Re: Georgetown Loop Locomotives

I can partly answer that. Engine 14 had the optional High gearing, she was faster but not as powerful as a shay with a standard 4:1 gear ratio like the 12 so 14 was able to pull 9 cars up that grade and did it well but beyond that her speedyness would get in the way of pulling power so I would say 9 cars behind 14 would be about all you'd really want behind her if you wanted to maintain any kind of schedule.

Westside 12 however, while not as fast as 14 could have pulled every available passenger car GLR inc had ; 13 in all. You wouldnt have broken any speed records in the process but with a MAWP of 200psi , superheated , and a decent cylinder size with the 4:1 gearing , you could have done it. She's just one major league workhorse as most geared locomotives were.

EX IRCA 40 didnt mind 9 cars behind her and never seemed to show much resistance to a full train. In fact the 40 is the only rod engine I have ever worked on that would accelerate on a +4% grade with tonnage behind her. Comming out of the cut at the Lebanon mine stop, on that ladder track she would climb like a homesick angel and the only time she slowed down was at the top of the High Fill Curve when the curve and the grade created a combined resistance on the engine equal to roughtly 6% but once she was out of the turn she took off again. Wether or not she could have pulled more , I do not know as I never saw her with more than 9 cars in tow.

Even if she could have pulled more cars, it would have been going against a general rule of thumb that my grandfather( Mechanic for the Southern Pacific 1927-1967) told me about; that being that you really dont want to push an engine beyond +/- 75% maximum tractive effort becasue that begins to really stress the Crank pins, wrist pins and Piston rods etc.

GLR-130 & 140 combined could pull a 9 car passenger train at speed and were also able to pull 9 cars and a disabled engine if needs be. I dont have their combined TE figures ( John if you are reading this please feel free to chime in on your babies abilities) so I dont knwo how many they could pull before they did the old sit and spin on the rails.

It's not a complete answer to your question but it does provide the basic car count per locomotive and theoretical count for the geared engines employed by GLR Inc.

Hope that provided some useful info for you.

K. Wilcomb
G.B.& L. Ry CO.
Engineer -Ret.