Imaginary Locomotives

[tomparryharry]

Not quite the same thing but a 4 cylinder 4-8-0 from a few pages ago...

 

GWR-4-8-0-4.jpg

 

That's blessed close, very nice! I was thinking the enlarged 43/Manor/Grange. The oil firing is to cope with the increased firing rate. Still a 2-cylinder locomotive. The connecting rods are on the second set of drivers, to allow a larger firebox. The reciprocating mass would otherwise be quite close to the firebox throat.

 

Cheers,

 

Ian.

[37409]

 The drivers are somewhere around 5'8" to 6', so it won't quite go as fast as a bigger wheeled pacific, 

 

The 'small' wheel size never seemed to bother the Bulleid Pacifics, which are supposed to have the greatest number of recorded (albeit not official) trips above 100mph of any type of UK steam engine. 

 

Of course the reason for the number of recorded trips may simply be because the majority of 'timers' lived in the South, or maybe because express steam lasted longer on the ex Southern lines, or maybe the ex Southern drivers were having a 'last hurrah' and thrashing their locos more than drivers from other regions, but even so, small wheels does not necessarily equate to lower speeds - witness the 9F's. 

[melmerby]

The 'small' wheel size never seemed to bother the Bulleid Pacifics, which are supposed to have the greatest number of recorded (albeit not official) trips above 100mph of any type of UK steam engine. 

 

Of course the reason for the number of recorded trips may simply be because the majority of 'timers' lived in the South, or maybe because express steam lasted longer on the ex Southern lines, or maybe the ex Southern drivers were having a 'last hurrah' and thrashing their locos more than drivers from other regions, but even so, small wheels does not necessarily equate to lower speeds - witness the 9F's. 

By the time later express locos were being built 6' 2" had become fairly normal

e.g BR Standard Pacifics, GWR County, LNER A2 (P2) as well as the Bulleid spam cans.

Most were classed as mixed traffic but were normally used on passenger turns.

 

BTW the 9Fs at their extreme speeds were moving their machinery at a greater rate than Mallard during it's record run!

 

Keith

Edited April 20, 2018 by melmerby

[Hroth]

...

 

BTW the 9Fs at their extreme speeds were moving their machinery at a greater rate than Mallard during it's record run!

 

Keith

Unlike Mallard, the machinery on a 9F is all out in the open air, thus well cooled!  The middle engine of all the LNER three cylinder Pacific types seem to be prone to overcooking; Mallard famously expired after her 126mph effort and Tornado appears to have had a similar failure this week.

[runs as required]

I read somewhere that Bulleid wangled his Pacifics through wartime restrictions (Ministry of Supply/Lord Beaverbrook ?) partly by arguing that 6' 2" wheels were not express passenger but "mixed traffic" and would speed the war effort.

So did Hawksworth follow suit with the Counties? Though they hardly looked 'austerity' - unlike the 1500 panniers

 

dh

Edited April 20, 2018 by runs as required

[The Johnster]

Some of the Bullied ton up boy runs took place very late in the day, when crews were not discouraged from 'having a go' while they still could, especially if time was to be made up.

 

I absolutely agreed that high speed on modern steam locos is not hampered by smaller wheels, starting with the Kings, and including the Britannias as well as the famous fast 9F runs.  One wonders what a British 4-8-4 mixed traffic loco with 5'10" drivers, roller bearings, and rotary valve gear might have been able to achieve, and with what loads.  If anyone wants to have a go, I'd suggest Duke of Gloucester as a starting point, with BFB wheels.

 

Bullied's shennanigans to get his pacifics approved by the Ministry of Supply are another story, and my only observation will be that Hawkworth, who was most put out by it, got his new express 4-6-0, the 10xx County', built on the same size wheels. through the censor as well.  They could run fast when they had to as well, but not especially smoothly. One might argue that, like the Kings, a smaller driving wheel was required to get the 8F based boiler in to loading gauge.

Edited April 20, 2018 by The Johnster

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

...  One wonders what a British 4-8-4 mixed traffic loco with 5'10" drivers, roller bearings, and rotary valve gear might have been able to achieve, and with what load  ...

Or the Norfolk and Western J class 4-8-4 with 5'10" wheels and roller bearings? The N&W made an advertorial film of superb quality in the 1950s, and it is on youtube with a title on the lines of 'modern Norfolk and Western steam'. You get a good readable shot of the speedo when it is out on the road too, I'll not spoil the fun.

