Don't be shy folks! Anyone here wanting to lend a helping hand to see this thing off is more than welcome to message me or anyone else involved in the endeavor. You have to ask, as many have ...why isn't this being done to restore/ rematerialize our beloved NYCS Hudson? Few know that this was possible back in the day...all big Al Perlman wanted was to be paid for the locomotive ! This was $6K for a dead unit or $8K for a still serviceable locomotive.....this input comes from the Lake Shore RWY H.S. Even so in all the years since, no real effort has been made. Perhaps that's because there was no serious precedent. Well, there is now ! I strongly suspect the real reason is that no two RR enthusiasts can agree on anything, and usually manifest an incredible level of immaturity on their way! Time to set these things aright! With the right leadership, and vision, not to mention commitment and communication....this will succeed. Starting from scratch is not a disadvantage, long as we can get ALL the plans needed. When this succeeds, then maybe you can get enough "enthusiasts" to quit infighting, and get serious about building that big Central Hudson......but it has to be #5344 as built, or I'm not playing ball !

This is the best parody post I've seen on RYPN in a while.

Makes me want to run out and buy a new car the persuasion was so good!

Anything else to sell? Snake oil perhaps?

I just watched this old footage of T-1's. Good illustration of the wheel slip problem about halfway into the film. Is it true they had two throttles--one for each engine? Very interesting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihCHzS4jT_M

This two throttle business has been around since the text for PP1. Too bad it ain't got a leg to stand on! Kinda like the old story of T1s eating firemen if they weren't extra careful in the tender.....but such is the case with this locomotive. Not to worry, though, folks like Charlie Meyer got the ball rolling on setting things straight and flushing out all the BS ! OTOH, thinking outside the bun was always a big part of the T1 story....then, as it is now !!

Ok, one throttle.

Photo from http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthre ... inaccuracy

And they wonder why steam locomotives are so fascinating!

Anyone care to hazard a guess as to how much of a T1's worth (such as it was) came from the divided drive principle of smaller cylinders and smaller, lighter rods? Too bad we can't build two (if we can build even one) and make the 2nd identical in all respects except it would be a 4-8-4 with appropriately larger cylinders and rods. Heck, make it a three cylinder engine which would give a lot of the advantages. Sure, inside cylinder maintenance is not fun but compared to a complete 2nd driving unit? It would be an interesting comparison.

For that matter, what was the point of divided drive on the Q1/Q2? Smaller cylinders and lighter rods would seem to be something of greater advantage on a high speed passenger engine than with a freighter.

Steve

Baldwin was the big proponent of duplex drive and they touted the advantages you mention (which resulted in reduced dynamic augment) as well as improved steam distribution (4 smaller cylinders and valves flow better than two large ones). Pennsy had some bad dynamic augment experience due to building the C&O 2-10-4 copies to the original plans, which included very heavy reciprocating parts and rods which resulted in poor balancing. The C&O had already run into problems in the 1930's with the original engines and had modified their engines accordingly. Because of this bad experience, Pennsy was probably overly enthusiastic to try duplex drive.

While the advantages touted for duplex drive would have been more important on a high speed passenger engine, they were applicable to fast freight engines as well.

It's a pity they didn't do what you suggest and construct one 4-4-4-4 and a similar state-of-the-art 4-8-4 at the same time and compare them.

My wife's maternal grandfather, Harry Ray Kiner, was in engine service on the Pennsylvania Railroad between 1916 and 1958. In the late 1930's, he was a "special duty engineer" on the Middle Division between Altoona and Harrisburg, and as such, he participated in many of the road tests of the first two T-1s. He also ran the post war T-1's in regular service.

His opinion of the T-1s, as one who operated them in daily service, was that they were a pretty good locomotive. He told me that, in his opinion, the slipping issue was one of insufficient training. Many of his contemporaries had no prior experience with grapevine throttles and Franklin valve gear. They were used to dome throttles, and they often started trains with the valve gear already somewhat advanced, relying on sand and the high factor of adhesion to let them get away with the practice. To do this with a T-1, he said, was to invite slipping, especially on a wet day or on a steep curve. All it took was a bit of patience and a lighter hand on the throttle. He said a K-4s or a G-5s could get away faster than a T-1, up to about 30 or 35 mph, but then the T-1 would outrun anything on the railroad with a heavy train.

His biggest complaint about them was that they were very dirty engines. Especially when drifting, the smoke tended to trail along the top of the boiler, down into the tender and through the cab and out the windows. Not only was there smoke, but the coal fines from the tender would also be sucked into the cab. I've seen a photo of him just before boarding a westbound train at Harrisburg, and he was wearing a full boiler suit, necktie and kerchief tucked into his collar, Kromer cap, goggles and long gauntlet gloves. He said by the time he reached Altoona, he would look like a coal miner.

His son, my father-in-law, was a machinist and gang foreman at Harrisburg from 1939 until 1963, and he worked on the T-1s. From his point of view, the T-1s were much more of a pain in the behind than the K-4s. In order to access many of the appliances, various parts of the streamlining had to be removed. Because of time constraints, these parts were not always reapplied, and by the time the T-1s were withdrawn from service, a good sized pile of sheet metal lay outside the roundhouse. Access to the gearbox for the valve gear was difficult, since it was between the frames and accessible only from a pit. The inspection cover was on top of the gearbox, which therefore needed to be totally clean, along with the frame members around it, to avoid cinders and road dirt from dropping into the gears. The stoker engine, located in the tender, was also a servicing problem because of restricted space. However, he felt the greatest drawback to the T-1, from his perspective as one who was charged with caring for them, was that they were always up against the clock and couldn't always fix them properly before they were needed for service.

Nice photo of the cab interior, but it does not show, at least clearly, the valve regulating mechanism, i.e. johnson bar, "steering wheel", or whatever was used. Anybody know the answer?

I believe it's a small vertical lever just to the right of the brake stand. Directly in front of the driver, there's a quadrant scale with an indicator pointing straight up. IIRC, the pointer indicates the cutoff setting.

To G. W. Laepple,
Thank you for your post with testimony from people who ran and worked on the engines. That is fantastic information and helps bring the history alive.
Whatever the success of these locomotives, the thinking behind their design and construction would be interesting. What were the railway and the builder hoping to accomplish, etc.? It would be great to have been sitting across the desk as they were debating ordering those engines.
All the best.

Also meant to mention that Canadian Pacific Railway also considered the 4-4-4-4 design. Mention of it and a drawing can be seen in the late Monsieur Omer Lavalée's superb book, "Canadian Pacific Steam Locomotives".
This was under the innovate Henry Blaine Bowen's tenure as mechanical head of CPR. Bowen also considered building Berkshire class locos along with a few more conventional Northerns. He also brought out the Jubilee 4-4-4s and the high pressure No.8000 experimental.

"Pennsy had some bad dynamic augment experience due to building the C&O 2-10-4 copies to the original plans, which included very heavy reciprocating parts and rods which resulted in poor balancing. The C&O had already run into problems in the 1930's with the original engines and had modified their engines accordingly. Because of this bad experience, Pennsy was probably overly enthusiastic to try duplex drive."

Is this chronology correct? The first PRR Duplex was the S-1 of 1939. The first two T-1s left BLW in 1942, and the J-1s were built at Altoona in 1943. I think it likely that PRR was already deeply committed to Duplex drive steam power by the time the first J-1s were "hitting" the rails.

Howard P.