Al Perlman

b&m617 wrote:legend has it that Perlman's brother in law was a scrap dealer; thats why everything was consigned to the torch, from locomotives to motor cars.... :P

Those conflictling interests again? That would explain some of his attitude to steam - and give an insight to a CEO's thinking when personal interests should have ranked low in regard to company interests.
I recall a friend of mine whom I got to know during my studies, at one time had scrutinizingly looked into the famous comparative tests Niagara vs diesels and found the results more than dubious in some respects:
-a- The set up of the tests was not unbiased in that the diesels were given a best possible assignment and the Niagaras then were given but the next best possible one; the diesels ran the fastest and highest ranking express trains, many of them equipped with new light-weight stock - the Niagaras the next best of the passenger trains, with more frequent stops (!) plus more coaches at the same time, many of which were of the heavy old types, too, i.e. much heavier trains on average. It looks innocent to run the new stock behind the new engines, doesn't it - but what a difference it meant for loco output demand to accelerate and re-accelerate the heavier trains more often than the diesels had to on the new streamliner stock!
-b- A three-uni set of diesels (when new ..) was rated slightly lower running costs than the S-1b - however on a number of runs it took four diesels to equal the 4-8-4's performance
(i.e. 64 cylinders to replace two cylinders steam - *g*).
Those flaws were enough to paint a picture that had little to do with reality.
on -a- : It is clear that neither monthly mileage nor locomotive service efficiency could be the same in unequal service set ups; it was largely left unnoticed that the longer trains carried more passengers (or at least offered more seats) than the shorter ones run by the diesels.
So, in order to get an unbiased result one should have checked costs of loco running against revenue by product of passengers x mileage. My colleague made an estimate calculation on that assuming an approx. 10 % lower degree of sold seats in the longer (Niagara hauled) trains: that still gave an approx. 15 - 20 % lower loco running cost per passenger-mile in comparison with a triple unit diesel set just because the Niagara trains carried so many more seats. With four unit diesels, the offer of seats in trains was presumably much the same - but then even the official results admitted that four diesels were slightly costlier to run than one Niagara (that makes one unit diesel per one drive axle steam - my goodness, and that was called progress!).
on -b- : Trivial to say, you could save a lot of fuel and maintenance costs if you slimmed your trains by lighter, modern coaches. No intention to insult anyone, but the plain simple fact must be noted that this would have applied to steam as to diesel alike. With trimmed down train weights, trains could either have been handled by a Hudson (with 12 wheel tender) instead of a Niagara, or: with Niagaras traveling speeds could have been substantially raised and/or steaming rate could have been eased causing much lower unburnt fuel losses with more moderate draught by more moderate cut-off - i.e. realizing a lower fuel consumption per passenger-mile even without the least technical changes. This is because boiler efficiency itself drops with increasingly high steaming rate while percentage of unburnt losses is sent scoring - not to speak of low cylinder efficiency by running at long cut-off. It was thus not economical to run steam locos flat out all along the way although it was a necessity of traffic especially in freight haulage.
With just a light up-grading applying techniques then perfectly available, another increase of maximum i.h.p. output of at least 10 % could have been achieved just by improved exhaust lines and high efficiency / low backpressure draughting, while even more would have been at hand by improvements to the valve gear (without need of poppet valves). Independently from that, a big knock-down of fuel consumption could have been realized simply by better specification and more uniform supply of grades of locomotive coal and by less abrasive handling of the coal from loading it into coal chutes, from there to tenders and stoking from tender to firebox. This would not only have saved on sheer consumption but also would have improved combustion efficiency thus providing cleaner exhaust thus less dirt on rolling stock ...
With these comparatively small adaptations (as compared to throwing away the locomotive, buying a four unit set of different locomotives and revamping the facilities to service the new locomotives) a Niagara would easily have been more economic on fuel costs than even a three unit diesel set while holding an indicated power output of some 7300 - 7700 ihp at 80 - 100 mph, i.e. then up-to-date revenue earning speeds for express service.
Oh, and by the way: I thought this forum is about famous people in railroad history?
Wouldn't Alfred E. P. better apply for the infamous section?
I recall there was an article on him in a trains mag one time and the auther wrote 'He could have run an airline'.
I think one little word got lost in that sentence´- 'down'

Juniatha

(Well, I never denied I am for steam, think that will not surprise anyone)
-

I'm not sure what the steam vs. diesel debate has to do with Perlman, since NYC's decision to fully dieselize predated the Perlman regime. By the time Perlman arrived, steam was in its last throes.

