Sometimes alternative history speculation can be fun. At its best it can give a new perspective which can deepen our appreciation and understanding of the ACTUAL history. So, in the hope that it will be interesting -- far-fetched fantasies often aren't, but "near-fetched" ones incorporating some of the constraints that influenced actual decision makers can be -- a fantsy about PRR motive power in 1945...
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Premiss: Someone influential in the PRR hierarchy has some prophetic dreams toward the end of WW II. He learns that maintenance costs are going to be a BIG problem, that wages will rise and the P-Company won't have the kind (and size) of trained work-force in the roundhouses that it depended on in the past. He also gains an uneasy feeling that -- maybe not right away, but by around 1950 when the technology has matured a bit -- diesel locomotives are going to make ANY steam obsolete.
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T-1 and Q-2 orders are cancelled immediately (though maybe Lima gets to build the extra 25 J-1 that were actually cancelled in favor of production Q-2). No new steam passenger power is ordered: K-4 (and M-1 in the mountains) are getting long in the tooth, but in two years or so we'll see if the rumored Alco and Fairbanks-Morse passenger power is as good as the modified E-6 that EMD will put into postwar production and we can (with lot's of advertising fanfare!) dieselize passenger operations. But there is maybe a case to be made for a small number of steam freight locomotives to help tide us over.
Now, I suspect the best choice would be a few more J-1, allowing smaller power to be cascaded to other assignments, but...
After all, the I-1sa is a PRR standard, and still doing lots of useful work. (After all, in the actual world the I-1 was still employed in fair numbers in 1956.) Maybe a few more, with design changes incorporating technological advances since the 1920s. What would they be like?
Nothing fancy -- remember, maintenance costs, maintenance costs, maintenance costs! Good, simple, power in the PRR tradition. No poppet valves (after all, they seem to be of greatest use at speeds we don't expect a decapod to reach, and need specially trained maintainers). No roller bearings: at the mileages we expect from freight power they won't pay for themselves in the expected life-span of new steam.
Biggest JUSTIFIABLE change, it seems to me, would be the use of one-piece cast engine beds, so we won't have to worry about frames working out of true under the forces of tonnage freight. Ride quality has never been great, so anything that will help there, PROVIDED IT ISN'T TOO EXPENSIVE, is good (and frames that stay true is a starting point). How do disk drivers compare with new spoked drivers in cost? If competitive, use them: they allow better balancing (with smaller lead weights inserted into pre-cast compartments: balance weight precisely where needed and total weight kept down).
Boiler... The M-1 boiler is similar to the I-1, but has a much larger combustion chamber. Let's go for it: we've already got all the power we can use in the I-1 design, but a more efficient boiler might get it from less in the way of coal. Really high pressures... would be a maintenance hassle, and might require better water treatment, but probably we can go to 275 (think: M-1b). Not for more power (no point in ENCOURAGING engineers to slip the drivers!), but maybe it would allow us to reduce the cylinder diameter by an inch or so, making for lighter reciprocating parts: better riding and reduced maintenance cost.
And as far as I can see that's about it. If someone in 1945 had been able to foresee the economic and technological environment PRR steam power would live in in the coming decade, he might have concluded that the 1916 "hippo" was remarkably close to the best -- most cost effective -- steam locomotive design possible!
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Premiss: Someone influential in the PRR hierarchy has some prophetic dreams toward the end of WW II. He learns that maintenance costs are going to be a BIG problem, that wages will rise and the P-Company won't have the kind (and size) of trained work-force in the roundhouses that it depended on in the past. He also gains an uneasy feeling that -- maybe not right away, but by around 1950 when the technology has matured a bit -- diesel locomotives are going to make ANY steam obsolete.
--
T-1 and Q-2 orders are cancelled immediately (though maybe Lima gets to build the extra 25 J-1 that were actually cancelled in favor of production Q-2). No new steam passenger power is ordered: K-4 (and M-1 in the mountains) are getting long in the tooth, but in two years or so we'll see if the rumored Alco and Fairbanks-Morse passenger power is as good as the modified E-6 that EMD will put into postwar production and we can (with lot's of advertising fanfare!) dieselize passenger operations. But there is maybe a case to be made for a small number of steam freight locomotives to help tide us over.
Now, I suspect the best choice would be a few more J-1, allowing smaller power to be cascaded to other assignments, but...
After all, the I-1sa is a PRR standard, and still doing lots of useful work. (After all, in the actual world the I-1 was still employed in fair numbers in 1956.) Maybe a few more, with design changes incorporating technological advances since the 1920s. What would they be like?
Nothing fancy -- remember, maintenance costs, maintenance costs, maintenance costs! Good, simple, power in the PRR tradition. No poppet valves (after all, they seem to be of greatest use at speeds we don't expect a decapod to reach, and need specially trained maintainers). No roller bearings: at the mileages we expect from freight power they won't pay for themselves in the expected life-span of new steam.
Biggest JUSTIFIABLE change, it seems to me, would be the use of one-piece cast engine beds, so we won't have to worry about frames working out of true under the forces of tonnage freight. Ride quality has never been great, so anything that will help there, PROVIDED IT ISN'T TOO EXPENSIVE, is good (and frames that stay true is a starting point). How do disk drivers compare with new spoked drivers in cost? If competitive, use them: they allow better balancing (with smaller lead weights inserted into pre-cast compartments: balance weight precisely where needed and total weight kept down).
Boiler... The M-1 boiler is similar to the I-1, but has a much larger combustion chamber. Let's go for it: we've already got all the power we can use in the I-1 design, but a more efficient boiler might get it from less in the way of coal. Really high pressures... would be a maintenance hassle, and might require better water treatment, but probably we can go to 275 (think: M-1b). Not for more power (no point in ENCOURAGING engineers to slip the drivers!), but maybe it would allow us to reduce the cylinder diameter by an inch or so, making for lighter reciprocating parts: better riding and reduced maintenance cost.
And as far as I can see that's about it. If someone in 1945 had been able to foresee the economic and technological environment PRR steam power would live in in the coming decade, he might have concluded that the 1916 "hippo" was remarkably close to the best -- most cost effective -- steam locomotive design possible!