[melmerby]

Maybe if Riddles had proceeded with the 2-8-2 but with 5' 8" wheels we could have had a modern fast mixed traffic loco.?

If the same boiler & cylinders were used it would have more than 34000lb TE and in the 8MT bracket

 

Keith

[runs as required]

Tending to fence-sitting myself, I’ve always enjoyed excitingly bold projects risked by others. I once saw Bulleid’s CIE tufburner standing outside Inchicore works in the early 1960s and was instantly  captivated.

There is some interesting material on the Douglas Self Crosti boiler site about Bulleid’s 1940s enthusiasm for turf burning that attracted the CIE Board to him at the time of the Milne (of the GW) 1947 visitation.

In particular how the poor old GS&WR Coey 1907 2-6-0 no. 635 got butchered by Bulleid into an extraordinary Crosti style turf burner in 1951 after what must have been a refreshing jaunt on the Irish taxpayers to post–war style setting Italy.

 

This pic has the diagram of how the guinea pig was intended to work (coloured up by me – with an approximation of the original loco top left, the actual conversion right and the later deepened heat exchangers (GW pannier style) middle left

DS comments “As originally built, the steaming was awful, and a forced-draught fan was later added, powered by a Leyland bus engine carried on a wagon behind the tender”

 

We all know the actual boxy turf-burner CC! built in the 1950s (that I saw at Inchicore) by OVSB with John Click, his Leader class engineering assistant seconded from BR .

It was simpler and lighter than Leader with a central boiler (double Fairlie style) with a complex central cube shaped un water-jacketed firebox with thermal siphons.  It adopted piston rather than sleeve valves but still used leaky oil baths enclosing the chain drive to the six wheel bogies. Turf and water storage was at either end.
It ran several times at 70mph, throwing turf sparks until fitted with spark arresters. Visibility and signal sighting was poor (smoke deflectors were only a partial remedy)  It was clear to Click that redesign of both configuration and the double boiler  was necessary before a new class of 50 could be introduced (dual fuelled oil/turf).

But CIE decided instead to dieselise at about the time of Bulleid’s retirement to Malta in 1959. Bulleid seemed to regard it as his private sports car; driving it himself, he treated visiting dignitaries to high speed joy rides.

 

As armchair CME I now propose to the Board of Imaginary Locomotives a 1959 redesign as a non condensing steam turbine/electric.
I fancy a 2 unit: tender/boiler & generating station (that might have multiple unit capabilities for powering 4 car trains of elderly Irish coaches on inter urban stopping services).
 

Could such a project be multi-fuelled ?

 

dh

Edited April 21, 2018 by runs as required

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

...As armchair CME I now propose to the Board of Imaginary Locomotives a 1959 redesign as a non condensing steam turbine/electric.

I fancy a 2 unit: tender/boiler & generating station (that might have multiple unit capabilities for powering 4 car trains of elderly Irish coaches on inter urban stopping services).

 

Could such a project be multi-fuelled ?...

 Insufficiently ambitious. Full multi fuel and power generation modes: turf/oil steam raiser to drive the turbine by steam and a whiskey/kerosene gas turbine capability. The Irish taxpayer is going to have to fund a research jaunt party mission to California to gather the know how for this one.

[runs as required]

Insufficiently ambitious. Full multi fuel and power generation modes: turf/oil steam raiser to drive the turbine by steam and a whiskey/kerosene gas turbine capability. The Irish taxpayer is going to have to fund a research jaunt party mission to California to gather the know how for this one.

Thank you

Yes I'm certainly up for the jaunt to drive that UP kit.

Also for a whiskey that Powers a trainload of taxpayers at 60 mph.

dh

[runs as required]

So here is an artists impression of  Inchicore built TBB 15 on a 4 car 'pre-electric' MU on a Dublin - Wicklow service.

 

The power station is a return to a simpler SR Pacific style boiler with thermal syphons driving a steam turbine generator set supplying 1500volt DC current ahead of the boiler below the motor-man.

A steam drier circuit from a heat exchanger pannier on the lefthand side of the boiler fettles the turf tender and the fireman and motor-man keep in contact via a narrow gangway along the right hand side of the generator station

 

The motor-man has a small driving compartment in the lead coach when the power staion is in rear.

dh

 

NB

I ought really to have read Ernie Shepherd's 2004 book "Bulleid and the Turf Burner - and Other Experiments with Irish Steam Traction"; Kestrel books; Southampton  before imagining this

Edited April 23, 2018 by runs as required

[runs as required]

I'm trying to locate a practicable diagrammatic plan to rip off for help scheme out the multi fuel turf burning steam turbine generator uniit .

