In The Long Ago Allegheny Light Of High Noon

by Engineman Wook

Please enjoy these images of a now long-ago late modernity!

They are pictures made in 1941, 1944 and 1948 at the Lima (Ohio) Locomotive plant and record the erection during those years of the three orders of the Chesapeake & Ohio RR’s H8 1600 series Allegheny 2-6-6-6 single-expansion articulated steam locomotive.  According to steam locomotive historians Thomas W Dixon and Gene L Huddleston, the Allegheny is now known to have been both the heaviest and most powerful steam locomotive ever built in the World.  These pictures, only a sample, also incidentally capture the bright brief daytime, oddly softened here, of the Old Atlantic short twentieth century that began in August on

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Riding The Pocahontas in 1957

by Engineman Wook

To begin, the above picture, of one of my favorite compound steam locomotives, the Norfolk & Western Railway Y-series, is by Mr Bob Krone.  It dates from 1958 and many more of the gentleman’s fine train pictures can be seen at:   

http://www.railpictures.net/

Next, while frowsting it online in search of more technical information especially on the N&W Y6b, I am pleased to have

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Garratt Locomotives in NSW and Southern Africa

by Engineman Wook

The pictures are sent by courtesy of Oz Pete from New South Wales where he worked as a fitter/turner (this is a mechanic and machinist in other words) on the NSW Railway.  The first picture above is a 1952 builder’s photo of a Garratt steam locomotive, all shiny and new.

The second could well be called ‘All Clapped Out’ (like my dad’s Wellington in the war!)  The general unkempt appearance and rust shows that

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Garratt Locomotives

by Engineman Wook

I know little about these as they never found any use in North American steam.  But anyway “Herb Garratt” sent along some nice photos last week from New South Wales, and writes:
    
“I served my time in the New South Wales Guv Raily, as a fitter/turner (a cross between a US ‘mechanic’, and a US ‘machinist’, I think?)
 
“I know the Y6b’s by reputation and pix, and they looked GREAT jobs.
 
“The only interesting modern job we had were the 60 class Garratt 4-8-4+4-8-4’s.
 
“Pix attached.
 
“Cheers,

“OP”

Essentially, Garratt steam locomotives offer radially articulated steam engines — or, more correctly, motors — fore and aft of the boiler & cab-section.  It is as though you would set one pair of

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Norfolk & Western Railway Y6a 2156

by Engineman Wook

Here is a link to some more detailed technical description of what are, just now, my all-time favorite articulated mallet locomotives, the N&W Y series; the Y6a shown here finally was upgraded to a Y6b as told in the following narrative:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norfolk_%26_Western_2156

[Engineman Wook

[all rights revert to holders

[1 January 2010]

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The United States Railroad Administration (USRA) Steam Locomotives

by Preserved Wook

A reference by Ralph P Johnson to locomotive testing standards of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, * led me to try to run down some ASME details on the Norfolk & Western Y6b.  I am interested increasingly in the fine points, blast pipe nozzle design, specifics on smokebox proportions, grate area-to-firebox volume ratios, you name it.  Regular readers in any case will already know that I consider the last generation of N&W 2-8-8-2 compound locomotives to

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N&W #1100 Experimental “Twelve-Wheeler”

by Engineman Preserved Wook

Believe it or not, this 1947-8 Norfolk & Western 4-8-0 Mastodon switcher (!) even after experimental re-shopping didn’t have superheating.

When I first noticed this Norfolk & Western Railway experimental unit the night before last, I thought I’d stumbled onto another

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American Spirits

Voices From The Past:  Old New England Engineman Preserved Wook On A Trainman’s Holiday In The Far West With The Union Pacific

by Joseph Curwen

“‘Global Warming’ you say?  And the government be in on it too?  Well, goodness gracious, count me in, where do I sign up for mine?  What’s that…NOT to burn coal you say?  How’s that again, but just how ever in Tophet do you propose getting to get

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Engineman Wook Gives “The Boys” Hell!

by Emmett Smith

 

Engineman Wook is on a trainman’s holiday from the Pennsy.  Now, on the far side of the Union Pacific yard and too far to run over to the Baron Hotel smokeshop before pulling out of the Alliance NE yards, he lets his

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Engineman Preserved Wook Spots The Problem

by Emmett Smith 

Engineman Wook is on a trainman’s holiday from the PRR.  Now he finds himself standing off on the far side of the UP locomotive to “get away from conductors, brakemen and other halfwits so a man can THINK!” and studying the problem

“By God, boys, I believe the little bastards have been and poured Wildroot * all over the rail!”

The engine shown, the first of the 1920s Union Pacific RR 9000 3-cylinder series, had twelve

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