Some patent drawings of the PRR V1 project (9000hp Direct-Drive Steam Turbine Locomotive) from 1946 (source: Google Patents):
Steam Turbine Electric Locomotive Vs Direct-Drive Steam Turbine Locomotive
Jones 3D Modeling Club https://www.youtube.com/Jones3DModelingClub
Overmod ……You can consider whether simple evolutionary improvements, such as better-cast valves, or more complex ones like piston-valve conversions, would have made the engines embarrassingly better just as the economics for any highly-sophisticated steam passenger power were declining radically, and find evidence for politics accordingly……
Overmod As you all probably know, I think practical luxury-bus service was nipped in the bud far too early, essentially starting when Missouri proactively reduced its highway size and axle-load limits. Look at the late Pickwick Nite Coaches, and the later Santa Fe articulateds, to see what interesting rubber-tired alternatives could have been for all those REA city pairs that were becoming uneconomical to serve even with one-man motor trains.
There is nothing wrong with Jeri Ryan...she da bomb!
There was a show where one of her Borg thingies was expiring and would lead to her demise and it appeared she was to be a goner.
She said "adjusting to my abscene will be difficult" ...well heck yeah!
I want that on my headstone.
Rode a lot of trolleys in my day in Hamilton. Was better when it was streetcars. They were stoic and characterless. Drivers hated 'em cause the twin contact was always coming off the overhead and out the door he would go cursing.
Departing from a Diesel bus and reaching the end of the bus just as it pulls away and getting that heat blast followed by all the smelly atmospherics is not something correct for the human condition. ...and of course Murphys Law states the bus won't leave until you are in the correct spot every time.
Miningman Good grief, I'd rather discuss Seven of Nine than buses. Buses suck...and stink.
Good grief, I'd rather discuss Seven of Nine than buses. Buses suck...and stink.
Trolleys don't.
And what's wrong with Voyager? I thought Jeri Ryan did a fine job on that show!
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
People wanting to hatchet on H.T. Cover should budget for a vacation in Delaware and spend a couple of days at the Hagley reading his surviving correspondence. They might shut up afterward.
What this likely refers to is the ongoing correction of lateral control vs. suspension that was (still) a significant concern in 1946. Some engines had been 'corrected' with improved equalization and allowance for lateral motion, and could traverse the 'problem areas' e.g. in Pittsburgh station better; these were the ones assigned to Harrisburg-Pittsburgh. The others were kept on the 'racetrack' that was their first best use, etc.
The smoking gun comes sometime in 1948, when the decision is made to take the T1s off the first-class trains (sometimes this is described as 'dieselizing all the first-class trains', but I get the impression the T1 removal was the more important objective) and at about the same time, perhaps linked, the full improvement program is abandoned. You can consider whether simple evolutionary improvements, such as better-cast valves, or more complex ones like piston-valve conversions, would have made the engines embarrassingly better just as the economics for any highly-sophisticated steam passenger power were declining radically, and find evidence for politics accordingly; remember, these guys were looking at very alarming actual statistics, and not the 'fudged' ones that pretended the T1s were hangar queens making only multiples of hundreds of miles a month.
As you all probably know, I think practical luxury-bus service was nipped in the bud far too early, essentially starting when Missouri proactively reduced its highway size and axle-load limits. Look at the late Pickwick Nite Coaches, and the later Santa Fe articulateds, to see what interesting rubber-tired alternatives could have been for all those REA city pairs that were becoming uneconomical to serve even with one-man motor trains.
Miningman Whoa! Lots of stuff here...... Jones @6:25 post about the T1's. Well they had Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers almost 4 years before the production models rolled out and extensive testing during that time. I recall the tests on the static bed at Altoona and the published results and subsequent reporting of breaking every record and all time bests of water and coal consumption coupled with astronomical horsepower ratings. The best thing ever. Reading that nonsense you can just picture the authors stating things like " no, not 8 times, that's too much, makes us look bad...lets say 4 times, yeah thats good, they will buy that". Show trial, kangaroo court. 3) Wow on the working model S2. For about ten minutes I felt like "I have done nothing this good in my whole life" but I snapped out of it.
