Overmod John-NYBW I found this picture of Alleghany 1604: https://live.staticflickr.com/2922/14031124424_7dd06e3427_b.jpg Anybody know where it's located? Looks like the Roanoke Transportation Museum days (pre-1985 flood, and of course pre-VMT). I tried to find pictures of the locomotive at the shopping center but couldn't -- someone like Mike will manage.
John-NYBW I found this picture of Alleghany 1604: https://live.staticflickr.com/2922/14031124424_7dd06e3427_b.jpg Anybody know where it's located?
https://live.staticflickr.com/2922/14031124424_7dd06e3427_b.jpg
Anybody know where it's located?
Looks like the Roanoke Transportation Museum days (pre-1985 flood, and of course pre-VMT).
I tried to find pictures of the locomotive at the shopping center but couldn't -- someone like Mike will manage.
I watched them bring it to Baltimore and build the shopping center. I was selling MATCO TOOLS in those days, and that area was in my territory.
Sheldon
Overmod,
Another anticdotial story. Not to go too far afield here, and fully agreeing with your assessment of the engineering science, sometimes machines do defy our understanding of the science, or, often by luck or accident, fall into some perfect balance of the science.
My story: In 1977 I restored and hot rodded a 1963 Chevy Nova SS convertible. Powered by a warmed over 283, w/327 high output heads and cam, Holley, headers, etc. Likely in the 300 hp range, with maybe similar torque.
But my driveline was unusual. It had an M20 four speed with the lower first gear commonly supplied in larger, heavier cars like the Impala. And in had the typical auto trans 3.08:1 ratio 10 bolt rear axle.
The Nova was a light car, and even a V8 convertible was under 2400 lbs.
So here are the well tested performance specs of my little hot rod.
0 to 60 mph - 5.5 seconds
Standing 1/4 mile in street trim - consistantly just under 15 seconds.
Fuel economy - 13-14 mpg city, 22 mpg highway, both if you kept your foot out of it.....
Now for the one only a few "experts" believe, top speed.
The car was equipped with a 160 mph speedometer made from Corvette parts and measured to be reasonably accurate. It was also equipped with a tachometer.
On only two occasions did I test its limits in this area, but both the speedometer and the math from the tachometer readings suggest that the car exceeded 130 mph.
RPM to road speed charts I worked up for the car back then suggest that the driveline combination optimized the power curve of the 327/350 hp heads and cam I had in the 283, giving it just the right balance of torque and power to achieve this speed without running out of rpm.
Did it really go 130 mph? I'm not sure, but it had to be close. And while it may have run out of power soon, it was still pulling when I let off the gas.
Tinplate Toddler IRONROOSTER Well if you just want it for display, Revell makes a non-operational HO plastic kit for considerably less than an operational model. I don't know how the detail compares to others. For my taste, this model looks exactly like what it is - a cheap plastic model.
IRONROOSTER Well if you just want it for display, Revell makes a non-operational HO plastic kit for considerably less than an operational model. I don't know how the detail compares to others.
For my taste, this model looks exactly like what it is - a cheap plastic model.
I guess it's all in how you paint and finish it. Some of the pictures on the Internet look pretty good.
Paul
IRONROOSTERI guess it's all in how you paint and finish it.
I have built and painted this kit, but there is no way you can get rid of that cheap plastic look of the wheels and the rods. The Revell engine may be OK to be placed in a roundhouse, where you can see only a small part of it. As a display on a shelf - forget it.
P.S. I "binned" mine after a few days.
Happy times!
Ulrich (aka The Tin Man)
"You´re never too old for a happy childhood!"
ATLANTIC CENTRALOn only two occasions did I test its limits in this area, but both the speedometer and the math from the tachometer readings suggest that the car exceeded 130 mph.
Frankly I'd have little doubt a 'built' 283 in a car the size of a Nova with a 3.08 final drive would go 130+mph. Nor that the gear combinations you had wouldn't facilitate it accelerating to that speed range reasonably. (I'd be tempted to have seen if ecomodder-style streamlining and gap taping might have increased the effective top 'balancing' speed still further...) Some of this will hinge on what your effective top gear in the box was -- were the ratios wide, and was the final drive closer to OD than a 'four-speed with a granny' sort of design optimized around high torque close to the line...
The thing is that IC engine 'speed' only very imperfectly equates to reciprocating steam-locomotive speed, for a fairly wide variety of reasons that are mostly synergistic. Much of the issue of valves, for example, has to do with a combination of effective opening time vs. transfer-port characteristics vs. compression effects, and very, very often this explains best why locomotives have such a short range between 'effective' and 'unachievable' top speed.
Were the steam engine provided with a multiple-gear transmission, some of the cyclic-related concerns can be addressed, and the inherent characteristic of positive-displacement expanders to make good torque at low RPM much better employed. This is also true of some steam turbines when equipped with a Bowes drive or similar arrangement that permits varying shaft speed at constant output torque (without using brakes).
