Steam & Excursion > The Pride Of The Northern Pacific Ready At Baldwin-1930

The year is 1930 and the place is Baldwin Eddystone, Pennsylvania factory. The craftsmen at Baldwin have just completed building and testing the huge Yellowstone Class 7-5 #5002 for the Northern Pacific. Baldwin and NP officials are in satisfied with their inspection of the 717,000 pound beast and she will soon be sent West to work on NP's Rocky Mountain Division. It there that her 140,000#s of tracktive effert will be put to great use.

She gave over 25 good years of service to the NO before being set aside and scrapped in May 1957. What a beast!

Martin



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/14 04:29 by LoggerHogger.

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Martin:

When were they built in 1930?

ALCO built #5000 in december 1928. Baldwin built the next 11 Z-5 engines between April 1930 and September 1930.

Martin

Great photo. Not often to see that kind of view at Eddystone. I just have trouble picturing these beast heading out on the Pennsy to the west. I wonder what kind of route they took around Philly to start their journey?

I have always wondered how a steam locomotive was shipped to the purchasing railroad.

Were the connecting rods removed and the loco towed?

Thanks

Tom Daspit
Morgan Hill, CA
Tom's Trains

Yes, generally all locomotives were towed dead with their main rods off.

Here is an example of what it looked like when Lima shipped AC-9 #3811 to SP.

Martin



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/14 06:58 by LoggerHogger.

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The first Yellowstones, and the largest fireboxes ever built. NP pioneered many steam locomotive innovations.

-John

LoggerHogger Wrote:
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> The year is 1930 and the place is Baldwin
> Eddystone, Pennsylvania factory. The craftsmen at
> Baldwin have just completed building and testing
> the huge Yellowstone Class 7-5 #5002 for the
> Northern Pacific. Baldwin and NP officials are in
> satisfied with their inspection of the 717,000
> pound beast and she will soon be sent West to work
> on NP's Rocky Mountain Division. It there that
> her 140,000#s of tracktive effert will be put to
> great use.
>
> She gave over 25 good years of service to the NO
> before being set aside and scrapped in May 1957.
> What a beast!
>
> Martin

While the UP4014 crawled back to Cheyenne around 10-20mph this past winter, what might the speed limits have been on towing brand new steam locomotives like these two, taking into account the somewhat-unbalanced driving wheels?

Jim Montague
IRVINE, CA
Train and Nature photo Art

3751_loony Wrote:
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> While the UP4014 crawled back to Cheyenne around
> 10-20mph this past winter, what might the speed
> limits have been on towing brand new steam
> locomotives like these two, taking into account
> the somewhat-unbalanced driving wheels?

Probably 20 to 30 MPH, since the drive wheels wouldn't have been THAT far out of balance.

I looked for many years to get a builder's plate from one of the massive Z-5 locomotives. This plate is from NP Z-5 #5004 and was built in May 1930. During 1930 Baldwin stopped putting the Month and year on the 9-1/4" round plates for some reason. It was resumed in 1945 when they went to the pentagon style plate.

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If I remember right, they had about 180 sq. ft. of grate area, and actually they proved to not steam well this way. The remedy was to brick off the front portion of the grates, maybe down to about 150 sq. ft., which apparently worked better.

Posted from iPhone

flash34 Wrote:
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> If I remember right, they had about 180 sq. ft. of
> grate area, and actually they proved to not steam
> well this way. The remedy was to brick off the
> front portion of the grates, maybe down to about
> 150 sq. ft., which apparently worked better.
>
> Posted from iPhone


From SteamLocomotive.com:

"Northern Pacific class Z-5

The first Yellowstone was built in 1928 by ALCO for the Northern Pacific for running throughout the high speed plains of North Dakota. It would turn out to be the one and only Yellowstone that ALCO would build.

NP wanted to burn low-grade Rosebud coal (obtained from mines along the line) in their locomotives. This required the Yellowstone to be designed with a huge (the largest ever used on a steam locomotive) firebox (182 sq. ft.). The front half of the firebox was over the two rear pairs of drivers and the trailing truck (which was equipped with a booster).

It was the largest steam locomotive in the world (at that time) and ALCO celebrated by serving dinner to 12 people seated in the firebox! NP asked for bids for 11 more like it and in 1930 Baldwin got the job. The NP Yellowstones steamed poorly and produced less that 5,000 HP. NP found that the grates were simply too large to maintain a high temperature and complete combustion. The combustion problem was solved by blocking off The front two feet of the firebox on each locomotive. At some point the Z-5s were upgraded with roller bearings."

Z

Fascinating post....

Steve Mitchell
http://www.yardgoatimages.com

I don't know how you managed to find some of the pieces you have but thank you for sharing your photos of them! You ought to open your own museum.

Posted from iPhone

Weren't they used at one time on the Stampede Sub?