T1s arrived, so crews would be used to it. My guess would be that crews would prefer to have the K4s in the lead to stretch out slack so the T1 would have less chance of wheel slip.
This is one of the ‘late’ production T1s, and as such has very little ‘tinsnips’ modification compared to the earlier versions. I see no “cutaway” at the front; that’s an artifact of a rectangular sign in shadow in front of the locomotive. You can see the ‘stock’ inset handrail if you recognize what you’re looking at.
Not unusual to see the camboxes exposed at the ends like that. To my knowledge the covers were not even lagged.
I concur with Big Jim that this is a ready track, well-lighted for inspection (even though this is a slightly overexposed 'soak ‘em in’ time exposure. Note what is likely substantial blowoff from the pops, something unlikely if the engine were cut off for servicing or had been brought in disabled; I also see evidence of fairly heavy blower (or poor coal). we also have a generator running. Someone who knows the layout of the Fort Wayne station and engine facilities will know more, including whether the likely K4 is coupled on or just ‘ready’ for dispatch ahead of the T1 – in my opinion it would be less logical to have the K4 second in a doublehead, with the full mass of the T1 and its tender running in and out… especially if there is slipping.
I’d date this late '40s or very early '50s, in the age the T1s were being ‘fed’ poorer-quality coal.
There are moving parts, of course, but not completely complicated ones.
This engine has type A gear, which has the motion derived from the crossheads. That motion runs what is basically a stunted set of Walschaert gear (to get the effective cutoff for the oscillating-cam mechanism) and the inside gearbox (1500-odd pounds of ‘works’, sitting up on end for the rear engine!) all of which is ‘invisible’ inside the frame and, more important, contributes very little to the augment of the engines. Now, remember that all the valves and passages on a Franklin engine are in the two ‘ears’ at the front and rear ends – there is nothing related to ‘steam’ in the center where you see the mechanism. What that contains is the actual oscillating mechanism with the cams that drive the valves (they return passively under spring pressure a bit like the valves in a car, and beefing these up and ‘debouncing’ their snubbing was a critical part of the ‘fixes’ in the latter half of the Forties). All the necessary glands for the valve rods (and there are a number of these, four valves per cylinder end) are in the two ends, and the cambox has no need for equalized pressure or sealed joints between it and the valves … in fact, you don’t want such joints because any steam leaks past them might contaminate the oil, and you want that steam to dissipate before it cools just as with any blowby into the crankcase on a steam car like a Doble.
Unlike the arrangement in Franklin ‘type C’, the cambox does not have any ‘user-specified’ adjustments (e.g. a laterally-shifting camshaft) – all the cutoff and reverse adjustments are handled via the OC mechanisms between the frames, and all the cambox does is contain the rocking valve-drive cams and the inner followers and valve-rod ends. The further these ca
You are right, Mr. Overmod. “One of the earliest known photos of Morgan was taken in Fort Wayne, Ind., Sept. 2, 1947. Morgan is posing with the nose and pilot of Pennsylvania Railroad T1 4-4-4-4 No. 5507, years before he took the helm as editor of Trains. Photo by Richard J. Cook”
I have seen that photo of DPM before and even commented on it. Duh!
That open Cambox just seems like an inviting target for rock throwers to get one in the basket and other forms of vandalism. . Would a cover not be prudent or did they need access that often and easily?
The more one studies and familiarizes the workings of the T1 the more it is appears to be a technological nightmare ( and a marvel) in many ways.
I’m glad they built them, sad they scrapped them so quickly, glad one is being built hopefully to completion.
Such bold moves by the Pennsy, the S1,S2, T1’s, Q’s to our delight and then terror and horror as they betrayed and sabotaged the whole lot of them. Pennsylvania Station too!
You would think such a change of heart and sucidal waste would bankrupt a mere mortal company… oh wait… it did!
Camboxes in the original two were completely ‘faired in’; I see no sign of removable doors to check them.
All the pictures i can find of the ‘production’ engines with portholes show a permanent ‘hole’ in the shrouding adjacent to the cambox end; this might have taken a screw-on cover but if these were designed, I don’t see them in service pictures. Here is a picture showing one of these locomotives ‘new’ at Eddystone with no evidence of covers installed:
The ‘later’ engines with type A seem to have exposed camboxes from the start; the one RC conversion was built with sheet metal cover (of a decidedly different shape that can be seen on other contemporary Franklin RC designs like the last C&O L-2s) and I frankly (no pun intended) don’t know if those covers were necessary enough to retain.
5550 will have RC gear, possibly with the ‘drive-arm’ shaft configuration as used on the type D system instead of the heavy ‘bridge’ framing. The valves will be driven as for type B-2 (using bridges to actuate the 4 valves per end in pairs from rotating cams with enough ‘step’ or variable contour to permit reasonable cutoff control). This preserves all the passages and valve structure ‘as built’ while eliminating the need to very expen$ively replicate the inadequate type A OC valve drive machinery. (It also incidentally facilitates installation of conjugation, should that prove desirable or necessary.)
So covers likely, as on the converted 5500. (There are differences between the cambox style for OC, which has a fixed camshaft and the cutoff is internal to the valve drive, and RC, where the cam shifts between fixed profiles or varies contour using spherical followers)
