rodent279

Can't think of any really.....in the end it pretty much all gets turned into heat somehow or other.

Ultimately, most forms of energy end up as kinetic energy in molecules.

Thanks Brian, much appreciated. I've wondered about this loco for over 30yrs! cheers N

I don't know.......you could argue that power is generated in the firebox, transmitted to the boiler, stored in the steam, then the steam is used as a transmission fluid, in either a reciprocating engine (pistons in cylinders), or a rotary engine (turbine). You could use that steam to drive a turbine generating electricity, which then powers traction motors, as in the Ljungstrom loco and it's siblings, a concept used with some success in Sweden & the USA. You could even use the steam to drive a turbine pressurising oil, to drive a hydraulic final drive if you wanted. Odd, but it could be done. Perhaps we ought to look upon the boiler/firebox of a steam loco as the "engine", in much the same way as the 12CVST EE power unit in a class 37 is the engine. That is where the power is generated. In a steam loco, the steam is the working fluid, and we use that to convert from heat energy to mechanical energy in either reciprocating cylinders, or a turbine. This could run and run, there is no real clear dividing line. The term "mechanical/hydraulic/electric final drive" would perhaps be more appropriate.

Yes, I vaguely remember something similar from engineering science lessons a couple of decades ago The same law also limit the cylinder efficiency of a steam loco.

Can anyone id this loco please? Taken in Switzerland, in June 1983. It's either no. 1 or no. 11. Looks like a 2-6-0 or 2-6-2T. Cheers N https://flic.kr/p/VioYdV

Though, if I was the OP, I'd be quite pleased about what an interesting and wide-ranging discussion I'd created!

I guess you could sum that up by saying there are limits as to how "good" any system/technology/machine etc can be. For example, despite having having had internal combustion engines for well over a century now, the thermal efficiency has remained almost unchanged in decades. Even the very best struggle to attain 50%.

Yep, I agree. I'm not advocating rushed change for sake of it, but sometimes you do need to take a risk, try something new, and when it doesn't work out, learn, refine and try again. Churchward didn't achieve what he did by sticking with what was tried, tested and known - he stuck his neck out, experimented and learnt. Not as radically or recklessly as OVSB maybe, but he didn't just stick with what he knew. Now there's another thing that modern materials etc could maybe improve on - chain driven valve gear. Bulleid had a point in trying to minimise wear by encasing in an oil bath, but maybe, again, he was solving a problem that was solvable easier using a Cardan shaft & poppet valves. Maybe an MN with poppet valves should have been tried?

That's how you make progress. You try, you make a mistake, you don't always get it right, you learn, you try again, you eventually get it right.

Oh I agree, it's never going to be a substitute for a modern electric railway, but it would be interesting to see if it could be made to work, just for the purpose of proving it can be done. I'd be more inclined to contribute money to something like that, than another resurrection of a long-lost steam loco, which, let's face it, is not really going to be drasticaly different from most steam locos in existence. Another one would be to see a proper broad gauge railway, not just a short demo line like at Didcot. I'd love to see mixed gauge on say the WSR, with replica BG locos & stock. Now that would give us something we don't currently have.

The thing is, most accidents are not high energy, spectacular full-frontal head on collisions. An awful lot are low speed, low energy events, where energy can be absorbed, which can save lives and reduce life changing injuries. Like wearing a bike helmet isn't going to help you if a car hits you at 70mph, crumple zones are not going to be much use in a full on collision with another train or a brick wall at 100mph, but may save lives in a low speed shunt.

I remember seeing trains backing into Euston many times. Were they allowed to back in with a Mk1/Mk2 BSO/BSK?

Guilty, M'lud.

OT I know, but I think an even more interesting question than the OP is, could modern materials and techniques make the atmospheric railway a success? I'm not putting it forward as a serious alternative to the modern railway-but could we make it work given modern materials technology?

