Locomotives Too Long for Turntable

          http://www.columbusrailroads.com/prr%20santa%20fe.htm

Now that's really a neat photo as well as creative solution/work-around!!

My guess based on the equipment in the roundhouse and the 8-wheeled tender/engine number on the turntable that this photo is from a service facility on the PRR in Ohio that borrowed some of Santa Fe's 2-10-4's to supplement their own behemoths to help move coal in the 1950's??  

That would be an interesting item to put on the hostler's list for an operating session on the layout some evening to liven things up!

KD

TM Terry posted:

It finally got to me, for one too many times, I’ve read on this forum, “But the locomotive is too big (long) for the turntable.” So I must ask, wasn’t there a work-around?

Without the tender the locomotive would most probably fit on the turntable. So... what are the constraints of disconnecting a tender when the locomotive is on the turntable, pulling the tender away, then when the locomotive is positioned to the desired track, moving another tender behind the locomotive and connecting the two? Is it just too time consuming?

Yes. Labor intensive and time consuming.

Am I just clueless of the complexities of such an operation?

Yes.

There was probably a WYE around someplace or close.,  Most large terminals had both ( Wye and turntable)

Gregg posted:

There was probably a WYE around someplace or close.,  Most large terminals had both ( Wye and turntable)

Maybe there would be a wye out in the yard someplace, buts most steam locomotive engine servicing facilities did NOT have a wye in addition to the turntable. Also, having a Hosteler and Helper taking a locomotive out of the terminal to a wye someplace "out in the yard", would have taken a Hosteler crew away from the normal duties within the terminal, for probably well over an hour. 

Hot Water posted:

Gregg posted:

There was probably a WYE around someplace or close.,  Most large terminals had both ( Wye and turntable)

Maybe there would be a wye out in the yard someplace, buts most steam locomotive engine servicing facilities did NOT have a wye in addition to the turntable. Also, having a Hosteler and Helper taking a locomotive out of the terminal to a wye someplace "out in the yard", would have taken a Hosteler crew away from the normal duties within the terminal, for probably well over an hour. 

Maybe so, but what other options are there?    Run backwards.  An hour or more to turn on the wye is a little much.

20  minutes tops.

Gregg posted:

Hot Water posted:

Gregg posted:

There was probably a WYE around someplace or close.,  Most large terminals had both ( Wye and turntable)

Maybe there would be a wye out in the yard someplace, buts most steam locomotive engine servicing facilities did NOT have a wye in addition to the turntable. Also, having a Hosteler and Helper taking a locomotive out of the terminal to a wye someplace "out in the yard", would have taken a Hosteler crew away from the normal duties within the terminal, for probably well over an hour. 

Maybe so, but what other options are there?    Run backwards.  An hour or more to turn on the wye is a little much.

20  minutes tops.

If it actually takes 20 minutes to accomplish the task, is that assuming all equipment and laborers are staged and ready? You can probably more than double that time if equipment and laborers have to stop what they are doing and regroup. And I would doubt they would be idle and awaiting the assignment.

I have provided statistical analysis for "wrench time" studies for maintenance crews of various industries for a friend of mine who does maintenance planning and scheduling consulting around the world. A "wrench time" of 30% to 40% is pretty well standard. That is, if the crew worked 10 hours a day, they would actually be working at the job site for only 3 or 4 hours.

Gregg posted:

Hot Water posted:

Gregg posted:

There was probably a WYE around someplace or close.,  Most large terminals had both ( Wye and turntable)

Maybe there would be a wye out in the yard someplace, buts most steam locomotive engine servicing facilities did NOT have a wye in addition to the turntable. Also, having a Hosteler and Helper taking a locomotive out of the terminal to a wye someplace "out in the yard", would have taken a Hosteler crew away from the normal duties within the terminal, for probably well over an hour. 

Maybe so, but what other options are there?  

Well, in fact most railroads didn't order locomotives that were larger than the current turntables at major servicing facilities. As locomotive designs progressed, the Mechanical Departments had to have the B&B Department install larger and larger turntables. A prime example was the Union Pacific RR, that began installing larger 130 foot turntables in key locomotive servicing facilities almost one year prior to the delivery of the first 4000 class 4-8-8-4 in 1941.

  Run backwards.  An hour or more to turn on the wye is a little much.

20  minutes tops.

That would all be dependent on congestion within the yard, and the whim of the Yard Master at the time.

I have provided statistical analysis for "wrench time" studies for maintenance crews of various industries for a friend of mine who does maintenance planning and scheduling consulting around the world. A "wrench time" of 30% to 40% is pretty well standard. That is, if the crew worked 10 hours a day, they would actually be working at the job site for only 3 or 4 hours.

You do have a point.... I trained as a yard master after my accident and wasn't long learning that  if you  could get a yard crew to work 5 hours out of a 8 hour shift you were doing well. Just the way it was. Maybe things have changed.

