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The story goes that the locomotive was beening towed by truck to the museum along the street with snap track then a teamsters strike took out the tow truck. 

 

Block and tackle were then fastened to a donkey on the level  sreet for final delivery.  I had a photo from my father who worked for Jerry Baldwin back then but it  has been lost.  I am intersted in finding the photo showing the donkey with block and tackle.

 

Any links?  Thanks. tt

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Originally Posted by Forrest Jerome:

what does this mean (from the franklin site).

 

"There is a continuous equalisation system on each side of the locomotive from the leading drivers to the rear truck."

This means that the 60000 is sprung like all 4-X-X locomotives except the PRR E6 Atlantic (the lead truck of the E6 was equalized with the #1 driver; the #2 driver was equalized with the trailer).

 

In other words, the spring/equalization is continous down each side of the locomotive from the lead driver, the trailer being equalized with the #5 drivers.  The lead truck is not equalized with the drivers and there is no cross-equalizer between the front springs of the #1 drivers.

 

Typically, in a locomotive with a 2-wheel lead truck an equalizer from the lead truck was pivoted somewhere under the cylinder and linked to a cross-equalizer linking the front ends of the #1 driver springs.  A locomotive such as a Mikado would have its equalization divided between the #2 and #3 drivers; in other words the springs of the #2 drivers were attached to the frame, as were the front ends of the springs of the #3 driver.  The trailer was equalized with the last driver.

 

There's nothing unusual about 60000's springing.  It's perhaps the most conventional aspect of the entire engine.

 

EdKing

 

I've read various article on the 60000 an d one complaint about it which is always stated is the heavy axle loading of the engine.  But when I've checked it is only an average of 68,000lbs/axle.  Considering that there were locos with axle loadings over 80,000lb, 68,000lb doesn't sound so high.  Were axle loadings back when the 60000 was built significantly lower back then?

 

Thanks,

 

Stuart

It's more than the axle loading. No. 60000 is a HUGE locomotive. She would look big next to UP 844, SP GS-4 4449, or a NS Heritage Unit. Only Challenger 3985 would exceed her in sheer mass. Making her heavier than usual is her water-tube firebox wih two big horizontal drums on top and an array of pipes curved down each side to her mud ring. That firebox was necessary to sustain her 350# pressure. But it is much heavier than an ordinary firebox. She has a Duplex stoker, so that adds a few pounds. I always thought that her 2-wheel trailing truck was straining to support the whole thing. Another ponderous component is her massive Worthington feedwater heater on the fireman's side. Probably in operation her crews felt top heavy, especially in the mountains.

 

Her tender is kinda small, sufficient for test runs but not for regular service. It probably would have been replaced by something  3 to 6 feet longer - maybe not the size of a Pennsy "coast-to-coast" tender (on 4-8-2 6755 at The Railroad Museum of PA) but close. Put a long B&O Vanderbilt tender as featured in the current OGR behind her and THAT would be something to see!

Last edited by ReadingFan
Originally Posted by John Pignatelli JR.:

This would make a great model because it ran on many roads pulling freight cars on their lines.

It would make a neat model, but there'd be a lot of stuff for a model manufacturer to get right.  Left hand lead, outside admission cylinders, the valve linkage on the left side to operate the link on the right side, the strange orientation of the eccentric crank on the right side to operate the link for the center cylinder . . .

 

When you consider that a lot of manufacturers have a load of trouble getting a simple Walschaerts or Baker valve gear right, you don't anticipate that the 60000 would have the necessary justice done to it . . .

 

EdKing 

3rd Rail / Sunset Models: Baldwin Demonstrator #60000. In Black or Purple. 

Bob Heil, as you know is my East Coast Rep and pushes me (guides me) to do all sorts of interesting projects. When he told me he personally remembers standing near this engine when it was painted PURPLE, I thought, "This has to be done."

So what do you guys think of a fully detailed brass BLW #60000 for O Scale, 2R or 3R, Anniversary Series? 

As far as complicated 3 Cylinder mechanisms... It's something we have experience with. i.e. SP SP-1 4-10-2, UP 2-10-4.

 

Last edited by sdmann
@sdmann posted:

3rd Rail / Sunset Models: Baldwin Demonstrator #60000. In Black or Purple. 

