I’ve been doing some research on the Baldwin 60000 at the Franklin Institute for an upcoming issue of Railfan & Railroad. From all accounts this engine was a success if you read the reports of its testing at Altoona and its subsequent runs on the B&O, CB&Q, GN, etc… However, at the Franklin Institute there is a display sign containing a facsimile of a (real?) letter supposedly sent to the museum by Samuel Vauclain that seems to say otherwise.

To the Director
The Franklin Institute
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Dear Sir:

I hereby donate the Baldwin 60000 locomotive. We originally believed that the 60000 would be the prototype of a new generation of steam locomotives. Efficient and powerful, the 60000 could outperform any other engine of its day.

Unfortunately, the 60000 remains a unique product. As we discovered, the locomotive was too complex for many engineers and fireman to operate. The water pipes carrying superheated steam would burst frequently. Also, the locomotive’s enormous weight of more than 350 tons proved too heavy. The 60000 damaged many tracks on its tour across America in 1927.

I hope that our locomotive will become a valuable addition to your museum. I look forward to visiting the 60000 soon after it settles into its new “home.”

Included are the pictures we took of the 60000 coming into your museum.

Sincerely,

Samuel Vauclain

The 60000 wasn’t duplicated and no orders were received for similar locomotives because of several reasons (including the fact that it was a compound, had three cylinders, and had that oddball water tube firebox). However, in all of my research materials not once have I read that the piping in the water tube firebox would “burst frequently” (at 350 PSI, you’d think something like that would send the engine skyward). Nor have I heard that it “damaged many tracks” because of its “enormous weight” during its tour. (Seems to me that 350 tons isn’t any heavier compared to other engines of the time period.) It also was no different to operate than any other steam locomotive, except that it had a higher boiler pressure and you had to admit steam into the low pressure (outside) cylinders first via a special valve when starting out.

What do you think? Is this letter a fabrication of the museum staff? I’m not sure there’s anyone there who knows much about it, let alone understands its technology. The older gentleman who gave us our tour showed us the “steam cylinders” (pointing at the Duplex stoker), the “throttle” (pointing at the automatic air brake), and the “fire hole” (no explanation needed). He also claimed that the engine was retired because it was “in danger of blowing up all the time.”

- Jeff Terry

The Franklin Institute is one of the most prestigious museums in the United States. I doubt very much, that fabrication of a letter would be in their best interests. If I recall correctly, 60,000 is a 4-10-2? It would be unwieldy and far more locomotive than most road would want, particularly with it's unusual fabrication characteristics. I would tend to believe the letter is exactly what it looks like, a face-saving donation from Baldwin, couched in the best public relations language that could be written at that time.

1.) One of the inherant "safety" features of a water tube design is that when a tube does fail, the is no catastophic structural failure such as occurs in a standard crown sheet type firebox. Make no mistake it will make a lot of noise and the release of steam and hot water can cause personal injury, but the physics of a watertube letting go is a lot different than a sheet (side,crown,so on) failure. I think one of the ideas of trying a water tube firbox was to eliminate one of the biggest maintenance headaches with a locomotive boiler which is dealing with staybolts and the associated stayed surfaces.

2.) Using a starting valve isn't a strange idea either, as many compound engines had this feature for low speed or starting operations.

As an aside, water tube fireboxes on locomotive did have one strange operational quirk that would give any engineeer or fireman a big pucker you know where. It is said that when sudden throttle changes were made under load, that it would be common for the water to completely dissappear out of the gauge glass rather quickly and not return for more than a few seconds. This had to give the untrained engine crews a bit of concern to say the least. I don't know why the watertube firebox never worked out in railroad service as they are quite common in stationary and marine applications,maybe it had something to do with the severe and widely varying boiler loads.

Jeff,

From the total opposite end of the technical spectrum: I hope you reflect that this locomotive is one of a very few preserved RR items that made it onto the Saturday Morning Cartoons! Yes indeed the 60000 was in a 1970's episode of Scooby Doo! Shaggy, Scooby, and the gang made it into the museum (not sure if it was identified) and had "problems" with a pesky zombie that was running the locomotive that no doubt had to be the 60000.