The massive turntable remains at Evanston Wyo. on the UP.  I stepped it off to be about 130 feet if I recall.  A bit of the roundhouse remains and some is restored. Just off I-80. 

Gregg posted:

I have provided statistical analysis for "wrench time" studies for maintenance crews of various industries for a friend of mine who does maintenance planning and scheduling consulting around the world. A "wrench time" of 30% to 40% is pretty well standard. That is, if the crew worked 10 hours a day, they would actually be working at the job site for only 3 or 4 hours.

You do have a point.... I trained as a yard master after my accident and wasn't long learning that  if you  could get a yard crew to work 5 hours out of a 8 hour shift you were doing well. Just the way it was. Maybe things have changed.

I suppose the point is that there are many factors that affect work productivity. An emergency/unscheduled job has a very negative impact on work productivity. You must stop the work the crew is doing. They must get to the new work site, get parts and equipment necessary to do the work, get clearance to proceed (Hot Water's point concerning work being done that obstructs access, etc.

Suppose 20 minutes does the job. In the course of the actual day of work, accomplishing that 20 minute task in 20 minutes would be a very rare occurence

This is an interesting photograph. Looking at this I am trying to understand how this contraption functions. It looks like there are two ramp like rails that are laying on top of the turntables existing rails. So, when an over length engine needs to be turned, these ramp pieces are first installed on one end of the turntable rails. Then the engine is backed (tender first) onto the turntable from the other end of the bridge opposite the ramp pieces. Then the rear tender truck is carefully backed up the ramp pieces.

The engine would always have to be backed tender first onto the turntable. but it the front of the engine is facing the turntable, you would have to have tracks what would allow the engine to cross the turntable to the other side of the bridge. Then the ramps pieces installed and finally the engine would be backed tender first onto the bridge and turned.

This is only my assumption on how this works. Any comments?

David Eisinger posted:

This is an interesting photograph. Looking at this I am trying to understand how this contraption functions. It looks like there are two ramp like rails that are laying on top of the turntables existing rails. So, when an over length engine needs to be turned, these ramp pieces are first installed on one end of the turntable rails. Then the engine is backed (tender first) onto the turntable from the other end of the bridge opposite the ramp pieces. Then the rear tender truck is carefully backed up the ramp pieces.

The engine would always have to be backed tender first onto the turntable. but it the front of the engine is facing the turntable, you would have to have tracks what would allow the engine to cross the turntable to the other side of the bridge. Then the ramps pieces installed and finally the engine would be backed tender first onto the bridge and turned.

This is only my assumption on how this works. Any comments?

The engine crosses the turntable onto the adjacent track. Then, the ramp is installed and the engine backs up with the tender going up the ramp.

George

George S posted:

David Eisinger posted:

This is an interesting photograph. Looking at this I am trying to understand how this contraption functions. It looks like there are two ramp like rails that are laying on top of the turntables existing rails. So, when an over length engine needs to be turned, these ramp pieces are first installed on one end of the turntable rails. Then the engine is backed (tender first) onto the turntable from the other end of the bridge opposite the ramp pieces. Then the rear tender truck is carefully backed up the ramp pieces.

The engine would always have to be backed tender first onto the turntable. but it the front of the engine is facing the turntable, you would have to have tracks what would allow the engine to cross the turntable to the other side of the bridge. Then the ramps pieces installed and finally the engine would be backed tender first onto the bridge and turned.

This is only my assumption on how this works. Any comments?

The engine crosses the turntable onto the adjacent track. Then, the ramp is installed and the engine backs up with the tender going up the ramp.

George

Thanks, that is what I had thought. This would be in interesting thing to model if you had a turntable too small for your longest engines. If you look in the foreground of the photograph you can see another set of the ramp pieces.

I suspect the use of ramps was just a temporary solution, possibly in the photos in the earlier posts used because the end of steam was already on the horizon and it wasn't worth the expense of making the turntable larger. Railroads tailored their equipment to their needs, and it wouldn't have been unusual 100 years ago in the steam era for a railroad to buy a new large class of steam engines with a smaller tender so they could fit on the existing turntables, or for the railroad to build bigger turntables to fit the bigger engines. But if you're leasing steam c.1955 to get by until you're 100 diesel, you just do what you can.

The location in the photo would be the PRR roundhouse at Columbus, Ohio,  Yard B.

Removing the drawbar pins on a big steam locomotive is a very heavy, time consuming job.

Even that little piece of ramp track would be very heavy to place or remove.  

Never saw a photo but understood that the C&O use a turntable ramp at some locations for the 2-6-6-6 locomotives - a couple feet too long for the turntable.

NKP779 posted:

 

Even that little piece of ramp track would be very heavy to place or remove.  