As for Perlman himself, I guess I'm a contrariran. He will always be, as the euphemism goes, "controversial." He was indeed a hellish boss and tended to speak his sarcastic mind in many of the wrong places. But the bottom line is that he was what the NYC needed at that time, and did an effective job.

I say this coming from a family of "old regime" NYC officials (grandfather an NYC VP in the 1920s and father beginning with NYC in 1931 and retiring as executive representative in Boston about 1968) and some personal experience with Perlman and his associates.

He had, to be kind, a difficult personality, but he knew railroading, knew what had to be done, and did it. When he arrived, NYC had vastly excess physical plant, an archaic management structure, and, among other things, was handling a lot of unprofitable types of business. Perlman streamlined the physical plant and operations, created new research and marketing functions, and brought in a bunch of bright young guys, most of whom went on to become industry leaders in the 1970s and '80s. It can be argued that by the time Penn Central came on the horizon, NYC was slipping back into trouble, but this was mostly for reasons that Perlman couldn't control. When PC finally did appear, though, NYC had a far better physical plant and management than its shotgun partner, the PRR.

Ah yes, the "brother-in-law-in-the-scrap-business" legend. I first heard that muttered aroundCollinwood yard in the late 1950s. If so (nobody ever knew), though, it makes little difference as far as his performance on the NYC goes. Much of what was scrapped should have been scrapped, and nasty as he was, I think Perlman was honest.

BaltOhio wrote:I'm not sure what the steam vs. diesel debate has to do with Perlman, since NYC's decision to fully dieselize predated the Perlman regime. By the time Perlman arrived, steam was in its last throes.

Hi, BaltOhio

Well, if that's so, then of course the initiative to go diesel doesn't have so much to do with him - although I think he was the driving force behind what some engineers consider a precipital sort of change-over to diesel traction. I didn't witness it myself, of course, I was just told of it by my father who had earlier worked at ALCO. I recall he mentioned one time that one of Perlman's first decisions was 'no more main overhauls for steam' which meant that engines were to be taken off service at a rigidly pre-set, fast proceeding pace and not according to either their technical condition and/or traffic demand. In my personal view those early diesel types of only 1350 - 1500 motor hp that soon had to be replaced again by / 'up-graded' to more acceptable types (hesitate to call them 'better ones') can at best be considered a relative success and so it would appear a somewhat more cautious, thoughtful and farseeing way of traction change-over which would just have skipped those first and second generation diesels might have saved lots of capital that could better have been invested into other required modernisation or up-grading projects of the railroad. Just consider the fact that the capital spent on these diesels did not provide the railroad with any capability it didn't have before but merely re-bought the whole loco stock all over again plus demanded a re-vamping of servicing facilities while there was simply no adequate improvement offered by all this hustle and bustle. Yet it left the railroad with considerable interest rates to pay. As I said, I wasn't there - yet the way his management has been described (also in that beforementioned magazine article) he seems to have ruled like a dictator - and those are rarely regarded to be most effective as it comes to solving complex logistic, technical and economical problems.

Juniatha

Au contraire, Ms. J..... as to "no adequate improvement" by replacing steam with diesel power (even replacing NYC 6000-class engines with 1500-hp diesels). Just a few improvements:

Elimination of steam shops, servicing facilites, the taxes paid on them, and the thousands of employees that staffed them.

Elimination of water stops (not all NYC lines had track pans), water tanks and treatment plants.

Faster times over the road, better availablity of road power meant a reduction in the number of crews needed-- a savings of money.

Not having to haul "company coal"which was effectively not only "non-revenue" loaded car miles, but was a COST to the railroad.

Let's recall that there were only 30 4-8-4s, only about 150 modern 4-8-2s (the rest were 1916-1929 vintage), the Hudsons were about useless as freight power as passenger train miles went into free-fall--- the rest of the NYC steam roster was old and tired and ready to be replaced anyway.

In the overly-regulated environment of railroading during the late 40s into the late 50s, the diesel (along with CTC and improvements/mechanization of track maintenance) quite simply saved the railroads, NYCS included.

I love steam-- and I've worked on it (shovelled coal, fired 'em up from cold starts, welded staybolts, sweated on driver tires, etc) enough to know how wonderful the diesel locomotive, even the primitive 1950 version, is.

Let us not forget that Mr. Perlman went on to work his brand of 'magic' on yet another property-the Western Pacific.

JFD

The recent opus "The Men Who Loved Trains" contains favorable coverage of Al Perlman's industry career.

