Terry and Russ,
Thanks for your comments, and double thanks to Russ for sharing info on the
various Burlington system grades. Terry, I'm glad you have enjoyed this
thread. I've certainly learned a lot from other contributors and from
having to think through these issues myself. Again, I must apologize for
taking so long to respond.
If I understand you correctly, Terry, you are suggesting that the FW&DC's
decision NOT to install feedwater heaters on most of its engines may have
had more to do with their not WANTING to make the capital investment up
front than with their not NEEDING to make such investments because their
topography or other operating conditions simply didn't require it -- which
is what I have been arguing.
You may be right. No railroad likes to spend money. And certainly the
sawtooth profile of the FW&D's mainline west of Ft Worth is tangible
evidence of their "frugality" (to use Charlie's euphemism).
But in order to persuade me that "avoidance of capital investment" was the
determining factor you'd need to show me two things: (1) that the profile
of the FW&DC's lines did include significant grades which really taxed the
steaming capacity of its engines, and (2) that FW&DC management had the
independence to follow its own divergent course of action in making
decisions about how to equip its motive power. Because, after all, if it
was really the Burlington calling the shots, we'd have to assume that they
were applying roughly the same criteria in Texas as they were in Illinois
or Colorado.
Frankly, I'm dubious about how much discretion the western subsidiaries'
management had in making such decisions. Apparently they had little or no
independence about major motive power acquisitions. I've read, for
instance, that over and again the C&S petitioned the parent company for
simple articulated engines similar to those used on the neighboring D&RGW
and UP, but they were repeatedly turned down. And during the mid-1950s, the
Burlington also forced the FW&DC to lease the parent company's surplus O-4s
rather than repair their own heavy mikados. Whether such meddling extended
down to smaller investments like feedwater heaters is an open question, but
my guess is the Burlington brass kept them on a pretty short leash about
such things and did not tolerate policies that were vastly different from
their own.
On the question of grades, Russ has provided some very useful information
about the CB&Q and its twin subsidiaries, which I look forward to examining
in more detail. One of the most interesting statements in his March 14
posting is that Angora Hill (in western Nebraska) is a VERY LONG 1.00%
(emphasis mine). He reminds us that it is not only the percentage rise, but
also the length of a grade, which determines its "severity" for train
operations. This must have been especially true during the steam era, when
an engine's ability to maintain boiler pressure had a lot to do with
getting trains up and over a hill. In those days, Angora Hill was
considered one of the real stinkers on the entire system. This, after all,
is where the Burlington's lone 2-8-8-2 ran out its miles, pushing freights
out of the Platte Valley; Angora was also a regular venue for the 2-6-6-2
T-2s during the 1930s and '40s, at least when they weren't working the
Truly Awful (3 to 4.5%) grades on the Black Hills branches.
No doubt the "sawtooth" profile of the Texas lines, and specifically that
stretch between Alvord and Decatur with its 1.2 to 1.38% grades, caused
some real operating headaches; but whether it challenged the steaming
capacity of the FW&D's engines is a slightly different question. The answer
to that one probably would depend on how long and deep the individual
"teeth" were. I would suspect that the dips between the rises may have been
enough to allow an engine's steam pressure to "recover" before the next
ascent. Another mitigating or aggravating factor may have been traffic
density and the average length of trains. In his Color Pictorial, Steve
Goen says that double-heading was relatively rare on the FW&D, at least
during the latter days of steam. If true, it suggests to me that engines
may not have been taxed to their limits all that often. Compare this with
both the CB&Q and the C&S, where we have many photos showing double-headed
freights. I'm not sure, but I suspect Russ's dispatching experience dates
from somewhat later and may reflect changed conditions in terms of motive
power, train length and weight, operating practices, etc. from what they
were in the 1930s-50s, even if the basic geometry of the railroad itself
has remained substantially the same.
As I said in my March 14 posting, it is helpful to analyze the use of
feedwater heaters (or any other technology) by looking at it in terms of
relatively broad, comparative patterns. And perhaps the most apt comparison
here would be between the FW&DC and its sister road up in Colorado. When we
look at these two parts of the Denver to Gulf system, it is immediately
clear that the C&S, with its heavier grades, used feedwater heaters far
more extensively than its Texas counterpart, and in some respects more than
even the CB&Q proper. I have no tables for the subsidiary roads comparable
to the list of assignments in Corbin and Kerka, so I'm basing these
statements on old photos I've found in books and on the web -- mainly the
Otto Perry collection at the Denver Public Library.
>From such evidence as I can glean from these sources, it appears that none
of the FW&DC's light mikados had feedwater heaters (and as pointed out last
week, neither did most of the Burlington's O-1s, nor in fact many of their
heavier mikados); by contrast all five of the C&S's light, 800-series light
mikados did have them. As for "big" power, the only FW&DC heavy 2-8-2 I've
seen with a FWH is their last one, No. 465, though it wouldn't surprise me
to learn that sister engine 464 also had one. But that still would be only
2 of 16 heavy mikados and 2 out of 26 total mikados. By contrast, all 20 of
the C&S's freight engines larger than a consolidation (five 2-8-2s and
fifteen 2-10-2s) had them (note: some of the FW&D's heavy mikes may have
had the less efficient exhaust steam injectors which, as John pointed out,
a number of the Burlington's O-3s also had; but that wouldn't change my
central point).
Turning to passenger engines, both the C&S and FW&D equipped their heavy
Pacifics (equivalent of the Burlington's S-3s) with feedwater heaters.
However, none of the FW&DC's light Pacifics had them, whereas all of the
C&S's did.
So the C&S used feedwater heaters not only on a much higher percentage of
its engines than did the FW&DC, but also on much lighter engines -- all of
which seems consistent with the "steaming" hypothesis outlined in my March
14 posting. You can convince me otherwise, but doing so will require you to
climb a bit of a hill.
Jonathan
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