It's not just C. E. Pond! Try to find out anything about some of the locomotive designers who were or should be legends--W. E. Woodward of Lima, his successor Bert Townsend, Ralph Johnson of Baldwin, Alfred Bruce of Alco, not to mention the designers from the railroads themselves, such as Otto Jabbelman of the Union Pacific.

Some of these people wrote things--Bruce's "The Steam Locomotive in North America" (did I remember it right?) is fairly easy to find, but try to locate a copy of Johnson's "The Steam Locomotive," a magnificent technical treatise, or anything by Woodward at all!

One thing I would be intrigued by from Woodward would be his proposed branch line 4-6-4. This was a concept of a standard, stock locomotive meant for secondary services, designed to replace all those old 2-8-0s, 4-6-0s, light and early 2-8-2s, and so forth that normally held down those jobs. A number of people suggested this might be a better approach to providing power for these secondary operations, especially as new main line power was seen as not being readily adapted to such work as it would inevitably get older, but only Canadian Pacific really did much with the concept (4-4-4s, all those light G-5 4-6-2s in the postwar era). Working from memory from Hirmanski's history of Lima and from a book on C&O Superpower engines which had a bit of data on that road's designers, key specifications would have included 69" drivers, a booster, and an axle load on the order of 50,000 pounds or so, allowing the engine to run on relatively poor track, yet the generous firebox on the 4-wheel trailer and the 69" drivers would have allowed a fair turn of speed on something like a commuter train with low firing rates. I've never seen anything, not even a diagram, that would give a hint as to what such a machine would look like, but would guess it resemble a somewhat smaller version of an NKP 4-6-4, which had what was essentially a USRA light 2-8-2 boiler, and perhaps even the firebox.

I agree that more ought to be known in one central place about Pond. Most of what I hear is positive, but there were a couple of negatives too... resolving this would be good.

According to Ed King, the Y-7 received the 'upgrade' to 300 psi that the A's did. His fugures (in "The A: Norfolk & Western's Mercedes of Steam" p.77) have the starting TE at 153,000 lb. and King says about the horsepower "estimated in the 8,000 range at 40 mph." (this is almost certainly IHP, but still impressive). I do not think there was a booster on the Y-7 (2-8-8-2 with minimum overhang) design; I think the 153,000 figure is attributable directly to the boiler-pressure increase. (Some drawings on the locomotive are here: http://www.nwhs.org/archivesdb/listdocs ... pe=Drawing )

Bruce is "The Steam Locomotive in America: Its Development in the Twentieth Century"
We had a thread on this here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=30020
which contained biographical information on Bruce (and egregiously misspelled Lionel Wiener's name! -- speaking of which, Otto's last name is "Jabelmann" and Will's is "Woodard")

Where are the references on Woodard's 4-6-4? I had not seen it (but then again, I'm still looking for a full copy of the Unitary Machine Support 2-12-6 design of 1927!)

Pffffft! That's what happens when you rely on brain cells instead of going downstairs to actually check on the books and things you own!

About the 4-6-4, and again I have to say this was relying on brain cells. . .the reference is in "Chesapeake & Ohio Super Power Steam Locomotives," by the late Eugene L. Huddleston, published by the C&O Historical Society in 2005. On page 7, referring to Hirsimaki's history of Lima and the financial condition of the firm in the 1930s, Huddleston writes, "Obviously Lima had little money for research and development. If it had, Woodard might have come up with actual production of some novel ideas he had floating around. One of these ideas did reach article stage in Railway Age for April 1929, on the eve of the Depression. Titled "Modern Locomotives for Secondary Service," its subhead was its thesis: "The author proposes a design for all-around service to replace the accumulation of misfits handed down through the years." The design was for a mediam sized 4-6-4 to replace "older and lighter" locomotives that had been relegated to branch lines from mainline service. Interestingly, drivers for this standardized model would be 69 inches, the height that became standard for heavy duty freight Super Power. Woodard's most convincing case for this "light weight" Super Power design was the savings which Super Power in service had already demonstrated, plus the savings that would accrue in reduced parts inventory and uniform repair procedures. Another of his novel ideas that never saw production was his 1934 proposal for 4-4-4 equipped with poppet valves.

