How many dynamometer cars are preserved and how many locomotive test plant buildings survive? The IC/University of Illinois cars is preserved in St. Louis and the Milwaukee Road car is at IRM. The former U of I test plant in Urbana is now a high energy physics lab. Are there any Purdue alumni who know what happenned to the Boilermakers' namesake test stand? Altoona, Columbia University and Iowa State University also had locomotive test plants.

fred_ash@bankone.com

CB&Q dynamometer car #30 is preserved at the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay, WI.

Frank Hicks

frank@gats.com

The Bluegrass Railroad Museum in Versailles, KY has the body of the L&N car. Soon after the end of steam, it was converted to a MofW car.

The B&O Museum has the C&O car, and I think it is complete. It was modified to use with diesel locomotives.

The Mad River and NKP museum has the body of the NKP car, also converted to a MofW car.

I became interested in the subject last year when Walther's produced an HO scale model of a Dynamometer car. Did the N&W have a dynamometer car? If so, anybody have any photos, or information about its fate?

wilkidm@wku.edu

> Are there any Purdue alumni who know
> what happenned to the Boilermakers' namesake
> test stand? Altoona, Columbia University and
> Iowa State University also had locomotive
> test plants.

When you say Altoona, I assume that means PRR. Where was the test plant for Columbia University?


tmanz@afo.net

Did the N&W have a
> dynamometer car? If so, anybody have any
> photos, or information about its fate?

Yes the N&W had one dynamoter car, it resides in Roanoke at the Museum I believe. Last I knew...

Jeff Lisowski
West Chester, Pa

unfunkyufo76@hotmail.com

After 4.5 years at Purdue, I was unable to determine the exact location of the long-extinct test plant. The closest answer I got was that it was somewhere near the power plant, in about the location of the Potter Engineering Library. Fittingly, this library contains the "Goss" collection of antique books on technology. Prof. William Goss was responsible for setting up the Purdue plant, and later, I believe, the U of I plant.

Yes, and it is indeed at the VA MofT in Roanoke. There has been an ongoing effort to paint and otherwise restore it, at least cosmetically. It was built in 1919, but later had a second cupola added. There was a brass model done in HO scale by Northwest Short Line. Brown roof, Pullman green undercarriage and tuscan red with gold (originally gold leaf, later dulux) lettering.

Mike

> Did the N&W have a

> Yes the N&W had one dynamoter car, it
> resides in Roanoke at the Museum I believe.
> Last I knew...

> Jeff Lisowski
> West Chester, Pa


Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum
newriver400@cs.com

I was only aware of three locomotive test plants in the US. The one at Purdue was the first, although it was damaged in a fire. I'm not sure if it was repaired or replaced after that. The second one belonged to the Chicago & North Western in Chicago but this was soon moved, possibly to the University of Illinois at Urbana or to replace the first one at Purdue. Professor Goss had been the driving force behind both and moved from Purdue to Illinois. The last I'm aware of was built for the PRR and was first installed at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904 and then moved to its permanent home in Altoona. If anyone has more details, such as dates, where the C&NW plant went, and info on others please post it for all of us, along with the source of the info.

We do have the intact IC/U of I dynamometer car at the Museum of Transportation in St. Louis. The equipment belonged to the university and the railroad built the carbody in 1943. The equipment dated back to about 1906 and was first installed in a wooden IC car. I cleaned out the cabinets in the car a few years ago and found several test rolls from its last use along with various records, all of which are now in our library and available to serious researchers by appointment.

Museum of Transportation
rdgoldfede@aol.com

I know the New York Central used a Dynamometer car, but didn't they have a loco test plant at Selkirk? I seem to remember reading this in one of the Stauffer motive power books? Also, anybody are to explain to a novice what a Dynamometer car does. I know it measures drawbar force, but how is this recorded?

wilkidm@wku.edu

> Also, anybody are to explain to
> a novice what a Dynamometer car does. I know
> it measures drawbar force, but how is this
> recorded?

Drawbar force is only one of a myriad of things a dynamometer car measures and records. And cars could be set up to measure any number of different things depending on what was being tested at the time and what they were testing to determine.

Among the things these cars could measure and record:

Fuel and water consumption
boiler pressure
valve pressure
cylinder pressure
back pressure
steam temperature
stack gas temperature
valve events
horsepower (cylinder, drawbar, indicated and calculated)
buff and draft forces
speed and time
throttle position and cutoff settings
acceleration and deceleration

From the data collected, a great deal of various measurements and quantities could be produced.

Sorry, David, I forgot about the second part of your question.

Most of the data was recorded by machine on long rolls of paper. Some of it was written as notes. Certain kind sof data, such indicator cards for valve activity, were taken by scribes mounted on the running boards, usually attended by some chosen person who had to ride out there to attend the machinery and change the cards out.

There were no computers or sensors back then, so everything was hard-wired; when tests wre being done, lots of wires were draped from the car across the tender to various thermocouples and other devices mounted all over the locomotive.

Once the data was collected, the many rolls of apper, notes, cards, etc would be analyzed by hand, using slide rules and comptometers and calculating machines (IOW, the hard way) and graphs and reports would be prepared, again by hand.

As valuable as the preserved cars themselves are, test records and reports from various test runs would be even more so, IMO.

One item that I found in my college library, and made a copy of, was an ASME paper on the testing of steam locomotives. It showed the various test points on the locomotive, and provided some of the calculations used.

They recently remodeled that particular library, and "wired it to the internet"; I wonder if old documents like that one can still be found in the stacks.

-James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a

> Sorry, David, I forgot about the second part
> of your question.

> Most of the data was recorded by machine on
> long rolls of paper. Some of it was written
> as notes. Certain kind sof data, such
> indicator cards for valve activity, were
> taken by scribes mounted on the running
> boards, usually attended by some chosen
> person who had to ride out there to attend
> the machinery and change the cards out.

> There were no computers or sensors back
> then, so everything was hard-wired; when
> tests wre being done, lots of wires were
> draped from the car across the tender to
> various thermocouples and other devices
> mounted all over the locomotive.

> Once the data was collected, the many rolls
> of apper, notes, cards, etc would be
> analyzed by hand, using slide rules and
> comptometers and calculating machines (IOW,
> the hard way) and graphs and reports would
> be prepared, again by hand.

> As valuable as the preserved cars themselves
> are, test records and reports from various
> test runs would be even more so, IMO.


Surviving World Steam Locomotives
james1@pernet.net