Russian 4-8-4 P36 0001

[M636C]

The first Russian 4-8-4 differed from the production locomotives in having a steam driven exhaust fan, as used on many condensing locomotives, rather than a conventional blast pipe and stack.

This had also been used on 2-6-2 passenger locomotives of class Sum, but its advantages proved to be more theoretical than practical. P36 0001 was fairly soon converted to standard, at least regarding the front end arrangements, if the date of 1950 for the second photograph is correct;

I like the indicator shelter hung off the cylinder, since the locomotive is on the Moscow test ring where clearances won't be a problem. I read that the message on the smoke deflector celebrates Stalin's 70th birthday.

The locomotive was modified to standard appearance, even with a standard rectangular tender, although the removal of Stalin's portrait was probably the biggest inprovement.

The very long smokebox is visible in the final photo. Partly this is due to the boiler not having any sort of combustion chamber, and partly due to the need to limit the axle load to 18 tonnes. Post WWII Russian locomotives were simplified compared those of the 1930s which more closely followed American ideas.

Photos are from paravoz.com.

Peter

 

[NorthWest]

Thanks for posting.

An attempt to solve cylinder back pressure problems that didn't materialize?

[Overmod]

NorthWest

An attempt to solve cylinder back pressure problems that didn't materialize?

Principal thing I suspect it would affect is reduced need for special attention, when drifting, to keep combustion gas, dirt, and heat out of the cylinders.  This being something directly addressed by Trofimov valves.

Depending on how you deal with the fan exhaust, you can reduce the effective water rate by not blasting expensively-treated and expensively-heated water skyward to kinda-sorta entrain the combustion gas and throw it.  If you look at many pictures of part-load exhaust you can vividly see what can be sonic shockwaves propagating in the exhaust flow from 'surplus' energy available in part of the exhaust pulse -- these are averaged in the turbine, and if there are adequate stages or good enough expansion, you can extract a considerable amount of the latent heat in the fan-turbine exhaust -- the required very large progressive exhaust plenum being greatly facilitated by those large Russian loading-gage clearances!

Although I have no idea if the Russians did anything special with the fan exhaust, it would certainly be possible to deal with it as the ACE 3000 designers proposed: run it through one or more multiple-effect ejectors to shed some more of that inconvenient-truth heat of vaporization, then reuse the water through the feedwater-heat train.  Or if you want to try Holcroft-Anderson recompression again (not that you'd be happy with it on a locomotive this size!) you could handle the fan exhaust ... well, not necessarily as on the Southern's test, but more correctly, being forewarned and hence forearmed about some of the ways "not" to implement fans or fan drives...

Isn't this of a piece with the engineers who gave us the late-forties parovoz designs, including the amazing OR class and the teploparovoz experiments?  Were they entirely sane by Western standards?

[Jones1945]

 

Interesting! I am not a socialist, absolutely not! But I found the styling of communist countries uniquely absorbing. The Russian P36 0001 used to be one of my favorite steam engine when I was a kid, but I didn't know that there was some state of the art feature equipped on the P36 001! The streamlining design looked original compared to other Russian streamliner, especially the design of the smokebox door that looked like a thick coin with Stalin's evil face on it. I have a soft spot for steam engines that had more than one headlight; the main headlight installed above the smokebox is a plus!

IIRC, before the Sino-Soviet split, Communist China wanted to upgrade its fleet of RM class (Pacific 4-6-2, and many prewar 4-6-2s built by Japanese and various countries) for longer passenger trains, the Russian engineers suggested to build 4-8-4 as the next-generation express passenger engine for Communist China, the proposed 4-8-4's design was base on the Russian P36. But the project dropped after the Sino-Soviet split, and the Chinese used Class QJ 2-10-2 and diesel engines for heavy, long passenger trains instead of developing their own 4-8-4.

 

[M636C]

Isn't this of a piece with the engineers who gave us the late-forties parovoz designs, including the amazing OR class and the teploparovoz experiments?  Were they entirely sane by Western standards?

Here is the designer of most of the production post WWII Russian steam locomotives, L.S.Lebedyansky...

That is the "L" as in the L class 2-10-0, the LV 2-10-2 and also the P34 2-6-6-2, P38 2-8-8-4 and of course the P36 in this thread.

The photo caption suggested that he also designed the JS 2-8-4.

The photo shows a gas turbine locomotive in the background, so he outlived Stalin, an acheivement in itself for those involved in designing the JS and FD.

There is a tradition in Russia of academics getting involved in locomotive design and many of the designs included features that were better in theory than in practice. However most of them only involved a single prototype.

I think the exhaust fan was a feature used on condensing locomotives based on a prototype from Henschel, and being successful in the condensing application was expanded to some conventional locomotives.

Peter

[Overmod]

Jones1945

.... the Chinese used Class QJ 2-10-2 and diesel engines for heavy, long passenger trains instead of developing their own 4-8-4.

All the more strange, as the Chinese had one of the very best of all 4-8-4s, both in conception and detail design, and clearly understood its worth.

So good it was, that the design features prominently in a Vulcan promotional movie, both as an example of their design process and as an example used in teaching engineering students good practices as late as the Fifties.

Peter Clark is far more qualified than I am to discuss the locomotive and its designer.

[Overmod]

Is there a source that documents the writing on the smoke deflectors, and translates the Cyrillic script?  (I have a hard enough time with the German cursive in parts of the Tigerfibel...)

[Overmod]

Of course, while we are here, we should mention the underdiscussed class P38, Russia's answer to the AC-9:

[M636C]

Overmod

Is there a source that documents the writing on the smoke deflectors, and translates the Cyrillic script?  (I have a hard enough time with the German cursive in parts of the Tigerfibel...)

 

https://www.parovoz.com/newgallery/pg_view.php?ID=LNG=RU#picture314529&

Go to the discussion (translate) and read comments 5 and 6 in the first day's entry...

You'll be pleased that native Russian speakers find it hard to read.....

The second word in the second line does appear to be "Stalin" in cyrillic script.

The last line indicates the greeting is from the Kolomna works (they say).

Peter

[M636C]

Overmod

Of course, while we are here, we should mention the underdiscussed class P38, Russia's answer to the AC-9:

 

The second one built lacked the "streamlining and/or smoke duct" at the front end and looked more like an AC-9...

Peter

[Jones1945]

Overmod

...All the more strange, as the Chinese had one of the very best of all 4-8-4s, both in conception and detail design, and clearly understood its worth.

 

So good it was, that the design features prominently in a Vulcan promotional movie...

The Class KF was definitely one of the best 4-8-4s in Asia: 20in × 30in cylinder (520mm × 750mm), 69in Driver, 220 psi boiler pressure, 43,390 lbs TE, 24 was built in 1936. I read somewhere that the ROC government (yes, they are still alive on the "Treasure Island") planned to build more of them for all first-tier long-distance trains in their country, but WWII completely ruined this country for another 70 years.

[Jones1945]

One more pic of P38 001:

https://www.parovoz.com/newgallery/pg_view.php?ID=357611&LNG=RU#picture