Grassroots Railroad Sports?

Sante Fe repair shop in Kansas City - 1943.

In reply to 914Driver :

A 3200 would be a Consolidation.

An interesting fact on ATSF steam in preservation is that, despite there being 57 engines preserved, including many 2-10-4s and 4-8-4s and a large amount of 2-6-2s (never a very common wheel arrangement), there are zero preserved ATSF Mikados. Not really sure why, although there is one that potentially survives, granted I'm using the phrase "survives" in the loosest sense of the word. When the Kansas River flooded, ATSF parked three Prairies and a Mikado on a trestle in hopes of stabilizing the trestle. It didn't work, the trestle collapsed, and all four engines were swept into the river and never recovered. One of the engines was found, although I've never found a solid account of which, when there was a drought one year and one of the engines stuck up out of the water. ATSF sent a crew down there and had them torch the protruding locomotive off flush with the river bed so that it wouldn't be a navigational hazard.

ATSF #2902 drifting downgrade east of Raton, NM with the third section of train #3, the Grand Canyon Limited. The extendable smokestack was an ATSF trademark on their big power. Between the height of the drivers and the sheer size of the boiler package, there wasn't room for a tall smokestack when going through tunnels. The problem with a short stack was that the smoke would never get above the boundary layer of air flowing over the boiler, so all the smoke would blow back into the cab. The solution was these air-actuated extendable smokestacks. When outside of a tunnel, you raised the stack, and then when entering limited clearances, you lowered it. 

In reply to NickD :

We followed this route through Raton pass & along most of our trip to CO a few weeks ago. The grades they're able to traverse through the pass is astonishing. 

ATSF #2925 leaving Belen, New Mexico on a cold January morning with train #1, the eastbound Scout. Running the same Chicago-LA route as the Chief or the California Limited, the all-heavyweight Scout eschewed the latest equipment for more of a budget ride.

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

It was the highest point (7588ft) and steepest grades (3.5%) on the ATSF system. The Southwest Chief is about the only traffic over Raton, with almost all freight traffic being routed over the Belen Cutoff. In 2012, BNSF threatened that they weren't going to be able to justify maintaining Raton to Amtrak standards, so its on life support. In 2018, Amtrak president Richard Anderson came up with a shockingly stupid plan to chop the corridor up into a Los Angeles to Albuquerque rail segment with daylight or overnight trains, a bus bridge between La Junta, Colo., or Dodge City, Kan, and an overnight or daylight train between La Junta or Dodge City and Chicago. The Southwest Chief ranked fifth among all Amtrak corridors and route in passenger miles (over 313 million in 2017) and delivered revenues of $43.5 million. Of this, $19.7 million was sleeping car revenue, which would virtually disappear if passengers are subjected to a mid-route bus ride, and the chopping up of service would like drive many customers over to airline travel.  

Santa Fe's Navajo grinds up over Raton Pass with an antique 900-series 2-10-2 lending an assist to 4-8-4 #3756 on the front end, and a 3200-series Mikado shoving on the rear.

Two ATSF 3800-series 2-10-2s assist a 3765-series Northern with the Chief as they prepare to enter Raton Tunnel. The 3765-series engines was an improvement over the earlier 3751-series engines, with a nickel-steel boiler, a boiler pressure of 300psi, roller bearings, and cylinder dimensions that were chosen to alleviate the backpressure issues of the 3751s.

Stack raised, #2901 leads a refrigerated boxcar train east of Bovina, Texas. The 2900s were built to the 3765-series but, because of wartime high-tensile alloy restrictions, were an extremely heavy machine, weighing 974,000lbs. They were, in fact, the heaviest passenger locomotives built in the US, although WWII required them to haul strictly freight service until after the war, when they filtered over to passenger service on the Scout and Chief

Santa Fe 643 at the Oklahoma Railroad Museum is a 2-8-0.

Preserved Santa Fe locomotives.  http://atsf.railfan.net/atsfpres/    

In reply to LS_BC8 :

The #3463 is preserved in the loosest sense of the word. It's pretty horribly neglected.

The #2925 and #5021 are two really frustrating cases. ATSF overhauled those two very shortly before retirement, it's believed that #5021 only turned 21,000 miles before being taken out of service, then held onto them at the Cleburne shops, inside and out of the weather, for quite a few years while trying to find the right place to donate them too. They finally settled on the California State Railroad Museum, who shoved them out in the back-forty of their facilities where they couldn't be viewed or watched, and let the neglect and vandalism take hold. Decades later, they still are not on public display, and while they've at least hit them with a coat of paint, they look pretty sad. Have to wonder how much better it would have turned out if they'd gone elsewhere (Grand Canyon Railway would have been a great spot for them)

Grand Canyon Railway did try to get their hands on the #3759 for an operational restoration, which would have given them an engine of the size they needed and put a 3700 back on the territory they frequently operated over, but they got into one of those "This is our engine and no one's taking it" arguments with the city of Kingman, Arizona.

ATSF #3415, the heavy Pacific at Abilene & Smokey Valley, goes down for her 1472 this year. It would be nice to see the A&SV be able to upgrade their rails so she's not just poking along at 10mph, but that costs money. Hopefully the overhaul doesn't take too long, since she's the sole operating steam locomotive in Kansas.

The #5000, the "Madame Queen", has had an operational restoration floated around for years and years. Nothing ever seems to come of it though.

In reply to NickD :

Oh they were running coal trains over it during both directions of our trip, and we saw them all the way from TX to CO & back. They looked to be about 100-cars long with either 2 or 3 locos at each end. I got the impression they probably didn't switch out cars, just unload & run it back the opposite direction to load up again. 

