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Chesapeake & Ohio Super Power Steam Locomotives by Eugene L Huddleston HardCover
Chesapeake & Ohio Super Power Steam Locomotives by Eugene L Huddleston
Hard Cover
168 pages
Copyright 2005
CONTENTS
Preface
Chapter 1 Super Power: The Big Picture 1
Chapter 2 C&O and Super Power 11
Chapter 3 Designing C&O Super Power 23
Chapter 4 C&O Texas Type T-1 33
Chapter 5 C&O Greenbriers 53
Chapter 6 C&O Hudsons 67
Chapter 7 C&O's 2-6-6-6 Alleghenies 87
Chapter 8 C&O K-4 Kanawhas (2-8-4) 103
Chapter 9 Improving, Maintaining and Repairing C&O Super Power 121
Chapter 10 C&O Super Power Suitability 143
PREFACE
Kids liked toy steam locomotives because their side rods made them move rhythmically down the "track, track, track, track," and "the little red caboose behind the train" intrigued them. Real locomotives had big bells that went "ding, dong", smoke stacks that emitted real smoke, and whistles that could play melodies mechanically, whether toy or real, they had the same fascination for small boys as steam shovels, fire trucks, and dump trucks. Though boys were the biggest fans of "choo choo" trains, girls could like them too. Lionel Trains, around 1958, advertised a special model for girls, with engine and tender done in pink -- that's right, pink! Today toys function with electronic interiors that are quiet and mysterious. Even a "buzz" from within is often missing. And real trains are not nearly as much in view as they used to be. Historian George Drury, in Railfan & Railroad, says that in order to get children interested today, they must be given books to read like Thomas the Tank Engine.
Adults liked steam locomotives, in Lucius Beebe's words, for pretty much the same reasons as children: "the hiss of escaping steam, the drum roll of the exhaust, the smoke that whips from the stack, the hot breath of the fire-box." These delights, even though they evidenced, said Beebe, "the steam locomotive's inefficiency," also pointed to its "beauty, simplicity, and utility." It was this combination in a single machine that has given rise to a popularity today of the steam locomotive that extends beyond fascination with its role in transportation history. People - mostly men, looking for a hobby on which to focus their "feel" for complex and visible mechanical detail and big machines housing it - find in the modern steam locomotive fulfillment for these needs. ("Modern" means roughly 1925 to 1960.) They can pursue their interest, through specialized historical investigation, such as exemplified in this book, or they can become modelers. A scale model locomotive embodies delicate detail, compact form, and precisely proportional measurements.
Modeling it requires concentrated attention to carrying through the prototype's actual appearance. Completion or acquisition of a model introduces into a devotee's life form and harmony that few other pursuits can bring. That feeling of everything coming together - especially when the engine is made to run through scenery imitating real scenes - accounts for the wide interest in big steam (primarily American) today. Devotees of the hobby want to make their model accord with its prototype. Thus they study every detail of the steam locomotive's design and appearance, in order to "get it right." There are so many designs of steam locomotives that have survived in photos and scale drawings that every modeler can be an individualist. Variety of form and detail on a steamer was almost always guaranteed, on even the most modern steam locomotives. Standardization was never really achieved; railroads wanted customized designs. Finally, with the adoption of diesels, locomotive manufacturers forced standardization on the railroads.
Obviously some one who gets interested in a particular type of steam locomotive, for whatever reason, wants to give that locomotive a personality by getting facts about its place in American steam technology. This book capitalizes on this interest, and tries to give the reader his money's worth by concentrating on one railroad's stable of modern freight and passenger locomotives known as Super Power. Defining the one railroad is easy enough. It's the Appalachian coal carrier Chesapeake & Ohio, connecting Chesapeake Bay not just with the Ohio river but with - most tellingly for the Super Power story - the Great Lakes at Toledo (and by 1947 after merging with the Pere Marquette Railroad, serving the industrial heart of Michigan). Because the C&O hauled long coal trains across mountainous Appalachia, it is a good road to examine for outstanding examples of Super Power. And because it had a long tradition of high-class passenger service, principally between Washington, and Cincinnati , and Detroit and Norfolk, it sought the finest in passenger power.
In Thomas W. Dixon's published summary of the status of the C&O in the mid-1940s, one finds a lucid statement of the condition of the C&O during the Super Power era: "Historically the C&O was a strong road based solidly in the large coal traffic from West Virginia and Kentucky to the Great Lakes and to Tidewater Virginia. During the Great Depression, the C&O not only avoided debilitating financial problems but inaugurated The Sportsman' (1930) and 'The George Washington' (1932) which [along with the 'F. F. V.'] became the leading trains of its fleet. Also, during the Depression, the C&O seized the opportunity to use its plentiful money when material and labor were cheap, to enlarge its tunnels, do signal work and generally upgrade its physical plant while other roads were forced to reduced and deferred maintenance. At the beginning of World War II, the C&O continually showed good profits and demonstrated the very best in operating practices."
Pinning down the term Super Power is harder than identifying the railroad. C&O was a corporate name. Super Power was a publicity ploy. What exactly was meant by Super Power will occupy a large portion of this book. The easiest definition of Super Power is any American steam locomotive with a four-wheel trailing truck. The reason of course for going from no trailing truck to a two-wheel, then four wheel, and finally to a six-wheel trailing truck, was to permit an ever larger fire box with the grates located below the level of the driving wheels in order to provide more firebox volume for more complete combustion As to the four-wheel "rule" for Super Power, there are always exceptions These exceptions show that it was grate area in square feet more than the existence of a four wheel truck supporting the fire box that defined Super Power. For example, the New York Central from 1925 to 1944 purchased several hundred of the very successful class L-2, L-3, and L-4 4-8-2 Mohawk type (called the Mountain type on most roads). The fire box above these classes' two-wheel trailing truck was 75.3 sq. ft. in area, whereas the Northern type (4-84), class U-4b, purchased from Lima Locomotive Works in 1938 by the Grand Trunk Western, had less grate area - 73.7 sq. ft. over its four-wheel trailing truck. (Average grate area for the 4-wheel truck was 90 to 100 sq. ft. )
Once the four-wheel trailing truck had been accepted as the norm on American railroads, it was only a matter of time until a freight engine was built that required a six-wheel truck for 135 sq. ft. of grate area. This development came in 1941 with the construction of C&O's Allegheny type. This articulated was quite successful on both the C&O and Virginian Railways. However, the diesel-electric locomotive revolution, which started on the eve of World War II, resumed its inexorable march afterwards, and all sixty-eight 2-6-6-6s were out of service permanently by October, 1956.
This book will first explain how Super Power came into being, how and why C&O adopted it, what it meant in terms of steam locomotive development, and who designed it. Subsequent chapters will cover the design, performance, and mechanical details of each Super Power type that C&O (and after 1947, the Pere Marquette) owned, from 1930 to 1948. Final chapters will elucidate how C&O Super Power was improved, maintained and repaired and will evaluate the adaptability to service of each type.
Offering invaluable encouragement and assistance with the text, photos, and other illustrations are Thomas W. Dixon, Jr., Gary E. Huddleston, Donald Leach, Rod Crawford, Phil Shuster, Don Riel, Terry Seaks, Jerry Ballard and Richard Burlingame.
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