ATSF 2-10-10-2

Does anyone out there have a picture of an ATSF 2-10-10-2 ?

Larry at Papas Trains

Reply to
LarEyman
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Larry, Do you mean an actual print or reference to pictures in books. In Steel Rails Through California there is a good shot on page 71, at San Berdo!

Reply to
Jon Miller

How about:

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Reply to
Brian Paul Ehni

If you can get hold of a copy, the May 1989 Model Railroader has a seven page article on these locos, including a nicely rendered drawing in

1/64th scale.
Reply to
Mark Newton

Mark,

How was a stayless firebox constructed? I've never heard of such a thing.

Regards, Bob.

Reply to
Bob Grime

Bob, I should have chosen my words more carefully in my initial post, and written that the Jacobs-Shupert firebox is stayless. The firebox and wrapper were constructed using dished or channel-section plates rivetted together along their edges. The backplate and throatplate were conventionally stayed.

The scanned drawing at:

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shows the method of construction.

The photo at:

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shows a loco boiler fitted with a Jacobs-Schupert firebox under test.

The McClellan and Emerson semi-watertube boilers used by the New Haven and the B&O respectively were also largely stayless, as were similar designs used by a number of railways.

Reply to
Mark Newton

Did all fireboxes, boilers undergo this test?

Reply to
Biggus

Not this specific test, no. The photo was taken during a comparative test between a conventional radial-stay firebox boiler and the Jacobs-Schupert type. Both were deliberately fired until the water level dropped well below the level of the crown sheet. The radial-stay boiler exploded when the crown sheet collapsed, whereas the Jacobs-Schupert boiler simply ran out of sufficient water to maintain steam.

The normal testing procedure for locomotive boilers - in Australia at any rate - is to conduct a hydrostatic test, where the boiler is completely filled with warm water, and then pressurised using a test pump. Any faults will reveal themselves as leaks or fountains(!), but if there a catastrophic failure the worst that will happen is that the boiler inspector and his offsider will get wet.

Only after a successful hydro has been completed is the boiler tested under steam.

Reply to
Mark Newton

Sweet thanks for the info :)

Reply to
Biggus

Wow..are you sure that's not just the result of someone playing around in Photoshop. What a beast..I know nothing of these engines, but was it even able to go around a curve with a radius less than ..say..the entire state of Wyoming?

Dave

Reply to
Dave

They're real enough. And they could negotiate reasonably tight curves - the boiler is flexible/jointed!

Reply to
Mark Newton

April 1 again?

I dont see how a metal pressure vessel could be flexable without losing strength. and for that matter could flex that much.

Reply to
Biggus

No, not April 1. The front section of the boiler contained a feedwater heater, a high-pressure superheater, and a low-pressure steam reheater. It was not an integral, steam-producing part of the original rear boiler. Bear in mind that these locos were conversions of existing

2-10-2s with the additional bits built by Baldwin. The pre-WW1 ATSF Mallets all had jointed and/or flexible boilers of varying types. I will refer to a few books and check that these 2-10-10-2s did in fact have such boilers, and not merely what were described as "separable" boilers.
Reply to
Mark Newton

Scrub round that! - the 2-10-10-2s had Baldwin Separable boilers. There IS a joint between the two parts of the boiler, but it is nominally rigid.

Reply to
Mark Newton

Hi Mark:

I'm not any expert on the AT&SF, but I am somewhat familiar with these locos, and I do NOT believe they had flexible boilers.

The boiler IS in two sections, with a central intermediate smoke box. The joint is quite visible. Each 'boiler' section has more-or-less conventional flues. The rear section serves as a normal boiler, while the front serves as a sort of huge feedwater heater. This was a hair-brained scheme tried by several railroads, but usually on smaller, locomotives The first GN 2-6+8-0 was of this type. It was a bad idea in practice, and such locos were normally broken up into two smaller locos once their problems became apparent. This is true of the AT&SF locos.

The AT&Sf DID have two 'flexible' boilered articulateds, both smaller. IIRC, these were intended for passenger service, and were rather high-driverd locos for Mallets. One had a ball and socket type joint in the middle of the boiler, and the other had a bellows arrangement. Both were failures. The ball and socket leaked, and the bellows packed full of cinders and wouldn't flex.

But the 2-10+10-2's had rigid boilers, like most Mallets.

Dan Mitchell ==========

Mark Newt>

Reply to
Daniel A. Mitchell

Nope, it was actually tried, and on the AT&SF on at least two locomotives of differing types, but NOT on the 2-10+10-2's. See my earlier post.

It worked, sort of, but had many, mostly fundamental, problems; and was a bad idea in practice. High pressure flexible joints of that size, subjected to the vibration, constant motion, corrosion, and dirt of a railroad locomotive just could not be kept tight. Once the folly of the basic idea was apparent, the detail problems were not worth the effort to correct.

Besides, the far simpler conventional Mallet worked far better. It too had troublesome flexible steam connections, but they were MUCH smaller and easier to deal with.

Dan Mitchell ==========

Biggus wrote:

Reply to
Daniel A. Mitchell

No, they didn't. I was bit quick off the mark in replying, I should have checked my battered copy of Worley's "Iron Horses Of The Santa Fe Trail" first. :-(

Extraordinary! I can well imagine how the roundhouse and backshop crews would have reacted to them. Worley lists 11 ATSF locos with flexible boilers - surely two would have been more than enough!

Cheers,

Mark.

Reply to
Mark Newton

As others have noted, the ATSF 2-10-10-2s were not very successful and were rebuilt into 2-10-2s. But for the record, recall that the Virginian also had 10 class AE 2-10-10-2s (built as such by ALCo in 1918) that were even larger than the ATSF monsters (engine wt. 684,000 lb vs. 616,000 lb), and were much more successful - most lasted 30 years in service before being cut up and one was still around until 1958!

But they were slow. There's a story in the Reid VGN book that a man cold walk faster than a train pulled by an AE on some sections of the line, and that supposedly, a head-end brakeman could jump off the loco, have a "date" with a waiting girl friend, hop onto the caboose as it passed, and climb forward over the coal loads back to the loco. Gary Q

Reply to
Geezer

I was aware of the two TYPES, but if there were 11 of them, there were probably a few of each type. Bad ideas, all. They would likely make NEAT models, though. I'm not aware that either type has been made in HO brass. The 2-10+10-2's were made by Westside a number of years back ... WILD model. I've seen several of these. They look like a broomstick on wheels, LONG and skinny. It needs a 36" or larger radius curve.

I have model of one of the VGN's AE 2-10+10-2's, and it's a lot 'fatter', but not quite so long. Unlike the AT&SF engines, these were quite successful for the limited purpose they were bought for.

Dan Mitchell ==========

Mark Newt>

Reply to
Daniel A. Mitchell

The important difference being the VGN engines could steam well enough to keep the HP cylinders fed. Did they have an intercepting valve - could they be started in simple? That'd run 'em out of puff very quickly!

LOL! Although, that might say more about the speed of the brakie than the speed of the loco...

Reply to
Mark Newton

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