 

I was wondering about that.  Would the roundhouse crew have to carry the ramp track over by hand (probably several men if rail was ~110 lb/ft)?  The rail shown in the photo looks to be about 8' long.  Or would they have used some kind of small wheeled crane to move these into position?

Scott Griggs

Louisville, KY

I imagine it would be a little tricky trying to spot the engine, not much room for error.

TM Terry posted:

Gregg posted:

Hot Water posted:

Gregg posted:

There was probably a WYE around someplace or close.,  Most large terminals had both ( Wye and turntable)

Maybe there would be a wye out in the yard someplace, buts most steam locomotive engine servicing facilities did NOT have a wye in addition to the turntable. Also, having a Hosteler and Helper taking a locomotive out of the terminal to a wye someplace "out in the yard", would have taken a Hosteler crew away from the normal duties within the terminal, for probably well over an hour. 

Maybe so, but what other options are there?    Run backwards.  An hour or more to turn on the wye is a little much.

20  minutes tops.

If it actually takes 20 minutes to accomplish the task, is that assuming all equipment and laborers are staged and ready? You can probably more than double that time if equipment and laborers have to stop what they are doing and regroup. And I would doubt they would be idle and awaiting the assignment.

I have provided statistical analysis for "wrench time" studies for maintenance crews of various industries for a friend of mine who does maintenance planning and scheduling consulting around the world. A "wrench time" of 30% to 40% is pretty well standard. That is, if the crew worked 10 hours a day, they would actually be working at the job site for only 3 or 4 hours.

I am an outage manager for a power plant.  I totally agree with the total time of task assessment as you have it laid out.

Hmm, 20 minutes seems pretty fast.    the Water pipes have to be disconnected between the tender and loco.     And if there is a drawbar rather than coupler, that is going to add time.    And finally, I think a biggie would be disconnecting a stoker and reconnecting it.     That has to be complicated.    There has to be a tunnel or channel for the coal to travel in and a screw that goes most of the length to push it.    And as my friend who owned and operated to shortline RRs said, every on a RR is very heavy and very expensive.     Then all this stuff has to be re-aligned and reconnected and checked to see if it will work or not.    The water pipes/hoses probably pretty straight forward, but reconnecting the stoker and getting it working again might be an issue.    And I just remembered, the stoker probably runs on steam, so steam connections have to be made.    And it is a passenger engine, steam connections are made for that.

I guess it would be interesting to hear from guys who did it.   

prrjim posted:

Hmm, 20 minutes seems pretty fast.    the Water pipes have to be disconnected between the tender and loco.     And if there is a drawbar rather than coupler, that is going to add time.    And finally, I think a biggie would be disconnecting a stoker and reconnecting it.     That has to be complicated.    There has to be a tunnel or channel for the coal to travel in and a screw that goes most of the length to push it.    And as my friend who owned and operated to shortline RRs said, every on a RR is very heavy and very expensive.     Then all this stuff has to be re-aligned and reconnected and checked to see if it will work or not.    The water pipes/hoses probably pretty straight forward, but reconnecting the stoker and getting it working again might be an issue.    And I just remembered, the stoker probably runs on steam, so steam connections have to be made.    And it is a passenger engine, steam connections are made for that.

I guess it would be interesting to hear from guys who did it.   

OK, I can tell you that it takes four men, about 3 to 4 hours to disconnect the tender from the engine on SP 4449 (this of course does NOT allow for the time collecting/transporting the heavy tools and equipment needed for the job). One other fact that everyone seems to have overlooked; once the tender is disconnected from the engine, there are NO LONGER ANY AIR BRAKES! 

sgriggs posted:

NKP779 posted:

 

Even that little piece of ramp track would be very heavy to place or remove.  

 

I was wondering about that.  Would the roundhouse crew have to carry the ramp track over by hand (probably several men if rail was ~110 lb/ft)?  The rail shown in the photo looks to be about 8' long.  Or would they have used some kind of small wheeled crane to move these into position?

Scott Griggs

Louisville, KY

Those railroad men are strong dudes!

prrjim posted:

Hmm, 20 minutes seems pretty fast.    the Water pipes have to be disconnected between the tender and loco.     And if there is a drawbar rather than coupler, that is going to add time.    And finally, I think a biggie would be disconnecting a stoker and reconnecting it.     That has to be complicated.    There has to be a tunnel or channel for the coal to travel in and a screw that goes most of the length to push it.    And as my friend who owned and operated to shortline RRs said, every on a RR is very heavy and very expensive.     Then all this stuff has to be re-aligned and reconnected and checked to see if it will work or not.    The water pipes/hoses probably pretty straight forward, but reconnecting the stoker and getting it working again might be an issue.    And I just remembered, the stoker probably runs on steam, so steam connections have to be made.    And it is a passenger engine, steam connections are made for that.

