Steam & Excursion > Back when a new locomotive was news

In 1899, the Illinois Central purchased what was billed as the largest locomotive in the world at the time. The 4-8-0 was given road number 640, and was followed by 2-8-0 #639.

The locomotives were designed for the hill country south of Carbondale, and the testing of #640 was a big enough deal that it made the front page of the Carbondale Free Press on November 11th of that year. Reading the article, the results seemed promising.

Here we see the newly delivered locomotives in the south Chicago suburb of Pullman, Illinois, and the head building of the Pullman plant can be seen in the background. It must have been a thing of pride to have one's picture taken with such a machine!

As for the locomotives, well....... they didn't live up to the billing. Take a good look at the photos and you can probably guess why. That's not much of a firebox to go with such a large boiler, is it? Neither proved to be good steamers. The pair were eventually sold to the Peoria & Pekin Union, where they were likely much more successful for switching and short hauls than they were as road locomotives.

The next freight locomotives ordered by the Illinois Central would be 2-6-0's, and it would be several years before the road would again try an eight-drivered design. Nearly 200 2-8-0's would join the roster between 1903 and the arrival of the first Mikado in 1911.

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions

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Boy they were fatsos!

Did not one John Luther Jones have the 638 assigned to him at one time?

Txhighballer Wrote:
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> Did not one John Luther Jones have the 638
> assigned to him at one time?

That is correct. Engine 638 was the last of 38 2-8-0's purchased in 1891. The first two were built with 51" drivers while numbers 603-638 were built with 56" drivers. These locomotives were found to be underpowered, and no more were built. The I.C. then switched to Moguls as their primary freight locomotives, trying larger power with the one off #639 and #640.

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions

Mary....

Interesting pics and a hidden narrative....

The poor engines suffered mightily from too small a grate area AND being "saturated"...
The chassis was 'ahead of the boiler', for its time.

For the "static equation"---- BP X Cylinders numbers -- they should be able to perform O.K.

However, The successful Schmidt Superheater was not developed until early 1900.

So, the "chassis numbers" should have worked, ---- but for over-the-road steaming capacity, the cylinders operating on cooled-down steam, which soon had the engines turned into 'water pumps'... Low power, low temp, steam up the stack... Requiring make-up injector water --- which cooled the boiler down, further.

That small grate meant over-firing the loco---- throwing more green coal on the fire robs the heat from the fire ( trying to ignite cold coal) ...

Soon resulted in engines running out of steam.
Compounding was tried, but that, too, was largely unsuccessful...

However, with superheating....the "steam-multiplying" characteristics could have made the as-pictured grate numbers "workable" for these locos.

They were built too soon,
( being saturated) but who could have seen 20 years
hence?

The advent of superheaters mandated the change from slide valves to piston (spool) valves.... The superheated steam was virtually 'dry' and caused the severe rubbing and wear of the surfaces of the old slide valves and their mating seats... ALSO, the direct-rubbing friction of the slide valves was power-robbing...the severe forcing of the sliding parts was really bad. Piston valves were the only solution.

So, these pictures show the
state-of-the-builders-art at the time. They clearly had no idea of the amount of firebox volume/grate area the would be required .....to get the steam they needed for over the road service. Engineering at this time was pretty much the generations of seat-of-the-pants knowledge and cut-&-try" developments... The same was true for marine (naval) engineering...

Next up: a two-wheel trailer truck...

W.

Posted from iPhone

I like to say that there would have been no Super Power without the knowledge gained by failures like this pair. Experience with what doesn't work teaches when you learn WHY it doesn't work.

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions

Upon further study the 4-8-0, #640, appears to be equipped with spool valves, operated by Stephenson valve gear.

They got a step closer, eliminating the slide valves.

I need to dig deeper into the the development of the workable superheaters. There were several schemes tried --- such as the smokebox superheater'--- but the successful design came from Germany. The Schmidt superheater used a set of large diameter 'flues' to carry double-folded steam tubes down inside each flue and a complex header casting, with metal-to-metal ("ground") joints to connect the tubing to the header.