Whoa! Lots of stuff here......
Jones @6:25 post about the T1's. Well they had Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers almost 4 years before the production models rolled out and extensive testing during that time. I recall the tests on the static bed at Altoona and the published results and subsequent reporting of breaking every record and all time bests of water and coal consumption coupled with astronomical horsepower ratings. The best thing ever.
Reading that nonsense you can just picture the authors stating things like " no, not 8 times, that's too much, makes us look bad...lets say 4 times, yeah thats good, they will buy that". Show trial, kangaroo court.
3) Wow on the working model S2. For about ten minutes I felt like "I have done nothing this good in my whole life" but I snapped out of it.
Whoa! Lots of stuff here.
1) Overmod-- R.H.Smith recommended the purchase of 5 more. I can only assume he was qualified enough to make a sane decision. Perhaps Mr Smith looked at it as a political decision based on a tip and nod to the coal industry, as you say, not a large % of N&W's fleet. The minus and the minus make a plus sort of thing. My point about Saunders has little to do with his decision on its desirability but what was coming his way probably stock price wise or perhaps something shorter term. Of all the railroads N&W could have run their A's and others up to the mid 70's assuming they can appeal or seek exception and stretch things out say 3 years or so after the Clean Air Act.
2) Jones @6:25 post about the T1's. Well they had Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers almost 4 years before the production models rolled out and extensive testing during that time. I recall the tests on the static bed at Altoona and the published results and subsequent reporting of breaking every record and all time bests of water and coal consumption coupled with astronomical horsepower ratings. The best thing ever.
I regret that I can’t join the discussion since I am not familiar with steam turbine locomotive except PRR S2, even though I am really interested in this new topic for me. Anyway, I just found this record from PRR Chronology. I would like to put it here for the record：
"Mar. 12, 1952
Board reviews the status of the T1's, all 52 of which are now out of service, with only 19 stored in good running order; note that the maintenance costs are 2.5 times that of Class K4s; heavy running repairs are almost 3 times as great; T1's are 4 times as costly to operate as diesels; slipperiness did not work with PRR’s grades; decides they are to be disposed of as soon as the equipment trust obligations are paid off. (VPO)"
This thing actually sound like a trial to me. If T1 was really that bad, why spent tons of money to design, to test, and to build them in the first place? It was not the first time Baldwin and PRR building a new class of engine. If this was the judgement directly came from the heads of PRR, they were just making themselves looks like a world class fool.
MiningmanNo money in it for him personally for approving of 5 turbines.
Yeah, but be sure to read 'Tale of a Turbine' (which is actually titled "Rails Remembered, volume 4") very carefully, and tell me if you would pay what it would cost to replicate that thing in that quantity.
Remember that the TE-1 program spans the development era of practical second-generation diesels, including the realization at GE that a great deal more horsepower could be developed out of the basic Cooper-Bessemer engine architecture. A 4500hp steam-turbine electric is competitive with little GP7s or F units. It's a poor alternative to two 2400hp six-motor Alcos. And I have to suspect that any other TM than a Westinghouse hexapole would be cooked at least as badly in line service, at least as quickly, as Mr. Newton documented.
I am by no means a fan of Stuart Saunders (who reminds me of an evil American cousin of Sir Topham Hatt) but with respect to that turkey he was right.
Stuart Saunders...crook, criminal, vandal, scumbag, American Taliban.
The warden in Shawshank Redemtion.
No money in it for him personally for approving of 5 turbines.
I've known people like him and it's always puzzling how these terrible weasel people get into positions of power.
Without admitting any culpability, Mr. Saunders was among a group of former directors and officers who later contributed to a $12 million settlement to end litigation brought by shareholders of the bankrupt railroad. The lawsuits accused the railroad's management of dereliction of duty and of responsibility for issuing false financial statements and misleading proxy material over a period of years. Graduate of Harvard Law School
BigJimThen you will have to show me as I sure have never seen anything about "65 mph" being a target for the "Jawn Henry".
