I'm surprised Kalmbach hasn't made more of it here (they published the book) but Walter Simpson's "Turbine Power" has been out since late January.
As I recall, he asked several questions back while he was researching for this book, and I'd temporarily forgotten how interested I was in the likely result -- now here it is!
Has anyone read it yet? Are there any opinions?
(Short ISBN 1627007350, long ISBN 9781627007351)
I find it amusing that, at this very early post-publication date, there are already a number of "used" copies on the market, including one that supposedly has a 'remainder mark'. Not sure how that can possibly be, but you can get a copy in your hands for just a smidge over $19 via Amazon.
Overmod,
It's not for you....
To quote the review on the Kalmbach "Shop" page:
"There are some technical data, but not enough to make the average reader shy away".
It does appear to list all of the steam and gas turbine locomotives in the USA actually completed, with the exception of the small US Army unit...
It apparently discusses the proposed nuclear locomotive (but doesn't appear to list the EMD gas generator turbine FG-9 which was definitely partly built...)
The best book on steam turbines is:
"Locomotivbau und Dampftechnik" by Wolfgang Stoffels published by my favourite Swiss publisher Birkhauser.
Of course you have to be able to read German and it is heavy with data and drawings. Stoffels also wrote a much smaller book on steam and gas turbines which did include the FG-9 and the bigger USA turbines.
To return to the new book, the sample pages give the full contents pages and a couple of examples of entries.
Peter
As I recall Stoffels also wrote 'Turbotrains International', a German-language book on Garratts, and something about Chinese locomotives. Are his other books as good as the one mentioned?
It sounds like this is a book for "beginner" like me... I really want to buy it, but for a book in such size, there are only less than 10 pages on PRR S2, C&O M-1 and N&W TE-1. I want much more than something like a Wiki article so I am not sure... In Keystone, there are almost 20 pages on S2, another 17 pages on Q1 alone.
"Locomotivbau und Dampftechnik" by Wolfgang Stoffels is available for purchases as an ebook but there is no English version of it...
Jones 3D Modeling Club https://www.youtube.com/Jones3DModelingClub
Jones1945"Locomotivbau und Dampftechnik" by Wolfgang Stoffels is available for purchases as an ebook but there is no English version of it...
If so, that would vastly simplify the opening in Chrome and native application of 'Google Translate' to get a first pass through the prose. Much of it will not make sense as "translated", of course, and there will probably be many untranslated or mistranslated technical words or expressions -- but you'll be a very long way toward figuring out what the problem areas are...
I only have the two Stoffels books, and I finally found the turbine book.
The Gas Turbine book is:
"30 Jahre Gasturbinenlokomotive 1933-1962" self published in 1964
I got my copy maybe 20 years ago second hand for $9.95
The 30 years was the anniversary of a Swedish locomotive that was truly unusual. Built by NoHAB with a strange Gotaverken diesel as gas generator. The engine was a four cylinder opposed piston engine with an attached two cylinder air compressor on the same frame. The compressor acted as a compressor for the brake system and a supercharger for the engine. The upper pistons of the opposed design also acted as compressors of the exhaust gases having the form of half a Pescara gas generator which fed a turbine geared to a jackshaft. The locomotive started out as 1'B 1' but was rebuilt as a 1'C1'. It looked a lot like the type D 1'C 1' electrics in its final form. It ran until 1937 when its power unit was transferred to a harbour tug which lasted until the late 1940s.
A quite different looking locomotive, T1 was built with a similar five cylinder engine after WWII.
One locomotive I hadn't heard of was a recuperative cycle turbine ordered by the Santa Fe in 1947. The turbine was built and tested by Elliott but the locomotive was never assembled. It was a 2' Do' Do' 2' to be built by Baldwin, and would have presumably had a body like the diesel Centipedes.
The Swedes had some diesel turbo-compond locomotives where a turbocharger was able to be geared to the output shaft and fuel could be added to the turbine inlet. This added 300HP to a 1500HP diesel with some advantage in fuel consumption.
There are plenty of diagrams of locomotives and the turbine plants themselves. A comparison of the ATSF Elliott turbine with the Swiss Brown Boveri turbine indicates that they had a very similar arrangement.
A number of Russian designs are included, including a coal fired unit with heat exchanger and oil supplementary firing.
It is an excellent book (and includes the US Army Davenport turbine).
A minor correction to the above. There is an artist's impression of the Baldwin-Elliott turbine in E.D. Worley's "Iron Horses of the Santa Fe Trail". No technical details are provided, however.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.