Finderskeepers -

Thanks for settling the diverse opinions as to whether the PRR S1 was operated under steam at the Worlds Fair in 1939.


Les

Another Fair visitor posted some years ago that the output of that
exhibit's sound system could be heard some distance away.

Some of the comments on the Shorpy photo mention the "longest rigid wheelbase" of the S-1. When I think of "long rigid wheelbase" the Union Pacific 4-12-2 at the LA County Fairgrounds in Pomona CA comes to mind. Does anyone have the specs for both locomotives handy?

From TRAINS, May 1965:

"...under steam and on rollers, with all wheels turning."

"Today, a highly placed PRR executive remembers when, as a division super, he was afflicted with 'the big engine.' He says wryly, 'She made a wonderful exhibit out at Flushing. They should have left her there.'"

Which is something I've always wondered about. How long was it on exhibit? Was building it mostly a gimmick for the World's Fair? If this was an important experimental engine to learn more about divided drive, how could they take it away from its primary mission for so long?

While the S1 was a test bed for certain procedures in designing an ultra-modern steam locomotive, I think its principle purpose was as a propaganda piece for the strong, modern, Pennsylvania Railroad. She had too many limitations to be used system wide, but a gigantic exhinit of power at the 1939 World's Fair? She couldn't be surpassed.

Very clear looking at the clips that the engine is being 'motored' electrically - the motion of the wheels is too regular. If she were under steam, with the low inertia you would see speeding up and slowing down in the motion.

What this immediately brings up, though, is how the issue of lubrication was addressed. I have no idea what lubrication arrangements were made, particularly for the pistons and valves. Now, many contemporary film clips show 'steam' in connection with the locomotive, at least one of which I recall being released as if through cylinder cocks in a way that was coordinated with driver revolution (although that may be just me seeing what I expected to be seeing). This indicates to me that a source of low-pressure steam was arranged somehow. I wonder if this was done at least partly to give atomization of appropriate lubrication...


I have always thought of the 'collaborative' effort to build the S1 as America's entry in the "competition" that produced the German 05 class and Mallard. PRR had some plans to build a stretch of railroad suptable for a locomotive like 6100, but the Depression and then the electrification project intervened; the locomotive is similar to the original Viper in being almost a cartoon exaggeration. (Which is not to say ridiculous -- I have '93 Viper #17 and it does, in fact, do everything as rumored, both good and ill...)

Now, why we never cobbled up the sort of excuse/plausible denial cobbled up by the British with their 'high-speed brake testing' is a bit of a mystery. There was contemporary testing (including that for the T1 project) involving fast operation; we have documented operation of a 70"-drivered locomotive at over 110 mph. We probably won't know the precise reasons there was no 'record' set with the S1, and I for one would be very interested in knowing what arrangements might have been tried, and why none of them came to fruition.

(I'll repeat here that the "143 mph" came from Arnold Haas (who was fond of other interesting similar claims, like the one that Niagaras regularly ran 120 mph in NYC service) -- and is suspiciously accurate, to a decimal point, as a translation of a round-number metric speed that would never have been used in a contemporary American speed measurement. That alone strongly suggested it was a wives' tale.)

Returning to this 2015 discussion of locomotive displays at the 1939 and 1964 World's Fairs in New York, I recently stumbled across this 8mm film footage by the late Noel Weaver which documents some of the General's movements in 1964: arriving on a flat car at the NYNH&H Oak Point Yard, then moving under her own power with the L&N combine over the Hell Gate Bridge and down the NY Connecting RR to Fremont (junction with the LIRR):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIT0jIjD7AM

-Philip Marshall

In answer to an enquiry from Pomona CA, home of UP 4-12-2 9000, the rigid wheelbase of
PRR S1 6100 was 26' 6". I understand the 4-12-2 is longer.

Phil Mulligan