Used to love that episode!

Zoinks!

Now back to your regularly scheduled program.......

Smokebox

Jeff,

If you haven't found this website -

http://www.cwrr.com/Lounge/Reference/ba ... ldwin.html

It looks like a scanned copy of a booklet from the era. Lot of info there.

Also check Trains Magazine, April 1954, pgs 50-56, Baldwin's Barnstorming Behemoth.

Also Railway Mechanical Engineer may be another source. If you're not up against a deadline, I can check this out next weekend when I'm in Roanoke and let you know if anything was published back in 1926-27.

If I find anything else, I'll post it.

A word of caution if you decide to compare the results from the Altoona Test Plant part of the book with the results from tests on other railroads. The term drawbar pull and drawbar HP on the Altoona plant means at the rear of the locomotive, not at the rear of the tender. The tests in another chapter of the book that were run on B&O, CB&Q, used dynamometer cars which read drawbar pull at the rear of the tender. Therefore the results at Altoona cannot be compared with over-the-road tests without adjusting for the rolling resistance of locomotive and tender plus air resistance. This is a commonly made error. It has the result of making PRR's locos look like they develop more power than others of comparable size. Not PRR's fault, they knew what they meant, but the difference has been lost on most authors as we get further and further from the actual tests. Make sure you check this out closely in any of the sources you use, otherwise the error will perpetuated. If R&R decides to publish, it will be a rare opportunity. I'm glad to hear they're interested

Your noting of the comments from the museum's tour guide were enlightening. How many other things are we being told that aren't correct by institutions and people that should know better? You have to wonder where accuracy in railroad history is going.

Good luck on the article for R&R. The locomotive will make a good story.

Dave Stephenson

The engine probably had really bad balance dynamics that damaged track with hammer blow. Baldwin was not a high technology research builder like Lima. Baldwin made its fortune building to contract with efficient job shop management and excellent credit resources to finance its sales. Lima had more high technology in areas such as lightweight metals that would reduce the weight of reciprocating parts and balance weights.

If you think about the drive train, two high pressure cylinders feeding a central low pressure cylinder (which seems backward, wouldn't a central high pressure cylinder feeding two low pressure cylinders make more sense?), it is really hard to balance those weights and forces. The force/acceleration profiles for the high and low pressure cylinders are different and the moving masses are different. The combination leads to all kinds of unbalanced masses and unbalance mass accelerations

Note that engine balancing is not just a matter of balancing the static weights of the parts. As the pressure in the cylinder drops from beginning of stroke, to cutoff, to exhaust, the force magnitude is varying wildly. This force variation translates to an acceleration variance in the rotating wheel (force = mass x acceleration). This is why in a fast, hard pull behind steam the train sometimes falls into a harmonic motion where you can feel the whole train jerking forward with each piston stroke. So, you have a rotating wheel with sharp acceleration harmonics, and a force couple formed by the crankpin, the axle, and the flexible spring rigging, and this is where hammer blow comes from. The force harmonics are causing the whole wheel to lift off of the track a fraction of an inch and then drop back down. The locomotive is then a rolling steam hammer banging the rail into a depression between each pair of ties.

If you switch to a simple expansion 3 cylinder engine, the balancing problem is much easier, because the masses and forces are identical across the three cylinders. That would explain the high speed success of UP 4-12-2's relative to this anecdote.

60000 had one HP cylinder (inside) and two LP cyinders (outside). Whether Baldwin was a high tech builder or not compared to Lima, I've never heard anything about it being hard on the track as far as balance goes. As a more interesting question, were the drivers quartered as in a conventional loco, or were they set at 120 degrees (with the inside cylinder also at 120 degrees) like SP's 4-10-2's? I believe the anecdote may stem from the observation that the middle crank and bearing were difficult to access and maintain. As a result they were left go until the bearing had significant wear. This caused the middle rod to pound. I believe the book, Three Barrels of Steam by James Boynton, goes into this. There's also a short section in the book (pgs 146-149) on 60000, although it's mostly a rehash of the Altoona Test Plant evaluation.

