Tornado fails on ECML

[LMS2968]

https://www.a1steam.com/2018/07/16/tornado-repair-update-16th-july/

[Gibbo675]

Would stamp collecting be OK?

 

Do they know why it failed and they are just not saying, or is it still a mystery?

Hi Andy,

 

I stumbled across this thread just this evening for the first time and have had a good read and here are my observations.

1. The combination lever was blued in the area of failure which is of the elastic-plastic type failure mode there fore the lower end would have been moving back and forth with the cross head at about seven-eight times a second at the speed that it failed at with the top fixed or partially fixed either at or within the valve cross head slide.
2. The likely cause of the fixing in position of the valve cross head would be seizure of the valve heads within the cylinder liner of the valve chest of that engine (the locomotive has three engines).
3. There are three likely causes of seizure of a valve head within its liner, 4. Lack of lubrication, 5.That the ring gaps of valve rings were incorrectly set, 6. That the clearance between the valve head and the liner are incorrect.
4. Lack of lubrication may be caused by, a. Check valve failure within the lubrication line, b. Failure of that particular pump within the lubricator, c. Failure of the atomised steam supply to that particular lubrication line, d. Incorrect drifting practice causing smoke box gasses to burn off the lubrication causing localised heating and galling of sliding surfaces, e. Unlikely but possible, the lubricator was incorrectly filled with the wrong oil, bearing grade not steam grade, or the grade of steam oil has been unfortunately supplied to an incorrect specification.
5. If the gaps of the rings are less than 1/16" of one inch when fitted into the liner when cold they may in service expand enough that they become tight within the liner which then causes more friction and more expansion, (the heads and rings run hotter than the liners despite all being grades of cast iron which have similar coefficients of expansion).
6. The incorrect clearance being applied will affect performance in the same way as the valve rings above.
7. They know damn well what went wrong but it will be swept under the soggiest of ash in the very bottom of the ash pit !

What you also need to know about steam locomotive valve failure is that it could be possible to be all or none of the above, they are quite tricky like that !

 

Gibbo.

[AndyID]

In the absence of any real information I'm going with 7.

[LMS2968]

https://www.a1steam.com/2018/08/11/repair-update-10th-august/

[Mallard60022]

https://www.a1steam.com/2018/08/11/repair-update-10th-august/

Outside and inside 'engines' eh? happy days.

Phil

[LMS2968]

This correct terminology has caused confusion before. A GWR driver had a problem with the outside valves on one side of his big passenger loco. He disconnected it then continued on his way, perhaps hoping for some praise for his initiative when he wrote in his report that he '... worked the train forward with three engines.' He was less happy to be asked why he felt the need to use so many locos!

[Mallard60022]

This correct terminology has caused confusion before. A GWR driver had a problem with the outside valves on one side of his big passenger loco. He disconnected it then continued on his way, perhaps hoping for some praise for his initiative when he wrote in his report that he '... worked the train forward with three engines.' He was less happy to be asked why he felt the need to use so many locos!

Correct terminology it may be but I never heard any railway worker refer to those parts as 'engines' in the past and so I have learned something today.

P

[jamie92208]

Correct terminology it may be but I never heard any railway worker refer to those parts as 'engines' in the past and so I have learned something today.

P

 

The only time I've heard that usage is in relation to locos such as Garratts and Mallets where people talk about the front and rear engines.

 

Jamie

Edited August 13, 2018 by jamie92208

[Gibbo675]

Correct terminology it may be but I never heard any railway worker refer to those parts as 'engines' in the past and so I have learned something today.

P

I spent twenty years working at Riley and Son's of Bury and the correct terminology for a cylinder, a valve chest, the connecting rod and all of the associated valve gear is indeed engine, therefore A1Tornado is a locomotive with three engines.

 

That you have not heard railway workers use the term does not surprise me as the use of the word engine is common usage for locomotive both on the railway generally and in enthusiast circles.

 

Have a read of my above post to AndyID, you may note that I use the term engine for the part of the the locomotive that had failed.

 

Any questions, do please ask and I shall provide answers where I am able.

 

 

Gibbo.

[Edwin_m]

Probably goes back to pre-locomotive days, when a beam "engine" was a cylinder and associated hardware but the boiler was separate. 

[62613]

In marine usage, the last telegraph order from the bridge, when coming to anchor or secured at the berth, is, or was, "Finished with engines", which probably went back as far at least to the days of triple expansion steam engines, where you had high, intermediate and low-pressure engines. Even if the ship had a single main propulsion unit, the description was the same.

