Steam & Excursion > Valves & valve timing, Pt. 2

From "Red', below... ( and the thread about SP GS6 loco from LoggerHogger....)

"Fascinating! Can you tell us of any "famous" engines that are obvious examples of not having properly set valves? Come on now!!! ;-)"

My presumption is that most locos operating in the recent history, are out-of-square principally on account of excessive wear and the prevalence of amateur expertise in loco valve setting, applicable machine shop practices and RR blacksmith-ing skills.. I suspect that many outfits are wary of undertaking these projects because of the complexity and inherent mysteries of valves
and where to start..

I don't have any personal recollections of valves on current steamers having been 'set' incorrectly .. but, here are some resources on the subject that I remembered.
I will work on finding the actual quotes, references and attributions when I can burrow into my book collection and dig up the facts...

Meanwhile this is what flashed into my head...

Source: "Apex of The Atlantics' by Fred Westing.

The author has an interesting quote attributed to George Gibbs, PRR Chief Engineer(?) regarding the need to develop a new valve gear ( 1910-1912 era) to replace the then-common standard Stephenson 'inside' valve gear with its 4 axle-mounted cams, etc. Gibbs had written words to the effect that the Stephenson gear was poor because "when it was Put Right, it wouldn't STAY Right!"
SO, PRR set out to design and utilize a modern, light-weight, radial valve gear following the Walschaerts design points.
Their pioneering design was first applied to the first E6 class Atlantics.
[This is a FANTASTIC book for your library --its a quick read and is 'up-close-and-personal' with the design and building the superb class of some 80-odd copies].


Source: "C&O Power", By Gene Huddleston, published by Al Stauffer.

In the back sections of the book there is a section on C&O's mighty Hudsons. There are picture of the 300s under construction at Baldwin.
One particular picture shows a nearly complete Hudson fitted with the Baker radial valve gear.

The eccentric rod is a temporary 'turn=buckle' rig fitted between the eccentric crank and the Baker's 'gear connecting link' (the 'Y' shaped yoke that swings between to trunions).
My speculation is that the 'temporary' eccentric rod is actually the way that Baldwin was able to manufacture the final eccentric rod with the pivot points EXACTLY in the right place for a perfectly square engine AS SOON it was placed into service. There would be a similar turnbuckle arrangement on the other side of the loco, so the the slightly different distances could be individually duplicated on the manufactured, engine-specific, new eccentric rods.


Source: S. Kip Farringer's great book (completed late in his life) --- "Santa Fe's Big Three", the story of the late series 4-8-4s, the mighty 2-10-4s and the rapid, 84" drivered Hudsons.

Farringer described the Santa Fe's receipt of new locos from Baldwin. I don't remember the engine class, possibly the 4-8-4s(?), that were found to have left Baldwin ALL with the eccentric rods manufactured TOO long, when they were being 'set-up' at the Santa Fe shops. Someone made the corrected rods before the were placed in service.

That's the only case that I can remember where locos were sent out with incorrectly set valve gears.

That typical story is repeated in a lot of the locos delivered by Baldwin --they seemed to have a spotty history, quality wise.
The Challengers they built for the Western Maryland RR were a dismal design failure --- poor steamers and poor with handling trains (no "3900s', these!).
But, their WM Northerns were SOLID performers, and WM-STRONG!!, right up there with the N&W J-class!


If you're a serious student of loco construction and performance, ALL three of these books are a MUST for your 'Library'...
All three authors were True Experts on steam locos, development,history and railroading, --- back when it was REALLY a fascinating & an integrated, people-centered business.
RRs today have become world financial centers ---- with rails and tollbooths (all computerized, cash flow generating 'machines'...).

Wes C.

Wes, I am no expert on steam history, but I think I would be greatly surprised if any significant quantity of *new* steam engines left the factories with incorrect valve timing. I would guess that for the most part this occurred with a new valve design on a new set of engines, where the builder might not yet have had enough experience to get things right.

But think about it -- there weren't that many engine makers, and they each made quite a few engines, and there weren't many more forms of valve gear (of any popularity) than there were engine makers. So each one would have had a lot of people that knew how to properly set the timing on the current run of valve gear, except when that gear was brand new, and they would probably have to get some guys from the "design lab" (probably called the "engineering drawing room") down on the shop floor to set up the first few engines and teach the shop forces how.

Now this isn't intended to knock your comment about the SFe engines with too-long connecting rods. Probably someone slipped a digit on the slide rule or mis-wrote the dimension on the master drawing and it wasn't caught in time. If it was a relatively small amount (say less than a tenth of an inch or so) it probably wouldn't be caught from the way the engine ran in a short test with no great load; after all, it is only going to shift the piston a fraction of an inch, and 100 mils or so shouldn't end up hitting the ends of the cylinder or something like that. But it sure will change the maximum compression ratio between the ends of the cylinder!

Wes and lwilton --
Thank you both very much for the very
fascinating info! I love hearing a steam
locomotive that is nice and square. There
was an audio recording here on TO of a NYC
locomotive that is almost perfectly square --
and you could hear everything because there
is almost no whistling to drown out her
beautiful, awesome stack talk. I was going
to post a link to that thread, but I could not
find it. (I remember it was in 1956 in Ohio
at night and it was a NYC locomotive.) I hope
that thread did not get removed! It was an
awesome recording! If someone can find that
thread, please post a link to it here. TIA!

Lee,

It wasn't uncommon for engines straight from the builder with teething issues if not defects.
Case in point, read "Santa Fe's Big Three" by Farrington. It well describes the trial runs of the ATSF
big engines and the teething issues and flat out issues with the engines soon after delivery from Baldwin, particularly the 4-6-4s'.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/14 22:18 by NathanNon-Lifting.

I found the thread with the locomotive that
sounded square to me: "The sound of NYC Hudson 5442",
posted 10-2-13 by Panamerican99 (Jim Herron):

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?10,3199229,3202306#msg-3202306

Wes --
Does the 5442 sound "square as a die" to you?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/26/14 13:19 by Margaret_SP_fan.

Re: NYC 5442 audio...


Yes, Margaret, that is a very crisp exhaust.

I forgot to mention, that valve timers were always faced with approximating a perfectly square set of valve events.
The choices were always trying to "set" as close as could-be.

So, skilled 'setters' usually picked the 'hooked-up' position of valve gear to set to be 'almost square' ---- so that at medium-to-high speeds they were running as 'square' as possible.

So that, when starting --and 'down-in-the-corner'---- they would sound just a tad "out', but when under way the 4 exhaust beats were nearly equal!

This recording is a very good example of a well set-up loco --even so late in her life.

Thanks for sharing!

Wes C.

Wes --

I, too, am VERY impressed by how SQUARE the
awesome NYC 5442 sounded -- and knowing she
was recorded so very late in the steam era makes
her incredibly SQUARE exhaust even more amazing!
SOMEBODY REALLY knew what he was doing back
then and was allowed to make her as square as a die!
Wow.....

That recording is one of the best steam locomotive
sound recordings I have ever heard. Wow.....

Well, it WAS the NEW YORK CENTRAL. But seriously, there were still a lot of skilled steam craftsmen back then, who set timing and accomplished many other steam maintenance functions on a daily basis.