Where is the missing S160?

Looking at my notes from Olesnice works on 22/8/93 'Liberation' Tr202.19 (in pretty poor condition) was near #162 but Tr202.28 had already left as we saw it at Jaworzyna later the same day. It wouldn't be unreasonable to expect that the TKr55 boiler could be fitted to an S160 as that's where the chassis came from and the mountings would be the same.
Cheers, Ray.

 

My mistake, it was 19 all the time.

 

It would be bazaar if I'd inadvertently preserved a bit of a loco thought to be extinct!

 

Heck - with that boiler and a spare S160 chassis you could have a Tkr55 'New build'! ... and before anyone gets any ideas I'm only joking. Ray.

 

Certainly better than another boring S160.

Only joking!

 

can we recap? did you find the missing S160 yet?

 

Well yes and no.

We have established Tr203-192 was the missing loco, which no one knew was here, because everyone thought there were 4 Hungarian S160's, but in reality, there were only 3, and the remains of 192.

With me so far? But listed are 4 Hungarian locos ID's, one of which is wrong, but we don;t have full details of 192.

192's boiler is at Cheddleton, along with the ex Chinese S160, and the chassis of 192 is at Ruddington, along with two other ex Hungarian S160's. The numbers of both these engines need to be verified, along with 192's, as it's history is unknown.

The boiler of 192, which is going to be used on the Ex Chinese loco, but as we have discovered, this boiler is not a standard S160 type. It is suspected it could be a rebuilt boiler from a British built Liberation 2-8-0.

Over the weekend, I hope numbers will be found on the Ruddington frames, and pictures taken of 162's boiler at Cheddleton, so we can pin down what is where.

I think that's where we are, except for the ID of one of the cylinder block dona engines, which I posted a pic of earlier.

 

8 Engines:

1631 Alco 70284 Hungary MÁV 411.388 Great Central Railway (Nottingham)

2138 Alco 70620 Hungary MÁV 411.380 Great Central Railway (Nottingham) source of strategic spares for 1631

2253 Baldwin 69496 Poland PKP Tr.203.208 North Yorkshire Moors Railway - Cosmetically overhauled and loaned to National Railway Museum at Shildon until 2015.

3278 Baldwin 70340 Italy FS 736.073; Greece SEK Θγ575 Tyseley previously named #701 Franklin D. Roosevelt

5197 Lima 8856 China Funshum Industrial Railway, #KD6.463 Churnet Valley Railway, being fitted with spare boiler from 162.

5820 Lima 8758 Poland PKP Tr.203.474 Keighley and Worth Valley Railway

6046 Baldwin 72080 Hungary MÁV 411.144 Churnet Valley Railway

Unconfirmed existence

Tr203-192 Great Central Railway (Nottingham) Chassis only, source for strategic spares for 1631

Or

2364 Baldwin 69621 Hungary MÁV 411.xxx Great Central Railway (Nottingham) Chassis only, source for strategic spares for 1631

 

That picture above is the shed Storage line at Chabowka, not Jaworzyna... Have parked locos up on that road myself in the past so I'm quite certain, beyond the gates over the bridge is Chabowka station, the road bridge above the shed in the picture is the main road to zakopane...again I travelled many times as my family has a house 2 miles from here.

Tr202-28 is the one at Jaworzyna, it's state owned, 19 is "semi-privately" owned @chabowka

 

To be pedantic, it's Fushun in pinyin (sans tone marks), or 抚顺 in Chinese.

 

Silly mistake on my part, but blame the kids who were pestering me while I was putting together the post.

I've just been looking at the site for ZNTK Olesnice, and it looks like the works are restoring 3 engines that they have been given by PKP CARGO. They have a Tkt48, Ty2, and a Ty42. All these engines were the main types the works used to overhaul, so for the Hundredth Anniversary of the works, they might have some nice engines to use. I bet they wish they kept all the steam equipment.

 

Any updates guys. like frame numbers, or pics of 162's boiler?

 

I am one of the group restoring S160 ex-Alaska Railroad #557/ex-USATC 3523/Baldwin Locomotive Works builder's number 70480, built in 1944. I've also done considerable research into the engineering drawings and other technical data.

This was an interesting thread and I registered for the forum so I could add a few points.

From everything I have found, Baldwin didn't use the USATC numbers or their builders number when they were building the locomotives. The designation that BLW used in the drawing indexes and on the drawings was "2-8-0 19S" which designated the wheel arrangement, cylinder bore, and that they were steam locomotives. Many of the parts, including rods, valve gear, cab, and frames on our locomotive carry the designation "2-8-0 19S 809," with 809 being the serial number of the locomotive within that BLW class. This scheme of locomotive designations was adopted by BLW in about 1940. (Since the class was a combination of wheel arrangement and cylinder size, not all locomotives with that designation are S160s, and at least one is a totally different design of narrow gauge locomotive. However, most were S160s.)

