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Hi Jim,
One of the most interesting things I found during my #7 project was that the tender trucks we would probably all refer to as "C&S" were on DL&G #112 (later #7) in the early 1890's, and maybe even in the 1880's. So they were obviously a UP innovation. The only difference to the "modern" version was that the brake beams were hung outboard of the truck frame rather than inboard. The tool boxes at the front of the tender actually served three functions. They helped provide a measure of weather protection for the fireman, they provided a place to store tools, a lunch box or two, lamps-lanterns, etc, and they also anchored the upper side sheets of the bunker at the front. They were definitely developed in UP years. I'll venture a guess that the vertical posts that were suspended from the posts near the McConnell stacks held a screen baffle. #74 had a baffle under the stack as well. Probably all of them did. |
In reply to this post by Derrell Poole
Derrell,
These would be external adjustments for the petticoat. This flared pipe straddled the locomotive exhaust. The adjustment was to make sure that the exhaust was "tight". The "Tightness" of the exhaust determined the amount and efficiency of the draft. I have never seen these external adjustments on any other type of stack, but if you consider the change in altitude experienced by these little locomotives and the change in air pressure experienced by climbing from 5,000 to 10,000 feet repeatedly, perhaps McConnell thought that an easier external adjustment would make the locomotives operate more efficiently. Of course McConnell was the Master Mechanic for the UP system which at that time consisted of going from Omaha up to, at the highest altitude, Alpine Tunnel. For the sake of argument, we can limit the highest point as the summit of Sherman Hill, which is still an 8,000 plus foot climb from Omaha. I can't read McConnell's mind, but it seems like a reasonable theory. |
I would agree, Rick. I think we talked about this before and Altitude was a point of discussion? I note on the drawing that the entire pipe assembly lifts and is called the "Draft Pipe Sleeve" while the "Pettycoat" seems to be the flare at the bottom of the pipe - but maybe the whole thing is a Petty coat?
Actually the entire assembly seems to be called "Adjustable Draft Pipe". |
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In reply to this post by Derrell Poole
Good info, Derrell and Rick..
What I've always found curious, and ironic, is just how long the institutional memory of UP locomotive shopping practices endured on the "independent" Colorado and Southern narrow gauge power. I mean, this was "The Colorado Road", desperate at its beginnings to distance itself from anything Union Pacific. Consider the color photo of number 75 in Leadville, that Rick posted. The three big engines came to the C&SnG from the DB&W, when, in 1921? It had been nearly 30 years since the South Park and Central lines had become independent of UP management. Yet when the shop mechanics at 7th Street promptly refitted the B-4-Fs to conform to C&SnG Mechanical Department policies, what did they do? They installed the same headlight brackets with circular cutouts, the same short smokebox door extensions and fabricated tender tool boxes of the same size and location that the Union Pacific shop guys would have installed, had the engines been shopped in 1890. And the 7th Street guys were being paid by the CB&Q. Why didn't "Q" shopping practices take hold on the C&SnG, they certainly did on the standard gauge locomotives, and power of both gauges were shopped at 7th Street. Did the C&S inherit a big stash of old UP parts in addition to the locomotives? Was there some shed at the 7th Street Shops full of old UP headlight brackets? Did the Master Mechanic say "Hey, let's use these, 'cause they're free and it will make the big engines look like the other narrow gauge power"? I guess like many things in life, we do things the same way, out of habit, 'cause its always been done that way, forgetting the origins of our actions.
Jim Courtney
Poulsbo, WA |
Maybe, Jim. Maybe they trusted what seemed to work. The CB&Q owned the C&S and certainly controlled plenty of policy - But the C&S was a Standard Gauge road with axillary ng - which they loathed (it didn't fit the "Pennsy Envy" they were afflicted with) so I think they pretty much left it on their own devices (hoping to dump it soon) - except when farmer Herkimer filed a claim for the destroyed hay stack because some boisterous Shotgun Stack went by...
' And who ran the day to day mechanics of the RR? Why, ol' South Park and CC guys of course. They were still "Colorado Road" at heart. But - these are just my opinions. |
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Which leads to another thought / question. Once the UP's Colorado Lines went into receivership, and the courts created the UPD&G and the DL&G (and named Trumball as Receiver of both), did the UP have any influence on the day to day management of the roads?
