I don't know when it's going to happen, but eventually the steam locomotive speed record is going to be broken. This isn't a thread about unofficial record-breakers (no PRR 7002, PRR T1, Milwaukee Road A1 or the like). This would be about what the locomotive would need to be.
Would you:
Use an existing locomotive upgraded for the run? (ATSF 3463)
Or build a new locomotive for the run? (LNER 60163 Tornado)*
*I'm only using Tornado as an example of a new steam engine
I would say build a new locomotive for the run, why risk any historic artefacts? That being said, something like this would cost a TON of money for no good purpose. As cool as I think steam is, breaking the steam record would be a pointless accomplishment. What for? Steam's not coming back, not for general use anyway. I'd rather see the money applied to more steam restorations or finding good homes for homeless steamers.
Still, it would be cool...
If you want to learn the actual steam speed record, here's the formula:
S = H + C
Where H is the maximum hull speed and C is the maximum catapult shoe velocity. That's for a steam catapult on a Nimitz class carrier (those reactors power steam turbines.) Just the catapult itself usually exceeds Mallard's record.
Chuck (Long ago engineering Cadet-Midshipman)
Why would anyone be interested in braking the 1938 speed record of 126 mph of a steam loco and invest a fortune into it, when the current world speed record for trains is set at 357 mph?
Sir Madog Why would anyone be interested in braking the 1938 speed record of 126 mph of a steam loco and invest a fortune into it, when the current world speed record for trains is set at 357 mph?
That's a similar situation to the land speed record for wheel-driven cars, which is about 403 MPH, while the overall land speed record is supersonic.
I do admit it would be prohibitively expensive and practically pointless, but that doesn't make it completely unattainable. The last commercially viable steam-powered auto was produced back in the 1920s-30s and one set a speed record about 1911 for a steam-powered car. When the steam car became obsolete, it looked as if it wouldn't ever be broken. Then in 2009, the British Steam Car Challenge Team Inspiration broke the record going 139 mph. It broke the record again the next day at 148 mph.
Was it pointless? The only significant reason was that it was the longest-standing automobile record.
Was it expensive? I don't know much about it, but a Popular Mechanics article about the team stated that the team made major repairs after every run. It sure wasn't cheap.
My point is, don't say the cost and practicality will ensure Mallard's record is never broken.
Short answers: For reciprocating locomotives, just too expensive to design new, from scratch, with the very tentative exception of something like the 5AT.
If you 'must' have a new reciprocating locomotive for the required speed range, the PRR duplexes represent the 'right' starting point. Very little would need to be done to a T1 to make it a high-speed locomotive despite its much greater frontal area.
The hands-down 'willer' would be multiple Cyclone-type steam generators feeding a long-expansion turbine driving the UT Megagen developed for the ALPS locomotive. Trucks, suspension, and TMs as in the aforementioned 357mph French adaptation, if you really have detail questiohs about the running gear.
A reciprocating locomotive is inherently ill-suited to very high speed because lateral force is required to stabilize yaw and hunting, and steer the chassis into curves. Note that high-speed trucks implicitly separate thrust from lateral compliance... that's what, for instance, the long bolster springs do...
RME
G'day all, Enjoying this thread.
Overmod ... The hands-down 'willer' would be multiple Cyclone-type steam generators feeding a long-expansion turbine driving the UT Megagen developed for the ALPS locomotive. ...
... The hands-down 'willer' would be multiple Cyclone-type steam generators feeding a long-expansion turbine driving the UT Megagen developed for the ALPS locomotive. ...
Please sir a little more details between the lines. When I searched "UT Megagen" I got heaps of returned items about a Megagen being a FDA approved dental implant from the University of Texas, obviously from the context not what Overmod had in mind.
Thanks, Shawn
Let's put it this way: If there's someone out there with a lot of money who thinks it's Gods mission for him on this Earth to break the world steam speed record, I certainly won't stand in his way and I don't expect anyone else will either. I still doubt the wisdom of such an attempt in this day and age but hey, it's not up to me to tell anyone how to spend his money or what to spend it on.
Sunday, Jan 6 2013 2:09 PM Overmod wrote in part;-
Overmod Short answers: For reciprocating locomotives, just too expensive to design new, from scratch, with the very tentative exception of something like the 5AT. If you 'must' have a new reciprocating locomotive for the required speed range, the PRR duplexes represent the 'right' starting point. Very little would need to be done to a T1 to make it a high-speed locomotive despite its much greater frontal area.
Flowing the T1 president would also be my gut instinct if speed records where the principle aim of the exercise. Skipping over RME's turbine hands-down 'willer' he continued;-
Overmod A reciprocating locomotive is inherently ill-suited to very high speed because lateral force is required to stabilize yaw and hunting, and steer the chassis into curves. Note that high-speed trucks implicitly separate thrust from lateral compliance... that's what, for instance, the long bolster springs do... RME
Interestingly the one resent (1979) serious design I know of for a high-speed steam locomotive would've really shook up the whole reciprocating locomotive physics debate. When I first saw this back in 1980s I incorrectly assumed it was a flight of fantasy for some science fiction film. In reality it was a professional work by Luigi Colani (the famous sports car designer). A 1979 Coal-Dust-Powered Steam Locomotive proposal for Siberia's Baikal-Amur Mainline [BAM].
http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/05/extravagant-designs-by-luigi-colani.html
The driver-wheel linkages are even stranger on Colani's official English website! Have no idea how that is suppose to work?
http://www.colani.org/luigi_colani_Product_design_museum/Trains.html#3
W.Shawn Gray
I don't think that Colani design's SUPPOSED to work. It seems more in the vein of an intellectual exercise or a flight of fancy design.
