Rails announce NER electric autocar in OO

[KymN]

On 16/12/2021 at 19:30, LondonCharivari said:

I noticed in the latest edition of Railway Modeller that there's a "sound upgrade" mentioned on the Rails ad for the Autocar. But I can't seem to find any further info on Rails' website or online. Is anyone aware of any information about this upgrade?

I contacted Rails.  Yes the sound upgrade is coming, but 'this is not available to add to orders just yet'.

[PhilJ W]

I find it difficult to imagine what sort of sound they are fitting. In its current form the autocar has a modern diesel engine so that would be unsuitable for recording. AFAIK there are no surviving examples of the original Wolsely petrol engines that powered the railcars and when they were withdrawn sound recording technology was in its infancy.

[Bishdurham]

3 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

I find it difficult to imagine what sort of sound they are fitting. In its current form the autocar has a modern diesel engine so that would be unsuitable for recording. AFAIK there are no surviving examples of the original Wolsely petrol engines that powered the railcars and when they were withdrawn sound recording technology was in its infancy.

 

Although there may be no Wolseley petrol engines of the period, there are other petrol engines of the period and  early Wolseley from other uses.  It may be possible to use these and although they may not be 100% authentic, they may be close and there are probably few people left who can confirm how authentic they would be.  For me that is close enough and I will consider the option when it arises.

 

Happy Christmas!

[Colin_McLeod]

They can record my petrol generator if it helps

[Nearholmer]

There are Wolseley cars surviving and in working order from that period, although I think they have smaller engines. The big issue would be the exhaust arrangement anyway, because that usually dictates a lot of what we hear of an engine.

 

In general, an engine of that date will be fairly ‘chuffy’ or ‘spluttery’, and quiet compared with a modern one of the same rating, because the compression ratio will be a lot lower, the cylinders a lot bigger, and the engine speed a lot lower. The Wolseley engine fitted to the autocar was 100hp at 480rpm, and had four 8.5”x10” cylinders, with natural aspiration.
 

That’s an output similar to a modern 3-cylinder 1 Litre, turbocharged car engine with the management system set to ‘eco’, but it would sound radically different.

Imagine an ‘eco’ Ford Fiesta engine fitted to a single decker ‘bus to get some idea of the original performance, yet it was still more sprightly than a steam loco and coaches!

 

 

Edited December 24, 2021 by Nearholmer

[PhilJ W]

The Wolseley engine was rather unusual in being a flat four. The nearest to it in layout terms would be the Jowett engine used in the Bradford vans the design of which dates back to WW1. There would probably been more noise created by the electrical components once the railcar was under way. Petrol engines that were built at the same time as the railcars were made to be virtually silent in operation. (Rolls Royce and Daimler).

[Bishdurham]

1 hour ago, Colin_McLeod said:

They can record my petrol generator if it helps

If you can shout all aboard in a Yorkshire or Geordie accent as well, I think we may be on to something!  

[PhilJ W]

9 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

There are Wolseley cars surviving and in working order from that period, although I think they have smaller engines. The big issue would be the exhaust arrangement anyway, because that usually dictates a lot of what we hear of an engine.

 

In general, an engine of that date will be fairly ‘chuffy’ and quiet compared with a modern one of the same rating, because the compression ratio will be a lot lower, the cylinders a lot bigger, and the engine speed a lot lower. The Wolseley engine fitted to the autocar was 100hp at 480rpm, and had four 8.5”x10” cylinders, with natural aspiration.

The Wolseley car engines would be nothing like the engine fitted to the railcar and would probably run at a greater speed. The electric transmission would also make a difference to any sound the engine made. Once the railcar is up to speed the engine would be barely ticking over. The only time extra power would be required would be pulling away from a stop or on a hilly route. In such an application it is not BHP or rpm that is required but plenty of torque.

[Nearholmer]

I checked, and the car engines were a whopping 14hp. I dont think they were running a lot, if any faster, but certainly a lot smaller.

 

You're probably right about the transmission, because there would have been a fair bit of motor whine, which would probably have drowned out engine noise under some loading conditions.

