Re: SVRy #250 and #251 side tanks

Brian, there has been a lot of discussion of this subject here over the years, so you might want to do a search for past threads. I doubt anyone today knows whether their initial trials had water in the tanks. It has been suggested that prudent design of the two engines would have allowed them to have adequate weight on drivers with the tanks low on water to still have enough adhesion to get up and over the grade they were designed for on the Uintah. This makes sense, that is you wouldn't want to be low on water, in sight of the water tower, but not be able to get there for spinning. However, SVRy found that without the water tanks in place, the front engine unit was pretty slippery. Supposedly they added a layer of old rail on the running boards to make up for the weight of the water tanks. SVRy apparently got along fine with the engines, but they were not found to be as satisfactory down in Guatemala due to being slippery on their steepest grade. Both engines were extensively dismantled for shipping, so who knows if the Guatemalan's added as much weight back on as SVRy had. Also I think it has been pointed out that the grades west bound on SVRy were the steepest with Larch at 4.1% in one spot, but west bound trains were mostly moving empty cars to Bates. Eastbound the SVRy grades were less and most loads moved east.