The steam period closing down

The Pennsy ran these T-1's with little maintenance. When they returned to the Reading they needed repairs. They joined other Reading steamers in the Luria Brothers scrap line at Modena, PA, on the Wilmington & Northern.

What is the yellowish "box" below the walkway, to the rear of the cylinder?

WOW That is too bad. Wonder why the PRR did not treat them like they were their own equipment?

My guess is that the PRR folks knew Reading was going to scrap them on their return, so why bother?  Just a guess.

 

That is the rusty cover of the Worthington Feedwater System high pressure pump, which pumps the heated feed water into the boiler. That would probably be a Worthington S or SA Feedwater System.

 

Philadelphia & Reading General Manager John E. Wootten brought 40 years of effort to a successful conclusion in 1877, when he designed a locomotive firebox that burned anthracite ("hard") coal and bestowed his name upon it. Wootten fireboxes became standard on locomotives on "the anthracite roads."

 

He also patented a locomotive feedwater heater in the 1880's but the only Reading locomotives so equipped were T-1 4-8-4's (built in the Reading Shops in 1945-1947) and G-3 4-6-2's (1948) - Worthington

Actually the PRR probably DID treat them just like their own equipment, i.e. badly! In the later days of steam, the PRR was NOT noted for their top notch maintenance policies.

I'll bet Popsrr knew that.

If I recall correctly their own locomotives needed some expensive repairs. Thus since they were almost converted over it was cheaper to lease and they did little to no repairs along with using poor quality coal on these ones.

 

Of course I am too young to remember the steam trains in Renovo but old enough to remember the last few years of the large rail yard. The town is a far cry from the days when the PRR was in town.

 

 

I never lived there but we own a camp near by.

In 1956, the Pennsy also leased twelve Santa Fe 5011 class 2-10-4's for coal service in Ohio.  They worked there until the end of the Great Lakes shipping season in October.

 

 

Rusty

Penn's Diesel maintenance was little better than their steam at this point.  Something you could sort of get away with on EMD. Everyone else paid the price.  Those 5011s were in rough shape when the AT&SF got 'em back...or so the story goes !

When the government regulated freight rates are lower than your cost, it is difficult to do a lot of maintenance. Also labor problems during this time period added to the dilemma.

So, it only affected PRR then?  Compared to other railroads, such as NKP, N&W, NYC, UP, SP, CB&Q, AT&SF, etc., etc., etc., all of which maintained their steam power EXTREMELY well right to the very end.

I know a lot of people really love the P Company, but I don't get it. Their steam power was either WAY behind the times (the K4s and the decapods) or too far ahead of the curve to be reliably useful. Their power was always filthy and by the end of the steam era it was pretty much just a bunch of worn-out junk.

 

The railroad may have been the "Standard Railroad of the World" at one time, but by the mid-50s that title was nothing more than a hollow reminder of what the railroad used to be.

Guess you never heard of WWII?

It probably didn't matter much what condition they were returned in.  By 1956, with the exception of some locomotives running during the summer perishable rush, the only steam on the Santa Fe was running as helper power out of Belen, New Mexico.  Most of the other Santa Fe steam power was already in the dead lines.

 

The last two locomotives were the 2-10-4 5021 and 4-8-4 3780. Santa Fe dropped their fires for good on August 27, 1957.

 

Rusty

I am not a expert on train history or even the PRR. I was just lucky to be able to grow up at the end of one of the isolated PRR train yards during its end. Of course steam was long gone by then.

 

From what I have read or at least what I understand the PRR was at a cross roads sometime between the late 1930's into the 1950's. The PRR was in love with steam and had planned many newer technologies to improve their fleet.

 

This differed form some other that were clearly starting the push into diesel leaving the PRR a little behind. In addition at the same time the Pennsy was really starting to expand or at least turn more for the electric side of the expansion.

 

Of course then came WWII and things never advanced much and of course this brought on a very high demand for their fleet of engines.

 

Thus the Pennsy came out of the war years with a aging steam fleet in need of maintenance and really behind other companies on the diesel conversion. They were at a cross road because it no long made sense to invest a lot of money into their current steam fleet so they just ran them.

 

Maybe I might have simplified this too much but from what I have read this looks to me to be the story.

