I'm thinking of making an HO scale 4-6-4 modern (Present Day) steam locomotive by 3D printing a custom designed shell onto a 4-6-4\4-8-2\4-8-4 body. Do you have any ideas or pictures I can use as design inspiration?
Thank you.
First question: streamlined or not? If streamlined, how extensively, and what access panels or removable trim do you account for? Here a copy of the old Quadrant Press paperback on streamlined steam in general might be a good resource to examine.
Second, look at a good late reference to see the different physical systems and their organization on a locomotive. The systems grew dramatically in complexity during just the era of the Hudson type (for NYC J1s in the late '20s, and almost radically different by the mid-Thirties J3as. Most of this can be 3D printed but I would not make it part of the overprint for the actual shell; add it as separate detail with the attach points designed for strength or including metal armatures for strength and convenience.
Railking42Do you have any ideas or pictures I can use as design inspiration?
I am not sure what you are asking.
As far as I know, pretty much all the 4-6-4 locomotives were considered modern.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Do you mean modern as in a steam locomotive built today? The ACE 3000 might be a starting point, that was a planned modern steam alternative to diesel that was never materialized. New steam locomotives have also been built to old specs, such as the Tornado in the UK and the in-progress PRR T1.
-Peter. Mantua collector, 3D printing enthusiast, Korail modeler.
Modern steam could win an oxymoron contest or tie with "civil war".
For these questions, my go-to source is the MR Steam Locomotives Cyclopedia. It has photos, drawings and dimensions.
Simon
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lighten up!
I mean, search up "streamlined steam locomotive" or "steampunk steam train" for some inspiration.
Personally, I love the look of NYC's streamlined engines, like the Mercury, Dreyfuss, and Commodore Van (cant wait for BLI's release!), but also N&W's J class and Santa Fe's Blue Goose look good too.
Fun fact, IHC's 4-6-4 engine is based off Santa Fe's 3460 class 4-6-4, of which only 6 were built.
Charles
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Modeling the Santa Fe & Pennsylvania in HO
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The ACE 3000 project had the idea of building a steam engine that looked more like a two-unit diesel, and burned a slurry of coal and water.
Part of the reason railroads switched from steam to diesel is that in the 1940's-50's petroleum products were considerably cheaper than coal relative to the amount of power produced. By the late 1970's, with Middle East oil embargos and such, the reverse was true and coal was relatively cheaper.
However, in the early 1980's, Iran and Iraq were fighting a long, drawn out war, and both sides began selling oil at below OPEC recommended costs to raise money for weapons. This made the cost of petroleum products drop considerably. Although this helped America and other countries recover from the deep recession of 1982-84, it meant that there no longer was a great saving in burning coal rather than oil.
If the Ace 3000 project was ever viable, it certainly wasn't after that point.
OvermodThat's one of the more 'moron' things I've had to read on this forum.
This one was deifinitely in the bottom 10% of your responses.
Basically you said "jumbo shrimp" was not an oxymoron because there was this one really big shrimp once...
We have come to expect better from you.
Lightened up.
Overmod--
Ok, on first reading it seems that perhaps you want to talk real hardcore design engineering, ignoring Howard's humorous and imo rather harmless post.
So, I learned in real engineering school at Penn State, in Thermodynamics class, that steam power is inherently VERY inefficient, ie most of the power is actually going up the stack, and actual thermodynamic efficiency of the very best steam engines was on the order of 8% to maybe 10%, on a very good day.
Even allowing for some advancements of design over the last 50 years, I've not read or seen anything anywhere that says it gets beyond about 11% or 12% efficient. If there is, point me in a direction to actual engineering facts and not wishful theories, and I'll gladly accept the correction.
Then you add in the enormous cost of facilities to service steam, and labor to service steam, and the greatly increased moving parts relative to diesel power, and what Howard said above is technically true in a strict engineering sense.
Modern Steam is truly an oxymoron. From a strict engineering sense, Howard is absolutely correct.
And as a reader here I just do not appreciate or understand what Howard said that warranted that kind of response from a moderator.
John Mock
Thank you John....nice to hear from some one with a sense of levity. Sure, in the later years of steam development, there were several advances made by several roads....most notably the PRR, NYC, and N&W, but still it was basically a 19th century technology that made all the way to the mid-20th. It may have gone still beyond had it not been for GM (also Firestone and Esso) by purchasing many of the suppliers and manufacturers of critical parts. Then there was the efficiency of the diesel and diesel/electrics which drove in the final nail to the coffin.
