One pump or two?

[NW Mailing List]

The Y3 on the turntable has one pump. I almost made a fool of myself the 
first time I saw it, mistaking the empty space on the boiler front for a 
big gusset in the truss. Nope! Compare with the other end of the truss. 
That is a bald space on the engineers side of the boiler front. After 
that I went back to the builders photo of Vgn 900 (became N&W 2000) and 
concluded that it has only one pump. Hard to be sure from a side view, 
but I think it is a single pump (As were the W&LE 2-6-6-2's when built). 
So my bet is that the engine on the turntable is one of the first Y3's 
and that N&W retrofitted it with the second pump after this picture was 
taken. Apparantly USRA was being frugal, and  delivered the engines 
intended for Vgn to the N&W without adding the second pump. N&W knew 
better, and all subsequent Y3's were delivered with two pumps.  Jim Nichols

NW Mailing List wrote:


> At 12:43 AM 1/1/08, you wrote:

> > I've seen that photo of the Y-3, but believe it had two air pumps 

> mounted on the smokebox front.

> >

> >> http://spec.lib.vt.edu/imagebase/norfolksouthern/F1/NS5878.JPG

>

> There is an awful lot of empty space on the front of the smokebox for 

> there to be a second pump. Compare to this ca.1920 photo of 2009:

> http://spec.lib.vt.edu/imagebase/norfolksouthern/full/ns970.jpeg

>

> and this winter 1920/21 photo of 2040:

> http://spec.lib.vt.edu/imagebase/05RRneg/screen/NW200409071424.jpg

>

> (couldn't find a positive for this one so I'm attaching it)

>

> David Thompson

>

> [moderator] Image extracted to following:

> http://nwhs.org/qna/photos/20080101-NW200409071424.jpg

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