Ross Winans.

Ross Winans was a locomotive builder who gained notoriety for his work on coal-fired locomotives for the Reading Railroad. He was a sometimes controversial figure and gained a reputation as someone who would steal other people’s ideas, patent them, and charge licensing fees or sue others who employed similar devices. (Read John White’s history on steam engine development and see Thomas Evan’s comments on Winans visit to the Hazleton shops.) George Whistler, Winan’s draftsman and son-in-law wrote an oft-cited article on the development of anthracite-fired locomotives in which the achievements of Hopkin Thomas at the Beaver Meadow R. R. are, for the most part, spurned. Nonetheless, Winans was an important figure who had interactions with Hopkin. Below are two biographies. JMcV

Ross Winans

Source: Wikipedia

Ross Winans (1796–1877) came from a New Jersey family of horse breeders, but successfully made the transition to other forms of motive power. In 1841, he opened his own shop adjacent to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Mount Clare Shops, with that railroad as his primary customer. He was a pioneer in the development of coal-burning locomotives. He was eccentric, and his locomotive business made him independently wealthy. His customer relations were simple—he built engines his way, and you bought them. Bored with the business, and having a design disagreement with the B&O, he closed his shops, which were later leased to Hayward & Bartlett. He went on to do significant work for the Czar’s railroad from St. Petersburg to Moscow in Russia. All of the listed engines are type 0-8-0, Camel. They were all acquired from predecessor roads. Engine sales to C&P were recorded in 1863. James Millholland, the C&P Master Mechanic, was familiar with keeping these Camel engines running, and making improvements to them.

Winans set trends in locomotive and car design rather than followed them. His Crabs, Muddiggers, and Camels were used all over the fledging rail network of the eastern United States, from the 1840s until after the turn of the 20th century. The B&O was Winans' largest locomotive customer, with one hundred and forty locomotive deliveries going to that road. Winans had a disagreement with Mr. Hayes of the B&O, which delayed delivery of some engines into 1863. Winans' second best customer was the Philadelphia & Reading. These two customers represented 70 percent of his sales. Winans typically offered a thirty day trial period at the customer site.

About two hundred and sixty-seven engine deliveries to twenty-six American railroads by Winans are documented during the period 1843-1863. The Winans engine designs impressed a Russian delegation, and he was asked by the Czar to build the Imperial railroad from Moscow to St. Petersburg. Winans sent his two sons, as well as engineer George W. Whistler to Russia for several years for that project. Winans may have sold as much or more equipment in Russia as he did in the United States. Winans' son returned to build a Russian style estate in Baltimore, named Alexandrofsky. The contents of the estate were sold at auction in 1925, and the grounds are a City park in Baltimore. Luckily, twenty-three boxes of Winans papers and journals were donated to the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore for safekeeping. The City Park hosts a large outside model train club layout.

In 1828 he developed a friction wheel with outside bearings which established a distinctive pattern for railroad wheels for the next one hundred years or so. In the late 1820s also he became associated with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, eventually entering their service as an engineer. One of his first and more important tasks was to help Peter Cooper build the Tom Thumb locomotive. By 1831 he was appointed assistant engineer of machinery on the B&O. He invented and patented an improvement in the construction of axles, or bearings on July 20. Also in this productive year he built the "Columbus", his first double-truck car, which he immediately patented, even though he was not the first individual to build one.

In 1835 Winans went into partnership with George Gillingham and in 1836 they succeeded to the 1834 lease of Phineas Davis and Israel Gardner of the B&O's company shops at Mt. Clare and continued the manufacture of locomotives and railroad machinery. "As far back perhaps as the year 1836, the firm of Gillingham and Winans, and, after the dissolution of that firm, I myself, down to 1841 or 1842, manufactured a Rail Road Wheel..." (letter #322).