"Woodard's prescience about the need for standardized motive power anticipated what American railroads belatedly learned from diesel electrics--that one design could serve the needs of practically all American railroads. Woodard specifically anticipated the design of the 'Geep' at the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors some twenty years later. Woodard aimed to keep the axle load of the 4-6-4 at a low 52,000 lbs. and the maximum height at fifteen feet and width at ten feet. This would permit its use on low maintenance branch lines; its generous heating surfaces would at the same time premit use on main lines. Woodard wrote: 'It would be a general utility locomotive which could be used on branchline freight, main-line fast freight, or in passenger service if needed.' Woodard's words would be the same that designer Dick Dilworth of EMD could use twenty years later in describing his highly popular General Purpose locomotives, for the famous GP7 and GP9 models handle all three assignments well."

Among the more interesting aspects of this book is its look at the staff of the Advisory Mechanical Committee that designed the locomotives and other things for the combined Van Sweringen empire. This "committee" was actually a full-fledged department or bureau, with multiple engineers, draftsmen, and even a lawyer. The AMC not only designed locomotives and cars, but also had a near-continuous stream of maintenance procedures, manuals, and so on coming from its engineers and authors. Principle design engineer seems to have been a relatively unknown Alonzo G. Trumbull, who, like Ralph Johnson, Will Woodard, and Alfred Bruce, was an alumni of Cornell University (1899), and would start his railroad career with the Erie. He would join the newly-formed AMC in 1929, and would serve with it until his retirement in 1947.

I was in error about Eric Hirsimaki's "Lima-the History" (c. 1986 by Eric Hirsimaki, second edition 2004, and printed by Hundman Publishing) having anything on this 4-6-4. However, it does mention that Lima, in this period of the late 1920s, was looking at a number of interesting versions of the Super Power concept. Among these were compound 2-6-8-4 in 1926 Among the proposed specifications were 126 sg. ft. grate area, 225 psi pressure, 63" drivers, 625,000 lbs. on the drivers and an overall locomotive weight of 625,000 lbs. Tractive effort with a booster was anticipated to be 138,700 lbs.--this was in 1926! The cylinder arrangement would be unusual in that the high-pressure 25"x32" set would be on the front engine, and the low pressure 28 1/2"x32" set would be on the rear engine. It would also have incorporated a 60% limited cut-off, and would have to have been one of the first articulated Super Power designs and probably one of the few compound Super Power designs (if there even were any others).

Other designs being proposed by late 1928 included:

A 4-8-6 that was mostly pretty conventional in design, but notable with a light axle loading, 224,000 lbs. spread over the four driving axles. Grate area was to be 100 sq. ft., 250 lbs. pressure, 69" drivers, 60% limited cut-off--and supposedly what might have been a Belpaire firebox. Total engine weight was estimated to come to 410,000 lbs, and it would have had 73,400 lbs. of tractive effort with the booster cut in.

Several 4-10-6 designs, with interest from the Texas & Pacific as an alternative to a pending order for additional 2-10-4s. To quote Hirsimaki, "At least three different versions were considered. One was conventional in layout, one had both lead truck axles located ahead of the cylinders and, on the other, the cylinders were moved forward so they weren't in line with the stack. This odd cylinder location was the result of Woodard's new 'unitary machinery support' concept."

According to Hirsimaki, Woodard felt that the very large forces of big cylinders on the frames could be minimized by reducing the the overall width across the cylinders. Tandem rods were already in use and helped, but Woodard wanted to go further, casting supports for the valve gear and crosshead guides with the cylinder saddle; this, combined with tandem rods, could reduce the width across the cylinders by as much as six inches.

The proposed T&P engine would have been huge, with a grate area of 129 sq. ft.! The closest comparable design would be the C&O's heroic 2-10-4s of 1930.

The 2-12-6 was even bigger, and designed to replace a slow, lumbering compound 2-8-8-2. Cylinders would have been 32"x32', drivers would be 63", and the grate area an amazing 151 sq. ft.!

