Hot Water Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Bee bop Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > All the employee timetables from the UP Wyoming
> > Division from the mid-1940s through the
> mid-1950s
> > in my collection state the maximum allowable
> speed
> > for 4000-class locomotives as 50 mph.
>
> Very good information. Except,,,,the original
> poster didn't ask THAT! He was inquiring about
> "top speed", not fastest allowable speed.

Okay, then. Top speed would be theoretical, and
therefore irrelevant to crews, dispatchers and
mechanical department people. It could probably
be calculated and be pretty close to the point where
the revolving and rotating parts would start
self-destructing, but what's the point? Just so
somebody could say, "Well, that wasn't a good idea."

It will never get anywhere close to that mysterious
top speed, anyway.

Unless it's in a runaway.