Atlantic Coast Line Railroad
Class R-1 4-8-4's

the "1800's"

This page provides an overview of some of my favorite steam locomotives used in the United States, the Class R-1 4-8-4's of the Atlantic Coast Line (ACL) Railroad.

The ACL R-1's were built in 1938 by the Baldwin Locomotive Works for the road's lucrative passenger traffic between Richmond, Virginia and Jacksonville, Florida. The 1800's were the only "modern" steam locomotives owned by the ACL, and featured cast bed frames with cylinders and many accessories cast integrally, cast pilots, roller bearings on leading and driving axles, handsome Baldwin disk drivers, 275 PSIG boilers, Type "A" superheaters, Worthington SA feedwater heaters, front-end throttles, large fireboxes equipped with four thermic syphons, Elesco centrifugal steam separators, extensive mechanical lubrication, and massive 8-axle tenders. The engines featured jacketed smokeboxes and were painted in a sharp two-tone metallic gray/black paint scheme with silver striping and driver tires. The ACL herald on the tender was a separate embossed sheet metal disk which was attached to the tender, and which provided a dramatic change from earlier engines which merely had "Atlantic Coast Line" lettered on the tender.

These engines replaced double-headed USRA Pacifics on the road's passenger trains and their performance intitially exceeded all expectations. During testing, no. 1800 accelerated a 20 car, 1500 ton passenger train (consisting of friction bearing heavy weight cars) from a dead stop to 70 miles per hour in 11-1/2 minutes and 11 miles. In passenger service, the R-1's made as high as 18,000 miles per month. The R-1's could hold to the scheduled running times of the fastest passenger trains with as many as 21 heavy weight cars. Intitially, the maximum operating speed was limited to 80 MPH, but (after the running gear balance was adjusted) their speed was later raised to 90 MPH. Although 90 MPH was the "official" speed limit for these engines, amateur observers (my father for one) often clocked them in excess of 100 MPH on the ACL's mostly level and straight mainline.

ACL no. 1802 at Richmond, VA

Unfortunately, shortly after the locomotives entered service, problems with the counter-balancing of the locomotives' running gear became apparent after much track damage occurred. Although the R-1's were balanced per the AAR's latest published recommendations of 1934, at high speed the main drivers actually left the rails and repeatedly slammed back down, kinking rails and damaging track alignment for miles. Although the design calculations were correctly made, and although the calculations showed that "bouncing" of the drivers should not occur, forces were at work on the running gear of the locomotives which were beyond the capabilities of the engineering of the 1930's to analyze. After much investigation by Baldwin and ACL engineers, the locomotives' counter-balancing was reduced (by removing excess balance material from the drivers) and the problem was eliminated. Unfortunately, as a result of these problems and competitor Seaboard Air Line's success with new EMD diesel-electric locomotives, the ACL's successive new motive power purchases were all diesel. Other railways with modern steam power built about this time (such as the New Haven's 4-6-4's) suffered similar problems.  These problems were significant in discouraging further purchases of modern steam power and unfortunately accelerated the change to diesel-electric motive power in the U.S.

Cab Photo of R-1 from the 1941 Locomotive Cyclopedia

The 1800's were overhauled at the ACL shops in Tampa, Florida, as they were too large for the road's backshops in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Few changes were made to the R-1's during their careers. Provisions were made in the original design to allow trailing truck boosters to be fitted, but this was never done. Photographs show that within the first couple of years of service, the original whistles, mounted at the steam dome and fed with saturated steam, were replaced with larger whistles mounted on the fireman's side of the boiler just behind the stack on the superheater header, where they were fed with superheated steam (see photo below). Headlights seem to have been changed on some if not all of the locomotives as well.  Finally, locomotives 1800, 1801, 1806, 1807, 1808, and 1809 were fitted with Timken light-weight pistons, piston rods, cross heads, and new tapered main rods with roller bearing wrist pins (see photos  below). These components greatly reduced the mass of the reciprocating parts which improved the R-1's running gear balance even further.