Warp engine nacelles would make more sense on it than drivers and connecting rods.
Casey Jones: "Warp Factor One, Mister Webb!"
Sim Webb: "Say WHAAAAT?"
It's already in the works....
"In order to further prove the viability of biocoal and modern steam technology, CSR plans to test the locomotive in excess of 130 miles per hour, out-performing any existing diesel-electric on the market and breaking the world steam speed record. In light of this achievement, CSR has named this endeavor: “Project 130.”"
http://www.csrail.org/
Yeah, that's the Santa Fe 3463 rebuild project, heckuva discussion going on with that topic!
One of the big issues with high-speed steam traction is the control of the unbalanced masses. The German class 18 201, currently the fastest operating steam loco in the world, is limited to 100 mph for that, although it could go 115 mph and even beyond.
In the early 1940´s, Deutsche Reichsbahn developed a steam loco employing piston engines in a V set-up for each axle.
The steam motorised locomotive no. 19 1001 was a German, express train steam locomotive with the Deutsche Reichsbahn.
In 1941 Henschel delivered this fully streamlined trials locomotive with factory number 25000. The proven method of a single-axle drive to each axle used on electric locomotives was adopted for this locomotive. The four driving axles were therefore each driven by a separate steam-driven motor. On regular test runs, this loco reached speeds up to 120 mph, but it was never tested for speed, due to the war. It was believed to be capable of speeds way beyond the 126 mph mark. During its short service life, the loco was compelled to pull freight trains.
At the end of the war, it was shipped to the US, and was scrapped in 1951. It never ran in the US.
Sir Madog
Would I be correct in assuming that the wheel sets that don't have steam pistons in the view from the picture on this side of the locomotive have steam piston machinery on the other side of the locomotive.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Sir Madog One of the big issues with high-speed steam traction is the control of the unbalanced masses. The German class 18 201, currently the fastest operating steam loco in the world, is limited to 100 mph for that, although it could go 115 mph and even beyond. In the early 1940´s, Deutsche Reichsbahn developed a steam loco employing piston engines in a V set-up for each axle. The steam motorised locomotive no. 19 1001 was a German, express train steam locomotive with the Deutsche Reichsbahn. In 1941 Henschel delivered this fully streamlined trials locomotive with factory number 25000. The proven method of a single-axle drive to each axle used on electric locomotives was adopted for this locomotive. The four driving axles were therefore each driven by a separate steam-driven motor. On regular test runs, this loco reached speeds up to 120 mph, but it was never tested for speed, due to the war. It was believed to be capable of speeds way beyond the 126 mph mark. During its short service life, the loco was compelled to pull freight trains. At the end of the war, it was shipped to the US, and was scrapped in 1951. It never ran in the US.
http://www.american-rails.com/class-w1-besler-type.html
"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
You would be correct in thinking there are a pair of V-2 motors on the other side.
Gottwaldt, among other things, has a number of detailed blueprints of this locomotive, including the plan view showing the steam lines. I have not yet seen a detailed analysis of the development of the running gear, but there were substantial changes to the torque links locating the engines. Apparently the Government went to some pains to avoid scrapping the engine, even offering to return it to the then-DB at cost. No one was interested. If there hadn't been a Korean War demanding scrap steel...
Doug Self describes the French motor locomotive on his site, and includes some fairly well-detailed views of the motors.
Colani is... well, comments so far adequately describe the 'reality' of this design. You need go no further than the inward-canted drivers (derived no doubt from racing-wheelchair practice) -- thrust moments are all wrong, drive rods are all wrong (he seems to have been copying one of the ACE balanced arrangements and then decided the inside rods would work just as well outside!) -- but wrongest of the wrong is the absence of stout cross-axles between drivers. I am not sure where he gets his bearing technology, perhaps from Ideal Systems in Cambridge with the rollers and races made of pure unobtanium...
The single-driver design, looking like a shrouded Big Single, might be... somewhat... more buildable. Just not particularly fast except in a straight line...
Don't misunderstand -- I admire Colani's artistic vision, and his 'take' on a Class VIII truck was a formative influence on my design thinking. Given a short education in the realities of steam, he might come up with something interesting indeed...
It was hard to top the Taiga Drum as potential power for the BAM, but Colani has managed it hands-down...
W.Shawn:
Short approach: google ALPS FRA (and drill down when you start to see hits on the Advanced Passenger Locomotive project). At some point you will get to the UT mechanical engineering publications page. I don't have a list of relevant papers handy, but what you're looking for is the power source for the SDI launch devices (including railguns and large laser systems). Last I looked, the papers with clickable links were free to download.
[EDIT: revised page of readable publications is here.]
Most of the papers describing the ALPS are no longer mentioned on UT's Web site or in the CVs of its principal investigators. I am not certain why this has come about, and decline to break out the tinfoil hats and Iron Ball tooth amalgam. But it is not difficult to re-create the locomotive power approach from the details of the generator design.
Let me know if you still have issues with this and I'll see if I can send you anything.
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