Thanks, Jeff. Scott Trostel posted that link in steam_tech in 2010 and it worked at that time. I shoulda checked.

Note that all the critical boiler details are there. Even more interesting is that the design experience with the 'floating driver axle' on the As was repeated on the Y-7. I cannot read the 'sample' well enough to make out the dimensioning, but it would be interesting to see if the corrections Russell Henley described in his talk (King, p.71) noting that the driver bearing tube wall thickness had to be increased by 3/8" on the A (to relieve any potential interference issue with the axle flexing). (There are also several rounds of conventional roller-bearing box design in the files for the As, allowing replacement of the hub-mounted bearings, and I believe I see at least one such drawing for the Y7... can anyone read the dates?)

Meanwhile, Dave Stephenson is reviewing Voyce Glaze's design book --

http://www.nwhs.org/archivesdb/detail.php?ID=90311

to get details on the methodology used in balancing the J class -- isn't it convenient that there are notes on the Y-7 in the same volume...

I think there would be a strong correlation between Woodard's 4-6-4 plans and that Illinois Central 'freight Hudson'. Stagner doesn't mention anything about it (that I could see) but it would sure explain how that concept gained traction if IC people heard the idea at a conference, and decided to implement it themselves...

I have a strange brain. Someone says something, or I think of something, and my brain goes to thinking about something else, sometimes gets curious and starts looking for something else. In this case, it was looking for material on W. E. Woodard:

http://siris-archives.si.edu/ipac20/ipa ... ~!140196!0

http://amhistory.si.edu/archives/AC0125.html

Then there's this page--picture links don't work for me, but maybe they'll work for you:

http://www.oocities.org/usra482b/page78.html

http://www.worldcat.org/title/discussio ... lc/3334379

Obituary:

http://fultonhistory.com/Newspaper%205/ ... 202084.pdf

I gets curious, and I just keeps looking:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/steam_tech/message/73331

This is about all I could find that was worth linking up, and it confirm's Jeff's commentary, we have too little on the designers and others who are such important parts of our history.

Tom Dressler had some Model Railroader articles on the Y7, he built a model of one.
It was not a compound, it was full simple front back. feedwater pumps mounted on the front.

Probably the real reason the N&W steam program couldnt go on was the progress of the diesel and the impact of steam components and pricing making it harder to continue steam from a material availability and price points. Not that they couldnt design the ultimate steam engine.

I doubt it, and it may have never had it. My impression from reading about this is that the "Christmas tree" was a piece of temporary test equipment, like an indicator mechanism might be. It would be something rigged up for testing, and removed when the results were in (which in this case, resulted in lowering the crown sheet and the overall water level in the boiler to provide more steam space and reduce water carry-over through the dry pipe).

> Link to Yahoo group discussing Jawn Henry with some of Pond's
> 1955 correspondence with Baldwin;

> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/steam_tech/message/46633

Not to be too pedantic, but this is not about the Jawn Henry TE-1; it's the follow-up locomotive, with GE rather than Westinghouse electrical gear. In Newton's "Tale of a Turbine" pp.906-907 he gives the date of the memo to Wyatt as Feb 15, reporting conclusions of a meeting on Feb. 15.. Interestingly, the proposed price for the locomotives had gone up since January:


"For a lot of 6 - $925.,400 per locomotive
For a lot of 20 - $835,000 per locomotive."

Compare this with the last of the improved Y6b's in 1952. which Newton estimates cost "about $300,000"

While Pond gave the experimental TE-1 a good chance, it should be noted that only a month elapsed between the time of the catastrophic turbine failure (Nov 30 1957) and Pond's memo (Newton p.902) of Dec 31, basically instructing crews to do a hurry-up scrapping so that the decommissioning would 'count' in year 1957. Evidently there was little or no thought given to replacing the turbine and generators with GE equivalents, or re-trucking the locomotive with new GE motors to replace the overload-damaged (Newton, p.898) traction motors, which would have to have been substantially rebuilt or replaced within the next year anyway.