Steam & Excursion > In Terrain Like This The Steam Locomotive Crew Has Time To Think!

The area around Elko, Nevada is wide open an typical of the arid desert that the Silver State is known for.  Railroads that traversed this isolated country were known for miles of tangent track and wide open vistas for the locomotive crews.  Here we see just such a scene on the Western Pacific during the days of steam on that line in the 1940's.

On this afternoon WP 2-8-2 #318 and her crew have all in order as they race across the desert landscape near Elko with their freight in tow.  The crew of the big Mike has time to sit back watch as the desert environment streams by them as they roll along. 

All in all, not a bad way to spend the day.

Martin



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/19 02:40 by LoggerHogger.

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I'm sure many of us wished they could have been in that cab that day.

Could that have been a canteen car behind the tender Martin?

What kind of speed could those Mikes do out there in the desert, given their wheel size?

Quick rule of thumb was use the driver diameter as the top speed.  Your milage (per hour) may vary.

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions

MaryMcPherson Wrote:
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> Quick rule of thumb was use the driver diameter as
> the top speed.  Your milage (per hour) may vary.

You mean that 63" diameter drivers would have a top speed of 63 MPH?

TonyJ Wrote:
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> I'm sure many of us wished they could have been in
> that cab that day.

Maybe not so much if this is mid-July and the outside temp is in the 90"s

ATSF3751 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> TonyJ Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I'm sure many of us wished they could have been
> in
> > that cab that day.
>
> Maybe not so much if this is mid-July and the
> outside temp is in the 90"s

That would be a cool day. 100's are pretty much the norm in that area from May to September.

1938 timetable says those 2-8-2s were
allowed 50 mph -- but freight limit looks like 45.

http://wx4.org/to/foam/sp/maps/zukasETT/1938-06-12WP_Eastern31-TimZukas.pdf

HotWater Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> MaryMcPherson Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Quick rule of thumb was use the driver diameter
> as
> > the top speed.  Your milage (per hour) may
> vary.
>
> You mean that 63" diameter drivers would have a
> top speed of 63 MPH?

Faster on a good day. From a horsepower standpoint, I've always heard two thirds driver diameter is about maximum horsepower, so a 45 MPH speed limit should be right in her sweet spot...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/19 18:13 by Txhighballer.

The old steam hands on the IC and the NKP that I hung around with in the 1960's  told me that was pretty much correct about the horsepower, but once a steam engine reaches its peak drawbar horsepower, it declines very slowly with speed, so that it maintains most of that horsepower right up to the top speed of the locomotive.  The same old hands used what they called 1 + 10 or driver diameter, plus another 10% for top speed.  So a 63" driver engine, properly balanced, should be good for 63 +6.3 or almost 70 mph.    Of course, cross balancing and other advances could raise those speeds significantly.   Remember that an N&W J class engine is recorded as having run an authenticated 110 mph with 70" drivers.      That is something like 8.8 revolutions per second, or piston strokes per second.  And a speed to driver size ratio of 1.57 / 1.  Theoretically that means that a 63" drivered locomotive could reach speeds of 99 mph, but no one will ever know.  That would also mean that an 80" driver engine could reach 126 mph (which has been claimed) and an 84" drivered engine, 132 mph (which does not appear to have happened).

Those were pretty husky "Mikes", and out there it looks like Z scale.

Craig Hanson
Vay, Idaho

TonyJ Wrote:
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> I'm sure many of us wished they could have been in
> that cab that day.

Probably more today then on that day back then!

/Mitch

HotWater Wrote:
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> You mean that 63" diameter drivers would have a
> top speed of 63 MPH?

Rule of thumb for safe speed rather than top speed.  My bad.  I was watching the Chargers play while typing.

On average for a generic rule, diameter equals MPH and you're fine.  Driver size and the resulting ease or difficulty in balancing being a variable with some much higher and some much lower.  I didn't make it up; just something I picked up along the way long enough ago I couldn't say where.  Obviously 4449 and 844 can go much higher than 80; 611 much higher than 70; etc.  Conversely I wouldn't want Iron Mountain 2-4-2 #5 doing ANYWHERE near 45 when it was still running and I was on the crew (even if the the track wasn't crap).  On good track, twenty was plenty.

Mary McPherson
Dongola, IL
Diverging Clear Productions



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 01/07/19 02:17 by MaryMcPherson.

PHall Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ATSF3751 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > TonyJ Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > I'm sure many of us wished they could have
> been
> > in
> > > that cab that day.
> >
> > Maybe not so much if this is mid-July and the
> > outside temp is in the 90"s
>
> That would be a cool day. 100's are pretty much
> the norm in that area from May to September.

I'm not a member of the Elko Chamber of Commerce but I do visit Elko on a regular basis in the summer to visit my son and daughter and very seldom have I expericenced temperatures in the 100's. Living in California's Central Valley where it gets well into the 100's in the summer, Elko is a breath of fresh air.