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Scottish Class 17 “Clayton”


TravisM
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Different spec engines, medium speed vs high speed, small cylinders whizzing faster......and going bang quicker.

 

JJB reminds me of the unreliability of such RR engines, I experienced them as emergency generators on ships, and bang was their middle name.  The Paxmans (bigger ones, more akin to HST engines) were truly awful.  Unreliable and absolute pigs to work on.  Can't recall the type, maybe Ventura?  V something anyway!

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I always find it odd that turbochargers often get a bad rap in railway discussions. I only ever saw one turbocharger failure on a ship and that was on sea trials and was an installation issue. I was the technical authority for engines in a large classification society with many 10,000's of engines within its classed fleet as near as makes no difference all of which were pressure charged and turbo failures were so rare that any that did occur were specifically investigated and my responsibility. 

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28 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

I always find it odd that turbochargers often get a bad rap in railway discussions. I only ever saw one turbocharger failure on a ship and that was on sea trials and was an installation issue. I was the technical authority for engines in a large classification society with many 10,000's of engines within its classed fleet as near as makes no difference all of which were pressure charged and turbo failures were so rare that any that did occur were specifically investigated and my responsibility. 

Why are many diesels considered as good marine engines, but no so good under operating conditions of a locomotive?

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13 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

Why are many diesels considered as good marine engines, but no so good under operating conditions of a locomotive?

 

That's an interesting question and one I have often pondered, it is made more interesting when you consider that marine engines often operate with much lower quality fuel oil which generally degrades reliability and performance. 

 

The usual answer is that marine engines operate at stable load and enjoy a much more benign duty cycle. Unfortunately that argument falls down when considering offshore vessels, dynamically positioned vessels and certain other types for which operating conditions are if anything more demanding than rail applications with no issues around reliability and durability. 

 

One factor is that marine engines are subject to class rules which generally require more stringent materials QA, inspection and design factors of safety than the same basic platforms when supplied for other applications.  For example marine engines often have heavier crankshaft but crankshaft failures of marine engines are rare indeed to the point that failures which do happen are high profile and subject to very detailed investigation and analysis. Some engine builders are always agitating to sell cheaper industrial and rail engines to shipping. My standard response involved asking for certain failure data at which point it all went quiet until the next effort.

 

Another important factor is designing the engine for the appropriate duty cycle which I always got an impression that it was taken more seriously in marine. One application engineer told me of instances where his departments advice was over ruled by sales and inappropriate engine variants were offered to reduce costs in order to win contracts with unfortunate consequences down the line. That is obviously anecdotal but the chap in question knew his stuff and wasn't given to spouting nonsense. 

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1 hour ago, kevinlms said:

Why are many diesels considered as good marine engines, but no so good under operating conditions of a locomotive?


One reason early diesel engines on locomotives were prone to failure was the stop/start nature of the railway.  On a marine engine, it basically chugs away all day at a constant lower speed whereas on the railway, the constant acceleration, high speed running, going to idle for a station stop and repeating the cycle put a higher strain on the engine.

 

When BR were withdrawing the hydraulics, most of the engines, especially those in the Western’s were sold into the marine industry with great success.

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Likewise the Mirlees engines in the pilot-scheme Brush Type 2. The crankcase etc. failures got so bad, they were replaced en mass with EE engines. The Mirlees units were repaired then sold on for marine use (a lot of them in trawlers).

Many aspects of rail use caused failure of otherwise 'proven' engines - power cycling, thermal cycling, vibration, relatively dirty engine room environment, inadequate cooling and so on.

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2 hours ago, keefer said:

Likewise the Mirlees engines in the pilot-scheme Brush Type 2. The crankcase etc. failures got so bad, they were replaced en mass with EE engines. The Mirlees units were repaired then sold on for marine use (a lot of them in trawlers).

Many aspects of rail use caused failure of otherwise 'proven' engines - power cycling, thermal cycling, vibration, relatively dirty engine room environment, inadequate cooling and so on.

This was proved by Grey Funnel line with the Valentas, it was almost ten years before they saw some of the common failures BR was seeing with them.

 

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Carnforth shed, last week of steam August 1968. A young Apollo standing in the cab on the left !!

 

2013-01-15-10-27-48.jpg.f7aad44478d0fdb1ea221a51733816ce.jpg

 

I don't know the Claytons number, but the 1T60 headcode was used at this time for test trains from Crewe to Carlisle on new locos (D4xx etc) - so what was this Clayton doing on this duty ?

 

Another shot at Carnforth on the last day - Sunday 4 Aug 1968 - Couple of Claytons on shed. Sad day for steam.

 

2013-01-15-11-14-43.jpg.6ae157e31d4d9c59e40fd45054c714e4.jpg

 

Brit15

Edited by APOLLO
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Another issue with rail vs marine engines may be heat management. 20 years ago, I was designing genset packages around Caterpillar, and other, engine/alternator units. It was very much the case that the tighter the package dimensions, relative to the engine size, the harder it was to get sufficient cooling in, especially if we had to meet a particularly stringent acoustic target. Whilst marine engine installations are far from unconstrained, the guys at the other end of the office, who were doing packages for people like Austral Ships, always seemed to have just that little bit of extra wriggle room that made it possible to design in a bit more margin, rather than fiddling about at the extreme end of the engine's minimum requirements. 

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7 hours ago, APOLLO said:

I don't know the Claytons number, but the 1T60 headcode was used at this time for test trains from Crewe to Carlisle on new locos (D4xx etc) - so what was this Clayton doing on this duty ?

 

 

As there seem to be quite a few enthusiasts about the place, not beyond the realms of possibility that one of them has put the headcode on as a jape, not that I ever did that sort of thing your honour, it was a friend who told me!

 

Mike.

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I think had the BRB listened to the the engine makers and outside manufacturers, I think not just the Class 17’s that were a catalogue of disasters and good money thrown after bad.

 

 I think Paxman told BR not to go for the Aluminium crankcase’s but also I think the moment that it was noticed that the power unit’s didn’t line up with the generator’s, construction should have stopped or at least slowed whilst the problem is sorted instead of plodding on hoping the problem will sort itself out.

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2 hours ago, montyburns56 said:

"She cannae take anymore Captain"

 

D8558 at Saughton Junction 1966 by Brian Flannigan

 

Clayton at Saughton

 

 

To boldly go where no Clayton has gone before - Are the Dilthium Crystals are burning up Scottie ?

 

Brit15

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29 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

 

To boldly go where no Clayton has gone before - Are the Dilthium Crystals are burning up Scottie ?

 

Brit15


Looks like warp factor 0.25 so hopefully not! We will be in Tribble if they do...,

Edited by Phil Bullock
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