 

What i've never been able to discover about the autocar was whether or not the engine and electrical control systems were integrated. I dont think they were, because the methods for doing that weren't devised until a bit later, so I assume the technique to accelerate from rest would have involved moving the engine speed up from tickover to highest permissable (480rpm, I think), then using the generator excitation controls separately to accelerate, then dropping the engine speed back to whatever was needed to maintain the desired cruising speed once that was attained, going back up to full engine speed for notable up gradients, and down to tickover on notable down gradients. I doubt tickover would have been sufficient to maintain an acceptable cruising speed on the level, so my surmise is that the 400rpm/92hp continuous rating was what was needed to cruise on the main line, with lower engine-speed and power sufficient on a level section of branch line with a lower speed limit than the main.

 

The engine power is important to overall speed. On a level road/track, the 'cruising speed' is where the engine power balances all the various losses in the transmission, the resistances of axle-bearings, air resistance etc, and the higher the engine power, the higher that speed is. My reading of the descriptions of the car is that it was intended to cruise at 400rpm, yielding 92hp, and that part of the reason why the original Napier 85hp engine was replaced was that it wasn't powerful enough to yield the necessary overall speed.

 

The torque of primary interest in a vehicle with electric transmission is the traction-motor torque, and in a series motor, which I assume this beast had, the torque is naturally very high at starting, falling as speed increases. At starting, the generator will have been set to give a low output voltage (to limit motor current), and as the speed of the car rose, the generator excitation will have been altered to increase that voltage progressively, until the desired cruising speed was reached.

 

Given a bit of time, it would be possible to calculate a good approximation of the running resistance of the car at various speeds, and make a good stab at the losses in the transmission, and actually work out what engine output powers would have been neded to cruise at different speeds, but it is Christmas Eve!

 

 

[PhilJ W]

The Tilling Stevens petrol electric buses certainly used field control with two small levers mounted on the steering column so it was probably something similar.

[Nearholmer]

Merry Christmas!

 

while making breakfast, I remembered that White Rabbit posted a good contemporary description of the engineering detail in this thread, near the beginning 

 

[PhilJ W]

On 25/03/2016 at 14:51, AMJ said:

Nice video White Rabbit

 

This could be a very interesting idea for a gala, NER themed

Railcar

New G5 when finished

The H class 0-4-0T such as 1310

JOEM as the originals were built for the NER.

There's a few petrol, diesel and electric locomotives about that are pre-1950, you could have a none steam gala?

[PhilJ W]

The performance of the railcar was probably lethargic given the relatively low power output. The Daimler company probably watched the railcars with interest and developed their own just before WW1.

Development was put on hold due to the war but was further developed post war with new engines that were very similar to those fitted to tanks during the recent conflict. As you can see in the photograph the layout is similar to the GWR railcars with side mounted engines driving a propshaft. An interesting feature was a generator/motor fitted in the driveline. Under normal running conditions this charged batteries (in the box to the right of the engine) and then the stored energy was used on hilly sections.

[Nearholmer]

That was a very interesting railcar indeed, possibly even more novel features packed into one vehicle than the NER one.

 

Have you looked at the Patton Motor Cars from the US, which I’m fairly certain were the first road or rail vehicles anywhere to use an internal combustion engine driving via an electric transmission, and possibly the first to use an internal combustion and battery combination? They dated from well before this Wikipedia item suggests, and included a couple of ‘engineer’s train locos’ for one of the elevated railways, Chicago, I think. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patton_Motor_Company

[PhilJ W]

Indeed, it mentioned a car going into service with the Chattanooga Rapid Transit Company. I have a book obtained when I stopped in Chattanooga in 1979 which gives a history of street railways in Chattanooga so I'll have to look it up.

[PhilJ W]

A picture of the Wolseley engine as fitted to the railcar here.

https://twsmedia.co.uk/2020/03/09/petrol-electric-railcars/

[PhilJ W]

1 hour ago, PhilJ W said:

The performance of the railcar was probably lethargic given the relatively low power output. The Daimler company probably watched the railcars with interest and developed their own just before WW1.

Development was put on hold due to the war but was further developed post war with new engines that were very similar to those fitted to tanks during the recent conflict. As you can see in the photograph the layout is similar to the GWR railcars with side mounted engines driving a propshaft. An interesting feature was a generator/motor fitted in the driveline. Under normal running conditions this charged batteries (in the box to the right of the engine) and then the stored energy was used on hilly sections.

Correction, The 'box' was the engine cover panel, the batteries were behind the panel above. That is the gearbox/generator behind the engine. The gearbox was the one developed for the early tanks and a development of that gearbox was used in the GWR railcars and the first generation BR DMU's.

