Which line is that? Also, how is that they have to run hard? Call it 25 mph, at 10 hours, that's 250. Allows an hour to swap ends. Seems like 30 mph consistently would work fine?

Sandy, they did a movie run with the FP7's (+F3B) at Lofty.

For those interested, the FP7's are geared for 89 mph, the F3B was 65 mph and track speed on the Catawissa was 35 mph.

All of Reading's F3's were upgraded with D27 motors, heavier wiring and, whatever the as-built gearing was, they were 65 mph after. You could put them in a consist with F7's and not worry about them.

Phil Mulligan

This line, 70 miles of the former Erie mainline in Western New York and Pennsylvania, could be an alternative, depending on what the owners would allow. It is far more scenic, and will be taken out of service soon: https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews ... -of-track/

There's no doubt that the R&N trips behind ex.-Rdg. T-1 2102 are the closest you can come to the " Full Monty" in No. America today. Other than the 40 mph top speed they offer everything else ( no diesel(s), open windows, real runbys, full tonnage rating trains, reliable schedules, decent scenery ) and have earned a reputation of being run professionally in every respect.

Who knows with serious talk of Septa expanding to include Philly- Reading service perhaps the R&N will be able to offer a Philly- Reading Iron Horse Ramble enjoying a 79mph track speed??

Onward and upward/ Ross Rowland

With whose rolling stock?

Does anyone really think SEPTA will still allow Lackawanna MUs--roller bearing or not--over their system in 2026 or whenever? I'm skeptical they'd even allow their own former Reading RDCs on their lines now.

I don't think I'd want to be in the cab of a Reading T-1 at 79 mph, although I rode behind 2101 during the Chessie Steam Special trips between Cleveland and Willard (west of Sterling) at 70 mph and it was thrilling. Unlike Limas, the exhaust was a continuous roar at that speed. Using what I've been told is the traditional formula of multiplying the driver diameter by 1.1 to get the maximum safe speed for a steam locomotive that isn't specially balanced for high speed, I get 77 mph as the theoretical maximum speed for the 70 inch drivered locomotive. Please correct me if I remember that wrong.

It's hard to tell. SEPTA's passenger tracks are 100% ACSES/CSS so if you don't have that, you don't run.

Before PTC was mandatory, NH&I 40 (1925? Baldwin 2-8-0) and NHIR cars ran on the Lansdale Line. While PTC was not mandatory, ACSES/CSS was in place and operational. Train was a pull-pull with an equipped SEPTA diesel on the Phila end. It was one of those places where you could run the weekend schedule on one track so the steam train had the other to itself.

As to 79 on Reading's Main Line, even befoe CSS was needed to go 80 or above, the passenger track speed was 60. The timetable speed limit was 65 but they ran track speed of 75 on the New York Branch, presumably with the blessing of Reading Shops. Further, T-1's were prohibited between Norristown or Wayne Junction and Reading Terminal. Amtrak physically measured 2102 when it was at 30th St. Lower Level and found it really was too big. And you couldn't run it through the Center City Tunnel even if it did fit in there (RDG's Blue MU's were a tight fit.) BM&R (not RBMN) ran Philly trips with 2102 but you had to change to SEPTA MU's at Norristown.

Phil Mulligan

Ahem, ahem, N&W 610 on the Pennsylvania, speed and driver diameter involved...

Now the T1 doesn't have Voyce Glaze's balancing, or full thin-section roller rods, but the design dates to the mid-Forties, well after the revolution in understanding balancing and augment reduction that started with Eksergian in the late '20s.

Diameter speed hasn't been an index of top speed for many years. Machinery speed sleswhere, particularly in the valves, is.

With a little care, and dynamic balancing adjustment, you'd have no trouble getting a T1 to run at 79mph, in my opinion. Look at the 'package' applied to, for example, T&P 610 that allowed that locomotive to easily sustain 40mph with much lower drivers...

I said not specially balanced for high speed. The N&W J's absolutely were so designed, and I had them in mind when I wrote that. I was thinking about stories of NKP Berkshires hitting over 80 mph "back in the day" that it was later determined the drivers were momentarily lifting off the rails at those speeds. For that matter any 80" drivered Northern that could hit over 90 mph for sustained periods (like UP FEFs) without suffering damage (unlike Mallard after it's record run). Thanks for updating my knowledge on more recent criteria for steam locomotion top speeds.

Looking forward to (hopefully) living long enough to see a Pennsy T1 break the speed record!

To pledge fealty to the Keystone Kult, you must agree that some PRR T1 already holds the world speed steam record, and that the LNER record doesn't count because of the "severe engine damage" (little more than a bearing running hot on the valve gear) and downhill of Stoke Bank.................

