 |
| Derrell Poole |
 |
| Derrell Poole |
 |
| Derrell Poole |
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Roper's Snapshot Saturday No.5 | 12 Comments - Click Here :
Subscribe to:
Post Comments
(
Atom
)
Mogul Month continues with today’s Roper Saturday Morning snapshot. Gooood doggy, Roper.
ReplyDeleteMogul Month has been a resounding success in my book. I hope we all learned some things – I know I have. Next weekend will mark the final installment of Mogul Month, officially, and I hope to wrap up a few points that just never got addressed. Bu today we shift our immediate focus from perhaps THE quintessential C&Sng Mogul, No. 8, to another great little teapot – no. 4.
Number 4 was the second mogul rebuilt – to a true rebuild – of this series and frankly of any ng loco. I am not aware of a photo of the first 2-6-0 rebuilt (no. 6) as it came out of the shops. No. 6, 4, and 10 were all shopped at the same location, the Union Pacific Shops near Jersey Junction off the Westside line. (40th street iirc). Nor have I seen a photo of No. 10. So what 4 tells us is that this famous rebuild was not a comprehensive conversion of a singular nature. Certain key points about the rebuild – boiler and cylinders and in some cases the domes, where the fundamental definition of that rebuild. But as with all of the motive power that underwent an almost continual process of transforming from the 19th century technology to that of the first decade no. 4 demonstrated to us the fluid nature of the “typical” C&S loco presentation.
No. 4 is one those engines that apparently received new domes in the mid 1890s after the Brookes Mogul rebuilds. Those domes appear to be much like the domes on the Baldwin 2-8-0s or perhaps like No. 9s. Some moguls, like no. 5 and no. 8 arrived upon Jan. 12 1899 with original fluted domes in tact. Eventually all of the rebuild 2-6-0s except 9 would have these handsome squarish domes you see on No. 4 above. That was apparently a part of the original scheme. What else changed or didn’t change initially at 40th street?
Of course the stack and smokebox changed. But the pilot didn’t. Nor did the headlamp and so far as I can tell neither did the entire tender. This was 1900.
By about 1903 or 04 in the second photo it would appear all of the moguls general looked like this. By this point the ICC rules had done away with L&P couplers and the new style Knuckle couplers needed a short cowcatcher in order to work more properly. The headlamps had changed to a GE style carbon arc type, cabs were sheathed with metal, and of course the Entwined Trademark was the fair of all Passenger Locomotives.
But what about colors? I now offer you the rare glimpse of a color rendition of my theories these paint schemes. In the third photo I’ve used my no. 21 to represent the scheme on no.8 in the Buckwalter photo as I see it. Behind 21 is No. 5 in the scheme of this no. 4 as seen at Dickey in the first photo. Unfortunately you cannot see no. 5’s tender whose tank is painted the coach green. Nor have I used the Entwined Herald since, well, I model 1910 AND I am not aware of either a Gold leaf or Silver leaf decal set that is available. But as you may see next weekend this scheme could have lasted well into the first decade even to the beginning of the next.
It is really quite interesting to me to observe that while the scheme I’ve proposed about these engines may seem outlandish to some readers, in fact I find it quite tastefully and fully believable about a company that focused very much on its presentation as the Colorado Road.
I await your comments.
Derrell
How would engines of this era compare with paint jobs on Colorado Midland engines?
ReplyDeleteI'm a fan of the Midland. I could be talked into modeling it but I would have no idea how they would compare. Hopefully someone else has figured this out. Thanks Bob.
ReplyDeleteDerrell
Since the C&S was a part owner of the Midland I thought that might affect how they painted their engines?
ReplyDeleteI think you could even go as far as to attributing the general "fashion" of railroads of the day as an influence on what the C&S did.
ReplyDeleteDerrell
Continuing with the above photos of No.4 what is perhaps the one primary detail difference between the 1900 photo in the UP yards and the 1904 photo at Dickey that I have made no mention of so far? Anybody?
ReplyDeleteThe long tank on top of the running board in front of the cab
ReplyDeleteYup. Thanks Bob. Which now gives me the excuse to delve into the realm of these tanks.