Bob Heil, as you know is my East Coast Rep and pushes me (guides me) to do all sorts of interesting projects. When he told me he personally remembers standing near this engine when it was painted PURPLE, I thought, "This has to be done."

So what do you guys think of a fully detailed brass BLW #60000 for O Scale, 2R or 3R, Anniversary Series? 

As far as complicated 3 Cylinder mechanisms... It's something we have experience with. i.e. SP SP-1 4-10-2, UP 2-10-4.

Scott,

I'm sure that you mean the UP 4-12-2, which you produced twice (the UP never had any 2-10-4 locomotives anyway).

 

 

@sdmann posted:

3rd Rail / Sunset Models: Baldwin Demonstrator #60000. In Black or Purple. 

Bob Heil, as you know is my East Coast Rep and pushes me (guides me) to do all sorts of interesting projects. When he told me he personally remembers standing near this engine when it was painted PURPLE, I thought, "This has to be done."

So what do you guys think of a fully detailed brass BLW #60000 for O Scale, 2R or 3R, Anniversary Series? 

As far as complicated 3 Cylinder mechanisms... It's something we have experience with. i.e. SP SP-1 4-10-2, UP 2-10-4.

 

I'm in for one!

O scale steam demonstrators are a rarity!  I love my Timken 4 Aces though!

Last edited by prrhorseshoecurve

Really? You stood next to it when it was purple?  And you remember it?  I am truly impressed!  I am almost 80, and it had been in the museum for 15 years before I was born.

There is another 60000 thread going right now - on the HONG Z forum.

Scott - if you do this thing, shoot me an e-mail before you finalize the boiler taper. It is asymmetrical, like a lot of the big Baldwins of the era.  My boiler was finished and purple before I realized the conical section was straight on the bottom.

FWIW, the book Southern Pacific Ten-Coupled Locomotives by Robert J. Church has a chapter set aside for this one.  Some pictures of the boiler construction and of the locomotive at Baldwin.  Probably not worth while buying the book just for that but if you could get it thru the library.  Me, I collect books.  Santa Fe Locomotive Development by Larry Brasher also has a couple pages about testing the locomotive.  This was the 1st information I had ever encountered about the locomotive.

Mark

 

@Skeeter1024 posted:

FWIW, the book Southern Pacific Ten-Coupled Locomotives by Robert J. Church has a chapter set aside for this one.  Some pictures of the boiler construction and of the locomotive at Baldwin.

I believe the book you may be think of is "Three Barrels of Steam", which has two chapters on the Baldwin #60000. Also, it is NOT by Robert J. Church.

  Probably not worth while buying the book just for that but if you could get it thru the library.  Me, I collect books.  Santa Fe Locomotive Development by Larry Brasher also has a couple pages about testing the locomotive.  This was the 1st information I had ever encountered about the locomotive.

Mark

 

For what it's worth, there are lots of interesting features about the Baldwin 60000:

1) It is a 3-cylinder compound, with the center cylinder being the high pressure cylinder, while the two outside cylinders are the low pressure. 

2) Although a compound, surprisingly all three cylinders are the same bore & stroke. 

3) The center cylinder drives the #2, cranked axle, while the two outside cylinders have their main rods connected to the #3 drive axle.

4) The firebox was of the water tube design, which tended to have broken tubes on a fairly regular basis.

5) If it hasn't been mentioned previously, the reason for the strange number of the locomotive was; it was the 60,000th locomotive produced by Baldwin Locomotive Works.

Last edited by Hot Water
@Hot Water posted:

For what it's worth, there are lots of interesting features about the Baldwin 60000:

1) It is a 3-cylinder compound, with the center cylinder being the high pressure cylinder, while the two outside cylinders are the low pressure. 

2) Although a compound, surprisingly all three cylinders are the same bore & stroke. 

3) The center cylinder drives the #2, cranked axle, while the two outside cylinders have their main rods connected to the #3 drive axle.

4) The firebox was of the water tube design, which tended to have broken tubes on a fairly regular basis.

5) If it hasn't been mentioned previously, the reason for the strange number of the locomotive was; it was the 60,000th locomotive produced by Baldwin Locomotive Works.

The Church book was put out by Signature Press fairly recently, excellent book by the way, nicely complements his Daylight and Mountain books.   Thank you for confirming that I need to add "Three Barrels Of Steam" to my search, definitely sounds like one I want.

