Lithonia OperatorI had been under the impression (until I read the SP-related book) that to be a Mallet it had to be a compound articulated, period. So I never thought of simple articulateds being Mallets or "Mallet-style." I may be wrong, but I think the great majority of North American articulateds were simples.
Technically that is correct, "true" Mallets were compound engines, simple engines were just articulateds. In practice, since the first articulateds were Mallets, many railroaders (and railfans) just got in the habit of calling all articulateds "Mallets" (pronounced "Malley" usually).
There are a lot of things like that. I work in taxes, so when I hear people say "I got my return check from the IRS today" I always want to say "No, you filed a 1040 return, and got a refund check"...but I usually don't bother.
Remember that all these simple articulateds use Mallet's method of chassis articulation. The only reason we don't call them "Mallets" is in deference to the inventor's express wishes that any 'Mallet' had to involve his compounding as well as his hinging.
It should be perfectly fine to use the M-word when discussing hinged articulateds as there's very little likelihood in North America that you'll see a different chassis arrangement. Duplexes are the usual source of trouble (probably from railfans who have seen the toy versions that usually swivel both engines to negotiate tight tinplate curves!) but since neither Garrarts nor Meyers were tried here (with reciprocating engines) if you have two engines and one boiler it's a Mallet-pattern chassis. (We'll correct you if you just say 'Mallet' but explain why... and be understanding if you choose to keep calling them Malleys thereafter.)
I think the same names are used here in Australia.
My understanding is that the "tax return" is the document I submit listing my earnings.
Then I get a bill and send the Australian Tax Office the extra amount I owe them. I did get a refund cheque in 1976 and possibly a couple since then, but more often I owe money to the ATO.
Peter
Peter,
The US is slightly different. The Form 1040 is used to calculate taxes owed or refunded based on income, various deductible expenses and taxes paid as part of witholding or estimated tax payments. If taxes are owed, those would normally be sent with the return, billing typically only comes about if the IRS disagrees with the way the return is prepared, failure to report income. This bill will usually include penalties.
How about keeping "taxes" out of this conversation unless you want to be beat over the head with a "Mallet"!!!
.
If it's a Y6b, I won't mind.
I wouldn't mind if it was a C&O H-6...
How about "Skookum?" She was silent and laying on her side in the mud all those years so I'm sure she has a lot of frustrations to work out!
M636C I think the same names are used here in Australia. My understanding is that the "tax return" is the document I submit listing my earnings. Then I get a bill and send the Australian Tax Office the extra amount I owe them. I did get a refund cheque in 1976 and possibly a couple since then, but more often I owe money to the ATO.
Yes the 'return' is the tax form (1040 for the US Internal Revenue Service) you file each year. The return form and a payment if you owe additional tax are both due April 15th. If the IRS corrects your return and you owe more money, you would usually be subject to interest if it's after April 15th, but would be given a period of time (I think 30 days or 60 days?) to pay before a late payment penalty is assessed.
Not sure how withholding from income is done in Australia, but in the US a lot of people choose to have more than the standard amount of withholding taken out of their wages. That way, they don't have to worry about having to pay extra, and often get a large refund each year.
wjstix "...Yes the 'return' is the tax form..."
"...Yes the 'return' is the tax form..."
Oh, my. Haven't heard that song in a long time.
Same me, different spelling!
Ya, afraid I don't get the connection?
Shirley,You're not that dense!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJag19WoAe0
And don't call me Shirley.
Hello -
(yes, I'm back again - please
welcome *) back my friends
to the show that never ends
*me)
gee ..
Uhm, that said, my comment on that question should be:
If you already go so far as to totally Americanize that French
name of Mallet (spoken Maijét) into 'Malley'
(sounds much better for a whiskey, doesn't it?)
then you have sort of dispensed with your care about the mode
of expansion. Further, although the two items according to
Monsieur Mallet were supposed to go together
(some old European inventors could be quite stuborn heads
once they had come to look at certain matter from their own
branch in a tree - one of the last such patrons probably was
Wankel, who was so obsessed with getting rid of the reciprocating
action of pistons in engines that he remained blind towards the
impracticability of a stretched out sickle shaped combustion chamber
as concerns todays all-important fuel efficiency. Likewise, when the
Wankel engine had been brought to become sturdy and longer
lasting by the Japanese who had become equally devoted to the
principle, then again there could have been a discussion if those
Far East series engines should still be called Wankels - there had
been a couple of further inventions and improvements made by
the engineers of Mazda that were essential to make that type of
rotary piston engine run and last. As far as I know that sort of
discussion never broke out, instead Wankel lovers happily drove
their Mazda sports cars and listened to the turbine-like humming
of the engine at high rotational speeds.
In a similar fully practical sense US railroads when they found the one
principle not fully up to their demands, yet the other was a great
help to get further coupled axles round their curves, they simply
(yep!) got rid of that more questionable part and happily exploited
the other to sizes never thought of before - and still called these
engines Mallets - or, hey, Malleys - and never had a problem.
Likewise, although of much smaller scale, when biking to
the university I followed a small beaten track over a
meadow, on the other side I continued on the street
again - athough the path went on again much further.
Still, I never followed it fully and so couldn't even say
where it led to, neither did I have a problem by saying
I follow that part of that path and never cared to call it
differently just because I used only part of it.
See what I mean?