To me modern means current, but arguably could be a matter of semantics as obviously to some it means the last of steam development.
Howard Zaneit was basically a 19th century technology that made all the way to the mid-20th.
Some of the other stillborn ideas, like the Roosen motor locomotives, deserved more attention than they got, in part thanks to Korean War politics and expediency.
Use of a light cyclone in a Lamont waterwall firebox, with appropriate economization and feedwater heating, easily gets you into the range of '80s diesel competitiveness. (yes, the bar has moved more substantially toward diesels since then, but you seem to want to cite first-generation diesels as 'modern' where late steam of the same era is not, technologically rather than for basically sociological reasons, and both Brown and I have concerns about the full practical and applicable validity of that).
It may have gone still beyond had it not been for GM (also Firestone and Esso) by purchasing many of the suppliers and manufacturers of critical parts.
[/quote]Then there was the efficiency of the diesel and diesel/electrics which drove in the final nail to the coffin.[/quote]The running efficiency isn't the major thing that did them in, the lack of cheap but skilled dedicated maintenance did. This is well-documented in the late '40s, and related to it are the economies of elimination of water and treatment, ash, etc. (That is not to say there were not attractive economies in range and operation, but even into the '50s the net operating cost of early Diesels could be high enough that well-run steam could compete).
I can't help but think that one of the things that made diesels so attractive in the post-war era was the ready-made supply of recently discharged diesel engine mechanics and electricians, all trained courtesy of Uncle Sam and looking for jobs.
Buying the locomotives was one thing, but they had to be maintained, and diesel mechanics don't grow on trees, but was one time they did!
Going back to the OP's question , IHC (and Mehano, that produced many if not all of them for IHC) produced many variants of the Hudson, some streamlined, some not. Doing a few searches on the Web will yield quite a few pictures of different styles of boilers produced under the IHC label.
I'm still scratching my head about how one would do a 3D print for an existing frame. Please let us know how you will proceed and show the results.
Hmm, this seemingly innocuous posting seems to have become a bit short tempered. And admittedly the OP was not clear if by "modern" he meant present -day or just the last word in steam technology, circa 1945-52.
I think Trains magazine had an article many years ago about the advances in steam locomotive technology that the French, among others, had refined and implemented even into the 1950s but which came just too late to be of interest in the USA. There might be some ideas in that article, assuming I didn't just dream about such an article, that might be worth pursuing. Some of those ideas resulted in exterior appearances that were non-traditional.
Dave Nelson
dknelsonI think Trains magazine had an article many years ago about the advances in steam locomotive technology that the French, among others, had refined and implemented even into the 1950s but which came just too late to be of interest in the USA.
There was also the Trains article on the Giesl ejector, circa 1968, that basically claimed the device was the finest flower of steam technology drafting. It influenced me for many years... There were also a number of good 'modern steam' articles beginning with the original Withuhn conjugated duplex article in 1972 with some reasonably good theoretical discussions circa 1974. Some good drawings and pictures in those...
Since OP is going to use an IHC 4-6-4 for his project, I would like to recommend him to take a look at the C&O L2a #310-314 Hudson. Ordered by C&O in 1947, these were the last express passenger steam locomotives ordered by a United States railroad and were the largest Hudson ever made.
They had all the goodies at the time including Franklin poppet valve gear, roller bearings rods, and axles. If dieselization didn't happen, they would have served the railroad until the late 1970s. The locomotive wasn't streamlined, but OP could redesign a streamlining shrouding for it if he likes. That would give the steam engine a "modern" look, just like Luigi Colani's streamlined train designs. Have fun!
Regarding modern steam development, this page might help:
The Ultimate Steam Page
http://www.trainweb.org/tusp/21_cent.html
Jones 3D Modeling Club https://www.youtube.com/Jones3DModelingClub
According to Wikipedia, General Motors and their associates buying and destroying public rail transit systems is just a "conspiracy theory". When charged and taken to trial, the individuals involved were acquitted.
But I have seen books showing things like the Pacific Electric Railway equipment stacked in giant piles and being burned.
So, I've read various rail related publications that seem to disagree with Wikipedia.