ISBN 0-253-34757-2

Hi All,

Got a copy of Smiley's Videotape on the UPRR some time ago, and Perlman plays a large roll on that tape. I got the impression he made the UP into a first class RR, and basically improved the ROW so that scheduling was vastly improved and probably was responsible for the ROW from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, especially the causeway across the Great Salt Lake in Utah.

Hi Malone, Hi istDS, Hi All
.

Since I have come to this site, I have wondered how some guys are writing quite abusively about US steam. There were deficits, sure, but according to some posts, you might ask yourself how railroads had been able to keep up any sort of regular traffic with steam if it had been that bad. Now, I am US born, however have spent most of my life in Europe and so I see both sides - or so I hope.

To begin with: I was of course not proposing the NYC should just have done nothing but doodling on and not improve anything. On the contrary I had pointed out that improvement was possible with steam and that could have saved a lot of capital for other improvements equally or more pressing, such as track modernization with welded rails and state of the art rail / ties connection (on DB doing away with rail joints lowered rolling stock bearing maintenance costs to 40% of former value; with higher US axle loads continuously welded rail was even more important), modernization of line signaling, modernization of freight yards to name but a few. It is known how passenger service declined during the 1950s to ‘60s. By continuing with an improved and modernized steam traction it would have been possible -a- simply to save the capital otherwise lost in new diesel passenger train sets that never paid back, or - b- it might have been possible to invest capital into track up-grading for 120 mph and high speed locos and stock to offer 120 mph services which in the light of high speed trains success in Europe could at that time have been competitive with air craft travel on medium long haul. The Hiawatha trains of the Milwaukee road showed that economic success was possible with such trains – only they were too few and there was no inter-railroad network built up to connect all major East coast cities and so railroads never really offered an alternative to up rising air travel.
Your note, to quote: 'the Hudsons were about useless as freight power' is just an example of 'how-not-to-do-it' type of engine misuse that happened more than a few times on US railroads, including the NYC. Of course the Hudsons were not built for freight and if you compare a freight diesel with an express steam engine both on freight the result is obvious - but who suggests to run a line that way? However the NYC did call locos with but four coupled axles to struggle along on heavy drag freights, all the way remaining in starting range output mode at full cry, i.e. an extremely inefficient, low output and high wearing type of running. The Mohawks could start a heavy freight and keep it rolling - but that did not say all was well with this sort of freight traction. Also, to have and buy 2-8-4s and 4-8-2s at the same time for the same service does not bespeak clear engineering decision - especially not when the only proper w/a within that size of engines would have been the 2-10-2 (which again was never developed into the speed freight engine it potentially was if just given a well designed leading truck, well proportioned wheel diameter and proper balancing with light weight rodding). As I said at another comment: before the advent of diesels it seemed the railroads couldn't have cared less about coal consumption. If consumption was excessively high, they rather built eight axle tenders to existing locos to replace six axle types that had already replaced original four axle tenders and added supplementary water tenders instead of ever moving to improve coal handling, use more suitable coal, improve combustion and lower specific coal comsumption.
A point much overlooked both in the US as in Europe when considering steam development potential was that servicing and maintenance of steam locos by railroads was never developed fully up to demands for best efficiency steam traction and that became a severe hindrance to engine development because design had to take account of that - or would have failed. So, one backwardness dragged along the other. Traction development world wide during the steam era was much characterized by omission. As compared to the capital invested into development of diesel and electric traction the expenditures on steam development were trivial. An obvious reason for that appalling difference is that it was generally believed to be known, more or less how to design a straight forward ‘good enough’ engine; also, in the steam era rarely ever was an engine type planned ahead according to business outlook, rather it was ordered when the demand was already there and builders then hastily thrashed up design to meet customer demands – which were often kept to the low side to make a short-sighted saving of initial expenditures.
With diesel and even more true with electric traction this attitude was reversed by 180 degrees because clearly in the 1940s to 1960s it was not at all settled which was the best way to develop and design such engines and with electric traction this continues into present days with extremely powerful units having been developed just in these last years – which again are about to become second to the next generation.
One example for the restrictions of steam development: on US railroads maintenance procedures, facilities and capabilities focused on the simple two cylinder type and were never developed to deal with multi cylinder designs which therefore were not continued into the 1940s Super Power. This formed a trap for steam development as engine outputs became limited by piston thrust then mechanically tolerable which again limited cylinder displacement volume total, that way truncating expansion, thus wasting a lot of steam, consequently lowering output while increasing coal consumption.
Wanting development plagued steam traction on European railways, too: here it was the mechanical side which became hopelessly outmoded. In fact, as concerns mechanics the best of 1940s US steam locomotives, such as N&W J class, were quite highly developed.
That the NYC steam fleet was largely out-dated was not an inherent deficiency of steam power. It was again a sign of management understanding of economy by simply turning down investments. This way steam traction was slowly choked to a condition ripe for replacement. As it was possible to renew the complete loco stock by diesels it would have been possible to renew it by new steam - only cheaper: very little change of facilities, lower first cost of locomotives per ihp output unit .