I don't seem to be able to find anything between these extremes:

 

Edited part of original post

I've stolen a Class 20 diagram to superimpose my rather squashed down Spam can boiler into (with unresolved clash between ash pan and rear bogie)

I've simply slung the steam turbine generator across the frame in front of the smoke box.

 

I found

 

I found Douglas Self had a fasinating diagram of the LMS turbomotor here  and was surprised how compact the actual turbine was in this famous loco.

dh

Edited April 23, 2018 by runs as required

[rockershovel]

 

Even in unmodified form, this 2-6-0 appears to have been vigorously administered to with the “ugly stick”!

 

I usually find Moguls quite attractive, but there you go...

[Zomboid]

I believe that class was originally intended to be an 0-6-0, and would be better proportioned if the carrying wheels at the front hadn't been necessary.

RPSI has one in their collection I think.

[talisman56]

Hmmm. Is there a definitive list of UK steam engines known to have done the ton, I wonder?

 

JF

 

Not officially recorded (obviously), but there were several Bulleid Pacifics 'caught in the act' so to speak, by recorders in the last years of the LSW main line steam.

 

34042 (102mph), 35005 (105), 34013 on two occasions (100 each time), 35023 (101), 35007 (102), 35028 (103), 35003 on four occasions (100, 101, 106, 105), 34102 (100), 35008 (102)

 

There were many occasion when locos reached the mid- to upper-90s but were prevented from going further due to scheduling or signalling reasons.

 

Usual caveats as to accuracy apply...

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

I would recommend reading this, this and especially this for insights into modern steam's likely developments.  The classic Stephensonian steam loco had a lot of scope for improvement, and, according to L D Porta, none of the putative improvements actually worked, with arguably the exception of various steam turbine locomotives.

 

I suggest therefore that any likely modern imagined steam locomotive would predominantly look like the classic Stephenson steam locomotive, but with significant thermodynamic improvements coupled with technological enhancements in design, construction and operation.

 

A most pertinent quote from XXIst Century Steam

 

'The STEPHENSONIAN configuration is adhered to. The high thermal efficiency leads to a very small boiler for the high power output and a reasonably sized tender for 500 km non-stop runs. The locomotive shown in Fig. 2 is ballasted because of the very high power-to weight ratio.

Although the 8000 hp locomotive incorporates a special form of booster giving a very high tractive effort at low speeds, one should note that the generalization of roller bearings for the cars reduces the need for a high starting tractive effort. As seen, the familiar appearance of the STEPHENSONIAN locomotive continues to be the choice. Many people will be disappointed because they cannot perceive anything but bogies, individual axle drives, water tube boilers, electric drives etc. But the question is first one of thermodynamics, thereafter how this thermodynamics is transformed into a successful machine. They should point out what cannot be done within the proposed scheme as compared to the presumable advantages of the non-STEPHENSONIAN solutions. But, in the meantime, they should not forget the unconvincing or poor performance (in some cases to the point of utter failures) of the following engines:

• Various Henschel-Schmidt (special cycle, water tube firebox, Germany, England, Canada);
• SLM 2-6-2 (60 bar, uniflow single expansion motor 1926);
• SNCF 232PI (water tube firebox, two pressure cycles 60 and 20 bar, individual axle drive);
• LNER 10000 (water tube boiler);
• DR-Schwartzkopff-Löffler (special cycle, high pressure);
• PLM 230E93 (Velox boiler);
• DR 45 024 (La Mont boiler, condensation, pulverized coal);
• Three machines of the Delaware & Hudson (water tube firebox, high pressure);
• Sentinel for Colombia (water tube boilers, bogies);
• SNCF 232QI (turbine, individual drive);
• Heilmann, 1893 (steam electric);
• LMS Paget locomotive (individual motors);
• Egyptian Railways' Sentinel (individual motors);
• Lübeck-Büchener Railway's No. 71 (V-motor drive);
• DRG 19 1001 (individual motors);
• BULLEID's Leader (bogies);
• BULLEID's Leader (bogies, Irish Railways' 'Turf Burner');
• SNCF-DABEG 221TQ1 (12 cylinder motor).

