Video of trial on the page...this is most definitely not a Stanley Steamer....extremely most cool..it looks like a Titan booster in operation
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20090825/tuk-british-team-smashes-steam-car-recor-dba1618.html
Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.
It's interesting that my Dad (b.1918) could remember both steam and electric-powered automobiles from his boyhood. I wonder what we might have now if that technology had continued to develop and not sat dormant for so many years??
Yeah, like what are they using for their boiler draft? Steam ejector as in 99.9% of the steam locomotives or a fan draft? Inquiring minds want to know this.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
wjstix It's interesting that my Dad (b.1918) could remember both steam and electric-powered automobiles from his boyhood. I wonder what we might have now if that technology had continued to develop and not sat dormant for so many years??
Something that doesn't get anywhere near the fuel mileage of a good modern IC engine? With Automobiles it's all about the power-to-weight ratio....
Having said that there are some R&D projects underway which are attempting to utilize a compact steam engine as a bottoming cycle on a gas/diesel engine i.e to recover the heat from the cooling and exhaust systems of the ICE and use it to generate additional power.
Who knows, that could even have RR applications...
"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
wjstixIt's interesting that my Dad (b.1918) could remember both steam and electric-powered automobiles from his boyhood. I wonder what we might have now if that technology had continued to develop and not sat dormant for so many years??
I was frankly astonished to find this vehicle existed and then astonished at it's form..using what is considered an obsolete technology yet looking so fearsomely futuristic. An odd juxtaposition like an inversion of the Jules Verne machines of the 19th Century in the Wild Wild West series. I would really enjoy seeing the actual speed run.
BTW I had never heard a Stanley Steamer car..check out the steam whistle on this automobile and the chuffing...going upgrade...gadzooks...sounds like a Porter, I have to have one! LOL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OwRX4HOc0E&feature=related
There were lots of steam powered cars back before WWI and a number that were made during the interwar period. Stanley was one of the better known ones. Others included Locomobile, White, Grout, and Doble. When I was a kid I had the privilege of riding in a Stanely Steamer Gentleman's Speedster back in the late 1950's. Our neighbor on the street where I lived collected old cars and had restored his to running condition. We took it out on a then brand new piece of 4 lane highway and he opened her up. We were tooling along around 60mph and all we had for protection were head goggles and wrap around scarves - it was quite a ride. The Stanley was a 1908 model so it didn't have a condenser. Since that morning was very cool you could watch the steam exhaust as it blew out from the back of the car.
An aside - the first car to do a mile in a minute was an electric and the first car to do 2 miles in a minute was a steam car. As for exhaust whistles - prior to WWII there were exhaust whistles that could be purchased for any kind of automobile exhaust - one can imagine the sound they made.
mersenne6As for exhaust whistles - prior to WWII there were exhaust whistles that could be purchased for any kind of automobile exhaust - one can imagine the sound they made.
I heard one that was on a Model T--mellow. I read that the sound of one was almost an invitation to step in front of car so you could hear the whistle.
Johnny
Anyone interested in steam cars might want to check out this site
www.auburnheights.org
A steam car hit over 125 mph in 1906. Someone of a mechanical bent explained to me how steam power in theory has almost unlimited speed.
Dave Nelson
Didn't tje New Haven have a steam doodlebug? Rebuild from an American Flyer coach and possibly returned to that condition?
daveklepperDidn't tje New Haven have a steam doodlebug? Rebuild from an American Flyer coach and possibly returned to that condition?
I can't answer for the New Haven but the Milwaukee Road had two. I recall an interior photograph from the engineer's cab and it was very cramped..I cant imagine what it was like to swelter in that "sauna" in the summer heat...even in Wisconsin...quite an exotic beast!
carnej1 --- snip --- there are some R&D projects underway which are attempting to utilize a compact steam engine as a bottoming cycle on a gas/diesel engine i.e to recover the heat from the cooling and exhaust systems of the ICE and use it to generate additional power. Who knows, that could even have RR applications...
--- snip --- there are some R&D projects underway which are attempting to utilize a compact steam engine as a bottoming cycle on a gas/diesel engine i.e to recover the heat from the cooling and exhaust systems of the ICE and use it to generate additional power.
Been there, done that. Google Kitson-Still Locomotive to see the result, using 1920s technology.
Kitson-Still marine steasels were moderately successful, but maximum horsepower was limited - and limiting. A modern seagoing vessel has more power in its auxiliary generator sets than the biggest Kitson-Still engine ever built.
Chuck
Google Besler steam train for some information on the NH car. Check out the next item on the Google page - the Besler steam airplane.
Rock Island also had a handful of steam motorcars with Ganz engines.
Here in England we are currently renovating an articulated 3-car steam railcar set at Quainton, home of the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre ( www.bucksrailcentre.org ). Mechanical parts built by Sentinel (Shrewsbury) Ltd with bodywork by Metro-Cammell of Birmingham, it was one of 10 sets supplied to the Egyption State Railways in 1951. Following discovery of its continued existance it was purchased by members of the Sentinel Trust and returned to the UK in 1985.
It features a 3-drum Woolnough (Yarrow type) oil-fired boiler working at 335 psi, with two 6-cylinder single acting engines 6" bore x 7" stroke fitted with sliding camshafts operating poppet valves giving three cut-offs in each direction. These drive the Power Car leading and trailing bogies. The set is fitted with Westinghouse automatic air brakes.
Elsewhere, two pre-war Sentinel-Cammell single railcars still survive. A 5' - 6" gauge one of the former Zafra - Huelva Railway in Spain, and a narrow gauge one in Ceylon. Both of these are single engined and have vertical Sentinel cross water tube boilers.
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