Yankingeorgia Wrote:
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> I have the book "Union Pacific Railroad System
> Employee Timetables February 29th 1948", published
> by the UPHS.
>
> The Challengers were permitted 65 MPH on
> passengers assignments on the Northwestern
> District. The Southwestern District had been
> dieselized by then, so there are no speed limits
> published for steam from Salt Lake City through
> Los Angeles. On the Wyoming and Utah divisions MAS
> was 60 Passenger, 50 Freight.
>
> The 4000s were cleared from Granger to Pocatello
> via McCammon. The passenger and freight MAS limits
> were identical: 50 MPH. Green River to Ogden was
> 45 Passenger - 45 Freight. There were no speed
> limits shown for the Wyoming Division, because
> they hadn't yet been displaced by diesels, Ogden
> to Green River, and moved east for operation over
> Sherman Hill.
>
> The 80 MPH "design speed" was, in fact, an
> over-design to insure against machinery failure at
> the 45-50 MPH speeds where the engines were going
> to be operated. There was never any intention to
> wheel passenger trains at 80 MPH behind the 4000s.
> Most passenger assignments behind 4000s were
> main(troop)trains.
>
> Locomotives as well as buildings, ships and
> bridges were all overbuilt in that era. Metallurgy
> was not what is is today and structural members
> were routinely built 1.25 to 1.5 times as robustly
> as they would be made today.
>
> Ed Dickens is on record stating that he intends to
> operate 4014 in the range of 40-45 MPH. The
> majority of video that I saw of the Mid-West tour
> shows the engine in that speed range.
>
> UP already had an express passenger locomotive in
> 844.

Bet there isn't anything about cast iron or chilled iron wheels in there, euther.