Pennsylvania Railroad Company. Test Dept.

The Test Department was a subunit of the Motive Power Department and consisted of two interrelated but autonomous bodies, the Department of Physical Tests and the Chemical Laboratory.

The Department of Physical Tests was created in March, 1874, and the first test was conducted on April 4. The work was initially performed by the Master Mechanic of the Altoona Shops, but in August, 1874, John W. Cloud was put in charge of the department. He was given the title Engineer of Tests in May, 1879.

The Chemical Laboratory was created on November 10, 1875, when the company hired Dr. Charles Benjamin Dudley as Chemist. This was one of the first examples of an internal industrial chemical laboratory and the first in the railroad industry. From an initial strategy of simply investigating materials currently in use, Dudley eventually evolved a formal system of standard specifications for all classes of materials and supplies. Both the Physical and Chemical Laboratories worked closely with the Purchasing Department in maintaining quality control. However, they soon became involved in what is generally termed "applied" research leading to improved designs.

The Department of Physical Tests was greatly expanded by the construction of the Locomotive Test Plant, which began as a working exhibit at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair and was moved to Altoona in 1905. In the test plant, a locomotive could be "stress-tested" while running in place like a man on a treadmill. The PRR was alone among American railroads in maintaining such a facility. Beginning in 1904, the department issued a series of published test bulletins on its most important work. A new and more modern laboratory building was constructed in 1914.

In the twentieth century, a number of elaborate road tests were staged to solve problems connected with sustained high speed running with heavier trains and the development of electric traction. Electric locomotives were tested at Franklinville, New Jersey, in 1907 and 1924, and comprehensive air brake tests were held at Absecon, New Jersey, in 1912-13. The best known of these road tests were held at Claymont, Delaware, between 1933 and 1938 in order to perfect the design of the electric locomotives needed for New York to Washington service. Other important tests during the 1930s involved the crash-worthiness of the new lightweight passenger cars and the perfection of car air conditioning.

Whereas in the nineteenth century the PRR was able to use its power as a large consumer to impose standards on a host of unsophisticated suppliers, by the 1930s many of those suppliers were fully integrated firms with their own, more modern, research facilities. The test plant saw a last flurry of activity in the 1940s with the ill-fated duplexes and turbines, but it was unable to redeem the designs. With the end of steam locomotive production at Altoona in 1946 and the decision to dieselize two years later, the test plant was rendered redundant. The Chemical Laboratory was not headed by a Ph. D. after 1943, when it was absorbed into the Department of Physical Tests.

By the late 1950s, the Test Department had become a white elephant. Many of the more important research projects were now being handled by special teams working in tandem with manufacturers, the Association of American Railroads or with government. Ironically, at this same time, the New York Central built a new state-of-the-art testing laboratory near Cleveland. The NYC had traditionally trailed the PRR in matters of research and testing but, with the merger in 1968, it was this facility that became Penn Central's laboratory, while the PRR's was abandoned.

From the description of Records, 1894-1945 (bulk 1903-1938). (Hagley Museum & Library). WorldCat record id: 122397610