All of that horsepower, torque, and tractive effort... and the drive wheel-to-rail contact patch is roughly the size of a nickel. 

Recon1342 said:

All of that horsepower, torque, and tractive effort... and the drive wheel-to-rail contact patch is roughly the size of a nickel. 

And the contact patch is smooth steel on smooth steel.

Someone posted this old promotional film for roller bearings (I'm assuming it was produced by Timken) and if you skip to around the 20:30 mark it includes footage of a publicity stunt that the NYC did with one of their Niagaras, where they had 4 gals pull the locomotive along a stretch of track with ropes. I've seen photos of the stunt in Ed Nowak's book, but never actual film of it. Timken did the same thing with their "Four Aces" demonstrator when it was on tour as well.

After some disastrous experiments with articulated engines in the forms of  4-4-6-2s (with 73" drivers!), 2-10-10-2s and 2-8-8-0s, ATSF gave up on the idea of the articulated steam locomotive, unlike it's competitors at UP, SP, and D&RGW. Instead, they focused on going as big as they could on conventional two-cylinder steam locomotives. The 2900/3700-series 4-8-4s were as large as that wheel arrangement could go, and ATSF also owned the largest, heaviest non-articulated steam locomotives in their monster 5011-series 2-10-4s. The 5011-series engines were over 1 million pounds in total weight, had boilers that were 108" in diamter and pressurized to 310psi, 30x34" cylinders, 74" drivers that were the tallest every applied to a ten-coupled locomotive, a one-piece cast-frame with integral cylinders, lightweight rods, roller bearings everywhere, and a Worthington feedwater heater. 

Cylinder horsepower was rated at 6000hp (just 300hp shy of the UP's Big Boy), drawbar horsepower was measured at 5600hp, and tractive effort came in at 108,961lbs. With 74" drivers, roller bearings, and tapered lightweight connecting rods, they could run too, unlike most of the other 63"- and 69"-drivered Texas-types. ATSF's 5011s were known to fill in on passenger service when a 2900 or EMD diesel came up lame, and could run at a steady 70mph. In theory, those 74" drivers would indicate higher top speeds, but when you get a connecting rod strong enough to hold up to 6000hp, that's a lot of weight flailing around at those speeds and it beats the hell out of the tracks.

The 5011s were somewhat of an unwelcome guest on the ATSF though. They had previously desired a continuation of the single 5000-series 2-10-4 prototype, but those plans had been put on hold by the Great Depression. After the US shrugged off the last dregs of the depression, ATSF purchased 10 more 2-10-4s of a new design, the 5001-series, but the next year EMD introduced the EMD FT. Santa Fe was fully onboard with the idea of diesels, since their routes through Arizona and New Mexico had tenuous water supply situation, and so they bought many of the early FTs. Then WWII kicked off and ATSF needed more motive power and wanted additional FTs, but the War Production Board was allocating as many EMD 567s as they could for naval usage. ATSF was forced to call up Baldwin and have them dust off the blueprints for the 5001-series 2-10-4s and apply a few more upgrades, taking delivery of 25 more, the 5011-series in 1944. The 5011s proved well-suited to handling fast freight service and troop transport, but didn't alleviate the water supply situation, and later on in the war, the War Production Board would finally allocate some FTs to be constructed and delivered to ATSF.

A rare photo of a 5011-series in passenger use, hauling a second section of the Grand Canyon Limited consisting of 8 heavyweight cars. The #5023 is likely barely even breaking a sweat.

Two 5011 classes struggle with an 83-car freight train just east of Belen, NM.

A shiny 4060-series Mikado lends an assist to a grungy 5011-series Texas

Where it all started was ATSF #3829. In 1919, as ATSF was taking delivery of thirty 3800-series 2-10-2s, they asked Baldwin to build the final one, the #3829, with a 4-wheel trailing truck. It was otherwise identical to the other 131 3800-series Santa Fes, with 63" drivers and 88.30 square feet of grate area, which meant it really didn't take advantage of the idea of the 4-wheel trailing truck. It's believed that the concept was that if the #3829 performed better, then ATSF would retrofit the rest of the existing 3800s and order any future engines with the 4-wheel trailing truck. There was no noticeable improvement in performance and so the #3829 was not replicated, although it also wasn't converted to a 2-10-2 to match it's siblings either. ATSF put the 2-10-4 idea back on the shelf and it wasn't played with again until 6 years later when Lima began constructing the I-1s for Texas & Pacific. ATSF wouldn't personally revisit the idea until 11 years later. 

Eleven years later, with the concept of Superpower taking hold, ATSF went back to Baldwin and had them construct a single 2-10-4 that took advantage of the advancements in locomotive design philosophies. The #5000, nicknamed "Madame Queen" after the Amos & Andy character, was the missing link between the #3829 and the 5001-series/5011-series engines. It had the 121.70 square foot grate area of the later engines and a 300psi boiler, but she had 69" drivers, instead of the 63" of the #3829 or the 74" of the 5001s. It also had an Elesco bundle-type feedwater heater, which was an appliance not usually seen on ATSF motive power. The Madame Queen's tests in July and August 1930 took the engine over the Pecos Division between Clovis and Belen, NM. The Santa Fe reported that when compared to the 3800 class 2-10-2s, the 5000 would handle approximately 15% more tonnage in 9% less time and with 17% less coal per 1,000 gross ton miles, an impressive performance. But, due to the Great Depression, Santa Fe would not order any more engines of the #5000's design, leaving the Madame Queen a unique machine. She hung on to the end of steam though, and was even preserved in Amarillo, TX.

The #5000 paired up with a 3800-series 2-10-2 on the head of a freight with a 1674-series 2-10-2 shoving on the back end.