[RJS1977]

I can unfortunately remember very little of the thermodynamics element of my Physics degree, but I can remember that in that context a cylinder where heat is converted into work (i.e. by expansion pushing a piston) is indeed an 'engine'.

[Zomboid]

I always consider the full set of cylinders etc to be the "engine" part of a steam locomotive. You'd only have multiple engines on an articulated loco, in my mind (or a duplex like the PRR T1, but those were very rare).

 

Of course, me being wrong is hardly unusual.

[AndyID]

I always consider the full set of cylinders etc to be the "engine" part of a steam locomotive. You'd only have multiple engines on an articulated loco, in my mind (or a duplex like the PRR T1, but those were very rare).

 

Of course, me being wrong is hardly unusual.

 

I can't see how you could be wrong "Engine" can apply to just about any mechanism with moving parts. Babbage called his invention a "difference engine" and there were "siege engines" long before that.

[Mallard60022]

So, to put it simply, the driving bits, including the cylinders and valves, are the engines but the whole thing is a locomotive? The engines can be made up of several parts; is that correct so I can get my thinking straight? I shall continue to be amazed at the knowledge that has been 'lost' as time goes by. 

Phil

[eastwestdivide]

"Engine" might well be the correct engineering term, but I think it falls down regarding communication in a press release for general consumption - a lot of people would immediately think "Tornado is an engine - what do they mean?". It would have been good to add something to explain the use of the word, e.g. :

"...We are pleased to report that the two outside engines [insert short explanation here] are now rebuilt..."

Or a photo of one of the "engines" with a caption "One of the repaired outside engines"

Edited August 14, 2018 by eastwestdivide

[Reorte]

To further muddy the water some companies in the past used "engines" where others used "locomotives". Then there's "light engine"...

[Edwin_m]

Would have been simpler just to say something like "cylinder, valve gear and connecting rod".

[TheQ]

Remember Old time Cleaners / Firemen / Drivers often went to the local Mechanics institute (probably the Swindon one in this case) for improvement courses to help their career. Almost certainly some lecturer was teaching the correct terms for parts of a locomotive. An the questioner complaining of using too many locomotives was in the traffic / clerical side of things and not heard of Engines for the moving parts.

 

PS I had heard of the term..it's in several of my GWR books

Edited August 14, 2018 by TheQ

[jim.snowdon]

Yet, you would never refer to a Class 55 having 36 engines - it has two engines with 18 cylinders each, and the whole ensemble is considered as a locomotive engine, or more simply, an engine. It all comes down to a term with multiple meanings.

 

Track is no different, a diamond crossing is made up from four crossings, and a set of points means different things to a track engineer and a signal engineer.

 

Jim

[The Stationmaster]

Remember Old time Cleaners / Firemen / Drivers often went to the local Mechanics institute (probably the Swindon one in this case) for improvement courses to help their career. Almost certainly some lecturer was teaching the correct terms for parts of a locomotive. An the questioner complaining of using too many locomotives was in the traffic / clerical side of things and not heard of Engines for the moving parts.

 

PS I had heard of the term..it's in several of my GWR books

 

I have seen the term used in very old reports as well - such as 'driver so & so put up the engine on one side to allow him to proceed at reduced speed on the other engine'

[tigerburnie]

As long as they fix it and I get a chance to see it, I don't really care who calls what bits what to be honest...………………………..

[Dava]

In the Clyde steamer terminology I grew up with, 'going to see the engines' [also I later discovered a euphemism for visiting the bar] was always plural, even in the case of a paddle steamer engine such as the Rankine & Blackmore triple-expansion set on PS Waverley, three cylinders each with an independent set of valve gear, on a single forged bedplate. The Turbine steamers also had multiple engines, including a reverse turbine. More questionable when there was just a single Marine diesel.

Edited August 14, 2018 by Dava

[Colin_McLeod]

I always understood a locomotive to consist of two or more engines mounted on frames. Power for the engines was supplied by a boiler mounted on the same frames. Fuel for the boiler was carried in a coal bunker and water tank(s). The bunker and tank(s) could either be mounted on the same frames or in a separate vehicle. The controls for all this were contained in the driving cab commonly called the footplate.

 

 

Compare with an aeroplane. Engines are fixed to the wings or fuselage. Fuel is kept in fuel tanks and everything is controlled from the cab (cockpit). Same again for a ship.

Edited August 14, 2018 by Colin_McLeod

[AndyID]

Maybe we should get back to bird watching?