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Articulated Engine Question

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Articulated Engine Question
Posted by spikejones52002 on Monday, March 10, 2008 10:39 AM

I was looking at a link from Classic trains forum. It led me to PRR's T1, S1 & 2, and Q engines.

Were all split or dual driver steam engines articulated (all railroads)?

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Posted by selector on Monday, March 10, 2008 11:47 AM

No.  The engines you mention were classified as Duplex drives.  They were indeed two engines under one boiler, but neither engine was on a pivot.  So, that meant the T1 had to rely on track with very wide curves...although they seemed to do well in the yards in which they worked.

The other articulated engines, such as the Mallets from the N&W and the simple steam Challengers and such were just that...articulated.  Their front engines swiveled on an pin (?) of some arrangement...I haven't actually seen this.

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Posted by timz on Monday, March 10, 2008 2:27 PM

PRR S-1, T-1, Q-1 and Q-2-- nothing dual about the S-2, of course. And the B&O 5600 (?)-- was that all, in the US?

How common were nonarticulated-but-unconnected drivers in Europe or elsewhere? How many other engines were there like Webb's compounds on the London and North Western?

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Posted by J. Edgar on Monday, March 10, 2008 3:10 PM

 

 the CB&O had various Vauclain compounds around 1890-1900 in a few wheel arrangements with a high and low pressure cylinder on each side one top of the other...as far as i can recall that was the largest fleet of coupled compound engines in the US...most well heeled lines and most engine manufacturers experimented with various things in the US but good ol' fashioned simple coupled locomotives were king

 England had many compound engines of different classes and wheel arrangements that were really successful....Deeley made some wonderful 3 cylinder compounds for the Midland around 1905 that lasted thru ww2 as one example ..there are many others

  Compounds ran amuck in Europe

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Posted by timz on Monday, March 10, 2008 4:45 PM
What I was asking is, how common were non-articulated engines that had one or two cylinders driving one or more driving axles, and another one or two cylinders driving some other drivers that weren't connected to the first ones? Were Webb's compounds the only ones, aside from the US duplexes?
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Posted by J. Edgar on Monday, March 10, 2008 9:01 PM

 

 

   in the US the good ol' fashioned simple coupled    i.e.  1 cylinder on each side coupled to all drivers....was most common.....Pennsy's duplex's minus the T-1's were 1 offs....anything else can be considered experimental only

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Posted by JonathanS on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 7:33 AM
 J. Edgar wrote:

 

 

   in the US the good ol' fashioned simple coupled    i.e.  1 cylinder on each side coupled to all drivers....was most common.....Pennsy's duplex's minus the T-1's were 1 offs....anything else can be considered experimental only

The T1 wasn't the only Duplex locomotive that Pennsy had more than 1 of.  There was one prototype Q2 followed by 25 production locomotives.  All saw service.

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Posted by J. Edgar on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 8:33 AM

i stand humbly corrected

 

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Posted by tomikawaTT on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 5:51 PM

I vaguely recall having seen a photo of a German (?) 8-drivered loco with four sets of cylinders and motion, all in one rigid frame.

The first Belgian-built locomotive with a Crosti system boiler had a rigid frame, 2-4-2-4-2 IIRC, under the main boiler, with 0-6-2 frames hinged to each end.  That was about the least-strange thing about it!  (4 sets of motion, 20 drivers, two boilers end-to-end, three crew none co-located, the engineer shared his cab with a huge flue-gas joint and a steam-powered brake compressor, all for a measly 3,000HP - well within the capability of the infinitely simpler USRA Mikado.)

The Vauclain compounds, and the Santa Fe tandem compounds, were conventional in design.  The high and low pressure cylinders were 'coupled' at the piston rods.

Mallet-design locos are 'semi-articulated,' in that the rear engine (driver set) is fixed rigidly to the boiler.  The front engine is hinged at its rear, and supports the boiler on a sliding plate.  A spring-loaded centering mechanism kept the front engine movement under control laterally.

Chuck

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Posted by martin.knoepfel on Monday, March 17, 2008 12:55 PM

The Belgian Franco-Crosti engine was articulated. It served as a pusher, I think on a steep grade near Liège/Luik in the Southern coal-and-iron-region of Belgium. Only a prototype was built.

The former Soviet-Union had a prototype with a 4-14-4-wheel-arrangemnt in a rigid frame. It was replicated. AFAIK, it only made test-runs ruining the switches. The soviets continued with conventional 0-10-10-engines of which they had several thousands.

Duplexes have a tendency to be slippery. However, the French (Chapelon?) designed a 2-10-2-duplex for heavy freight, but there, there was an internal rod connecting the two sets of drivers.  

In Europa, there were a lot of two-cylinder-compounds. It was difficult to distinguish them from non-compound-two-cylinders because for esthetical reasons, the smaller HP-cylinder was shrouded as to look as thick as the LP-cylinder. AFAIK, the British railways in pre-nationalisation-era had two-cylinder-compounds with internal cylinders.

@tomikawaTT. Aren't you talking about the Bavarian-mallets, 0-8-0+0-8-0?