So, what I meant was of course a vastly modernized steam traction versus diesel. In present days colloquial talk about steam vs. diesel modern engines are freely compared with engines of 60 years ago! No one would compare, say a 1938 Cadillac with a 2006 Ford model and conclude: ah, Ford is the better car maker!
In my view, any railway that had bought maintenance intensive, unreliable and low power first and second generation GM or other diesels had virtually carried out large scale shake down tests for the producers and had paid for that, too. This also applies to British Railways, by the way, where unofficially it is admitted that early diesels mass introduced were just a waste of expenditures and resources, as proven by their early demise. Of DB, some pensioned officials would unofficially sum up investment in main line diesel traction as but a costly transient detour to electric traction – logic conclusion: going directly from a regionally prolonged steam traction to electric would have saved a lot of money. Or, as diesel traction was universally accepted in the US, to change over from steam to diesel only at a time when diesels had really become the reliable and sturdy movers they are today’s would in my view have been preferable.
S o, to repeat:
- I am not proposing steam never needed any modernization,
what I mean is: steam could have been modernized and made competitive in the 1940s to, say, 1960s;
- I am not proposing we should still have 1940s type of steam or in fact steam at all as a regular revenue earning traction today's,
what I mean is: steam traction could effectively and efficiently have been prolonged some further 15 to 20 years.
That’s all.

Answering your points:

According to your arguments it would appear that while steam locomotives had to be paid for and consumed fuel, diesels were donated for free by altruistic GM and consumed nothing, never needed any depots, let alone overhaul and just went on and on until finally stopped after years by bravehearted men who would break into the engine compartment still factory sealed to cut the engine off for good. For sure: just do away with steam and you save all costs related to steam! That's true. Carrying this argument a little bit further, one could logically say: do away with the entire railway and you save all the costs of the railway - and how much capital bound in an enterprise of dubious revenue would it have set free if all the railway metal equipment would have been sold for scrap, the right of way sold for highway construction, the buildings erased to be replaced by refinery plants, automobile factories, bureau towers etc.
Really I think you romanticize the diesel locomotive. For instance: you say, quote 'I sweated on (steam) driver tires' - don't diesel locomotive have tires on wheels, too? and aren't they less accessible because of outside frame bogies? How about trying to focus a problem on an axle motor in a bogie that had attired so much dirt it looks like one solid lump so that first task is to go into kind of 'archeological excavations' to unearth nuts and bolts - or you could go sweating over taking off cylinder heads that are still hot, trying to open a piston rod's big end and push a frozen piston out, all that within cramped space and in a ridiculously contorted position – or you could try to extract auxiliaries that only become accessible to be 'operated out' after dismantling quite a number of other things that were perfectly ok before just to cause intractable trouble when everything has been remounted again - and what more delights such an engine has to offer that I really wouldn't want to deal with ...

On your points of 'improvements' by diesels:

1. Diesel locos did ask for depots, staff and maintenance of their own and consumed a type of fuel that was very near proportionally costlier per unit of heat content as the consumption was less, i.e. fuel costs for same output at rail was much the same as in 1940s type steam power (source: NYC comparison tests Niagara vs. diesel).
True, a number of steam sheds were torn down - but only to erect new rectangular diesel sheds, because it was believed that it would be uneconomic to keep diesels in ex-steam sheds. True: in a rectangular shed with a number of parallel tracks you could shelf engines more compact - which was an aspect because of the low unit value of hp contained in the 'modern' engines and the larger number of units therefore needed to shift the same amount of daily traffic. But whether that warranted the large expenditure of revamping whole depots only to replace one power by another, that was very questionable and in hindsight a scrutinizing calculation would likely show a more or less profound deficit spending because the original calculations as far as any were put up were based on the false assumption that traffic would but somewhat go down at war's end but then continue on that still high level with a tendency to rise again later. Without much of a profound business calculation of their own, some railroads just blindly followed 'examples' by competing lines, such as for instance PRR Eastern lines in the case of their dieselization of passenger trains on grounds that NYC was about to have theirs dieselized; I recall management word for that was 'to protect our trains' - protection that became meaningless with these trains falling into oblivion in the following years - an investment that sent large capital directly down the drain. Other lines took decisions before even tests, let alone consequential outlook calculations were finished, such as NYC.
2. While a number of employees were fired or 'set free' as it is called by modern business terminology, the rest of the staff had to undergo expensive trainings for the different engines - or should have: in the early years of dieselization railways rushing to the new power had in no way realized the implementations of this motive power turn around, taking for granted their sloppy smith-shop type of maintenance would also do for the new power and had to learn by mass failures that they hastily had to bring their facilities up to something more up-to-date. This is why steam saw a short time revival around the mid-50's on many railways pioneering dieselization. Some even had to rent steam power from other railways because in carefree optimism they had already scrapped their own steam power before having made sure the new power would really take up traffic reliably.
3. Faster time over the road: while a number of 1940s express steam locos were already designed for 100 mph service or higher speed, the passenger diesels were not suitable for speeds above some 70 to 80 mph simply because the power was not there. True, with a line-up of units heavier than the steam loco they replaced you could pile up enough power - but at what expense both in weight, fuel consumption and in capital! In general, to replace one engine unit by a multitude of units is inherently less efficient and more expensive, that’s so in all fields of technical power, that’s why there are giant air liners, giant oil tankers and giant power plants, no one would suggest to spit up on four units what job could be done by one large unit.
Acceleration inevitably remained low in the upper speed range because of low power per weight relation - by no way comparable to the acceleration at hand with electric traction.
For example: a present day 22 tons axle load synchronous motors Bo-Bo unit performs some 9000 hp at rail (DBAG 101 series); to assemble the same power output by diesels you will have to put up three 22.5 tons axle load Co-Co units (DBAG 232 series), i.e. 88 tons versus 3 x 135 = 405 tons or 4.6 times the weight.
Now if you want to accelerate a typical 10 coach IC express train of 40 tons per coach you have a total train weight of 88 + (10 x 40) = 88 + 400 = 488 tons for the electric train and 405 + (10 x 40) = 405 + 400 = 805 tons for the diesel train or 1.65 times the total train weight.
This shows two things:
-a- an alarming weight relation loco to revenue train in the case of the diesel train,
-b- incapability yet of the combined three large diesels to accelerate that train to 200 km/h within the same time and the same distance as does just one simple Bo-Bo electric (provided the 232 were re-geared and adapted to that speed), and -c- vast expenditure in fuel and maintenance costs caused by the triple diesel traction as compared to the electric. Now this compares present day diesels - how much less performing were the low-output 32 tons axle load first generation GM mules (not to mention that the advertised 1500 motor hp had soon to be downrated to but 1350 motor hp, meaning that in the upper speed range draw bar power fell down well into the three figure range, not even power at rail reached 1000 hp, minimum power for a road engine worth it's capital.
In the beginning there was a wide-spread fundamental misunderstanding of what the advertised hp of diesel locos really meant in traffic. At first glance 'motor hp' in diesels should be equivalent to 'ihp' in steam - but this is not so.
Reason:
-a- there are far heavier transmission losses in diesels crank shaft to rail than there are in reciprocating steam from piston to rail;
-b- diesel motor output is a nominal output which cannot be surpassed for a transitory effort. Steam nominal output is the output the engine is capable of sustaining for at least one or two hours continuously, additionally many railways, at least in Europe, defined nominal continuous output not as the maximum possible but the one reliably available under adverse conditions and with decent consumption and wear - i.e. maximum output available for transitory efforts (acceleration, ramps) was substantially higher, by some 15 % in 1940s Super Power because they were designed to be run flat out continuously, by some 20 - 30 % in many European engines for which more conservative nominal ratings were given, especially true for the DR / DB engines that had very cautious nominal ratings which during the last years of steam traction were regularly outperformed on many demanding schedules in the late 1960s / 1970s.
On DB, disregard of the output reserves of steam as well as disregard of diesel transmission losses in favor of emphasizing on its high initial starting tractive effort for instance led to replacement of Hanover based 01 Pacifics by V200 (220 series) diesels of nominally 1 to 1 outputs - which within months caused a traffic disaster until Hanover had reactivated or reclaimed some of the 01 Pacifics they had given away to other depots. The situation was then stabilized by assigning the Pacifics to the heaviest express trains with 11 to 14 coaches and the V200s but to the lighter ones of up to 10 coaches and / or less demanding timings (with less intermediate stops; so, ironically the engine advertised for high t.e. did re-start less often as did the low-t.e. Pacific). These troubles caused an engaged discussion in DB headquarters as to how to continue with traction change over. Dr Flemming, responsible for traction opposed introduction of further V200s as originally planned pointing out that he still had a well sufficient fleet of 01 and 03 Pacifics with fuel consumption and maintenance protocols suggesting that they would remain fully capable of handling all presently assigned traffic for a number years to come. In the end there were further V200s introduced but not as many and they went to depots in the Northern German flatlands mostly replacing a number of the lesser demanding runs of 03 light Pacifics such the Flensburg and Kiel turns, while the hard runs of the Hamburg based 03s northwards to Westerland and south-west as far as Frankfurt remained steam. Meanwhile there was a revamping of the double 12 cylinder diesel yieldng another 500 motor hp (221 series) and a number were introduced to replace - by initial lengthening of schedules - the aging S3/6 Pacifics of Munich and Lindau on the hilly Allgäu line. It soon became obvious that the beefed up 221s could not put an end to double traction and so two Bavarian compound Pacifics, admittedly well designed for hilly routes, were replaced by two 2700 motor hp 221 diesels - on practically unchanged schedules and loads. Still this kind of exploits seemed to have been wearing on the 221s and in an combined effort by DB and diesel suppliers a sturdier 2500 hp 16 cylinder engine was developed for the 218 series. There was an episode with 2000 hp diesels, 210 series, having a 900 hp booster turbine which was pursued for a number of years but it never fully reached maturity. As it is now, the aging 218s are still double heading comparatively light trains of 7 to 8 coaches roaring fiercely as they climb the ramps at medium speeds (60 - 70 mph). Discussions are to electrify this last remaining non-wired mainline on DBAG which had once been the parade line of diesel protagonists on DB or to rebuild the line for high speeds, too.
So, to sum it up: no faster timing over the road by diesel power, not versus steam then - less today’s against electric power!
4. Maintenance costs: In 1953 there was an especially interesting comparison test made on DB of diesel versus steam costs, of interest here since in that case a GM diesel type was tested DB. (Source DB 1953 report of the locomotive committee) GM was seeking to continue business on railways outsides the USA since home railroads were about finished with dieselization (this sentence can be interpreted in various ways to your preference *g*). A military type Co-Co GM diesel was tested on DB in various services. Tests in express service were carried out in comparison with 03.10 engines based at Dortmund Bbf, a very well organized depot. The 03.10 class light Pacifics had only re-entered service in 1950 by full L4 class overhaul after having stood derelict since the end of WWII and at that time still had their original boilers which over the following years were to become troublesome with cracks developing at rivetings and weldings. The Dortmund Pacifics were regular exceeding 20000 km monthly mileage and at that time were also handling the long run on express F3 / F4 Frankfurt/Main - Hamburg-Altona, 702 km, and back. In 1957 engines out of service for repair were down to 1.5 % of the allocated engines (or actually: engine time total) although engines in plan 1 were covering 1050 km per day. Record monthly mileage in June 1954 was by 03 1043 covering 28460 km; other engines monthly mileages were as follows:

engine - - mth year - - km - - days in service per month - - km per day of service

03 1008 - - Okt 1953 - - 22810 - - 28 - - 814.6
03 1014 - - Okt 1953 - - 23128 - - 29 - - 797.5
03 1054 - - Aug 1955 - - 21698 - - 30 - - 732.2
03 1056 - - Okt 1956 - - 25489 - - 28 - - 910.3

and to take a closer look 03 1081 for example:

03 1081 - - Jun 1954 - - 24038 - - 26 - - 924.5
" " - - - - - - July 1954 - - 26384 - - 29 - - 909.7
" " - - - - - - Aug 1954 - - 23512 - - 25 - - 940.7
" " - - - - - - Jan 1955 - - 26139 - - 29 - - 901.3
" " - - - - - - Apr 1955 - - 24441 - - 27 - - 905.2
" " - - - - - - May 1955 - - 24033 - - 26 - - 924.3
" “ - - - - - - July 1956 - - 25520 - - 29 - - 880.0
" " - - - - - - Aug 1956 - - 24459 - - 28 - - 873.5

For engines in plan 1 average coal consumption in Feb 1956 was 14.13 t per 1000 km and in Dec it was 13.80 t/1000 km while it never was above 12 t/ 1000 km within March to November. On a trip Hamburg - Frankfurt/Main between 7.5 and 9.5 t of coal were consumed.
The comparison tests included running the F3 / F4 pair of expresses which was very well suited for the Co-Co diesel engine since the load of these trains was usually relatively light with few stops, so the consumption per km covered was about the lowest possible, much avoiding heavy consumption at starting / low speed full output running which causes high consumption per km in a diesel because the motor is already running at full rpm and output while speed is still low. In a Pacific at low speed consumption in absolute value is lower than at full speed full output, while of course it is relatively high in relation to the low output available at low speed range. On the other hand for the Pacifics the run was straining as concerns fire handling with ash pan about filling towards the end of the run. One can therefore say the set-up of the comparison was favorable for the diesel engine. Yet the result was that fuel costs were higher with the diesel than with the Pacifics. Same were maintenance costs, discounting that the diesel never equaled the monthly days of service of the Pacifics because of repeated repairs, servicing and replacement of failed auxiliaries. Presuming, these troubles should have been overcome, it would still not have been possible to top the Pacifics daily mileage simply because there was nothing more to run than the Pacifics did already run. It would not have made sense to launch, say, an extra local short haul in the dead of the night from Dortmund to Duisburg and back just because a redesigned put-to-the-point diesel could maybe have done it.


Picture of the GM military diesel, from: Glasers Annalen 1953

In 1957 - '59 (03 1056 in 1961) the 03.10s were re-boilered with fully welded combustion chamber boilers, at the same time they were part-equipped with roller bearings and received a number of further modernizations which made them near equal to new construction by extra costs of 156,500 to 163,900 DM additional to the 211,600 to 272,400 DM costs of full L4 class overhaul into which the rebuilding was included. (For comparison: a new 220 class express diesel, not quite equivalent to the rebuilt Pacific, then cost approx.1,100,000 to 1,200,000 DM) Be it mentioned that with the rebuilding specific coal consumption went down another 7 - 8 %, nominal output was increased by some 10 %. The 26 rebuilt engines then were all stationed at Hagen-Eckesey and intention was to put the engines to intense express work with high monthly mileages assigning them to top express service. Still, electrification, progressing fast in the dense traffic Ruhr area caught them early and traffic left to be steam handled continuously declined over the 1960s. The engines were soon to be found on all kinds of passenger trains, service plans called for less and less 03.10s in service so individual engines went in and out of services in turns to keep them all serviceable. By 1965 daily service only called for five engines while the others remained sided in Hagen and Wuppertal. Then, with coming of winter semester timetables in fall 1966 the remaining engines were shelved. For some time it was intended to re-allocate them to the south but as in so many cases, depots preferred their two cylinder Pacifics over a class they were not used to and so the modern engines were scrapped only 6 to 8 years after their introduction.
Be it noted that on East German DR the engines of this class kept on running in express service for some further 15 years.
(anyone who finds typing errors may keep them)

Juniatha




Erkrath station shortly before starting electric traction:
Its a warm day in spring 1964 as the E505 comes rushing in sharp on time, clasp brakes on - which raise a final shrill as the train
comes to a stop and the reboilered 03.10 light Pacific’s air pump runs a breathless stint until calming down to a casual clanking
while the MV57 feed pump continues its low frequency - - tlung - - - kurrhh - - - tlung - - - kurrhh.
Passengers leave and passenger board the coaches, doors are slammed shut as the conductor looks up and down his train, then
raises his hand and with a second look around whistles a high ball to the locomotive up front.
Approving the signal the driver turns around and there is the familiar faint hiss as the regulator is being cautiously opened inside
the lean, glistening black boiler and the moment of silence while rods start flexing, wheels begin turning on about half-throttle to
that first exhaust beat:
“syhhh ------------ zthuumm!” followed by two further “zthumm - - thumm” and three more “thum - vum- vum-“ to complete the
wheel turn at walking pace. There is the light rush of steam sent down from the exhaust manifolds drain gates that lays a fluffy white
carpet below the elegant roller bearing rods as the large wheels turn more vividly to take the train away from the platform.
Bogies of coaches roll by and a distant clanking is heard as they pass over the switch before the outbound signal post that shows
HP1 – free road ahead.
As the last coach goes by at some speed already the throaty three cylinder exhaust reverberates from the distance, increasingly
hastily hammering away on full throttle and quickly melting into a vibrating rhythm as the engine comes into her own settling for an
eager gathering of speed, passing 50 mph at cut-off down below 40 %, brought in to some 35 % around 60 mph and then to be left
at 30 % above 70 until running at scheduled speed of 75 - 80 mph on some 25 % at eased throttle and exhaust but a slur,
all within 4½ - 5 min from stand still.

In spite of much wishful thinking, the presidency of A. E. Perlman had nothing to do with the decision to replace NYC steam power with diesel. The die had been cast in the late 1940's, and by the time A.E.P. became president it was only a question of how and when the job would be completed. It is unfair to the memory of a brilliant, though abrasive, engineer to "blame" him for the decision to eliminate steam power long after its epitaph had been written.

