Just a few comments on this excellent summary of the Allegheny. Much of the overweight problems on these engines arose from "elbow joggling" by AMC officials who would visit the Lima plant weekly and demand that various parts be made bigger, simply because they weren't proportioned that same as the older and smaller locomotives they were familiar with and despite the assurances from the Lima design engineers that the parts were indeed sized correctly. The rest occurred in the scale room at Lima when the engine was weighed. When the time came to weight the first H-8, No. 1600, only two men were allowed in the scale room: Dan Ellis, CMO of the AMC, and Bert Townsend of Lima. Once they finished their work and reset the scales, they went into the laboratory office and gave the figures to Lima's Chief Calculating Engineer Ralph Schmitt. He added up the weights of items not yet on the engine, and then SUBTRACTED that figure from the scale weights, giving a final weight of 724,500 lbs. He announce the figure to the room, and Alonso Trumbull, the head of the AMC asked "What did you say?" and Schmitt repeated his value. Trumbull replied "That's what I thought you said." and left the room. This story makes clear, I believe, that the AMC didn't care how much the engines weighed, and knew that the C&O would care. The next day, the engine was reweighed to accurately determine the proper locations for the pivot points on the equalizer bars, and that weight came out to be 775,330 lbs. After the deception became known, two H-8s from earlier orders were sent back to Lima to be reweighed. When they arrived Lima found that the lids on the sandboxes were welded shut, making it impossible to determine how much of the nominal 6,000 pounds of sand per sandbox. All of this was described to Gene Huddleston, who included it in his book The Allegheny, Lima's Finest. I know Gene, and as a university professor, he was a stickler for ensuring the accuracy of his sources. If he printed it, it's certain that, to the very best of his knowledge, it was true. The rated tractive effort (TE) of the Allegheny troubled me for a long time. Finally, about 10 years ago or so, I got my hands on a copy of the dynamometer test report for this engine and everything changed. It turns out that the H-8s were all capable of a TE of 119,000 pounds. Why the discrepancy, you might ask. The TE figures for most steam locomotives were not measured but calculated using a formula that assumes that the steam pressure delivered to the cylinders is 85% of the boiler pressure. Up through the early superpower days this was a reasonable assumption, but on the Allegheny, the steam pressure at the cylinders was 92% of the boiler pressure, accounting for the difference. Some, Gene Huddleston included, have wondered why the C&O didn't increase the TE of the Allegheny, either by increasing the boiler pressure, or increasing the cylinder diameter, or perhaps adding a booster. The fact is that the railroad couldn't have used the increased performance, since the train length on the Alleghany Subdivision had a hard limit imposed the the space between Alleghany Tunnel to the west of Alleghany, Va. and Lewis Tunnel to the east. This siding could accommodate trains up to about 170 cars, and that was it. There was no space to lengthen the siding, since Alleghany is nestled between two mountains, and railroads in general don't like to have sidings inside tunnels. So, handling longer trains was not an option. But, handling existing trains faster was. The dynamometer test report, and the few dispatchers train sheets we have show us that the H-8, with its higher horsepower, was capable of about double the Gross Ton-Miles per Train-Hour that the older H-7 simple 2-8-8-2s were producing. Since the 50 or so miles from Hinton to Alleghany were the bottleneck for the entire line, replacing the 45 H-7s in service on this line with a like number of H-8s essentially doubled the capacity of this line by getting trains over the road in roughly half the time. This is entirely due to the massively greater horsepower of the H-8. Karen Parker

I worked at the Henry Ford Museum in the early 80's. That Locomotive is absolutely MASSIVE! My family has photos of my Canadian Uncle Bill...his C&O crew were the ones responsible for getting that locomotive through the rear doors and into that Museum decades ago. You cannot fully appreciate how large that thing is until you climb up into the cab of it.

I've seen the Allegheny at the Henry Ford Museum. The thing is massive. I swear it has it's own gravity that pulls you in. You can almost hear how much it weighs.

Great vid! Bookmarked. Both the T-1 and the Allegheny were limited to 160 cars. Boiler pressure could have been higher. The beast from the east was always on a leash.

I noticed the photo you used for the Pennsy Q2 is actually of a Q1. Aside from the picture issue, this is an awesome presentation - thank you for your time and effort in putting it together.