It was the the return bends closest to the firebox that that wee the hottest, thus that is where most of the superheat was generated.

Another early device ( soon dropped) was a horizontal baffle arrangement with a pivoting damper. The fear was that without cutting off the firebox flames from entering the flues, that the units would be badly burned & melted.

That never ends occurred. As the throttle was closed, the draft through the flues and tubes was eliminated & no hit gasses were pulled into the flues. Also, the return bends were kept about 18" to 24" inches away from the rear tube sheet.

But each if these steps were evolutionary, with lots of trial designs and failures that had to be sorted on the way to success.

A key tool in the search was the PRR's Loco Test Plant at Altoona, Pa, it allowed for ideas to be dynamically tested before adoption--- without using 'live' trains and the attendant 'road failures'.

Dynamometer cars were a help, but could not avoid delays and road failures.
The test plant, however, had to avoid testing related to driver counter-balance testing... The out of balance hammering would have ruined the complex water brake/blind driving wheels that were under each axle.... Road-testing ( on the Atlantic City "racetrack" ) was used first, before ruining the Test Plant apparatus. Live testing at the test plant was scary enough--- at speeds exceeding a couple of hundred RPMs. A K4 at 70-per son the

Posted from iPhone

Upon further study the 4-8-0, #640, appears to be equipped with spool valves, operated by Stephenson valve gear.

They got a step closer, eliminating the slide valves.

I need to dig deeper into the the development of the workable superheaters. There were several schemes tried --- such as the smokebox superheater'--- but the successful design came from Germany. The Schmidt superheater used a set of large diameter 'flues' to carry double-folded steam tubes down inside each flue and a complex header casting, with metal-to-metal ("ground") joints to connect the tubing to the header.

It was the the return bends closest to the firebox that were the hottest, thus that is where most of the beneficial superheat was generated.

Another early device ( soon dropped) was a horizontal baffle arrangement with a pivoting "superheater damper". The fear was that without cutting off the firebox flames from entering the flues, that the units would be badly burned & melted.

That event never occurred. As the throttle was closed, the draft through the flues and tubes was eliminated & no hit gasses were pulled into the flues. Also, the return bends were kept about 18" to 24" inches away from the rear tube sheet.

But each of these steps were evolutionary, with lots of trial designs and failures that had to be sorted-out, on the way to success.

A key tool in these searches was the PRR's Loco Test Plant at Altoona, Pa, it allowed for ideas to be dynamically tested before adoption--- without using 'live' trains and the attendant 'road failures'.

Dynamometer cars were a help, but could not avoid delays and road failures.

The test plant, however, had to avoid testing related to driver counter-balance testing... The out of balance hammering would have ruined the complex water brake/blind driving wheels that were under each loco axle.... Road-testing ( on the Atlantic City "racetrack" ) was used first, before ruining the Test Plant apparatus. Live testing at the test plant was scary enough--- at speeds exceeding a couple of hundred RPMs. A K4 at 70-per on the treadmill must have been deafening!!!

So, to Mary's point, about failure bearing the teacher----such testing allowed the guilt-free experimenting, without using the active commerce tracks,
to be conducted in a lab, with failure as the most common outcome on the way to perfecting new drafting and steam-flow improvements.

The Test Plant reports on loco performance were a part of their work ----- a large portion of the testing was simply product approval ( like lubricant testing, etc.) and extensive modifications & design tests---- being a large part of daily test plant routines.

W.

Posted from iPhone

The Altoona test plant was not the first.

Perdue University had built one in the 1890's - hence Perdues sports name, the Boilermakers.

-LD

TEST PLANTS....

Googled: W. F. Goss , Purdue ..

Very interesting write-up on his loco engineering and ( small) loco Test Plant ....
Not nearly the capabilities of PRR's, but was a fine prototype.
Several good pics and also foreign loco treadmill-type "test plants" pictured...

Look him up, you'll be impressed.... never earned a college degree, but awarded several honorary diplomas.

Very encouraging ..

Wes.