Don't let it go to your head. John H. White Jr., a past curator of transportation at the Smithsonian, said of railroad history: "Scholarship is inversely proportional to importance."

Translation: The Ma & Pa will always garner more attention per mile/per capita than the PRR, the Colorado narrow gauges more interest than the UP, and paint schemes and speed records more importance than track geometry and freight rate making.

>;-)

Garter blue was just one of the colors (or colours?) worn by the LNER A4 class during their lifetime. Early on, the first engines were panted silver and black, while others were painted in the same Apple Green we associate with the Flying Scotsman. In the late 1930s, Garter blue was decided as the standard color for the class. During World War II the class lost their side skirts and were painted black with "NE" on the tender. (The Scotsman is going to briefly appear in this livery later this year). After the war, they returned to garter blue, without the skirt. After nationalization they were painted in the darker BR express blue (Sir Nigel wears this livery today) and later in the dark green. That's a lot of different paint schemes to choose from!

Disregarding the credulity, or lack thereof, of ANY story that begins ""I've heard the story that....":

I've spent spare moments over the past day or so trying in vain to find any verification of any "longest, heaviest" train run under steam. The biggest problem with comparing trains today to back then was that loaded cars typically weighed half or so what they do now, and you're dealing with the drawbar strengths of these cars as well. Furthermore, there's this little horsepower problem with steam, classically described as "a steamer can run a train it can't start; a diesel can start a train it can't run." You also have operational problems such as siding lengths and signal blocks, which UP encountered when they tried running a "super train" with distributed power not too long ago.

Herb Harwood documented, and photographed, a potential record-setter one time when three B&O EM-1 2-8-8-4's, all pulling for all they had, led a very long train of coal north to Fairport Harbor, Ohio in the mid-1950's. It was written up in Railfan Magazine years ago, as I recall.......

A corollary to Mr. White's comment about "scholarship" is sometimes attributed to Lucius Beebe. It goes something like: "Railfan interest in a given carrier is inversely proportional to its financial viability." e.g.: Virginia & Truckee, Rock Island and New York, Ontario & Western.

Getting back to the original topic of speed records: Here in Southern California there are "oral traditions" about how fast Pacific Electric interurban cars could go. I've hear 75 mph mentioned, however, documentation is in rather short supply.

While Dante Porta was working for me during the 1980's ACE 3000 effort he wrote up a work list of things we'd need to do to the 614 to make her able to challenge the record. All the items are quite doable but it would involve using OPM and posting the whole program would no doubt unleash a violent 'toid storm, so I better not!!!

Sorry, Ross Rowland

At least we know what would have to be done to 614 to get her above 127 mph.

And this is different from Mr. Rowland's other plans to operate the 614 how?

Thanks for the pics, Stevie Z! I'm not sure anything save a fine Italian sports car could get that fast eastbound out of Scranton, and certainly not anything on rails. But, that is part of the beauty of the Pocono line - real work for all locomotives, steam or dismal.

Best,
Mike

BTW, OT Q for you - what's the approximate weight of a 41-style GSC ISSH truck complete with brake rigging and wheels? Gotta arrange some shipping for a pair... I know that's gotta be part of your encylopedic knowledge of all things passenger car. - Thanks!

I believe most steam operations use OPM in some form or another...

At least with 614, it is private property, so the fiduciary responsibility of artifact protection is moot. If I owned it, I'd try to figure out how to lay claim to the record.

Mike

One from left field, is the ex C&O 4-6-4 number 490 in the B&O museum worth consideration? As a streamlined loco it would look fantastic at the head of a record attempt!!!

Wes

So why not combine this little project with the "lets build a new steam locomotive" discussion, and build a replica of the PRR 6200 S2 turbine and try out some of those automatic transmissions that they designed for the locomotive but never got around to building? Who knows, maybe the portable nuclear reactor that ALCO built for Camp Century is still sitting around in some warehouse and could be used in place of the boiler. That would cut down the profile of the locomotive and reduce wind resistance.

PC

I think the Mt Rainier Scenic should get involved. After all, those geared engines sound like they're going 60 when they're going 10. So all we need to do is reverse the gearing somehow, and they'll be going 60 while the pistons are moving like they would at 10 mph on a regular loco, so by the time you reach "30" the engine will be doing 180, which should easily beat the old record and hold it for some time...

An Irish Engineering Firm, "Loof Lirpa Consulting", is working on the technical details as we speak.

Sadly it isn't around anymore. The Army couldn't find a use for it after Camp Century, so it was used in destructive testing.

Interesting website on Camp Century:
http://gombessa.tripod.com/scienceleadstheway/id9.html

They spoiled the best chance to have a nuclear steam locomotive.

PC

Don't give up hope yet. :)

Instead of using that old military reactor, we can instead use a new and small thorium reactor:
http://www.thorium.tv/en/thorium_reacto ... ctor_1.php

Much safer and it doesn't need the cooling water like the light water reactors do.

China and India are far along in introducing new thorium reactors for distributed power generation, but unfortunately, the USA is a bit behind in the game. Thorium reactors could be the backbone of a real national energy policy. Plus, doing beta testing in a newly constructed S2 will provide the government with useful data and help with transportation needs.


On a different note, here's the best website that I've found to get updates on what's going on at the nuclear plants in Japan:
http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsu ... ate01.html