Winans' next important development in locomotive design was an 8-wheel connected freight locomotive in the early 1840s. In 1843 Gillingham and Winans built their own shop to maximize their profits. The company's most notable product was the camelback locomotive. Winans quit the locomotive business in 1857 after a dispute with Henry Tyson, then head of motive power for the B&O, over the use of leading bogies on his locomotives. Winans generated a great many patents and was heavily engaged in litigation over ideas he claimed as his own.

The majority of the Winans engines were burden (freight) as opposed to passenger type. Engines delivered after June 1848 are almost all of the Camel 0-8-0 type, favored by Winans. The early models are sometimes referred to as the Baltimore engines. The Camel name derives from the first of class of that name, delivered to the B&O in 1848. All Camel engines were of the 0-8-0 wheel arrangement. Winans did not believe in the use of leading (pony) trucks.

The Camel engines were all low-speed, heavy haul units. The speed was limited to 10–15 miles per hour by the steam capacity of the boiler, and the lack of a pilot truck. However, at that speed, a single Camel could haul a 110 car train of loaded coal hoppers on the level. The most distinctive feature of the Camel was the cab atop the boiler. They had a large steam dome, slide valves, and used staybolts in the boiler. More than 100 iron tubes, each over 14 feet (4.3 m) long, were installed in the boiler.

A Camel was about 25 feet (7.6 m) long, with an 11-foot (3.4 m) wheel base. There were three major variations: the short, medium, and long furnace models. The small units had 17" x 22" cylinders, and the others had 19" x 22" cylinders. The medium unit had about 23 square feet (2.1 m2) of grate area, expanded to more than 28 square feet (2.6 m2) in the large furnace model. The long furnace model had a firebox more than 8 feet (2.4 m) long, requiring lever-operated chutes for the fireman to feed the front of the fire. The fireman worked in the tender, as the firebox was behind the drivers. This design required that the drawbar passed beneath the firebox, and it typically heated to a cherry red color. Even after rebuilds with a more conventional cab design, the fireman worked in the tender. The standard Camel engine had 43" wheels, and was painted green.

Camel tenders were 8-wheeled, generally with brakes on the rear truck only. They held 5 tons of coal, and 8 1/2 tons (more than 2000 gallons) of water. Fully loaded, the tenders weighted 23 tons, only 4 tons less than the locomotive.

Ten Camels were delivered to the Baltimore & Susquehanna, including one “engine sold them from Maryland Mining Co., $8000 cash.” Ten sales are recorded to the Northern Central, in addition to the engines they acquired from the Baltimore & Susquehanna. Two units went to the Elmira & Canandaguia in New York, and were subsequently sold to the Cumberland & Pennsylvania. The P&R engine Susquehanna is described in detail in White's book (ref. 71). Two Winans engines went to the Huntingdon & Broad Top Mountain (H&BTM) Railroad in southwestern Pennsylvania in 1863. One unit blew up in 1868, with the loss of four lives. The H&BTM ran along the west side of Broad Top Mountain, best known for the narrow gauge line on its east side, the East Broad Top RR. The C&P interchanged with the H&BTM at State Line, Pennsylvania.

Most of the Winans Camel engines sold for around $10,000. Engine sales were expedited by syndicates of what we would now call investment bankers, such as Mr. Enoch Pratt. Banks did not yet have the accumulated capital to make loans for commercial purposes.

The records of the Philadelphia & Reading contain detailed information on Camel engine mileage’s and rebuildings. This line received a series of forty-eight deliveries from 1846 to 1855. By 1858, the P&R had racked up in excess of 3.5 million miles on its 44 engines, with the Camel fleet representing 20 percent of the P&R motive power roster. In 1865, 28 of 48 engines had not yet been rebuilt. By 1870, only 4 of the 48 were not yet rebuilt, but these four had accumulated almost one million miles of road service. The average service life before a rebuild was about thirteen and one-half years. Similar data for the B&O gives an average service life of 8.5 years before rebuilding. A total of 15 Camel rebuilds are recorded at the C&P shops in Mount Savage, from 1866 through 1875.

