I love the discussion about locomotive trucks and suspensions. I am still looking for a closeup photo or drawing of the “trailing truck” of the DRG 61 001 and 002. On the brass model of the 002 (4-6-6), the steel pin was set between the second and the third axle of the 6-wheel truck. I believe it was more complicated in real life.
Good stuff all around!
Thanks for the info Becky. Sounds silly, but if some people have dirty minds what can you do?
The posters are great! Educational too, I didn’t know Air France had a flying boat service.
And of course we can’t beat Overmod’s and M636C’s engineering expertise.
Now if we could only get Mike back…
Thanks all!
Imagine doesn’t hurt! The fastest HSR operating right now could hit 218 to 248mph, that would take the train about 19 hours to travel from Chicago to Hawaii on a straight track. For the Hyperloop, that would be within 6 hours.
If I am not mistaken, the plane in the UAL poster is a DC-4, which probably cruised under 250MPH. The DC-6’s and DC-7’s could cruise faster as they were pressurized and could operate efficiently at higher true airspeed (though similar indicated air speed).
— a little eye candy.
CP_FP-4040 by Edmund, on Flickr
NYNHnH_Comet1935 by Edmund, on Flickr
Thank You,
Regards — Ed
Beautiful, stunning. All of them.
What is the tight beam of light projecting straight up from the Comet?
Yes, indeed. Scroll about 2/3 down here:
http://mikes.railhistory.railfan.net/r012.html
It seems some railroads embraced the vertical “searchlight” beam. Similar to the C-P FP-7 & 9 roof-mounted Mars lights and the C&NW 400 Pacifics as shown below. I can’t say that the vertical lamp in the Comet was stationary or oscillating. Perhaps someone here knows?
CNW_400_Chi by Edmund, on Flickr
The Comet also sported a siren!
Regards, Ed
Never heard it was anything but fixed.
Kratville has a discussion of the UP use of this idea on early Streamliners.
The basic idea always seemed appealing to me: the vertical beam showed where the head end of the speeding train would be, as well as indicating to ‘the public’ that a special high-speed train was approaching a given crossing. It does not seem that any railroad that tried them retained them for any length of time, however, whether the beam were vertical or angled (as on the “400” in Ed’s picture). The usual reference says they were ‘ineffectual’ but doesn’t go into much reason why.
Ok just a different kind of Mars light. Yes indeed they do make sense. Car dealerships, some kind of attraction in town, they used those war surplus spot lights to denote something going on and the location. Pretty obvious and easy to see anywhere in town and some distance away.
The specific engine with the air adjustment was the German 4-6-4T built to run with the Henschel-Wegmann-Zug trainset (where the locomotive in intended service could easily run around the train for the return trip without having to be wyed or taken to a turntable). I do not remember what the arrangement on the 4-6-6 (which later became a large part of 18 201 if I remember correctly) in this regard was, and I’d like to hear from someone who knows.
What is your reference for this feature?
I have been unable to find any details of 61 001 having anything other than conventional centre pivots on both trucks.
I have “Die Baureihe 61 und der Henschel-Wegmann-Zug” by Alfred Gottwaldt, published by Eisebahn Kurier in 2005. This reproduces the general arrangement drawings of 61 001 as the front endpapers and 61 002 as the rear endpapers, so to a metric A3 size. These both show the front and rear trucks of both locomotives to have conventional centre pivots. Photos of the trucks of both locomotives back this up, the trailing truck of 61 002 having the pivot directly above the centre axle.
Other detail drawings of 61 002 in the book confirm this, as do a number of smaller drawings of 61 001. The book shows only one photo of the train with the locomotive running bunker leading (just out of Dresden). Dreseden has a wye as part of the approach tracks which could be used to turn the locomotive. That was 61 001. There is only one photo of 61 002 on the lengthened five car train and it is boiler leading.
I was lucky to find a copy of that book, although I have not worked through to translate Gottwaldt’s sometimes interesting prose.
If I remember correctly some of the description of the retrofitted air shift device is in his larger book on streamlined steam locomotives of the Reichsbahn (Franckh, 1978, I think) and there was a brief discussion of it in a book I can’t cite (but with the datum that a stable speed of 81mph was possible with bunker leading, or wasn’t possible without the arrangement, I disremember which). Nothing was said (or I didn’t see it) regarding stability of the six-wheel truck leading, which leads me to believe it might have been more inherently stable in yaw with better side-bearing locations.