I had a '62 Thunderbird with an unmodified 390 that was good for just over 130mph, and had remarkable acceleration above... well, above first in whatever kind of Cruise-O-Matic and stall-speed converter was in there. (We used to joke about 'instant fifty' coming out of tollbooths and the like). I suspect 'drag' would describe performance in an entirely different way for that car, though, as it had humongously long leaf springs without traction bars and, probably, a reasonably high axle ratio. There is a kind of oblique issue here about what you optimize the engine performance and road speed curves to -- the best example that comes to mind is the Buick turbo V6 installed in the Syclone trucks, which accelerated faster from 20 to about 70 than anything else I've driven (specifically including a '94 Viper) but I have no idea about the top speed in-chassis of. There are plenty of locomotives which ran out of suspension, or safe guiding, or even valve tribology or clearance (as in N&W 610 on test) before they ran out of ability to convert cylinder horsepower into adequate torque.)
Now, the point you're making about locomotives at the start of the post is a valid one, and I think that in the particular context of locomotives like 7002 and 999 the 'achievable' top speed might in fact be remarkably higher than 'mere theory' might predict. That in fact is one of the primary reasons I thought, and still think, that building a replica 999 with modern materials would be a relevant as well as fun exercise. There are some fascinating developments in steam distribution in the late 1880s through the 1890s ... including some around the time of the great speed rivalry in the Atlantic City traffic, where no-holds-barred fastest trains in the world could be supported. It is at least possible that some combination of careful operation could -- if even for a relatively limited time -- generate higher speed via careful knowledge of the machine. Since we have long lost anyone with the right combination of knowledge and touch to do that, and so much of it would be empirical and probably engine- and furthermore fabrication-specific, we'd need an actual prototype, perhaps on actual tracks, first for the practice and training and then for a speed attempt itself.
I do confess to be rubbing my hands with glee to see what 5550 develops on the roller dyno. (It won't be any piddling 126mph, either... and probably better than Alfred Bruce's quiet little assertion of 128+mph to beat the PRR number, too...)
IRONROOSTERI guess it's all in how you paint and finish it. Some of the pictures on the Internet look pretty good.
Yes, with proper paint and finish, the Monogram Big Boy model can look amazing. The handrails along the boiler MUST be replaced, but other than that, it can be carefully painted into a nice display model.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
John-NYBW I've read that UP trainmen simply called them the 4000s. If the name Wasatch had caught on, I think a lot of people would have had to look up where the Wasatch mountains were. I knew about the Big Boy long before I ever heard of the Wasatch mountains.
I've read that UP trainmen simply called them the 4000s. If the name Wasatch had caught on, I think a lot of people would have had to look up where the Wasatch mountains were. I knew about the Big Boy long before I ever heard of the Wasatch mountains.
I think back in the day, many if not most railroaders didn't bother with the 'names' of the wheel arrangements. They just used there number series or maybe their employer's road class when talking about locomotives.
It's like railroad slang. I'm sure it was used, some of it still is, but not to the extent that you'll find in the old railroad-school fiction stories.
Jeff
jeffhergertIt's like railroad slang. I'm sure it was used, some of it still is, but not to the extent that you'll find in the old railroad-school fiction stories.
I have worked among blue collar tradesman my entire life, and none of them talk like the idiots you see in movies and television. There are very few "slang" words that actually get used by the people who are serious about there profession.
It is like the "coke"/"soda" thing I keep hearing about in Georgia. I have eaten in literally hundreds of diners in Georgia, and never once heard a waitress say that. However, in every article I read about slang in the South, there it is.
jeffhergert John-NYBW I've read that UP trainmen simply called them the 4000s. If the name Wasatch had caught on, I think a lot of people would have had to look up where the Wasatch mountains were. I knew about the Big Boy long before I ever heard of the Wasatch mountains. I think back in the day, many if not most railroaders didn't bother with the 'names' of the wheel arrangements. They just used there number series or maybe their employer's road class when talking about locomotives. Jeff
nvm
- Douglas
SeeYou190 jeffhergert It's like railroad slang. I'm sure it was used, some of it still is, but not to the extent that you'll find in the old railroad-school fiction stories. I have worked among blue collar tradesman my entire life, and none of them talk like the idiots you see in movies and television. There are very few "slang" words that actually get used by the people who are serious about there profession. It is like the "coke"/"soda" thing I keep hearing about in Georgia. I have eaten in literally hundreds of diners in Georgia, and never once heard a waitress say that. However, in every article I read about slang in the South, there it is. -Kevin
jeffhergert It's like railroad slang. I'm sure it was used, some of it still is, but not to the extent that you'll find in the old railroad-school fiction stories.
When I was growing up we called it "pop" but our cousins from Milwaukee always said "soda".
jeffhergert John-NYBW I've read that UP trainmen simply called them the 4000s. If the name Wasatch had caught on, I think a lot of people would have had to look up where the Wasatch mountains were. I knew about the Big Boy long before I ever heard of the Wasatch mountains. I think back in the day, many if not most railroaders didn't bother with the 'names' of the wheel arrangements. They just used there number series or maybe their employer's road class when talking about locomotives. It's like railroad slang. I'm sure it was used, some of it still is, but not to the extent that you'll find in the old railroad-school fiction stories. Jeff
A few years ago I got a DVD that was a hodgepodge of railroad related short films and one of them was TV program from the 1950s in which Ed Begley Sr. played a UP engineer. He referred to his loco as the Big Boy. I can't remember the plot exactly but I think he was scheduled for a company physical and he was worried about what it might show and that he wouldn't be able to continue working.