ReplyDeleteNobody knows exactly when or under what circumstances the C&S MM decided to place the Train Line Air Tanks on the engines themselves. You cannot see that the Tank is on the rear deck of No. 4’s tender in the UP Yard shot above, but it is there. This was the default arrangement of the mogul tenders as they came to the C&S in 1899. Somewhere in this mix was a long toolbox across the back of the tender tank deck. See Photo 1 of Roper’s Snapshot Saturday No.3 for an idea of where the toolbox was usually located. It isn’t quite clear enough in the above photo to say with certainty that No. 4 had this toolbox in place.
Why did they move the Air Tank to the engine? There are a number of logical reasons including to take the Toolbox off of the tank deck (problems with water rot? crowding the water hatch when filling? more convenient location to the crew to have it on the frame?) all of which probably could have been a contributing factor. It seems more likely to me that the air tank was moved to a location that might offer more room for a larger tank and perhaps most importantly placed it as near to the air pump as possible.
Railroads didn’t just do things to be fashionable. The bottom line to any piece of equipment was how did it facilitate making money? I doubt that there was some grandiose plan to make the Saddled and Running Board Air Tanks on their engines perhaps the most endearing and longest lasting icon of the railroad. In fact it was probably a "what if" sort of move in the first place and it began with the rebuilt moguls. I’ve paid specific attention to this for some time now and I’ve never been able to confirm any air tanks moved to the tops of the boilers or as in this class to the running board before the end of 1900. Yep. As near as I can tell the tanks did not begin appearing on the engines until nearly two years after the C&S took over. But when they did it was the most senior of all Classic C&Sng features – beyond 1942! The so-called “Beartrap” (the Railroad never called it that and I’m at a lose as to why we call it that since it in no wise resembles a bear trap to me) was certainly unique and as far as I know was never adopted by another RR. But the air tanks in various configurations appeared on the C&S a full 16 years before the spark arrestor.
The reason for the tanks, of course, was to provide the air braking needs of the Train. Much like the D&RG which placed a large tank just behind the coal bunker the C&Sng needed a great deal of air because of the steep descending grades at high altitude. Perhaps placing the tanks near the air pump would have eliminate some of the leaks and constrictions of long airlines to the tanks themselves and provided a quicker recovery time when the tanks were depleted? The C&S never went to the dual or duplex pumps on these small engines – perhaps because with this arrangement didn’t need them.
Derrell
...I have also found it peculiar that the C&S preferred the air compressor to be on the Engineer's side (perhaps compromising a clear view of the track ahead?) while the Grande hung them on the Fireman's side.
ReplyDeleteC&S consolidations are particularly cluttered with plumbing on the Engineer's side and quite clean on the Fireman's side.
Keith Hayes
Leadville in Sn3
Hmmmm... I've always found it odd that the Grande put the pumps on the wrong side of the engines.
ReplyDeleteDerrell
All this talk of moguls makes me long for a model of No. 8!
ReplyDeleteKeith Hayes
Leadville in Sn3
I've been given a bit of ribbing about the "White Metal Trucks" on the two models I've posted here as well as in Roper's Snapshot Saterday No. 4. Uh yeah okay. Y'all know who you are. Har-har.
ReplyDeleteI'd just like to point out that if you compare the trucks under No. 4 at the UP yards (above) to the trucks on No.8 at 7th Street a few years later you will notice that 4's trucks are indeed black - with silver (?) journal lids whereas No. 8's trucks are indeed some light color. I did a lot of comparing and thinking; I'd always assumed the trucks were dusty in the Buckwalter photo - until I realized this was a photo of the rebuilt engine - a "Rebuilder's" photo, if you will...
Suddenly the assumption of dusty trucks was all wrong. How would they get that dusty just rolling around in the yards? Nope! They were painted a light color. Even the photo of No. 8 in 1906 suggests the trucks were painted a light color and this shows up on other moguls.Even some of the Connies that were marked up as passenger power suggest they had light colored trucks. No. 71 had trucks that might have been dusty but then again they show up with either really dusty trucks or they could be painted that way. I'm pretty confident No.8 has light painted trucks in the 1902 photo.This engine was just out of the shops and the drivers are pretty clean.
White metal trucks.... indeed. Hey maybe this is where the mint green showed up on the South Park?
Stay thirsty my friends...
Derrell