[N&W] Re: VGN Steam on N&W? (Was G'day)

[nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org]

I love the VGN Blue Ridges (AGs); they ran past my back yard when I was of
an impressionable age. Even so, they seem like casting pearls before swine
in coal train service. Today, they'd make some sense in coal train service
because their speed would save crew costs and not hold up higher-class
traffic on the main line (assuming a mixed traffic railroad). A marvelous
machine in search of a job to do.

It occurred to me that they would have been great on SP's Donner Pass - 70
odd miles of 2.2% with 35+ mph curves. (Imagine, an oil-burning 6-6-6-2 cab
forward!) No way would SP's track have been able to take it, however.

The BAs had their place, however, since they were used in fast freight
service to connect with the NYC(?) at the west end. (The westbound runs of
that service passed my house in Norfolk in the early evening.) As I may
have posted before, PAs were occasionally used in that service when traffic
was very light.

Peter Groom

on 9/30/02 6:31 PM, N&W Mailing List at mailing-list at nwhs.org wrote:
 > Good golly gee!
 > Makes you wonder how the C&O & VGN stayed in business using that useless 
Lima
 > Superpower! :o)
 > Bob Moore

Nah, Bob, but it does make you wonder how much more profitable VGN could
have been using an equivalent of a Y-6 from Roanoke east . . .

Let's see - first costs would have been much lower; track and bridge
maintenance costs would have been much lower (Cooper E72 bridge ratings
instead of E80); operating costs would have been much lower (less coal and
water expense using compound operation).

Try figuring how much of a VGN 2-6-6-6's time on an average run was spent at
or above its maximum horsepower speed; then, figure the same for a BA.  Then
figure how much of that Lima Superpower was there for "show", and not for
"go".  Remember, both of them developed their maximum horsepower between 40
and 45 MPH.  Then figure how much VGN paid for horsepower it never got the
benefit from.

Matching a horsepower curve to the job to be done was never a C&O strong
point; it was a strong point on VGN until George Brooke came over from the
C&O to be President.

VGN had them and you liked them.  That's fine.  Your analysis doesn't have
to go beyond that point.  N&W didn't have them, and my analysis of the
situation and the people involved in making the power-obtaining decisions
when locomotives were being considered convinces me that N&W would never
have had them, as, indeed, it didn't.  That's fine, too.

OK?

EdKing