Steam & Excursion > Fastest US Steam - In Reverse!

In reply to http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?10,3955109,3955353#msg-3955353

Frisco1522 Wrote:
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> Hell that ain't nothin.  Why one time on 1522,
> BACKING UP................................

LOL!

Seriously, what could 1522 do in reverse --- comfortably?  Or, other engines for that matter, if anyone can comment?

IIRC, 1522 has a Delta truck under the firebox. 

I have run the SOO 1003 (Alco, 2-8-2, 1913) in reverse for, something like, 40 miles at, or about, 60 mph.  We may have varied + or - a tad, but that was track speed and I did my d**n**t to stay close so as stay out of the way of everything else the dispatcher might throw at me.

1003 has a built-up Cole truck under the firebox.  IMHO, the best truck ever designed.  I couldn't have had a smoother ride in a Pullman!

-John Stein

Does a SP Cab Forward running in its normal configuration count as running in reverse? ; )

John

sixbit Wrote:
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> Does a SP Cab Forward running in its normal
> configuration count as running in reverse? ; )
>
> John

Only if its running tender first shoving the train.

But I'd like to hear about your experience.

-John

I did have 1522 at 55-60 reverse moving from downtown St. Louis back to the Museum one night.   The UP pilot said haul ass and we did!  Rode like a Lincoln.
Did a long reverse move down in TX, but held it to 30.

A happening very dependent on the construction of the trailing truck, speed not advisable
with certain versions of said truck!

Out

IIRC, 611 is limited to 20 in reverse.

Defective_Detector Wrote:
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> IIRC, 611 is limited to 20 in reverse.

Generally, during the steam era this has been included as a Special Instruction in the ETT, and some states had a law mandating this also.

Defective_Detector Wrote:
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> IIRC, 611 is limited to 20 in reverse.                                                                                                                                           Interesting to me is an old video of N&W in the days of steam......watching a Y class hauling it's train at track speed while running in reverse....saw that more than one time.  Growing up I learned a steam locomotive could run the same speed forward or reverse.....might work as a rule of thumb, I guess, but I've learned of plenty of exceptions to that.  AA

Stanford White
Carmel Valley, CA

IANAE (I Am Not An Expert!), sooooo ---
I only know what I have been told by people who were considered real
experts about this, and I only knew about the SP 2472, in particular. 
Ya gotta have a "centering mechanism" on the trailing truck, if you are
gonna run faster than 20 mph in reverse.   (That is if ya don't want the
"D word" to happen!)  And the 2472 does not have such a mechanism
on her trailing truck.  That centering mechanism helps to guide the end
of the locomotive it is on around curves, and the 2472 definitely has one
as part of her front truck, of course.

sixbit ---
LOL!  To come to think of it, I, too, gotta wonder how that worked.  DO
tell us more about that, please.  TIA!

Frisco1522 ---
55-60 mph IN REVERSE??!!  Wow!!  AND she rode like a Lincoln??!!
Wow, again!

Again -- IANAE, but I am sure that callum_out is right: It all depends on
the design of the trailing truck.

It wasn't a fast move and we did have a pilot engine, but Hotwater and I backed the Challenger 3985 up for 500 miles one trip. Whew!!!!

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY

Bob3985 Wrote:
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> It wasn't a fast move and we did have a pilot
> engine, but Hotwater and I backed the Challenger
> 3985 up for 500 miles one trip. Whew!!!!

Hi, Bob!
Hey -- when and where was that?  500 miles in reverse??  Wow!

I can't help it -- just gotta share a 2472 story about her running a lot of miles in reverse one weekend.  That was back in 1995, when she pulled the Garlic Train SF-Gilroy and back both Saturday and Sunday for the 1995 Garlic Festival in Gilroy.   We -- the GGRM -- used to operate that train every year, for a number of years (can’t remember exactly how many right now), but 1995 was the only time we used the '72 to pull the train.  All the other trips were pure CalTrain -- 10 cars and 2 locomotives.  And, because CalTrain has been running push-pull since 1992, when the JPB took over the management from Caltrans, there was no need to turn anything around anywhere.

But the 2472 did need to be turned.  At that time, there were 3 wyes on the CalTrain (former SP)  commute line between SF and Gilroy: SF, Redwood City, and San Jose.

After the ‘72 got to Gilroy, she had to run in reverse all the way to San Jose -- 30 miles.  (There has not been a wye in Gilroy for many, many decades.)  She went around the wye in San Jose, then she ran in reverse the 30 miles back to Gilroy, so she would be pointed forwards for the trip back to San Francisco.  
We would have used the wye in SF on Saturday evening, so she would be pointed south for the Sunday trip to Gilroy, but that wye was OOS for some reason I cannot now remember.

We had wanted to use the wye in Redwood City instead, but it had cars on it, and the SP, quite understandably, would not let us switch them out of the way -- probably to the small yard in Redwood City.  Soooo -- she had to run in reverse all the way to San Jose (47 miles), went around the wye, then ran in reverse the 47 miles back to SF for Sunday's
trip to Gilroy.  

On Sunday, she ran 154 miles forwards (SF-Gilroy-SF) and either 60 miles in reverse (Gilroy-SJ-Gilroy), or 154 miles in reverse (Gilroy-SJ-Gilroy + SF-SJ-SF).  I cannot now remember if we wyed her Sunday evening or not.