There are multiple pieces of documentation that establish BLH touted the design which became the TE-1 as being capable of "65mph". I suspect this might be related to the kind of diesel-electric claim to "120mph gearing" where the speed is limited by the constant horsepower to well below what the traction motors could be spun up to -- but with the promise of external combustion to eliminate the constant-horsepower issue.
Unlike the C&O M-1, the TE-1 was not intended to be a passenger locomotive. I quote from Mr. Newton (pg. 713); "the N&W's Class A locomotives were able to haul 175 fully loaded coal cars at 40 MPH, which was fast enough (my emphasis).
But this ignores the other uses of the TE-1 as a replacement for the class A as well as the compounds: there were plenty of uses in fast freight, mail, and probably express where the A's speed of ... about 65 mph ... was necessary and expected. You may recall that Mr. Newton was referring to a train of 175 coal hoppers, not exactly the poster child consist for high speed either physically or economically -- yes, 40mph was 'fast enough'. But you may also recall that the TE-1 was intended as a more economical replacement for ALL N&W freight steam going forward, and just as there is little point in C&O operating an Allegheny well below the peak of its horsepower curve, there would be little point in reducing N&W to the equivalent of a one-speed railroad with comparatively fragile turbines that cost multiple times what an A did. Especially when the Baldwin design with the span-bolstered diesel trimount trucks had specifically been promoted as a locomotive capable of all services N&W anticipated.
Further reading will show that R.H. Smith wanted five more of the locos.
Which is a pathetically tiny drop in the bucket of N&W's contemporary motive-power pool, particularly as even a TE-1 with nondefective generators was a poor replacement even for a single A, and in my opinion for a properly-boosted Y6, And yes, it was a bit more economical on coal and water, but the ash problem was likely insoluble (and highly irritating to engine crews, according to Mr. Newton).
Stuart Saunders wanted none. Not because of any "65 mph", but because they "were not economical". Saunders won the battle.[/quote]
Yes, I wish he hadn't, but no, unless (1) there was sufficient sales volume for STEs to make line production economical and (2) there was a really quick way to make actual locomotive builders circa 1957 interested in building STEs there was really no more market for something long, finicky, and relay-logic controlled with most of the maintenance problems of steam power and a few added ones that only produced 4500hp. I don't find it too surprising that no one since has built STEs in production quantity, let alone gotten the equivalent of full diesel depreciation life out of them profitably -- and I speak as someone who has advocated the design and adoption of STEs, together with some other designs, since the 1970s.
Incidentally, Matt Austin has just posted over on RyPN an interesting Union Pacific DBTE v. speed curve which includes data for a "BLH steam turbine" of 4500 hp generator rating, identified in the fine print as the TE-1, compared to 4-8-8-4, 4-6-6-4, and both 3 and 4 GP9s in MU.
http://www.rypn.org/forums/download/file.php?id=14908
They don't bother to plot it past 60mph, unlike all the other locomotives in comparison, for what that's worth.
OvermodAlas! everything I say about the TE-1 is either from Louis Newton or source documents particularly at NWHS. The part about 65mph being a Baldwin fib is clearly stated in Tale of a Turbine, although since I don't have my copy handy I can't quote chapter and verse. In fact if I recall correctly he mentioned that N&W management was pissed at what was essentially a lie about achievement of practical 65mph speed under the conditions BLH had implied it would be achieved.
.
M636C As unlikely as it sounds, Westinghouse actually published an illustration of a streamlined turbine... Peter
As unlikely as it sounds, Westinghouse actually published an illustration of a streamlined turbine...
Peter
Nice found, Peter. I posted this pic on my pervious post as well.
btw.......