This is one of those things like the heavy torque struts installed on the Roosen 19 1001 motor locomotive, a modification that isn’t explicitly discussed but that may be critically important to operational success.
Gottwalt quotes his book on streamlined locomotives in the Literature survey in the Class 61 book (and a 1979 book of his on the Class 61 as well).
Chapter 6 of the Class 61 book quotes pretty much every item worked on on 61 001 during its entire career, and doesn’t mention modifications to the truck guidance as far as I could find.
I suspect that the modifications you describe were a a proposal not actually carried out. 61 001 wasn’t out of service long enough before 1939 for major modifications and after 1939, 61 002 was available to
This of course is always a possibility. I certainly don’t have any hard evidence to prove it was, although I’ll keep looking the best I can to see if I can find a source. When Firefox and AT&T get their ‘stuff’ together I will ask this on steam_tech – oh rats! Now I miss Claude Bersano all over again! – and some of the usual suspects there can shake the tree in various communities where I don’t know the language well enough. Juniatha would almost certainly know (if she is watching).
Something else that reminded me about this was that when I took ‘drafting and design’ in college, my final project involved high-speed truck design with self-shifting inherent ‘trail’ capability, which did involve active air assist if the steering elements were to be ‘locked’ before physical train movement (cf. Webb’s LP valve gear problems!) and I remember some reference to German air-actuated geometry shift when designing that. (This was in the same atmosphere that taught about the German sprung-track experiments after WW1, something that is far too little discussed in my opinion). Perhaps there was more material available in an academic engineering environment then.
The only thing I could say in partial defense was that I remembered the language in the reference, whatever it was, clearly implying the modification had been done and tested, and that the results had been real-world established. Again of course people exaggerate sometimes; I try not to but sometimes ‘fail to succeed’. It is a very strong argument against it having been implemented that you think it did not happen – arguments from authority not being involved, either.
I just note that a Japanese blogger uploaded some new old photos from the book “19 1001. Die Stromlinien-Schnellzuglokomotive der Deutschen Reichsbahn mit Einzelachsantrieb” quite a long time ago but these photos didn’t show up on the search result before. Please follow the link if interested:
http://2008-deep-blue.tea-nifty.com/blog/2009/10/19-1001-ek-verl.html
Speaking of the air adjustment device on 61 001, I presume the BR 06 001 and 002 also had similar components on their trailing trucks wasn’t it?
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No reason for it. The Mammuts had comparatively ordinary tracking geometry; they were not expected to be bidirectional or run with any particular speed in reverse.
I do have my doubts about some of the detail design of that four-wheel truck, but I had some of the same questions about the PRR T1’s truck … so don’t take that as any kind of design gospel! In any case, a very simple redesign of the ‘steering’ of the aft part of the truck frame relative to the chassis, and the use of a good radial buffer, would solve most of the potential issues with high-speed stability; pushing the tender’s front truck pivot point further up, even to the point its leading axle were physically well forward of the tender front, is another expedient that was tried to increase stability.
All this was somewhat moot on the class 06, because from what I understand the boiler was grossly inadequate to get them to any particular speed. This of course is a great regret because I think properly-balanced 4-8-4s or the equivalent are the best thing to run at true high speed (as opposed to Hudsons or Pacifics) and it would have been interesting to see what a de-Wagnerized firebox design (and less ‘fragile’ boiler steel!) might have produced in service.
No reason for it. The Mammuts had comparatively ordinary tracking geometry; they were not expected to be bidirectional or run with any particular speed in reverse.
I do have my doubts about some of the detail design of that four-wheel truck, but I had some of the same questions about the PRR T1’s truck … so don’t take that as any kind of design gospel! In any case, a very simple redesign of the ‘steering’ of the aft part of the truck frame relative to the chassis, and the use of a good radial buffer, would solve most of the potential issues with high-speed stability; pushing the tender’s front truck pivot point further up, even to the point its leading axle were physically well forward of the tender front, is another expedient that was tried to increase stability.
