PRR on C&O

The May, 2005 issue of C&O History has a most interesting article on tests of the PRR T1 on the C&O. The piece also includes photos of the T1 at Clifton Forge.

work safe

During a two week test conducted on the C&O PRR donated two T1's 5511 "which was later recalled" and 5539 sent in her place. A friend of mine living at Cabin Creek Jct at the time shot a picture of the 5539 at the jct pulling the FFV. Only known shot of her in WV. If you'd like to see the picture of the 5539 go to www.gottrains.com its under Chesapeake & Ohio and under cabin creek in the pictures it will be the 1st picture on the left. There is some conterversy in which the 5539 slipped at cotton hill on the new river div and a crew from handley had to help it to hinton. Now there saying it never did. But at least 1 or 2 old C&O workers from handley went after it so am told. So its hard to say.

Scott

Better take a look at the article. It says,

"The C&O test report and correspondence between C&O and PRR substantiate Dr. Huddleston's revision. The stop at Cotton Hill was recorded at 30 seconds, with no qualifying remarks. The train made a routine stop, then proceeded on its way east."

I think that answers the question. 30 seconds is a mighty short time to get a helper from Handley, about 18-19 miles away.

The article also says,

"At Waynesboro, 5539 failed to start its train of 13 cars and 1,098 tons....."

That's about 200 miles east of Cotton Hill, IIRC.

Scott...it probably will never be known for sure "if" this actually happened at Cotton Hill or not, or if it happened at both Cotton Hill or Waynesboro. To much time and not to many folks still around that would know or remember by now. The fact of the whole thing concerning the PRR T-1s is that they were to slippery and mostly because of the design of the Duplex itself. The C&O required locomotives to be able to start a train on the worst terrain from a dead stop. Heck, even C&O locos had some problems at times starting a train at Cotton Hill from time to time...take some slack,drop some sand on the rail at the same time taking slack, and throttle up! Were the C&O crews handling the Duplex's able to get the most out of them...maybe...maybe not...but the Duplex design is and was a slippery design. Bottom line is if the C&O had been impressed with the Duplex they could have and would have picked them up from the PRR at a great price, not to mention they were practically brand new, and C&O needed the power at the time as well, and the PRR was dieselizing when the Duplex's began arriving in 1946. Just my 2 cents on this subject...by the way a great article by David R. Stephenson!

Dave