[stewartingram]

I've seen a Tilling Stevens chassis (lorry body) at a local vehicle rally 2-3 years ago. Maybe a recording of something like this might help?

 

Edit to add, found a pic:

 

[Nearholmer]

L T Museum had a T-S bus in working order, I believe.

[PhilJ W]

23 minutes ago, stewartingram said:

I've seen a Tilling Stevens chassis (lorry body) at a local vehicle rally 2-3 years ago. Maybe a recording of something like this might help?

 

Edit to add, found a pic:

 

That is a TS19 army searchlight lorry. The one pictured was converted to diesel (Gardner 5LW) when it was de-mobbed and went to work for a showman. There is another survivor in original condition with its petrol engine.

Very few survived the war, a lot were lost at Dunkirk.

Many Tilling Stevens petrol-electrics of different types went into service with showmen because of their generating ability, Thats  why quite a few have survived.

Edited December 25, 2021 by PhilJ W

[Nearholmer]

We’ve already wandered OT, and could go a great deal further OT, given the number of cars that had Electric transmission pre-Model T. At one period there were more cars with electric transmission on the road than with gearboxes, and some of them were fiendishly complex/ingenious. There was even a bus with three-phase transmission c1910-11. 
 

If you want to spend an hour scratching your head, look at the Owen Magnetic transmission. I did eventually work out how it worked!

 

 

Edited December 25, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Nearholmer]

And, for afficionados of the Lanchester-Daimler car, a patent with basic circuit configuration https://catalogue.lanchesterinteractive.org/records/LAN/6/105

 

 I havent yet had time to back-relate this patent to the articles describing the car as built, and as modified, so I am not certain it describes what actually existed. I've learned to be very circumspect when looking at patents for early i.c. vehicles, because some set out ideas that were quickly abandoned by the patentee, and never carried into action. Sometimes they sought a further patent for their next idea, but sometimes they didn't.

 

The basic details of what was built, including a nice model-makers drawing, here https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/misc/railcars.htm#daimler_railcar

 

The Pieper system mentioned in that article is described here https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Système_de_propulsion_Pieper. The other European pertrol-electric system applied to rail in this period was that of Crochat, and ever so slightly later on rail the Porsche system that had been developed from that used in the Lohner-Porshe cars, then there were the PE locos buit for the WDLR. Post WW1, a very good sytem, with proper integrated engine and generator control, was perfected by one of Porsche's proteges and went on to be used in the DE version of the Fliegender Hamburger. Many believe that the PE-to-DE story was played out entirely in the USA, but just as much happened in Europe and Scandinavia as did there.

 

 

Edited December 25, 2021 by Nearholmer

[The Stationmaster]

16 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

And, for afficionados of the Lanchester-Daimler car, a patent with basic circuit configuration https://catalogue.lanchesterinteractive.org/records/LAN/6/105

 

 I havent yet had time to back-relate this patent to the articles describing the car as built, and as modified, so I am not certain it describes what actually existed. I've learned to be very circumspect when looking at patents for early i.c. vehicles, because some set out ideas that were quickly abandoned by the patentee, and never carried into action. Sometimes they sought a further patent for their next idea, but sometimes they didn't.

 

The basic details of what was built, including a nice model-makers drawing, here https://www.warwickshirerailways.com/misc/railcars.htm#daimler_railcar

 

The Pieper system mentioned in that article is described here https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Système_de_propulsion_Pieper. The other European pertrol-electric system applied to rail in this period was that of Crochat, and ever so slightly later on rail the Porsche system that had been developed from that used in the Lohner-Porshe cars, then there were the PE locos buit for the WDLR. Post WW1, a very good sytem, with proper integrated engine and generator control, was perfected by one of Porsche's proteges and went on to be used in the DE version of the Fliegender Hamburger. Many believe that the PE-to-DE story was played out entirely in the USA, but just as much happened in Europe and Scandinavia as did there.

 

 

Leaves me wondering if any contemporary vehicles (e.g. Nissan Qashqai Mild Hybrid) infringe Lanchester's patent because it does exactly what he describes with stored self-generated electrical energy driving the motor to assist the petrol engine.

[Nearholmer]

It might also might make you wonder to what degree his patent might have infringed Patton’s US ones from twenty plus years earlier, but the devil is always in the detail of the claim.

[Johann Marsbar]

We've recently obtained a fully operational T-S bus chassis to be used in rebuilding an early 1920's Eastern Counties Road Car open top double decker...