On many an occasion I have been unable to rationalize my interest and fascination with steam locomotives to either myself, my immediate family or to my peers. Although I can tick off a compendium of facts and historical footnotes to it's pedigree, the answer to this particular question eluded me.
I came across a DVD originally shot in 35MM that seems to explain this obsession in detail... so I thought I would post this for others to ruminate on...the fact that it has the Red Devil running like a Swiss watch at speed.. with nary a puff of smoke doesn't hurt either...neither does the footage of a working condenser locomotive at work...a film that bears repeated viewing. For what it's worth.
Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.
Thanks for the interesting video Link. I got to watch them first hand in 1984 on a three week trip to SA. It was an exciting time to watch steam again handling the freight and passenger trains, except for the Blue Train.
As for your question on Why Steam?? Just take a look at the crowds and watch their faces when the next steam engine shows up at a town near you. They are and always were magical in the sense they just make me smile and enjoy I watching them in action. While in South Africa, I spent every hour of the weekend standing or sitting in the car by the tracks until well after dark and was at the local servicing area again in the morning before daylight.
I even excused myself from a meeting with my customer one morning when the local train started switching the energy commision where I was installing a system. I had warned them ahead of time that I take pictures of steam trains and when one showed up outside the building, my time was on hold for a few minutes. Go Figure!
The Red Devil in 1984.
The last remaining condenser running on an excursion in May of 1984.
I think it is not unlike watching a trapeze act. There is a real mixture of fear and fascination. The engine moves inexorably toward you if you are close to the tracks, and you can feel the ground begin to tremble. The noise increases, and so does your sense that this creature is not a contained internal combustion conveyance, but is a compendium of balanced and dancing heavy metal shapes doing a series of intricate manoevers that the onlooking and casual human brains can't comprehend until they study them. The motion of the valve gear doesn't seem to be contributing to the forward or rearward motion of the beast, and yet it runs past you, smooth as silk but for the concussion, hissing, clanking, whining, and the roar. There is the visibly dripping water, the vapour and smoke. And as it flashes past, the enormity of it all, the darkening of one's field of vision as it fills it.... If you watch videos of people witnessing a steamer move past at speed, they invitably step back in respect, even when they are 10-20 yards away from the tracks.
The thing is the equivalent of a bumble bee....it shouldn't be doing that!!!
As a child, I knew the engine would stay on its path, but there was this lingering doubt, like trying to stand close to the path of a charging rhinoceros....will it or won't it?
-Crandell
selectorI think it is not unlike watching a trapeze act. There is a real mixture of fear and fascination. The engine moves inexorably toward you if you are close to the tracks, and you can feel the ground begin to tremble. The noise increases, and so does your sense that this creature is not a contained internal combustion conveyance, but is a compendium of balanced and dancing heavy metal shapes doing a series of intricate manoevers that the onlooking and casual human brains can't comprehend until they study them. The motion of the valve gear doesn't seem to be contributing to the forward or rearward motion of the beast, and yet it runs past you, smooth as silk but for the concussion, hissing, clanking, whining, and the roar. There is the visibly dripping water, the vapour and smoke. And as it flashes past, the enormity of it all, the darkening of one's field of vision as it fills it.... If you watch videos of people witnessing a steamer move past at speed, they invitably step back in respect, even when they are 10-20 yards away from the tracks. The thing is the equivalent of a bumble bee....it shouldn't be doing that!!! As a child, I knew the engine would stay on its path, but there was this lingering doubt, like trying to stand close to the path of a charging rhinoceros....will it or won't it? -Crandell
I couldnt agree with you more unless I had written your comment myself and I think theres another vital ingredient..that is this was the era wherein the relationship between man and his machine was important, an art mixed with a science...the ears listening for exhaust beats, the delicate feeding of the fire, quenching the thirst, leaning out a cab window in driving rain, the ballet between fireman and engineer..I would always as a youth be overwhelmed by the kinetic ballet of power and art, and the engineer was one with his machine..an incredible impression at speed.
