Fw: (erielack) Re: To tie somethings together - ERIE Texas Types

["Schuyler G Larrabee" <sgl2_@_ix.netcom.com>]

You wrote:
> 1. Your premise that the an Erie 2-10-4 would be bigger than any other.
> I doubt that it would have been possible to build anything significantly
> larger than the Santa-Fe 5000's, at least not with standard guage,
> whatever the clearances might be.  The C&O T-1's (and Pennsy J's,
> obviously) were almost as large.  It's interesting that when the Sana Fe
> 5000's were on the PRR, they found that they had more high speed power
> than the J-1, put less grunt to start a train.

The C&O and PRR 2-10-4's are not in the same league, they are comparatively
dinky.  T1 drivers were only 69", the J's were 70", vs the 77 projected for
the ERIE engine. The tenders were virtually the same size, though the J1
tender held 4000 Gal less water.

As to the SF engines, the 5000's have 74" drivers, large, but not up to the
77" shown on the ERIE diagram.  And the driving wheelbase for the 5000's is
26'-2", shorter than than the ERIE's 26'-8".  Engine length SF 5000, 66'-3",
over the pilot, compared to 62'-10.5", pilot BEAM to the rear buffer for the
ERIE.  And the 5000 is 15'-11" tall, vs 16'-4".  TF for the C&O, not
including booster: 93,350. PRR: 93,750.  ERIE (calculated, obviously)
88,000.  Big influence here is the ATSF boiler pressure at 310#, vs the ERIE
260#, quite a difference!  Weights:  C&O 566,000+415,000=981,000.  PRR not
available (to me, now, anyway).  ERIE, 560,000+366,000=926,000.  OK, not big
differences, but the ERIE engine IS bigger physically, though a little
lighter and less powerful, at least without a booster engine, which
surprises me.  So, I guess that the ERIE engines are a little bigger but not
by much.

And that wasn't a premise, but a guess.


> All the talk about the Erie's huge clearances from the standard guage
> days is exaggerated.  Standard guage gave large clearances in 1900 - the
> difference was pretty much history by 1930, at least at the East End.

Standard gauge wasn't the issue, 6' gauge was, along with the fact that the
ERIE cleared a very wide ROW when it was originally built.  They were
planning ahead a lot.  Clearly, the fact that the ERIE was the preferred
route for high and wides lends some credence to the larger loading guage
over most other railroads.  In spite of PRR being in the forefront of
building larger freight cars which they pretty much forced on the rest of
the industry, the PRR loading gauge is fairly small, even today.

> 2. You make the statment that the PRR didn't know it needed a modern
> 2-10-4 for 13 years.  I agree with that up to a point.  Unlike a lot of
> competitve roads (Erie & C&0 being two of them), the Pennsy had large
> numbers of a perfectly satisfactory heavy freight engine in the I-1
> Decapod.  There was nothing on any other road that could deliver that
> kind of power as economically as that engine in the late teen's and early
> 20's.

I detect a PRR apologist here . . . I can't convince you, and you can't
convince me . . . but if you read _Set Up Running_ (which is  a great book)
you will find that even a PRR "homer" didn't think that much of the hippos.

> Think of the money the Erie wasted on triplexes, etc. when it could have
> had a simple engine that delivered 90,000 lbs tractive effort and still
> run 40 mph.  With 598 of them available, the PRR simply didn't have the
> need to look for a faster freight engine for a very long time.

Or so they thought . . .

> When they finally did, they were not forced to pick the C&O T-1
> exclusively.  Remember that they also tested the N&W Class A 2-6-6-4.
> The rigid framed 2-10-4 turned out to be a better choice for their
> mountain railroad (the Class A slipped repeatedly on Horseshoe Curve),
> and when, you think about it, the 2-10-4 is simply a modern version of a
> 2-10-0 - an arrangement they were very comfortable with.

I can't look at the 62" drivers on the hippos and seriously think that they
are just an early version of a 2-10-4.  Sorry.

> True, The Pennsy didn't design the 2-10-4, but they did take the best one
> available and made it better than it was.

Not much better by the statistics.

SGL
>
> Best regards,
>
> Al Zinn

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