John
Why would you bother with all of the siderods and cylinders and stuff? That's a ton of maintenance and wear and tear. Wouldn't it make more sense to build a steam turbine, like the Jawn Henry? The coal dust problem seems like a solvable issue.
Ok, reading the Ultimate Steam 21st century link:
Sure 18% thermal efficiency would be an improvement over traditional American steam designs, but clearly not enough of a design improvement for the investors.
Interesting that steam operations continue in Zimbabwe.
NittanyLionWhy would you bother with all of the siderods and cylinders and stuff? That's a ton of maintenance and wear and tear. Wouldn't it make more sense to build a steam turbine, like the Jawn Henry? The coal dust problem seems like a solvable issue.
The 'better' STE architecture was, as you might expect, from GE, which used proper high pressure and condensing on a steam plant intended to run asynchronously from road speed. Supposedly the bugs in this were largely worked out in the time the units worked 'up north' in wartime, but GE did not pursue the idea postwar -- probably due to the Alco partnership. The big issue with steam turbines in general is that they don't scale well as systems for railroad use without either some design care or special operating circumstances. Even today a 'practical' modern STE can't be much smaller than 8000hp... and we all know how railroads dislike holding up that much capacity when servicing or shopping.
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PRR8259According to Wikipedia, General Motors and their associates buying and destroying public rail transit systems is just a "conspiracy theory". When charged and taken to trial, the individuals involved were acquitted.
That they or other suppliers might buy up key auxiliary and specialty suppliers to the 'steam locomotive industry' and preferentially shut them down as a proactive strategy is what we're looking to establish -- as I said, I hadn't considered it but it might be easy to track.
It is amazing how a simple flip comment with no meaning other than typing practice russles so many feathers. For the record....I have read years back about GM purchasing trolleys with help from Esso, and Firestone to replace them with GM busses to run on Firestone tires, Esso gas, and of course built by GM.
To help sell their new diesels to railways, I also had either read or heard about companies related to GM purchase firms who made important steam loco parts like Nathan and Elesco...than repurpose them, etc. Proof? I have not a clue to their validiity and I never claimed that I did.
Personally I'm a great fan of steam, and if I owned a steam powered railroad in the 40's or 50's, I would have chased diesel salesmen from my property with my 12 gauge. but in the end, it is always cost efficiency that wins. Some may have read in my ramblings, videos, or articles that I had two uncles who ran steam....uncle Ike on the Erie and uncle Ed on the PRR/RDG Seashore lines. Mostly I rode with uncle Ike in his K-1 from Allendale (NJ) to Jersey City from 1946 to 1950 and in 1950 his new RS2 which I first thought was really cool. 10 miles down the line, I was bored silly as was Ike. All he talked about was how his missed his K-1. He had several marriages, but kept the same mistress...the K-1 which he personally polished and help maintain it in his off-time. Uncle Ed was similar, but he ran his K-4 until 1954, then retired as did Ike, both missing steam.
I loved my times riding in the cab, and if steam never had died, I would have gone into engine service on a railroad rather than driving airplanes years later. Note: Ike's K-1 was built in 1905 and I think Ed's K-4 was built in 1918....can't remember for sure. My times with both uncles were part of the driving forces which drove both my dad and myself into model railroading.
I had one of those generic, I believe American Heritage, railroad history books.
It contained the photos of the stacked Pacific Electric Railway interurbans being burned, and I recall the authors stating that General Motors was behind it and had replaced them with buses.
Also, I recall reading, I believe it was Fred Frailey, in one of his numerous editorials, stating that in recent years California public agencies had spent many hundreds of millions of dollars reconstructing the Pacific Electric Railway that General Motors had dismantled. They have reconstructed it as a commuter operation on virtually the exact same old rail alignments (the rights-of-way were obviously intact)...a waste of public money to reconstruct something that should have simply remained.
I've read other sources that say the same thing as happened to the Pacific Electric also happened in citys like Cleveland and elsewhere. The commuter rail/interurban/trolley systems, whatever you want to call them, were bought up or else heavily "influenced" to trash their infrastructure and replace it all with brand new GM buses.
It's interesting that electric automobiles are being "sold" to the American public.
