The Niagaras were used exclusively on passenger, and mail and express trains. When I asked the NYC Superintendent if Niagaras were ever on freight, his answer was..."Why would we ever do that? We have plenty of freight engines." A Berk could not hang with a Niagara or 5400. The NKP Berkshires were freight in steam days, although I caught 763 on May 18, 1958 hauling the NKP excursion train from Conneaut to Buffalo. The engine replaced Hudson 175 at Conneaut, where it was pulled due to its inability to reach the 70 mph track speed with the long train. It was very windy that day, which added to the problem. The 763 with the excursion train departed Conneaut at the same time that a NYC M&E train also departed with two E units. The Berk beat the "E's" to Erie. I took two Anscochrome slides of 763 at Erie in the rain using flash....they were sold out of my collection since they were not good quality. Wish I still had them!
My October 27, 1957 NKP Employees Timetable lists a maximum freight speed for Class S, H-5 and H-6 of 60 mph. The fastest that I ever measured a NKP Berkshire was 763 just after Class repairs at Conneaut on a freight, at 63-66 mph coming off the long downhill grade east of Erie at Downing Road. The only way that I was able to do this was to look at the main driver counterweight location in each frame of my 8mm movie, and do the math. The NKP Berks ran best at 3500-4000 trailing tons, about 1 HP/Ton (really a drag freight number!), with minimal stops and about 100 cars, although at the end of steam they ran with much higher tonnage. Conversely, the NYC piled everything that they could behind EMD "F" units. I watched one NYC train with 212 LOADED hoppers and two F7's that could not even make transition...as soon as transition was made, the speed would drop and the engines would go through backward transition, with severe slack action and run-in to the point that I thought the train would break in two....
