Pushing in Reverse

[NW Mailing List]

That’s a fun photo, Ken and Ron. But it prompts a question.

My understanding of steam locomotives is that leading trucks were primarily in place for guidance and countering nosing at speed, where trailing trucks were for carrying weight (specifically large fireboxes). I vaguely remember reading somewhere that locomotives like the Y’s (i.e. low-drivered 2-8-8-0s) had the trailing truck added for guiding backup moves. 

Was there any centering action on the trailing wheel of the Y’s, or was it a passive weight carrier? If they did center, was that guiding action built for road speeds or simply to keep the #8 driver from rolling rail in low-speed reverse motion?

From the photos, it’s clear Y’s were run at road speed in reverse motion, but were they built for it? Or was their speed limited when running in reverse?

Matt Goodman
Columbus, Ohio, US

> On Mar 7, 2021, at 9:42 AM, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
> 
> Or this:
> 
> https://www.nwhs.org/archivesdb/detail.php?ID=203848
> 
> Interesting view.
> 
> Ken Miller
> 
>> On Mar 7, 2021, at 9:38 AM, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
>> 
>> This photo caught my eye of an unidentified Class Y pushing in reverse.
>> 
>> https://www.nwhs.org/archivesdb/detail.php?ID=208335
>> 
>> As there was nowhere for pushers to turn on the east side of the Blue Ridge I imagine that most westbound pusher moves looked like this.
>> 
>> Ron Davis
>> ________________________________________
>> 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/20210307/d588e462/attachment.html>