Steam & Excursion > The CMO At This Shop, Clearly Found A Solution For His Problem!

Sometimes problems came along for a steam railroads CMO that the locomotive manufacturer had not anticipated.  When that occurred, it was up to the CMO to come up with a solution and then apply it to his steam fleet.  That is exactly what happened to the CMO at Weyerheauser Timber's Vail, Washington shops in the late 1930's.  Here is his solution.

By the mid-1930's Weyerhaeuser's logging railroad out of Vail had pushed many miles back into the timber.  This led to longer runs for all the log trains.  These longer runs on the wet and slippery rails in the damp climate in the hills above Vail started to cause the crews on the 70-ton and big 90-ton Baldwin Mikes to run out of sand before they could get back to camp.  The engine crews knew that something needed to be done to solve this problem.

When this problem was taken to the Vail CMO, he thought about it and then came up with the solution we see here.  Rather than re-design and modify the factory sand domes put on by Baldwin, he simply fabricated new sandboxes for the front pilots of each locomotive.  In doing so, he borrowed the sandbox design used by Lima on the rear of their Shay's.  This gave him a single sandbox with 2 exit funnels, one for each rail, just like he had seen on the rear of the Shay's that he had in camp.

While not the most beautiful addition to these locomotives, he was only concerned with solving the problem given him.  Aesthetics were clearly none of his concern.

Martin



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 02/25/20 03:40 by LoggerHogger.

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. . . and that's in addition to already having two conventional sand domes.  That's a LOT of sand!

Gordon

101 is an interesting beast.  It must have been built as a soak with slide valves like sister 103 in the lower pic.  Somewhere in time #101 got supperheated and a new set of piston vavle cylinders applied.  I guess changing the vavle gear was something that the CMO didn't want to get into, so the new cylinders were built with outside admission valves.  The split steam branch pipe above the valve chambers is the givaway. 

The inward slanting cylinders were very common when engines were converted from saturated to superheated steam.
Why mess with the valve gear when you don't have to?

PHall Wrote:
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> The inward slanting cylinders were very common
> when engines were converted from saturated to
> superheated steam.
> Why mess with the valve gear when you don't have
> to?

But in must cases, the valve gear eccentrics are shifted to that the new piston valves are the more conventional inside admission.

Any outward signs that the engine was upgraded to superheat-ed?
( besides the conversion to spool valves...)..

The others stayed as soakers?

For low-down-and-dirty, claw the rails tractive-effort, is there any pulling advantage 
for soakers, over superheated locos?

Did anybody ever calculate, or measure, the maximum "Tractive advantage" of sand
on the rails?  My presumption about posted "Tractive effort ratings",  is that they 
presume new steel ( tires) wheels on dry, clean, steel rails.

Were the ratings ever measured, or purely 'calculated'', and posted, without hauling confirmation.

What would be the true, Max, pulling capacity of, say, a DM&IR Yellowstone, 2-8-8-4, when starting
on dry, well-sanded rails, and maybe two safeties UP?   ( followed by effective rail-washers...)
120%, 133%, 150%,  of 'rated' Tractive force?

How about TWO Yellowstones, on dry, sanded rails???

W.​
( I'll get with LarryDoyle, and see if we can get one fired-up;  wouldn't take much, from what I've seen ...)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/25/20 15:00 by wcamp1472.

wcamp1472 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Any outward signs that the engine was upgraded to
> superheat-ed?
> ( besides the conversion to spool valves...)..

A smokebox damper may have been installed, though I don't see one here.  Otherwise, I can't think of any.

> The others stayed as soakers?
>
> For low-down-and-dirty, claw the rails
> tractive-effort, is there any pulling advantage 
> for soakers, over superheated locos?

Reiterating what you have preached, a superheater doesn't really 'kick-in' until you start working the fire.

> Did anybody ever calculate, or measure, the
> maximum "Tractive advantage" of sand
> on the rails?  

Sure.  That's what dynamometer cars are for <G>

> My presumption about posted
> "Tractive effort ratings",  is that they 
> presume new steel ( tires) wheels on dry, clean,
> steel rails.

Tractive effort ratings presume nothing about rail conditions, which are not a factor of consideration in determination.

> Were tge ratings ever measured, or purely
> 'calculated'', and posted, without hauling
> confirmation.

"tge" = tonage?
That's what dynamometer cars were for.

> What would be the true, Max, pulling capacity of,
> say, a DM&IR Yellowstone, 2-8-8-4, when starting
> on dry, well-sanded rails, and maybe two safeties
> UP?   ( followed by effective rail-washers...)
> 120%, 133%, 150%,  of 'rated' Tractive force?
>
> How about TWO Yellowstones, on dry, sanded
> rails???
>
> W.​
> ( I'll get with LarryDoyle, and see if we can get
> one fired-up;  wouldn't take much, from what I've
> seen ...)

I know where we can find three of 'em.  How much money you got?  Any details you want me to check out when I'm up there Saturday?

-LD



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/25/20 19:28 by LarryDoyle.

Superheater clues:

Look for the 5 bolt heads - in a square pattern with one in the center on the rear of the smokebox, above the center line.  This is where the header bolts up inside the smoke box.  The 102 has them above the clean out,  the 101's are hiding a bit in the handrail shadows.  103 has none and is still a soak.

Superheating has nothing to do with tractive effort.  A soak will start the same train as a superheated engine.  The superheated engine will take the same train and run faster with less fuel and water consumption. 

