LarrBeard's Tale of the T1 Locomotive

[bmorgil]

Here is the tale of the mighty locomotive by LarrBeard, enjoy!



A Story That Needs to be Retold

Back in the early 1970’s, the Radio Engineering group at Magnavox was a lot different than most engineering groups today. Everyone had a lot of outside interests; old airplanes, vehicles and of course – steam locomotives. With the Nickel Plate and Pennsylvania heritage, just about everyone native to Fort Wayne had a railroader in their family. A lot of engineers had worked for the railroad in college – and not as locomotive engineers. Since my father was an Illinois Central railroader, I fit into that group nicely.

Back then just about everyone had a folder in their desk for jokes, and stories whose taste and content would be socially unacceptable today. This was in the day when many were actually mimeograph copies – not spirit duplicator or early slick paper copies.

One of the stories that made the rounds was a story headed up as “Black Lightning”- a Pennsylvania engineer’s account of a high speed run from Crestline, Ohio to Fort Wayne, Indiana in about 1950 in the last days of Pennsylvania steam. I have asked everyone who might have had a copy of that story and no one even has a recollection of it. After all, that was almost 50-years ago and most folks would have no reason remember anything like this story.

This story has the Pennsylvania T1 steam locomotive as a main character. There is much information about the T1 available on the internet as well as about the Crestline, Ohio roundhouse that was the home for many of those engines. In short, the T1 was the peak of steam locomotive technology, but it was unable to stand in the way of the diesel-electric technology that emerged after World War II.

It was big, it was powerful, it was fast and but was hard to operate and expensive to maintain. Fifty of them entered Pennsylvania service between 1942 and 1946 and served through the war years at the head of most named passenger trains as well on high speed freight service. But, because of its size, it was limited in where it could operate because of tight radius curves. The flat double tracked race track from Crestline, Ohio to Chicago was the perfect place to run a T1.

By most accounts, T1’s were relegated to fast freight service by late 1949, replaced in passenger service by EMD and Alco diesels. By late 1951 most had been withdrawn from service and before the end of 1952 they were all retired. The last T1 was scrapped about 1955. It is generally considered by rail fans that one of the darkest stories of the last days of steam was that not a single T1 was saved for exhibit or display – they all went to the scrapper’s torch.


Videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znMu4K71ktY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6z_CBnzE7E

As of today, June 2020, there is a group called “The T1 Trust” whose intention is to build a new T1 from the original builder’s prints. The goal is to have the project done by 2030 with the dual expectation of having a one-of-a-kind exhibit locomotive and to have a locomotive that will be recognized as the fastest steam locomotive in the world – replacing the British “Mallard” which presently holds that title.

As I said earlier, I am trying to recall an account I read almost 50-years ago. I will do my best to do so. As I write, if I have any editorial comments, or explanatory remarks, I will italicize them so you can recognize my additions to the original story.

[bmorgil]

11751



BLACK LIGHTNING




(In the original document, this picture of a T1 was a hand drawn sketch. This picture is probably a good representation of the locomotive in the story and the train it was pulling.)

In the summer of 1950 I was working out of Crestline, Ohio. By then steam power had almost ended and I was running diesel power westward out from Crestline to Chicago and back east to Pittsburgh and elsewhere.

I reported to the crew office one day and met up with my fireman for a trip. That particular day we were running a passenger train from Crestline through Fort Wayne and on to Chicago. The incoming train was scheduled for a crew and equipment change at Crestline. We had been running diesel power for a long time and we were surprised when we were told that there were equipment issues and that we would be taking out a T1 that day.

It had been a long time since we took out a steam locomotive and we had gotten in the habit of wearing sport shirts and pants to work. Neither the fireman, who I had worked with many times, nor I had coveralls, but we did manage to find a set of goggles in the bottom of our bags.

We got a ride over to pick up the T1. She had come out of maintenance and had been in storage for a while. Most of the inspection plates were missing; it had become common practice to just leave them off - but sitting there on the ready track she still looked like she was doing 80 miles-per-hour. We climbed up in the cab and looked things over. The hostler had taken some damp waste and tried to wipe the dust off the seats but had just managed to turn it into a thin coat of mud. We did as good a clean-up as we could and got down to business.

The hostler had laid up a good thin fire; the sight glasses had water at the right levels and the tender was loaded with coal and water. Sitting there idling she held about 250 pounds of steam and it didn’t take much firing to bring her up to about 295 pounds. I didn’t want to lift the safeties because that blew water back in the cab and I didn’t want to get a soaking with nasty boiler water.

(In many of the movies showing T1’s under way; it is common to see a plume of steam just forward of the cab. The safety valves have lifted, probably at about 310 pounds. In other pictures you will see a white coating on the boiler casing around the safety valves where evaporated boiler water has left a stain. Boiler water was heavily treated to protect the waterside of boiler tubes from erosion)

We made our way through the switches and waited for the inbound train. When it showed up it was a typical passenger train for the day; a baggage car and eight or nine passenger coaches. This was a light train for a T1, especially on the straight, flat double track line into Chicago. The incoming EMD cut off from the head end and we backed down and hooked up. One of the car inspectors doing the hookup commented that he hadn’t seen a T1 in a long time.

We got clear signals and pulled out of the station. We eased past North Robinson and Bucyrus. The engine was steaming well and we had no problem with keeping the train at the track speed limits. In about a half-hour we slowed for Upper Sandusky and made our way through on the yard west-bound through track. It took me a while to get my touch back to handle the throttle, and I didn’t’ slip the front engine drivers.