My fellow engineers are telling me that the batteries to power them actually create MORE hazardous waste (heavy metals that must be disposed of someday at a finite cost) than construction of a traditional gasoline powered automobile. Also, my fellow engineers are telling me that it actually takes MORE fossil fuel resources to construct an electric vehicle, and to "feed" it over it's lifetime, than ALL the gasoline it would ever use if it were a traditional gasoline powered vehicle! Once again, political interests are making a big "sales pitch" claiming environmental benefits that just simply, factually, are not there.
In engineering school, we are supposed to be taught to see the bigger picture:
Ethanol is supposed to make gasoline burn cleaner, yet the engineering fact is that it takes more gallons of petroleum to actually run the farm equipment, harvest and produce the ethanol than what the yield of ethanol actually is. There is no real gain for all the effort, except corn gets produced and sold.
I, too, love steam power. I rode behind Grand Canyon Railway's immaculately restored 4960, which I've learned was basically converted to burn waste oil, and not even coal. I completely resent that in the name of environmentalism, the Grand Canyon Railway was "forced" to shut down its steam operations, due to alleged air quality concerns...of operating 3 steam engines in the Arizona desert.
So years ago, many cities enacted smoke ordinances, that resulted in sometimes "premature" end of steam power, which was then replaced by hydrocarbon emitting trucks/buses etc. The ONLY difference is that then you don't physically "see" the pollution, but it's still there! A good argument could actually be made that with traditional steam locomotion, most of the smoke is actually water vapor, and the coal/ash particulates tended to settle out of the atmosphere (yes, all over mom's outdoor drying laundry).
So we replaced steam ash with hydrocarbons, and the air quality most likely actually worsened--we didn't gain anything significant in air quality by eliminating steam engines--other than perhaps cities looked "cleaner" on the ground.
Sorry, ramblings from a professional engineer.
PRR8259A good argument could actually be made that with traditional steam locomotion, most of the smoke is actually water vapor, and the coal/ash particulates tended to settle out of the atmosphere (yes, all over mom's outdoor drying laundry).
There could be more than just carbon raining down on the laundry, to be honest: there's a reason for the smell of soft coal smoke and it ain't straight carbon. On the other hand, I suspect we can all agree that reciprocating switch-engine power is one of the blindest of blind alleys for external-combustion of any kind, even when a mechanical genius like Carleton Steins set his mind to it.
Interestingly, there is a similar sort of 'feel-good' issue in modern diesel-engine standards. The opacity concern in California is based on 'visible' soot, which is annoying but not particularly unhealthy as these things go ... the result being the idiot inclusion of a 'diesel particulate filter' that catches this material (all too much of which is a proximate result of other antipollution technology) and then has to be expensively (and fuel-inefficiently) 'regenerated' with rich oxygenated exhaust periodically. On the other hand, high-speed diesels, and in fact modern GDI engines, can produce a substantial amount of very small particles (we call them 'nanoparticles') which are a very significant potential health hazard. These breeze right through DPFs of any current kind, and attempts to mechanically filter them would be laughable if indeed technically feasible. As with steam, concentrating on visible emissions is not always the 'best' solution.
Born in 1968, I'm many years too late.
I never heard of the Ringelmann chart, but I know that steam was most efficient when they were running a clean stack.
Yes, my concern is that many of the nanoparticles we can't see are likely far worse than steam loco exhaust. Effectively we haven't accomplished much in all those years since, in air quality.
We learned in school that you can clean up the air, or water, to a certain amount for a "reasonable" or "doable" cost, but then beyond that each incremental improvement costs a lot more for questionnable or diminished gain. The law of diminishing returns holds true in environmental engineering.
I will never forget the article in Trains just a few years back, when the diesels were going from Tier 2 to Tier 3, that plainly said the (un-funded government mandated) cost to rebuild a diesel engine (every 10 years) was going to be $100,000 ADDITIONAL money just to meet Tier 3 emissions. Again, this is an unfunded mandate or tax on the railroads just for the "privilege" of remaining in business, for owning their "roads" outright, and paying taxes on all that owned real estate. So, on a railroad like BNSF, ten thousand locomotives times $100,000 added emissions cost every 10 years is REAL MONEY. Then I am shocked, overwhelmed when certain politicians have the clueless audacity to go on TV and say America has not done anything at all to clean up our emissions or the world's air quality. Clearly they were not paying attention in economics class.
Indeed, we are among the ONLY few who have made a difference in cleaning up the air. Other countries agree to whatever sounds good but don't actually implement anything. We are the only ones who have.
Respectfully submitted--