Mark

@Skeeter1024 posted:

The Church book was put out by Signature Press fairly recently, excellent book by the way, nicely complements his Daylight and Mountain books.   Thank you for confirming that I need to add "Three Barrels Of Steam" to my search, definitely sounds like one I want.

Mark

Mark,

I just ordered a copy.  It'll go great with my other SP steam books by Mr. Church.

Stuart

I have both books.  When I was building my model I asked for help.  One fellow modeler sent me a large package of xeroxed information - folks are always willing to help.  I saved it - somewhere - and will send it to Scott if he decides to go forward with a model.

Information is sparse.  Hot has collected most of it in his succinct post, but if you want more loquacious prose, see my writeup in the other thread.

Wow.  According to the link in Rusty's post, it maxed out the PRR test plant at just 37.5 mph and much less than a 100% firing rate.  It was the most powerful loco they had tested up to that point (1926.)  So I guess it was more powerful than an I1 Decapod, M1 Mountain, and ??

Erie's Super-Power Berks came just one year later.  I wonder why the Erie shunned this big Baldwin, and how the two classes compared when tested on that road?

Last edited by Ted S
@Ted S posted:

Wow.  According to the link in Rusty's post, it maxed out the PRR test plant at just 37.5 mph and much less than a 100% firing rate.  It was the most powerful loco they had tested up to that point (1926.)  So I guess it was more powerful than an I1 Decapod, M1 Mountain, and ??

Erie's Super-Power Berks came just one year later.  I wonder why the Erie shunned this big Baldwin, and how the two classes compared when tested on that road?

Probably was shunned for the reason of excess maintenance costs of the inside motion of the 3rd cylinder. That and the water tube firebox. The 3 cylinder fad seemed to pass fairly quickly in the states.

@Skeeter1024 posted:

The Church book was put out by Signature Press fairly recently, excellent book by the way, nicely complements his Daylight and Mountain books.   Thank you for confirming that I need to add "Three Barrels Of Steam" to my search, definitely sounds like one I want.

Mark

I also remember this loco being mentioned in a book about the history of the Baldwin locomotive works.  

I re-read the text in Bob Church's book last night.  The locomotive maxed out the Altoona test facility.  According to Bob, they estimated it could have gone above 4500 hp.

Also of note: they know which tenders were used on the SP.  We could probably find out if the San Jose display Pacific's tender was one of them.  If I ever make it to Sacramento again . . .

I recently received my copy of the Southern Pacific Ten-Coupled Locomotives book.  Like my other SP steam locomotive books by Robert Church it is full of information and data about the Southern Pacific ten-coupled steam locomotives.

Now I just read the chapter on the Baldwin 60000 and I found the Mr. Church fell into some of the same errors that others have stated about the Baldwin 60000.  First is that the 60000 had triple Walschaerts valve gear (This arrangement was used on the Baldwin-built D&RGW M-75 class 4-8-2 and UP's "Baldface Nine rebuilds of some of their UP-2 class 4-12-2).  On the 60000 what Baldwin did was far more creative.  They used the Walschaerts valve gear on the engineers side to operate the valve on the center high pressure cylinder.  They used the Walschaerts valve gear on the fireman's side to operate the left low pressure cylinder, and from the left crosshead they used a lever like that used in Young valve gear to operate the right low pressure cylinder.  This use of a Young valve gear setup is why the cranks on the drivers had to be set to 90 degrees, with the center crank set 135 degrees apart from the other two.

Another issue is the claim that part of the failure of the 6000 was that it was too heavy.  One page 223 Mr. Church states that the 60000 weighed 15,500 lbs more than the SP-1 class 4-10-2.  But here's the part I take issue with.  One page 198 he posted the data sheet for the SP-1 class engine, and on page 216 he has the data sheet for the 60000.  Below are the respective weights of the two designs.

Weight          SP-1          60000

On Drivers          316,000          318,000

Front Truck          65,500          66,000

Trailing Truck          60,500            61,000

Total Engine          442,000          445,000

So the actual weight difference was negligible.

What probably doomed the 60000 was that it was too different.  The combination of being a compound engine in the mid 1920's along with the water tube firebox made it too radial for mose railroads.

Stuart

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