Hmm, "Tales of a Turbine", never heard of that one. Looks like it's time to get the bush-beating stick out and go to work.
My information on the "Jawn Henry" versus the "Y6" came from Major Jeffries "Norfolk and Western, Giant of Steam" by the way. I think. It's been a long day and I'm beat.
Hi Overmod
Quote >> No, that is not what the larger grate is intended to do, and you know it. <<
I do *not* claim to know what they thought at Lime's , however if *you* know it , would you mind to post it ?
As for me , this proposal was out of proportions in itself and it was an answer to a question never asked .
What diesels did was so solve the problem of starting tractive effort that had plagued freight train running with the hang-up of railroads for maximum tonnage . Prove : that's why EMD arranged all their spectacular comparison tests of #103 as against steam on ramp sections , argumenting "This is where you folks have trouble and here's our answer to it !" Quote : test runs of #103 against 4-6-6-4 on passenger trains over the mountains on Northern Pacific and many more , I'm sure you know them all
>> If you want more lb/hr fuel combustion <<
Are you letting on they did *not want more >> lb/hr fuel combustion << , in other words burn no larger amount of fuel per hour in that larger box , i.e. a *decrease* of heat load per unit of firebox surface ?
That would imply this bulky , heavy , 18 wheel engine pus 16 wheel tender configuration would not have been expected to do *anything* but anything more than a recent Berkshire could do?
Then ,where's the progress ? If a Berkshire was no competitor to diesel power , how then could a type of steam that was costlier to buy , costlier to maintain , heavier and all-in-all much too bulky have been ??
IDK (I don't know ) - and that's what I meant to express with my sentence you commented "??" : their cluelessness was showing in that offer .
BTW burnt offering : an offer made with a burning heart , like in
"When they went to the concert , no-one was really sure what Diana Krall would be like , yet after a indifferent start her performance had grown into a burnt offering and everyone was enthused with her interpretation of 'The look of love' and other classics "
>> Most, if not all, the improvements being made to steam in the late '40s involved increasing the efficiency <<
So , which examples do you think of ? As for Super Power steam there is little I can see , they never even emulated the 1920s overall locomotive fuel efficiency as established in the DRG standard types as then developed , they never came anywhere near to simple expansion engines as improved by Chapelon , classes 141.E , 140.J, 141.R ( no single locomotive got all the treatment combined , it all remained parted and diverted ) Treating one NYC K-5b with a full chapelonization could have turned it into a 5400 ihp machine - better than a J-3a !
As far as I can see , all through the precious few years , steam development went on the same narrow path it's development had been focussing on the previous decade : more hp , ever more hp , no matter what the coal consumption . Why do you think , the builders all reflected on how tenders could be even further enlarged , how even more coal could be carried although with an archimedes screw at the bottom it all was carried to extremes already and the result was ever-increased unburnt losses because of stoker coveyer grinding up coal to dust and fierce draught was pulling it straight out of the chimney ?
BTW , if a lower specific grate heat load had really been what Lima ( not the RRs ! ) had wanted , they might have been caught by surprise with what happened to the ashpan as it was no more relieved of most volatiles by high draught through grate ! It would have filled up European style - only in Europe they used to change engines every 150 - 300 miles plus they didn't run them that hard neither !
No chance to make me take a more favorable look at this little beefy monster with idler axles abounding on engine and tender and yet again but these forlorn four coupled axles we have been seeing since the days of the Consol !
>>Brobdingnagian ideas<<
where they not a bit like Bhagadivananda's ideas if in a more modern style as proposed by Bodganovichovsky did by interpreting the Bersetovian ideas of ideas that Beechcraft had ?
No , actually I think not . Not by a long way !
>> I almost don't know where to begin correcting these misconceptions. <<
Now , this is strong stuff ! Well , if you call them misconceptions , I'd propose you try to see what I'm criticizing about an engine that offers no improvement at where steam development showed wanting and beefed up what already was more than abounding .
Not everything is a misconception just because it differs from what your interpretations are , I invite you to first try to see the point before dismissing a text .
>>I have bent over backward to indicate that six-wheeled trailing trucks would only be necessary on very large power<<
And you weren't defending the 4-8-6 just above , no ? ( sorry , a freight loco with but four driven axles was *no* >> very large power << by 1949 !)
>> I think a high-speed 2-6-6-4 would do most of what an Allegheny could do.<<
It's sentences like this that don't brighten up my day - sure , if and when the quality of design was comparable and adhesion mass was the same and - and - and .. then locomotives designed to these two w/a could have been made to be tolerably similar in performance .
Now what does that tell us ? Things can be made pretty nearly the same although they are not the same .
That's what the Japanese , then Korean car industry has been doing for decades ...
>>But I'm not second-guessing the Lima people when they start specifying a 4-8-6 for a high-speed locomotive with a double Belpaire, even though I think it is excessive.<<
Wow , you make volts ! Before it was perfectly reasonable - now it's excessive !
Well , let's agree on this : I'm not second-guessing the Lima people , neither - although I'm not sure what the people of Lima , Peru were aware of as concerns 4-8-6 and the like ...
>>Part of the reasoning behind colossal grate area (and increased 'firing rate' is to get a reliable heat-release rate when using substandard coal or operating under suboptimal conditions<<
That's one thing that RRs all over the Western World seem to have been curious about in the late hour of steam : tests if performance can be kept by some special tricks using low grades of coal - really unsuited for locomotive firing - were made in Italy , Austria , Germany - which lead to the pulverized soft coal firing , a sort of steam loco running that can best be described as running environment pollution as a second function of train traffic - Britain where they asked if the Giesl draughting could be (ab-)used to allow for their offering really offending diets to their 9F class when used in rather 0-6-0 like traffic ( answer , uhm , yes , but there is a penalty to pay - which BR didn't want to pay ) The likes went on in Russia where they ruined several otherwise promising prototype engines with variants of the theme . As all other test result , this one I'm sure would also have shown the inevitable : if you are not prepared to feed steam locomotives suitable coal , you don't get suiting performance . Full stop , end of agony .
>> To think that starting TE was the greatest advantage of diesels is... well... in my opinion somewhat naive. <<
You are bringing home my own words to me - I'm not the right addressee to this , the railways were ! They let themselves be blinded by gilded t.e. charts , later woke up to epidemics of motor and - in case of European railways - transmission gear break downs ( burnt traction motors on American RRs )
>>You seem to forget I said "lazy" fire, not lazy fireMAN.<<
No , I haven't .Besides you don't seem to have noticed this was but a joke , I had the fireman shout at the fire ( uhm - a joke , mind it ) and the fire beng lazy does not want to get up .
What I meant to say behind it was : a >> lazy fire<< is never something that anyone would want in a steam locomotive , except maybe when in shed for the next 6 hours . I was trying to be humerous about your expressions which are at times difficult to follow , to put it this way . At least , one thing's for sure : a "lazy fire" does not do any good for anything : not for good combustion efficiency because the temperature is too low , not for heat production because it is too slow and too little , not for eveness of combustion process because the laziness will do nothing to level out differences in burning processes on different spots of the grate , not for preventing clinkers because they like the environment of residing heat without much draught and so and and so on -
>>Lazy also implies that you get the desired heat release, both radiant in the plume and then as a volume of combustion gas sufficient for proper convective transfer, without lifting the fire, tearing holes in it, <<
No , actually it doesn't . The idea of the plain intensity of draughting lifting the fire or tearing holes is a incomplete understanding of the principles of working involved .
>>making the plume move so fast combustion isn't completed by the time the gas gets to the tubeplates...<<
same again , the whole idea is wrong , sorry . Making combustion gases move slowly to get better combustion is a aberrant idea . That should have been known at least since the days of Richard P Wagner / August Meister and the results with the P10 . Same again with the PLM and the 241.A and B , same with the gruppo 746 , you know what I mean ..
>> You're starting to deflate your own arguments. <<
Nope , not at all , I invite you to re-read my text , I never said this would be a perfect problem solver , in fact I am weighing in the pros and contras .
>>
it would be best suited for long distance constant running .
For which turbines would be infinitely better ..<<
( with "It" in my sentence being the gas producer firing system )
Turbines are no alternative to or substitute for GPCS , they may or may not be combined with it .
One is combustion side i.e. steam production , the other is steam application to turn heat energy into mechanical energy - by default it has been a historical error of railways to supplant one of the former with changes to the latter if the experiment with the former didn't work out - and by reducing things to the simple form they allegedly had seemed to have solved the problem - when really they had just avoided it .
>> I don't understand what this is supposed to be saying. <<
I don't understand what you don't understand in this rather simple humorous remark about the different ways of having drawing overlay for comparison of dimensions .
>> Why you would compare anything modern with an H-7 is a mystery in the first place.<<
Who is comparing anything modern with an H-7?
>> The point of operating comparison is from the effective center of the driving wheelbase.<<
Oh , there you are ! Now , that's just your view and that's but one of several possible points of view , btw depending on what you are interested in comparing ; your's is in no way helpful for someone who wants to campare firbox sizes , not for one who wants compare tender sizes , not for those who want to compare
front ends and so on ..
>>If measuring either rigid or overall wheelbase... use common sense. <<
Thank you , maybe I should get it out - if only I knew where I have left it , lately . My father used to say "Just where do you have your head" n which I used to reply "My head is on , nature took care of it and wisely fixed it permanently " - which was typical teenage snippyness I see , yet very effective , my father never seemed to forget anything and he just couldn't understand how I did it and how easily , too !
>>LOA (for roundhouse stall length, and siding clearance) is similarly easy and straightforward. Determining things like effective guiding isn't exactly rocket science, alhough it does involve some careful understanding of geometry and progressive loading/weight transfer.<<
For roundhouse stall length you don't have to overlay an airy idea on a vintage engine but check out what you have in your roundhouse .
However , guys , I will leave it at that for today
Have a good time and keep on steaming
= J =
Juniatha I do *not* claim to know what they thought at Lima, however if *you* know it , would you mind to post it? As for me , this proposal was out of proportions in itself and it was an answer to a question never asked.
I do *not* claim to know what they thought at Lima, however if *you* know it , would you mind to post it? As for me , this proposal was out of proportions in itself and it was an answer to a question never asked.
Remember I'm addressing general combustion matters, NOT making a bigger 4-8-4. As I have said repeated times, and will say again, I can think of no railroad service that would require a 4-8-6 unless -- possibly -- it were intended to work with poor coal.
We do still have some of the material that Col Townsend et al. at Lima were trying to sell in the late '40s -- the "Long Compression" ads and so forth. I no longer have sources or URLs for where this is -- and as you point out, it didn't matter. Nobody cared about the 4-8-6, let alone a 4-10-6 (although there is a drawing of one at the Casey Jones Museum in Jackson, TN.)
Where this comes in is only -- ONLY -- in the context of where locomotive evolution would have gone in the absence of diesel competition. I thought we had already decided to refrain from any kind of diesel or diesel-like locomotive as 'unconventional' for purposes of this thread. What we know is that Lima was leading with the 4-8-6 as their evolution of a fast dual-service locomotive in the late '40s, whether or not it turned out to be overkill.
What diesels did was so solve the problem of starting tractive effort that had plagued freight train running with the hang-up of railroads for maximum tonnage . Prove : that's why EMD arranged all their spectacular comparison tests of #103 as against steam on ramp sections , arguing "This is where you folks have trouble and here's our answer to it !" Quote : test runs of #103 against 4-6-6-4 on passenger trains over the mountains on Northern Pacific and many more , I'm sure you know them all.
Again, as a gentle note: this thread involves only ALTERNATIVES to diesels, and explicitly rules them out.
I thought that internal-combustion power was a great improvement on most steam-locomotive services -- and that was with comparatively low constant horsepower, fragile generators, relay control logic and VERY substantial capital investment. I also do not mean to pooh-pooh the importance of starting and low-speed TE, just saying that it was not the ONLY thing. There were some services, such as fast freight on some parts of NKP, where the advantages of steam at speed outweighed the advantage of diesels down low ... taking advantage of the shortcomings of diesels up at higher speeds.
BTW, 'ramp sections' is probably better translated as 'grades' for US readers, same as 'bank' from the UK is...
Are you letting on they did *not want more >> lb/hr fuel combustion << , in other words burn no larger amount of fuel per hour in that larger box , i.e. a *decrease* of heat load per unit of firebox surface?
Perhaps, if the combustion were more efficient or its heat transferred to make steam more efficiently. It is of course possible that idiot operating departments would look at the mass flow developable by forcing the larger boiler, rate the locomotive accordingly, and then attempt to flog it to death. The only saving grace in passenger service is that it's very difficult to find a train long enough to take advantage of the superior high-speed steam generation -- anything longer than available station and terminal platforms not making much sense (except perhaps -- very perhaps -- combining two sections from different originating points into one long consist, and then break it into 'sections' and switch to separate tracks at stops where needed. And that's almost always as silly an idea as it looks.
It IS a bit difficult to figure out exactly what Lima thought the super 4-8-6 would do... in a non-wartime service. I could be sarcastic and compare it to what the Allegheny could do (also somewhat 'exaggerated' in practice). The point is that it's what they WERE marketing as the next evolutionary step, and what they would have attempted to justify in their 'steam we haven't seen'.
That would imply this bulky , heavy , 18 wheel engine plus 16 wheel tender configuration would not have been expected to do *anything* but anything more than a recent Berkshire could do?
Well, one thing it would probably have done is run happily at peaks of 120 mph, in appropriate passenger service, which no contemporary Berkshire could even dream of.
Probably more than sixteen wheels' worth of tender, too, to make the picture even bleaker for steam partisans. Sixteen for the pedestal tender with two-wheel radial trailer, and another minimum 12 for the A-tank.
Then ,where's the progress ? If a Berkshire was no competitor to diesel power , how then could a type of steam that was costlier to buy , costlier to maintain , heavier and all-in-all much too bulky have been??
We certainly know how THAT question was answered...
BTW burnt offering : an offer made with a burning heart , like in "When they went to the concert , no-one was really sure what Diana Krall would be like , yet after a indifferent start her performance had grown into a burnt offering and everyone was enthused with her interpretation of 'The look of love' and other classics "
A 'burnt offering' is a sacrifice by fire. (In my own defense, at least 'Brobdingnagian' is a correct and recognized reference to outlandishly large size (just as 'Lilliputian' is to small). I am trying to think of a better expression for the idea you're conveying about the 'burning heartfelt emotion'; I hope this is not the same kind of untranslatable thing as 'Gemutlichkeit'...
>> Most, if not all, the improvements being made to steam in the late '40s involved increasing the efficiency << So , which examples do you think of ? As for Super Power steam there is little I can see , they never even emulated the 1920s overall locomotive fuel efficiency as established in the DRG standard types as then developed , they never came anywhere near to simple expansion engines as improved by Chapelon , classes 141.E , 140.J, 141.R ( no single locomotive got all the treatment combined , it all remained parted and diverted ) Treating one NYC K-5b with a full chapelonization could have turned it into a 5400 ihp machine - better than a J-3a !
I was referring to the period OF the late '40s, as an explicit alternative to making locomotives bigger and bigger. As you indicate, this was not done in the United States with anything like the sophistication that Chapelon brought to bear. It's perhaps notable that an attempt to market a 'Chapelonized' 2-10-4 was made in the USA the early Fifties -- with no success. Now, if there were any future for new steam, as we are postulating here, no few of Chapelon's improvements would eventually have been recognized and, probably, applied. In my opinion at least. (I omit any reference to American automobile design vs. European during the period!)
I think you are even more than usually astute to pick the K5b as the example for Chapelonization, although the engine I'd pick would be a bit different -- one of the Mohawks. Richard Leonard has already commented on how most of NYC's needs could be met with 2-wheel-trailer power... how much more so with full thermodynamic enhancement. (Of course you'd need to put a cast bed on the locomotive to take the extra power, and I'd be interested to see the type and construction of valve gear that would optimize single-expansion performance, but those are common-sense choices for power that size.
Would you keep it a two-cylinder engine -- I don't think I would... that HP is going to make things very slippery, perhaps at high speed as well as low.
As far as I can see , all through the precious few years , steam development went on the same narrow path it's development had been focussing on the previous decade : more hp , ever more hp , no matter what the coal consumption.
That had pretty definitively hit its limit by 1946, when the miners started taking action to get proper lives for themselves. Remember that the situation was artificially boosted during the War years, and the need for large dual-service steam engines (like the Niagara, a locomotive NYC didn't really need) was predicated on a great increase, or at any rate not a decrease, of high-speed passenger traffic that paid...
Why do you think , the builders all reflected on how tenders could be even further enlarged , how even more coal could be carried although with an archimedes screw at the bottom it all was carried to extremes already and the result was ever-increased unburnt losses because of stoker conveyer grinding up coal to dust... <remainder snipped temporarily>
This had little if anything to do with increasing locomotive size per se; it had to do with extending the range between required stops. A particularly interesting example is related in Ed King's book on the N&W A, on why strategic use of an A-tank allowed much better service in a particular area (pp.95-96).
I would be tempted to note that designing for less 'fierce' draft, or for keeping fines from remaining unburned as they go through to the stack, are good approaches to deal with this issue... but you fight them elsewhere.
BTW , if a lower specific grate heat load had really been what Lima ( not the RRs ! ) had wanted , they might have been caught by surprise with what happened to the ashpan as it was no more relieved of most volatiles by high draught through grate!
I have to translate this into better semantic English to be sure the point is established: I think this is saying that more unburnt fuel would wind up with the ash if there were less draft volatilizing the, well, it's the carbon as well as the hydrocarbons, but that's a nit-pick. I do not think there is any difference in the amount of what winds up in the ashpan if you have less primary-air flow through a given mass, and it's easier to maintain the fire without either dead spots or hotspots.
There is little doubt that boiler efficiency is maximized at a particular grate load. The purpose of the late-stage emphasis on larger fireboxes and longer chambers was to keep the physics of that grate load in the economical range while permitting proportional combustion-gas generation for the 'optimized' horsepower production in the engine. Keeping the temp down minimizes glassing and clinkering in the bed; keeping the peaks in the draft minimized makes less tendency for ash in fuel particles to be levitated, or for fuel particles to be accelerated so fast they cannot reach either or both transition temperature and adequate reactive oxygen to become fully combusted by quench time. (It can also help with NOx emission but that is scarcely a point of concern in our period!)
It would have filled up European style - only in Europe they used to change engines every 150 - 300 miles plus they didn't run them that hard neither !
I don't have any URLs at hand that point to descriptions of appropriate ash-handling methods and systems. NYC ran Niagaras very happily between Croton-Harmon and Chicago with one intermediate fuel stop (when not going by way of Cleveland), which was a logical place to clean the ashpan too -- the ash pan was adequate to handle that locomotive's ash production for the 700-odd miles between fuelings.
A couple of the modern STEs adapt industrial ash handling systems, using screw conveyors, rams, etc. to get the ash out from under the grates and into some sort of holding arrangement. I believe you can find some cheerfully-optimistic explanation of this in the ACE 3000 patent description. In our period of the '40s and '50s, rapid ash dump could have been done without many 'environmental consequences' and so dumping at any of the times there was an ICC- or railroad-rule-required stopping of the train could at least theoretically be accomplished ... if there were actually a high ash-generation problem in the first place.
... were they not a bit like Bhagadivananda's ideas if in a more modern style as proposed by Bodganovichovsky did by interpreting the Bersetovian ideas of ideas that Beechcraft had ? No , actually I think not . Not by a long way !
I think you are right, not by a long way. But that is in large part because there is no Bersetov, there is no Bodganovich (it would be Bogdanovich) let alone some name adding more locationals from mixed Slavic languages, Beechcraft never had locomotive ideas, and Bhagadivananda isn't even good Sanskrit (it's mixing masculine and feminine in the same name, and unless I am mistaken it would be 'deva' and not 'diva'.
Brobdingnagian, on the other hand, is not only a real literary term in the English language, and commonly recognized by no few people following this thread, but actually refers both literally and semantically to very large things.
If this was supposed to be humor, I think it hung fire.
>> I almost don't know where to begin correcting these misconceptions. << Now , this is strong stuff!
Now , this is strong stuff!
Yeah, a bit too strong, actually. I was not quite myself when I wrote that, and it came out considerably more snotty than I intended.
But, to paraphrase Kevin Renner, there were some misconceptions involved there... ;-}
I'd propose you try to see what I'm criticizing about an engine that offers no improvement at where steam development showed wanting and beefed up what already was more than abounding .
Understood and accepted. (I could add 'stipulated' but that would be pedantic even for me.)
In fact, I do. I even bend over backward trying. On the other hand, I have a long history of finding problems in the history and philosophy of science -- and of recognizing problems and misconceptions in theoretical and practical thinking.
>>I have bent over backward to indicate that six-wheeled trailing trucks would only be necessary on very large power<< And you weren't defending the 4-8-6 just above , no? ( sorry , a freight loco with but four driven axles was *no* >> very large power << by 1949 !)
And you weren't defending the 4-8-6 just above , no? ( sorry , a freight loco with but four driven axles was *no* >> very large power << by 1949 !)
I love irony, up to a point, but sometimes it goes too far. Surely you could comprehend that in an argument where I pointed out an Allegheny could probably have been built with only two trailing axles, "very large power" would be bigger than the Allegheny was, and hence CONSIDERABLY bigger than anything with only four driving axles. Are you then accusing me of missing such a point simply because I didn't hammer it into the ground while making fun of the supposedly benighted readers? You must have something you can actually mock before the technique starts to be effective.
4-8-6 is not a 'freight loco', it's explicitly dual-service. If you don't have the requirement for high speed, you don't need the four-wheel leading truck. And as you pointed out (I think) nothing bigger than an efficient Berkshire is needed for ... eight-coupled freight power.
>> I think a high-speed 2-6-6-4 would do most of what an Allegheny could do.<< It's sentences like this that don't brighten up my day - sure , if and when the quality of design was comparable and adhesion mass was the same and - and - and .. then locomotives designed to these two w/a could have been made to be tolerably similar in performance . Now what does that tell us ? Things can be made pretty nearly the same although they are not the same
Now what does that tell us ? Things can be made pretty nearly the same although they are not the same
Uh ... no. None of the above.
Think twelve drivers, four cylinders, any suitable FA chosen to avoid slipping, enough steam-generation efficiency and valve-gear precision to get the desired power. You do not have to devolve the level of discourse into deconstruction to figure out how to do this for a 2-6-6-4 that matches the Allegheny's specs. In fact, a N&W A chassis with a Q2 boiler stuck on it already WOULD. And that's before you start improving the running gear, valves, steam circuits -- and implementing 'Chapelonization' on it.
It's cute to keep disagreeing with straw-man-style perceptions of my semantics. But after a while it begins to become tiresome.
>>But I'm not second-guessing the Lima people when they start specifying a 4-8-6 for a high-speed locomotive with a double Belpaire, even though I think it is excessive.<< Wow , you make volts! Before it was perfectly reasonable - now it's excessive !
Wow , you make volts! Before it was perfectly reasonable - now it's excessive !
There is nothing 'unreasonable' about a 4-8-6. It's just excessive to require an extra axle, and all the parts that go along with it, just to get performance the customer could very seldom if ever use as 'intended'.
Well , let's agree on this : I'm not second-guessing the Lima people , neither - although I'm not sure what the people of Lima, Peru were aware of as concerns 4-8-6 and the like ...
Well, since the people in Peru are from "LEE-ma" and the locomotive folks are from "LYE-ma" that silly statement has no particular application even as intended humor, or whatever...
Or do you think Lima beans come from South America?
PLEASE tell me I don't have to start using Bible-like phonetic spellings in these posts. It's bad enough already with all those unexplained acronyms and name-dropping...
That's one thing that RRs all over the Western World seem to have been curious about in the late hour of steam: tests if performance can be kept by some special tricks using low grades of coal - really unsuited for locomotive firing - were made in Italy , Austria , Germany - which led to the pulverized soft coal firing , a sort of steam loco running that can best be described as running environment pollution as a second function of train traffic..
<snipped in the middle to separate the ideas.>
There were at least two distinct approaches to PC firing: one was the 'Brauhkohle', Snuff-Dipper approach to burning slightly aged dirt in a locomotive (see the UP Big Boys for another version of this "approach"), and another was to use pulverized coal to get the same general characteristics as oil firing. Very different equipment, very different problems -- very similar outcomes and, as noted, not much practicality. (And that is before your fuel starts showing a propensity to deflagrate at the drop of a hatch. Or in fact effectively detonate, under the right (easily-obtainable!) conditions. (Look up 'Flixborough' and read between the lines to see what the brazent speed of propagation is when IR light uptake is the combustion trigger. Or tell me why the Lusitania and the Britannic sank so fast...)
I was given the impression that the StUG variant tried in Australia was not half bad at getting the desired results. It was just impossibly twiddly and hard on the fireman ... at least until the fuel blew up.
Britain where they asked if the Giesl draughting could be (ab-)used to allow for their offering really offending diets to their 9F class when used in rather 0-6-0 like traffic ( answer , uhm , yes , but there is a penalty to pay - which BR didn't want to pay )
Can you hear my grinding teeth? That WAS indeed a waste of a good engine design AND a reasonably good front-end design...
As all other test result , this one I'm sure would also have shown the inevitable : if you are not prepared to feed steam locomotives suitable coal , you don't get suiting performance . Full stop , end of agony .
Well -- in partial defense, there WERE some designs that could run well on very inferior fuel. Does anyone out there know what the fuel used in the early-1890s Atlantic City Railroad 4-4-2s was? Some of the contemporary Reading engines were supposed to burn culm -- which is nice and slow-igniting with its anthracite content, but with a sort of solid equivalent of FGR to keep fire temperature down...
But, in (partial) American defense, there was a very-well-publicized campaign from about 1949 on to provide locomotives with washed, 2" lump coal of decent grade, as the 'best' way to realize bottom-line net saving in steam-locomotive operation. I get at least the sense that this would have been far more successfully adopted had steam continued as first-line power going into the Fifties...
>> To think that starting TE was the greatest advantage of diesels is... well... in my opinion somewhat naive. << You are bringing home my own words to me - I'm not the right addressee to this , the railways were ! They let themselves be blinded by gilded t.e. charts , later woke up to epidemics of motor and - in case of European railways - transmission gear break downs ( burnt traction motors on American RRs )
Sorry. But I did get the impression from what you said that high starting TE was THE advantage that led to rapid and widespread dieselization. I do think otherwise, and am glad to see I was mistaken in what I thought you had said.
>>You seem to forget I said "lazy" fire, not lazy fireMAN.<< ... Besides you don't seem to have noticed this was but a joke , I had the fireman shout at the fire ( uhm - a joke , mind it ) and the fire beng lazy does not want to get up .
... Besides you don't seem to have noticed this was but a joke , I had the fireman shout at the fire ( uhm - a joke , mind it ) and the fire beng lazy does not want to get up .
As we say on /. -- "Whooooosh!" Went right over my head on a grand scale. I thought you were referring to the idea that keeping a banked fire even close to the time of starting was being lazy, or something like that. I apologize.
... one thing's for sure : a "lazy fire" does not do any good for anything : not for good combustion efficiency because the temperature is too low , not for heat production because it is too slow and too little , not for eveness of combustion process because the laziness will do nothing to level out differences in burning processes on different spots of the grate , not for preventing clinkers because they like the environment of residing heat without much draught and so and and so on -
The only problem with this is that none of it is strictly true. Of course it hinges on a couple of tacit assumptions, one of which is that 'lazy' is a relative term; it isn't intended to mean deficient in heat release, or nonproductive of adequate combustion gas mass (and radiant characteristics) to achieve the desired level of steam generation.
The temperature in the radiant zone is not, and would not be 'too low'. Anything above the transition temperature in an adequately oxidizing atmosphere is not 'too low'. Of course, if you get premature quench, that part of the plume is now 'too low' -- but that's much more likely with excessive gas speed, or the wrong sort of effect of pulsating flow, than with properly-proportional draft.
The laziness if anything facilitates 'equalization' of firing, or at least development of holes and dead spots, because the changes that produce them occur more slowly and at least in theory give more time for the fireman to react. Again there is a fundamental assumption that draft characteristics and firebox geometry have been arranged to give reasonably consistent draft across as much of the grate area as possible; I didn't mention that because it's an almost self-evident design principle.
This is another of those areas, like superheater design and proportioning, that became something of a lost art when business disappeared, and is becoming even more of one as the old steam heads grow old and die. I was surprised to find, a few months ago, that nobody on RyPN really knew how to design and configure a Schmidt superheater installation for a locomotive. (They could point to Superheater Company brochures describing how they would do it, and listing the requirements the company would use in making the design... but the actual formulae were trade secrets, and alas have remained secret unto the grave...)
David Wardale has made a good start toward these things in the 5AT "FDCs" but it needs to go farther than what is appropriate for that configuration. In my opinion, at least.
>>Lazy also implies that you get the desired heat release, both radiant in the plume and then as a volume of combustion gas sufficient for proper convective transfer, without lifting the fire, tearing holes in it, << No , actually it doesn't . The idea of the plain intensity of draughting lifting the fire or tearing holes is a incomplete understanding of the principles of working involved .
It isn't intended to be. It is merely an observation of an effect that everyone familiar with working steam engines has either observed firsthand or seen reliable reports or documentation of. I do confess that I'm using vernacular and not technical terms for what is happening.
Of course, I'd be happy to see what your explanation of the effect is. Because saying it's actually a misconception doesn't change the observables ... or to put it another way, nobody seems to have told the fire that the draft can't make it have those sorts of problem.
>>making the plume move so fast combustion isn't completed by the time the gas gets to the tubeplates...<< same again , the whole idea is wrong , sorry .
same again , the whole idea is wrong , sorry .
No, it isn't. And I can produce very, very extensive (and insufferably boring) chemical, physical, and engineering proof of that.
I can only conclude that you are woefully unaware of what is actually happening in combustion, and of the time constants involved in how it propagates and proceeds in various types of locomotive fuel.
Of course, if you can explain it technically, I'd be delighted to learn otherwise.
Making combustion gases move slowly to get better combustion is a aberrant idea . That should have been known at least since the days of Richard P Wagner / August Meister and the results with the P10 . Same again with the PLM and the 241.A and B , same with the gruppo 746 , you know what I mean ..
Yes, I do. Except once again you are putting words in my mouth that were not from there originally.
I did not say the gas speeds would 'move slowly' -- I said they needed sufficient TIME to react fully (to gaseous combustion products, essentially) by the time any substantial uncombusted fuel quenched against a cold surface -- like the rear tubeplate, or the 'cavity' formed by the inside of flues or tubes surrounded by overcritical water. If you have a problem with that... what is your alternative?
Now, once you have completed the combustion, higher speed becomes your friend (and that was demonstrated fairly definitively in USGS tests in 1910). That is one reason I like Besler tubes in principle: you get the higher gas speed, and better forms of heat transfer, too. BUT even combustion of producer gas is likely not to be effective more than a few inches into a tube or flue. And everything that is not combusted is a waste, both of mass and of heat.
>> You're starting to deflate your own arguments. << Nope , not at all , I invite you to re-read my text, I never said this would be a perfect problem solver , in fact I am weighing in the pros and contras.
Nope , not at all , I invite you to re-read my text, I never said this would be a perfect problem solver , in fact I am weighing in the pros and contras.
OK, I re-read it. Then did so again. Your text still looks like it's saying the same things. Which look a bit dangerously, in no few places, like precisely the misconceptions you're accusing me of having, without providing positive demonstration why you think they are misconceived.
[BTW: When you can show me a Wagner-designed 4-8-4 that wasn't a ridiculous failure in its ability to make steam, I may give his supposed skill in understanding the role of combustion gas a bit more credence...]
it would be best suited for long distance constant running. For which turbines would be infinitely better ..<< ( with "It" in my sentence being the gas producer firing system )
I stand corrected. But...
Turbines are no alternative to or substitute for GPCS , they may or may not be combined with it.
I love truisms. On the other hand... let's say this: turbines are a better alternative than reciprocating engines for long-distance constant running. GPCS only works right during long-distance constant running. Both those things are well-understood. Also well-understood is how and why they are different. Not everyone is fool enough to think one is the other.
One is combustion side i.e. steam production , the other is steam application to turn heat energy into mechanical energy - by default it has been a historical error of railways to supplant one of the former with changes to the latter if the experiment with the former didn't work out - and by reducing things to the simple form they allegedly had seemed to have solved the problem - when really they had just avoided it.
This is a good point -- I think -- if you take the turbines and GPCS out of it, and go back to the general principles for those two categories. I believe part of what you're saying is akin to the point that just increasing locomotive size, or the capacity of some of its structure -- with the aforementioned double-Belpaire-so-heavy-it-needs-a-six-wheel-truck being an illustrative example! -- in order to overcome perceived performance shortcomings is avoiding rather than solving problems.
Would that we had more designers that understood what Chapelon seems to have understood: that you proportion things properly, and improve where you can with the understanding that 'improvement' is not like the old European joke about the American book on elephants -- 'bigger, faster, more expensive'.
>> Why you would compare anything modern with an H-7 is a mystery in the first place.<< Who is comparing anything modern with an H-7?
Your locomotive design is modern.
You say you are comparing it to an H-7
The drawing in the overlay is of a 2-8-8-2 (so I know right away it's not a typo for H-8.
>> The point of operating comparison is from the effective center of the driving wheelbase.<< Oh , there you are ! Now , that's just your view and that's but one of several possible points of view , btw depending on what you are interested in comparing ; your's is in no way helpful for someone who wants to compare firebox sizes , not for one who wants to compare tender sizes , not for those who want to compare front ends and so on ..
Oh , there you are ! Now , that's just your view and that's but one of several possible points of view , btw depending on what you are interested in comparing ; your's is in no way helpful for someone who wants to compare firebox sizes , not for one who wants to compare tender sizes , not for those who want to compare front ends and so on ..
Which is all true ... but we are not comparing fireboxes, or tenders, or front ends; we are comparing locomotives, as locomotives. And the drivers, axles, rods, etc. are what determine the meaningful aspects of what makes the locomotive communicate its work to the train, via its contact with the rails.
In your illustration, the fireboxes are nothing near comparable in any meaningful sense (especially if you only have historical H-7 internals in that "H-7" firebox as drawn.
Likewise, just about everything in the front ends is not comparable -- and the H-7 front end is hardly a poster child for an optimized front end.
We don't even need to go to tenders -- the overlay drawing shows that result. But in comparing locomotive performance, the tender characteristics need to be 'normalized out' anyway to avoid precisely the problem you were commenting on a few paragraphs above: a 'better' locomotive with a lousy or overweight tender is no less 'better' because of that...
>>If measuring either rigid or overall wheelbase... use common sense.<<
That did not come out quite the way I intended it. What I meant was 'choose it thoughtfully, and look at what worked and didn't work, historically, to avoid making any avoidable mistakes. It was NOT directed at anyone personally -- least of all you. But that is certainly how it could be taken as it came out.
>>LOA (for roundhouse stall length, and siding clearance) is similarly easy and straightforward. For roundhouse stall length you don't have to overlay an airy idea on a vintage engine but check out what you have in your roundhouse .
The point I was making is a bit different: if you want a longer locomotive, you will want to check your siding length, and the stall length in roundhouses, etc. And be prepared either to pick a design that fits, adjust the design to fit, or understand that you'll need to be fixing siding length or adding to the roundhouse (as at Crestline!) if you go long.
There is a possibly-amusing corollary to this: As I recall the story, it was necessary to torch off the 'bill' on the end of a Big Boy cab to lift it via overhead crane in one facility. (Kurt Greske, who posts over on steam_tech, knows the full details, and has posted them, but I'm too lazy to look them up this late...) Apparently, reading between the lines, it was cheaper to cut and weld than to enlarge the facility to suit...
Hi Overmod , hi everyone
Here is a diagram showing the relative power outputs of two recent European Bo-Bo locomotives , one Diesel , series 2016 , and one Electric , series 1016 / 1116 .
The diagrams are by Siemens Transport Systems , I have resized them to common scale and put both graphs into one diagram for better comparison .
Also I have composed a data table offering main characteristics of both locomotives , again data by Siemens Transport Systems , translated by me and also 'retro-conversed' from SI units into old ( sorry , no : classic ! ) US units for the steam folks .
I think , everyone will agree with my old song of " Electric Traction is where the music is !" as soon as you indulge a bit into the data and graph .
And then , to visualize this little big power house a side elevation in colors of a private enterprise :
Black is back !
Have fun and don't forget to keep steaming
regards
tractive effort over speed of asynchronous electric 1016 / 1116 series and 2016 diesel electric
including resistance curve of 600 t passenger train on the level and 650 t freight on 2.8 % grade
as found on Alpine mainlines
data table of same asynchronous 1016 / 1116 series electric and diesel electric 2016 series
" Black is Back !"
The Taurus as in colors of MRCE dispolok private enterprise
Overmod :
I will have to come back on your elaborate post later - I have to keep it short for now , be kind and never mind .
Jun, I think this would get more of the attention it deserves if it -- or a copy of it -- were over in the Locomotives forum. Makes self-powered alternatives look more than a bit impaired...
I love this stuff, but it shows how far we've come from the '40s and '50s.
I have the Amtrak operator's orientation manual for the ACS-64, if anyone wants more detail about these things as they've come to America.
Concur on TTFN, I hear someone needing me yesterday... ;-}
Hi NorthWest
Your remarks are to the point . The time of steam locomotive growth was coming to an end because of necessity - any further increase could only have been in length and this would have caused increasing problems with arranging parts and proportioning and layout of boilers and chassis .
To revers the old UP Nine's w/a was an 'old' favorite idea of mine - it came to me pretty soon as I had realized the layout of the boiler didn't really fit that of the chassis and they had to make a compromize with that Gaines wall . In the light of the Bershire having been brought up by Lima almost the same time , it would have appeared only logic to use a 2-12-4 w/a , however a simple Pony truck as then used would have been insufficient on the 12 coupled engine , it would have asked for a bogie combining the leading idler with first coupled axle as in Zara or K-H type of bogies .
4-10-4 : oh wow ! hey , I had put up a couple of design scetches for these !
I went on to a 4-10-6 ...
Juniatha
Hi Firelock
yes , the 'articulated book' has proven very interesting - thanx again !
Keep on steaming
With regards
Hi Juniatha!
I'm so glad you're putting "Articulated Locomotives" to good use. When I found it I knew you had the perfect home for it. I'm no genius when it comes to the mechanics of steam. The "zen" of steam, maybe.
Wayne
Anyone out there curious where I found it?
I got my copy from Kalmbach books, along with Knieling's book on Integral Trains in the same order. This was close to when Juniatha was born.
If I recall correctly, "Articulated Locomotives" was a 1970 reprint of a 1930's book. Juniatha's a bit younger than that. Watch it now, we don't want to make her mad at us!
Anyway, I found the book at a place called The Old and Weary Car Shop, a model railroad shop located at 33 Route 303, Tappan NY, just a stones throw over the New Jersey/ New York border. It's a great hobby shop, but the amazing thing is they seem to have an uncanny ability to latch on to railroad artifacts and out of print railbooks. If you're in the area it's definately worth a visit.
The website is www.oldandwearycarshop.com. It's been under "rebuild" so I'm not sure if it's active just yet.
1970s Kalmbach reprint of 1930s book - correct . Myself , I was born July 1976 , that was the very summer of 200 years USA celebration and the Freedom Train , and ..
.. the year when on DB all steam shed closed except for Rheine and Emden with a ragged , doomed flock of steam locomotives roaming their final stronghold , the Emsland Route , northern Germany , Rheine - Lingen - Emden - Norddeich until by September next year fires were being extinguished and revenue steam traction on DB had vanished into history - although an increasingly gloomy , ghastly looking park of cold locomotives remained sitting dead at Emden engine yard and a larger cluster at Rheine freight yard , not far from the shed which by then had become an empty hall with the wind sweeping through , weeds and bushes growing on the former engine yard now laying petrified , while across the turn table the bright sunsets continued to throw richly colored skies that before had bathed the oily freckled bodies of beaten steam locomotives into gilded evening sunlight ... ( .. some 13 years later the story was beginning to be told to me in color slide sessions by one of dad's friends who was a steam buff having then spent rolls of film on the drama )
I'm not mad at anyone . Only , some recent posting by one user are going off track and tend to run the thread into the ditch (again) Boyish reactions principally saying "No , it's you who's wrong , stupid !" are deplorably inadequate as an answer to some decent hint of mine asking to re-check wording in view of blatantly obvious deficiencies of understanding of physical basics behind a couple of points made topical with steam locomotive design . I am sorry if the author felt set back or hurt - this was not my intention , yet physical laws and the consequential demands on mechanical design are not open to conjecture nor do they take exceptions - they just apply . So , having exposed my draft to discussion by posting it as a proposal , I am prepared to take critical comments - however it is easy to fire at me from out of the wood with plenty of fault finding comments of "this wrong" type without offering an alternative ! Now , if I find flaws in such a comment , the author should be prepared to take corrections , too ; they are aimed at putting right our basis of discussion - not at burning someone for taking a different view on technological aspects .
In a nutshell : I'm prepared to discuss relative virtues of steam and diesel traction with a diesel supporter if we can agree on fencing at a level of understanding of technology and by exchange of profound factual arguements - no problem . However people who mix oppinions with personal huffiness tend to draw things down . That's not what I'm here for and I guess neither are other users who are just looking for exchanging a little inspiration of what might have been - concerning steam .
So , keep on steaming
Hi Juniatha! I appreciated your desciption of the DB locomotive deadlines. Reminds me of the photos I've seen of various American deadlines of steam locomotives, airplanes and ships, and how fast they deteriorate.
Isn't it uncanny how some inanimate objects, whether they're locomotives, aircraft, ships, or houses and buildings for that matter just seem to know when no-one wants them anymore?
I suppose even an iron heart can break. There's the "zen" of steam for you.
JuniathaI'm not mad at anyone . Only , some recent posting by one user are going off track and tend to run the thread into the ditch (again)
As the 'user' in question, I can only say that I apologized privately. I am sorry that was not accepted.
Boyish reactions principally saying "No , it's you who's wrong, stupid !" are deplorably inadequate as an answer to some decent hint of mine asking to re-check wording in view of blatantly obvious deficiencies of understanding of physical basics behind a couple of points made topical with steam locomotive design
I am not sure what this 'blatantly obvious deficiencies of understanding of physical basics' might be referring to. I have already asked for specifics, but have seen none.
... physical laws and the consequential demands on mechanical design are not open to conjecture nor do they take exceptions - they just apply.
I could not have said this better. I would only add that if physical laws and mechanical design are not properly understood, the ways they may apply can be different than expected.
So , having exposed my draft to discussion by posting it as a proposal , I am prepared to take critical comments - however it is easy to fire at me from out of the wood with plenty of fault finding comments of "this wrong" type without offering an alternative!
I thought I had offered alternatives -- many alternatives. And done so without disparaging anyone's personal characteristics. I have already apologized for the tone that gave the impression of 'this wrong type'. If I criticize any aspect of a design or proposal, I stand ready to develop an alternative that will work. And have tried to do so -- admittedly assuming a degree of technical familiarity that does not apply here.
Now , if I find flaws in such a comment , the author should be prepared to take corrections, too ; they are aimed at putting right our basis of discussion - not at burning someone for taking a different view on technological aspects.
I am always prepared to take correction when it is justified. This presupposes, however, that the 'correction' is in fact correct, and not just a reprimand or worse.
I'm prepared to discuss relative virtues of steam and diesel traction with a diesel supporter if we can agree on fencing at a level of understanding of technology and by exchange of profound factual arguments - no problem . However people who mix opinions with personal huffiness tend to draw things down . That's not what I'm here for and I guess neither are other users who are just looking for exchanging a little inspiration of what might have been - concerning steam.
I agree with this, and look forward to the profound factual arguments. One thing I would like to see is your actual 'recipe for making the Duplex concept sound and working'. I have documented mine in considerable detail, without any concern that some guys might use the ideas without mentioning me. It's about, or ought to be about, advancing the state of the art, not about egos.
I will take up some of the technical points concerning modern steam in their own threads, to avoid introducing any more contention into this one. That's the least I can do.
RME
I think "Steam We Ain't Seen" is drifting a bit too far into the realm of fantasy, and I DON"T mean that in a nasty way. Some of the proposed designs are cool to say the least, WAY cool! Certainly fun to speculate on.
However, I think steam design reached it's zenith with the various types around and performing sucessfully by the 1940's, 2-8-4's, single and dual purpose 4-8-4's, 2-6-6-4's, 4-6-6-4's, and so on. Go beyond those types and we're running into serious problems with maintanance facilities, turntables, wyes, roundhouses, and so on. Case in point was Pennys S1 Duplex, the "Big Engine". No-one can say it didn't perform spectacularly, it did, but it was TOO big, so big it was nothing but a headache.
Let's suppose for arguments sale the diesel locomotive hasn't been invented, it's not going to be invented, it'll NEVER be invented. In my mind this opens other possibilities for steam. How do we make them easier to manufacture? What can be done to increase shopping intervals? What modern matierials can be used to beat corrosion of boilers and flues? What can be done do prevent or delay cinder cutting of flues? Is there a more efficient boiler insulation material than asbestos, and which is a lot safer to work with?
How about new steam locomotives for branch line service? Railroads used to demote older main-line locomotives to the branch lines, however those older locomotives weren't going to last forever, and you can't demote a 4-6-4 or a 4-8-4 to a branch line. What new efficient branch line engines can we come up with that still use steam and won't cause a major rebuilding of branch line facilities? European tank types of modern design? Possibly. There was method there.
Of course, this is just an intellectual exercise, diesels are here to stay and aren't going away. Dammit. But it's fun to speculate. Let's keep it fun.
By the way, that "Dispolok" is interesting. Maybe they should call it the "Disco-Lok", it looks like it knows how to "Hustle"!
What I was thinking of the 2-10-6 was for dual service, burning poor coal in the mountains, with large enough (63") drivers for passenger service, but small enough for relatively good TE. Maybe for SP&S? Although they didn't have that many bad grades... And I do concede that this would have to be a relatively large curve radius locomotive, so a Challenger might work better here. (SP&S did have them).
Firelock76How about new steam locomotives for branch line service? Railroads used to demote older main-line locomotives to the branch lines, however those older locomotives weren't going to last forever, and you can't demote a 4-6-4 or a 4-8-4 to a branch line.
Yes, but most branches during this time had been converted to gas-electric doodlebugs. So, would there have been a market or need? (Yes, this skirts the "What if the diesel hadn't been invented" question, but these were close to large car engines, usually 300HPish, and "what if the car hadn't been invented" is a huge question...)
Hi NorthWest! Well, not every branch line converted to doodlebugs, and at any rate doodlebugs weren't any good for hauling freight. What I mean by branch line traffic was all those lines that fed freight traffic to the main lines and return freight to customers on the branches, in addition to passengers.
Since I consider doodlebugs a precursor to the diesel-electric locomotive let's assume THEY weren't invented either! It was the doodlebug after all that got the people at Electro-Motive saying "Hmmm, you know what...?"
Hi Firelock!
Before it was bought by GM, EME (Electro-Motive Engineering, later EMC and EMD), built gas-electrics. Not to hijack the thread further...
I think the future would have been improved 2-8-2s, or 2-6-2s, built with welded boilers and other improvements discussed earlier in this thread. It all depends how busy the branch was. Tank engines may also have had an application.
There ya go!
Firelock, "Dispolok" is a leasing company. The locomotive is lettered for that company, as for example TCS and Juniata Terminal do here. The Europeans just do it with more flair and supergraphics.
Most of what Firelock is asking belongs in its own thread, one that covers the ground between the Extreeem Steeam" and this one. I believe many answers to those specific questions already appear back in earlier posts to these two threads, and in Juniatha's original 'What Steam We Haven't Seen" thread from last year.
I suggest "Modern Steam Technology" as a prospective thread title.
Firelock76Since I consider doodlebugs a precursor to the diesel-electric locomotive let's assume THEY weren't invented either! It was the doodlebug after all that got the people at Electro-Motive saying "Hmmm, you know what...?"
There is a rich history of steam motors, both here and in Europe, and some of those designs promised to do what the gas and later diesel-electric cars did (had there not been spark or compression ignition IC engines).
John White's history of the American passenger car (vol. 2) has a fairly good discussion of them.
In particular I would mention the Stanley Unit Car, the various Besler experiments, and the International Harvester/Ryan car of the late Twenties. Note that not that much work needed to be done on any of these to enhance their ability to pull (and if necessary to heat) trailer cars.
A new thread, "Modern Steam Technology?" Nah, too much trouble! Let's just pick it up and run with it here.
And like the "Disco-Lok", "Do The Hustle!" "Do-do-do, do-do-do-do-do-do, do-do-do, do-do-do-do-do-do...."
And don't forget, the "Soul Train" was pulled by a steam engine!
Firelock76A new thread, "Modern Steam Technology?" Nah, too much trouble! Let's just pick it up and run with it here.
Juniatha probably won't like that, having already had to perform at least two 'resets' to get this thread back on the topic she proposed. Which is very, VERY different from discussing modern steam developments from the 1960s on...
If you want to discuss modern steam in an existing thread, at least move it over to Extreeem Steeam. (Or get explicit permission to emend the topic!)
Just found this-http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=3489779
Even looks like a maintenance nightmare! Cobbled together from all sorts of things!
Would coal gasification for gas turbines work better, even though it is not steam? (And diesels could use the fuel more efficiently)?
Thank you for all your detailed responses, hope I haven't worn out more than one keyboard...
And sorry Juniatha if this gets slightly off track of your original goal...
I can't get that picture to open -- but it is UP 8080, built as UP 80, the experimental coal turbine.
Eric Hirsimaki had an article on coal turbines in the Fall 2004 issue of Classic Trains. That contains some details about the origins of the coal-burning turbine. (Note that this is a gas turbine that uses finely ground coal directly as fuel, not a steam turbine). The original turbine experimentation by Bituminous Coal Research was essentially dead by 1955, in part foundering on insufficiently complete fuel grinding, but UP saw enough promise in the idea ... for their purposes ... that they built this as a proof-of-concept demonstrator for a better-evolved version of the approach, at relatively low cost.
A short writeup of this locomotive is here. There is also a writeup in the Union Pacific Historical Society 'Streamliner' magazine (vol. 16 issue 4).
Remember that all three pieces of this were retired equipment that was obtained essentially at scrap value, which explains the somewhat amusing appearance. Production coal turbines would NOT have looked like that!
The fuel here was apparently properly ground, but not de-ashed enough to keep the blading from erosion. The 'correct' answer (if there can be said to be one) was to use solvent-refined coal (SRC) technology, as GM did in the '70s. For an interesting time, google "coal burning Eldorado"...
For a coal-burning gas turbine to qualify as 'steam' it would need to have a Rankine bottoming cycle, as a number of designs of GTCC (gas-turbine combined cycle) powerplants do. (I personally think there should have been Rankine bottoming on the Eldorado, as BMW subsequently demonstrated it was fully practical to provide it on smaller automobiles with far lower exhaust mass flow...)
Thank you! Great article. It seems like the tender grinding system was an issue. Off site prep (grinding, pulverizing, and cleaning, like at a power plant) could have helped...? What quality of coal did they use- good quality coal, or the stuff from UP's mines in southern Wyoming?
Ummph ..
UP coal fired turbines : as sure as not they tried to feed those things with the last quality of Rosebud coal ..
You cannot get rid of abrasives because the cinders themselves are abrasive and you surely won't expect combustion to be as complete as can be in a power house . In my eyes it was once again an effort at "Can we get lots of power without paying full price ?" Answer : "Nope , you can't - not even if you are Union Pacific! You either pay for suiting fuel or you pay for replacement blades , make your choice !" "We don't pay for either one , we just drop it !" "So be it - Amen !"
RIP - BigBlow
Yet , they made it clear that steam turbine electric high pressure condensor concept cannot compete with gas turbine electric ( once properly fitted and fuelled ) for power to mass ratio - and that's but logic if you come to think of all the extra mass involved in generating and condensing steam ...
Regards
NorthWest Just found this-http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=3489779 Even looks like a maintenance nightmare! Cobbled together from all sorts of things! Would coal gasification for gas turbines work better, even though it is not steam? (And diesels could use the fuel more efficiently)? Thank you for all your detailed responses, hope I haven't worn out more than one keyboard... And sorry Juniatha if this gets slightly off track of your original goal...
Well, if a camel is a horse designed by a commitee, what the heck is THIS? But that's the UP for you, as far as power experimentation is concerned they're the "anything for a laugh" gang! Maybe there's something to be said for that...hmmmmm....
Firelock76 Well, if a camel is a horse designed by a commitee, what the heck is THIS?
Well, if a camel is a horse designed by a commitee, what the heck is THIS?
It is a TESTBED, a rolling experimental facility. Constructed for literally cents on the dollar compared to what a whole new experimental locomotive would have cost.
Needed: a reliable source of electricity to run the machinery. Solution: a retired locomotive. Extra credit: use a retired PA, one of the most beautiful of passenger locomotives. (And the bonus of having cab signals and whatnot installed...)
Needed: a large carbody, with powered axles, in which the experimental machinery could be installed. Solution: get a GREAT BIG Great Northern electric, at scrap price. Extra credit: late-'40s moderne styling, much of which carried over... if you know what to look for ... into the final "design" ;-}
Needed: a place to put the fuel and the pulverizing apparatus, where they are together in one carbody. Solution -- a retired pedestal tender. Cost, effectively free. Plenty of spare running-gear parts, etc.
Does anyone really care if the result looks like something out of a Mad Max movie? It certainly demonstrated the concept -- or rather, the unworkability of the concept given the prevailing conditions.
Please, PLEASE put these discussions in their own thread, not in this one.
Okay-to steer back on topic, sorry for my turbine jaunt, just wasn't sure if it qualified as "steam" or not.
Duplex drives- as I understand them, they were useful for balancing reciprocating valve gear at extremely high speeds. Earlier these were touched on, but I'm curious what you guys think could have been built with duplex drive. Also, is there a way to help solve the wheelslip issues with the T-1?
(As a side note to the T-1, I found the SCOA-P wheels when looking at late Australian steam, and found that the South Australian Railway 520 class looks a lot like the T-1, but I can't find a connection to Baldwin...)
NorthWestDuplex drives- as I understand them, they were useful for balancing reciprocating valve gear at extremely high speeds. Earlier these were touched on, but I'm curious what you guys think could have been built with duplex drive. Also, is there a way to help solve the wheelslip issues with the T-1?
We covered this very extensively in past threads.
We should put something in context first, which was the trend (notably at Lima) of using very long stroke (up to 34"!) in conjunction with high pressure, high superheat, and reduced piston diameter. The T1, of course, used very short stroke (26") primarily (imho) to reduce inertial augment forces at high speed -- less for reciprocating balance than for the vertical component that induces 'hammer blow'. But short stroke was recognized on at least one railroad (C&O) as being deleterious to the locomotive's performance at anything less than high speed. Freight duplexes ... at least the rear engine of freight duplexes, which is presumably where the three-axle engine would go ... would be given the longer stroke and lighter construction that went with it; the result would likely be more effective at speed than the Qs were as-built. But let me take up the T1 as a better example of what needs to be done to get the trick to work...
The benefits of divided drive can be put in two categories. For ultra-high-speed passenger service, the duplex represents the only way to hold vertical augment within sensible bounds. For freight service, the approach lightens augment, but also divides piston thrust across multiple main pins. In both cases, through dephasing, the concept limits the instantaneous torque rise that predisposes to slipping.
The principal drawback, of course, was that a twelve-drivered duplex (think a Challenger or Allegheny without the hinge between the engines!) would have been too long for most railroads, Eastern railroads at least (and in any case, the articulated, or SE Mallet to use Juniatha's term, would be preferable given the complications of the long rigid frame). That meant that one of the engines would be only four-coupled. In the case of the T1 (and the B&O 5600) BOTH engines were four-coupled. As I recall, there was some correspondence at the Hagley Museum indicating that the T1 was considered as a 'double Atlantic' -- remember that the PRR was said to prefer the E6 over the K4 for running above 100 mph, for more than one technical reason -- without understanding a critical limitation of a four-coupled engine.
When an eight-coupled engine is heavily loaded and accelerated near the adhesion limit, and one driver finds a low spot or frog, there is still 7/8ths the adhesion helping arrest any slip. But on a standard Duplex, this situation reduces you to only 3/4 the adhesion ... abruptly. Even with what looks like a sensible FA (the T1 as I recall was 4.21) that degree of unloading will produce a slip at high or low speed. At which point the internal streamlining of the steam passages, and the low inertia, high precision, and relatively large and quick-opening poppets in the valve gear, conspire to happily produce increasing HP with speed -- ensuring that once a slip starts, it will propagate (rapidly) up to essentially the point where steam supply (very large) is outstripped by inertial load (very low until you get to LARGE cyclic rpm). This is much faster, by the way, than a human engineer can close his throttle (even with fancy air assist) or react to adjust the reverser setting. It did not help that the Ts were well-enough balanced that it could be difficult to hear or feel that a slip had set in until it had wound up to 'interesting' levels...
As you are probably aware, the PRR Q2s were equipped with a sophisticated (for the Forties) servo system to arrest slipping, This consisted of sensors that controlled balanced butterfly valves in the steam lines; if a slip was detected (differential rotation of the engines) the 'faster' one was momentarily cut off. As you might suspect, there were control instabilities in the thing, and the 'stuffing boxes' for the butterfly actuators, being exposed to steam at full superheat, proved extremely difficult -- verging on impossible, in that era -- to keep lubricated.
The logical 'fix' for this inherent problem with the duplex drive was originally postulated by Riley Deem at Lima (I believe in the late Forties). I have not found any hard technical details about his solution, other than that it involved 'gears' (Tom Blasingame knew Deem, and said he talked with him at some length, but had never heard details of the solution). Meanwhile, in the early '70s Bill Withuhn came up with a solution (described in Trains and then included in the ACE 3000 patent) which used cylinders in the 'outside corners' (where the 5600 and the PRR Q1 had them) and a set of inside rods between the two mains that kept all the rods in strict opposite phase, giving true longitudinal balance of reciprocating force (and hence, no need for any overbalance in the wheelrims, which would give reasonable rotating balance as well).
Withuhn's solution has a couple of obvious issues, the first of which is that cylinders under or against the firebox have proven very poor engineering practice. The inside rods require that the mains (which take the most torque) be cranked -- not with one throw, as with a three-cylinder engine, but with two. This in turn complicates the arrangements to provide roller bearings and then keep them in requisite alignment. There are some interesting technical problems involved in making those inside rods with roller bearings -- a little reflective thinking will divulge some of them.
In my opinion (expressed a number of places, one quite recently) the 'correct' approach is to provide gearcases, similar to large Spicer drives, on the two axles adjacent to the rear-engine cylinder block. These are then joined by an appropriately-splined (to permit suspension movement) Cardan shaft arrangement, with a center fluid coupling (similar to a Ferguson clutch) and an underrunning sprag clutch (oriented away from the engine most likely to slip -- usually the forward one for reasons I omit here).
On the T1, this goes through a center bearing located within the 'stretcher' in the cast bed between the rear-engine cylinders. There is already a lightening hole in this location adequate for the required shaft dimension; this can easily be modified to take a double mounting flange for the required clutch construction. I further provide some synchronizing detents that preferentially 'lock' the phase of the two engines 45 degrees apart (so the net effect is to produce eight torque peaks per revolution, as on some conventional four-cylinder locomotives like the British Lord Nelsons, with only marginal compromise of balance).
In operation, the two engines work separately, as intended for a Duplex, except insofar as the detenting tends to keep the phasing around where it is wanted. If one engine begins to slip, the Ferguson clutch creates drag; if the slip persists, within a fraction of a revolution the roller sprags engage and lock the engines together (but without producing hard shock to the gearing or the universals/Rzeppa joints in the conjugation shaft). A different form of centrifugal clutch, or an active overriding clutch, can of course be provided, but very quick automatic action is essential.
This is a fully balanced system, and it is easy to incorporate the gearcase into a cannon box. I have designed ways to allow the elements of the Spicer drives to be installed and adjusted without removing either the drivers or the bearings from the axles. It is interesting to note that the effective cost of providing the gears involved has dropped dramatically over the past decade or so, as machining facilities for large wind turbines have become sophisticated, widely available, costed-down, and familiar to run.
Of course, the first cost is greater than an 'equivalent' 2-cylinder 4-8-4, which in its late incarnation was perfectly capable of running at high speeds. (There are people who believe the 115-mph test run of a N&W J on PRR was completely fictional, but it does appear that dynamometer records substantiate it; of course, the same people disbelieve that the zero-overbalance method of balancing used on the Js actually worked, so YMMV...). It may be difficult to justify the added cost and maintenance expenses of a duplex unless the better high-speed performance is required -- and I can think of a number of railroads that were anticipating services in the late '40s that would require just that sort of high-speed performance without destroying the requisite track geometry (well, at least not excessively...)
The 520s were covered in Trains many years ago, and it's fairly common knowledge that they were styled after CME Harrison saw a picture of a T1 in Railway Age and was inspired. There is no direct connection between either the design of the locomotives or the 'manufacturer' (the 520s were 'homebuilt' at Islington).
But I still love both types!
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