So as I understand it, the S1 was just too long as a rigid engine for most of the PRR network, but it showed the way ahead, because the the later T1s were built as duplex drive locos, but to a shorter length with 4-wheel instead of 6-wheel bogies at each end. Lovely looking locos !
@@TheRailroadCrossing-SteamPower probably the most fancy looking futuristic steam engine of all time, looks fast even sitting still be still my heart though I love reading and discussing the s1, and you even talked about the extreme speed though I understand it was 140 mph not quite 150, though after finishing the video I see you mentioned that, supposedly they got a ticket or citation for running that fast but history never has found the artifact to prove it, also I read they eventually pulled off some of the wheel skirting and sheet metal to get better access to work on and service the s1 known as the big engine" I also remember reading that all three of the big 3 consulted on building her lima alco and baldwin, with it actually being built at the worlds largest railroad works or at least at the time and still problably is its still very large though not the huge 14-20 mile span that the altoona to juniata shops and pennsy yard were, but it was said to be a project that all three worked on, its a tragity it was not saved for a museum, but if they would have just articulated it and maybe got more weight on the massive drivers, the largest size that is used on any usa built locomotive at 84 inches there were some early locomotives in england that were over 100 inches in the era that they had just one drive set they also tried other funny experaments in the early days. Eh anyway it was also reported that to have ran very smooth at high speed due to the size taking up the jarring and jostling it experianced, I am kind of sad you didn't have any photos of it in fort wayne like the one under the coal tower or comming west out of the yard at pique pronounced pick way and though not as big as altoona fort wayne did have a hump yard for a good chunk of time as well as car shops east of the main shops and bass foundry in the middle of downtown fort wayne, though before the rennovations around 1904 they had them by lafyette street and were in a u shape where the famous palace cars were built the few of them they made we are talking pre 1900 though. thanks for talking about the s1 it was very powerful, beautiful and fast, maybe the fastest steamer ever
@@TheRailroadCrossing-SteamPower thanks, its just part of this area, northeast indiana had some of the fastest trains in the usa with the long flat straight divisions, and from the noteworthy shops around garrett and the railroads in fort wayne before the 30's it was a real hey day, and the waining years of steam in a 30 mile radius you could have seen on the new york central the niagras and hudsons maybe even all the way down in fort wayne too they had a smaller yard down there as well but not as big as the pennsy though still large, but the main was up in waterloo, the last bastion of steam in garrett on the b and o and its luxury trains it was known for like the occasional em1 or the t3's, all the ledgendary duplexes in fort wayne of the pennsy as it was part of that crestline to chicago division and was a main line you had the walbash too, and the ledgendary nickleplate berks including 765 the fort wayne railroad historical soc engine an org that I hold membership with and help out at every few weeks, this is just something I was born around, I want to promote and tell the story of an earlier time when we were somebody before we were just some small rustbelt towns and a large city that while exciting things are going on had its gilded golden age in a time past, though fort wayne still has the magnet wire capital of the world and has two of the finest paintball gun making companies around tippman and sentnel, as well as just outside it in roanoke indiana the main truck building plant in north america for general motors, as well as the place where the self metering and elctric gas pump was invented though all the companies are out of buisness now though wayne still has its combustion division here, and still has some world class defense manufactures, I want to tell our story especially garrett on the b and o before alll the old steam era people are gone from this life even though they were kids they still have stories of family that worked for the railroad and had significants on the line to chicago well into the c and o era though it was fully diesle by then, but we havent as much going for it here but we are better off then many of the small towns that bairly have a downtown anymore, the way over to auburn though is seeing lots of action though maybe too much too quick for my likeing loosing a lot of growable land to houseing additions and a giant warehouse pretty much from the east side of garrett 3 miles east to auburn is almost one industrial district or full of buisnesses along the front of state road 8, now there is still contryside behind it but I remeber when it was all farm land and had a horse farm I got to at least tell the story of garrett as I am doing with the videos I am posting over the course of the last week I just havent made them public yet sarry for the bad spelling and long winded comments.
the S1 was 2 feet longer then the Big boy, if you count both engine and tender of both engines. It is astounding that the engine is 1 solid rigid unit, and was able to run on any line is amazing. a truly oustanding locomotive, and a shame it wasn't able to see preservation. I hope the T1 trust is able to beat the steam speed record, because I'd love to see this line of duplex engines get more attention.
@@TheRailroadCrossing-SteamPower a strange dicision to be sure. perhaps they were worried about balance and vibration? but the size of the boogies could have aliviated some of those concerns. One of those questions with a lost answer now.
Raymond Loewy also had his hand in Studebaker and designed for Coca Cola and other things and also Henry Dreyfuss known for the Dreyfuss Hudson locomotive also designed for John Deere and others.
People who say this engine was run at speeds near 130 mph overlook one fact that any veteran engineer would have been fully aware of. The mainline track, even the Fort Wayne Division racetrack, was really only maintained to maybe 110 mph! Exceeding that was taking a risk I doubt most would have dared.
I know these things were fairly problematic compared to conventional steamers of the era but man they were absolutely beautiful. Really looking forward to the T1 Trust's completion of 5550 some day.
@@TheRailroadCrossing-SteamPower most definitely. I personally think the T1 better strikes the balance between brute and beauty but both classes are definitely lookers. More suggestions: Q1 and Q2, and maybe the B&O N1 duplex. Keep up the good content.
This is a great video, 1:35 is actually a thumbnail for a workshop creation i made of the s1! Its really funny i never expected it to appear in any form of videos outside of the game
The S1 is an art deco masterpiece, but it would have been much more successful if they built it as a 4-8-4 with lightweight rods and roller bearings. It would have been the Pennsy “take” on the NYC Niagara or N&W J. Having that small percentage of weight on drivers guaranteed the S1 to be slippery. From a business perspective, the short service life and lack of versatility made the engine a terrible waste of money. Thanks for another great video!!👍
You know, when I was looking at the specs and saw the length and width.. I thought "Were they building a Iowa class Battleship or a locomotive" ? Because the Iowa's were built the same way.. Long in length and slim on the beam.
One thing that got my attention for this engine are it's 84 in driver's If I was the person responsible for designing this loco, I'd go with wheels in the 70+ inch range
It’s Achilles heal was it’s frame, they couldn’t engineer a frame which could handle the stress’s placed upon it! Great Experiment though… That’s when the US was an innovative creating country!
Yeah, the frame was too ridged. So I was wondering why they wouldn't consider the articulated pin system like Big Boy.. ETC. I mean I understand they wanted as few moving parts as possible. But to me, this could have solved the problem.
Fastest ridgid steam loco in the USA, with a top recorded speed of 101mph. The 133mph that some claim this loco achieved was not official or recorded, and highly unlikely. Several UK ridged frame passenger locos in the UK exceeded that, as have several German locos, all official recorded times and speeds. GWR 3700 Class 3440 City of Truro is alleged to have got up to 102 in 1904, but timings were by stop watch and mile post recordings. LNER Class A3 2750 Papyrus got up to 108mph recorded on a dynamometer car in 1935 LMS Princess Royal Class 6203 Princess Margaret Rose timed at 102.5mph in 1936. LMS Streamlined Princess Coronation class No. 6220 Coronation was recorded at 112mph in 1937 LNER A4 Mallard 4468 was recorded on the dynamometer car in 1938 at 126MPH. It is alleged that post war, with the improvements that had been made to the A4s such as the drafting and most importantly, the bearings, that in the 1950's, the A4's were regularly (unofficially) breaking Mallards Record on a daily basis, but the management of BR took a dim view of this, as they kept the East Coast Mainline speed limit to 90mph because that's the best the Type 4 diesel locos that were intended as their replacements could manage, which is why the A4's hung on to express working until the 1960's when the 3000hp deltic locos were released for traffic on the ECML, which were the post powerful diesel locos in the world when new. The sole LNER W1 in its rebuilt form was apparently more than capable of running at over 130mph (again alleged and unofficial) amd was described as a suped up A4, as despite looking like a A4, was much more powerful, having 20" cylinders rather than 18.5", giving it a tractive effort of 41,437 (compared to the A4's 35,455) and a fire grate area of 50 sq ft compared to the A4's 41.25 sq ft. The footplate crews said that when you got up towards 130mph the loco would not only rock side to side, but back and forth (hunting) as well, as no doubt the reciprocating speed of the wheels was so fast they were becoming out of balance. The Great Western Railways Cheltenham Spa Express (aka Cheltenham flyer), which was usual hauled by a GWR Castle class loco, had the worlds fastest average speed for a train at a BOOKED 66mph and this was later increased to a BOOKED 71mph for its 70.25mile trip. The fastest trip was On Monday, 6 June 1932, when the Cheltenham Spa Express was hauled at a AVERAGE speed of 81.6 miles per hour over and this made this run the fastest AVERAGE railway run in the world, being hauled throughout by GWR Castle class 5006 Tregenna Castle. This october marks 65 years since LNER A3 4472 Flying Scotsman started Alan Peglers USA tour (hint hint) perhaps a video is due for you wonderful channel (hint hint) lol.