To pledge allegiance to the LNER Loyalty, you say LNER 4468 holds the indisputed record, and the Keystone Kult's allegations don't hold because there was no dynamometer car, US mileposts are rarely accurately placed, etc.

As a member of both, I find the whole thing as tiresome and ludicrous as the promised Presidential face-off in November.......

Well, since I'm not part of either cult...

Eight pages later not a wheel has turned on C&O 614. Oh, and I can’t seem to find the go fund me page for the project.
/s/

The Reading T-1 was intended as a freight engine; indeed, 2100-2119 were built without steam and signal lines, precluding passenger service. [2120-2129 did have steam and signal lines as RDG did a big troop train business from North Jersey ports to Indiantown Gap where WWII GI's were discharged.]

OK on to speed. Col. Hill rode an Oct, 1959 611 trip East of Crewe where he noted the speedometer had hit 100. Margaret Truman noted her father was transfixed by the speedometer on the Magellan behind a UP 800 between Kansas City and Denver. It read 105. (Pres. Truman knew how much the Magellan weighed)

Franklin Railway Supply put an employee on some PRR T1's because the poppet valves were guaranteed for 125 but were breaking. The employee noted speeds of 140 with lighter (10-11 car) trains. Dates and places are not documented.

Phil Mulligan

Fun fact: N&W J and RDG T-1 both have 27" x 32" cylinders and 70" drivers.

Exactly 20 years ago today, S.E.P.T.A. did allow West Chester RR to run S.E.P.T.A.'s former Reading MU cars with friction bearings behind a Diesel locomotive as far as 30th St. station in Philadelphia. I rode those trips, I think there were more. S.E.P.T.A. still owns the line that West Chester RR operates and even allows other old equipment to be used there.

Fortunately I'm not a 'bigot' either way (except that I'm easily triggered by those in the English camp who claim 126mph or more for the 'record' -- that's political claptrap intended to beat out the German BR 05 capability; the eacutal speed Gresley himself accepted was 125mph, interpreted as 125-and-a-fraction from smoothed interpretation of the dynamometer trace.

I'm almost certain that the 140mph 'speeds' recorded by the Franklin engineers were taken off driver rotational speed, and are artifacts of high-speed slipping (a different thing, on a duplex, from the sort of bouncing driver effects that plagued the poor E4b class). For the locomotive to have operated at that speed even momentarily you would have had to record continuous acceleration and deceleration on either side of the 'peak', the acceleration in particular having been for a protracted time, and with a great probability of a critical resonance speed being reached during that time. No one serious, including Vernon Smith, considers that an indication.

The 'other' fun piece of hearsay was engineers reporting back to Franklin the tidbit 'rides rough above 132mph'. That indicated to me that the engine was encountering a critical resonance at that rpm, but that actual dynamic testing of a T1 with proper instrumentation would be needed to prove or disprove the ability of the engine to make suitable power at that cyclic. This is something that will be multiphysics-modeled and then tested on rollers before any particularly high-speed running is expected.

Balancing a 2-cylinder simple, which is what each engine on a typical duplex is, is a bit more involved than a three-cylinder engine like the A4 has. There are three pieces of useful information here:

1. Kiefer carefully ran a J3a up to 161-163mph indicated during the testing for his 1947 report on motive power. But this was done on greased rail, to determine mutual augment induction from drivers and track stiffness. In particular the resistance was only a factor of rotating and reciprocating mass and the coefficient of friction under adhesive weight -- not actually propelling a locomotive and its train resistance to that speed via the driver contact patches.

2. Voyce Glaze, who did the balancing for the N&W J, has a complete scheme for a 4-4-4-4 in his balancing book (which survives at NWHS)

3. The T1 wheelbase and guiding arrangements make it a good candidate for zero overbalance, as in the Australian experiments. The design of the lightweight rods facilitates most of the necessary low contribution to hunting couples that would be the major effect of reducing overbalance; if surge were to remain a perceptible problem in trailing passenger equipment even with the tender mass assisting in damping, the Westinghouse Langer balancer was specifically designed to reduce this effect.

Fast locomotives are fast locomotives, and 'those in the know' love them for what they are, rather than pick sides in a foamer pissing contest.

(Incidentally, if anyone is reading this far and interested in the subject, Glaze's original balance calculations for the J did not involve decreased net overbalance; he only reduced it (drastically) in the main driver pair, but retained considerable overbalance in the other pairs (this might have contributed to the fracturing pins on #4 driver pair observed with the original rod layout). Interestingly, he did retain about 80lb of overbalance in the mains, which corresponds to compensation for peak resultant of piston thrust in the vertical plane for steam admission at 100mph with design train resistance.)