All this was somewhat moot on the class 06, because from what I understand the boiler capacity was grossly inadequate to get them to any particular speed. This of course is a great regret because I think properly-balanced 4-8-4s or the equivalent are the best thing to run at true high speed (as opposed to Hudsons or Pacifics) and it would have been interesting to see what a de-Wagnerized firebox design (and less ‘fragile’ boiler steel!) might have produced in service.
I’m surprised that the most obvious question about bi-directional 4-6-4s has not yet been asked…
The elephant, not mammoth, in the room is 05 003.
Of course, it was only reversed once and rather permanently. But its running gear looks very much like that of 61 001.
The drawing on Douglas Self’s site suggests that both trucks, like 61 001 were pivoted at the centre, which would mean that they probably remained the same for each nominated direction of travel.
Of course 05 003 was rebuilt during the later stages of WW II when it was probably needed simply because it was a serviceable locomotive, although the pulverised coal firing was replaced by conventional coal firing requiring the locomotive to be reversed.
It is worth noting that 05 003 kept its original boiler which had a large combustion chamber, intended to assist in the burning of pulverised brown coal, proved to give better performance on black coal. 05 001 and 002 were fitted with (somewhat simpler) combustion chambers when rebuilt post war.
But if modifications were needed to the leading and trailing truck pivots, surely the one time reversal of 05 003 was the time and place to do them…
Peter
You mention this JUST as I place an order for Gottwaldt’s book on the 05 class (2005) in part to see what was done dynamically for the ‘reversed’ high-speed engine. You are I think correct that this would have been dramatically more important than 61 001; I don’t recall any indication that 05 003 was intended to operate any more slowly than the other two (at 175km/h nominal)
You will laugh, but it honestly never occurred to me that the truck under 05 003’s firebox would be pin-guided. (What else it would be, I can only plead blissful ignorance…) I presume you have seen the Eastern European dynamic analysis of the 05 running gear; they didn’t study the cab-forward configuration but I bet it wouldn’t be difficult to re-run the analysis for it. (Interestingly there was a big, fat critical speed right above 200km/h in the analysis, which might give some indication why there were no attempts to better Mallard’s time)
I’d expect it to perform better than the alternative with ‘normal’ Wagner firebox arrangement, almost for sure. It is interesting to contemplate what the running gear of the class 05 could have produced with a ‘good’ radiant section, retaining what I think was a reasonable convection section.
[quote]
But if modifications were needed to the leading and trailing truck pivots, surely the one time r
That make sense, Mr. Overmod. I don’t want to use the term “overly complex” but I wonder if compatibility of the trucks and comfortability of the crews were considered when the German was designing the Mammuts which were supposed to be another successful design for mass production (Although it was not the case).
I believe that these are some of the questions the T1 Trust is looking for an answer. I am looking forward to the results if some of them wil
After saying that the running gear was similar on the 05 and 61, I thought I should give some dimensions:
Spacing, front to rear:
05001 2350+2200+2550+2550+2250+2000
61001 2350+2075+2550+2550+2475+2350
05003 2200+2275+2550+2550+2050+2200
61002 2350+2100+2550+2550+2475+3000
The coupled wheelbase is the same and the leading bogies are the same on 05001 and 61001 while the actual spacings vary. On 05003, the leading and trailing bogies are shorter than the leading bogie on 05001 but longer than the trailing bogie on 05001. Unsurprisingly, 61002 is the longest. One assumes the bogies on 05003 were limited by the space at the firebox end and the lead bogie was built the same size.
It is easy to see how 61002 was able to be rebuilt into a tender locomotive not unlike the 05.
The boilers on 05001/2 were 7000mm between tubeplates, only 200mm longer than the 01 and 03, and were able to get enough steam to make just over 200km/h. The 06 (and 45) were 7500 between tubeplates (and 100mm larger in diameter). This was a step too far and some 45s had new boilers with combustion chambers fitted.
There was a proposal to rebuild the 06s without streamlining in 1950 (Eisenbahn Kurier 10/96). Had the modified combustion chamber boiler been then available, the two 06s might have seen more use, but with more power than was needed in passenger work and poor fuel economy, they were not worth the effort.
Peter
