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

Mon Oct 14 14:44:44 EDT 2019

Ed you are misunderstanding what I am saying.  I  am not talking about the
Y7.  N&W could have built a compound Y that could have been just as fast
and powerful as the A without being overly complex.  It should have helped
them financially and operationally to not have 2 different road freight
locomotives.

John Rhodes

On Mon, Oct 14, 2019, 11:49 AM NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
wrote:

> The point was that N&W’s financial results using its steam locomotives
> were refined to the point that any thoughts of working around the margins
> would probably produce minuscule results.  It was probably a good thing
> that the Y-7 was never built.  It turned out that the Y-6 would run fast
> enough (far faster than anyone else’s Mallets, but that’s another story)
> for those territories where the Y-7 might have worked well.  And the Y-6
> retained the economy of the compound.
>
> The argument has been made that N&W had too many A’s, but, again, what
> would be the benefit?  It’s arguable that they built too many S-1a engines,
> too, but again . . .
>
> - Ed King
>
> *From:* NW Mailing List
> *Sent:* Sunday, October 13, 2019 8:32 PM
> *To:* NW Mailing List
> *Subject:* Re: Was Re: Roller Bearings and the Y6-b, Now Y6b Development
>
> 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
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________
>>>> NW-Mailing-List at nwhs.org
>>>> To change your subscription go to
>>>> http://list.nwhs.org/mailman/options/nw-mailing-list
>>>> Browse the NW-Mailing-List archives at
>>>> http://list.nwhs.org/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/
>>>> ________________________________________
>>>> NW-Mailing-List at nwhs.org
>>>> To change your subscription go to
>>>> http://list.nwhs.org/mailman/options/nw-mailing-list
>>>> Browse the NW-Mailing-List archives at
>>>> http://list.nwhs.org/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/
>>>>
>>> ________________________________________
>>> NW-Mailing-List at nwhs.org
>>> To change your subscription go to
>>> http://list.nwhs.org/mailman/options/nw-mailing-list
>>> Browse the NW-Mailing-List archives at
>>> http://list.nwhs.org/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/
>>>
>> ------------------------------
>> ________________________________________
>> NW-Mailing-List at nwhs.org
>> To change your subscription go to
>> http://list.nwhs.org/mailman/options/nw-mailing-list
>> Browse the NW-Mailing-List archives at
>> http://list.nwhs.org/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/
>> ________________________________________
>> NW-Mailing-List at nwhs.org
>> To change your subscription go to
>> http://list.nwhs.org/mailman/options/nw-mailing-list
>> Browse the NW-Mailing-List archives at
>> http://list.nwhs.org/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/
>>
> ------------------------------
> ________________________________________
> NW-Mailing-List at nwhs.org
> To change your subscription go to
> http://list.nwhs.org/mailman/options/nw-mailing-list
> Browse the NW-Mailing-List archives at
> http://list.nwhs.org/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/
> ________________________________________
> NW-Mailing-List at nwhs.org
> To change your subscription go to
> http://list.nwhs.org/mailman/options/nw-mailing-list
> Browse the NW-Mailing-List archives at
> http://list.nwhs.org/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist6.pair.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20191014/589d16d0/attachment.html>