I guess what I mean is, the Reciever's responsibility, as I understand it, was to the Bond and Stock holders, and to the Colorado shippers and patrons, to rehabilitate and reorganize the properties to return them to financial solvency. Trumball wasn't supposed to be a place holder, to reorganize and return the properties to the UP, like a Boy Scout, in better shape than he found it. So why after 1895 does the UP still have so much influence on shop practices, Mechanical Department policies. So what if the McConnell stack was state of the art UP thinking for locomotive efficiency. Were the CO Roads in receivership in any way required to adopt them? Seems awfully expensive for a bankrupt railroad system to change all the stacks on its NG and many of its SG engines, just because the UP thought it was a good idea. Perhaps is was just a good old boy network, former UP employees now working for the Receiver, keeping in touch and being influenced by their former colleages in Cheyenne or Omaha.
Jim Courtney
Poulsbo, WA |
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John deserves an "A" in spelling,or in this case its a"u"
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The diamond stacks the DSP&P had in the immediate post-Congdon era ( 1885-89) were UGLY.
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In reply to this post by John Schapekahm
John:
Please recall that railroads really came of age in the late 19th Century, and their heir is the military establishment that won the Civil War (or War of Northern Aggression, if you prefer). The military bred a generation of railroaders who brought the Army's organizational discipline, record-keeping and command and control systems to their new companies, which were now extending across the frontier with increasing speed. And this first generation passed on these practices, many of which we model and continue to see in use today. We recall that the Pennsylvania called itself, "The Standard Railroad of the World." I submit it had nothing on the AT&SF, which sprawled across the west from Chicago to California. But I digress. Railroad at the time had mechanical departments, and while the Ownership might change, methinks that it would have been difficult for the boys from Omaha to visit the drafting room at 7th Street and haul off all the boxes of records and standards. You know the dates far better than I do, but I suspect there were 10, 20, 50 guys who had been working for the UP for up to a decade, and when the UP stopped owning the railroad, why stop doing things the UP way? Case in point: after the BNSF merger, I always smiled when I saw a warbonnet with Roman numbers, or a Cascade Green unit with a serif font. It took quite a while for BNSF to standardize their paint departments and get everyone working from the same standard. If the men of 7th street were on a roll, they did it the way they had done it, unless the MCB book or safety legislation dictated otherwise. Of course they took their orders from the Master Mechanic, and as Derrell points out, he was busy squeezing every last pound of tractive effort out of then fleet without starting too many fires (both literal and figurative).
Keith Hayes
Leadville in Sn3 |
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In reply to this post by Robert McFarland
Thanks for all of your thoughtful reponses. This is in some way vaguely familiar information. I misplaced my copy of Athern's Gulf to the Rockies years ago, but I suspect that rereading that corporate history of the C&S would answer some of my questions.
So, the gist is that the UP, when it plummeted into bankrupcy, lost control of the CO lines, ultimately lost ownership and could not directly effect policy. If there was like thinking among the middle to upper managers working for Receiver Trumbull with other railroad folks, it wasn't so much institutional (Union Pacific) as generational (group think among contemporary professionals). If the Colorado lines under the Receiver chose to spend money adopting UP-style appliances, it was because something like the McConnell stack was felt by the entire raliroad industry of the day to be a new conceptual device to save money by increased locomotive efficiency (and because late DSP&P diamond stacks were ugly!). And, finally Derrell, if the CB&Q suffered from Pennsy Envy, did the Milwaukee Road management have an Electra Complex?