How could this possibly be a successful locomotive when it's only got 40% adhesive weight on its driving wheels NO wo derailed it had slipping problems Why didn't the builder put two cylinders between the frames and convert loco to a 6--8--6 layout
So as I understand it, the S1 was just too long as a rigid engine for most of the PRR network, but it showed the way ahead, because the the later T1s were built as duplex drive locos, but to a shorter length with 4-wheel instead of 6-wheel bogies at each end. Lovely looking locos !
That is it in a nutshell. You got it!
Ah the mighty S1 of Pennsylvania
One of my personal favorites when it comes to streamlined steam
Raymond Loewy's streamliners are just beautiful
I absolutely have to agree with that!
@@TheRailroadCrossing-SteamPower probably the most fancy looking futuristic steam engine of all time, looks fast even sitting still be still my heart though
I love reading and discussing the s1, and you even talked about the extreme speed though I understand it was 140 mph not quite 150, though after finishing the video I see you mentioned that, supposedly they got a ticket or citation for running that fast but history never has found the artifact to prove it, also I read they eventually pulled off some of the wheel skirting and sheet metal to get better access to work on and service the s1 known as the big engine"
I also remember reading that all three of the big 3 consulted on building her lima alco and baldwin, with it actually being built at the worlds largest railroad works or at least at the time and still problably is its still very large though not the huge 14-20 mile span that the altoona to juniata shops and pennsy yard were, but it was said to be a project that all three worked on, its a tragity it was not saved for a museum, but if they would have just articulated it and maybe got more weight on the massive drivers, the largest size that is used on any usa built locomotive at 84 inches there were some early locomotives in england that were over 100 inches in the era that they had just one drive set they also tried other funny experaments in the early days.
Eh anyway it was also reported that to have ran very smooth at high speed due to the size taking up the jarring and jostling it experianced, I am kind of sad you didn't have any photos of it in fort wayne like the one under the coal tower or comming west out of the yard at pique pronounced pick way and though not as big as altoona fort wayne did have a hump yard for a good chunk of time as well as car shops east of the main shops and bass foundry in the middle of downtown fort wayne, though before the rennovations around 1904 they had them by lafyette street and were in a u shape where the famous palace cars were built the few of them they made we are talking pre 1900 though.
thanks for talking about the s1 it was very powerful, beautiful and fast, maybe the fastest steamer ever
@@manga12 Your passion is admirable and your write up is really good stuff! Thank you!