Soooooo -- the 2472 ran a total of 308 miles forwards that weekend, and ran either 214 or 308 miles in reverse that weekend, depending on whether or not we ran her to San Jose to wye her on Sunday evening, plus the 10 miles round trip from her home in Hunters Point to SF and back, for a grand total of either 532 or 626 miles in two days!
 
No wonder our guys in charge decided not to run her on the Garlic Train again!  She cost far too much to run, and few passengers cared what was pulling the train, because all they cared about was the Garlic Festival.

That was quite a weekend!

 

It was the back-up moves that scoured the brass on the rear truck and tooks the 2472 down for over 5 years to repair.

2472 has a Delta trailer doesn't she?   Delta trucks have rockers that help center and guide the truck.

Frisco1522 Wrote:
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> 2472 has a Delta trailer doesn't she?   Delta
> trucks have rockers that help center and guide the
> truck.
I dunno, Frisco.  Allm I know is that the 2472 does not have
any kind of centering mechanism on her trailing truck.  Will
check with our CMO, and let ya know.

A lot depends on the 'geometry'  of the chassis.

The typical location of the center of gravity of a conventional steamer is about a couple of feet ahead of the throat sheet, down low.
So, when running forward, the "center of rotation", the center for the pivoting of a boiler entering a curve, is about the region of the rear axle --- on a 4-coupled engine.

Again running in forward, a pilot truck (2 or 4 wheel) has an easy job of swinging the engine right and left --- the ' lever' of the pilot truck's wheels stretches back, almost to the rear driving axle... So it makes for easy guiding...

As engine speeds increased, low drivered engines --- Consolidations, Mikados, Berks, etc--- tend to bounce around  a LOT.
The counterweights of the driving axle, typically were located virtually at the same location as the center-of-gravity,
The counterweights tended to lift and pound the drivers at decent speeds.

So, if your remember your high school physics, whatever moves the center of gravity, shakes the whole structure.  
Two things were changed in steam engine evolution: first: driver diameters were dramatically increased giving the engines faster speeds, & easier counter-balancing was achieved because of the greater space available ( bigger rims) and, secondly, the increased power meant higher speeds--- that led to the need to move the main driver further away from the third driver & the typical center of gravity location --- so they made the main rod connection to driver number #2.   That meant--- in order to keep the main rod from being a short, stubby lever, they had to move the cylinders-casting well forward --- the moved cylinders then needed to be supported by a 4-wheel engine truck.  The whole chassis was lengthened....giving an even EASIER guiding effort to the pilot trucks.

So, that took early Mikados to become 4-8-2s,  "Mountains" .  They became early versions of dual-purpose engines--- for passenger and freight trains.

Berkshires, "Mikados-with-a-4-wheel trailer truck", became 4-8-4s, Northerns,  4-8-4s.,..... 

About this time, the greater capacity of tapered roller bearings to provide 360-degree lateral load distribution was being cheered and adopted.  Before the roller bearings, the only way to get axle hubs to be able to withstand end-to-end battering ( later thrust absorbsotion) was the use of  bronze hub-liners.  And many axles did not even use these.  

Timkenswere ESPECIALLY good for pilot and trailer tuck axles, they take the end-wise battering  thrusts, and "roll them" to the outer races and the whole bearing housing .

So, now the pilot trucks had an easy job of forward guidance.

The trailer trucks are located WAY closer to the C-O-G, and are less effective at providing the same ease of guidance as the lead trucks.   This sets up the conditions where engines tend to lurch and sway more when traveling in reverse.  If the engine is running 'light', WITHOUT cars on the front coupler, speeding becomes more vulnerable to putting a high amount of pressure on the trailer truck wheels as the engine sways from one side to the other and may be more susceptible to 'picking' switch points and other outer rail gaps and irregularities.

BUT,  if pulling cars attached to the front coupler, while the engine is in reverse, the cars tend to control the 'yaw-ing' of the boiler, left & right, so that the train's trailing weight makes the engine ride mores ready.  So it's easy, while dragging a train, to go in reverse at a fairly rapid speeds. 

Light Engines?  BE VERY CAUTIOUS.
Dragging some cars?  you'll be good sailing along a a good clip.

This is one reason why the cab-forwards worked-out all right, while hauling trains, they did good.

HOWEVER, the early cab-forwards, with 2-wheel trucks under the cab, flopped off the rails really easily....too close to the C-O-G to be able to,provide enough 'lever-moment' to swing the whole boiler into the curves.  When they went to a better design 4-wheel guiding truck, they were WAY better at staying on the rails and pulling trains...

Hope this helps explain why running in reverse with a steamer -- that you have to know what you're doing if you venture out onto the main Line:
Light engine? Be scared, very scared!
Dragging cars?  You'll be OK --- at reasonable speeds..

Wes C.


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Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 02/08/16 19:41 by wcamp1472.

I got a wild ride on the 3985 with Bob Kreiger one night in Kansas City being pulled backwards.  I don't remember where we were being taken to, but it was fast.

And here's another addition to the "what a new operation needs to think about" file! 
(Yes, I'm still working on it even though I haven't mentioned it lately.)

Rebecca Morgan
Jacobsburg, OH