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Posted by ndbprr on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 9:45 AM
The ideas behind nthe PRR engines was to decrease the size of the pistons and the weight of the rods.  This would cause less track damage, lighte components and greater efficiencies.  the Q2 were loved by crews.  The T1s had crews that hated them and crews that loved them.
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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 9:59 AM

B&O also had a duplex-drive rigid-frame 4-4-4-4, class N-1.  The cylinders for the rear set were to the rear of the drivers (like the PRR Q1) and this restricted the size of the firebox.

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Posted by markpierce on Friday, March 21, 2008 10:26 PM

What about this?

Mark

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Posted by GDRMCo on Saturday, March 22, 2008 6:38 AM
 markpierce wrote:

What about this?

Mark

Its a Garrat, and it is articulated. Wiki or google it 

ML

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Posted by CSSHEGEWISCH on Saturday, March 22, 2008 10:14 AM
A good place to start would be "Articulated Locomotives", by Lionel Wiener.  It was originally published in the 1920's and covers every imaginable kind of articulated locomotive and a few which you might not have imagined (Klien-Lindner) or would not think of as articulated (Shays).
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 markpierce on Saturday, March 22, 2008 12:30 PM
 GDRMCo wrote:
 markpierce wrote:

What about this?

Mark

Its a Garrat, and it is articulated. Wiki or google it 

A Garratt is articulated into three parts:  the central boiler-cab section supported by either end with articulated superstructures having their own sets of cylinders and drivers.  The above locomotive has only two parts: (1) the boiler-cab-fuel section which has  a set of swiveling drivers, and (2) the forward articulated section with the water tank and a set of drivers.  This is quite a modern locomotive.  It has a sophisticated lubrication system and was built in 2006 in South Africa for the Argentine owner.  This locomotive is Garratt-like but is more similar to the earliest Garratt than the later ones.  Still, I'm not ready yet to call it a Garratt.

Mark

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Posted by tomikawaTT on Saturday, March 22, 2008 3:28 PM
 markpierce wrote:
 GDRMCo wrote:
 markpierce wrote:

What about this?

Mark

Its a Garrat, and it is articulated. Wiki or google it 

A Garratt is articulated into three parts:  the central boiler-cab section supported by either end with articulated superstructures having their own sets of cylinders and drivers.  The above locomotive has only two parts: (1) the boiler-cab-fuel section which has  a set of swiveling drivers, and (2) the forward articulated section with the water tank and a set of drivers.  This is quite a modern locomotive.  It has a sophisticated lubrication system and was built in 2006 in South Africa for the Argentine owner.  This locomotive is Garratt-like but is more similar to the earliest Garratt than the later ones.  Still, I'm not ready yet to call it a Garratt.

Mark

Most respectfully beg to differ.  The pictured locomotive is a rebuild of an Argentine-built (in 1994) copy of the original Tasmanian Bayer-Garratt.  Note the plumbing connection and tank cutout behind the cab, identical to the same things at the smokebox end of the boiler.

The 1994 build had significant flaws, which the 2002 rebuild corrected.  For all the gory details, Google Argentine Garratt locomotive.

Chuck

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Posted by markpierce on Saturday, March 22, 2008 8:04 PM
 tomikawaTT wrote:
 markpierce wrote:
 GDRMCo wrote:
 markpierce wrote:

What about this?

Mark

Its a Garrat, and it is articulated. Wiki or google it 

A Garratt is articulated into three parts:  the central boiler-cab section supported by either end with articulated superstructures having their own sets of cylinders and drivers.  The above locomotive has only two parts: (1) the boiler-cab-fuel section which has  a set of swiveling drivers, and (2) the forward articulated section with the water tank and a set of drivers.  This is quite a modern locomotive.  It has a sophisticated lubrication system and was built in 2006 in South Africa for the Argentine owner.  This locomotive is Garratt-like but is more similar to the earliest Garratt than the later ones.  Still, I'm not ready yet to call it a Garratt.

Mark

Most respectfully beg to differ.  The pictured locomotive is a rebuild of an Argentine-built (in 1994) copy of the original Tasmanian Bayer-Garratt.  Note the plumbing connection and tank cutout behind the cab, identical to the same things at the smokebox end of the boiler.

The 1994 build had significant flaws, which the 2002 rebuild corrected.  For all the gory details, Google Argentine Garratt locomotive.

Chuck

Sorry Chuck, I was there, took the picture, and examined the locomotive first-hand.  It is exactly as I described.  I read the railroad's literature stating its built date.  The railroad formerly served a penal colony's logging railroad, but it now serves cruising-ship tourists and advertises itself as the southern-most railroad in the world.  The railroad has a track gauge of about 18 inches.  The railroad has at least one other similar, but apparently older, locomotive, as well as an 0-8-0 mechanical diesel locomotive which served as helper on the first part of the journey.

Mark 

Mark

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Posted by markpierce on Saturday, March 22, 2008 8:27 PM

Chuck, the locomotive I believe you are referring to ( http://www.5at.co.uk/FCAF-No-2.html) is a different one.  Notice the differences in shapes of water tank and boiler.

Mark

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Posted by markpierce on Saturday, March 22, 2008 8:37 PM

Here is the website discussing the pictured locomotive:

http://www.internationalsteam.co.uk/trains/newsteam/modern41.htm

Mark

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