@@TheRailroadCrossing-SteamPower thanks, its just part of this area, northeast indiana had some of the fastest trains in the usa with the long flat straight divisions, and from the noteworthy shops around garrett and the railroads in fort wayne before the 30's it was a real hey day, and the waining years of steam in a 30 mile radius you could have seen on the new york central the niagras and hudsons maybe even all the way down in fort wayne too they had a smaller yard down there as well but not as big as the pennsy though still large, but the main was up in waterloo, the last bastion of steam in garrett on the b and o and its luxury trains it was known for like the occasional em1 or the t3's, all the ledgendary duplexes in fort wayne of the pennsy as it was part of that crestline to chicago division and was a main line you had the walbash too, and the ledgendary nickleplate berks including 765 the fort wayne railroad historical soc engine an org that I hold membership with and help out at every few weeks, this is just something I was born around, I want to promote and tell the story of an earlier time when we were somebody before we were just some small rustbelt towns and a large city that while exciting things are going on had its gilded golden age in a time past, though fort wayne still has the magnet wire capital of the world and has two of the finest paintball gun making companies around tippman and sentnel, as well as just outside it in roanoke indiana the main truck building plant in north america for general motors, as well as the place where the self metering and elctric gas pump was invented though all the companies are out of buisness now though wayne still has its combustion division here, and still has some world class defense manufactures, I want to tell our story especially garrett on the b and o before alll the old steam era people are gone from this life even though they were kids they still have stories of family that worked for the railroad and had significants on the line to chicago well into the c and o era though it was fully diesle by then, but we havent as much going for it here but we are better off then many of the small towns that bairly have a downtown anymore, the way over to auburn though is seeing lots of action though maybe too much too quick for my likeing loosing a lot of growable land to houseing additions and a giant warehouse pretty much from the east side of garrett 3 miles east to auburn is almost one industrial district or full of buisnesses along the front of state road 8, now there is still contryside behind it but I remeber when it was all farm land and had a horse farm
I got to at least tell the story of garrett as I am doing with the videos I am posting over the course of the last week I just havent made them public yet
sarry for the bad spelling and long winded comments.
the S1 was 2 feet longer then the Big boy, if you count both engine and tender of both engines. It is astounding that the engine is 1 solid rigid unit, and was able to run on any line is amazing.
a truly oustanding locomotive, and a shame it wasn't able to see preservation.
I hope the T1 trust is able to beat the steam speed record, because I'd love to see this line of duplex engines get more attention.
I still dont understand why hinged bogies couldnt be used in the design. It would've helped on the curves and maybe not limit the locomotive so much.
@@TheRailroadCrossing-SteamPower a strange dicision to be sure. perhaps they were worried about balance and vibration? but the size of the boogies could have aliviated some of those concerns. One of those questions with a lost answer now.
@@notknightbean Yep for sure!
Thank you for another great video. I am still partial to the humongous locomotives like the Allegheny,the Big Boy, the Yellowstone, etc.
Glad you enjoyed it
Raymond Loewy also had his hand in Studebaker and designed for Coca Cola and other things and also Henry Dreyfuss known for the Dreyfuss Hudson locomotive also designed for John Deere and others.
Iconic man if you ask me!
People who say this engine was run at speeds near 130 mph overlook one fact that any veteran engineer would have been fully aware of. The mainline track, even the Fort Wayne Division racetrack, was really only maintained to maybe 110 mph! Exceeding that was taking a risk I doubt most would have dared.
I know these things were fairly problematic compared to conventional steamers of the era but man they were absolutely beautiful. Really looking forward to the T1 Trust's completion of 5550 some day.
Aren't they though!!
@@TheRailroadCrossing-SteamPower most definitely. I personally think the T1 better strikes the balance between brute and beauty but both classes are definitely lookers. More suggestions: Q1 and Q2, and maybe the B&O N1 duplex. Keep up the good content.
@@Jeebuus Im working on the W-1 as we speak
I had a model of the S1 in O gauge years ago. It was massive.
Right on!
This is a great video, 1:35 is actually a thumbnail for a workshop creation i made of the s1! Its really funny i never expected it to appear in any form of videos outside of the game
That's too funny! It actually randomly shows up in a group of stock photo's if you type in the locomotive name.
@@TheRailroadCrossing-SteamPower hahaha yeah a few of my creations show up pretty high on Google results when you search certain engines
I wonder if they had any issue getting it from Altoona to the more suitable track in crestline
Nothing of the sort was mentioned.. but it doesnt that it didnt either.
Hey might be first here I always love to see these, the s1 is one of my favorite locomotives so I wanna say thank you for making these videos.🤙
Glad you like them!
