[ARC5] Locomotives

[Richard Knoppow]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "D C _Mac_ Macdonald" <k2gkk at hotmail.com>
To: "W7EKB Ken Gordon" <kgordon2006 at frontier.com>; "ARC-5 
Mail List" <arc5 at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2012 9:26 AM
Subject: Re: [ARC5] Locomotives


>
> Was it Pennsy or NY Central that had a few S-1(?) turbine 
> locos?
>
    The Pennsylvania.  This was a last-gasp to try to save 
steam. Built in 1944.  It had two turbines, one for forward 
and another smaller one for reverse.  I have to look it up 
but think the turbines were built by General Electric.  The 
locomotive was a failure, it was to heavy and turbines do 
not have good slow speed traction. This is the only 686 
locomotive ever built.  The 6 wheel leading and trailing 
trucks were made necessary because of the weight and 
supposedly war-time shortages of metals that would have made 
four wheel trucks possible.
    AFAIK, this was the only direct-drive turbine built in 
the U.S. but there were others built experimentally in 
Europe.  There were also some turbine-electric locomotives 
attempted. One built by General Electric in 1938 for the 
Union Pacific, another built about 1947 by Baldwin for the 
C&O and also another railroad (forgot which).  The N&W also 
tried a turbine-electric which was more successful than the 
C&O one but none of them could compete with 
diesel-electrics.


--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles
WB6KBL
dickburk at ix.netcom.com