My fantasy Steam turbine locomotive PRR V2 #6600
Jones1945 (By Juniatha from Trains.com) A drawing I found on Facebook, showing a 6-8-6 direct drive stream turbine with T1’s shrouding. Looks like a fan art, no describion provided.(Edit: By Juniatha from Trains.com) If something like this was built in 40s, I guess a 4-8-6 wheel arrangement would be enough to do the trick. It would need a firebox and boiler as large as or even larger than S1, S2, a new gearbox system, advanced filter inside the pipe work to protect the turbine blade…… However, if the operation and maintenance cost cannot competitive with EMD’s product, it would be just another wasting of time project. Sigh...... I wonder if all the steam power connects to a Turbine-generator instead of a direct drive design would work better or not. The front end would need to redesign for more space, (IIRC there were 13ft of space inside the smoke box of S1). The drivers or even the wheels in both truck could attach to electric motor.
https://www.railarchive.net/wecbook/wec10.htm
Miningman The locomotive that killed the T1's. Brilliant....fish heads!
The locomotive that killed the T1's. Brilliant....fish heads!
lmao Miningman. I don’t hate all early diesels, but imo, only UP's M10000s and E2 to E6 were qualified to competitive with steam locomotive in terms of appearance. Diesel like E7/8/9 looked so dull and boring no matter how reliable they were I don't even call them a streamliner.
Overmod One thing to remember is that the timeline of certain improvements is highly interesting, and probably highly relevant, here. Remember that the internal correspondence as preserved goes from highly positive as late as 1946 to dismissive by ... about the time the improvement program for the T1 was cancelled, and this appears to be highly related to the staybolt issue (which is really far more terrifying when you think about it while reading the reports) BUT there appears to be no consideration of adapting the Bowes drive precisely when it was being carefully presented at some length to revive the V1 design for potential passenger use (i.e. what Loewy's design patent for it, in 1947, would involve)……
OvermodOh, I think by that time everything PRR had to learn from direct-drive turbines had been learned. If I remember correctly, what actually happened was that Westinghouse had essentially loaned PRR the turbine, and wanted it back……
Overmod in a perhaps more important sense nobody needs a passenger locomotive with six-wheel lead and trailing trucks necessary to support its weight. There is more to operating trains at high speed than being able to make the horsepower to accelerate and then pull trains in a straight line ...
M636CBut I don't believe that there was a production variable speed drive capable of powering a steam turbine locomotive in 1946, nor for some time thereafter.
You actually don't need a 'VSD' in the current sense of the term. Variable ratios close to the turbine shaft will work, and I recall several German approaches to provide them (using the same mechanism in at least one of them that interposed an 'idler' gear to give full reverse from the main turbine without the costs of a dedicated geared or 'windage'-crippled reverse turbine). It is possible that no more than a two-speed ratio change might suffice for practical operation.
The Bowes drive, I suspect, could have been scaled appropriately ... had there been a practical 4000hp prime mover in the late '40s. (That being, of course, the precise turbine rating of one-half the design of PRR V1 actually 'greenlighted' for production in 1944.) Of course that was also the supposed nominal rating of the Hamilton/Lima-Hamilton/Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton free-piston engine that would replace, any month now through the late '40s and into the '50s, expensive and fragile things like GM 2-stroke engines; and arguably that's what the BCR coal turbine rating would wind up being after the experimental-scale units were sized up (the question of who would pay for the practical development being an increasingly critical issue as the scam developed).
Another quite logical technology was adaptation of magnetorheological clutches (the enabling technology becoming quite well known across different fields of mechanical engineering and design over the course of the year 1948). This gives the effect of a variable-engagement wet-plate clutch without significant frictional wear, when 'slipped', but very simple lockup even with something as simple as a Maybach claw clutch when speed-matched. Here again 'variable-ratio' is not the same as continuous variable-speed drive in the current sense of the term.
Now, part of the issue involving these prospective drives is that PRR did not have a bulletproof way to provide them. Look at the difference between the quill drive in the GG1s and the gearing size and arrangement used in the S2; pay particular attention to the 'flexible' arrangements in the S2's bull gear. That's a LOT of protection against jerk or shock to the turbine roots and blading.
