The Incredible Dynamometer Car 29

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Dynamometer Car 29 was the brainchild of Charles T. Ripley and T. E. Layden. Both men supervised the design and construction of the car, which was created to measure and record the full spectrum of locomotive performance while the locomotive was being used in actual test under real-time load conditions. It was a true mobile laboratory and was used to evaluate all Santa Fe motive power between 1911 and 1963 when it was retired.

Test equipment inside the car, also built by Charles T. Ripley and T. E. Layden, was used to record drawbar pull, speed, rate of firing, rate of water supplied to the boiler, air-brake operations, and the time of passing stations. All this information and more was recorded in six-second and one-minute intervals by electric and mechanically operated pens over a continuous moving chart at the rate of 6.6 inches per mile of travel.

This remarkable testing equipment was designed and built before electronic miniaturization and vacuum tubes were even thought of.

When diesel locomotives took over, Dynamometer Car 29 was used to record fuel consumption, dynamic braking, drawbar pull, drawbar horsepower, and other data pertinent to the diesel locomotive.