Three-cylinder simples were being build in small quantities about the same time. SP and UP come to mind, but New Haven, MP, and others tried them as well. Some lasted a good while but others were either converted to two cylinders or retired. Generally the US railroad industry didn't like anything with inside drive.

I think the point being made is that the 60000 was a 'concept' locomotive. Some things like the multiple bearing crossheads worked great. Other things were technologies in stages of development where they were not practical. Only a few years later much higher boiler pressures were achieved successfully in Europe with stayed boilers. With today’s water treatment it is possible to operate modern membrane wall small tube watertube boilers successfully. Compounding was still an art more than a science until the introduction of thermodynamics to locomotive design.

I have the 60000 Baldwin book if you need additional information.

Was the locomotive a failure? Not more than any successful concept car.

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Unfortunately, the 60000 remains a unique product. As we discovered, the locomotive was too complex for many engineers and fireman to operate. The water pipes carrying superheated steam would burst frequently. Also, the locomotive’s enormous weight of more than 350 tons proved too heavy. The 60000 damaged many tracks on its tour across America in 1927.

]

[

The 60000 wasn’t duplicated and no orders were received for similar locomotives because of several reasons (including the fact that it was a compound, had three cylinders, and had that oddball water tube firebox). However, in all of my research materials not once have I read that the piping in the water tube firebox would “burst frequently” (at 350 PSI, you’d think something like that would send the engine skyward).
]

No one else seems to have picked up on this, but if your transcription of Mr. Vauclain's letter is correct, he is specifically mentioning "water pipes carrying superheated steam." The water tubes in the firebox would by definition, be carrying saturated steam. Sounds like he is referring to another part of the locomotive.

Greg

At the same time as this loco was built ALCO was promoting its 3-cylinder locos, of which the UP 4-12-2 is an example. Some lines, like the UP and SP, bought a fleet of these locos and took the management steps to make them work. But most roads bought one or a few as an experiment and ran into the realities of loco maintenance. That is that roundhouse forces hated the dirty work in tight spaces needed for taking care of the center cylinder and valve. When the Museum of Transportation in St. Louis got its 3-cylinder 0-8-0 from the Alton & Southern in 1948 its center cylinder was cracked and had to be constantly oiled on the trip to the museum. The word from the donor enginehouse forces was that the work on the center cylinder was more often done on paper then in reality, and the loco was a "roundhouse queen" for years. It only survived to be preserved when World War II traffic came along and everything that ran was needed. Baldwin #60000 not only had the 3-cylinder drive but was also a compound with an unusual boiler, which may just have been too many major differences from most locos to be duplicated. But without major emphasis from management any oddball 3-cylinder loco could fall victim to the same dislike and lack of proper care described. These human factors are often more important then the mechanical issues.

Our CMO had an original copy of that BLW 60000 booklet in his office, no doubt obtained by the RR when the engine was being demonstrated on other lines (they bought 2-10-4s instead). I was never able to swipe it (he would have destroyed it if he knew one of us wanted it) and after he retired and the RR was sold, the offices got cleaned by a bunch of dummies who threw everything in the dumpster, including RR records as far back as the 1840s - employees were not allowed to intercede, as the outgoing management feared being caught in some of their lies.

Though apparently not financially successful (what CEO today would admit what Mr. Vauclain did in his letter?), the 60000 is also an interesting study in indoor preservation. Much of the paint (slightly crazed and cracked) was on the engine in 1933, and no rust is evident. The short train ride is probably the most popular thing at the Franklin Institute, with the cab being filled every time I've been there.

There is a bit of clanking in the running gear and I recall about 30 years ago the museum retained an old railroad worker to tighten it up, but I wonder what he actually did?

The concept of a short cab ride aboard a steam locomotive that is propelled by other means seems to have some merit as a fundraising device. With a cosmetically restored, rollable engine, you could probably push/pull it with a small diesel or other means (perhaps cables, a hydraulic piston is pretty limiting). With imagination, even HO scale sound effects could be adapted to 1:1 scale for more realism. Certainly not like live steam, for sure, but a better fate than all those sad, rusting cadavers in city parks and museums that we see today, and it shouldn't cost a million dollars either.

