The K3 Mountains

Tue Feb 10 07:17:24 EST 2015

Mason - 

Their use on the Buchanan Branch was an effort to find out where they would work without showing their faults; if the crews liked them, it was because they couldn’t haul the tonnage of a Y and would therefore have to be used in multiples .  

They were built for fast freight service.  They were to be N&W’s answer to the Super Power Berkshires.  They didn’t do that.  They were used on the Bristol Line local freight trains, according to material I read at Bristol Shop years ago.  They weren’t actually fast enough for that, either.

Misused?  No.  Misconceived?  Yes.

EdKing

From: NW Mailing List 
Sent: Monday, February 09, 2015 9:02 PM
To: 'NW Mailing List' 
Subject: RE: The K3 Mountains

Group,

To add to the discussion, perhaps the K3s were misused. Before the arrival of the Class A they were used in manifest freight service. Although they were not intended for the type of service following, I remember reading in the N&W Magazine accounts of them being used successfully on the Buchanan branch on the climb up and over Raitt hill. The crews who used them preferred them to the Class Y mallets. 

Mason Cooper

From: NW-Mailing-List [mailto:nw-mailing-list-bounces at nwhs.org] On Behalf Of NW Mailing List
Sent: Sunday, February 8, 2015 10:29 PM
To: NW Mailing List
Subject: Re: The K3 Mountains

adb - 

There was a general dissatisfaction communicated to the MP department, but the boss, Alexander Kearney, stayed put until he was thrown off a horse and met his demise.  That was when Russell Henley became Superintendent of Motive Power.

IMHO the K-3 was misconceived, but I have the benefit of 90 years of hindsight; it should have been a 2-8-4 instead of a 4-8-2 (it could have had a shorter main rod), but my guess is that Kearney didn’t want to go that way.  It was known, too, that 63”-drivered Super Power engines elsewhere were not known as particularly good riders or easy on track (T&P put disc main drivers on its 63” 2-10-4s to make them good for 60MPH which required a driver RPM of 320).  The K-3 was a fierce looking machine, though.

Notwithstanding the K-3, N&W’s experience in counterbalancing took a fantastic upturn, so that the Class A and the later Y’s were excellent at high driver RPM and there may never, anywhere, have been a steam locomotive as perfectly balanced as the J, which was completely comfortable at driving wheel RPM of well over 500.  The PRR people riding the 610 when it tested between Crestline and Chicago recorded a speed of 111 MPH, at which the drivers were turning at 532 RPM (assuming new tires; if the tires were worn the RPM would have been higher; one-half inch of tire wear, resulting in a driver diameter of  69 inches, would have meant an RPM of 540.5 at 111 MPH).  The PRR people stated (read Dave Stephenson’s story in the ARROW) that the only engine PRR ever had that rode better than the J was their 6-4-4-6, which had 84” Baldwin Disc drivers; the K4 Pacifics, M1 Mountains and even the T1 4-4-4-4s weren’t as good.  Not only did the J ride well, its valve gear was so well designed that it could attain that speed without resorting to the use of poppet valves.

Ed King

From: NW Mailing List 

Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2015 6:14 PM

To: N&W Mailing List 

Subject: The K3 Mountains

Internal politics tend to be covered up and generally linger on only in the fuzzy memories and often embellished tales of old men.

But is it known who, in the Motive Power Department,  took the heat for the design faults and the generally lackluster performance of the K3 class Mountains?

That is to say, was anyone's career "cut short" by the situation with the K3's?

-- abram burnett

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