On our frames, the engine number ("2-8-0 19S 809)" is stamped on the flat surface on the rear of the frames in letters about one inch high. There are other numbers near the serial number on the frame and on other parts but I haven't yet found what they mean. (I also haven't taken a lot of time looking at them.

Through at least 1944 the same boiler assembly drawing was used by Baldwin, Lima, and ALCO. There were differences in some of the internal parts, but the intent was for parts to be interchangeable between locomotives and manufacturers. Some information suggest there was a modification to the design of the boiler in the locomotives built from late 1944 but I have yet to find any of the blue prints to validate what the modifications were.

The 60 5 foot 6 inch gauge Indian locomotives and 5 foot gauge USSR locomotives shared many of the same parts. The Indian boilers were identical to those that went to Europe. I assume that the USSR boilers were as well, but I can't document that.

The swapping of parts apparently started even before the locomotives left the Baldwin works. Although a serial number is stamped into our cab, it's a different number than the one for the locomotive, although within the same BLW order. When cleaning the grease and paint from the cylinder block we found the it was also marked with a different serial number from the same order of 120 standard gauge and 60 Indian broad gauge locomotives. Although the Alaska Railroad had 12 S160s, USATC 3523 was the only one from that order, with all but one of them from Baldwin, so the parts were not swapped from another ARR locomotive.

Our drivers and driver journals are from ALCO. They may have come with the locomotive or they may have been replaced in service. After the war, the ARR obtained a large stock of spare parts from the War Department.

ALCO had the lead in designing the S160s, although they incorporated some Baldwin drawings into the design. For some common items, Baldwin substituted there "stock" parts for the ALCO designs.

The S160s replaced a USATC 2-8-2. Part of the first order of S160s from Baldwin used surplus parts that were repurposed from the 2-8-2s.

About half of the ARR S160s were modified by Baldwin for use in Alaska. Modifications included turbo generators and electric lighting, U.S. style couplers, a bell, a second lubricator. The first group of four had power reverses fitted by Baldwin, but the power reverse on 3523 may have been fitted after it arrived in Alaska. Very soon after arrival the ARR replaced the single-cylinder compressor with a two-cylinder Westinghouse cross-compound compressor.

Earlier in the thread was a USSR locomotive on a flat car. The practice of Baldwin was to temporarily fit U.S. style couplers to the locomotives to move them on their own wheel to the port for shipment. The 5 foot gauge USSR locomotives had to be shipped on flat cars because of their gauge.

Information on our overhaul and restoration can be found at www.557.alaskarails.org.

Our group would like to communicate with others overhauling or operating S160s.

Dick Morris
Anchorage, Alaska

 

Hi Dick.

Is there anyone who has created a definitive list of S160's?

They were a very big class, that were spread all over the World, and yet there is very little information on them.

It would be interesting to know, which engines/ships were lost. Which engines came over, on which ship. There must have been looses to enemy action, and then, which engines were sold on, and how many scrapped, at the end of hostilities.

Does the USATC still exist? Do you know where the archive is kept? Have you got any works pictures you could post?

When I worked in Poland, I exported several loads of machines, all made by Niles, for repairing steam engines. The machines were given to Poland under the Marshall Aid Program, in the late 40's. I sent one set of machines to an American steam museum in the late 90's, by container, but I never heard anything about them. I guess they were happy.

Cheers.

John

 

There is a Ron Ziel article in “Locomotive & Railway Preservation” (a long-defunct U.S. magazine), September-October, 1986, titled “Final Wanderings of the G.I. 2-8-0s,” It includes a list of USATC road numbers, build dates, and the builder and year as well as a list of six S160s that still existed in the U.S. at that time. He says that eighteen – eight definitely and ten possibly - were lost in ship sinkings. I haven’t seen a list comparing USATC road numbers, builder’s numbers, and BLW serial numbers. I haven’t done any research on the numbering by ALCO or Lima.

Another interesting article which isn’t about the S160 but helps understand the context of the design and manufacture of the S160s was in “Trains” magazine, December, 1964, titled “Built for Battle.” It was written by Col. Howard G. Hill, the designer of the USATC 2-8-2 and 0-6-0T. An interesting part is the somewhat veiled criticism he made of the S160 design and the person who is generally credited with its design. When USATC cancelled the 2-8-2s in mid-production they used some of the stockpile of parts on S160s. I suspect part of Hill’s criticism may have been a case of sour grapes.