Many railfans will complain about the Allegheny's operating steam pressure of 260 psi. Steam pressure doesn't create the power. It is all about the heat of the steam. Steam locomotives work on thermodynamic principles, they do not work on steam pressure. They are a Heat Engine, not a pneumatic tool like an air tool that a mechanic would use.

Horsepower is tractive effort at a certain speed (ft-lb/hr); the adhesion constant (the Greek letter u) is pretty constant at 0.3 for all locomotives. Steam engines, like electric motors, can produce full power at stall, so speed really isn't an issue in starting a train. Horsepower comes in when you want to run a train at higher speeds.

Per Kalmbach books, "Diesel Locomotives, the first fifty years", the Union Pacific's Gas Turbine three car units number 1-30 were rated at 8500 horse power. In 1964, traction motors were added to the fuel tenders to increase horse power to 10,000 hp.

I like this format you sound a lot more relaxed👍

The C&O "Allegheny" type is an impressive specimen of an articulated locomotive and one of the largest steam locomotives ever built. The h8 class locomotives were built for hauling coal drags in Virginia and West Virginia and it must have been truly impressive to see these Allegheny type locomotives in operation during the late stage of the steam era. I am satisfied that engines 1601 and 1604 were preserved for display in museums to be admired and observed by railfans to appreciate the giant representatives of articulated steam power.

This is my first video that I have watched from your channel. As a mechanic and a quality inspector, I found it to be well presented and very informative. New Subscriber looking forward to seeing more of your video's.

My favorite is easy hands down H-8.thanx for heads up on lacation of the 2 retored h-8s.nice video.

This is a great video definitly subbing

As someone that grew up in southern West Virginia and with a grandmother in Roanoke, my love of the rails included C&O, B&O, WM, Chessie System, CSX, NW and Norfolk Southern. My parents actually road behind NW 611 during revenue service and my step- grandfather worked at the Roanoke shops in the late 40's - late 50's. In '77, as a 13yo kid I got to ride behind the Chessie Steam Special 2101 from Saint Albans, WV to Hinton, WV and back. Iv3 got several lifelong friends that worked for C&O, Chessie and currently CSX.

This locomotive is quite obscure compared to the big boys. It might be one of my favorites.

Really enjoy your conversational style here and all the great facts and pics! new sub here ubet

Happy new year! 🎉

First: great video. These were some truly impressive machines. Second: althe the C&O has been informally known as Chessie for many years, the Chessie System didn't exist during the stram era. But having said that, the Cheasie System Railroads were effectively (IMO) a greatly expanded Chesapeake & Ohio Railway despite the C&O, B&O, and WM being separate entities.

To help you with your HP over TE on a 1% hill, choosing HP is fine but wont help you get over the hill. HP is the 'power' of the loco (boiler output [different from drawbar hp]). Factor of Adhesion is the 'stickiness' or 'gription' of the steel wheel on steel rail under weight (weight on drivers - because you have to know steel on steel is very slippery!). TE is the 'answer' to the equation of HP and FoA. You have to know how much power you have, and how well that loco is gonna grip (before slipping) before you can figure on how much it will pull. Having all the horsies in the world wont help you if you cant get that HP to the rails. It takes HP to make TE, but having more HP only works to a point until you supercede the FoA (spin the wheels). Thus, more HP is not totally the answer - you may need to add weight (FoA increase). So, choose TE.... the higher HP and FoA are included to make this figure to begin with. Meaning youd already get your higher HP which you chose originally. (now you know why the axle loadings of Big Boy, H8's, and the like are so heavy - takes alot of weight to keep that much HP from slipping the drivers under load) How does this translate to the Allegheny? You mentioned track base, but not track structures. Alot had to be moved and upgraded to handle the H8s, not just track. This is why the Allegheny IS smaller than the Big Boy (and others!). The east coast railroads had much more tighter dimensions to work with than the west coast railroads. Same with weight, the H8 WEIGHS LESS than the Big Boy (and others!). You can only upgrade so many bridges and so much trackage before it becomes too much $$$ even for a railroad. Lima simply packed as much as they could into the space allowed. Yet still made one of the best locos out there, easily comparable to 'larger' locos - rightfully so. The Big Boy (and others) were never put under the same design restrictions as was the H8. This is why the H8 and Big Boy will forever be pitted agin one another. While Big Boy takes the crown in the respects that its larger, heavier, and has a higher HP, Lima proved you can move just as much freight, just as fast, given less to work with by restriction. So the age old battle of which is bigger, heavier, more powerful, hasnt really been the argument all along..... it was just another underdog story and whoever bet on the obvious loser.... actually won! (and dont forget, you can only pull so many cars no matter what loco is up front before you pull the face right off of a coupler! Metallurgy was a serious factor of the day too folks.)