The S1 is an art deco masterpiece, but it would have been much more successful if they built it as a 4-8-4 with lightweight rods and roller bearings. It would have been the Pennsy “take” on the NYC Niagara or N&W J. Having that small percentage of weight on drivers guaranteed the S1 to be slippery. From a business perspective, the short service life and lack of versatility made the engine a terrible waste of money. Thanks for another great video!!👍
You know, when I was looking at the specs and saw the length and width.. I thought "Were they building a Iowa class Battleship or a locomotive" ? Because the Iowa's were built the same way.. Long in length and slim on the beam.
One thing that got my attention for this engine are it's 84 in driver's
If I was the person responsible for designing this loco, I'd go with wheels in the 70+ inch range
Yeah I dont think that size was what Baldwin had in mind.. And thus one of the reasons Altoona wound up building the locomotive
The S1 Duplex was as fast as the Japanese bullet trains, both being capable of 155 miles an hour. We beat them to the finish line by 25 years.
It’s Achilles heal was it’s frame, they couldn’t engineer a frame which could handle the stress’s placed upon it! Great Experiment though… That’s when the US was an innovative creating country!
Yeah, the frame was too ridged. So I was wondering why they wouldn't consider the articulated pin system like Big Boy.. ETC. I mean I understand they wanted as few moving parts as possible. But to me, this could have solved the problem.
Fastest ridgid steam loco in the USA, with a top recorded speed of 101mph. The 133mph that some claim this loco achieved was not official or recorded, and highly unlikely.
Several UK ridged frame passenger locos in the UK exceeded that, as have several German locos, all official recorded times and speeds.
GWR 3700 Class 3440 City of Truro is alleged to have got up to 102 in 1904, but timings were by stop watch and mile post recordings.
LNER Class A3 2750 Papyrus got up to 108mph recorded on a dynamometer car in 1935
LMS Princess Royal Class 6203 Princess Margaret Rose timed at 102.5mph in 1936.
LMS Streamlined Princess Coronation class No. 6220 Coronation was recorded at 112mph in 1937
LNER A4 Mallard 4468 was recorded on the dynamometer car in 1938 at 126MPH.
It is alleged that post war, with the improvements that had been made to the A4s such as the drafting and most importantly, the bearings, that in the 1950's, the A4's were regularly (unofficially) breaking Mallards Record on a daily basis, but the management of BR took a dim view of this, as they kept the East Coast Mainline speed limit to 90mph because that's the best the Type 4 diesel locos that were intended as their replacements could manage, which is why the A4's hung on to express working until the 1960's when the 3000hp deltic locos were released for traffic on the ECML, which were the post powerful diesel locos in the world when new. The sole LNER W1 in its rebuilt form was apparently more than capable of running at over 130mph (again alleged and unofficial) amd was described as a suped up A4, as despite looking like a A4, was much more powerful, having 20" cylinders rather than 18.5", giving it a tractive effort of 41,437 (compared to the A4's 35,455) and a fire grate area of 50 sq ft compared to the A4's 41.25 sq ft. The footplate crews said that when you got up towards 130mph the loco would not only rock side to side, but back and forth (hunting) as well, as no doubt the reciprocating speed of the wheels was so fast they were becoming out of balance.
The Great Western Railways Cheltenham Spa Express (aka Cheltenham flyer), which was usual hauled by a GWR Castle class loco, had the worlds fastest average speed for a train at a BOOKED 66mph and this was later increased to a BOOKED 71mph for its 70.25mile trip. The fastest trip was On Monday, 6 June 1932, when the Cheltenham Spa Express was hauled at a AVERAGE speed of 81.6 miles per hour over and this made this run the fastest AVERAGE railway run in the world, being hauled throughout by GWR Castle class 5006 Tregenna Castle.
This october marks 65 years since LNER A3 4472 Flying Scotsman started Alan Peglers USA tour (hint hint) perhaps a video is due for you wonderful channel (hint hint) lol.
Really good stuff! Thank you!!
How could this possibly be a successful locomotive when it's only got 40% adhesive weight on its driving wheels NO wo derailed it had slipping problems Why didn't the builder put two cylinders between the frames and convert loco to a 6--8--6 layout
Yep, I was kinda scratching my head on that one.
big engine gang
Seriously, no doubt!