(The T1 was a duplex locomotive that had issues with weight equalization between the front drive wheels, commonly called the front engine, and the rear drive wheels; the rear engine. If an engineer managed to get into a wheel slip on the front engine he had to reduce speed or even bring the train to a stop to regain traction on both engines.)

Once we got used to the heat, dirt and noise of a steam locomotive, things went routinely. We held close to 80 miles-an-hour from Upper Sandusky until we had to slow for the yard and big curve at Lima. We left Lima and headed toward Elida, about a 12 minute run as we accelerated out of the Lima yard limits.

About the time we crossed the Ottawa River outside Elida, my fireman made the comment “This may be the last time we ever do this. I wonder just what this thing will do?” I thought for a bit and replied; “Let’s find out.”

(If you look at Google maps in the satellite view, the remains of the double track bridge over the Ottawa River at Elida and the AuGlaize River at Ottawa are still visible).

I pulled back on the throttle and the T1 eased up to 90 MPH effortlessly. I let it sit there for a bit and then I eased it back a bit more. At 95 the engine didn’t seem to be working hard. The ride was getting a bit rough but not too bad. I kept opening the throttle as small Ohio towns flashed by. Delphos was almost a blur. By the time we reached Middle Point, the speedometer was well above 100. Ohio has scores of county roads and farm crossings and by then I was on the whistle almost continuously. I didn’t want to hit a truck or tractor at 100 MPH.

I was keeping a close eye on the signals to make sure that we weren’t running up on slower traffic and as went through Van Wert there was a crowd of people standing on the station waving as we went by. I didn’t realize the significance of this until later. We went past Convoy at just a little under 110 MPH and I held it steady there through Dixon and Monroe, the ride was as rough as I wanted it to get.

(The T1 was a “free steaming” locomotive. The stoker, feed water system and boiler could make all the steam the throttle called for.)

We crossed the Ohio/Indiana line and we getting close to Fort Wayne’s Baker Street Station, our only stop between Crestline and Chicago. I started easing off the throttle and about Maples, Indiana I started to apply train brakes. I got it slowed down pretty well and I was legal as I came into Adams and Piqua, the yards at the east side of Fort Wayne.

We eased through the yards and came off the main onto the siding for the Baker Street platform. As I came past the platform, I noticed a group of people standing around the T1 stop post. Normally there would be several people there who would inspect the train during the stop, but there were a lot more people here that day – and several of them were wearing suits.

I brought the train to a stop and set the brakes. One of the suits walked up to the cab steps and said; “Get down here – right now. I want to talk to you.” I climbed down and the first question from the suit was; “Just what in the **** did think you were doing? And, don’t try to deny anything because we have the block tapes that show exactly what happened.”

About then it dawned on me why people were standing on platforms waving at us. The telegraphers had sent word that a T1 was making a speed run. You can run like the wind, but you can’t outrun the telegraph and the CTC tapes.

I didn’t know just who the suit was, but he was red in the face and obviously had the authority to give me a world class chewing out. There was a crowd of other suits there to watch the show. He told me he should fire me, and if he didn’t fire me I was going to spend the rest of my life running a hump engine somewhere. And, the chewing out went on from there – in very colorful railroad terms. My fireman had moved over to the engineer’s seat box and was looking out the window – watching the chewing out.

The suit looked up at him and said; “And you were a part of this too. This is the last time you’ll ever sit on an engineer’s seat – you’re going to be running local car hauls from now on.”

By this time I figured that he was going to pull us off the run and call a local crew to take the train on into Chicago. He finally ran out of breath and told me; “Just get out of here.”

I turned around to climb back up into the cab and just as I put my foot on the first step, the suit said; “Come back here.”

I thought that he had changed his mind and this was going to be the last straw – I was fired for sure.

The suit guy lowered his voice a bit and asked; “Was it fun?”

The fireman and I got written up for the incident, but with the provision that if we didn’t get any more write-ups in a 12-month period, the reprimand would be removed from out records. It was a wrist slap.

And, it was indeed that last time I ever ran a T1. And yes, it was fun.

[gmwillys]

A classic "better to ask for forgiveness, then ask for permission" instances. Great legendary tale!

[56willys]

Wow! That is a super awesome story, I have been somewhat following the T1 replica build for a few years. Hopefully I'll be able to see it someday. Before Flossy I was a pretty avid model railroader, but with a jeep time/money gets divided really quick and Flossy gets most of it, so it's nice to still have some train talk even on willys sites! I can't imagine going that fast in such a giant hunk of steam powered iron, it's simply amazing what people used to do. Like you said, this story needs to be retold forever.

[test1328]

Awesome tale. I certainly hope it was true and it really happened that way. Would have loved to have seen that. That was well before my time, but steam engines always seemed cool. Being from mining stock from way back, trains played a big role in my family's life. My only relative that was directly involved with the railroad was my great grandfather on my mother's side, who was from Missouri, and was an engineer out that way

[LarrBeard]

" I can't imagine going that fast in such a giant hunk of steam powered iron ... "

A friend of mine who is a Trainmaster for Norfolk Southern read the account and commented that he could not imagine running that fast on jointed rails and that the roadbed had to be much better leveled and gauged that most of today's roadbeds.

[gmwillys]

Today's infrastructure has deteriorated to the point that we will not be able to see this happen again without a major overhaul. Amtrak is the closest we will see to reaching those kinds of speeds.