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Steam that could have been

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Posted by dinodanthetrainman on Friday, March 27, 2015 10:31 AM

      The N&W J class had less maintenance cost than the southern e units. I think that steam locomotives would have been able to keep up in that regard.

      The desel's flexibility is the reason why I was considering MU with diesels and not a two steam locomotive three crew member MU alone.Two men in one cab and one man it the other.

      Would a administrator please remove my redundant post from Thursday, March 26, 2015 1:44 PM I would appreciate it very much

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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Friday, March 27, 2015 7:06 AM

Redore

Diesels didn't win the war with steam on the road, it was won in the shops.

That's a point that often gets overlooked.  Diesels also won with their flexibility, the four GP9's that matched a 4-8-4 on the main line could also be broken up to outperform a 2-8-2 on a branchline or an 0-8-0 in pulldown service at the hump yard.

The daily commute is part of everyday life but I get two rides a day out of it. Paul
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Posted by Redore on Thursday, March 26, 2015 11:57 PM

In the 1950's when Baldwin was exiting the steam locomotive business, DMIR was very happy with their almost new Yellowstones.  They bought a stockpile of parts that would keep them running until at least 1970.  In the late 50's - early 60's these parts were all scrapped.  Once they got them, the economics of diesels were just too compelling.

 

It sure would have been nice to see big steam in regular use well into the taconite era.

 

Diesels didn't win the war with steam on the road, it was won in the shops.

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Posted by dinodanthetrainman on Thursday, March 26, 2015 4:37 PM

I did a google search and found some information on the Super 800s.

http://utahrails.net/up/super-800.php

There are of cors lots of trains that you can find pitchers of  but very little about
like the santa fe cab forward 6-4-4-2 duplex.

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Posted by dinodanthetrainman on Thursday, March 26, 2015 1:44 PM

There are ofcors thos trains that you can find pitchers of  but very little about.

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Posted by dinodanthetrainman on Thursday, March 26, 2015 1:18 PM

I did a google search and and found some information on the Super 800s.

http://utahrails.net/up/super-800.php

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Posted by Leo_Ames on Wednesday, March 25, 2015 6:49 PM

I suspect that if such a drawing exists, it's in the archives at the Union Pacific Railroad Museum.

I don't think it ever progressed far enough along to get to Alco for their input and I don't see what an outside supplier like GSC would've had to do with that area, so I doubt it survives in the holdings of any other corporate archives like the holder(s) of the Alco archives (I know that Syracuse University has at least some of it). 

I believe the UPRM holds all of Union Pacific's steam era documentation like mechanical drawings. At least some of this design work is extant, as seen here and there over the years like the sideview in Steam Glory from Kalmbach a few years back. 

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Posted by dinodanthetrainman on Wednesday, March 25, 2015 1:42 PM

I am glad to see people posting again I don't want to see this thread die like all of the others. Was that four-stack arrangemen like the one on the PRR S2 or somthing more advanced?

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Posted by Wizlish on Tuesday, March 24, 2015 11:10 PM

Leo_Ames
There were a couple of never built designs of Northerns for Union Pacific, nicknamed by fans as 'Super 800's'. A design from 1942, and an expanded version with several enhancements from 1945.

You might know this:  Who has detail drawings of the four-stack arrangement that was supposed to be on the FEF-4s?

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Posted by Leo_Ames on Tuesday, March 24, 2015 10:12 PM

There were a couple of never built designs of Northerns for Union Pacific, nicknamed by fans as 'Super 800's'. A design from 1942, and an expanded version with several enhancements from 1945. 

War priorities and then dieselization ended both of these before they got off the drawing boards.

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Posted by Wizlish on Tuesday, March 24, 2015 8:38 PM

CSSHEGEWISCH
 
dinodanthetrainman

if it could MU with diesels,

 

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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Tuesday, March 24, 2015 7:35 AM

dinodanthetrainman

if it could MU with diesels,

If that is one of the requirements of a modern steam locomotive design, why build it in the first place?

The daily commute is part of everyday life but I get two rides a day out of it. Paul
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Posted by dinodanthetrainman on Monday, March 23, 2015 11:47 AM

Here are some locomotive consepts.

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Posted by dinodanthetrainman on Friday, September 26, 2014 11:28 AM

I have came to realize advantages of a Lewty booster.

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Posted by dinodanthetrainman on Friday, September 26, 2014 10:46 AM

I think the N&W and the PRR both could have benefited from a class of 2-10-4 larger than the PRR J class if this class of locomotive had double Kylpor exhaust, feedwater heater, air preheater, mechanical lubricator, a practical water treatment roller bearings, if it could MU with diesels, if it had a 8 axle tender and 6 axle water canteen. Then that is the best I can come up with.

