I, too, have operated two locos with johnson bars built after 1937. One built in 1943, and the other in 1947. Both were industrial engines, so I'm wondering exactly how the ICC / FRA rule applied?

When working under heavy load, I simply quickly slammed the throttle closed (or nearly closed) and adjusted the bar. Then quickly reopened the throttle. I had more luck with that than wrestling the bar. I have no experience in sub-freezing weather.

Locomotives built for industries were regulated differently than those built for common carriers. One nice thing about industrial locomotives are the boilers were designed for a higher factor of safety, which can buy you some good extra margin.

dave

I thought I’d see if I could finally succeed in posting an image without screw-up, and if successful, then try to post the part of an International Textbook Company book published in 1932 and titled “Locomotive Breakdowns and Appliances that describes the Franklin Power Reverse Gear and its operation.

It is a servo system providing a compressed air boost to the engineman’s effort on the screw control handle in the cab.

This is one of four figures in the description.

Now to do the rest of the scanning as I can find the time. I wasn't going to invest the time if I couldn't even get one of the drawings here.

The New York Central had hundreds of these Franklin units in service. As a teenager in the 1940s I hung around the Bergenfield NJ station of the Central's West Shore River Division a lot, and I used to enjoy the loud sound the Franklin reverse gear made when the engineer returned the valve gear to full forward during the station stop, a vey rapid chit-chit-chit-chit sound for a few seconds as the engineer cranked the wheel. My hunch is that during the time the engineer cranked the wheel, the part marked "valve" probably oscillated forward and back a bit, and discharge of exhaust air from the Franklin system was correspondingly intermittent.

The complete description of the Franklin precision power reverse gear as it appeared in “Locomotive Breakdowns and Appliances” published by the International Textbook Company, Scranton PA, in 1932. Authors of the book were C. A. Cavey of the B. & O. RR. and J. W. Harding of International Correspondence Schools.

Illustrations first, followed by text:















Franklin power reverse gears gave some trouble, witness this paragraph by Brian Reed in his chapter on New York Central Hudsons in “Locomotive Profile,” Vol. 1, p 43 (Doubleday & Co., 1971)




E. W. King, Jr. described similar problems with the Franklin power reverse gear on the Illinois Central (Trains, May, 1984, p 39).

This hunch may be wacko, but I wonder whether the instability might have resulted from a scenario like this:

1) Franklin is aware that that screw reversers suffer a disadvantage, relative to power reverse gears using a lever-and-quadrant cab control, namely, that moving the valve gear an appreciable amount, say from full forward to full reverse, requires more effort and time from the engineer than is required with a lever-and-quadrant type cab control.

2) Franklin tries to minimize the disadvantage by revising the original design, going to an adjusting screw with a larger pitch to reduce the number of turns of the handle required, full forward to full reverse.

3) Step 2 increases the helix angle of the screw, making the screw more prone to turn when the piston pushes against it, thus increasing the chance of instability if reaction forces from the valve gear happen to be just right.

4) Franklin tests the new design on a locomotive, but the valve gear on that engine is a smooth performer and exerts no reaction forces on the Franklin system such as to cause instability. This sets the stage for trouble with the New York Central’s Hudsons and the Illinois Central locomotives, which DO happen, on occasion at least, to exert certain reaction forces on the Franklin system that result in runaway spinning of the control wheel.

The book is Herbert Hamblen's "The General Manager's Story," and it's actually a novel written in autobiographical style. However, it must be noted that Hamblen served for 16 years in locomotive service; one modern (1970s era) reviewer commented of this book "the cloak of truth fit too tightly." It has what I consider the most accurate description of 19th century locomotive service anywhere, with some accounts of great humor, combined with accident descriptions that can only be described as horrifying.

A fair amount of it, with modifications to fit West Virginia railroading in 1940-41, was the basis of a television series I attempted to sell some years back. No problems with copyright conflicts for a book published in 1898!

http://books.google.com/books/about/The ... oBq5ejtiMC

Hamblen would also be a "juvenile" writer, occasionally in the tradition of Horatio Alger stories, and in terms of his production this likely accounts for most of his titles, but naturally we would likely love his only slightly disguised autobiography the best.

http://artist.ebay.com/?c=1418928453&pg ... blen+books

That's pretty much the same of Conductor Nimrod Bell and his book, which was published in the same time period. Bell worked from the time just before the Civil War until about 1890 on a handful of roads in Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia. Reading his firsthand memoirs of railroading during the war and Reconstruction is quite interesting. Equally interesting is the description of how it was to live during that time. Unlike Hamblen, Bell's book was intended mostly for friends and associates and had only a small print run. He had some interesting stories of dealing with the Confederate Army and running trains in an active war zone. Bell's book is where my signature quote is taken from.