You sure do know how to make a good video. And Alleghany's were very cool locomotives.

TY

My favourite locomotive; I have a brass model in O-scale and it is a monster... LIMA were a fine company that also produced the characteristic "Shay" locomotives. All else being equal, ultimately the limiting factor on locomotive horsepower is the size of the fire; the Allegheny had an unusually large fire box and fire grate area which helped it attain such a high horsepower rating. The 6-wheel truck was required to accommodate this large fire box. The later models also had the cross-arranged steam injectors above the fire bed to help increase combustion efficiency; clearly visible on the models at 5:17 and 6:45 .

The beginning of the end for Lima was not the Allegheny, but the coming of the diesel locomotive. Only World War Two extended the steam era by halting diesel design and production. Towards the end, it was Baldwin that killed Lima as a locomotive builder. Baldwain was bigger, but also financially weaker when the decision was made to merge, without public knowledge or input. Prior to this, Lima was financially strong, and beginning to surpass Baldwin in diesel production.

I have seen both the one at Henry j Museum and the one in Baltimore, and as a Swede living in Sweden that must be unique :-)

The Allegheny might weigh more and have more tractive effort, but the Wasatch is a beautiful beast, especially hi-ballin down the track.

Another way to consider the power in practical terms was what they hauled and where. Big boys tended to haul reefers, trains that were much lighter than the coal trains pulled by Virginian and C&O. They tended to run at fairly high speeds for what they hauled and by doing so moved the train over the railroad faster than their predecessors. This actually increased capacity with out requiring more infrastructure. For the ultimate in pure drag era power look at the Virginian 2-10-10-2 articulated, not fast but it ran with what ever was ready to go and would often pull 200 car trains. Making headlines in the news papers with the massive amounts of tonnage they pulled into the Virginians coal piers.

Lol I see what you did there with the 4 amigos 😂 we already talked about it in the y6b and big boy video, so it feels like a moot point to bring it up again. Instead, I pike how you did this video. It felt a bit more organic, like you were talking face to face with your audience, though that might just be me. And I agree with you on the allegheny. It's such a beast of a locomotive. I've actually got a rivarossi ho scale model of it with dcc that I've run a lot at my club layout. These engines are so underrated when compared to the big boys, y6b's and the yellowstones. Awesome video!

Adhesion for the Allegheny was a guaranteed 22%.

Tractive effort is the most misunderstood thing about steam locomotives. Tractive effort is not power. It is the calculated starting pull at 0 mph. A steam locomotives calculated starting pull has nothing to do with how much power it can produce at speed.

Built by the same company where my beloved steam locomotive Daylight 4449 and Daylight locomotives were built, Chesapeake and Ohio's Alleghenies, The most powerful, beautiful, but to make matters worse, heaviest steam locomotives ever built!

The Yellowstones are great too

I was lucky enough to grow up going to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI my entire life where they have one of these on display. Awesome machine.

Thank you for the video. Very much appreciated it. Besides UP's 4014, I would like to see a Allegheny also; but a pipe dream.

You forgot the Yellowstone it had about the same as the y6b in simple in stead of compound steam and that is where the HP & tractive effort was the highest

I have seen online that Allegheny was the largest locomotive ever built once or twice

no no i liked the new style of video

If you increased the boiler pressure by 10 pounds, made the cylinders an inch larger in diameter, and added a booster. The Allegheny would have out pulled the Bog Boy.

Just my opinion, I prefer this style of presentation. I feel like I’m listening to the docent at the museum vs. an AI created voice that is robotic. I find trains and railroad history very interesting.

Good video but the picture of the q2 was a q1. The q2 had 4 forward facing cylinders instead of 2 forward and 2 backward

You need to read the book all the first 9 weighted 778000 pounds, 6000 pounds heavier than bigboys.

The Centennials on the UP were originally rated at 7200 HP. They were cut back to 6600 HP after about 6 months of being on the system.

DM&IR Yellowstone. The debate goes on.