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Posted by Overmod on Saturday, March 22, 2014 11:32 AM

friend611
Speculation on this subject has been covered in other threads, and it appears to me that N&W put its eggs in one basket with its "big three" A, J and Y6- and was content with the development of the Y6 and A for freight power, that is, until Jawn Henry. This focus may be one of the reasons that the Y7 was never revived.

What I think more interesting is the parallel 'track' that was taken with reciprocating-steam evolution during the period when the turbine project was under way.  And I say 'evolved' advisedly: I think the eggs were put squarely in the turbine basket for everything 'new' except the M2 Automatic project, certainly after about 1951, and a subject for discussion is how this situation may have changed when it became increasingly apparent that the BLH-Westinghouse version of the STE was going to be an operational disaster, but that costs and limitations of reciprocating steam were increasingly difficult to accommodate. 

Another subject of possible interest (about which I'm ill-equipped to comment) is the extent to which N&W could have adapted their facilities to turn out substantial components of steam-turbine locomotives, particularly if the 'switch' to GE electrics mentioned by Louis Newton had come to pass.  There's a lot involved in transitioning to 600 psi water-tube fabrication... but nothing I think of showstopping difficulty.  Where I see the critical issue arising is this:  If Westinghouse hexapole motors were being cooked, GE's motors were not likely to stand up any better.  Meanwhile, N&W had been taken in by Baldwin's assertion -- I have a stronger word for it! -- that the 4500hp TE1 as capable of relatively high-speed operation in service.  In order to make a STE design 'competitive' with a proportional-admission Y6 variant (which I believe would have been capable of working up to 50 mph compound with reasonable efficiency) some fairly substantial engineering changes would have been necessary. Seems to me at least plausible that a recursion to the sort of hybrid mechanical drive for the V1 might have been reconsidered, in light of the rather dramatic failures of contemporary electric drive observed first on C&O and then later in the end-stage testing of the TE1 -- this being largely separate from main-generator considerations, important as those were.

I firmly believe most of the difficulties with the steam side of the watertube system could have been overcome, and we know from other sources that the boiler design would 'scale' to 6000hp equivalent.  It might be interesting to contemplate a 2-8-0+2-8-0 with TE/speed characteristics following those PRR calculated for the V1... which were, at nominal 8000shp, starting TE above 115,000 lb, and 25,000lb remaining at 85 mph...

... and if you don't happen to like the watertube-boiler limitations, N&W could easily improve the Q2 boiler design... here was a bully reason to check how that boiler would fit one of the N&W chassis arrangements to deliver Allegheny-size power without Allegheny overweight... or even adapt a regular boiler to the turbine chassis at less heroic water rate requirements.  After the late '40s this would have become as serious a maintenance cluster as it was anywhere else, but it was something N&W did longer and arguably better than anyone else could...

In any case, I think a big simple-expansion 2-8-8-2 is lacking in performance envelope by comparison.  In my not-so-humble opinion.  Not that it was in any way a bad design... just that the future, by the time it became 'buildable', had moved to better possibilities.  (I repeat that if there had been a reason to build it for wartime service, it would have been valuable not just on N&W but elsewhere in the nation... so there is more to the story than we easily see.)

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Posted by friend611 on Saturday, March 22, 2014 12:02 AM
The development of the Y7 as regards the Y6b may have been a possibility if the N&W had continued development of the Y-class 2-8-8-2. This would mean if N&W had continued with building steam locomotives past 1953, which may be beyond the purposes of this thread. Speculation on this subject has been covered in other threads, and it appears to me that N&W put its eggs in one basket with its "big three" A, J and Y6- and was content with the development of the Y6 and A for freight power, that is, until Jawn Henry. This focus may be one of the reasons that the Y7 was never revived.
lois
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Posted by Overmod on Friday, March 21, 2014 10:33 PM

The Y7 would almost certainly never have been a compound design; the purpose was to obtain a relatively high-speed 16-coupled engine (with minimal weight on 'idle' axles) for faster line freight service.  You will recall that the thing which 'cancelled' the Y7 was the proposed Government restriction on train length that Ed King mentioned in his book on the A.  But perhaps more importantly, after that restriction was lifted... and then, during the war years... the Y7 remained cancelled.   We could speculate on the reasons for that, but as I have no direct knowledge, I defer to the N&W experts here.