A big thanks to everyone who responded with additional information regarding 60000. I did go back and check the letter again, and yes, it does make reference to “water pipes carrying superheated steam.” What this means I have no idea, although Greg is correct that Vauclain is probably not referring to the tubes that make up the water-tube firebox since those would have carried saturated steam. I also noticed that Mr. Vauclain is much more positive about the engine in his autobiography “Steaming Up” (I have the reprint from Golden West books) than he is in the letter displayed at the Franklin Institute.

As for the claim that No. 60000 had bad dynamics and pounded the rails, I refer to page 78 of J. Parker Lambs excellent book Perfecting the American Steam Locomotive:

Moving over to the Santa Fe at Fort Madison, Iowa, it underwent a series of track tests. These proved that such a large balanced-compound locomotive produced much lower stresses within the rails when compared with conventional engines of similar weight.

Unfortunately, these track tests aren’t in the Baldwin 60000 book that I have. I’d like to know more about the tests that were performed and the results of said tests.

In addition to what Bob wrote about the bearings, over at www.steamlocomotive.com Wes Barris has the following on his website:

A hydraulic system is used to move the locomotive back and forth about fifteen feet. The demo was once propelled by a worm gear. It was changed over to a hydraulic system in the mid 1970s. By that time, the bearings in the drivers had become egg shaped, supposedly because of all the reversing, and some BLH retirees figured out how to replace them. The distance traveled inside the museum was staggering for such a short trip: conservatively, 30 ft/trip x 2 trips/demo x 5 demos/day x 360 operating days/yr = about 20 miles/yr, or about 400 miles in reverse by 1980.

What is the point of this research? Bob Yarger hit the nail on the head. The entire reason for writing about 60000 is to impress upon the railfan community what a treasure it is. It is still all original, is in more-or-less operating condition, and wears a coat of paint applied by Baldwin employees. It is in a remarkable state of preservation, with no rust to be found anywhere. Imagine what we would have today if the locomotives at St. Louis, Green Bay, and Scranton had been placed in climate controlled buildings back when they were first acquired?

- Jeff Terry

Your post touched upon a pet pieve of mine. Musuem "Tour Guides" that don't know what they are talking about.

This last weekend, I had the pleasure of visiting the St Louis Museum of Transportation. Wow! what an improvement from 1990, but back to topic. There was a young gal tour guide that was escorting a group of us through some cars and displays. When she was at their dynamometer car, she stated that they "used to ride in it to see how smooth the track was and if they needed to have to go out and smoothen the track". On the cut away diesel, she pointed to the oil filter and said, "This is the oil filter, but it doesn't make the power, that comes from the wheels". Even my wife laughed at that one. She never mentioned the pistons in plain view or the cylinders, generator etc... a lost opportunity.
When I was out in Durango, the gal on tour there stated that the caboose was used for a break room for the crew and they would go up in the cupola to sleep while waiting for the train to get to the next stop. There were so many errors at the Durango tour, that I finally felt compelled to set the record straight on a few items. (nicely) These folks were paying good money for a roundhouse tour and they deserved to at least hear the truth. One of the purposes of a museum is to teach, then they should make sure that their representatives know what it is that they are talking about.
Steve

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With the mentioning of bad info by tour guides, maybe the Ct Eastern RR Museum is just different then other groups or just a closer knit group.

To avoid unchecked bad tour info, every once in a while one of the other members will join a tour for the `ride'. Then after the tour or two are done, they sit down and give constructive criticism to help maintain facts with the docents doing the tours and also give suggestions on their presentation. During the tour they will only interject if the docent is out in left field or when asked for help. With newbies, during their first few times we join the tours more often inorder to help the newbies, and on their first day or two, as part of docent training, the newbie rides along with various docents to gather their facts and learn how to lead a group. After the tour they are also able to critic the `old timer'.

This seems to be the best way we have found so far, since it acts as a cross check and when someone gets new info, no matter if they are a newbie or an old timer, it will get added to other tours after being cross-checked by others.

How do other groups attempt to limit bad information on their tours?

Regards,

Rich Cizik