I've been following the "speed and old school record" thread with interest. And its made me wonder about another steam locomotive record. Reportedly, in the waning days of the Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range steam era, DM&IR officials considered trying to have one of the railroads 2-8-8-4 Yellowstones attempt to break the record for most tons hauled behind a single locomotive. I don't know if the report is true or not, but what I would like to know is; what IS that record? And what locomotive currently holds it?

Not sure if one of the M-3 or M-4 class 2-8-8-4's could have conceivably broken the record or not. Any opinions?

Les

I perused a couple rail research books, among them several books on "rail records" for Guinness Superlatives by John Marshall, and see nothing on "longest train by a single locomotive". The problem with this record is that the available pulling power of the probable contenders for this kind of record--the DM&IR 2-8-8-4's, the Triplexes, Virginian's 2-10-10-2's, etc--usually exceeded the drawbar capacity of the then-available cars. About the only way to actually set such a record in the olden days would have been for, say, a Virginian giant loco to start a long 200+ car train on a gentle downgrade.

Of course, today with distributed power and multiple diesels, even though cars have basically doubled in weight from days of old, the only thing keeping a railroad from trying to put a ten-mile train under one crew is track geometry and siding capacity. (I believe, without looking it up, that the current longest/heaviest train record is held by BHP Iron Ore of Australia, who threw together a train at close to 110,000 tons in 2001..........)

lets break that one after we crack the 200 mph barrier
humm ....lets see...

maybe a 10 truck super Shay

naaaa...lets just do like ATSF and graft to decapods together

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2-10-10-2

think anyone will loan us enuff coal cars?

dr

The AT&SF 2-10-10-2 experiments went bad, so bad that some believe that is why no more articulated locomotives were ever seen on the Santa Fe.

As mentioned in your link, only the back half of the boiler shell was a boiler. The front half was divided into a feedwater heater and a reheater. The two halves were articulated, with the front half swinging with the front engine.

It had a tiny firebox, along with only half of the boiler shell really being a boiler, it was a very poor steamer. Two different boiler joints were tried, but both had problems with ash eating away at the joint. The Santa Fe suffered with them for four to seven years before rebuilding each engine into a pair of conventional 2-10-2s.

The Virginian Railway class AE mentioned later down in the same wikipedia page would be a better choice. It had a huge firebox and boiler, and compound cylinders. With the simpling valve opened, it probably could have generated as much tractive effort as the train's drafting gear could stand. Any such attempt would best be made from the back; though you would then need an engine in front.

Notice that the Virginian Railway class AE was built by ALCO at about the same time the Santa Fe engines were being coverted to 2-10-2s, and they remained in service till 1952.

The AE's would certainly be a contender for the record, they could pull just about anything put behind them. An existing locomotive that could try for a new record (assuming the much referred to "lottery money" was available) might would be N&W 2156. 152,000 lbs of starting tractive effort and in excess of 5000 drawbar horsepower is a pretty potent package. If we bring her back down this way, I don't think finding enough hopper cars would be a problem.................:)

I know it was a poor design, but boy I love the 2-8-8-8-4 virginian
ya know that thing had to thump when going by

just a massive beautiful almost failure piece of art (pun intended) loco

dr