Last word: I you want to be precise you can always
call a simple expansion Mallet just that way - or
Simple Malley and the other a Compound Mallet.
That about clears the horizon, doesn't it?
All the best for 2021!
Juniatha
When I was a seven-year-old steam freak I got a box of railroad "flash cards" for Christmas. Boy was that fun! It was there I first saw the word "Mallet" applied to a steam engine.
"Mallet? Mallet?" I wondered. "What does it do, hammer the rails?"
Hey, I was seven. What did I know?
Flintlock76 "Mallet? Mallet?" I wondered. "What does it do, hammer the rails?" Hey, I was seven. What did I know?
I think I have described how I worked this out circa age 5. I had seen pictures of Rio Grande articulated locomotives, probably L-131s, in Trains described as "Mallets" and reasoned this was because of the 'hammer' at the upper boiler front (I did not know what an Elesco feedwater heater was at that age). My mother had a bicycle equipped with an English headlight, which had a reflector and visor that looked like those on a steam locomotive, with cylindrical D battery holders extending to either side, and I imagined that that looked like a "Mallet" engine as she rode it.
I should probably go back through the Complete Collection and find the original reference... just out of nostalgia.
My goodness, Rebecca!
that whould be down my alley, too ...
Yet I doubt any Mallet was ever built from / or was fired by Malley's ...
Hi Flintlock
...and it did hammer the rails - didn't it?
=J=
Juniatha Hi Flintlock ...and it did hammer the rails - didn't it? =J=
Oh probably, if the engineer got a little too agressive on the throttle!
You know, another card I remember from that boxed set had a picture of the NYC's 999 on one side and the story on the back. Seven year old steam-freak me was thrilled at the last sentence:
"No diesel has ever matched 999's speed of 112.5 miles an hour."
"YEAH!" I said! Mind you, this was 1960. Things have changed since then, and not all for the better. At least Malley's Candies are still around.
I should order some on line...
While NYC&HR 999 is alleged to have attained 112.5 MPH, it took two major rebuildings (reboilering and smaller drivers) to turn it into a reasonably practical locomotive.
CSSHEGEWISCHWhile NYC&HR 999 is alleged to have attained 112.5 MPH, it took two major rebuildings (reboilering and smaller drivers) to turn it into a reasonably practical locomotive.
In any case, 999 herself was not designed to be a 'practical' locomotive for regular traffic, and management at the time actively disparaged the idea of particularly high-speed trains for any practical service (see Vanderbilt's infamous quote in context).
There were some interesting practical design details of 999's boiler that I don't think are popularly recognized. Again, I think this represents an interesting target for an 'achievable' replica effort ... but one with extremely limited practical excursion use, so don't expect it to happen without angel investment...
CSSHEGEWISCH While NYC&HR 999 is alleged to have attained 112.5 MPH, it took two major rebuildings (reboilering and smaller drivers) to turn it into a reasonably practical locomotive.
To add to what the Mod-man said, 999 was built as a "showboat" and attention getter, and it did that in spades! Certainly it was no more practical than a Formula One racecar would be for a family car, but it sure made everyone sit up and take notice of the New York Central!
And how many other steam engines have made their way on to a US postage stamp?
NYC & HR predecessor Hudon River RR had some pretty high-wheeled engines in the 1850s, with cast iron centers. Even before 999 they seemed to have a need for speed, pushing then-practical limits at 50 MPH.
A 4-4-0 with huge 84" drivers was quite capable of hauling a string of 5 or 6 short all-wood passenger cars at speed. It was as cars began to get longer and heavier - and as cars switched from individual car stoves to steam from the engine - that they proved inadequate.
Keep in mind too one important limit on train length is the ability to stop the train. Before airbrakes, trains had to be short in order to be stopped with just the engine and (on freight trains anyway) the car's handbrakes. Airbrakes brought longer trains, requiring engines better designed to pull them.
Flintlock76
I wouldn't say a Formula 1 car was too unpractical to go shopping at Walmart for instance ...
... only, you'd need a trailer to put your shopping in. And a trailer hand-made 1-piece by Mercedes or Ferrrari as well would cost - let's see - uhm - by ten and .. wrzloutsh .. uhm - well, more than .. too expensive!
No, just for the extravagant - not to mention grounding on the exit of the basement car park right up at the sidewalk where everybody would be glad to lend a hand ...
Quoting Overmod. "There were some interesting practical design details of 999's boiler that I don't think are popularly recognized. "
Well, I was only born in 1976 -
if you don't say, how should I know?
So what was it?
JuniathaQuoting Overmod. "There were some interesting practical design details of 999's boiler that I don't think are popularly recognized. " if you don't say, how should I know?
This used a 'water arch' rising from fairly low at the rear tubesheet to high in the backhead, largely dividing the 'radiant section' into two volumes; there was a comparatively small opening (Forney calls it a circular one, about 18", 2/3 of the way back)
I have not been able to verify whether the steam jets that produced "a flow intended to entrain the gases" actually worked to improve combustion-gas flow. They are not the same thing as jets to assist the effect of draft in the front end with the engine running at high demand. (See Engineering News v25 n14, Apr 4 1891)
Photo of what I believe is a genuine Mallet, B&O 2-6-6-2, photo June 1949, near Connolsvile, PA, photo from the-right-front window of a West Penn iinteruban car:
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