There are only three documented catastrophic failures in Camel engines. Non-catastrophic failures were more prevalent, but fewer were documented. Roberts (reference 48) gives the performance of a Winans Camel on the B&O’s 17-mile (27 km) grade, circa 1855, as 144 trailing tons. Dilts (reference 17) gives the performance of B&O engine 71 as 117 trailing tons up a 2.2 percent grade at 18 mph (29 km/h). Engine 71 was a Winans Camel, built in April 1851. The Winans engine could haul 40 empty coal hoppers up the Eckhart Branch, based on a tare weight of 3 tons for the Winans designed 6-wheel hoppers in use in 1854.

Ross Winans.

BY E. J. RAUCH.

Railway and Locomotive Engineering, July 1903

The name of Ross Winans is certainly deserving of a place among the names of the locomotive builders of America. He was in the business early in the advent of railroads in this country; and invented and built many locomotives that were equal to the best, and superior to many, of those built by others of the same day.

He early turned his attention to the construction of locomotive engines to use bituminous coal as a fuel, and for years held the "palm" for such engines. Somewhere about 1844 or '45, the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad began experimenting with anthracite coal as a fuel for their engines. It was not a success and Winans was called on to build an engine for that company. He would not contract for one engine, but agreed to build four-which he did. The first one of thefour was named "Baltimore," an 8-wheel connected engine - horizontal cylinders - 18x20 inches, 4 6-inch solid cast-iron wheels, weight about 22-1/2 gross tons. She was fitted with a variable exhaust controlled by the engineer; and considering the limited knowledge of the engineers and firemen of those days, was a grand success.

Right here trouble came in for Mr. Winans. The Philadelphia & Reading people had commenced the construction of a coal-burning engine, and not being able to get it built before the advent of the Winans engine, numerous objections were raised against her, in order to keep her back until the Philadelphia & Reading engine was in service. First she was found to be too wide across the cylinders by an inch. Winans came to Reading and brought with him a couple of machinists who took off an inch and a half of the flanges of cylinders, and so reduced the width.

Next objection was that the weight on back axles was much too great. Again Mr. Winans came to Reading bringing his draughtsman, Mr. Whistler, and took some measurements. In about two weeks Winans again appeared with some mechanics, and a lot of appliances that he placed against the fire-box behind the axle and under the foot-board that took, at first, too much weight off the hind wheels. A small strong pad was put on fire-box near the grate line and just behind the wheels on both sides. A steam cylinder was attached to each side of the fire-box, below the foot-board; a pair of 14-inch wheels was placed on track close behind the fire-box; a spring, half elliptic, ran from the pads at one end, to the axle box on the wheels at other end. On top of this spring nearest the back end was a boss with a countersunk socket. From the piston, in the steam cylinder, the rod ran down and rested in this socket. When steam was on the boiler the same pressure was in these cylinders, and, of course, lightened up the rear end of engine. The device worked nicely until by any chance those carrier wheels dropped off the track. Then the spring fell away from the piston rod, there was no head to lower end of the cylinder, and no check between the cylinder and boiler; and, of course, the water was all blown out.

When James Miliholland became master mechanic of the Philadelphia & Reading in 1847, and demonstrated to that company that their effort to use anthracite coal with the "Novelty" was a failure, these carrier wheels were discarded on the "Baltimore" and the three other engines that meanwhile had been delivered. Owing to the construction of the rear end of the fire-box of these engines, the pulling bar was attached by one end to the ash pan, and other end to a bolster of front truck of tender, passing under a pit in front of tender from which the fireman fed fuel to the fire-box.

The back end of the fire-box was open from grate to crown sheet. This space was filled in with the fire doors. The lower door was an open grate reaching across the fire-box. Above this door were two solid doors for firing through. The grate bars extended out beyond the lower fire door, and by means of a lever could be raked, thus breaking any clinker that might have formed, and shaking it, with the ashes, into the ash pan. The arrangement was a good one; giving clear access to the fire, also allowing it to be drawn quickly in an emergency, by opening the fire doors.

Winans adhered to this plan of grates and fire doors in nearly, if not quite, all the engines he subsequently built.

