The Hiawatha....

[Milwaukee Road 113]

Always played with the idea, if I'd ever have the money, I'd build a new '35 Hiawatha, with the Class A 4-4-2 and all...
Question is though, does the plans still exist, does the skills still exist among workers today that can do it and what about machinery?

(btw, daydreaming is good for you, I just call it lively imagination!)

Another thing, with the LNER's Pacific, Class A4, #4468 Mallard being the holder of the world speed record for steam locomotives at 125.88*mph (202.58*km/h), since 3 July 1938 ona slight downward grade, somehow, I'm convinced that a Milwaukee Road Class A 4-4-2 could have bettered it, since they more often than not travelled at 100+ mph....

.....or have I been putting my fingers one time too many in the socket?

 

[tootnkumin]

The required extra tractive effort to gain 20 + or - MPH over the magic "Ton" would be substantial. Whether an extra pair of drivers would be the key to achieving that, is I guess, open to conjecture. According to this Wiki article it was timed at 112.5 MPH over a distance of 14 miles and if this was done with it's normal 9 car consist, then the A4's 125.88 with only, I think, 3 or 4 coaches, surely would have been so.

 

[montanan]

 

[Milwaukee Road 113]

Love that photo....

Can just see her, with her train, steaming down the old Milwaukee Road steel....

 

[kjchronister]

There are likely several locos that could have beat mallards record on an apples-apples basis. Hiawatha certainly a strong contender. Many cite the prr t-1 add likely having gone faster, just didn't have a culture of dyno measuring in us in that era. A few DR locks also claimed to have unofficially gone faster.

 

[Milwaukee Road 113]

Interesting...
How about any of the big Hudsons or a Niagara? Surely the NYC 4-8-4's had the horsepower...

 

[trailrider]

Dare I say it? The Burlington Route Zephyrs with their diesels quite often exceeded 100 mph, especially on the 3-track "speedway" through Aurora, Illinois. Maybe... Of course fast runs like that depended on the condition of the track, clearances, etc.

 

[montanan]

Here's a link to what the Hiawatha could do.

http://www.trainweb.org/kenrail/Midwest.speed.html

 

[montanan]

Here are a few oldies taken in Wisconsin in the 30's and 40's.

 

[trailrider]

Really something, weren't they all? I vaguely recall riding on a Hiawatha from Chicago to IIRC Portage, WI, to see an aunt near Wisconsin Dells, and riding a diesel-powered train from Madison to Chicago on the Milwaukee Road in the 1950's. May even have ridden in that "Great Dome" at one time or another!
Thanks, again!

 

[montanan]

The second picture was taken in Portage, WI in the mid 40's.

 

[Iron Horseman]

Dare I say it? The Burlington Route Zephyrs with their diesels quite often exceeded 100 mph, especially on the 3-track "speedway" through Aurora, Illinois. Maybe... Of course fast runs like that depended on the condition of the track, clearances, etc.

But that is a comparison of apples to coconuts. Steam speed is limited by the impossibility of an instantaneous reversal of the driving rod from forward to backward at the end of each stroke. Electric motors don't have this physical limitation.

I don't know what the speed record is for diesel-electric power. I do know that the speed record on the Santa Fe is held by EMC E6 #14. I had always had the nick name "fast 14". It was clocked at 124 mph. Don't know when, where, or what train it was on (but a good bet is that it was the Super Chief between La Junta CO and Dodge City Kansas).