The generally accepted number of locomotives manufactured is 2,120. Of those, only about 20 operated in the U.S. Twelve of them came to the Alaska Railroad and the others were used for training and operations on U.S. Army bases. Most or all of the Army S160s operated at Ft. Eustis. The Ft. Eustis locomotives operated until quite late and most or all still exist. In about 1950 the Army contracted to have one of the Ft. Eustis locomotives was converted to Franklin radial valve gear. The Army also purchased on additional locomotive (USATC 610) in about 1952. Although the appearance is somewhat different, it is supposed to be closely based on the S160 design and use many of the same drawings.

I believe USATC still exists, but appears to have little, if any, responsibility for rail equipment. There was another government organization which was involved in the contracting side of obtaining the S160s whose name escapes me. I read that those records had been destroyed. The Army Transportation Museum at Ft. Eustis wasn’t of much help when I was looking for S160 drawings; they said they only had a single erection print.

In the U.S., those likely to operate again are ARR 557/USATC 3523 and USATC 1702, which is undergoing an overhaul at Great Smokey Mountains Railroad. Although its appearance was modified many years ago with a new smoke box front with a centered door and a larger tender, 1702 is an S160. The “almost” S160 number 610 is also likely to operate again.

I’m including a photo from the Allen County Historical Society in Ohio, which has a large archive of Lima material. It shows USATC 1171 being manufactured at Lima.

 

Hi Dick.

Many thanks for a very interesting reply. I almost certainly have a copy of the “Trains” magazine you mention, and I'll copy what I find.

A bit of a shame many of the papers for S160's has been lost, but The Poles adopted the S160 steam injector as a standard type, so getting the drawings for some common parts do still exist, all be it, in Polish. I was forced to leave many drawing in Poland in 2002, but I can ask my friends in Pyskowice to scan them, if you need any drawings.

https://ireneuszkazmierczak.wordpress.com/prl/11-zntk-olesnica/

Have a look you might just see lots of Niles machines!

Regards.

John

 

It hasn’t been the thrust of my research, but I haven’t had any luck in finding any U.S. government records covering the purchase contracts or distribution of the S160s. I did find some information on the Alaska Railroad locomotives in their archives. Two ARR S160s remain, ours and one on display in a local park. One was destroyed in a collision in the early 1950s. 14 retired steam locomotives, including five S-160s, went to Spain in 1956. If the ones that went to Spain operated at all after arriving, it was for only a short time before they were scrapped.

The Alaska Railroad apparently bought six S160s through the War Department which came to them new, directly from Baldwin, and which were modified for Alaskan use by BLW as mentioned above. (I forgot to mention that they also had U.S. style pilots.) It appears that the remainder came from the War Department as surplus, along with a large quantity of spares. At least one of the surplus locomotives had seen service in Europe. The locomotive is long gone, but there was still a set of European style buffers in a local transportation museum a few years ago.

We have been very successful in acquiring drawings. Several hundred hours of my time, about 6,000 USD to several archives and museums, and the generosity of several private collectors have resulted in a set that I would estimate to be at least 80% of the original drawings.

The Steamtown museum operated by the National Park Service has a large collection of Nathan information that may cover the internal parts of the injectors, but I don’t think all their material has been cataloged. If there are detailed drawings of the injectors, we would be interested. We have some instructions and a drawing that looks like it was used as an illustrated parts diagram to order parts both nothing with enough information to use to replicate a part.

We are also looking for drawings to replicate the internal parts for the three inch Coale safety valves. Our locomotive spent 45 years in eastern Washington state and was covered by volcanic ash from the Mount Saint Helens’ eruption a number of years ago. The ash filled the safety valves and caused extensive corrosion damage to the steel parts, although the brass/bronze parts were unhurt. I found drawings in Tasmania for a somewhat different model which appears to have several parts in common with the safety valves used on many of the S160s, but the correct drawing would be very helpful.

 

John,

By the way - our drivers were probably turned and quartered on the Niles equipment that you shipped to the U.S. I found a web post saying that "In the 1980's, when Poland had dieselized, a Niles wheel lathe and a Niles quartering machine were shipped back to a railroad museum with a steam shop in Tennessee." Our drivers were done at Tennessee Valley Railroad and it's not likely that there are any other shops in Tennessee with a Niles wheel lathe or quartering machine. Here's a photo of our wheels being turned - http://alaskarails.org/pix/former-l...ess-reports/2014_06_15/wheel-lathe-7-2-14.jpg.