And of course there was the legendary 2A23, & 1A23, aka The Milk Empties, which ran at 0235 or 0350, all stations Euston to Bletchley, Mo-Sa. This ran from sometime around the Creation, to about 1988? (ish), and usually consisted of a battered Mk1 BSK, which had defnitlely seen better days, a BG & a couple of GUV's. Motive power was (usually) cl 81-85/86, with at least classes 25, 31, 37 & 47 also known to have put in an appearance. The acceleration with an AC electric & 3 or 4 mk1's was tremendous! Why it was called the Milk Empties I don't know, I would imagine sometime up until the 1960's it probably did carry empty churns, but mostly it seemed to carry sleeping railwaymen returning home off duty! Stuff of legends eh, South of 1A? :-) cheers N

From memory, many WCML express trains in the 1980's had full brakes in, most with B4 bogies, and some authorised for 110mph running from 1984.

And really, they were the heroes. The men who drove and fired the locos were not always the ones who prepared & disposed of them. Another thing dad says is the most important person in a steam shed is the tube cleaner. A mucky, thankless task if ever there was one, but if he doesn't do his job properly, the engines don't steam.

That's exactly what my dad says. Steam locos are lovely, fascinating things, but after all is said and done, they were hard, dirty work, and most people directly involved weren't to sorry to see that back of them.

I've thought about it, but never done it, mainly because I'm lazy. The filthy nature of the work doesn't scare me, but that said, I'm not sure I'd want to do it day in, day out, to keep a roof over my head. I've done shift work of sorts, and unsocial hours, but never on the scale of railway work, but a few family members have. My dad started in the workshops in Horwich, during the war, stripping steam engines, then building tanks and turning shells. He then spent some time on the footplate, firing from Nottingham to Doncaster, Carlisle, St Pancras & Bristol. Later he was shift foreman at Plodder Lane, which meant he had to cycle something like 8 miles each way to book on and off for each shift, then something similar at Holbeck. During the 60's he worked on the electrification into Euston. I wasn't born then, but from all accounts, he would work at least one day most weekends, and sometimes at night as well. In the seventies & eighties, as an AM & EE, he used quite often to get called out at some ungodly hour to attend some mishap, the most "memorable" (for all the wrong reasons) being when 81016 hauling the Euston Glasgow sleeper, derailed on a piece of rail inside Linslade Tunnel, and attempted to demolish Soulbury Rd bridge, in Dec 1982. Dad got the call at 0230, went out, was first on site, found the driver dead under the drivers seat, and the secondman wandering around in a field, not sure where he was. Dad didn't put in an appearance at home again until the following evening, apart from a brief spell for lunch (we lived 2 miles away). On another occasion, he got called away from a family holiday to attend a derailment, not sure where, but it was in about May 1980. So, though I've not directly experienced it, I've a fair idea of how disrupting the demands of the railway are on family life. I can quite understand a 20yr old not wanting to put up with it for long in the valleys, or for that matter, to spend hours shovelling hot coal and ash in a depot!

I'll confess I never have.

Volunteers, though. They're letting themselves in for it. Most are not doing it because they have to, in order to provide a roof over their heads.

Consider my parade totally washed out! I'm sure even 50's Britain could have come up with some better ways of removing ash from a smokebox than a bloke with a shovel. Even if you didn't use conveyor systems for hot ash/coals/clinker, you could use a container, rail mounted, which could be rolled or lifted out of an ash pit to be tipped into a wagon. Point is, little real effort was made to make these things easier, when, with a little thought, it could have been. In the end though, electric traction has always been the way forward. The logic of importing, refining, and then burning oil, in order to move coal from mine to power station, to generate electricity, has been referred to above.

I said it in my first reply to this thread, and I'll say it again.....and still we don't learn.

Can't help but think that with a little imagination & investment, it would surely have been possible to remove most, if not all, of the drudgery out of disposal. Surely some sort of large vacuum hose could have been used to suck up dust and ash out of smokeboxes and fireboxes before it started flying around? Surely it would have been possible to have some sort of conveyor system in ash pits to carry hot coals and ash away? Maybe with a water spray to help keep ash down, and extinguish any remaining combustion? Come on, shoot me down in flames. Even in the 1950's we had rockets and jet aircraft!