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Posted by friend611 on Friday, March 21, 2014 8:43 PM
I expect if the Y7 development had been continued, some changes would have been made. With the Y6b, that would have certainly affected the further development of the Y7. However, I do not know regarding how successful the Y6b was, if the Y7 had been changed to a compound design.
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Posted by Overmod on Friday, March 21, 2014 11:02 AM

friend611
Would this include discussion of the N&W Y7?
lois

In my opinion, it certainly would.  Be aware that Juniatha has already commented at some length on the Y7 'as designed', in one of the older threads, and those comments are worth reviewing before taking up the discussion anew.

Much of what the Y7 could have accomplished in practical N&W service was achieved by the 'late' Y6 improvements, and the booster valve.  In my opinion, much of the remaining advantage of 'simple' over advanced compound could have been made with comparatively simple control changes to a booster-valve system, having the effect of equalizing equivalent piston thrust between HP and LP over the full range of service speeds, and taking advantage of better materials and lightening techniques in the running gear to reduce dynamic augment on the LP engine to acceptable levels.

I think that much of the detail design of the Y7, particularly parts of its boiler, would have been changed if the development had continued.  (I am still waiting expectantly to read that part of Voyce Glaze's notes that deal with the evolving Y7.)   I do see very little advantage for a simple-expansion 2-8-8-2 over an improved 2-6-6-x, however, for any service not within the capability of an 'improved' Y6 at lower water rate.

In any case, adopting the PRR V1 layout for a locomotive with '16 drivers' would have led to a better locomotive all around... but that is another story, and one which had a very different ending on N&W.

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Posted by friend611 on Thursday, March 20, 2014 11:10 PM
Would this include discussion of the N&W Y7?
lois
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Posted by Overmod on Thursday, March 20, 2014 11:36 AM

This is good, and you've solved the thread retitling problem.  But now we have two threads with identical titles, one with all the old posts, and a second one with the 'junior Jawn' proposal. 

I recommend that you rename one of them to something different of your choice, perhaps reflecting 'alternate history' of particular lines of steam development vs. what's possible with current practice.

I too would like to see blueprints of the actual 4-8-6.  There is a tantalizing pencil drawing of what is obviously a derivation of the locomotive at the Casey Jones Museum in Jackson, Tennessee (it's of a 4-10-6 with external Cardan-shaft valve drive); there is a Karen Parker take on a 4-8-6 (but this uses an Allegheny firebox and trailer grafted on, which is manifestly wrong-sized); there is the famous 'long compression' advertisement that Hirsimaki features in his book on Lima.  I have seen a copy of what is basically a Greenbrier J3a modified with the larger firebox (note how the driver size 'fits') but I don't think this was an 'official' Lima drawing.  That does not mean there's nothing on the Web, just that I haven't seen it. 

We'll just have to wait for Juniatha to decide to show us her 4-10-6 details.

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Posted by dinodanthetrainman on Tuesday, March 18, 2014 3:04 PM

Ok considering all of that.

First off how did this happen don't get me wrong I am glad i didn't want to see this thread go.

Second I agree with Overmod

Overmod

Juniatha

@ users Overmod and dinodanthetrainman

You are - again - hiking the thread !

In my opinion, this thread, with all the posts in it, needs to be retitled to SOMETHING that is not one of Juniatha's names.  Or Dinodanthetrainman needs to make up a new thread title and 'recover' all the unsuitable-for-Juniatha's-thread postings into that new thread.

Otherwise there will be a great deal of what the Controller called 'confusion and delay' as people go forward and backward trying to figure out who is doing what in which thread.

My preference would be to have three 'open' threads going forward:

One thread that is conventional evolution of reciprocating locomotives from the late '40s on: no turbines, no fancy Porta SGS, no 'eclectic' designing.  That would be, for example, a safe home for Juniatha's 4-10-6 and some of the other evolutionary designs she has done.

A second thread for 'unconventional' advances in steam motive power from the late '40s on.  Some of which were clearly superior to reciprocating steam in a number of ways -- just not as 'good' as electrics or diesels.  Note that this would be essentially a HISTORICAL thread: no developments that were not practical with contemporary technology, in contemporary service, with contemporary types of maintenance, etc.

The third thread is one of the 'Extreeem steam' threads -- pick it, II or III.  (Now that we have two, we could decide on some sort of formal difference, and I'll let Juniatha decide what she'd want that to be since she originated them both). 

But the situation as it is is untenable, and should be fixed.

RME

I think that this one should be the this one should be the second thread kiping all past post as a resource.

This page is the only relevant results for any Google search lima stillborns like the 4-8-6 I hopped to find drawings or plans. The only problem is I do not  know how to rename a thread

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Posted by Overmod on Monday, March 17, 2014 2:12 PM

Juniatha

@ users Overmod and dinodanthetrainman

You are - again - hiking the thread !