A number of turbine locomotives are to be added to this list of failures, which should be studied to avoid the repetition of mistakes. Why, in spite of a predictable failure, were some engines built?'

[runs as required]

I would recommend reading this, this and especially this for insights into modern steam's likely developments.  The classic Stephensonian steam loco had a lot of scope for improvement, and, according to L D Porta, none of the putative improvements actually worked, with arguably the exception of various steam turbine locomotives.

 

I suggest therefore that any likely modern imagined steam locomotive would predominantly look like the classic Stephenson steam locomotive, but with significant thermodynamic improvements coupled with technological enhancements in design, construction and operation.

 

in the meantime, they should not forget the unconvincing or poor performance (in some cases to the point of utter failures) of the following engines:...

• BULLEID's Leader (bogies, Irish Railways' 'Turf Burner');

A number of turbine locomotives are to be added to this list of failures, which should be studied to avoid the repetition of mistakes. Why, in spite of a predictable failure, were some engines built?'

 

Thank you so much for taking trouble to link to some absorbing looking reading (while wife is watching her Scandis)

I'd already read of the excellent Dr Porta while he was still alive - before that sadly elegaic Guardian obituary.

Why is it that the 5AT Project has so failed to attract funding - compared to, I think, too many recreations of mediocre locos that at the time of deciding upon the National collection were not considered worth preserving.

dh.

[tomparryharry]

You cannot fail to be impressed by the class 26 'Red Devil' on the South African Railway.

 

Down in the dumps? Watch the video! Marvellous!

 

Cheers,

 

Ian.

[Ohmisterporter]

How much notice did the A1 Trust take of Porta's suggestions in the building of Tornado? I have read through the link provided by Dr G-F and cannot help thinking that Porta's ideas were for a much more intensively used locomotive that Tornado will ever be. It will never run at sustained high speeds or pull heavy loads day in day out for intensive periods as envisioned in his projections.

[rockershovel]

Here’s a challenge for the photoshop types among us.. http://www.semgonline.com/steam/leader_01.html reference to investigations into producing 0-6-2T and 0-6-4T variants of the Q1

[runs as required]

My attempt to resolve the structural collision between the Bulleid Light Pacific boiler's wide firebox and a Class 20 style BO- BO frame proved ludicrous

 

At 76 ft, my well framed 'artic' loco ended up longer than Stanier's Baby Austin  - in this case his elegant Turbomotive version. All this kit to haul 4 old CIE coaches around on secondary services

I'm withdrawing from the Inst of Imaginary Mech.Eng.and applying instead for the seasonal Fed of  Armature Lawnmower repairers

dh

Edited April 25, 2018 by runs as required

[LNWR18901910]

Here's a fun little thread I posted:

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/133555-fun-with-freelance/

It's where freelance juior locomotives and rolling stock are either made from existing ones or scratchbuilt.

Edited April 25, 2018 by LNWR18901910

[The Johnster]

During my brief foray into freelance 009 many years ago, which was enormous fun if nothing else, I determined that I was not going to fall into the 'unlikelyness' trap that seemed common in this genre.  Using Eggar and Lilliput RTR with kit or modified N chassis/body bodges, I applied some rules.

 

Rule 1. This is basically Rule 1.

 

Rule 2.  Locos had to look as if they would actually work, i.e. chimneys in line with cylinders, rear drivers not fouling fireboxes, that sort of thing.

 

Rule 3.  No cheating, so no inside cylinders, tramroad skirts to hide motion that wasn't there, or any of that sort of shennanigans.

 

Rule 4.  Trains made up correctly to Board of Trade requirements in terms of continuous brake, brake vans, etc.

 

Rule 5.  If in doubt, refer to Rule 1.

 

I had 2 prairies on Minitrix small Ivatt chassis, one with a modified Airfix pug construction kit body and one with a home made plasticard box tank arrangement with the smokebox protruding.  Both had home made plastcard cabs, and the saddle tank had a bunker as well; they didn't look too bad...

[Hroth]

Thank you so much for taking trouble to link to some absorbing looking reading (while wife is watching her Scandis)

I'd already read of the excellent Dr Porta while he was still alive - before that sadly elegaic Guardian obituary.

Porta loco.jpg

Why is it that the 5AT Project has so failed to attract funding - compared to, I think, too many recreations of mediocre locos that at the time of deciding upon the National collection were not considered worth preserving.

dh.

Because the go faster stripes weren't stripey enough?