Why Weren't Duplex Steam Engines Successful?

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Soundtrack: All Available from the YouTube Audio Library
-Distant Lands
-A Night Alone
-Swing House
-Subtle Betrayal
-Anchors Aweigh
-Devine Life Society
-Good Gig In the Clouds
-Greaser
-Sunday
-Monument

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28 thoughts on “Why Weren't Duplex Steam Engines Successful?”

  3. I always wondered why PRR never took the next step and split the rigid frame to create a 4-4+4-4 (or a (2'B)'B2' in UIC notation) or something similar. Maybe a Mallet-type engine was not fast enough for high class passenger service.

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  4. What I love is every Railfan in the United States can tell you about almost every Steam Locomotive but Can't Tell you who or what Steel company made all the parts to said Locomotive, can you without reading ahead or looking it up? hmmm Fake people.

    Number one which Officially made AMERICA was Bethlehem Steel!!! which is Located in Center East Side of Pennsylvania right next to the Lehigh River not too far from the Easton as were the Delaware River merger. Bethel Steel produced Steel for everything in the United Stated in 1938-to-1958 as the of The Golden Gate Bridge Towers are Bethlehem Steel Built as so is the Chrysler Building and 90% of American Steam Locomotives were Built! At the time of Bethlehem Steel hype, they produced 100% of everyday living American Steel or Metal fabricated merch on the market as they Helped Build the Hoover dam as concrete was used but Steel Reinforced it. All True Facts People History Doesn't Lie!!!

    Funny to this day the Q2 Pennsy 4-6-4-4 is still considered the Strongest most Powerful Single-Handed Locomotive ever built. Given everyone praise's the Big Boy as something Special haha.

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  10. I know y’all make videos on whatever y’all want but could y’all make a video about the N&W locomotives since I forgot what class but it was used by N&W PRR and UP kinda like the challenger

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  13. Called "The Big Apple" on the B&O because it was mostly in service between Baltimore and Jersey City, which is sorta New York. It had a water-tube boiler, which did not seem to catch on as locomotive type.
    It was reputed to have made 100 mph on the Jersey Central, a company related somehow to the B&O.
    My father, a locomotive engineer for the B&O, related that story to me, which is no doubt a story related to him and so on.
    Could be true though.

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  17. Grey-haired men playing trains.
    A one-off new duplex will not be subject to daily use by various crews, with only adequate maintenance. It will never produce 'representative' performance.
    Look at the new-builds under construction and already operating in the UK. It won't ever be a self-funding operation, so beware of open-ended support for it.

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  21. Enjoyed your video a lot. A couple things I would like to know about these 'modern' steam locomotives. Did they condense the steam after it had been used for driving the wheels and recycle it to the boiler? Do they use the exhaust steam from the front cylinder (on these duplexes) to power the rear cylinder? On the graphics here I did not see a shoveler, were they using a screw or something else to deliver coal to the firebox? I know that in ships of the time they used the steam in 3 different cylinders then condensed the remaining to hot water and feed that to the boiler and they feed hot air to the firebox (which would be helped a great deal by mechanized coal moving)? Would it have been possible to rebuild these to 4 6 6 2 and keep the cornering and reduce slip?

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  22. The Duplex was the wrong answer to the problem of counterbalance. Baldwin did a poor job of counterbalancing the New Haven I-5 4-6-4 and Atlantic Coast Line R-1 4-8-4. The correct answer was shown in the Norfolk and West J 4-8-4, Union Pacific FEF series, and New York Central S-1 4-8-4. Light weight rods, with roller bearings (NYC and N&W), and proper balancing of the drivers. The N&W J ran over 110 mph while running on 70" drivers, without any damage to itself or the track.
    In hindsight, Pennsy would have probably been better off building a 4-8-4 based on the M1a 4-8-2. Keep the running gear the same, but add a larger firebox on a four wheel trailing truck, plus cast bed fames with roller bearing axles. The engine would have easily fit the same clearance diagram of the M1a, but would have been capable of higher sustained speeds thanks to the larger firebox and better chassis design.

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  24. I get the fascination with the T-1 with none being saved, but there are many hurdles to pass. Where are you going to run it? Not on the current freight giants, they want nothing to do with steam (mostly due to liability). So unless you are Steamtown or a Reading & Northern type railroad with privately owned track, you are out of luck. There are no guarantees such an owner would allow the T-1 to run on their railroad, much as folks like to rubber-stamp it. I am not trying to start a fight, and I hope to see an operating T-1 myself, but I am a bit pessimistic about it right now.

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  27. Pity they didn't order some Beyer-Garret engines from the UK, they were pretty successful and of a similar concept.
    Also I don't see why the two engines double heading would need "two separate crews for EACH engine". Four crews? Why???

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