06-30-2010, 08:29 PM
The Whyte system worked pretty well for years while locos were pretty straightforward and everybody was familiar with them. It wasn't intended to do anything fancy.
Then someone (possibly connected with Trains magazine) decided that the system had to be able to distinguish articulated locomotives where one engine swung from those where neither engine swung and those where both engines swung. Someone was getting his shorts in a knot trying to describe a Pennsy T1 against a four-truck Shay. So they added + signs and (brackets) to the system. And quietly dropped it all after a few years.
The common visible feedwater heaters are the Elesco (from L. S. Co which was???) -- a big tube in front of the stack --and the Coffin -- stuck out in front and bent around above the smokebox door. Of course, all of these had incomprehensible piping hooked into them. And then there were interior ones which we don't need to know about (except where the piping is visible),
Then someone (possibly connected with Trains magazine) decided that the system had to be able to distinguish articulated locomotives where one engine swung from those where neither engine swung and those where both engines swung. Someone was getting his shorts in a knot trying to describe a Pennsy T1 against a four-truck Shay. So they added + signs and (brackets) to the system. And quietly dropped it all after a few years.
The common visible feedwater heaters are the Elesco (from L. S. Co which was???) -- a big tube in front of the stack --and the Coffin -- stuck out in front and bent around above the smokebox door. Of course, all of these had incomprehensible piping hooked into them. And then there were interior ones which we don't need to know about (except where the piping is visible),
David
Moderato ma non troppo
Perth & Exeter Railway Company
Esquesing & Chinguacousy Radial Railway
In model railroading, there are between six and two hundred ways of performing a given task.
Most modellers can get two of them to work.
Moderato ma non troppo
Perth & Exeter Railway Company
Esquesing & Chinguacousy Radial Railway
In model railroading, there are between six and two hundred ways of performing a given task.
Most modellers can get two of them to work.