As a sort of aside, much of the size and robustness of ship reduction gearing has much less to do with full HP transmission at cruise or dash speed as it has to do with the prop(s) coming out of the water or experiencing reduction in driving resistance when at high power (the analogue of why hydroplane racing requires a throttleman with very quick reflexes or very capable and low-latency robot control over engine and transmission). It is hard to comprehend the practical meaning of how much torque is involved in this until you watch the behavior of the shaft in the alley as the load comes on and off the prop.
It would be nice to size mechanical locomotive transmission components as, say, helicopter gears are designed (and there have been some attempts to use the design tools and methodologies used for superfinishing helicopter gears in railroad applications) but the practical effects of shocks and loading are far more severe in significant ways when train run-in ... let alone a collision of a moving cut with the locomotive, as in the event that reputedly damaged the TE-1's turbine ... has to be considered.
Gears weigh less, cost less and are more compact than an electrical drive - the USN went through a similar phase between 1920 and the mid-30's going from turbo electric drive to high speed reduction gears.
But marine gear drives are inherently single speed, with the exception of some German Navy drives which have two different input speeds, one for cruise diesels and one for the gas turbines.
Navy gearboxes are heavy. Taking the drives in a current DDG, each turbine weighs about 14 tons in its enclosure, and the fixed ratio reduction gear weighs arount 50 tons, one on each shaft.
The biggest variable speed mechanical drive with which I'm familiar is that in the big Voith diesel hydraulic locomotives, good for about 4000 HP. This dates from the early years of this century and I don't think anything like it was available in 1946, for example. Even the Krass-Maffei and Alco diesel hydraulics were twin engined with two transmissions to get to 4000 HP.
I'm not suggesting that electric drive is lighter. In the Royal Navy Type 45, the alternators on the gas turbines weigh around 70 tons and the motors on each shaft nearly 100 tons. The "electric" ships have longer propeller shafts than direct drive because the heavy motors and alternators need to be amidships for fore and aft trim.
I haven't heard much about the USN "Zumwalt" class. These are the ships of tomorrow, but remain just that. Conventional ships are being built in large numbers while these two get debugged.
But I don't believe that there was a production variable speed drive capable of powering a steam turbine locomotive in 1946, nor for some time thereafter.
BigJimI am going to have to call your bluff on this one.
Alas! everything I say about the TE-1 is either from Louis Newton or source documents particularly at NWHS. The part about 65mph being a Baldwin fib is clearly stated in Tale of a Turbine, although since I don't have my copy handy I can't quote chapter and verse. In fact if I recall correctly he mentioned that N&W management was pissed at what was essentially a lie about achievement of practical 65mph speed under the conditions BLH had implied it would be achieved.
The '12 cars' was intended more as hyperbole than an exact car count; the point is (again as Mr. Newton has said) the locomotive couldn't reach anything like the speed a class A loaded to a similar percentage of its rated tonnage could -- and a major part of that is the characteristic of the electrical transmission. (We won't get into the issues of the dropped generators that were never quite correctly rebuilt, but we CERTAINLY can take up the issue of what killed many of the hexapole motors in 2300 with so few years of service, if you like.)
Now, IN MY OPINION the N&W should have stuck to the PRR design of mechanical turbine with Bowes drive, as that would have produced a worthy successor to even the compound Ys (assuming the turbines were 'rightsized' instead of being made artificially huge as in the last "9000hp" propaganda. The apparent history of this involves N&W falling for the siren call of motorizing the engine trucks (the approach that worked so well on the PRR P5b!) and thereby going to steam-electric, and then the early-Fifties use of span-bolstered diesel-equivalent trimounts for the whole of the running gear. I'm sure this made sense if you intended to peddle the design to other coal-hauling railroads, and indeed much of the design might have been carried across to Alco/GE or even GM running gear after Baldwin/Westinghouse quit the locomotive business, but in the event what Baldwin built certainly wound up underwhelming anyone with any combination of money to spend and need for coal-combustion economics; in fact, I'd argue it helped queer the pitch for any of the subsequent steam-turbine-electric projects.
