High Speed Steam Loco Running

I'm opening this thread because it's been getting very interesting eleswhere, but in the "What's Going On" Forum.

Better to be here I think! So it is rather a "jump start", coming in as it does below. But the objective is to talk through high speed steam locomotives worldwide. Something I have been researching for some years now.

The debate on the other thread had moved to considering German 18 201 against some of the achievments in the USA.

Yes. Those French pacifics hold the European record for the most number of times an individual loco class exceeded 100 mph! All because of the pantograph tests. Although I don't know how many 100 mph plus runs were done in total by 05 001 and 05 002 when they were being developed and put through their paces.

I guess worldwide the Milwaukee six F7s probably hold the record for the most prolific 100 mph class. For a number of years 100 mph plus was essential to keep time on the daily Hiawathas. Although their four A1 Atlantics are probably a close second! Just looking at two published logs shows 13 separate 100 mphs on two Hiawatha runs behind the Atlantics! I wonder how many times those ten locos reached and exceeded 110 mph, before the civil engineering costs saw the crews being told to keep down to a 100 mph!

I guess if I was given the choice of building just one loco that is now extinct I would go for the F7! Imagine heading out of St Paul with the Hiawatha rake behind, the 1940 schedule and a crew told, "no maximum speed limits today guys". Plus modern gps etc timing methods. Yes, I know sensible analysis has said the A1 Atlantics may possibly have had the edge in terms of outright speed, but those F7s just looked wonderful. Just reading CJ Allens book, "..the lighter 465 ton train........F7 4-6-4 no 100......Eastbound Morning Hiawatha....148 individual miles at 90 mph or over............a 98.3 average over one 62 mile section, (pass to pass I assume!)......start to stop Sparta to Portage, 78.3 miles in 57 mins 15 seconds, ( Just inside the schedule!). Included two service slacks close together of 40 mph, plus three other slight service slacks.

Then another reported run with decent load train! F7 4-6-4 no 101 on 680 tons! A 104.9 mph average pass to pass average over a 47.8 miles section, including a service slack to 90 mph. Then an F7 reported to have run 62 miles at a pass to pass average of 100.5 mph on a 780 ton train.

US tons are just under 90% of a UK ton.

OK. Gotta have a look at an F7 again!



Photo No. 104 at Milwaukee on 22/9/40. By Edwin Wilson via the Don Ross Collection

 

foreign rubbish!

 

Any need Mr LN850? :-k

If you're not interested leave it to those who are.

 

That is quite a beast! Very impressive.

 

Very impressive. Unfortunately, US high speed runs were not properly documented, so we'll never really know how fast.


In contrast, this video of Tangmere provides conclusive evidence of high-speed running - 80mph on the return run??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o26WD1vGcY

 

I have no doubt that "foreign rubbish" influenced the design of the A4 / Duchess streamlining, or at least the designers thought processes

 

Not fully correct.

Thankfully a number of European timers did get to the USA at various times and did produce documentation of what was happening there.

That meant that some hint of what was happening on some of steam routes is perserved for all time. Not just those magnificent Hiawathas, which I believe was the zenith of fast running steam loco performance worldwide.

One such route that was documented by those early European timers was the Philadelphia & Reading RR route from Camden to Atlantic City. Circa 1905 the schedule was 50 minutes for 55½ miles for the P5 Camelback Atlantics. In May 1905 Sir William Ackroyd recorded 42 minutes 33 seconds for the distance behind a slightly smaller P4 Camelback: a 78.3 mph average later considered a world record for some time by C J Allen. An earlier 46 minute run timed by Norman McDonald had seen 35 miles covered at an 83 mph average. That indicates Sir William Ackroyd's much quicker run could easily have seen speeds well into the 90s. Years later in 1926 Baron Gerard Vuillet visited the head offices of the P & R RR and found other fast run details, including one on 14th June 1907 where P5 No. 343 had run the distance in 41 minutes exactly, covering one mile in 36 seconds; an average speed of 100 mph. What a pity he didn't publish the full detail of that latter run. It would have given at least a chance of determining if no 343 was the first steam loco to have been properly documented at 100 mph.

But as far as the really very fast USA steam runs are concerned, yes that vital documentation has seemingly gone where it ever existed. And that includes dynanamometer car speed traces for some of the test runs.

Oh. The "foreign rubbish" comment. Not the first time I have come up against that sort of comment! Throughout my research and especially after I posted the results on my web sites there has been an underlying current of "anything that didn't happen in the UK doesn't count", or "if it was reported as happening in the UK it must have been correct".

