Re: (erielack) Advisory Mechanical Committee

[Njricky2_@_aol.com]

In a message dated 8/5/06 7:46:52 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  RJFlei_@_aol.com 
writes:
 
Rick,
 
Thanks very much for an extremely informative piece. If my dad was still  
alive, he having been a big steam fan, would have enjoyed this immensely. I sure  
did.
 
Rick Sedlisky

To  Philip Martin,

What was the Advisory Mechanical Committee? The answer  to this can be found 
in many sources. Books that have to do with the Erie,  Nickel Plate Road, 
Chesapeake & Ohio, and the Pere Marquette have bits  and pieces of 
information on the 
AMC. Try " The Nickel Plate Story" , "The  Van Sweringen Berkshires", "The 
Allegheny, Lima's Finest", "Chessie's  Road", "C&O Power", and "Erie Power". 

This all has to do with the  Van Sweringen brothers of Cleveland, Ohio. They 
were real estate  developers and had developed a suburb of Cleveland called 
Shaker Heights.  They wanted to put in a rapid transit system to connect 
Shaker 
Heights to  downtown Cleveland. These guys were not railroaders. 

At that time the  NKP was a part of the the New York Central and I think that 
the government  forced the NYC to divest itself of the NKP.  The "Vans" 
bought 
the  NKP to obtain a right of way into Cleveland. I think this was about 
1916.  

After aquiring the NKP, the Vans also aquired the Erie RR, the  C&O, and the 
PM. After the purchase of these railroads, the Vans  decided to form the 
Advisory Mechanical Committee to pool each road's  engineering talent, and 
use common 
designs for the purpose of cutting  costs and standardizing parts for the 
four 
roads. 

From what I have  heard, the AMC was headquartered in Cleveland, and had 
offices in the  Terminal Tower downtown. I think this is where their design 
work was 
done.  Someone correct me if I'm wrong please. The Van Sweringens also built  
Cleveland Union Terminal and the Terminal Tower. 

Among things that  the AMC did was to design rolling stock and locomotives 
for 
the  participating railroads.  A couple of the top designers (mechanical  
engineers), came from the Erie RR. I believe one of them was William  Black. 

Several famous locomotives were designed by these guys. The  first of these 
was the Erie's 3300 series Berkshires. As I go on you will  see the influence 
of 
the AMC on the member RR's. 

In the late '20's  the C&O needed a new locomotive for coal service and they 
borrowed  Erie Berk # 3377? for testing on coal trains. In 1930 they produced 
the  C&O class T-1 2-10-4's by expanding the Erie Berk into a Texas type. If  
you 
look at it, the T-1 kinda looks like an Erie S class engine. And look  at the 
class designation. The Erie engine was the "S" class and the  C&O was the "T" 
class. Right in sequence ! The T-1 was a smashing  success in the service for 
which it was designed , just like the Erie  3300's. These engines replaced 
2-8-8-2's in coal train service AND were  fast enough to be used for time 
freights in 
hilly country, when needed.  They normally handled 160 car, 13,500 ton, coal 
trains between Russell,  KY. and Toledo, Oh. During WWII  on these engines 
were 
copied by the  Pennsylvania RR and were of the J-1 class. 

Later on the NKP needed a  new locomotive to speed up it's time freights on 
it's water level, single  track, mainline. The AMC went back to work. They 
took 
70% of the  dimensions of the C&O class T-1's and came up with the now famous 
NKP  class S Berkshires. These engines were a bit smaller than the Erie's 
3300's  
but had more effficient boilers. They had a tractive effort that was the  
same 
as the road's H-6 Class Mikados with the boosters cut in. The H-6's  were 
replaced by the Berks in high speed service. The first of the class  was 
built in 
1934. 

The NKP Berks were designed to handle a 4,000  ton freight train (about 80 
cars) at 70 mph. on level track. This is  something they did every day. Many 
were 
also equipped for passenger  service. In the transition to diesels you'll 
notice that the NKP never  owned and F units. That's because the NKP 700's 
were 
equal to an A-B-A set  of EMD F-3's in fast freight service. To get better 
performance, they  would have had to add a fourth unit to the consist, and 
that would 
have  resulted in higher initial costs, AND higher operating costs. 

About  the same time the Pere Marquette needed a more modern locomotive  to  
handle it's business. The AMC came up with the N class Berkshires that  were 
based on the NKP class S, except these engines had cylinders with a  26" bore 
instead of the NKP's 25" bore. If you look at locomotive  pictures, the PM  N 
class 
was a dead ringer for a NKP class  S.

In the 1930's the Vans both died but, somehow the AMC survived the  break-up 
of the Vans RR empire. 

In the 1940's the C&O needed a  new design for their time freights and the 
AMC 
updated the PM class N to  the C&O's class K-4 Kanawha. These were dual 
service engines.  

The AMC also designed the C&O's H-8 class 2-6-6-6 Alleghenies. The  first ten 
that came from Lima in 1941 were the heaviest reciprocating  steam 
locomotives 
ever built. Not only that but, they also had the highest  drawbar horsepower 
ever recorded with a dynamometer car, at 7,498 DBHP at  46 mph., on a 14, 075 
ton 
train. This happened in 1943. This information  came from the book, The 
Allegheny, Lima's Finest. 

AMC influence  can also be found in the C&O's Hudsons and Greebriars. The 
Hudsons  were designed to handle a 15 car passenger train at 90 mph. The 
Greebriars  
were designed for passenger service on the C&O's Mountain Subdivision.  If 
you 
had a chance to see C&O      4-8-4  # 614  on those trains from Hoboken to 
Port jervis, you really got a fine show.  

After doing some personal research, I found that there are also an  awful lot 
of similarities between the boilers of the Erie's 3300's and the  C&O's 
4-8-4's. They're so similar that it's scary. 

In addition  to this, they also designed other equipment. 

Well, I hope this helps  in your search for information on the AMC.

Rick Fleischer
Cortland,  OH. 


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