RE: (erielack) ERIE steam locomotives - K5 and K5A

["Schuyler Larrabee" <schuyler.larrabee_@_verizon.net>]

NOTE: This message had contained at least one image attachment.
To view or download the image(s), click on or cut and paste the
following URL into your web browser:


http://lists.railfan.net/listthumb.cgi?erielack-02-24-07

Cast_bed_from_41_Cyc_p672.jpg (image/jpeg, 2094x820 930596 bytes, BF: 1.85 ppb)

 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Janet & Randy Brown [mailto:jananran_@_mymailstation.com] 
> Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2007 6:30 AM
> To: erielack_@_lists.elhts.org
> Subject: Re:(erielack) ERIE steam locomotives - K5 and K5A
> 
> Warning: This is nit-picking at its finest, performed by 
> professionl Nit Pickers.  You may not want to try this at home.

Actually, not. While we're deep into some fairly obscure differences, they're major differences
between locomotives over time.  This is real historical analysis.  And you say that below.
 
> Trailing truck:
> My statement was meant to help modellers and fans 
> differentiate easily between K5 and K5A locomotives.  The one 
> consistent and irrefutable difference was the trailing truck. 

True as far as it goes.  But the three rebuilt K5s have Deltas.

> A Commonwealth cast "delta" (from its suspension system) 
> meant K5A; the K5 used a built-up assembly with a flat bearing 
> plate between journal and spring -- a Cole.  (The Hodges had 
> a prominent structure rising from the journal to enclose the 
> spring; its suspension system was entirely different from the 
> others.) 

My bad.  I knew there was more to it than a simple Cole, however, and Dan refers to them as
"Cole-Scoville."  Some other class of ERIE steam did have Hodges, which might be the N1.  Not sure
right now.

> None of them ever changed trailing trucks; the work 
> would have been difficult, if not impossible, and pointless.  
> The trailing truck was an integral part of the locomotive's 
> suspension system, not, as we modellers view it, a separate 
> truck flopping around under the cab to use up space .  Change 
> would mean significant re-engineering of at least the tail 
> piece plus the rear of the main frame.  It wasn't done often; 
> never on a K5.

Unless it got the new frame, which sort of inversely validates your point.
 
> Valve gear hanger:
> Perhaps we are talking about different things here.  The 
> hange to which I refer is the boxy thing like a "s" on its 
> tummy from which the valve gear all depends.  It sits above 
> the first driver. On the originals, the outside of this was 
> flanged and heavily, visibly bolted.  The rebuilds used a 
> newer, smoother cast version, readily indentifiable in photos 
> by the lack of flanging top and bottom.  Both were bolted to 
> a crosstie which also supported the crosshead guide system -- 
> alligator (earlier) or multiple-bearing (later).
> The cast engine bed, as shown at Biernacki,  p33, has cast 
> integrally the crosstie to which the valve gear hanger and 
> the crosshead guide system are all bolted; the hangers were 
> separate castings.

Yeah, that's right.  That photo on p33 is attached, though I scanned it a long time ago from the '41
Cyc.  The actual hanger, the longitudinal part, is cast, but not an integral part of the frame.  The
photo on page 49 (top) of Dan's book is probably the best illustration of the bolts.  My statement
"That [photo of 2943] shows you the one-piece-cast-as-part-of-the-replacement-frame valve gear
hanger.  It is completely different, and has not been modeled in any commercial model in HO (or O,
AFAIK)," isn't quite correct, though the last part holds.  My apologies.  The attached illustration,
for those [philistines  8^)] who don't have either the '41 Cyc or Dan's book, shows the precise
extent of what was cast in one piece.  [BTW, it's generally conceded that the contemporary steel
industry today cannot reproduce this piece.]
 
> Drivers:
> Eleven K5s received full sets of BoxPok drivers, either 
> before or during rebuild.  Sources are Locomotive Quarterly; 
> Route of the Erie Limited; Erie Power; Eastern Steam Pictorial.

Which eleven?  I haven't collected that many numbers.  I see 2915, 2916, 2920, 2922, 2930, 2932,
2934, seven of the 2815-2934 K5 class.  Not a challenge, Randy, just looking to compare notes.
> 
> I still have to force myself to say "spoke", not Spock; it 
> is, of course, logical.

It took me years . . . 


SGL


	The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List
	Sponsored by the ELH&TS
	http://www.elhts.org
	To Unsubscribe: http://lists.elhts.org/erielackunsub.html

------------------------------