How did a condensing steam engine create the draft for its fires?
Dakguy201 How did a condensing steam engine create the draft for its fires?
Johnny
selector I think it is not unlike watching a trapeze act. There is a real mixture of fear and fascination. The engine moves inexorably toward you if you are close to the tracks, and you can feel the ground begin to tremble. The noise increases, and so does your sense that this creature is not a contained internal combustion conveyance, but is a compendium of balanced and dancing heavy metal shapes doing a series of intricate manoevers that the onlooking and casual human brains can't comprehend until they study them. The motion of the valve gear doesn't seem to be contributing to the forward or rearward motion of the beast, and yet it runs past you, smooth as silk but for the concussion, hissing, clanking, whining, and the roar. There is the visibly dripping water, the vapour and smoke. And as it flashes past, the enormity of it all, the darkening of one's field of vision as it fills it.... If you watch videos of people witnessing a steamer move past at speed, they invitably step back in respect, even when they are 10-20 yards away from the tracks. The thing is the equivalent of a bumble bee....it shouldn't be doing that!!! As a child, I knew the engine would stay on its path, but there was this lingering doubt, like trying to stand close to the path of a charging rhinoceros....will it or won't it? -Crandell
Deggesty Dakguy201 How did a condensing steam engine create the draft for its fires? A blower is used to create the draft in a condensing steam locomotive. Unlike in a non-condensing locomotive, which needs the blower only when the engine is not moving, the blower is is the only source of draft. Johnny
The blower you speak about is not a typical blower by using steam as a normal steam engine uses. The draft is created by the contained exhaust turning a fan that creates the blower for the stack with the contained exhaust being returned to the tender fans.
The condenser has a normal blower when the engine is stopped, but when the engine starts up, the fan begins to make a grunting sound and the exhaust blower fan is turned by a shaft from an internal turbine run by the exhaust steam going back to the tender. The first time I heard it start up, I realized what was going on and talked to the crew about it later. It was strange to hear it make the sound but the actual smoke coming out the stack on start up sort of puffed in slow motion out sync exhaust since the internal turbine would speed up after the exhaust hit it causing a draft to lift the smoke up the stack. Stange but true.
Picture is worth a 1000 words.
Crandell
You certainly expressed the Why Steam in a way that I probably thought but never really put it on paper or LCD in my case. My feeling exactly and even more.
When the coal trains going north would approach my location, they always seem like they slowed down as they went past. After I thought about that change in sound, I realized the chuffs approaching me would tend to sound faster as the engine got closer because the sound waves would lag less as the engine approached. When they went by, the sound waves would start to lag more and more as the locomotives put distance between my location and sound like they were slowing down.
This is something that does not work in HO since the distance is not sufficient to add the extra time for the sound lag. You can see it in the whistles also as a train a thousand feet away blowing the whistle has close to a one second initial lag in the sound after you spot the condensation from the steam whistle.
We used to watch the NKP at Neoga and the 700 class Berkshires would slow to about 50 for the IC Diamond and then thottle to the roof again as they went north.
Here is one of my pacing shots in 1955 and it was all that it looks like and more.
The other thing about a locomotive under steam is that it has a certain quality that it seems to be alive in some sense. The sound is a big part of it. Even stationary, there are the gurgles and hisses of steam under the lagging, the bang and pop of thermal expansion, the shushing noise of the blower, perhaps jets of steam coming out of the cylinder drains or exhausted from the turbogenerator, the blum-blum-blum of the air compressor.
An idling Diesel locomotive has some sounds, but it is not quite the full experience of steam.
And forgive me if that nostalgia is not just for steam locomotives as I was part of a small crowd pressing against a fence in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, when the 18-cylinder radial turbo compounds of a Lockheed Constellation were started up. First you have the cranking of an engine, with a ground crew member poised with a fire extinguisher, the chug-chug of cranking, the gouts of flame coming out the exhaust pipes, the big billow of white oil and gasoline-laden smoke, and then the engine catching and reving. Then you get to watch this 3 more times. After that you have engine runup, repeated 3 more times, and then, I think you steam locomotive aficienados can use your imagination and get the idea.
