[HN Gopher] Unusual Locomotives
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Unusual Locomotives
Author : ggoo
Score : 104 points
Date : 2021-10-29 18:11 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.douglas-self.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.douglas-self.com)
| jasonpeacock wrote:
| > All locomotives more than 18 years old. Proof on file in
| pursuance of Title 18, USC2257
|
| I love this site already.
| wolfgang42 wrote:
| I was having a strange feeling I'd seen this site before, but
| only the style, not the content. I couldn't put my finger on it
| until I remembered the page on the Paris pneumatic clock network:
| http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/airclock/airclock.h...
| (discussed on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19441300)
|
| The entire museum section is well worth a read, though a bit of a
| rabbit-hole: http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/museum.htm
| rwmj wrote:
| The N-wheeled cars page has also been discussed on HN before:
| http://www.douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/TRANSPORT/nwheelcar/nwhee...
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19786560
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I have a ridiculous question about the "backwards" trains.
|
| What makes them backwards?
| [deleted]
| masswerk wrote:
| If you are referring to backwards locomotives, the alternative
| name, cabForwards, should convey the idea. It's the usual
| arrangement of a locomotive, but reversed, where what is
| usually found at the front is at the back and vice versa.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Right but what's different between that and just running any
| other locomotive in reverse?
| masswerk wrote:
| I guess, the general layout of the cab? - As I understand
| it, these locomotives where popular for routes including
| long tunnels, where the crew would have suffered seriously
| from the exhaust. If you intend to run the locomotive
| generally cab-forward, you'd probably adapt the layout and
| also add a proper wind screen.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Oh. Derp. That makes complete sense. Thanks for helping
| me cross the finish line.
| Symbiote wrote:
| From memory, from things my father and grandfather told me
| (both trainspotters), being taken all over Britain to
| preserved railways as a child, and from searching.
|
| Most locomotives for medium to long routes have a
| locomotive with a boiler in front, the cab/footplate where
| the driver and fireman work in the middle, and a tender of
| coal and water behind them [1]. Going backwards, there's
| even less view for the driver as the tender is square but
| the boiler round.
|
| The large wheels are the driving wheels, and they need
| weight on them for good adhesion. That's also why they're
| huge, to increase the contact area with the rail.
|
| The fireman needs to be between the tender and the firebox
| (under the boiler), to shovel coal in. They'll use most of
| the coal in the tender on a long journey, around 9 tons to
| go about 350 miles (550km).
|
| If you put the cab at the front, you either need some way
| to get the coal, or a second cab for the fireman -- but
| then a difficulty in communication.
|
| By the time appropriate innovations to avoid these issues
| were invented, steam was being replaced by diesel and
| electric power anyway.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LNER_Peppercorn_Class_A2#
| /medi...
|
| Addendum: realize it isn't a given that people know the
| words, as you probably didn't have a trainspotter father.
| On that picture, the cylindrical black then green part is
| the boiler, full of long copper pipes over almost the full
| length. It's above the firebox, which is between the large
| driving wheels. The pistons are at the front, just under
| the "Blue Peter" nameplate, connected with coupling rods to
| the driving wheels.
|
| The small, front wheels provide stability (somehow, this is
| the answer I had age 7 or so).
|
| The cab is the bit with 60532 on it; there are forward-
| facing windows as well as to the side. There are green
| poles on either side of the entrance. There's the entrance
| to the firebox in the middle, plus valves and levers to
| control the amount of steam/water etc (i.e. speed).
|
| The tender has British Railways on the side, and is a
| separate part, semi-permanently coupled to the engine. It
| carries coal for the fire, and water to boil for steam.
| This is a long-range, powerful locomotive. Short-range ones
| could use smaller versions of all this, which could mean
| the coal/water being carried around the boiler, rather than
| in a tender.
|
| If you look closely at the driving wheels, you can see the
| brakes (acting directly on the rims) and the sanders (apply
| sand to the rails just in front of the wheels, to increase
| adhesion if they're slippery with autumn leaves).
|
| Around the front buffers (there's probably a name for the
| red-painted part) there is a coupling mechanism, a pipe to
| run air brakes, and another pipe to provide steam to heat
| attached passenger carriages.
| Someone wrote:
| > The small, front wheels provide stability (somehow,
| this is the answer I had age 7 or so).
|
| I think that's correct. My understanding is this:
|
| The powered wheels are all in the same fixture. Their
| axes stay parallel at all times (they have to be because
| they are powered by a single set of linkages). To allow
| such wheels to go around curves, their flanges
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flange#Train_wheels)
| aren't fitted tight to the rail. That means a train that
| only has driving wheels may not follow turns well, may
| start oscillating from left to right a bit, etc. The
| smaller wheels in front are there to prevent that by
| guiding the locomotive into bends.
|
| I guess those wheels are smaller because they need not be
| bigger (I guess bigger wheels have larger life spans than
| smaller ones, but powered ones have shorter life spans
| than unpowered ones, and the design aims for equal
| average life span of all wheels)
| blamazon wrote:
| Putting the cab at the front makes the most sense for
| visibility and driver experience, but the way most steam
| locomotives worked is by humans scooping solid fuel out of a
| hopper car behind the locomotive called a tender, into a
| furnace located in the cab of the locomotive.
|
| If you put the cab at the front, getting the solid fuel to the
| furnace becomes a more complex operation since the cab and the
| tender are now separated by the length of the engine. Once
| liquid fuels became a thing and the need for shoveling solid
| fuel waned, the cab could be moved to the front much more
| easily.
| bluGill wrote:
| There were engines with the cab in the middle. But then the
| fireman was out in the open (no cab) so it wasn't popular
| with them.
| donarb wrote:
| In the roaring days of the railroad, most railroads had
| dispensed with manually shoveling coal out of the tender.
| They used mechanical stokers to move the coal from the tender
| to the firebox.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Maybe in the USA, but they were barely used in the UK. From
| these discussions, it seems the (much) larger American
| locomotives and lower quality of coal required it.
|
| https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/mechanical-
| stokers.3374...
|
| https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/manually-shovelling-
| coa...