Sadly a number of key steam locomotive speed claims made for UK steam locomtives, wonderful machines that they are, have not withstood the scrutiny of UK performance steam locomotive enthusiasts. A current body of people who have shown themsleves to be highly objective and very accurate in the hobby they pursue.

 

I can't possibly think as to what loco your referring to 8-[

I must admit to taking a passing interest in 18.201's exploits, but some of the American claims ive read are just laughable, doesn't really help the cause for the few official ones i guess.

 

And that is the challenge. Seeking out the creditable performances and discounting the obvious ludicrous ones. And as mentioned above, we just have to be so grateful for the wandering European timers who knew their craft well and went and practised it in the USA.

18 201 is well worth taking an interest in! I was on the 5th May 2002 102 mph run. Along with John Barnes, so we had two UK timers to produce the most comprehensive and accurate record of a steam 100 mph run ever. Electronic stopwatches allowing "continuous electronic timing" and my lovely, lovely late wife Bobbie using the GPS unit. Still the only person to record a steam 100 mph run with one! We'd come out with 18 201 from Nurnberg to Wien, (Vienna), behind 18 201 so she had many hours of experience of using the device, lovely kind lady that she was.

If it hadn't been for a chance phone call I made to Munich to the organisers of those 18 201 runs, no Brit would have been present , and no timing of the run done!

 

I have a VHS video,On the Tracks,Vintage Rails,which concentrates on the Norfolk and Western Railway mainline passenger working,also freight and branch line working.Some of the passenger working is very impressive,although using a 4 - 8 - 4 streamlined loco on branch line working with 2 or 3 coaches seems a bit like overkill.
The cassette is a Laserlight video No 80 649.
Colin.

 

Judge Dread's own steam loco!! What colour was it? I'm imagining yellow, blue and maybe orange.

 

Indeed it did.
Gresley was inspired by the Pennsy K4 Pacifics in the US and the A4 front end owes a lot to Chapelon the French engineer. Steam is steam no matter where it comes from.

 

Ah. A mention of Chapelon!

Not a designer of very fast steam locos for regular passenger services. But what a champion of compound designs and superlative hill climbing with heavy loads in mainland Europe.

 

The Hiwatha's are in a different class - these were service trains where the schedule actually called for the achievement of 100mph on a regular basis. They must have been the fastest steam worked _service_ of all time. Most other steam 100mph runs are either test trains or specials, with the occasional exploit when making up time.

Not the A4's, their influences were French and German, at least as far as the streamlining goes. Gresley had of course been influenced by US practice from an early stage in his career. I don't know if the Hiawatha's (either class) were ever tested to see if their streamlining was 'active' - It doesn't actually look highly aerodynamic, particularly on the F7's.

 

Not the A4's, their influences were French and German, at least as far as the streamlining goes. Gresley had of course been influenced by US practice from an early stage in his career. I don't know if the Hiawatha's (either class) were ever tested to see if their streamlining was 'active' - It doesn't actually look highly aerodynamic, particularly on the F7's.[/quote:2tdllftl]

Yes. The Hiawathas were in a class of their own. Their amazingly regular fast running is so well highlighted by a comment from Brian Reed that at some point the Civil Engineers asked the drivers to keep down to just 100 mph running because of wear on the track

It is just possible, when there were two Hiawathas running in both directions, and at the peak of their highest speed running period, two or three days of the Hiawathas could have seen more individual steam loco 100 mphs recorded than have been done in the entire history of UK steam loco operation. The last time anyone tried to put together a list of all UK steam loco 100 mphs it was, ( I think), somewhere just over 70. I am talking there about those properly authenticated with surviving documentation to prove them. Not the "My dad told me that my grandfather as a driver at xxxxx depot and once got his xxxx class loco over the 100 mark" type of stories!

Listing and posting on line details of all authentic UK steam loco 100 mphs is something I plan to start work on very soon.

 

I've moved the last part of a long discussion about speed that was going off topic on the Bulleid thread, (next post).

I am so sorry to others here for being such a pain with my postings about high speed steam loco running. Having been very, very lucky to have recorded a number of such runs,(100 mph and above), including being on the footplate of 35003 the night it reached 106 mph, the subject has become of great interest to me. I was also so fortunate to be on the only steam 100 mph of the 21st century. Sadly not in the UK, but a German loco in Austria.

