WW1 era 2-10-2 USRA loco questions


Chemdawg

Member
I'm looking for some information pertaining to the WW1 era. From what I've read, these locos were used mainly for slow drag freight for hauling ore and coal. Is this correct?

Here are my questions...

1: If ore and coal is what these haul, what type of rolling stock did they pull?

2: How many cars were typical for this loco to pull during this time.

3: For ho scale, who makes rolling stock of this type that's nice...

4: What other types of cars could this loco be used to pull during ww1..

Thanks in advance for the info.
 
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50-70 ton coal hoppers, such as the H2a type (as an example) would be a typical coal drag. For one engine, perhaps 3000 tons, depending on the ruling grade, and as many as 100 hoppers between two on the head end and one pushing...again, depending on the steepest grade, or the ruling grade if its normal engine assignment was one 2-10-2.

But not just coal..it would be box cars, gondolas, flat cars, tank cars....

Bowser, Bachmann, BLI, Athearn, Atlas...they all make the various hoppers, and pretty much everything else, but BLI only does reefers and hoppers, plus some stock cars...some with sound.
 
Is this the type of car you are refering to?

http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/products.php?act=viewProd&productId=3581

My thing is that I LOVE steam locos, and one that I have in particular that I want to use is my Spectrum USRA 2-10-2 light. It's a nice loco, but its primary use was during WW1 according to the wiki on it. It was used during that time for coal and ore hauling. So I figured I would buy rolling stock that goes with the time era. My thing is, which cars exactly, and how many would be correct. I don't want to have 30 cars if that's not correct. (Just an example)
 
Is this the type of car you are refering to?

http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/products.php?act=viewProd&productId=3581


That would work as well as a similar car called a 2 bay offset hopper (smooth sides). These are available as a recent run by Atlas Trainman. There was also a hopper called a "composite hopper". These were wood 2 bays with metal bracing.

You could also consider some "wooden" 40' box cars. See if you can find a copy of "The Official Railway Equipment Register" for the mid-late 1910's. That would show what each railroad was using in the way of rolling stock.
 
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It's a nice loco, but its primary use was during WW1 according to the wiki on it. It was used during that time for coal and ore hauling.

It depends on what railroad you are modeling and the era. The Illinois Central ordered 100 2-10-2s in 1920. They were a copy of the USRA heavy 2-10-2. The bought 25 more in 1923. They were rebuilt in the 1930s and 40s and many of them ran until the end of steam on the IC and the last 7 were retired in 1961.

They hauled general merchandise trains on the heavy grade districts between Central City and Louisville KY, Jackson TN and Birmingham AL and hauled long trains of meat reefers between Waterloo IA and Freeport IL. On other districts they hauled long coal drags.

There were not a lot of completely "pure" trains of all one car type like the unit trains we see today. A coal drag might have a few boxcars or other cars mixed in heading to the same destination or in the same direction as the hoppers.

HTH Jeff
 
The 2-10-2's were also used as pushers, and railroads such as Southern used them as the heavy freight locos, since they mostly had light and middle weight 2-8-0's and 2-8-2's.

The length of the trains were limited by siding length as much as anything.

My dad models the SRR in the 1920's and he has 3 plastic 2-10-2's and 5 Bowser metal ones which will pull over 80 hoppers each, while the plastic jobs are only good for 35 or so hoppers or freight cars.

The USRA 2-10-2's were also built with Southern Valve gear for some roads, which allowed for better control of cut-off in either direction and less wear on the gear itself.
 
The 2-10-2's were also used as pushers, and railroads such as Southern used them as the heavy freight locos, since they mostly had light and middle weight 2-8-0's and 2-8-2's.

The SRR also had a large stable of USRA Heavy 2-8-2's Ms4 class and since these all 63" drivers they were used as their fast freight engines and back-up passenger power as well.

Due to the 2-10-2's rather slow speed, but good pulling ability, the 2-10-2's served out just about all of their lives on the Asheville and Knoxville divisions, pulling and pushing heavy trains over the mountains. Depending on the road number, some of these USRA's also had the "split" sand domes like the ones seen on the B&O's "Big Six" 2-10-2's. This gave them 4 sand domes instead of the "normal" 2. The SRR also rebuilt 5 of the 2-10-2's into heavy 2-8-2's.

My dad models the SRR in the 1920's and he has 3 plastic 2-10-2's and 5 Bowser metal ones which will pull over 80 hoppers each, while the plastic jobs are only good for 35 or so hoppers or freight cars.

That's quite a difference in the pulling power between those two. I have 2 brass SRR 2-10-2's and they pull about 70-75 cars depending on the humidity. I haven't added any extra weight in these. My Bowser 2-10-2, could handle about that many on the club layout but after I got it regeared, it has handled 100.

The USRA 2-10-2's were also built with Southern Valve gear for some roads, which allowed for better control of cut-off in either direction and less wear on the gear itself.

Actually the first batches of USRA light 2-10-2's to other roads, were all delivered with Southern valve gear. It wasn't until they were shopped for major overhauls or repairs that the valve gears were changed out.
 



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