Right: Isambard Kingdom Brunel's famous Saltash Bridge c. Hand-dug excavation on the Scarborough and Whitby Railway, which saw completion in 1885. Railroad mounds, vaster than the walls of Babylon In the young Unites States of America it was not. “capital for development and expansion was readily available” (Koch 33). Locomotive and freight car (goods wagon) design.Approaches to creating the right of way and laying tracks.Who financed railways in the U.K.and railroads in the U.S.Superior quality of British metallurgy” (34).Īt least half a dozen points distinguish the two countries' approaches to railroading: Locomotives still depended to an important extent on England, for “English builders continued to supply the American market with components such asīoiler plate, tires and forgings - a tribute to the Perhaps most surprising, by 1840 the American locomotive builder William Norris “had supplied 17 locomotives to the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway in England” (36). Soon, however, American manufacturers began exporting locomotives, first to Germany in 1837, Cuba and Austria in 1841. In the United States during that period were Of the total number of locomotives in service ĭespite the fact that the “first truly American locomotive” was built in 1830, one year after the first British import arrived on American shores, “some 120 British locomotives were purchased by American railroads-about a quarter American designers were to add improvements, ofĬourse, but these would be largely in the flexibility of the locomotive's running gear. Of the locomotive, including the separate firebox, multiple boiler, direct connection to the This is not to denigrate the contributions of British railway designers, engineers and master mechanics to the basic design The young country quickly established its own locomotive building industry suited to American operating condition. John Ruskin, " Traffic"Īlthough the first locomotives used in the United States of America were imported from England, the fundamental approaches to design and construction in each country early began to diverge until they became, as George Bernard Shaw wittily remarked about another matter, "two nations separated by a common ocean and a common language." As the railway historian Michael Koch has pointed out,
WHAT DOES VSPD STAND FOR IN TERMS OF LOCOMOTIVES HOW TO
(Rebuilt from MC-6's in the late 1920's.It is long since you built a great cathedral and how you would laugh at me if I proposed building a cathedral on the top of one of these hills of yours, to make it an Acropolis! But your railroad mounds, vaster than the walls of Babylon, your railroad stations, vaster than the temple of Ephesus, and innumerable your chimneys, how much more mighty and costly than cathedral spires! your harbour-piers your warehouses your exchanges! - all these are built to your great Goddess of "Getting-on " and she has formed, and will continue to form, your architecture, as long as you worship her and it is quite vain to ask me to tell you how to build to her you know far better than I. In all, Southern Pacific would eventually end up with a whopping 256 Cab Forwards in all different classes. The early 2-8-8-2 and 4-6-6-2 built between 1910 and the late 1920s were not nearly as powerful as the later 4-8-8-2s of the AC-4 through AC-12 classes built in 1930 through 1942 (for instance 65,000-90,000 pounds of tractive effort compared to 124,000 pounds). While the 2-8-8-2s were the first to utilize the Cab Forward design the SP owned four different wheel arrangements with such setups including 2-8-8-2s, 4-6-6-2s, and 4-8-8-2s (Yellowstones turned-backwards). Thankfully, no such incidents ever occurred with the locomotives during their four decades of operation. The only real issue of the Cab Forwards during operation was crews' apprehensiveness of a grade crossing accident due to the cab being the first part of the locomotive to potentially strike a vehicle. The idea worked fabulously, solving the Southern Pacific's issues of mountainous operations with large steamers. The locomotives were first put into service between February and March of 1910 and the Mallets ability to feature a cab at the front was thanks to oil as a primary fuel source, which was piped all of the way from the tender to the firebox. The design utilized a cab located to the front of the locomotive, which would keep the crew entirely clear of smoke and exhaust.