[Note changes in the grammar. Excellence is a noun, not an adjective, no matter what modern ninnies may try to claim. “Wear and tear” is an expression that applies in the singular to any number of pieces of equipment.]
The piston-rod failure is ominous in not just one respect, if that is in fact the original failure causing the incident. It is, for those who understand what they’re looking at, a consequence not necessarily of an accidental breakage but of what may be a combination of detail-design and operating overstress that is not adequately covered by a factor of safety – and although I did not see this implicitly before, is occurring at the ‘opposite end’ of the linkage producing main-pin failures (through different mechanisms of action). If it were complicated by a tribology failure of either the piston itself or the rod gland, it is if anything still more ominous. Note that even pulling the cylinder head and inspecting the head of the piston wouldn’t have exposed a developing failure – you’d actually have to unkey the piston rod, extract it from the cylinder, and Magnaflux (or otherwise NDT it) to see the problem. That’s more than a little reminiscent of the reason those Full Cushion trucks were abruptly withdrawn from interchange service … and never returned.
Central’s Dreyfuss Hudsons and MILW’s Class A and F7s were probably some of the most famous and timeless icons of the States, but these beautiful machines were either de-streamlined after WWII or replaced by the diesel in the early-1950s. Until today, you could still see a lot of comments on different social platforms asking why they were not preserved.
The demise of the hobby shop happened since the 2000s in my city. There wer
‘Cars’ is worth watching for its own sake.
Mr. Jones, what is your city? I looked at the “About Jones1945” section (WOW! It’s spectacular!) but it doesn’t say, so I am curious.
If you’d rather not say that’s fine with me.
And hobby shops? When we moved to the Richmond VA area in 1987 there were four of them here, only one remains, and that one’s on it’s second owner. The others? Just like Hiway Hobby House, retirements with no one to take up the business.
Thank you, Firelock76, I am flattered.
If there is a straight rail track connecting Chicago and the place I am living in, it would take her about 70 days (without a break) to reach my city. [swg]
The Hiway Hobby House have a “memorial” facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Hi-Way-Hobby-House-323300055276/
It is hard to believe some of those pics were taken 40 years ago…
Harder still is to realize after watching the film clip that I clearly remember being in the OLD store, as if it were yesterday, and now even the new one is gone.
Hey, Smith could fly it!
But seriously, there are a couple of apps that do seem to do ‘grammar’ properly, the one coming to mind quickly being “Grammarly” (which appeals to me for the way in which it was packaged and promoted, as well as its apparent operation). I don’t use it, but I would have to suspect it contains the ability to have technical material and perhaps even ‘jargon’ incorporated into it (perhaps as the old dictionaries in the original Microsoft Word for the Mac allowed) so that the things the program selects are appropriate even for abstruse things like valve-gear discussion.
Overmod, if there was anyone besides myself on this site who remembered Hiway Hobby I was sure it would be you!
And thanks for that Hiway Hobby link Mr. Jones! I’m going to pass it along to the crowd in the “Classic Toy Trains” Forum and see if anyone there remembers it as well.
Hmmm, a straight line out of Chicago and then 70 days to get where you’re at? Sounds like you’re a long way from Chicago or it’s a one-way trip around the world to get home again!
I am using the “Grammarly” already. But I am waiting for something, maybe a programme or device which is controlled by advanced AI smarter than chess engine Zor which could teach me everything like flying a Platt-LePage XR-1 or how to be a steam train engineer and fireman in 5 secs, like what Carrie-Anne Moss did in the movie. But if Elon Musk’s world view is not a theory but the fact, it will only happen if it is written in the script.
You are welcome, Firelock76. Those pics of Hiway Hobby also brought back the memory of me shopping in this kind of huge Hobby Shop. Those blue tint high color temperature fluorescent tubes in the shop was an icon of the 1970s to late 1980s. I love your
I think that this is a Nord locomotive.
All of the PO Chapelon rebuilds were generally similar, but the junction of the footplate and the buffer beam varied. I think only the Nord locomotives had this version…
Peter
Gents, I just noticed something in the photograph that started this whole thread.
That piston rod laying on the ground. Is that thing hollow?
I would have thought a component that would be subject to the kind of stresses a piston rod would be subjected to would be solid steel, not hollow like a water pipe.
Is that why it broke?
I think you are right, Peter. They were some decent 4 cylinders engines with a TE of 45500lbs! no mechanical stokers so the fireman needed to work much harder.
There is no mention of this kind of incident in the book of “Know thy Niagaras” and some long assay available on the web. I found no details let alone the reason. But I think a mechanical engineering expert like Overmod could give you a
For a given cross-section, a solid girder is stronger than a hollow gider; and for a given diameter, a solid piston is stronger than a hollow piston. For a given weight of steel, a hollow girder is stronger than a solid girder; and, for a given weight of steel, a hollow piston is sronger than a solid piston. The hollow girder has a larger cross-section than the solid girder, and the hollow piston a larger diameter than the solid piston.
Of course it is! Read that 100mph Timken rod paper so kindly provided in the other thread – it will tell you much of the theory behind the ‘revolution’ in high-speed balancing that took us from the ACL R1 to the NYC S1 in less than a decade.
You see here a possible overlooked problem in the detail design, the connection between the piston and the piston rod with a very lightweight and highly-dished piston. All the peak thrust goes through the annular section of the piston rod, it is highly heated by superheated steam, the stresses reverse in sign every half revolution, and any incipient failure of the piston fit will rapidly start to ‘work’ (with somewhat ominous rapid development of failure if the piston starts to cock or jam in the bore…)
The situation is not quite the same for piston rods, which are loaded axially, as it is for axles or other rotated parts like the shafts in some Australian locomotives with conjugated 3-cylinder valve gear. There, making the shafts hollow actually increases their effective strength to failure as well as reducing unsprung mass. One of the saddest stillborn innovations in very late modern steam was the application of centrifugal casting to locomotive driver axles … which I have been told firsthand was ‘pitched’ to locomotive shops in the Fifties, but by then nobody really still cared…
OK, that all makes sense. Thanks!
By the way, I saw a hollow (dished) piston in operation today. Lady Firestorm was making Christmas cookies with her Mirro cookie press. Yep, hollow piston in that thing!
As Lady F says, “Only REAL women know how to handle a Mirro cookie press!”
They came out good too!