Earlk Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Superheater clues:
>
> Look for the 5 bolt heads - in a square pattern
> with one in the center on the rear of the
> smokebox, above the center line.  This is where
> the header bolts up inside the smoke box.  The
> 102 has them above the clean out,  the 101's are
> hiding a bit in the handrail shadows.  103 has
> none and is still a soak.
>
Isn't that true only for Elesco's Schmidt superheaters?

-LD



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/25/20 19:09 by LarryDoyle.

Re: LD's post...


ooops..  "tge"  should be 'the'...fat fingers & I-pad.

The Yellowstones...
If you get a look at them --- how 'new' do the driver tires appear to be?
Take the one with the best, thickest tires...   At the end, RRs didn't apply 'new' tires to
those locos that were well worn-out.  They only put tires on good-shape candidates..

A  complete set of nice, thick tires means they expected that more years of service lay ahead.
That makes all the other stuff relatively 'fresh', too.

Following  new tires, I look for freeze-up damage to busted castings, etc. 
if the basics are good..you get to operating the engine very quickly.... get it running,
make money, then build a 'priorities list' of complete sub-systems that you want 
to  'go-over', lay-out a 5-year 'projects' schedule..

Seek to improve, & avoid the temptation to take everything apart and play with the pieces..
That is the most risky factor in working on engines that are in very good condition.
Bring it along as it gets better, improve, improve and add today's materials where best suited.

Avoid piddling round with 'junkers', with old, thin tires, worn-out, patched boilers.
Engines too small to haul a decent, modern train.

Realistically, there really isn't any future in these behemoths, ever running again...
BUT, if I hit the BIG ONE, we'll have some real FUN!
Right, Ross?

W.
 

LarryDoyle Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Earlk Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Superheater clues:
> >
> > Look for the 5 bolt heads - in a square pattern
> > with one in the center on the rear of the
> > smokebox, above the center line.  This is
> where
> > the header bolts up inside the smoke box.  The
> > 102 has them above the clean out,  the 101's
> are
> > hiding a bit in the handrail shadows.  103 has
> > none and is still a soak.
> >
> Isn't that true only for Elesco's Schm8dt
> superheaters?
>
> -LD

Could be.  Most everything I've ever looked at wondering if it was superheated had some sort of Schmidt Superheater either installed at the facotry or retrofitted later, or had nothing at all...

Interestingly, PRR built a lot of its M1-class 4-8-2s with a Pennsy variant of superheaters.
The PRR used two, vertical superheater headers...on either side of the petticoat-pipe..
The units were arranged with horizontal orientation -- 2-groups of units, as a mirror-image
of each bundle.

I'm not sure of the throttle arrangement.... but, it's not a variant of Elesco's combined superheater header
and multiple poppet, front-end throttle... Possibly PRR used a dome throttle, and a dry-pipe that divides in the smoke box
& into one pipe to each vertical header ...then, tge superheated steam piped to the respective valve and piston on either side.

W.

 

> wcamp1472 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----

> What would be the true, Max, pulling capacity of,
> say, a DM&IR Yellowstone, 2-8-8-4, when starting
> on dry, well-sanded rails, and maybe two
> safeties UP?   ( followed by effective rail-washers...)
> > 120%, 133%, 150%,  of 'rated' Tractive force?

> > W.​

Safeties were set for 240.

I don't think they ever found out for sure what these engines could pull.  Their standard train was 180 cars of 100 tons each, and it doesn't appear they exceeded that.  Maximum ruling grade .62%.  They did not need to take slack to start, either.

-LD

Wowsers....

I'd thought  I'd read about a decending-grade, down-hill towards a loading pier(?) 
Musta been scary..descending with a loaded train..

So, the ruling grade was enrote towards the pier, or towards the mining operation?

W.

Baldwin builder photographs indicate that at least five of Weyerhaeuser Timber Company's mallets came from the factory with sand boxes on the front of the locomotives. These include Klamath Falls's #4 (built in 1934), Longview's #105 and #200 (both built in 1929), and Vail's #111 (built in 1929) and #120 (built in 1936). Therefore Vail's CMO did not have far to look for inspiration.

wcamp1472 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Re: LD's post...
>

> The Yellowstones...
> If you get a look at them --- how 'new' do the
> driver tires appear to be?
> Take the one with the best, thickest tires...  
> At the end, RRs didn't apply 'new' tires to
> those locos that were well worn-out.  They only
> put tires on good-shape candidates..
>
> A  complete set of nice, thick tires means they
> expected that more years of service lay ahead.
> That makes all the other stuff
> relatively 'fresh', too.

I was up there yesterday.  Got down on my hands and knees and inspected the tires.  They look brand new.  As does everything else on that engine - it was well cared for right up to the end, and about the only thing I see that shows wear and tear is some broken arch brick and about a half dozen staybolts that had leaked.

Incidently, this engine still runs!  361 days a year, for 46 years, an electric motor turns the driving wheels for public observation.  Its been calculated that she's put on 27,233 miles for the public without going anywhere!


-LD

wcamp1472 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Interestingly, PRR built a lot of its M1-class
> 4-8-2s with a Pennsy variant of superheaters.
> The PRR used two, vertical superheater
> headers...on either side of the petticoat-pipe..
> The units were arranged with horizontal
> orientation -- 2-groups of units, as a
> mirror-image
> of each bundle.
>
> I'm not sure of the throttle arrangement.... but,
> it's not a variant of Elesco's combined
> superheater header
> and multiple poppet, front-end throttle...
> Possibly PRR used a dome throttle, and a dry-pipe
> that divides in the smoke box
> & into one pipe to each vertical header ...then,
> tge superheated steam piped to the respective
> valve and piston on either side.
>
> W.

The smokebox design appears to be uniquely PRR but the front end throttle and superheater is Worthington.

-LD

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