The problem is that this is now Dinodanthetrainman's thread, somewhat confusingly titled with Juniatha's original thread title, one word added. 

In my opinion, this thread, with all the posts in it, needs to be retitled to SOMETHING that is not one of Juniatha's names.  Or Dinodanthetrainman needs to make up a new thread title and 'recover' all the unsuitable-for-Juniatha's-thread postings into that new thread.

Otherwise there will be a great deal of what the Controller called 'confusion and delay' as people go forward and backward trying to figure out who is doing what in which thread.

My preference would be to have three 'open' threads going forward:

One thread that is conventional evolution of reciprocating locomotives from the late '40s on: no turbines, no fancy Porta SGS, no 'eclectic' designing.  That would be, for example, a safe home for Juniatha's 4-10-6 and some of the other evolutionary designs she has done.

A second thread for 'unconventional' advances in steam motive power from the late '40s on.  Some of which were clearly superior to reciprocating steam in a number of ways -- just not as 'good' as electrics or diesels.  Note that this would be essentially a HISTORICAL thread: no developments that were not practical with contemporary technology, in contemporary service, with contemporary types of maintenance, etc.

The third thread is one of the 'Extreeem steam' threads -- pick it, II or III.  (Now that we have two, we could decide on some sort of formal difference, and I'll let Juniatha decide what she'd want that to be since she originated them both).  Perhaps one of them should get the engineered designs, and the other get the wild mega-Garratt and regenerative-steam-braked proposals...

But the situation as it is is untenable, and should be fixed.

RME

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Posted by Juniatha on Sunday, March 16, 2014 2:49 PM

@ users Overmod and dinodanthetrainman

You are - again - hiking the thread !

This thread , to repeat what can be read in my intro :

This is *not* about unconventionals !

Your posts belong to the thread 'Extreem Steam - about unconventionals II'

which I had especially set up for Overmod to blow his mind about plenty of unconventional and extra drives applications , auxiliaries and appurtenances .

Because of this hiking I have given up posting anything in this thread anymore , especially I see no use in posting some *conventional* ( i.e. in lin with 1940s Super Power steam as built ) designs of mine like the 4-10-6 I wanted to post if discussion would have proceeded in the direction described in my intro to this thread .  

Since nothing about *conventional* or classic steam is coming forward in this thread I will herewith close it .

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the theme .

Regards

= J =

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Posted by dinodanthetrainman on Friday, March 14, 2014 5:02 PM

Thank you Overmod! Smile, Wink & Grin

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Posted by Overmod on Thursday, March 13, 2014 4:03 PM

Easily done, and commented on fairly extensively in the various 'modern steam' threads here.

As noted, all the necessary equipment to run steam locomotives 'together' had been developed by the early 1920s, and the necessary (analog) improvements in things like control amplifiers were developed in conjunction with radio, automatic train control, and long-distance telephony in the decade of the '20s. 

Integration with EMD-style MU control to control diesels (from the analog throttle and cutoff controls) is a bit more difficult, because the "throttle" position is essentially digitally determined (4 relays, 4-bit control for the eight notches) and loading rate is only incidentally associated with the governor settings -- so you need either a cam or electronic approximation of its functionality to get control without weird short-term latency effects.  But in my opinion, nothing that couldn't be practical in the '30s.

  The interesting thing is that it's not that difficult (albeit with different mechanisms) to control the steam locomotive relative to MU diesel control input.  You need an air throttle (like the ThrottleMaster) and precision reverse with a modified Valve Pilot device, with quick and positive transition from one reverse position to another, and reasonably positive 'locking' or position-holding.

Once you have the ability to get to an automatic or semi-automatic set of firing controls in case of 'anomaly', much of the objection to MU operation of steam goes away.   What you are left with then is the necessary union agreements... and it might have been interesting to see whether the union 'take' on MUed steam power with a fireman on each unit might have been.  In my opinion, utterly pointless to imagine a 'team B-unit' as (1) you need the cab and most of the control systems for the "fireman", and the additional (air) followers for throttle, reverse, independent, etc. are almost trivial in cost; and (2) there is far less operating economy with the size of a 'unit' being as large as it would LIKELY have to be with automated steam at appropriate scale employing multiple attendants... with the operating economy to match contemporary diesels net of all costs.

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Posted by dinodanthetrainman on Thursday, March 13, 2014 12:24 PM

What about multiple unit control requiring only 1 crew member to a locomotive and a engineer in either the lead locomotive or a control car no unattended firing.

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Posted by dinodanthetrainman on Sunday, March 2, 2014 12:43 PM

Thank you I do not like cab-forwards. :)

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