Bear me this indulgence, but the Connie has to be the airliner counterpart to a N&W A-class articulated under steam.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Paul Milenkovic The other thing about a locomotive under steam is that it has a certain quality that it seems to be alive in some sense. The sound is a big part of it. Even stationary, there are the gurgles and hisses of steam under the lagging, the bang and pop of thermal expansion, the shushing noise of the blower, perhaps jets of steam coming out of the cylinder drains or exhausted from the turbogenerator, the blum-blum-blum of the air compressor. An idling Diesel locomotive has some sounds, but it is not quite the full experience of steam. And forgive me if that nostalgia is not just for steam locomotives as I was part of a small crowd pressing against a fence in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, when the 18-cylinder radial turbo compounds of a Lockheed Constellation were started up. First you have the cranking of an engine, with a ground crew member poised with a fire extinguisher, the chug-chug of cranking, the gouts of flame coming out the exhaust pipes, the big billow of white oil and gasoline-laden smoke, and then the engine catching and reving. Then you get to watch this 3 more times. After that you have engine runup, repeated 3 more times, and then, I think you steam locomotive aficienados can use your imagination and get the idea. Bear me this indulgence, but the Connie has to be the airliner counterpart to a N&W A-class articulated under steam.
Good point. I attended one of the air shows that hosted a B17 and one B25 a few years ago and when they started the engines and did a fly by, it was as you stated about being the counterpart to a favorite steam engine.
The sound of those radial engines starting up and running is absolutely great.
Speaking of steam, I watched the steam crew today on the diesel service rack while they are washing out the boiler on the 844. It will be back to the display area later today and under steam again tomorrow for the trip to Oroville on Thursday.
Your point about thermal expansion is an interesting observation also. The 4000 series Big Boys is said to expand the length of the boiler about 1 and 1/2 inches from cold to 300 lbs of steam. It is hard to imagine that type of expansion in a boiler, but all steam boilers expand and pop and bang as you described. The Union Pacific had a policy of keeping their locomotives hot near the maximum at all times on the road to prevent constant change in the expansion rate.
CZ
I am very happy that my description resonates with you, Gentlemen. In turn, Paul's experience with the Constellation is one I can recall, abeit in a distant way...I was only 8 years old at the time. But I left lots of oily nose prints on the inside surfaces of windows in any piston-prop I ever flew. It was soooo exciting to see the blades begin their slow spin, and then the billowing white smoke would emanate from the exhaust ports. I never understood until many years later that the engines on such large aircraft were twins with power recovery turbines added for good measure!
For all I have had great experiences in a jet and towed by a diesel, they lack what the snoots would term a "Je ne sais quoi." D'Oh! Did I just type that!?
I really do want to be terrified. Makes waiting in line-ups worth it.
Thanks for that link, Paul; you were right to raise it.
Paul Milenkovic Bear me this indulgence, but the Connie has to be the airliner counterpart to a N&W A-class articulated under steam.
Paul MilenkovicEven stationary, there are the gurgles and hisses of steam under the lagging, the bang and pop of thermal expansion, the shushing noise of the blower, perhaps jets of steam coming out of the cylinder drains or exhausted from the turbogenerator, the blum-blum-blum of the air compressor.
My parents and I were watching "The Grey Fox" starring Richard Farnsworth, about the Canadian train robber Bill Miner, in my living room when there was a scene of a CP steam engine supposedly stopped at the Kamloops, BC station. There was the sound of steam coming from the cylinder drains and my father said "Its been a long time since I heard that sound". It was the only thing he said during the whole movie, and the sound of his voice and the way he said it, was the highlight of watching that movie, that night.
AgentKid
So shovel the coal, let this rattler roll.
"A Train is a Place Going Somewhere" CP Rail Public Timetable
"O. S. Irricana"
. . . __ . ______
Even standing still, steam locomotives have a special aura.
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