The 1800's were well-designed steam locomotives and were nearly state-of-the-art for 1938, lacking only roller bearing axles on the trailing truck and tender axles.  Their large fireboxes with combustion chambers and 4 Nicholson Thermic Syphons were among the largest in heating surface area of any 4-8-4 and undoubtedly made them prodigious steamers.  One curiosity is Baldwin's use of relatively small piston valves for such large engines which seems to have been part of Baldwin's design philosophy at the time.  The 1800's had only 12 inch diameter piston valves whereas even the ACL's much smaller Class P-5 Pacifics had 14 inch valves.  The R-1's also had somewhat smallish superheaters for their size (Type A, 1425 square feet).  These two items would have restricted their "breathing" at high speed by impeding the steam flow into and out of the cylinders.  Later 4-8-4 designs used 14 inch piston valves with even longer valve travel and huge Type E superheaters to improve their high-speed performance.  Nonetheless, the R-1's were known as outstanding performers on the ACL and their theoretical design deficiencies were not seen as drawbacks when they were in service.

ACL R-1 Details of Interest

Builder's Photo (above) of R-1 showing (1) original headlight, (2) original whistle fed with saturated steam from the steam dome, (3) heavy, one-piece forged crosshead and (4) heavy, non-tapered main rods.  This photo also shows the ASF wheelsets on the lead truck (indicated by the large hubs with bolts around the perimeter) which were an interesting development of the 1930's.  These wheelsets included both roller bearings and friction bearings on each axle.  The friction bearings were intended to serve as a "back-up" in case the "new-fangled" roller bearings should fail.



Late photo (above) of ACL R-1 showing (1) different headlight, (2) larger whistle fed with superheated steam from the superheater header, (3) Timken light-weight crosshead (not seen are Timken light-weight piston and piston rod), and (4) light-weight, tapered main rod with roller bearing wrist pin. This photo unfortunately also shows the not-quite-spic-and-span condition somewhat typical of most ACL steam, especially near the end of steam on the railway.



Another interesting feature of the R-1's was the Atlantic Coast Line herald on the tender, which was an embossed aluminum plate mounted to the tender rather than just a painted logo. The builder's drawings for the locomotives show that rivets were omitted in this area of the tender, welding being used to secure the internal braces to the exterior sheets in this area.  The rivet-free area can be seen on the photo of N&W 2084 below with the herald removed.

ACL R-1 No. 1802 in Richmond, Virginia, July 11, 1947
photo by C. W. Jernstrom

ACL R-1 No. 1809 at Jacksonville, Florida, April 14, 1948

photo by C.W. Jernstrom

The R-1's were gradually shifted to fast-freight service and were also very successful in this application. In freight service, the R-1's were rated at 6200 tons under normal conditions on the road's mainline between Richmond, Virginia and Jacksonville, Florida. The 1800's operated into the early 1950's until they were all retired and scrapped between 1951 and 1953. Unfortunately, none of these engines was preserved.

The massive 8-axle tenders (24,000 gallons water, 27 tons of coal) of eight of the R-1's were purchased by the Norfolk and Western in 1953 and attached to Y-4 class 2-8-8-2 compound mallets (see below). These engines operated until 1958 when they too were withdrawn and scrapped.

N&W Y-4 No. 2084 with R-1 Tender
photo from Virigina Tech N&W Collection

Models:

A brass HO scale model of the R-1 was imported by Overland Models in the mid-1970's.

Specifications:

References

2. Atlantic Coast Line, The Standard Railroad of the South by William E. Griffin, Jr.

3. The Locomotives That Baldwin Built by Fred Westing

4. Model Railroader magazine, August 1960 issue.

5. Baldwin Locomotives magazine, July 1938.

6. Railway Mechanical Engineer magazine, December 1938.

7. Locomotive Quarterly, Fall 1991, "Atlantic Coast Line Motive Power"

8. Lines South, 3rd Quarter 1998, ACL R-1s