EXTERNAL: Re: Tender numbering and assignments

Sun May 27 09:39:45 EDT 2018

Jim:

Thank you!  I have a copy of that book, but didn’t recall the tender treatise.  Mr. French clearly knocked it out of the park on this topic.  With all the tender-swapping the N&W did, I’m guessing that they had the foresight to make engine footplates the same height on most classes from ~1910 on.

But you had me worried on another front.  I recently purchased a Westside model of an E-3, in no small part because the PRR K-3 looks vastly cooler with the larger tender included with the Westside model than it ever did in PRR trim.  Not knowing much about N&W tenders, I tried to figure out which one the model’s is, and had concluded it was a 16000 gal tender, but I had to do a lot of inferencing from Archive materials shown on the NWHS web pages to arrive at that conclusion.  Now that I’m looking at page 53 of French’s book, I think the model (which measures ~39’2” buffer-to-buffer) best matches the 15K tenders being used with the M-2’s in 1955.  It’s clearly too long to be one of the 12K tenders.

I feel pretty comfortable using any of the 1500xx numbers that French shows assigned to the M-2’s.  Thanks to you, at least 2/3 of the tender road numerals on my model will be 100% accurate, and maybe nobody will be able to gainsay my choice of the other two numerals--  at least until somebody replicates French’s tender research for the 1935-1939 era.  Now I can proceed with laying out the custom decals for this model.

BTW, the Westside model is pretty nice.  It runs well, seems to match available photos decently, and has decent backhead detail for its model production era.

Thanks again, Jim—the French reference is a huge help!!!

Best Regards,

-Eric Bott

From: NW-Modeling-List [mailto:nw-modeling-list-bounces at nwhs.org] On Behalf Of NW Modeling List
Sent: Saturday, May 26, 2018 10:55
To: NW Modeling List <nw-modeling-list at nwhs.org>
Subject: EXTERNAL: Re: Tender numbering and assignments

If you can get a copy of "The Norfolk and Western Railway: Williamson Terminal -1953" by Vern French (there is one on ebay now and then), there is an excellent resource on tenders on pp 50-65.
BTW: 504 never had a 16,000 gallon tender. The last tender it had was 15,000 gallon. Unfortunately, the list in French's book is not early enough to tell which one. By 1955 the 15k tenders were almost all behind M2's. The 15k tenders were numbered 150001-150045.

Jim Nichols

On Saturday, May 26, 2018 6:00 AM, NW Modeling List <nw-modeling-list at nwhs.org<mailto:nw-modeling-list at nwhs.org>> wrote:

How would I find out which 16000 gal tender(s) were assigned to E-3 #504?  How would I find out what tender numbers were assigned to each tender class?  Why did N&W number tenders separately from locos?

Thanks for answers to any of these questions!

-Eric Bott

From: NW-Modeling-List [mailto:nw-modeling-list-bounces at nwhs.org] On Behalf Of NW Modeling List
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2018 17:55
To: NW Modeling List <nw-modeling-list at nwhs.org<mailto:nw-modeling-list at nwhs.org>>
Subject: RE: EXTERNAL: N&W / CW MOW crane

David:

The reason I suggest scanning the negatives is as follows:

A brightly sunlit scene typically contains about 20 stops, or about 10 orders of magnitude, of dynamic range (i.e., 10,000,000,000:1 contrast ratio).
A negative can typically record about 13 stops, or about 6.5 orders of magnitude, of dynamic range (i.e., 3,000,000:1 contrast ratio).
A print can typically record about 10 stops, or about 5 of magnitude, of dynamic range (i.e., 100,000:1 contrast ratio).

Perhaps not altogether surprisingly, Darwinian forces have driven the evolution of the human eye to cover 20 stops of contrast.  Fascinatingly, the human eye uses two separate mechanisms to cover this range:  the inherent sensitivity of the sensors in the fovia cover part of that range, while the pupil expands and contracts to cover the rest.  So we have nearly instantaneous coverage of about half this range, but have to “light adapt” for the rest of it, allowing a few seconds for our pupils to do their thing.

Setting the camera up for a photograph should include consideration of what part of a scene’s dynamic range one wants to record.  For example, you could faithfully record the brightest 13 stops in a scene, and leave the darkest parts of the scene “lost” in pure blackness.  Alternatively, you could faithfully record the darkest 13 stops in a scene, and leave the brightest parts of the scene “lost” in pure whiteness. Alternatively, you could faithfully record any contiguous 13 stops in the middle brightness part of the scene, and lose highlights and lowlights at either end of the scene’s brightness scale.  This is one reason photography is an art form, but it’s also obviously extremely important to a person who is just trying to document details for modeling purposes.

But then you go to the darkroom, and have another choice to make:  Which 10 stops out of the 13 recorded in the negative should be represented in the print.  Alternatively (easily done in the digital domain, but requiring much more technique in the analog (paper) domain), whether (and how much) to compress the dynamic range by reducing the contrast in the transfer from negative to print.  BTW, when you hear a photographer state that “every print should have an area or feature that is absolutely white, and another area or feature that is absolutely black”, he is simply stating that one should use the entire dynamic range of the paper, in order to throw away the least amount of detail contained in the negative.

If you are judging what detail you have recorded in the negative by looking at a print from that negative, it’s highly likely that the printing process has thrown away recoverable detail in the dark areas.  Maybe by scanning and Photoshop-ing, we can find details in the dark areas of your negatives, and make them available to print or view.  The maybe part of this is dependent on whether your camera was set up to allow the negative to record scene information in those dark areas, or lose them.

-Eric Bott

From: NW-Modeling-List [mailto:nw-modeling-list-bounces at nwhs.org] On Behalf Of NW Modeling List
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2018 14:02
To: nw-modeling-list at nwhs.org<mailto:nw-modeling-list at nwhs.org>
Subject: EXTERNAL: N&W / CW MOW crane

I have not tried for high resolution scans yet, my photos are in slides.  My first pass attempt at getting a digital scan of the slides resulted in a deteriorated scan copy.  I have seen what you are talking about.  I also took photos of the CW's truss bridge across the Shenandoah River where details got lost in the shadows.  My scanned copy of one of those pictures revealed some details that I knew were there but I could not see until I changed the contrast on my scanned image.

I'll see what I can get and keep you appraised of my progress.

David
________________________________________
NW-Modeling-List at nwhs.org<mailto:NW-Modeling-List at nwhs.org>
To change your subscription go to
http://list.nwhs.org/mailman/options/nw-modeling-list
Browse the NW-Modeling-List archives at
http://list.nwhs.org/pipermail/nw-modeling-list/

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist6.pair.net/pipermail/nw-modeling-list/attachments/20180527/6cfce9b7/attachment-0001.html>