 

In any event I wished I was not so young during the last years of the Renovo Yard. While I can remember the constant activity because the yard was right beside the main business district I have so very few photographs to help me remember those times. I would have loved to see that yard loaded with stem engines.

 

BTW the coaling station is still standing along with some of the workshops. Of course all the track that I remember filling half of the valley from the edge of town to the mountain side is long gone.

 

Of course I've "heard of WWII"! But the war effort sure didn't seem to drastically affect those other railroad's steam locomotive maintenance. Plus, I guess I didn't realize there were "labor problems" during the war. Also, I was under the impression that the discussion was about the lat 1940s and early 1950s anyway..

Thats the way I understand it as well, They tried with "new" steam technology, I.E. the turbine S-2 and the T-1 4-4-4-4 but they couldn't compete with the diesel electrics in terms of maintenance/ operating costs. So they just ran them until they were no longer viable. The NY Central, by comparison, had all but completely ditched steam power by the late 50's.

So had the PRR, as well as virtually every other railroad. Only the IC and the UP was still operating some big steam into the "late 1950s". If I remember correctly, the last operation of "main line" steam on the PRR was 1957, on the New York & Long Branch, out of South Amboy, NJ.

 

Most railroads, including NYC, had stopped the use of steam power on main lines by 1955, or even earlier.

PRR students need to speak up but the PRR spent major capital bucks and a long period of time focused on the electrification east of Harrisburg - and the equipment for same.  That was a major factor why steam motive power was ignored for so long.

Well, to put it another way, the dieselization of the NYC's mainline service was complete a few years before the Pennsy.   I believe the Norfolk & Western was the last class I railroad to use mainline steam, up until 1960.

GTW was also using steam as late as May, 1960. 

 

Rich is is entirely correct about the PRR--the bloom was definitely off the rose by the mid-1950's...and by the mid-1960's almost every bit of the railroad physical plant was in need of rebuilding, replacing, or flat out junking.

 

Jeff C

As a Pennsy fan, it pains me to say this but, I believe the NYC was better managed under Messrs. Young and Pearlman in the '50's than was PRR under Symes.  NYC made wholesale reductions in the size of their physical plant, implemented TCS and, as noted above, retired steam much quicker than did PRR.  Additionally, NYC's approach to dieselization seems to have been more organized than PRR who, rather than standardizing when making diesel purchases, bought them in the same manner as with steam locomotives ie, trying to match specific locomotives with a specific perceived service. 

Now, I don't think PRR was standing still; rather their approach differed from NYC.  In the mid '50's, PRR was pushing for higher rates which could be put back into the property.  At the same time, they were leading the move toward intermodal and away from "loose car" freight.  PRR was also making modest reductions in their physical plant at various locations in central and western PA beginning in 1955.  I guess the biggest question in my mind is why PRR stuck with manned towers and didn't implement some form of CTC.

Ultimately, none of the changes made by either railroad were sufficient to reverse the steady downhill march toward eventual bankruptcy.  Simply put, there were too many trunk line railroads serving the northeastern US and only the regulatory changes that began with formation of Conrail in 1976 were able to reverse that.

Anyhow, I will agree with others here that keeping steam locomotives in a high state of repair probably didn't make sense when you were dieselizing and looking to cut costs.

Curt

I think the PRR had a Union issue with the people in the towers which would have created a real mess if the PRR went with CTC or TCS.

I am surprised the PRR did not make more 4-8-2's for passenger service.

What?!?  The PRR M1 class 4-8-2s where freight locomotives (69" drive wheels) and thus wouldn't run fast enough to maintain passenger schedules. 

The N&W did run some steam into 1960, such as this Y6b in April of 1960.

 

 

Yeah, bad management, recession, and other factors doomed the Pennsy, but I still like her

 

 

WW II just delayed the inevitable bankruptcy of the PRR.  The political power of the unions and shippers played a significant role but management was utterly incompetent at dealing with it.  The same was true for the NYC and all the other Northeastern railroads but they did a better job of beating the dead horse.