Anyway, I will try and steer relevant posts in this direction in future much quicker when they start to dominate other threads.

One thing I will put here, is that discussion about high speed with steam locos will always generate a bit of heat!

The number of people who have become highly competent train timers and analysts of steam loco performance are very few. We have between us an enormous understanding of how to time runs correctly. How to validate them afterwards and how to determine what did happen and what couldn't have happened. A number of my peers in the field are acknowledged world experts on the subject and have a far greater understanding of the whole subject than me.

I will also say, as someone who reached the highest level in a railway career, (and whose last job extended to every single part of the industry), that such detailed knowledge of proper train timing does not extend to within the railway industry. Or at least it did not in my day. That is one reason that such famous steam loco analysts as C J Allen, and Baron Gerard Vuillet, (in France and further afield), used to be given such close access to railway operations. Such expertise was not available within the industry and was welcomed from time to time.

To time accurately at high speed is not something you can just set out one day to do! Because Basinsgtoke to Woking became the racing ground it did at the end of steam, certain "steps" were taken by train timers.Three individuals, (no names , no pack drill, but I wasn't one of them), spent one night walking the lineside and painting every milepost between Fanborough and Hook white so we could see them at night! A friend and myself spent some time over a number of 'ordinary " runs establishing the exact distance at an obvious point on the stations etc on that route. By choosing something like an over bridge or a building that would have a light on at night. Both of us starting our stop watches at the milepost before the station. One stopping it at the timing point and the other stopping at the next milepost. Simple mathematics then gave a very accurate distance to use for future passing times at that location.

We knew the mileposts that were inaccurate and didn't use them. MP 41 between Winchfield and Hook was the worst!

And so it went on.

All this set the base for what then was the only accurate way of timing trains. Sitting in the train with a stop watch, (1/10th second capability), with which record speeds over 1/4 or 1/2 mile sections. And a reliable wrist watch with a second hand with which to record passing times to the nearest second at station, signal boxes, main mileposts etc where the exact distance was know. So a full log could be constructed of the entire journey where the average speed over consecutive sections could be subsequently calculated as a check on individual stop watch speed readings. It is that latter point that is crucial in assessing and confirming the highest speed in a journey. What were the average speeds in the build up and slow down from the maximum? Did they support the maximum?

It is on that particular point that so many of the "single time between locations" speed estimates fall totally flat. No other supporting data. Add in the fact that all I have ever seen or heard of were taken from times recorded at the stations, (or in signal boxes), mainly not to the nearest second. Involving a clock/watch at different locations, often to the nearest minute! Using distances from timetable rather than the exact distance, etc etc. A recipe for producing astonishing speeds that bear no resemblance to reality.

And all of that comes before the calculations of loco hp start! Which is the really great leveller. The laws of physics cannot be beaten.

I have not posted the above to antagonise or win over anyone who supports a very high steam speed that has no documentary evidence, and/or an instance that far exceeds the physical capability of that loco. My experience of dealing with very many people in this area, (in my worldwide research into the subject), is that us timers have never really bothered to explain why the efforts we put in produce the accurate results that they do. And why the "once off attempts" taken by various railway companies to establish a maximum speed are almost universally doomed to failure. That is why when a proper record of a high speed was needed a railway company had to attach a dynamometer car. And as I have already found out, they were not always totally reliable either! (More of that much later on).

Hope this doesn't sound like a lecture. It's not meant to be, and I apologize if it comes across like one. It's intended as an explanation as why the only high speed runs that get accepted by those who understand the subject in great detail, are those with full documentation that have withstood the subsequent tests of "do all average speeds for the entire trip look sensible" and of course the final test of "could the loco have actually produced the ihp to have done that!"

Editing to sort out typos etc!

 

Now to get back to that rather fiery thread!

 

I'm not even a beginner in the art of train timing and performance analysis but have read much of the work by OS Nock, CJ Allen, PWB Semmens and MIke Notley to realise that it is a complex art and is little understood by many. Once you've grasped how these guys achieve their results you soon realise that to make speed claims based on guards' logs, signalbox registers and station passing times is utterly pointless. I really feel sorry for the driver disciplined for the "120+" run of 21C160 if that is all the evidence that was available. You make an interesting comment regarding the accuracy of dynamometer cars, on occasions the likes of CJ Allen and OS Nock were invited to time the train as a back up even when a dynamometer car was part of the consist. Keep up this most interesting thread.