About 1850 or '51, Mr. Winans began to send some "camel back" locomotives to the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad. He seemed to have recognized the necessity for the engineer having a better chance to see where he was going, as the cab on these engines was on top of the boiler and engineers stood close behind the smokestack. About 1854 or '55 Winans built and sent to the Philadelphia & Reading a unique passenger locomotive. Boiler was of the long fire-box, 7 foot grates - "camel back" type. To show the excellence of his boiler makers' skill, there was no jacket or covering of any kind on the boiler. It was hammer hand riveted, but not a hammer mark was visible on the sheets. The engine weighed about 22-1/2 tons, was 4-wheel connected, with a 6-foot spread truck. Driving wheels five feet diameter-cast with tire entire. Cylinders 19 x 22 inches. The peculiar feature of this engine was the cab location, which was on the platform of front end.

Being fitted with the Winans' hook and cam motion valve gear, the reverse lever, starting bars, hand levers; and gauge cocks were all in the cab within easy reach of the engineer.

This engine, "The Celeste," was run on passenger trains for several months, but owing to the cast-iron driving wheels being thought unsafe was changed to other service. At first there was some trouble with the spread truck boxes running hot, but the master mechanic of the Philadelphia & Reading found a remedy. After about three year’s service, one of the driving wheels did break but did no damage.

The Philadelphia & Reading Company not being able to build locomotives fast enough to keep up with the demands of the fast increasing coal trade, Winans placed a large number of his engines on that railroad. They were different from the original "camel back" in the length of the fire-box, which sloped, with flat surface, from line of top of boiler to about a center line through the same. On this slope there were two chutes opening into fire-box, one near flue sheet and the other about center of fire box. These chutes had doors top and bottom, and were filled with coal and the coal was dumped into fire-box without the admission of cold air. With poor fuel, these chutes very materially helped the steaming of the boiler. These engines all had a "cam motion" cut-off, which was operated by the same lever that controlled the hooks of eccentrics. It was simply thrown one notch ahead of forward hook motion to put cam in gear. All the hooks were controlled by segments of discs on a shaft running across from frame to frame under them. If the engine ran over any obstruction that knocked out this shaft, all the hooks dropped in gear in the rocker shaft, and disconnecting of valve motion was complete.

Ross Winans had no belief in a combustion chamber in a locomotive boiler. His theory, as carried out by him, was, as much grate and flue surface as you can get, and as few parts as will do the work. The side rods of his engines were fitted with bushings for the pins, and his main rods had only gib and key to hold on the straps at front and sack ends. The writer was among Winans' engines and ran many of them during a term of 15 or 16 years, and never knew of a main rod disconnecting.

On one of the earlier Camelbacks sent by Winans to the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad was a steam gauge, probably the first one on any locomotive. Ft was a double. diaphragm, about 24 riches in diameter, attached to lower part of the boiler, near the front end. A pipe ran from this diaphragm up to about the center line of the boiler, to keep out the mud. From a stud on this diaphragm across the center a compound lever ran to near the right-hand frame, and was there attached to a rod running up to a guide in cab close to engineer. The change in pressure caused this rod to rise or fall through the guide and thus indicate the boiler pressure. It worked well.

Another feature of the Winans' locomotive was his "variable exhaust." It was certainly among the best, if not the very best, appliance of the kind ever in use.

The Winans Shops at Mt. Clare, Maryland, were a model of economy and system. The erecting shop was one long, straight track from boiler shop to a connecting siding of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. The finished boiler was rolled on small trucks from boiler shop to the near end of the erecting shop. All the various parts of the machinery for engines were placed in the erecting shop on both sides, and were taken up as attached in place to the virgin boiler in the order they were needed, the boiler being moved along as required until the finished engine was pushed out the doors to the street. In a busy season half a dozen boilers, in all stages of progress, would be on this line at same time.

The breaking out of the war in 1861 in some way interfered with Mr. Winans' business, and he dropped out of notice.

New York, May 25, 1903.

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