A former poster to the Trains.com forums, Juniatha, made the suggestion of a multispeed gearing between the turbine and drive wheels. This would reduce the steam flow at low speeds as the steam flow was almost directly proportional to torque and very weakly related to shaft speed.
- Erik
Jones 3D Modeling Club https://www.youtube.com/Jones3DModelingClub
Miningman Compare that to hundreds of millions of dollars of junked wasteful crappy designed Diesels, the horrible costs in breakdowns, delays, unreliability and exceptionally expensive maintenance costs and that barely made ten years of existence on the planet, a good portion of that time in the shop.
Compare that to hundreds of millions of dollars of junked wasteful crappy designed Diesels, the horrible costs in breakdowns, delays, unreliability and exceptionally expensive maintenance costs and that barely made ten years of existence on the planet, a good portion of that time in the shop.
"Over 6,700 locomotives of DRB Class 52 type were built across Europe for use on the Eastern Front during the Second World War. Thus, it was one of the most numerous steam locomotives in the world......"
The actual number of Class 52 built depends on the list and who prepared it....
"German War Locomotives 1939-1945" suggests that 6161 were built during the war. Other books suggest a total of 6718, including those built after May 1945.
The highest road number taken into stock by the DRB during the war appears to be 52 7793. There were numerous gaps due to orders not completed. Locomotives were supplied new to Romania, Turkey, Serbia and Croatia, some of which had 52 series numbers allocated and some not.
However there were 1107 locomotives of the class 50, from which the 52 was derived that were built as "Transitional War Locomotives", the later versions of which were indistinguishable from the Class 52 (at least from those 52 with bar frames rather than plate frames).
So there were more than 7800 War Locomotives with the same general dimensions built from 1939 to 1945.
It would be wrong to regard this as a triumph of traditional design. There were many modern features in the Class 52, with extensive welding of components not previously considered, including the boiler and firebox.
Peter
Not ignoring or overlooking anything. We just finished discussion on the Kriegslok war locomotive of which over 7,000 were made, many of them lasting up to the year 2000, and not all behind the Iron Curtain, count Norway, Austria and Turkey in that. . A simple, inexpensive design, easy to fix, easy to maintain, powerful as can be. Compare that to hundreds of millions of dollars of junked wasteful crappy designed Diesels, the horrible costs in breakdowns, delays, unreliability and exceptionally expensive maintenance costs and that barely made ten years of existence on the planet, a good portion of that time in the shop. To make it even worse throw in the cost of new perfectly good modern steam, all that wasted money on them, add that in. The infrastructure of coal towers, water towers, ash pits and the like already existed and was paid for eons ago. It was there, like my back door of the house, it served a purpose.
Throw in the human cost. Hundreds of thousands of skilled craftsman nationwide, and to tie in a wee bit with the Jim Crow Laws thread, the brunt of this affecting Black roundhouse and general labour workers.
No wonder deferred maintenance on track and massive losses on the books became normal. The passenger trains disappeared. More layoffs, more wasted money. If you think for a minute the Diesels saved the railroads then that does not pass the eyeballs test. All the proud, viable, built for the ages independant railroads are gone. Competition was eliminated not enhanced. Even today people still parrot the same tired old talking points as if the ArchAngel Michael descended down and decreed it so.
Ike saw it clearly and warned everyone.
Overmod Likewise, some form of Deem geared conjugation might be considered, and this in conjunction with a Langer balancer is by far the 'best' solution to the issue of conjugation in general. You'd still need some form of Ferguson-clutch arrangement between the engines, as rigid gearing would rapidly wear and die.
Likewise, some form of Deem geared conjugation might be considered, and this in conjunction with a Langer balancer is by far the 'best' solution to the issue of conjugation in general. You'd still need some form of Ferguson-clutch arrangement between the engines, as rigid gearing would rapidly wear and die.
Miningman Baloney! The development of the Diesel engine was true enough but it was 2 and half times costlier to purchase up front. Very expensive. Sizable fleets of Centipedes, Passenger Sharks Bp20's, FM opposed piston entries, Alco PA1's, RF-16 Sharks, even FA1's were a total waste of money and were junk in short order and that after sizeable maintenance headaches, costs, breakdowns and delays. Roundhouse backstops could rebuild, fix and repair steam locomotives quickly and efficiently. Pennsy and NYC would have done better to do exactly what you state the N&W did...hold out until bullitproof proven Diesel locomotives became available, even longer. They succumbed to pressure from a societal direction that was eager for a new world of massive consumerism and easy credit was waved in front of their faces especially by EMD. It was image, style over substance. It did nothing to save them at all, not a thing.
Baloney! The development of the Diesel engine was true enough but it was 2 and half times costlier to purchase up front. Very expensive. Sizable fleets of Centipedes, Passenger Sharks Bp20's, FM opposed piston entries, Alco PA1's, RF-16 Sharks, even FA1's were a total waste of money and were junk in short order and that after sizeable maintenance headaches, costs, breakdowns and delays.
Roundhouse backstops could rebuild, fix and repair steam locomotives quickly and efficiently. Pennsy and NYC would have done better to do exactly what you state the N&W did...hold out until bullitproof proven Diesel locomotives became available, even longer.
They succumbed to pressure from a societal direction that was eager for a new world of massive consumerism and easy credit was waved in front of their faces especially by EMD. It was image, style over substance. It did nothing to save them at all, not a thing.
Overmod It's interesting to consider designing a set of what would by that time have been tandem rods connecting the two driver pairs. These might have to be somewhat less in section than an equivalent 4-10-4 due to the divided drive cylinders, much as the PLM 2-10-2 from 1930 was, and the incremental balance weighting should have been accommodated in the 77" driver centers. But you still have the augment of a 10-coupled engine together with all the 'additional' moments of the mains, crosshead momenta, etc. that now act strictly in phase; not really much point in running numbers as you get less, not more result for the complexity.
It's interesting to consider designing a set of what would by that time have been tandem rods connecting the two driver pairs. These might have to be somewhat less in section than an equivalent 4-10-4 due to the divided drive cylinders, much as the PLM 2-10-2 from 1930 was, and the incremental balance weighting should have been accommodated in the 77" driver centers. But you still have the augment of a 10-coupled engine together with all the 'additional' moments of the mains, crosshead momenta, etc. that now act strictly in phase; not really much point in running numbers as you get less, not more result for the complexity.
I don't want to keep beating a dead horse, but ONE of the problems with the PRR Duplexes was more duplicate (hence the name), equipment to maintain. ( 4 cylinders doing the work of 2). (4 sets of rods doing the work of 2.) However, That is not what killed the PRR modern steam experimentals.. Oh no.. At the same time that was going on, there was a group of men working with Winton 2-cycle diesel engines connected to big DC generators. That soon turned into EMC, later known as EMD, and the rest, as they say, is history.. Can't compete with a unit that has almost no down time, and has a monthly, instead of hourly, maintainance window.
I love steam, I'll say that Norfolk & Western being married to coal, held onto their super Y-6's 'till 1960. But even then, they had to succumb to the EMD 567 wave.
Funny now, these days a GP-9 seems a relic. When was the last time you saw one on the head of a mainline hot-shot?
It's all relative to when you were born I suppose. The young kids today will soon look at an SD-70 and have the same melancholy that us old-timers have for the engines that we remember from our youth.
Todd
Jones1945Hello all. Do you think linking the 3rd and 4th set driver with a pair of rods would have saved the PRR Q1 or at least let her served more and longer? That would make it a 4-10-4 “Duplex” (?). Some books remain neutral about the performance of Q1, many books say it was a completely failure (I believe it was).
The Q1 was already lethally impaired by being an oddball one-off that didn't produce enough incremental power to justify all the construction expense (and maintenance complications).
Considering Withuhn conjugated duplexing, a 'solution' might have been achieved with inside cranks and a pair of quartered conjugating rods putting the two engines either in antiphase balance or 135-degree 'torque optimizing' at eight peaks per revolution. How practical it would be to make up the necessary frame, bearing, etc. modifications would involve much more detailed knowledge of the locomotive's construction than I have obtained; there are, I think, more substantial difficulties than for the ACE3000 (and many of the ACE3000s potential issues were, to put it charitably, more than a little glossed over, such as how driver-axle roller bearings would be implemented in practice on the two center driving axles...)
Naturally, some form of applied traction control would work far better than conjugation for most of the observed 'issues' with running a Q1 in anticipated 5/4ths-of-a-M1 service on head end express/mail services (the only sort of thing that made sense for it as designed, a strictly passenger engine "needing" to be 80" or larger in the PRR pipe-dream design continuum of that era, but I digress...) and for this the likeliest approach would be to provide cheek plates for the independent driver brakes and implement them as air-over-hydraulic lateral calipers with comparatively small running gap between pads and faces. Note that much of the 'loss' involved with using these even in full contact at starting or low speed is actually 'reversible' - think of it as expansion of the steam that doesn't happen as quickly as in 'equilibrium' with unrestrained acceleration - and you may benefit more than proportionally from thermodynamic "improvements" that decrease wall condensation, tract losses, etc. when the physical dwell of the steam per stroke is longer. (Naturally most workable forms of "jacketing" principle could be considered here). Likewise, using four Wagner 'throttles' in the four tracts would allow realtime 'trim' of one engine relative to the other even if only one common front-end throttle were provided for the locomotive itself -- and this could be arranged with the control technologies and methods available at that time. (Note that the arrangement to be used on T1 5550 involves a similar modulation of independent brake acting on the driver brakeshoes and rigging, which is a slower-acting and more constrained version of traction control but that should be adequate for both low- and high-speed slip on that locomotive in any prospective service.)
Hello all. Do you think linking the 3rd and 4th set driver with a pair of rods would have saved the PRR Q1 or at least let her served more and longer? That would make it a 4-10-4 “Duplex” (?). Some books remain neutral about the performance of Q1, many books say it was a completely failure (I believe it was).
But money already spent, the engine with 90000 TE was already there, PRR should have maxed out the use of this prototypes if small modifications could make the train run more than merely 65000 miles (1942-1946), it still worth a try.
Q1 was suffered from wheel slip of its rear engines, linking two set of engines together with a pair of rods might solve the wheel slip problem, but it was impossible to relocate the rear cylinders to a “cleaner” place or to make the firebox larger. Please feel free to share your thought!
M636C timz Jones1945 "Mallet of Borsig. The original was built in 1943 to carry a load of 1,700 tons at an 8-degree gradient. 148 tons and top speed 80 km/h" Anyone know the correct numbers? What tonnage was it intended to pull up what grade? The Germans tended to use gradients in "per thousand", one tenth of a "percent" grade. I suspect that the load quoted was on a 0.8 percent grade. Peter
timz Jones1945 "Mallet of Borsig. The original was built in 1943 to carry a load of 1,700 tons at an 8-degree gradient. 148 tons and top speed 80 km/h" Anyone know the correct numbers? What tonnage was it intended to pull up what grade?
Jones1945 "Mallet of Borsig. The original was built in 1943 to carry a load of 1,700 tons at an 8-degree gradient. 148 tons and top speed 80 km/h"
Anyone know the correct numbers? What tonnage was it intended to pull up what grade?
The Germans tended to use gradients in "per thousand", one tenth of a "percent" grade. I suspect that the load quoted was on a 0.8 percent grade.
M636C The book I mentioned above "War Locomotives 1939-1945" contains a production diagram. For two months in 1943, 505 locomotives were being completed per month. I don't think EMD ever reached that level, for example. On the other hand, Baldwin Lima and Alco must have built a lot of locomotives in 1942-1945, too. Peter
FYI,
Number of orders received from 1942 to 1945 in America were as follow:
Steam locomotive: 363,413,74,148 (Total=998)
Diesel:894,635,680,691 (Total=2900)
Electrict: 12,0,3,6 (Total=21)
Number of locomotive built from 1942 to 1945 in America:
1047,936,1012,1171 (Total=4166)
(These figures courtesy Railway Ages and Railway Mechanical Enginner)
Baldwin, Lima and Alco continued to build steam locomotives and some Diesel switchers over the war but they were also tasked with building tanks, artillery pieces and other wartime military needs. The Baldwin Sante Fe 4-8-4's, the Alco Big Boys and many other notables were produced during the war. The Pennsy 2-10-4's J1's and the C&O Alleghenies, B&O EM-1 and several others being notable.
The Kriegslok was a 2-10-0 Decapod, making Pennsys fleet of Decapods look minuscule in comparison. Not only that but a great many survived the war and were used all over Europe, mostly behind the Iron Curtain but some in Western countries, Norway and Austria come to mind, and for a long time afterward with some continuing on in service up to the year 2000.
It was inexpensive to build, tough as can be, easy to fix out on the road without having to 'bring it in', not complicated, and powerful. The very fact they were kept in service for 40+++ years after they were built is quite a testament. Perhaps Baldwin and Pennsy would have admired them.
Miningman Interesting film Overmod. Lots of Nar-zees...lots. So, (in the end), who blew that bridge to Kingdom come...the Allies, the Russians or the Germans themselves. We discussed before the "war locomotive' the Kriegslok, 7,000+ made in total. An amazing number.
Interesting film Overmod. Lots of Nar-zees...lots.
So, (in the end), who blew that bridge to Kingdom come...the Allies, the Russians or the Germans themselves.
We discussed before the "war locomotive' the Kriegslok, 7,000+ made in total. An amazing number.
Overmod Jones1945 I don't know what is the function of the condenser on the tender of this version... Reducing the effective water rate. Note that it is possible this only involves recovering part of the exhaust, not going to the trouble of implementing a full draft-fan rebuild (with expensive and hard-to-maintain components; did Henschel figure out before the War how to make char-resistant fan configurations as on the latter South African class 25s?) and I think that is what you see here. I also seem to remember that some quasi-condensing design arrangements retained a full blastpipe front end for use when the full capacity of the condenser was not needed (or could not be achieved).
Jones1945 I don't know what is the function of the condenser on the tender of this version...
Reducing the effective water rate.
Note that it is possible this only involves recovering part of the exhaust, not going to the trouble of implementing a full draft-fan rebuild (with expensive and hard-to-maintain components; did Henschel figure out before the War how to make char-resistant fan configurations as on the latter South African class 25s?) and I think that is what you see here.
I also seem to remember that some quasi-condensing design arrangements retained a full blastpipe front end for use when the full capacity of the condenser was not needed (or could not be achieved).
It seems that Locomotive using condensing tender was very rare, this pic is Class 25 and Type CZ condensing tender from South Africa, c. 1970. Looking at it makes me feel thirsty.
Speaking of German Locomotive, one of my favoite had a similar fate like PRR S1, which is the BR 06 001 and 002, the only two "Northern" type German ever made, also the most powerful two. The smoke lifters on them was something the PRR T1 really needed.
M636CThe perceptive publishers felt that a new title might better suit their market so it was retitled "Wheels must Turn" apparently a wartime propaganda message.
Indeed it was, more completely as "Räder müssen rollen für den Sieg", and you can watch YouTube clips that contain it, as here:
One wonders whether 'Wheels must Roll for Victory' is really all that different from Ziel's title, and of course it would have been familiar to many prospective readers?
Jones1945"Mallet of Borsig. The original was built in 1943 to carry a load of 1,700 tons at an 8-degree gradient. 148 tons and top speed 80 km/h"
Jones1945I don't know what is the function of the condenser on the tender of this version...
M636C ......Locomotives with condensers were built for service on the Russian front owing to unreliability of water supplies for locomotives. The condenser allowed longer runs between stops for water. The Soviet Railways had built condensing versions of the SO class 2-10-0 prior to WWII for the same reason......
......Locomotives with condensers were built for service on the Russian front owing to unreliability of water supplies for locomotives. The condenser allowed longer runs between stops for water. The Soviet Railways had built condensing versions of the SO class 2-10-0 prior to WWII for the same reason......
Locomotives with condensers were built for service on the Russian front owing to unreliability of water supplies for locomotives. The condenser allowed longer runs between stops for water. The Soviet Railways had built condensing versions of the SO class 2-10-0 prior to WWII for the same reason. The 2-6-8-0 was intended for service in Russia, so a condensing version seems quite reasonable, although I haven't seen any drawings of one. The model includes a a pipe on the left side for conveying exhaust steam to the condenser. There is however no indication of the fitting of an exhaust fan to replace the blast pipe since no steam would be exhausted to the atmosphere. The tender is the type fitted to the Class 52 2-10-0 and would probably be too small for normal service on the 2-6-8-0. It does allow the model manufacturer to issue another model where the lack of a prototype must reduce the chances of criticism.
M636C ......One of these is fairly well known, as a result of Maerklin making a model of an early Borsig suggested design, a 2-6-8-0. Maerklin gave it a road number in the "53" series, but with a 20 ton axleload it would have had a number in the "40" group, "46" being the lowest available. Borsig's other proposal was a three cylinder 2-10-4 with a booster and coupling rods on the trailing truck, giving a wheel arrangement of 1' E 2'b h3.
......One of these is fairly well known, as a result of Maerklin making a model of an early Borsig suggested design, a 2-6-8-0. Maerklin gave it a road number in the "53" series, but with a 20 ton axleload it would have had a number in the "40" group, "46" being the lowest available. Borsig's other proposal was a three cylinder 2-10-4 with a booster and coupling rods on the trailing truck, giving a wheel arrangement of 1' E 2'b h3.
Very interesting, Peter. I wish there is a book record all the proposed, never built locomotive around the world! Some pic of the 2-6-8-0 avalible on the web:
"Mallet of Borsig. The original was built in 1943 to carry a load of 1,700 tons at an 8-degree gradient. 148 tons and top speed 80 km/h"
Overmod ......I had thought all the PRR eight-wheel trailing trucks were radically different in both construction and principle from the ATSF version (which much more closely follows Buckeye principles, like those in a three-piece freight truck). This adds particular interest to the use of this particular design on so fast a locomotive.
......I had thought all the PRR eight-wheel trailing trucks were radically different in both construction and principle from the ATSF version (which much more closely follows Buckeye principles, like those in a three-piece freight truck). This adds particular interest to the use of this particular design on so fast a locomotive.
ATSF 2912's tender trucks, a different arrangement of brake cylinders.
The only one pic of S1's tender from Hagley, note the Builder Plate was painted in DGLE except the number of the locomotive before it was sent to 39 World Fair.
I thought I might mention a couple of little-known Duplex designs that remained unbuilt, and probably for the best.
I was looking at German War Locomotives 1939-1945 by Alfred Gottwalt. It mentions the broad gauge railway and illustrates a two unit turbo electric condensing locomotive roughly similar to that illustrated in an earlier post. It also mentions that Adolf Hitler was concerned that 3m gauge (10'0") might not be adequate and that it should be increased to 4 metres....
It does go into greater detail on larger standard gauge locomotives intended for use in Russia. These were to be built to a 20 ton axleload, while the Russians themselves were concentrating on locomotives of 18 tons axleload, and I'd guess the Russians knew more about the track than the Germans.
One of these is fairly well known, as a result of Maerklin making a model of an early Borsig suggested design, a 2-6-8-0. Maerklin gave it a road number in the "53" series, but with a 20 ton axleload it would have had a number in the "40" group, "46" being the lowest available. Borsig's other proposal was a three cylinder 2-10-4 with a booster and coupling rods on the trailing truck, giving a wheel arrangement of 1' E 2'b h3.
There were a couple of 2-12-0 and 2-12-2 designs, generally three cylinder but eventually someone suggested a 2-14-0 which was, amazingly, two cylinder so described as 1'G h2.
However, eventually the Vienna Locomotive Works suggested a Duplex. Someone had been reading about Emerson's work for the B&O and what emerged was a 2-6-6-2 with cylinders each end and a choice of two water tube fireboxes, with and without combustion chamber. What could possibly go wrong?
The Germans managed to lose the war (and more particularly the Russian campaign) without assistance from any of these designs, and the 42s and 52s performed well enough for the Russians to keep many of them right up to the end of steam, although Warsaw pact nations found that they were offered many, possibly without the option of refusal.
This book had a subtitle "Railways in World War II, part 2"
The back cover describes "part 1" which was a reprint of Ron Ziel's book "Steel Rails to Victory" translated to German. The perceptive publishers felt that a new title might better suit their market so it was retitled "Wheels must Turn" apparently a wartime propaganda message.
Jones1945Is that fan-shaped thing inside the red cycle, which supporting the weight of the firebox and cab on the trailer truck is the "inverted-rocker centering device" aka stabilizing rocker?
Yes. Note also the inclined planes on the part of the frame that rests on the roller to provide the restoring force, and the substantial casting that the 'foot' of the roller rests on, a kind of 'chair' that bolts to the trailing-truck frame casting in the kind of place visible in some of the other pictures.
I had thought all the PRR eight-wheel trailing trucks were radically different in both construction and principle from the ATSF version (which much more closely follows Buckeye principles, like those in a three-piece freight truck). This adds particular interest to the use of this particular design on so fast a locomotive.
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