Jim Courtney
Poulsbo, WA |
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In reply to this post by Jim Courtney
Guys,
A - there was no 7th Street Shops until the C&S built it on the old D&NO yard location in the bend of the S. Platte at the end of 1900! B- the UP had influence simply by association; the UPD&G AND the DL&G were using their 40th Street facilities to service their equipment. Didn't y'all read the Blog article "The DSP&PRR Denver Terminal" 6 Sept. last year? From the article; "Over the course of the next year the UPD&G built the Denver West Side Line (or Belt Line) along the westerly bank of the S. Platte River. This belt line connected Jersey Junction and the South Park crossing of the River (and thereafter became known as Canyon Junction). The primary reason for this West Side Belt Line, as its name implies (a belt line is typically built to connect two disjointed terminals), was to connect the South Park’s canyon mainline to the new Union Pacific terminal facilities at 40th Street. These facilities were built back across the River at the end of the Jersey Cutoff in the early 1890s. The Gulf Road organizers had entered into an agreement with the UP that included the centralization of its Denver operation on these facilities. The South Park had been operated jointly with the Colorado Central narrow gauge by the UP since the DSP&P had come under that control." I doubt the MM and other hands-on service personnel were paying that much attention to the "politics". They were applying whatever devices promised an advantage to their particular operations. Your assignment, dear students, is to review the vast resources of the C&Sng Blog! There will be a test on the 29th of this month! C - once the RRs went into receivership the courts controlled any major or extraordinary expenditures. There is a letter somewhere of Trumble beseeching Judge Hallett (iirc) to grant permission to purchase UPD&G locos 9, 10 & 11. Finally, D - the Pennsylvania RR WAS the Standard of the World and at the TOC every major RR in the country was hot on its heels to be like it. |
Derrell,
Agreed, up to the last paragraph. The Pennsy was the self-proclaimed 'Standard Railroad of the World". In reality they used techniques, designs and ideas that were rarely adopted by their competition. The first that comes to mind is their Belpaire Boilers. The only other railroad that adopted them in a big way was the Great Northern. The Q had a couple of small class locos with them but the boiler design was not widespread anywhere else. Their X-29 all steel box cars were and eccentric design which was also not widely adopted, much like UP's all steel McKeen designed Box cars. Next were the Pennsy cabooses with the portholes and tiny cupola. These were adopted with modifications around the NorthEast but not everywhere else. That tiny cupola was uncomfortable and you couldn't see squat out of it. The C&S 3' gauge bobbers had more vision than those Pennsy iceboxes (They had poor insulation as well). In talking to some retired Pennsy Steam men many years ago, they called their alma mater the sub-standard railroad of the world for a number of reasons including their Baldwin designed and Juniata built locomotives. Rick |
Would you still disagree if I threw in the concept of money? I don't know if they were the most profitable RR at the time but All RR had as their intent to be that successful. Nevertheless there was a perception of that big eastern RR that the Q and other roads undoubtedly envied - the point being diminutive NG rr'ing was NOT a part of that concept.
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No question that the Q hated the 3' gauge and did everything within their power to get rid of it. This is evidenced by the extermination of their own 3' gauge lines in both the Black Hills and across the southern tier of Iowa.
Of course with the Hill Lines, the NP and GN owning the CB&Q, which owned the C&S, which owned the FW&D it's hard to tell where the buck began and stopped. I wouldn't go with the concept of money. Then, like now, it's the concept of power and control, whether it is of Transportation or the attendant Real Estate. The money then followed. Remember, the PRR got a lot of "encouragement" from the State of Pennsylvania as well. Many Eastern Roads ran through cars on later trains. I am thinking of the PRR and Wabash Cars on the Cal Zeph and the NYC and PRR cars on the UP's City Trains. A little known fact is that the NYC's largest stockholder as of 1917 was UP through the Harriman family. I wouldn't call it CB&Q's Pennsy Envy as the GN and NP were every bit as good as the Pennsy. Perhaps a bit of UP Envy or CNW envy for a Central Route across the US. Oh Well, it makes no difference now. Remember Robert that before the Q takeover of the C&S, the C&S was as up to date and modern as any of its rivals. The C&S had its own Common Standards and its own Engineering and Design department. Frank Trumbull did a masterful job of ushering the C&S into the 20th Century. Too bad that there aren't more railroaders like him today. Rick |
I've derailed some threads in my time, and this one sure is off the tracks. Never ever thought I'd see a thread go into Recievership though. {:))
UpSideDownC
in New Zealand |
Maybe Daryl needs to create a separate discussion category: Musings on the Corporate History of the C&SnG and its Predecessors.
Jim Courtney
Poulsbo, WA |
In reply to this post by Derrell Poole
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