There is a massive mistake made. The creator left of a 0 in the weight. It should say that they weighed as much as 771,300lbs, not 77,130. If 77,130 were correct, then even an old Pershing tank M26, weighing in at 92,355 lbs would be a heavy load, let alone cars full of them.

The BIGBOY wight was or is one million five hundred LBS.

the only electros that made more power were the up turbines at around 10000 hp or the russian turbine electros that put out more as the 2010's vintage that had more, there are pure electro engines though that have more all out tractive effort, one reason also that they didn't pull longer trains then the up was they didn not have sidings for longer trains, and as you stated they never used the boosters they didn't need to it did the job of pulling 2 times the tonnage at 2 times the speed dragging it and less overall fuel consumption then the h 7's they replaced. according to c and o magazine that had an article that I read on videos about 5 years back after I found the article

Regarding horsepower, the class H-8 Allegheny was measured at 7498 HP using a dynamometer car while hauling a train, and it represented a peak reading of drawbar horsepower. The relevant paragraph from C&O Power also mentioned frequent peaks between 6700 and 6900 horsepower. Interpreting this, it should be obvious that the Allegheny could not sustain 7000 HP. Peak power is a momentary reading and does not represent long-term pulling power. It would be more realistic to say the Allegheny was a 6000 HP locomotive, since it would have been capable of producing that in regular service, all day long. 6000 drawbar HP is entirely consistent with a well proportioned superheated locomotive using good bituminous coal and a grate area of 135 square feet. It could be pushed harder than that if the crew didn't care about black smoke from incomplete combustion at higher firing rates. Of course, when other HP measurements are being compared you must account for the circumstances of those measurements too. The Pennsy Q2 was measured at the cylinders, not the drawbar. Drawbar HP would be much lower in actual service. Diesel locomotives are rated by the horsepower produced by the diesel engine alone. To achieve 6000 drawbar HP requires 7000 HP or more from a diesel.

You showed a picture of a Q1 but called it a Q2

The device used to measure power is called a dynaMOMeter, not dynameter.🤣

Don't really care, these locomotives are all Kool and glad to see them rebuilt so everyone can see their beauty.

0:29 It's tragic that 3 loco operators had to lose their lives through no fault of their own. The lack of maintenance is appalling. One thing I noticed through watching these two videos is how the weights are expressed in pounds. Would it not be easier to state amounts in tons or is it only the British who do this. (I'm British).

Correct me if I’m wrong… I was a kid when I read this, probably about 15, and that was back in the 70s, so I might be off a bit. Was the Allegheny the locomotive that five miles of cars were put behind as a publicity stunt? I know that this was done, and the story was that there were a couple of helpers to start the train moving, and then they decoupled. So where along the train, slack action had its way with a couplet, and the the brakes locked up. When that happened, another drawbar got plucked out entirely. I can’t think of any other locomotives that could possibly do this.

Why are there so few N scale Alleghenies? There are so many Big Boys and so many N&W Y6s. It sure would be nice to have some in plastic!!!

At 1:48, the photo shows a Q1, not a Q2

Another correction, the pic labeled Q2 was really the single Q1 4-6-4-4. The Q2 was 4-4-6-4. The problem of goofing around train nerds. 😁

It's Big but not much more than a Challenger in performance.

You have misspelled Alleghany. In Virginia that is how it is spelled not as in Pennsylvania where it is AlleghEny.

you needed 132 lb rail for coal , any line that ran coal trains could handle a Allegheny

I like the new video format. An interesting locomotive to be sure but the layout on this one doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It's like Lima took a Northern Pacific Z-5 boiler and plunked it down on a Union Pacific Challenger running gear. Not really sure what they expected to gain. Also the 263,000 lbs of Locomotive weight that's supported by the leading and trailing trucks seems excessive.

Horsepower isn’t as reliable as tractive effort. Why would want to measure the power at which they only start at. Tractive effort measures the continuous output so it is the most reliable.

In terms of overall weight, the big boys may have been heavier if but by a couple tons. Big boys were faster than these engines and they were also much longer. The Yellowstone engines on the other hand eclipse both the big boy and Allegheny.

Elevate the nickel plate.

You know I never thought about HP ratings in terms of coal burn- 3 hours of fuel available. Maybe you’d just start grabbing coal from the cars 😂

It's wheel ARRANGEMENT, not wheel alignment!

the big boy never had much coal unit trains

Scripted is better. Thank you.