(erielack) Advisory Mechanical Committee

[RJFlei_@_aol.com]

To Philip Martin,

What was the Advisory Mechanical Committee? The answer to this can be found 
in many sources. Books that have to do with the Erie, Nickel Plate Road, 
Chesapeake & Ohio, and the Pere Marquette have bits and pieces of information on the 
AMC. Try " The Nickel Plate Story" , "The Van Sweringen Berkshires", "The 
Allegheny, Lima's Finest", "Chessie's Road", "C&O Power", and "Erie Power". 

This all has to do with the Van Sweringen brothers of Cleveland, Ohio. They 
were real estate developers and had developed a suburb of Cleveland called 
Shaker Heights. They wanted to put in a rapid transit system to connect Shaker 
Heights to downtown Cleveland. These guys were not railroaders. 

At that time the NKP was a part of the the New York Central and I think that 
the government forced the NYC to divest itself of the NKP.  The "Vans" bought 
the NKP to obtain a right of way into Cleveland. I think this was about 1916. 

After aquiring the NKP, the Vans also aquired the Erie RR, the C&O, and the 
PM. After the purchase of these railroads, the Vans decided to form the 
Advisory Mechanical Committee to pool each road's engineering talent, and use common 
designs for the purpose of cutting costs and standardizing parts for the four 
roads. 

From what I have heard, the AMC was headquartered in Cleveland, and had 
offices in the Terminal Tower downtown. I think this is where their design work was 
done. Someone correct me if I'm wrong please. The Van Sweringens also built 
Cleveland Union Terminal and the Terminal Tower. 

Among things that the AMC did was to design rolling stock and locomotives for 
the participating railroads.  A couple of the top designers (mechanical 
engineers), came from the Erie RR. I believe one of them was William Black. 

Several famous locomotives were designed by these guys. The first of these 
was the Erie's 3300 series Berkshires. As I go on you will see the influence of 
the AMC on the member RR's. 

In the late '20's the C&O needed a new locomotive for coal service and they 
borrowed Erie Berk # 3377? for testing on coal trains. In 1930 they produced 
the C&O class T-1 2-10-4's by expanding the Erie Berk into a Texas type. If you 
look at it, the T-1 kinda looks like an Erie S class engine. And look at the 
class designation. The Erie engine was the "S" class and the C&O was the "T" 
class. Right in sequence ! The T-1 was a smashing success in the service for 
which it was designed , just like the Erie 3300's. These engines replaced 
2-8-8-2's in coal train service AND were fast enough to be used for time freights in 
hilly country, when needed. They normally handled 160 car, 13,500 ton, coal 
trains between Russell, KY. and Toledo, Oh. During WWII  on these engines were 
copied by the Pennsylvania RR and were of the J-1 class. 

Later on the NKP needed a new locomotive to speed up it's time freights on 
it's water level, single track, mainline. The AMC went back to work. They took 
70% of the dimensions of the C&O class T-1's and came up with the now famous 
NKP class S Berkshires. These engines were a bit smaller than the Erie's 3300's 
but had more effficient boilers. They had a tractive effort that was the same 
as the road's H-6 Class Mikados with the boosters cut in. The H-6's were 
replaced by the Berks in high speed service. The first of the class was built in 
1934. 

The NKP Berks were designed to handle a 4,000 ton freight train (about 80 
cars) at 70 mph. on level track. This is something they did every day. Many were 
also equipped for passenger service. In the transition to diesels you'll 
notice that the NKP never owned and F units. That's because the NKP 700's were 
equal to an A-B-A set of EMD F-3's in fast freight service. To get better 
performance, they would have had to add a fourth unit to the consist, and that would 
have resulted in higher initial costs, AND higher operating costs. 

About the same time the Pere Marquette needed a more modern locomotive  to 
handle it's business. The AMC came up with the N class Berkshires that were 
based on the NKP class S, except these engines had cylinders with a 26" bore 
instead of the NKP's 25" bore. If you look at locomotive pictures, the PM  N class 
was a dead ringer for a NKP class S.

In the 1930's the Vans both died but, somehow the AMC survived the break-up 
of the Vans RR empire. 

In the 1940's the C&O needed a new design for their time freights and the AMC 
updated the PM class N to the C&O's class K-4 Kanawha. These were dual 
service engines. 

The AMC also designed the C&O's H-8 class 2-6-6-6 Alleghenies. The first ten 
that came from Lima in 1941 were the heaviest reciprocating steam locomotives 
ever built. Not only that but, they also had the highest drawbar horsepower 
ever recorded with a dynamometer car, at 7,498 DBHP at 46 mph., on a 14, 075 ton 
train. This happened in 1943. This information came from the book, The 
Allegheny, Lima's Finest. 

AMC influence can also be found in the C&O's Hudsons and Greebriars. The 
Hudsons were designed to handle a 15 car passenger train at 90 mph. The Greebriars 
were designed for passenger service on the C&O's Mountain Subdivision. If you 
had a chance to see C&O      4-8-4  # 614 on those trains from Hoboken to 
Port jervis, you really got a fine show. 

After doing some personal research, I found that there are also an awful lot 
of similarities between the boilers of the Erie's 3300's and the C&O's 
4-8-4's. They're so similar that it's scary. 

In addition to this, they also designed other equipment. 

Well, I hope this helps in your search for information on the AMC.

Rick Fleischer
Cortland, OH. 


	The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List
	Sponsored by the ELH&TS
	http://www.elhts.org

------------------------------