West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University's Locomotive Lab and Museum

Locomotive lab search:   http://earchives.lib.purdue.edu/cdm/search/searchterm/locomotive%20lab/order/nosort

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign also had a locomotive test lab.

This was the first locomotive tested in the first facility in the world designed to test full-scale steam locomotives. It had to be hauled by three teams of horses 1.5 miles to Heavilon Hall. [purdue.edu]

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Professors and students from the engineering department developed and tested improvements for steam locomotives until 1938. Over the years, they bought four locomotives to support their testing. It is not clear if they actually made any boilers in the lab. But their hands-on work with steam locomotives is the best explanation I have seen for their nickname of Purdue Boilermaker. The sports department has developed a Boilermaker Special and the Purdue Pete mascot.

In 1894 a fire destroyed Heavilon Hall. The Schenectady was pulled from the rubble, repaired in Indianapolis, and installed in a new Locomotive Lab Building. To support this lab, the 1.25-mile Purdue Railroad was built up the west side of the campus and across what was then the north side of campus to the locomotive lab as seen in this 1898 map. It was considered the shortest railroad in the world. [purdue.edu] I got my masters at Purdue in 1971-73, and I wondered why there was a railroad in the middle of the campus until a friend explained that Purdue used to have a locomotive lab. The railroad survived the 1938 closing of the locomotive lab because it also provided coal to the 1903, and then the 1924, heating plants.

1898 Map from Purdue Archives

Zooming in on the 1898 Map to show the Locomotive Lab was the building on the north side of the campus at the end of the railroad tracks. Placing the Locomotive Lab close to the engineering professors and students explains why railroad tracks were laid up the west side of the campus and then turned east across the north side of the campus.

In this 1912 Map, building 4 was the lab and building 5 was a Locomotive Museum. (Building 6 was the 1903 heating plant.) The contents of the Locomotive Lab was scrapped for the WWII war effort. I'm happy to learn that the contents of the Locomotive Museum was moved To the St. Louis Museum of Transportation, where it is still on display. "The test facility was then given to the Department of Chemistry for use in the Manhattan Project, according to the Reamer Club book. It was renamed the Chemical Research Laboratory" It was torn down in 1968 to make way for new buildings.[purdue.edu]  I'll have to up the priority of visiting the St. Louis Museum.

1912 Map from Purdue Archives

A better view of the dynamometer on which they ran the test locomotive in the original facility.

earchives

The Purdue University Locomotive Testing Plant, p6

Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Volume 25, p597

There are several more pages about the Purdue lab in Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Volume 25 starting at page 829. There are too many diagrams to extract. But I have copied the photos.

Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Volume 25, p832

Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Volume 25, p842

Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Volume 25, p844

Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Volume 25, p848

Jan Waterman Davis posted
While at the St Louis Train Museum back in the 90s, we ran across this gem in a barn. Does anyone know the history of this car?
Richard Neumann It is an interurban test car. I found some info by "Googling" Purdue University Rail Test Car. Interesting find and hope it has survived.
Dennis DeBruler Purdue had a special building to do railroad testing in: https://towns-and-nature.blogspot.com/.../west-lafayette...
Jan Waterman Davis Thank you, Dennis! That was very interesting. I have wondered why/how something from Purdue made it to St Louis Museum of Transportation.
Seth Lakin Dennis DeBruler Purdue’s collection of railroad equipment including two or three 1850’s steam locomotives was donated to the St Louis Transportation Museum in the early 1950’s. I believe this was just after the railway engineering school was closed at Purdue. The St. Louis Museum was just about the only well established railroad museum at the time.
Keith Corman Purdue’s Engineering school contributed a lot to the development of Railroad technology over the years. God Bless the Black & Gold!

This was in england, but it teaches more about locomotive testing.

Ruby Doobie posted
I hope this isn't already on the site. A locomotive on a chassis dynamometer.

I wonder how they hold the locomotive in place for when they crank up the resistance on the rollers to test the horsepower. And I wonder how those two round things create the resistance. I would think that electric generators would have to be bigger to handle that kind of horsepower.

5:40 video @ 0:29

(Added as a comment to a blog post.)