PRR was a road at war with itself as much as anything else..and had been since the late '30s.  This was upper echelon infighting along with all the stuff mentioned above. Amazing the road was able to keep it together as well as they did ! There is a great vid on Youtube of the Sandusky line operation in spring of'57 which highlights just how bad it was getting.  A close-up sequence of a Big Jay getting out of town on a cold, snowy day has the piston rod guide slapping up and down while the horizontal bearings are completely shot, or mighty close to it. Credit the Lima/ AMC design of this machine that she could still run and pull 140+ loads of coal !  And so it was... the last years of PRR steam operation was loaded with OTR break-down stories.....and yet the all time winner for rolling Pennsy junkyard was NOT a steamer, but the Baldwin Centipedes. Long relegated to snappers or ultra low priority freight, these guys made steam look cheap !  As one old wag once said...I never made it to AR with all four engines still running ! 

 

A couple of thoughts/addendums to various comments above.  The Pennsylvania RR was a "widow's portfolio" stock through the 1920's, as it was a steady dividend payer. Although Pennsy steam power evolution stopped at about 1925, their power was quite productive; I have an S. Kip Farrington book wherein he rode "modern" (1940's era) freight trains and he described riding  a double-headed M1a Mountain freight train ("The Yankee" - 121 cars, 6180 tons - note, most freight trains in that era were running around 4000 tons) from Greenville, NJ to Enola, PA (188 miles) in 5 hours and 15 minutes. This included one stop for coal; water was scooped from track pans.  Farrington commented "this is moving fast freight with a vengeance". The "coast to coast" tenders and track pans allowed for quite productive motive power ueage.

        The Pennsy in the 1930's devoted much of it's motive power development and capital investment to electrification. Many would view that as quite modern.

        New York Central steam power tied up in May 1957, with a transfer freight to Riverside Yard in Cincinnati, pulled by a Mike. Pennsy steam power was finished in a variety of locales - NY&LB passenger, freight at Enola, Northumberland and as far west as Indianapolis - in November 1957, only 6 months later. New York Central streamlined passenger trains, particularly the James Whitcomb Riley, Cincinnati-Chicago, was being pulled by Hudsons well into the middle of 1956. Perhaps NYC steam power was still mechanically well-maintained, but the road treated the appearance of their steam locomotives rather shoddily, leaving off cylinder head and steam dome covers as some type of feeble cost-saving move.  As David P. Morgan observed, generally, those roads that used steam the latest were also the most profitable.

       Why did the Pennsy and the NYC/Penn Central go broke? I suspect all of the reasons cited above - a totally exhausted physical plant from WW II and inadequate capitalization to fix it; not having the long, lucrative hauls the western roads had, rather functioning more as a "retailer", delivering freight shorter, less profitable distances;  absolutely intractable, archaic labor agreements that were supported by politicians and which forced carrying large numbers of un-productive, un-needed employees; inadequate compensation from government regulated freight rates (because "everyone knows the railroads make tons of money hauling freight!") and monumental passenger train losses. I doubt Lee Iaccoca or Allen Mullaley could have saved these companies from the death spiral they were in. Perhaps an additional factor was the NE section of the United States was beginning to de-industrialize, as manufacturers moved to the non-union South (and what railroad was flourishing beginning in the 1950's? - the long moribund Southern RY!)

       People are awfully hard on the poor old Pennsy! BTW, the Pennsylcvania RR was the largest company on earth at the end of the Civil War!

Thanks!

Now that's interesting, I read that all lines of the NYC east of Cleveland were dieselized by 1953, I wasn't aware that a few Hudsons were still in service until 1956 in the western districts, as most were being scrapped in '54.

The Penn's huge following (me included) is largely based on the personality and flavor of the road...her operations and uniqueness...especially for such a large outfit.  The bottom line certainly never figured in....after 1946 anyway.   She may have been the standard of the world, but after the Vogt, Gibbs, and Kiesel era...NO way.   You want late steam era super abundance.....N&W leads the pack!   Great photo of what's probably 2190, CWEX !

Correction:  The Pennsy 4-8-2's had 72" drivers.

 

Stuart

 

Penn-Pacific:  the New York central was dieselized east of Cleveland in the time period you mentioned........east of Cleveland! Subsidiary "Big Four" (Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis - CCC&StL) continued to operate steam out of Cincinnati until May of 1957. Hudsons were pulling passenger trains into mid-'56. Believe a few Niagaras were limping along into 1955, pulling such trains as the Cincinnati Mercury and mail trains. Road freights were handled by Mohawks, and occaisionly ex P&LE 2-8-4's into mid-'56. Why? The "Big Four" was a wholly owned subsidiary of the NYC. Subsidiaries tend to get short shrift in capital expenditures from parent companies!