Was Re: Roller Bearings and the Y6-b, Now Y6b Development

Sun Oct 13 20:32:33 EDT 2019

The N&W did a great job and I am not trying to cast dispersion on them.  I
am not trying to nit-pick them, I am trying to think about what if.  But it
is interesting to think about what the result would have been if coal
trains on the Kenova and Columbus Districts and east of Roanoke were
operated with improved Y engines that had equal speed capability as the
A's.  Would it have improved locomotive utilization to the point to have
increased N&W's profitability?

John Rhodes

On Sun, Oct 13, 2019 at 7:24 PM NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
wrote:

> I find it difficult to second-guess N&W’s motive power decisions in the
> 1950s.  For the all-steam part of that decade they were carrying gross
> income over to net at a rate that was the envy of the industry while
> handling a low-revenue commodity .  They were sparring with the mighty
> Union Pacific for the top spot in gross ton miles per train hour.  If
> people want to nit-pick their decisions, they’ll have to come upwith some
> very impressive facts that nobody else ever thought of to prove their
> points.  A case could be made that coal trains on the Kenova and Columbus
> Districts and east of Roanoke  could have been handled more economically
> with Y engines, but it couldn’t have been handless as fast, and locomotive
> utilization might have suffered.
>
> So I, for one, am content to enjoy what they did do rather than try to
> think up things I think they should have done.  Wnen I hired out on N&W in
> 1959 they were paying a $6.50 dividend on their common stock, the highest
> on the nYSE.
>
> - Ed King
>
> *From:* NW Mailing List
> *Sent:* Saturday, October 12, 2019 8:32 PM
> *To:* List NWHS
> *Subject:* Re: Was Re: Roller Bearings and the Y6-b, Now Y6b Development
>
> So no opinions on what the result on N&W's operations would be if they had
> one loco instead of having to use both A's and Y's?
>
> John Rhodes
>
> On Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 12:19 PM NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
> wrote:
>
>> All,
>> N&W instead of expanding the speed capability of the Y Class they created
>> the A Class to take care of Fast Freight, flatter districts and the
>> occasional heavy passenger train.  Later they realized that a single engine
>> type to do all freight jobs would be better for the railroad operationally
>> and financially.  N&W started investigating the Y7 for this role, assuming
>> larger drivers and abandoning compound operation was necessary to meet the
>> objective of a general purpose freight locomotive.
>>
>> I propose that in about 1930, N&W could have sped up the compound 58"
>> drivered Y Class to allow it to also do everything that the Class A did as
>> well so that the Class A would have never been designed or built.
>>
>> There are 2 issues to a Y class doing the work of an A. 1. Maximum speed
>> and 2. Drop off of drawbar pull at higher speed.
>>
>> With respect to 1. The size of the low pressure cylinders and lack of
>> ability to balance them for 70 mph is the issue. Dividing the 2 huge lp
>> cylinders into 3 reasonable sized lp cylinders on 120 degree separation
>> would likely have allowed 70 mph balancing.
>>
>> Also the volume of the lp cylinders is driven by the volume of the hp
>> cylinders. The hp cylinders size on the Y class is driven by tractive
>> effort requirements for the 4 axles of the hp engine.  The lp engine due to
>> size and the starting valve has no issue producing as much tractive effort
>> as needed. Changing the wheel arrangement to 2-10-6-4 would have helped in
>> allowing smaller hp and lp cylinders and balancing while keep TE high.
>>
>> Also the 3 cylinder  lp engine with less torque variation in a rotation
>> should allow the lp engine to produce 25000 pounds of TE per axle vs 20000.
>> So a 3 lp cylider Y class should have been capable of 180000 to 185000
>> pounds of TE versus 160000ish pounds of rating TE for a Y5 Y6.
>>
>> The second issue is drop of of drawbar pull at higher speed.  This is an
>> issue of steam flow and pressure drops. A 3 cylinder lp engine and also
>> reducing the cylinder sizes in general will help this tremendously.  But
>> having 2 piston valves per cylinder with the longest practical travel lap
>> and lead will greatly improve middle range and top end power without
>> hurting the low end.  High lead in valve gears can make a locomotive
>> slippery at low speed so variable lead based on cutoff like DRGW did would
>> be appropriate based on what the N&W did with the Y Class.
>>
>> The live and intermediate steam piping from the dome through the
>> superheater throttle  and cylinder steam ports should have cross section of
>> 25% of the cylinder faces not 8-10% on the Y class.
>>
>> Also the Y class need more  steam chest volume about 125% of the cylinder
>> volume.
>>
>> More superheat like 850 degrees Farenheit would have helped but probably
>> required saturated steam cooling of the valve liners.
>>
>> Also resuperheating of the exhaust steam to the lp engine would help.
>> More feedwater heat extraction using a 2 stage setup with open and closed
>> type stages. Basically adding a 2nd shell and tube stage to a Worthington
>> FWH would work.
>>
>> When finished with this you would end up with a loco of similar weight
>> and size but have 70 mph top speed 185000 pounds TE and likely 7000 drawbar
>> horsepower on the same coal and water consumption as a Y.
>>
>> And in the end Stuart Saunders would have dieselized anyway.
>>
>> John Rhodes
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Oct 10, 2019 at 8:10 AM NW Mailing List via NW-Mailing-List <
>> nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
>>
>>> I'd like to throw another possible reason - roller bearing rods have
>>> large hubs and may have interfered with the clearance limits on  the lower
>>> part of the N&W's load gauge.  With the Y6's 58" drivers and 32" stroke,
>>> there's not a lot of room  for a roller bearing rod hub.  IIRC, load gauge
>>> interference was a problem with the P&LE's 2-8-4's and they had
>>> conventional solid bearing rods and 63" drivers.
>>>
>>> Dave Stephenson
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wednesday, October 9, 2019, 9:58:26 PM EDT, NW Mailing List <
>>> nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> Bill
>>>
>>>       If you’re a Trainorders member (I am not)you can go back and read
>>> Wes Camp’s writing on this subject recently . Very interesting  There were
>>>
>>> a lot of reasons why probably it never happened .
>>>
>>> Larry Evans
>>>
>>>
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