Secondly, the term "Perlman's Brother-in-Law" was an inside joke among NYC personnel during the scrap drives of the 1950's and '60's. Whenever we loaded a car of scrap for Ashtabula, we sort of winked as we said, "Another load for Perlman's Brother-in-Law." It was simply the Ashtabula Scrap and Reclamation Plant. The proceeds from the sale of scrap accrued to the New York Central Railroad Company and no one else.

All said, I never heard the slightest implication of legal or ethical impropriety in the Office of the President during that time. The few instances among lower officialdom were handled swiftly and appropriately. You might not have liked his personality, but there is absolutely no reason to impugn his ingegrity.

Gordon Davids

ChiefTroll wrote:In spite of much wishful thinking, the presidency of A. E. Perlman had nothing to do with the decision to replace NYC steam power with diesel. The die had been cast in the late 1940's, and by the time A.E.P. became president it was only a question of how and when the job would be completed.

Hi Gordon

You might check my second comment on this page 2 of the thread, answerig already on 'Perlman had nothing to do with decission to replace steam'.
Yet in your following sentence you sort of take back, partly, what you just wrote, noting that it still was a matter of how and when the job was completed.

In my previous comments I have taken great care to enlarge upon the fact that I focussed just on that topic: on the very matter of how and when this job was to be completed.

While I respect your opinion, it is my view that the matter was done much too precipitious and too indiscriminatingly by Perlman - leaving aside any consideration of his 'brother in law or alledged brother in law'. Doing a job of such importance with undue haste and lack of consideration disqualifies Perlman in my view, leave aside my personal preference for steam.
Secondly, what has been said about his way of leading - and this has not been questioned by anyone, neither yourself - in my view again disqualifies him as a good leader, because interacting with your team is a major way adequately to perform such high ranking, complex jobs. Dictators just don't fit demands in this case.

And another note: His remark about Pennsy-merger: 'For me it was a take-over, frankly' is a typical sign of being overwhelmed by desire to boast his success, his power, his ego which often infests such men of power: they do not distinguish between the power of their job and their own personal power: strictly speaking their personal power should be little above that of others, but it's the job's power that they take on and get the habbit to use personally - also for purposes of their own advantage.
That same stupid mistake to boast aloud of what should have kept quiet had been repeated some time ago by Juergen Schremp, then CEO of Daimler-Chrysler. He said practically the same about the merger Daimler with Chrysler - result: it cost the company (not him!) a fortune to pay to Kerkorian for his shares. Money that was lost on just a stupid boasting of a man who couldn't control his 'alpha-man-feelings' - like in the jungle! So in my eyes he was not up to the rank of the job he had managed to attain. A few more such things and other stuff finally grew a revolte by the board and lost him his job - for another fortune to be paid to him for being so kind as to leave!

As concerns 'honesty: I don't know, I have a more sceptical view on high ranking mangagement in general. Honesty - a word that has been used repeatedly in this thread - is a rare bird in these high up floors - a very, very rare bird! I would not want to guarantee for any one of those guys and wouldn't bet a dime on their honesty. Those who can resist the lures or power are few - they can be counted by the fingers of one hand ...
That was so the world over in the 1950s and is even more so today's.
So, I don't want to compromise your faith - but I don't have it and I've seen too much for that, I guess.

But, let's not forget: it serves no practical object to discuss things long since passed and we need not get upset. So, be it as it may, we won't change a thing and may as well leave that topic for good as the original question has been answered: his first name was not as one proposed 'Adele' but it was 'Alfred' .

Juniatha




P.S.: this sign is supposed to be circular; if it isn't the screen solution you have chosen is distorting

No one is "against" steam, we're just explaining the reason why the railroad did what it did. I think we're getting a little off topic here. The New York Central was going to dieselize whether or not Perlman was president. If you want to discuss Perlman's effect and legacy on the railroad industry, that's fine, but take the steam vs. diesel discussion to another thread.

I'm sure if I actually had to work for Perlman, I might be telling a different story, but as far as his impact on the industry, he made sweeping changes that were the right choices at the time. He was the turnaround CEO, before we had such a term. He nursed the Rio Grande back to health and profitability. He took the New York Central and helped get the railroad into decent shape, preventing a complete collapse. He then moved on to the WP, which was months away from insolvency, and turned them into a profitable, attractive partner for UP!

The fact that people are still talking about him today make him a notable figure!

-otto-