OvermodTurboelectric DC drive on locomotives is a longstanding boondoggle, even with a comprehension of the degree of field weakening/"shunt" transition feature needed to achieve even a semblance of high speed. Here the 'poster child' example isn't the C&O M-1 (which has cripplingly dumb design issues long before you get to back-EMF problems) but the N&W TE-1. You may recall that the thing was touted by BLH as having a top road speed of 65mph? In practice, it might achieve that speed with something like 12 cars on its drawbar; certainly N&W found out the hard way that there was considerable fibbing going on ... and yes, I think Baldwin did know better but creatively avoided mentioning key information, a bit like Lucius Beebe's famous 'serves two' example.
Jones1945I remember more than one similar design of a multispeed gearing were designed and received U.S. Patent not long before the S2 turbine was put in an idle position.
One thing to remember is that the timeline of certain improvements is highly interesting, and probably highly relevant, here. Remember that the internal correspondence as preserved goes from highly positive as late as 1946 to dismissive by ... about the time the improvement program for the T1 was cancelled, and this appears to be highly related to the staybolt issue (which is really far more terrifying when you think about it while reading the reports) BUT there appears to be no consideration of adapting the Bowes drive precisely when it was being carefully presented at some length to revive the V1 design for potential passenger use (i.e. what Loewy's design patent for it, in 1947, would involve).
Strangely, I have not been able to find any use of multispeed gearing on any of the V1 versions, where it would have been most practical (and in my opinion essential if for no other reason than to solve the water-rate concern). Note that the Bowes drive really doesn't address issues of reduction of high-speed turbine shaft speed, so the change-speed advantages are just as they were for my version of this kind of locomotive (which would have used modified GG1 chassis architecture) in the '70s.
The worst thing was the turbine blade was seriously damaged by coal dust, according to PRR.
I think you are confusing this, badly, perhaps with more than one mistaken thing.
Coal damage to turbine blading is related to ASH problems in a coal-burning turbine like the scam undertaken by Yellott for BCR all those years in the '40s and '50s. (And then rediscovered by UP in the Sixties, but I won't digress.)
Coal-dust damage to traction motors was one of the chronic problems with the C&O turbines. But this is not related to the use of a turbine, even if problems with motors, generator flashovers, etc. might lead to rapid load shedding and consequent turbine overspeed. (That's a turbine governor issue.)
After the 1948 Railroad Fair, S2 was withdrawn from service. SAD...
Oh, I think by that time everything PRR had to learn from direct-drive turbines had been learned. If I remember correctly, what actually happened was that Westinghouse had essentially loaned PRR the turbine, and wanted it back; what was left was not optimal for any kind of conversion into a practical PRR locomotive (and of course the V1 configuration had much more perceived potential advantage at that time...)
I'm a bit amused by the streamlined-S2 illustration as just presented. In a sense this is limited by driver diameter and associated quartered-rod-induced augment (really, hammer blow more than nosing, etc.) concerns, in a way the Roosen motor-locomotive or B&O W-1 approaches are not. In a perhaps more important sense nobody needs a passenger locomotive with six-wheel lead and trailing trucks necessary to support its weight. There is more to operating trains at high speed than being able to make the horsepower to accelerate and then pull trains in a straight line ...
erikem M636C Isn't that what they did with the two UP units, C&O M-1 and N&W Jawn Henry? I know, she was probably thinking about mechanical drive, but at the time turbo-electric seemed like a good idea.... Gears weigh less, cost less and are more compact than an electrical drive - the USN went through a similar phase between 1920 and the mid-30's going from turbo electric drive to high speed reduction gears.