I guess it would be interesting to hear from guys who did it.   

When I was volunteering at IRM, it took us well over an hour to reconnect 1630's tender to the locomotive.  Align the main drawbar, align the two safety drawbars, stoker, connect the water, air hoses, steam supply line for the stoker motor in the tender and steam heat line.  We also used the Shay to position the tender and apply some compression for the locomotive/tender buffers.

And that's just for shopping without the pressure of turning the locomotive and having to get it back out on the road.

Rusty

I mentioned 20 minutes to turn on a wye .

I have no idea how long it would take to disconnect a tender from the engine and turn them separately.   Seems like a crazy move to me.

A wye was used to turn the Santa Fe locomotives in Columbus.  The ramp was used only when a locomotive needed to be moved into the roundhouse for repair.  The tender had to be mostly empty when this operation was done.  My Dad, who was able to witness the activity and was there the day these photos were taken, said they set up some sort of temporary crane to put the ramp in place; they were bolted onto the turntable rail and took some time to install.  It has often been said PRR rode these engines hard and when they were returned, Santa Fe looked at them and sent them to the scrapers.  You can guess the difficultly involved in just getting them into the roundhouse might have been a factor in how PRR maintained them.  

The Union Pacific had the same turntable "temporary extension" arrangement at North Platte for use in case a 4000 class 4-8-8-4 was run east out of Cheyenne. The 4000 class locomotives were not supposed to be run east of Cheyenne.

wjstix posted:

. . . if you're leasing steam c.1955 to get by until you're 100 diesel, you just do what you can.

That is the perfect explanation for the ramp.

"Align the main drawbar, align the two safety drawbars, stoker, connect the water, air hoses, steam supply line for the stoker motor in the tender and steam heat line," that's all...

I have trouble sometimes getting the drawbar and electrical wiring connected between the locomotive and tender on my model O gauge steam engines and I am not the only one at the club.  The Lionel infrared drawbars are easy but the 3rd Rail, Weaver and MTH can be difficult.  This has to be done every time I take  and engine to the club.

I know that the Santa Fe / Union Pacific used a wye at Cajon Pass to turn helpers.  It seems to me that a railroad would do everything possible to avoid having to disconnect the engine and tender from a steam engine that was expected to be in service for a few hours.  I rode a tourist railroad where they ran the 2-8-0 tender first for the return trip.  

What do they do to turn the operational steam engines such as the 611, 844 or 4449 today when they are away from their home base?

NH Joe

New Haven Joe posted:

 

What do they do to turn the operational steam engines such as the 611, 844 or 4449 today when they are away from their home base?

NH Joe

Wye the whole train consist, including the locomotive.

Hi SGRIGGS, I don't want to seem like a know-it-all, but rail is measured by the weight per yard. The rail in the photos looks to be about 130 lbs. per yard, so even if it was 12 feet long, that would make the weight of the rail alone 520 lbs. Add on say 50 lbs. for the means of attachment to the turntable and you have a rough weight of 570 lbs.

This weight would be easily managed by six good men with manual rail tongs. It would be somewhat awkward raising up the outer end. A track jack would solve that problem.

And BBUNGE, I'm not saying your Father was wrong, just that it COULD be done by hand.

I retired after 30 years of railroad service, a majority of it in maintenance of way. This is not to brag, but to say I have experience in this kind of work. Not wishing to step on any one's toes. Thanks.   Don Francis

Steam engines apart from the very old, or very small would be a pain due to all the connections and the size of the connections. You also run the risk of damaging the crown sheet from the boiler running low. Many railroads, Some in particular, bought engines with trailing trucks, like the 2-10-2 so they could be run in reverse without issues, pulling a train or not.

Allin posted:

Steam engines apart from the very old, or very small would be a pain due to all the connections and the size of the connections. You also run the risk of damaging the crown sheet from the boiler running low. Many railroads, Some in particular, bought engines with trailing trucks, like the 2-10-2 so they could be run in reverse without issues, pulling a train or not.

Trailing trucks were there to support a larger firebox, not to make the locomotive run in reverse better.

Rusty

Wow!

Rusty Traque posted:

Allin posted:

Steam engines apart from the very old, or very small would be a pain due to all the connections and the size of the connections. You also run the risk of damaging the crown sheet from the boiler running low. Many railroads, Some in particular, bought engines with trailing trucks, like the 2-10-2 so they could be run in reverse without issues, pulling a train or not.

Trailing trucks were there to support a larger firebox, not to make the locomotive run in reverse better.

Rusty

Not always, Rusty.  Look at the trailing trucks on some articulated and 2-10-2's and you'll see that it doesn't carry any of the firebox (the firebox is over the rear one or two drivers).  The sole purpose of that trailing truck is stability in running the locomotive in reverse.

Stuart