Re: 4 R's one train any way possible

["Derick Wuen" <cullend@webone.com.au>]

John Duncan McCallum wrote in message <37297306.7A6411FB@melbpc.org.au>...
>
>
>Derick Wuen wrote:
>
>> snip
>
>> I once bought a ticket to ride behind N&W A 1218, in "car 1". Car 1 was
13
>> cars from the front, including the crew/tool baggage car...... all the
>> intervening cars were privately owned cars, some by railfan "chapters",
>> others by individuals. Whole train was at least 20 cars long, and booked
>> out. Still didn't stress the A however. I would buy a ticket to ride
behing
>> 4 R's, preferably in the first car, however numbered.
>
>
>That is not surprising. One of N&W's A class (it may have been 1218)
>once hauled
>a 210 car coal train and got it up to 50mph.
>
>
>John McCallum

Yep. Quote from Eugene Huddleston's "The World's Greatest Mallets.... C&O
H-8 vs. N&W Class A", page 12. "What strikes most steam enthusiasts as most
memorable about the class A is its hauling up to 200 loaded coal cars from
Crewe to Norfolk mostly over the long tangent of the Great Dismal Swamp. But
just as memorable is the class A hauling 190 cars (up to 18,000 tons) over
the Scioto Division from Williamson, West Virginia, to Portsmouth, Ohio,
where north of Williamson were sharp curves and where a .3 percent momentum
grade led to the Ohio River bridge at Kenova."

Most of the grades and curves on these routes would hardly register on
Australian curve and grade diagrams. The "tons" are also short = 2000pd???.

Nonetheless the A, even on a "short" 20 car enthusiast train put on a
ground-shaking impressive display over a curved, 1 percent graded route into
the Blue Ridge Mountains. I would have like to see (and felt!) one worked
hard.