Greetings again all! (Nobody hears from me in years and now two posts within a week!)

I'm in the process of proofreading my website on the Erie RR L1 Class 0-8-8-0.
http://www.trainweb.org/milepost51/eriel1.html

My question is this: As originally built by ALCo in 1907, the locomotives had a pair of single simple low pressure cylinders on the front articulated set of drivers (one each side), and compound cylinders on rear set of drivers (two cylinders per side) for a total of 6 cylinders, as seen in the image below:


Upon rebuild by Baldwin in 1921, the image now shows a pair of cylinders each side on the front and a pair of cylinders on each side of the rear sets of drivers for a total of 8 cylinders as seen in this image below.


These fronts are compound cylinders, correct?

Now the reason I ask.. Stauffer's book Erie Power states the cylinders remained the same after the 1921 rebuild, when the image clearly shows the front set of cylinders to be different.

I took the time to look up any info that might be in the SMU / DeGolyer archives, but to no avail.

Input / correction / insight, please! TIA,

Only the Erie had the clearances to make a big camelback Mallet possible. (so the cab could be wide enough to contain both an engineer and the boiler)

The rear engine has only two cylinders, one on each side. The upper cylindrical shape contains the piston valve for distributing steam to the cylinder below it. The as-built front engine has a slide valve, hence the squared-off structure above the bigger cylinder.

A number of Mallets had piston valves on the high-pressure cylinders and slide valves on the low-pressure cylinders. Piston valves work better with high-pressure steam.

The rebuild put piston valves on the front cylinders as well as leading and trailing trucks.

Note, on a Vauclain Compound, the engine does have two cylinders on each side, one above the other, but the Erie Mallets were not Vauclain Compounds, they were Mallet Compounds that used steam at boiler pressure in the rear cylinders, then exhausted that steam to the front cylinders for further use.

Gulf Summit must have been an interesting place with these engines and the three Triplexes.

Phil Mulligan

See page 200 of Staufer's book, "Erie Power" for builder's photo. Your photo appears on p.207, taken in Port Jervis, N.Y. in 1907. A as rebuilt photo is on p.209.

According to the book, the three engines of the L1 class were rebuilt into 2-8-8-2's. They received superheat, feedwater heaters and and automatic stokers, in addition to having the cab moved back to the firebox. This upgrade allowed them to survive a little longer than the triplexes.

These engines only had 4 cylinders and were mallets throughout their careers. The rebuild replaced the front low pressure slide valve chest with a piston valve chest. It's interesting that the boiler pressure (215 psi) wasn't increased when superheated. With 51" drivers, they had 94,070lbs. of tractive force. At Port Jervis, they were the east-bound pushers up the hill to FX Tower, were the grade lessened. They worked there until being bumped by the Erie's R Class 2-10-2's.

EJ & Ed

Many thanks for the breakdown.. Understand completely.

ATB

That would have been a hot engine to work for the driver. Next to the boiler and above a cylinder...

The shift to piston valves on the front engine is also motivated by the superheat, as now the front engine would be exposed to much hotter steam (and superheat steam when the simpling valve is open), and the slide valves would not perform well with hotter steam.

As a camelback, was that engine stoker fired?

As built the Camelback Mallet was hand-fired. Fortunately it did not have to go far and anthracite burns slow and hot.

As to the success of the hand-firing, note that the rebuild included a stoker. If you look under the cab of the rebuilt engine, there is a device with two round heads. They are the cylinder heads for the two-cylinder stoker engine.

Phil Mulligan

EJ Berry,
Thank you for answering re hand firing. That is one heck of a firebox to keep hot, but your response explains that. It would be a pig of a job just the same!

As I recall as built these loco had two firedoors and two firemen.

So the installation of the stoker was a cost savings idea by eliminating the need for the second fireman?

Les

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Smaller locomotives built as compounds had the high pressure cylinder on one side and the low pressure cylinder on the other. Southern Railway's G class 2-8-0s were originally delivered to the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railway as compounds. I recall that the high pressure cylinder was on the fireman's side and the low pressure was on the engineer's side.

OK, here's a question. Are there any Vauclain compounds that have made it to preservation? I know they were mostly scrapped by the mid 1920's, so it is unlikely that any survived, but does anyone know?

Interesting question.

I know of three, all Manitou and Pikes Peak cog engines. #1 is at Colorado RR Museum in Golden, #2 is on display in Manitou Springs and #5 was with the M&PP itself.

Phil Mulligan