22 Hurt In Wreck of N.Y.C. Express

SOUTH BEND, Ind. Nov. 16, 1945 — At least twenty-two persons were injured this afternoon when the eastbound Advance Commodore Vanderbilt of the New York Central System ran into derailed freight cars at Lydick eight miles west of here.... Seven cars and the locomotive left the tracks and turned over in a cornfield.... Six other cars went off the track but did not turn over.... Special relief trains of sleepers and diners were sent from Chicago and Cleveland to take care of the uninjured passengers.
(From the New York Times, November 17, 1945.)

The story of this wreck begins with a railroad innovation in England some eighty-five years earlier, and is related to the insatiable thirst of steam locomotives for water. Steam locomotives may consume up to seven or eight times as much water as coal, depending on design and operating factors. Even though water expands over 1600 times its volume when changed to steam, it is expelled into the atmosphere, generally after a single brief use.

While the design of early tenders attempted to reflect this consumption ratio, in practice trains had to stop frequently for water, even though there might be plenty of coal still on board. This meant time and fuel lost while the train slowed to a stop under a tower or hydrant, filled up, and then got back up to speed. Where speed was important, whether to meet competitive pressures, or simply to deliver passengers and freight promptly to their destinations, the unending need to replenish water was a significant problem.

In 1859, John Ramsbottom, Locomotive Superintendent of the London and North Western Railway in England, developed a water trough that could be installed between the tracks. A device called a scoop was installed under the tender, and could be lowered into the trough, with the locomotive’s forward motion forcing the water up into the tender. Ramsbottom patented the system and placed it into operation on the Chester- Holyhead section of the L&NWRR in June 1860.

Whitmore Troughs providing water to The Welsh Guardsman

John Ramsbottom’s trough was made of cast iron sections bolted together. Some early troughs were made of wood, as on England’s Great Northern Railway. F. W. Webb, who served under and subsequently succeeded Ramsbottom, later claimed to have been involved in building the first trough in 1857. Actually, as early as 1854, an American, A. W. McDonald, was issued a patent for a “tank feeder” mechanism that used a trough parallel to the track.

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Britain made extensive use of the system for its high-speed, long-distance passenger trains. By 1923, there were water scooping facilities at 57 locations, with some 141 individual water troughs installed. The English claimed to have the world’s highest trough at 1,169 feet above sea level, as well as one almost at sea level, and also the only trough located inside a tunnel. The French also used a water scoop system on the Paris—Le Havre and Paris—Cherbourg lines between 1905 and 1963.

As with much early railroad technology, the “Ramsbottom system” soon spread to the United States. In 1870, the New York Central and Hudson Railroad, predecessor of the New York Central System, built the first track pan (as water troughs or track tanks were also known) at Montrose, NY, along the Hudson River. The Pennsylvania Railroad immediately followed suit, placing two troughs 800 and 1200 feet long at Sang Hollow, PA, by November 1870. The NYC and the PRR subsequently became the nation’s two largest users of track pans. Other railroads in the Northeast followed in the next several decades. In 1887, the Maine Central installed three track pans for its Boston—Mt. Ferry express. In 1890, the Reading built a track pan at Yardley, PA, and the Jersey Central followed suit with pans at Green Brook, NJ. The Baltimore and Ohio constructed track pans at Swan Creek, MD, and Stanton, DE, on its “Royal Blue Route” between Washington, DC, and Jersey City, NJ.

The New York and New England (New York, New Haven and Hartford) employed a water pan in the 1890s, and the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul was reported to be using pans after the turn of the century, as was the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern. However, the use of track pans did not spread to Canada, except for five pans in Ontario on the Michigan Central line connecting Detroit with Buffalo. By 1929, the Pennsylvania Railroad maintained about 80 water pans at 27 locations, totaling 58 miles in length. By the 1940s, the New York Central used 71 pans at 29 locations, including those of its subsidiary, the Michigan Central. The use of pans did not extend to the west, however. Even the PRR did not use them on its route to St. Louis. Trains in the south and west typically were not under the pressures of time and intense schedule competition that characterized operations in the northeast. Other factors inhibiting the use of pans elsewhere were geography and climate. In a very dry and warm climate, massive evaporation of water from the pans would occur. In some western areas, water was in short supply or of such poor quality that it had to be brought in by tank car. On some lines, a second tender or a modified tank car was used to carry additional water.

The benefits of carrying extra water in larger tenders or in supplemental tenders or tank cars had to evaluated against the extra weight required. For instance, the PRR’s massive “coast-to-coast” long-distance tender, which held 22,000 gallons of water as well as 31 tons of coal, weighed so much when filled to capacity that the length of the train had to be reduced by one or two revenue-producing cars.

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