Steam & Excursion > Fastest Production U.S. Steam Locomotive Built

Well for starters there were many 100+ mph steamers in the U.S. Inventory. Plenty. Including the Pennsy T1 which according
to the Altoona Mechanical Engineers  could top 140! But we all  know that the T1 never could rid herself of the high speed
wheel slip which would affect reaching the theoretical high water mark. And anybody today attempting a re-build is on very
thin ice. Maybe and maybe not.
But the Milwaukee Road had some streamlined atlantics that easily put the speedometer needle on the face pin of the
speedometer. The pin sat on the dial at the calibrated 128mph mark.This is a fact and I have material authenticating this
speed. So anyone wanting to put the Mallard to shame should consider fabricating  such a locomotive. 
What I don't understand is why nobody during our golden age of steam went after the Mallard's record. 
The Mallard's record of 126+ was accomplished with a trailing train weight of 101 metric tons (long tons?) on a descending
water grade. Beating that doesn't seem impossible to me .We need to surpass the Limey's!

Canadian Pacific 4-4-4 Jubilees were also very fast.

Perhaps because not everything is a pissing match to be the fastest/biggest. Most railroads were concerned with the bottom dollar. I'm sure a locomotive could have been designed for optimum stop speed but it would be worthless in regular service.

Material authenticating a 128 mph speed with steam would be very significant.  It would certainly be good for you to make ths material public, so that the steam speed record could properly rest here in the U.S.

Louis Cerny

Germany's newest locomotive I believe has the power to surpass Mallard. We certainly had steam that could, the T1 as OP mentioned, but like the previous poster mentioned, the bottom line was what mattered. Though a speed record did make your company look good.

Posted from Android

What German locomotive?

John.

Then there were the Russian steam engines.............
Roger Beckett

> Material authenticating a 128 mph speed
> with steam would be very significant.

For some reason, that's not something
Americans do. Authentication didn't
appear then, and it's not going
to appear 75 years later.

Hell that ain't nothin.  Why one time on 1522, BACKING UP................................

Best opportunities for US steam to surpass Mallard's 126 MPH would have been Milwaukee Road A class 1-4 on the C&M or Santa Fe's 3460 class downhill from Kingman to Topock.  Those locomotives had reliable daily operation at 100 MPH.  But writing was on the wall for diesels, so there was no reason to go further with steam.
It would have been interesting to see PRR try it with a T1 west of Ft. Wayne, but I'm not sure they ever worked the bugs out enough to succeed.   BSB
 

This has probably been discussed before, but in his book "One Man's Locomotives" Vernon Smith discusses Pennsylvania T-1's at one point, and though it was never authenticated, he fully believed that they were run at something close to 130 mph on a regular basis on some particular division that he was privy to their records. He refers to an engineman's work report that was submitted one trip that casually stated that the "spring rigging is inadequate at 125". I think the actual speed limit in this area was 100 but evidently the operating people weren't too fazed by this admission.

A Milwaukee Road steam-era fireman -- now deceased -- told me that his "personal best" speed was 127.6 mph on one of their F-7s.  Those were the MILW's 84-inch-drivered 4-6-4s.  He said crews oftten ran even faster than that.   And that it took the crew around 15 miles to get up to that speed.  He also told me there was a 100-mph
speed restriction at Rondout, IL.

Sorry -- no way at all to authenticaate that claim.

On the other hand, UP 800s were documeted to have run at and well beyond the century mark

In KRatville's excellent book, "THE MIGHTY 800", (1967), he writes about two tests the AAR’s “Committee on Further Development of the Reciprocating Steam Locomotive” ran, one  in 1938 and the other in 1947.  The speeds referred to in this book were all authenticated at that time by usig a 100-ton dynamometer car.

The 1938 tests were done to learn what needed to be done to enable a steam locomotive to reliably pull a 1,000-ton passenger train on a level grade at 100 mph.  The test train was 16 cars long: 14 Pennsy coaches, a baggage car, and the 100-ton dynamometer car.

Four different  steam locomotives were used during the 1938 tests: 2 Pennsy K-4s with 80-inch drivers and 300 psi boiler pressure, one C&NW 84-inch-drivered Hudson, and the UP 815, an 80-inch drivered 4-8-4, which was then only one year old..  Only the UP 815, which was due for a shopping, passed the century mark, with a top speed of 102.4 mph -- and her throttle was not even fully open at that speed!  (Kratville did write “...the ride became noticeably shaky” at 102 mph, and “...the UP man up front recalled, “I thought the darn thing was going to break apart.”“)

In 1947, that AAR committee ran new tests, and during them the UP 837, pulling a train the same weight as that of “The City of Los Angeles”,  reached 110 mph -- with a back pressure of only 8 psi!    (Max would be 10-12 psi.)   Kratville wrote, “...but the Operating Department man aboard would not allow speed beyond 110 mph.”   We will never know just how fast a UP 800 could go if pushed to the limit -- darn!

One thing I remember reading somewhere here on TO was someone sayng that these steam-era high speeds claimed to have happened required that the locomotives running that fast had to have been able to make a huge amount of steam extremely quickly.  OA Milwaukee Road steam-era fireman -- now deceased -- told me that his "personal best" speed was 127.6 mph on one of their F-7s.  Those were the MILW's 84-inch-drivered 4-6-4s.  He said crews oftten ran even faster than that.   And that it took the cab cerew around 15 miles to get up to that speed.  And he told me there was a 100-mph
speed restriction at Rondout, IL.

Sorry -- no way at all to authenticaate that claim.

On the UP, i KRatville's "THE MIGHTY 800" (1967), he writes about two tests the AAR’s “Committee on Further Development of the Reciprocating Steam Locomotive” ran, one  in 1938 and the other in 1947.  The speeds referred to in this book were all authenticated at that time by usig a 100-ton dynamometer car.

The 1938 tests were done to learn what needed to be done to enable a steam locomotive to pull a 1,000-ton passenger train on a level grade at 100 mph.  The test train was 16 cars long: 14 Pennsy coaches, a baggage car, and the 100-ton dynamometer car.

Four different  steam locomotives were used during the 1938 tests.   The other 3 locomotives used were 2 Pennsy K-4s with 80-inch drivers and 300 psi boiler pressure, and one C&NW 84-inch-drivered Hudson.  Only the UP 815, which was due for a shopping, passed the century mark, with a top speed of 102.4 mph -- and her throttle was not even fully open at that speed!  (Kratville did say “...the ride became noticeably shaky” at 102 mph, and “...the UP man up front recalled, “I thought the darn thing was going to break apart.”“)

In 1947, that AAR committee ran new tests, and during them the UP 837, pulling a train the same weight as that of “The City of Los Angeles”,  reached 110 mph -- with a back pressure of only 8 psi!    (Max would be 10-12 psi.)   Kratville wrote, “...but the Operating Department man aboard would not allow speed beyond 110 mph.”   We will never know just how fast a UP 800 could go if pushed to the limit -- darn!

One thing about these non-authenticated claims of plus-120-mph speeds -- such as the Milwaukee Road fireman made -- is what was pointed out in some posts here on TO: those locomotives had to have been able to make huge amounts of steam incredibly quickly in order te reach those extremely high speeds.  Well -- the “Mallard” did it, so it has to have been possible.

This is an absolutely fascinating discussion!

During the early years of the FWRHS (1970's), there were a lot of local NKP and  PRR steam enginemen who would stop by the 765 and visit.  One of them, whose name I will recall at some point, said he caught the "Big Engine" S-1 no. 6100 as a fireman.  He said that he saw the needle hovering around 127-130 mph on at least one occasion.  Fort Wayne crews would operate east to Crestline, Ohio, or west to Chicago.

Would really love to review any documents containing details of Milwaukee Road test runs for the high speed 4-4-2 "A" Class Atlantics or 4-6-4 Class F-7 Hudsons. I've read several tantalizing accounts of 120-125 mph cited by locomotive performance experts such as Brian Reed and John Clay, but have not seen any dynamometer speedrolls or other documentaiton to verify these top speeds.