M636C Isn't that what they did with the two UP units, C&O M-1 and N&W Jawn Henry? I know, she was probably thinking about mechanical drive, but at the time turbo-electric seemed like a good idea....
Isn't that what they did with the two UP units, C&O M-1 and N&W Jawn Henry?
I know, she was probably thinking about mechanical drive, but at the time turbo-electric seemed like a good idea....
To be honest, turboelectric has never made sense, since the days of the Heilmann locomotive. Some of the problems and issues have changed with improvements in electrical technology, and there are some current (no pun intended) applications where some kinds of expander-electric drive make sense.
Note that the marine application has substantial differences with even the most optimal railroad applications; the differences between propeller drive and the characteristics of freight railroad service alone bear looking at (with the understanding that the Bowes drive produces the practical advantage of turboelectric drive that generator/traction motor drive only does indirectly with much higher cumulative operating losses)
OTOH, a turbo-electric drive makes more sense in a general purpose locomotive than one intended only for high speed passenger service (i.e. T1 replacement).
One issue is that steam expanders have a different torque characteristic than most internal-combustion cycles; the same 'arguments' used so often for the absence of multispeed transmissions on steam automobiles also apply to both steam-mechanical and steam-electric locomotives. The long early history of IC-motor-driven railroad equipment established the importance of electric vs. other kinds of transmission ... for internal-combustion engines with particular torque-speed characteristics particularly when operating at low final-drive rotational speed under high torque, precisely the range where either positive-displacement expanders or turbines can develop the equivalent of high locked-rotor torque.
The primary 'need' for multispeed action in high-capacity turbine locomotives is to minimize the slip at low road speeds; but another high-priority need is to avoid rotational 'jerk' or axial shock - in fact, anything that induces blading interference in rotation. The same kind of Ferguson clutch that makes Deem-conjugated duplexes practical also provides a reasonable opportunity for allowing higher rotational speed for a given inlet mass flow; hydraulic torque multiplication might be better still but has to be implemented either in the high-rpm or high-torque ranges of the reduction gearing ... neither of which is where the usual torque-converter designs like operating at the necessary high peak horsepower. The Bowes drive, although an electrical machine, is not just a fancy 'slippable clutch.'
Turboelectric DC drive on locomotives is a longstanding boondoggle, even with a comprehension of the degree of field weakening/"shunt" transition feature needed to achieve even a semblance of high speed. Here the 'poster child' example isn't the C&O M-1 (which has cripplingly dumb design issues long before you get to back-EMF problems) but the N&W TE-1. You may recall that the thing was touted by BLH as having a top road speed of 65mph? In practice, it might achieve that speed with something like 12 cars on its drawbar; certainly N&W found out the hard way that there was considerable fibbing going on ... and yes, I think Baldwin did know better but creatively avoided mentioning key information, a bit like Lucius Beebe's famous 'serves two' example.
It's a pity the collateral on the old Turbomotive 2 site has been so thoroughly expunged; that locomotive and its possible improvements represent perhaps the best of the simple high-speed express locomotive designs.
- Erik
Thank you erikem and Peter. I remember more than one similar design of a multispeed gearing were designed and received U.S. Patent not long before the S2 turbine was put in an idle position. The worst thing was the turbine blade was seriously damaged by coal dust, according to PRR. After the 1948 Railroad Fair, S2 was withdrawn from service. SAD.......By the way, I am reviewing some posts from a few years ago on train.com forum. I really love Juniatha's music choices......
sorry, duplicate post...
I don't seem to have a delete option...
erikem A former poster to the Trains.com forums, Juniatha, made the suggestion of a multispeed gearing between the turbine and drive wheels. This would reduce the steam flow at low speeds as the steam flow was almost directly proportional to torque and very weakly related to shaft speed. - Erik
A former poster to the Trains.com forums, Juniatha, made the suggestion of a multispeed gearing between the turbine and drive wheels. This would reduce the steam flow at low speeds as the steam flow was almost directly proportional to torque and very weakly related to shaft speed.
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