The most perfect locomotive -- N&W's J -- and Its TOP Speed of 128 mph!!!

[nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org]

Good question, I have no idea how they would have calculated it on the 
spot.  I seriously doubt they would have tried anything that high 
without some serious reservations officially. I think the mechanical 
engineers would have reported much the same as the Pennsy found a few 
years later that the machinery speed (i.e. piston speed) in conjunction 
with the 70 inch drivers was too high for any sustained operation at a 
high speed.

I've heard many tales of 110 regularly in the racetrack, and I suspect 
that it was pushed even beyond that on rare occasion, but I'd speculate 
it was a very rare occasion.

Ken Miller
On Sep 10, 2006, at 6:36 AM, nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org wrote:


> How was that speed measured?

>  

> EdK

>> ----- Original Message -----

>> From: nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org

>> To: nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org

>> Sent: Saturday, September 09, 2006 12:57 PM

>> Subject: RE: The most perfect locomotive -- N&W's J -- and Its TOP 

>> Speed of 128 mph!!!

>>

>>      Gordon, Ed, Abram, Kenneth, Jim, Bill And All You Other N&W 

>> "Egg-spurts" And "Men of Iron" Out There,

>>      Ah, Yes, the Ultimate Js that I treasure in memory from my 

>> fondly-recalled Youth riding both ways out of Bluefield, WV, in the 

>> early 1950s.  But here is a brand-new J story (in at least two ways) 

>> that I took to be Gospel at the time. -- However, should I now 

>> disavow its content here right at 50 years later?? 

>>      While awaiting my Virginian Signal Supervisor Father's imminent 

>> arrival at Bluefield on Number 25 one beautiful early afternoon about 

>> 1955, Our Princeton Park Avenue Neighbor Stanley Clendenin invited 

>> into the very large cab of a Y-5 or or a Y-6 just west of the depot 

>> in his capacity as Yard Engineer.  During our brief conversation 

>> before the J-powered westbound "Powhatan Arrow" arrived just yards 

>> away, Mister Clendenin told me about a break-in run in 1941 of The 

>> Number 600 during which this famous charge -- on the 

>> Suffolk-Petersburg "corduroy" log-underpinned straightaway through 

>> the Great Dismal Swamp -- reached 128 miles per hour!!!!

>>      What do You Fellas think about that!!  Is this ?"a rural legend" 

>> Or The TRUTH As Emanated From Stanley Clendenin???  Best Wishes in 

>> Your Cogitations, Lloyd D. Lewis.....