The craft of new-building a long gone class of locomotive as finally gone big here in the US, and I do mean big. That's right, there is a new group that's been formed to build another PRR T1 Duplex. I won't go into too much detail here, but they are using the same fundrasing formula that the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust (the Tornado and the soon to be Prince of Wales) in the UK used (and is currently using) to help gather funds to build the A1 Peppercorn Pacific (and their new P2 Mikado). For more info, go here: http://www.prrt1steamlocomotivetrust.org/index.php All I have to say is that this will be something to see.
Jim, I agree with your Hudson suggestion. On the other hand my memory of standing on the Englewood platform in 1946 waiting for the Commodore and watching my first ever T-1 pull through at 5 mph was absolutely A W E S O M E !!!! Sorry, my Central brethren, but that locomotive was like nothing I had ever seen, absolutely beautiful.
My understanding is that while the T-1s performance was outstanding, they were a maintenance nightmare. I haven't read the prospectus, but I would imagine that the engineering of the neo-T-1 will deal with those problems satisfactorily. Charlie
I want to say that they do intend on trying to iron out the known issues with this new one, but I am not 100% on that.
As I remember, one of the T-1's main operational issues was slipperiness. The two engines were not coupled to each other. This allowed one of the four-driver engines to spin on acceleration because of the relatively low axle weight on each engine. The French had solved this on their non-articulated dual four-driver engines by installing a light weight crank between the rear axle of the front engine and the front axle of the rear engine. This effectively made their locomotive an eight-driver engine, but with nearly twice the horsepower because of the four cylinders. However, once the T-1 got moving it ran like a scared jack rabbit because of having four cylinders and relatively light running gear. There were reports of T-1s running trains up to 125 mph through parts of Indiana and Ohio. Of course these speeds could not be confirmed because they were definitely against the rules. Just that occasionally dispatcher logs would indicate that some astounding schedule times being made up through those areas. :startled:
turns out you can finance this little project thru Amazon. Com they have operation smile where they give a % of every order to the T1 TRUSTat the rate my girlfriend shops on amazon they will have it built by Christmas :wideeyes:
