Castle Aching

[Compound2632]

If we had a separate thread for every subject discussed on CA, we'd be completely swamped. At least as things stand, my search process starts with "I'm sure that was mentioned on CA".

[Nearholmer]

Pretty sure this is the same Lartigue https://www.sncf-reseau.fr/sites/default/files/upload/_Import/pdf/2013-04-26_COMMQ_note_d_info_V2_ok_light.pdf edit: no, I think it was the son of the one we’re thinking about.

 

And, this definitely is http://jeanpieetlidwine.canalblog.com/archives/2017/01/07/34776480.html worth noting that Ballybunnion is not, nor has it ever been, in Scotland!

Edited August 30, 2018 by Nearholmer

[Donw]

Pretty sure this is the same Lartigue https://www.sncf-reseau.fr/sites/default/files/upload/_Import/pdf/2013-04-26_COMMQ_note_d_info_V2_ok_light.pdf edit: no, I think it was the son of the one we’re thinking about.

 

And, this definitely is http://jeanpieetlidwine.canalblog.com/archives/2017/01/07/34776480.html worth noting that Ballybunnion is not, nor has it ever been, in Scotland!

 

I have never heard any suggestion that it was.

 

Incidently was it Maurice Deane that built a model of the L & B one? 

 

Don

[Nick Holliday]

Adams's early 4-coupled designs show great uniformity, regardless of the builders used, and I suggest that the appearance of Beyer Peacock's locomotives is derived from Adams, not visa versa.

 

On the other hand, the South Western's  Ilfracombe Goods was an original BP design - witness the example supplied to Australia - the Beattie brothers toyed with designs for a loco suited to the grades and curves of the Ilfracombe line, but there is no doubt that Adams bought in the solution in the form of a standard Beyer product.

Not wishing to get drawn too deeply into a chicken and egg argument, but in pure pedant mode, surely visa versa is the act of turning over a credit card, to read the three digit security number.

But back to the topic, I would suggest that Adams was a bit of a chameleon. If you look at the locos he was responsible for procuring on the Great Eastern, his prior appointment before arriving at Nine Elms, the successful ones owed a lot to Johnson, his predecessor, especially the 0-4-4 tanks, a design he reverted to in his later O2 and T1 classes, yet his 4-4-0 and 2-6-0 tender locos were like nothing before or since. However, before arriving at Stratford, he had produced both inside and outside cylindered 4-4-0 tanks for the North London Railway. I would be tempted to say that the steam-roller classes owed a lot to Beyer Peacock input, but without any actual proof.

Going back in time to the Beattie era, Bradley, in the RCTS volumes, notes that Joseph Beattie and Charles Beyer were friends of long standing, and Joseph took Beyer's advice when preparing his iconic Standard Well Tanks, as far back as 1861, with many of Charles's suggestion being incorporated in the final design, of which BP built over eighty examples. Charles didn't have a similar relationship with other loco engineers, some of whom being extremely touchy if their designs were criticised, their loss as Beyer was one of the ablest loco engineers of his day. He was also a clever business man - when Beattie sent his design for a heavy goods loco, the Lion class, for BP to quote for, Beyer managed to persuade Beattie that his standard design was equal to the task, and substantially cheaper! Later, similar arguments won an order for the inside framed goods. The Metropolitan 4-4-0 tanks were also a standard BP design.

As for the Ilfracombe Goods, the search for a suitable loco for the line started under Joseph's auspices, when he approached Beyer for advice but didn't proceed with the proposed 4-4-0 design, and his son, (not his brother!), William, rejected the concept, but, with no alternative design of his own, eventually had to accept Beyer's design of 0-6-0, which had already been supplied to Sweden and other overseas railways. Several small orders for them followed, under William's aegis, and the concept was obviously adequate as Adams ordered a further pair in 1880, after he had taken over, although he was preparing his own design, the 395 class, the first of which arrived from Neilson and Co in November 1881 - interesting that BP didn't get a look in - Adams feeling that the BP classes were not as economical in service as he wished.

[brack]

If we had a separate thread for every subject discussed on CA, we'd be completely swamped. At least as things stand, my search process starts with "I'm sure that was mentioned on CA".

Do the occasional comments about some sort of east Anglian layout need to be split onto a different thread?

[Compound2632]

There is almost always some more-or-less tenuous connection to the West Norfolk Railway, without which things would fall apart completely - the pre-grouping pedants' weekly thread petered out because it didn't have such an ultimate point of reference. I confess, though, that we have yet to hear much about Lord Erstwhile's estate railway, which I feel sure was a Lartigue monorail.

Edited August 30, 2018 by Compound2632

[Nearholmer]

I think Deane May have built a very small scale Lartique, given that he built models of lots of very obscure railways while they were still very obscure, but a better known essay was by don boreham, iirc, and I think that Colin Binnie might have built a live steam version of the VB.

 

I’m sure I suggested a bicycle monorail as an attraction for Birchoveram, but it was vetoed as being too down-market, as are most of my American-inspired bits of Edwardian bad-taste (illuminations, for instance).

[runs as required]

Pretty sure this is the same Lartigue https://www.sncf-reseau.fr/sites/default/files/upload/_Import/pdf/2013-04-26_COMMQ_note_d_info_V2_ok_light.pdf edit: no, I think it was the son of the one we’re thinking about.

And, this definitely is http://jeanpieetlidwine.canalblog.com/archives/2017/01/07/34776480.html worth noting that Ballybunnion is not, nor has it ever been, in Scotland!

I can't believe I have just wasted the last two hours wandering around the streets of Panissieres on Google street view, trying to locate that replica Lartigue loco, and on satellite the remains of the bridge and any traces of the line from Feurs! There are two versions in pics,

I deduced (from the cars in view) the canopied shelter might be the newer of the two ways the same loco is displayed.

This is the first I knew of there being another another line apart from in "ecosse" !

 

Anyone any further news of a vertical boiler version?

dh

[Regularity]

I have never heard any suggestion that it was.

 

Incidently was it Maurice Deane that built a model of the L & B one? 

 

Don

He may have, but Adrian Garner and Donald Boreham certainly collaborated on such a project.

[Northroader]

About forty years ago, there were some articles in “Model Railways” about this. One you can see Jan 77 on the vertical boiler, t’other by Don Boreham a while later.

[runs as required]

While I was uslessly Googling for Lartigue in Loire, I was thinking about Beyer P. What is so technically significant about horizontal cylinders (as implied above) compared to  relatively inclined cylinders?

I remember reading  Michael Rutherford on Beyer Peacock  (RR no 47 vol12 680-9; RR no64 vol14 208-15) in his long running (and still much missed erudite) 'Railway Reflections'  series in Back Track magazine.

I came away with the impression BP stood for steady Germanic technical thoroughness with an overiding insistence on aesthetic principles and proportion. Was it the aesthetic that determined horizontally disposed cylinders whenever possible? (driving wheel diameter and boiler pitch permitting).

dh

[Nearholmer]

I think that the cylinder inclination, and resultant direction of forces, affects stability, but I can’t quite work out in my mind why/how. Upright and very steeply inclined cylinders were abandoned very early, notably in the rebuilding of ‘Rocket’.

 

I’m thinking that there must be an optimum relationship between connecting rod angle and crank angle, to ensure the smoothest transmission, at the point of maximum force. Something like crank at 265 degrees (clockface), with con rod and piston rod aligned at 95 degrees (clockface), but I’m not really sure .........is there a mechanical engineer here present?

Edited August 30, 2018 by Nearholmer

[RedGemAlchemist]

Sorry if I go quiet here. This is well outside of my area of expertise.

[Compound2632]

Many of the sloping-outside-cylinder engines were 2-4-0s, with either a fixed or pivoting leading axle. In either case, the cylinders had to be raised above the coupled wheel centreline to clear the leading wheels. The same applies to the Met tanks and similar engines with the short-wheelbase leading truck.

 

Engines of the Crewe or Allan type got round this by having the leading axle further back, at the expense of shorter wheelbase and greater front overhanging mass, which I would guess made them less steady at speed.

Edited August 30, 2018 by Compound2632

[Northroader]

I suppose with vertical cylinders you end up with the reaction to the piston forces acting with or against the weight of the engine, and you’d get bouncing up and down on the springs in a very vulgar manner. If the cylinders are horizontal and in line with the axle , the reaction is against the horncheeks, which should be nice and tight, remember the “clonk clonk clonk” sound of an engine needing shops? To transfer the horizontal force of the piston rod to the angled thrust against the crank pin you need to thrust sideways with the crosshead against the slidebars, and the nearer the crosshead is to the crankpin the more sideways thrust is needed, with higher friction, so you could conclude that a very long connecting rod is a good thing, except that will increase the reciprocating masses. So it striking a balance with wheel diameters, cylinder clearances and so on.

[Nearholmer]

The other point is that it is a double-acting engine, and that the ideal that I postulated is only ideal with force in one direction. With force in the opposite direction, crank at 85 degrees, it would seem right to have con rod and piston rod at 90 degrees. Since the piston rod can’t be at both 95 and 90’degrees, put it half way between the two at 92.5 degrees, which suggests cylinders inclined 2.5 degrees from the horizontal, which I think was common.

 

In practice, I think that some French locos might have downward inclined cylinders, but that all sorts of clearance issues actually dictated various angles from zero to about 7 degrees from the horizontal, especially on three and four cylinder locos. I know that the crank angles on Gresley three cylinder locos were not evenly spread at 120 degrees, so as to catch the forces from inclined inside cylinders.

 

Have I got all this right??

Edited August 30, 2018 by Nearholmer

[Edwardian]

While our Glorious Indexer has been distracting himself, I have snuck in and started poling up the entries in the topic Index - here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/107713-castle-aching/?p=2184725 - I am about 10% of the way through the topic!

 

It is, thus, with considerable dismay that I find I have been unable to reproduce the Indexer's way of doing things.

 

I either produce links that do not work, or, I have to produce the full url (as above).

 

So, David, I'm afraid you must do it or it cannot be done!

Edited August 30, 2018 by Edwardian

[Donw]

Obviously the best gauge to use for the monorail is 0 gauge    whatever scale you use. It is an obvious choice for Narrow gaugers one cannot get narrower.

 

 

As for the use of inclined cylinders. Surely the use of inclined cylinders increases the hammer blow on the track. 

 

Don

[Annie]

If you want to try your hand at a Lartigue monorail in a larger scale I was starting to work on such a model before I became too ill to undertake any kind of major scratchbuilding projects anymore.  The link is to my very small Shapeways shop where the 'A' frames to support the rails can be purchased.  From memory code 100 flatbottom rail fits the 'A' frames just fine.

 

https://www.shapeways.com/shops/annie-s-lartigue-monorail-shop

[south_tyne]

I don't know, a lot of Scandinavian locos are very pretty.

And yes. ALMOST.

How about a lovely Hudswell Carke in Denmark.....

http://www.leedsengine.info/leeds/photo.asp?photo=images/Hudswell%20Clarke/Standard%20Gauge%20Loco/Steam/hc%20499%20helsingor%20denmark%202018%20kw.jpg&phby=Kris%20Ward&loco=Ostre%20Gasvaerk%20No.2%20%20(Hudswell%20Clarke%20499/1899)&exact=on

[brack]

I'd always thought inclination/hammer blow reduction was why larger 8 coupled locos often drive on the third axle (and short wheelbase 6 coupled locos). Yes you get a longer con rod and therefore more reciprocating mass but such locos are often not travelling so fast anyway.

[RedGemAlchemist]

How about a lovely Hudswell Carke in Denmark.....

http://www.leedsengine.info/leeds/photo.asp?photo=images/Hudswell%20Clarke/Standard%20Gauge%20Loco/Steam/hc%20499%20helsingor%20denmark%202018%20kw.jpg&phby=Kris%20Ward&loco=Ostre%20Gasvaerk%20No.2%20%20(Hudswell%20Clarke%20499/1899)&exact=on

Oh, that's a pretty one.

[Metropolitan H]

The other point is that it is a double-acting engine, and that the ideal that I postulated is only ideal with force in one direction. With force in the opposite direction, crank at 85 degrees, it would seem right to have con rod and piston rod at 90 degrees. Since the piston rod can’t be at both 95 and 90’degrees, put it half way between the two at 92.5 degrees, which suggests cylinders inclined 2.5 degrees from the horizontal, which I think was common.

 

In practice, I think that some French locos might have downward inclined cylinders, but that all sorts of clearance issues actually dictated various angles from zero to about 7 degrees from the horizontal, especially on three and four cylinder locos. I know that the crank angles on Gresley three cylinder locos were not evenly spread at 120 degrees, so as to catch the forces from inclined inside cylinders.

 

Have I got all this right??

You are right that with steeply inclined cylinders there are possible unstability effects due to the component of the cylinder thrust in li line with the suspension movement - not good.

 

There also limitations on suspension movement of the driven axle to prevent contact of the pistons with the cylinder end covers - again not preferred.

 

Finally you also get significant effects on the valve positioning - due to suspension movements - relating in unequal equal openings and closings and hence poor distribution of tractive effort through the crank cycle. Very nasty.

 

The poor valve events is also a problem with simple valvegears such as hackworth and Heywood types where the eccentric rod works at 90 degrees to the cylinder C/L - so vertical on an engine with horizontal cylinders - you get very poor valve events unless you have a very stiff suspension on the driving axle - not good for high speed working.

 

regards

Chris H 

[Compound2632]

At New Year, there was some discussion of the Orient Express. I though these two views of the Orient Express leaving St Pancras behind an H-boilered 0-6-0 might amuse.

 

Re. the Beyer Peacock archive rant, note the links to the NRM pages are now broken...

[Edwardian]

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