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| I'm not sure I understand this explanation. Does the location
| of the furnace matter with respect to the direction the train
| is moving, i.e. the direction in which the wheels are
| turning? I mean, trains can go backwards, right?
| dredmorbius wrote:
| There can be consequences.
|
| In the November 19, 1941 Hassan Tunnel fire accident
| between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara northbound Southern
| Pacific #4193 entered the tunnel on an uphill grade. The
| locomotive involved was an oil-fed steam engine and had a
| cab-forward design (AC-8) which meant, among other factors,
| that oil lines ran forward of the drive wheels, and leaked
| onto the rails.
|
| Part-way through the tunnel, the locomotive lost traction.
| There was an attempt to back out of the tunnel, but a
| passenger applied brakes such that the train could not
| proceed backwards. A fire was ignited and the train
| ultimately burned with loss of 5 lives, 4 injured.
|
| There's an extensive accident review I've found previously
| but cannot locate at the moment. The incident is listed
| here for November, 1941:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rail_accidents_(1930%
| E...
|
| http://espee.railfan.net/trainwrecks.html
|
| http://www.gendisasters.com/california/15629/hassen-
| tunnel-c...
| stickfigure wrote:
| The locomotive can go either direction. But if burns coal,
| the tender needs to be next to the firebox. And the fireman
| needs to be able to attend the fire, which puts him on that
| side of the engine too.
|
| Why not just put the tender in front? I'm speculating here,
| but probably due to visibility. To get adequate visibility,
| you'd have to narrow the tender (reducing capacity).
| jonp888 wrote:
| The tender is much lighter, and shorter, so it is at
| increased risk of derailment when running right at the
| front of the train.
|
| Locomotives can of course run backwards for long
| distances if required, but generally they have two top
| speeds - a higher one for forward running and a lower one
| for backwards.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| I wonder how much of a risk wind (from the locomotion)
| blowing into the tender/firebox would be.
| jonp888 wrote:
| This is not a problem, it won't put the fire out.
|
| The real danger is when going through a tunnel, the
| backdrauught from the exhaust hitting the tunnel causes a
| surge of flame into the cab. The crew must keep the fire
| doors closed.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| I wasn't worried about the fire going out, but for embers
| flying out into the cab.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| blamazon wrote:
| But then it would be tenderforward, not cabforward :)
| 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
| Almost on topic...
|
| When we were kids, my brother studied a railroad atlas any time
| he wasn't in school or church. This thing was a monster, large
| book with hundreds of pages of maps. Literally county by county
| across the Unites States, all railroad lines and yards. I'd go to
| sleep Friday night while he sat in an overstuffed chair,
| studying. I'd wake up at 7:30 AM Saturday... he hadn't moved.
| Still there, a few pages further into the atlas.
|
| As an adult, he worked for the Illinois Central as a hump yard
| operator. Later the Iowa Pacific, and ultimately found himself
| doing customer service for a small line in Texas, mainly shipping
| sand. His job frequently included finding 'lost' cars somewhere
| in the US, on any line that happened to be in that car's route.
| He was really good at it.
|
| One notable call had him searching railroad yards in Missouri. He
| had a strong hunch that the misplaced car was on a spur where
| that yard stored cars that had lost their way. But he needed to
| confirm. He could have called that yard, but getting the right
| person to check logs or go hunt was always a hassle. So... He
| Googled up the yard, zoomed in on the spur and noted that Google
| helpfully displayed several businesses in a strip mall backed up
| to the spur. Mike dialed up 'Patty's Nail Salon' and the call
| went something like: "Hi Patty, this is Craig with the Iowa
| Pacific. I'm tracking down a misplaced car and I have reason to
| believe it is sitting on the spur outside your back window. Would
| you mind checking for a car with ID 123876?"
|
| Extended pause....
|
| "I'll be right back!"
|
| Sure enough, there is was.
| mapmap wrote:
| This is a great story, thank you for sharing. Do railroad
| atlases still exist?
| pmyteh wrote:
| I don't know about the US, but S.K. Baker's 'Rail Atlas:
| Great Britain & Ireland' is excellent and regularly updated
| for this side of the pond.
| mikewarot wrote:
| The Hesston Steam Museum has a Shay Geared Locomotive, and I've
| always looked at those bevel gears out in the open, and wondered
| what OSHA would say about it, but compared to logging, it's
| probably the least of the worries.
| mannykannot wrote:
| With its crossheads, connecting rods and valve gear, a
| conventional steam locomotive has many external moving parts,
| which is part of their appeal - plus, of course, the whole
| thing is a moving part.
|
| Some things just cannot be hidden away and you have to be
| careful - propellers, for example.
|
| The Roaring Camp railroad above Santa Cruz had a Shay
| locomotive in service when I visited a few years ago.
|
| https://www.roaringcamp.com/
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| Sites like that are the heart of the real potential of the
| internet. Not this meta crap.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| It's also why I come to HN: for the random.
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| I love the explosion in diversity of designs as everyone tried
| new things before settling on what worked best, the stealth
| chimneys, preheaters, turbine engines.
|
| It's an Industrial Age Cambrian Explosion.
| CPLX wrote:
| That parchment paper backdrop brings back extremely vivid
| memories. Glad to see there's still some examples floating
| around.
| euroderf wrote:
| There must be someone, somewhere, obsessively making working
| models (3-D printed?) of some of these.
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(page generated 2021-10-31 23:02 UTC)