Talk:Baldwin 60000

Inappropriate Image

Removed an imappropriate image for the 60000. The engine was almost completely obscured with only the front barely visible. What was visible was two people in some sort of PR shot. 24.21.10.30 (talk) 19:42, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Water tube boiler, etc. reversion

The paragraph in question read:

60000 was also was very innovative, carrying new technology like a sawdust spreader for traction, a mechanical stoker (an auger or corkscrew that carried coal into the fire), signaling device, and pneumatic braking. Visitors can still see and feel some leftover coal in the delivery system. Another innovation was the locomotive's water-tube firebox. This was intended to improve efficiency but the tubes tended to burst inside the firebox. Also, the massive weight of the engine was too much for all but the very heaviest track.

I changed it to read:

60000 was also very innovative, carrying new technology like a sawdust spreader for traction, a signaling device, and a water-tube boiler. This was intended to improve efficiency but the tubes tended to burst inside the boiler. Also, the weight and length of the engine was too much for all but the heaviest and straightest track. Finally, it was a compound at a time when the extra complications of compounding had put a virtual end to its use in the USA. The last sentence here was not included at the time of the revert -- I was about to add it when I noticed the revert.

Let's take it one at a time:

• typo in the first line ("was also was")
• a mechanical stoker (an auger or corkscrew that carried coal into the fire) - hardly innovative in 1926 -- they'd been in use since the early teens and in regular use on heavy locomotives since 1920
• pneumatic braking -- it's not clear whether the editor meant train brakes or locomotive brakes. Train air brake equipment was on virtually all locomotives since 1905; while steam brakes were used as locomotive brakes, they had been completely phased out by the teens largely because of issues with freezing of the condensate.
• water tube firebox -- a firebox does not have tubes. The proper term is water tube boiler. [Here is a photo of 6000's water tube boiler.]
• straightest track -- the axle loadings, while high, were not out of line for the times. What was a problem was the long wheelbase, which tended to straighten curves, hence my addition
• compound -- although the infobox called it out, the body of the article did not mention that 60000 was a compound. Since this was an important feature, one that had mostly fallen out of favor in the USA, it's certainly relevant to the discussion.

I don't like to do a second revert without discussion, so please.... . . . . Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs) 15:03, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't know the details of 60000, mostly because I'm not in the USA. Now maybe I was a bit heavy-handed in reverting changes to a whole paragraph (and I would note, not your whole edit) but when I see a big unreferenced change like this and it includes an absolute howler like "water tube boiler", then I become suspicious as to the technical robustness of the other changes too. You're welcome to re-add those (and certainly the wording was improved), although I'd remind you of our standards for sourcing and referencing.

The specifics:

• I'd see the mechanical stoker explanation as worthy of retention. Mechanical stokers aren't commonplace, certainly not internationally. Even if they were commonplace on heavy US locomotives, we're an encyclopedia and we're here to explain things, not to assume prior knowledge. Maybe US "railfans" will know what it is, but we should still explain it. Things have to be very obvious before it's safe to assume that sufficient readers are sufficiently familiar before we can skip their explanation.
• "sawdust spreader" needs referencing, probably a wl to an expanded section under the sandbox article too. Did this loco really use sawdust? Was this the 1920s, or the 1820s? "Exceptional claims require exceptional sources".
• "a signaling device" conveys almost nothing. What sort of device? Signal notifications like AWS, or a cellphone? Electrical or mechanical?
• Pneumatic braking. I don't know US dates for its introduction, but pressure-activated brakes on the locomotive (as opposed to a manual screw) weren't that old, and a pneumatic system (i.e. compressed air) rather than steam could even be novel at this time. Certainly UK practice (we used vacuum train brakes, not usually Westinghouse air brakes) didn't use pneumatic loco brakes until the diesel era.
• Compounding wasn't "virtually ended" by then, as I understand the big Malletts. Claims that strong need references.
• Now the biggie: that's just not a water-tube boiler. You also removed the wl to the section on water-tube fireboxes like the Brotan boiler. As we don't have a stand-alone article on such things as yet, that's the best we can currently offer. In particular, removing the wl. to a section makes that statement very misleading indeed. 10000 had a water tube boiler, 60000 didn't. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:14, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd tend to agree that the term "watertube boiler" does NOT apply to this locomotive, but "watertube firebox" does. Mr Woodward, in the photo you linked to of the bare boiler, the very visible vertical tubes at the rear of the boiler are the side walls of the firebox, thereby also disproving your statement above that "fireboxes don't have tubes". A "sawdust spreader"? _{Did it just look like sawdust? (The sand used by many US railroads was a beige color, very similar in appearance to sawdust).} Provide a reference, or preferably, multiple references, as SAND was, is, and has been, the standard traction compound used in North America for many, many decades. I would tend to agree with Mr Woodward on the fact that the compound nature of this locomotive deserves mention, but disagree with him on the original research that states compounding was "virtually ended". On the other hand, by 1926 The Westinghouse airbrake was the accepted standard in North America, and stokers were also quite commonplace by then as well. WuhWuzDat 16:27, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. Biggie first. Right you are -- I fell for the description on the cited page. It is a water tube firebox, maybe the only one in the USA ever, certainly the only one I've run into. Other items:

• saw-dust spreader and signaling device. I don't have a clue -- I just kept what was there. Certainly I've never heard of using sawdust in place of sand -- might make sense, as sand was not a good thing in bearings, but....

My problem with the following are the words "Innovative" and "new technology" -- I have no problem saying that they were included, but because they were routine by 1926 I don't see a reason to include them, any more than we say that Big Boy had air brakes and a stoker.

• For air brakes -- the Railroad Safety Appliance Act required train air brakes by 1900 on all equipment -- freight, passenger, and locomotives. Only non-interchange (generally maintenance of way) equipment was exempt. For independent (i.e. locomotive) brakes, I can't find a specific cite, but given the problems with freezing of condensate, it's hard to imagine why a US locomotive would be equipped with steam brakes after it had an air system installed for train brakes. See also this 1920 drawing which clearly shows driver and tender air brakes.
• For stokers my best cite is Bruce, Alfred (1952). The Steam Locomotive in America: Its Development in the Twentieth Century. New York: W.W. Norton.. Bruce was Director of Steam Locomotive Engineering at Alco, so he certainly is authoritative. He has an extended section on stokers; by 1920 there were half a dozen manufacturers in the market.

Finally, compounding -- virtually all of the late American locomotives, articulated or not, were single expansion -- of 102 locomotives listed in detail in the 1950-52 Locomotive Cyclopedia, only three --the Norfolk and Western Y6b, the C&O H-6, and the PRR experimental duplex Q-2 -- were compound. Bruce says, "[Compound cylinders'] general use was continued until about 1905, when they were superseded by the superheater, which was then becoming available." It's very hard to prove a negative, but I'd wager that if we tried very hard, we couldn't come up with any significant number of compounds built after 1925 in the USA, except those mentioned above and their near relatives.

So, how about this:

60000 was also was very innovative, carrying unusual technology, including a water-tube firebox. This was intended to improve efficiency but the tubes tended to burst inside the firebox. It also was a compound, expanding the steam once in the inside cylinder and then again in the two outside cylinders. Although compounding increased efficiency, it was extra complication that the US railroads had mostly rejected by the middle twenties. Also, the weight and length of the engine was too much for all but the heaviest and straightest track.

. . . . Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs) 17:06, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Those would be fine by me. As I noted, the boiler was the important one. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:37, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Just a side note, I have seen no reliable reference to the PRR Q2 being a compound. It did have different sized cylinders for each driver set, but as 1 set of cylinders powered 3 axles, and the other only powered 2, this was simply good design, as having four identical cylinders would have made the 2 axle set VERY slippery. Other railroads with watertube fireboxes included the PRR (class L1 #2861, installed by the B&O), B&O _{See here}, and D&H (including at least 1 4-cylinder compound 2-8-0, the L.F Loree) and the New York Central. For the D&H and NYC examples, see here. WuhWuzDat 18:13, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Quite right. Two in one day. I should be more careful making assumptions about odd locomotives, lest I make one of myself. Bruce has two pages on the Q2, and while he doesn't explicitly say that they're simple, he implies it in several places. Also the 50-52 Cyclopedia has a nice photo, which would show the pipe between the cylinders if it were there.

It appears, however, that the B&O engines you mention had watertube boilers (as distinguished from 60000's watertube firebox). The former were certainly more common -- a few hundreds, I would guess. . . . . Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs) 18:39, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Quoting the B&O locomotive article, as cited above "(In practice, only the firebox used water tubes.)". WuhWuzDat 18:50, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I read that as referring to "earliest days of steam", but reading Bruce on the subject, you're probably right. According to him, in 1935 the B&O also built a single 4-4-4 with 17½ x 28 inch cylinders, 84 inch drivers, and a water tube firebox running at 350 psi. This was probably Lady Baltimore, although neither Bruce nor the Wiki article make conflating the two sets of details a sure thing.. . . . Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs) 19:14, 26 January 2010 (UTC)