Hi Jamie,
Thanks for sharing your passion.
There are far too few of us who have a passion for steam locomotives. When I talk about steam being a living breathing entity I usually get a blank stare. There is nothing better then climbing aboard a tea pot and learning the art of running it.
My personal passion is keeping steam. I would be in nervana as a fireman on any locomotive. Not that I would ever turn down the throttle, but firing is just as much an art as train handling.
I’ve often felt that steam would make a comeback when we run out of oil. We have an abundance of coal in this country. Wishfull thinking I guess but who knows.
Steam and turbines were made for each other.
Thanks again!
Sooblue
There’s nothing like 'em, for sure! I think some very interesting things could be done with coal and turbines and electrics now – the technology has changed so much – but until the cost of oil goes up a lot, diesels are cheaper – and the way railroad budgets are today, that’s a big factor!
…Yes I remember all the sayings about how the T-1 was not a successful engine…but Raymond Louie sure designed their outer skin to make them oh so handsome…I did get to see a few in action but don’t really remember that much about them. Seen them coming through the Pennsylvania Passenger station at Johnstown, Pa.
Sooblue…Part of the trouble is me with difficulty getting my peripherals back up and running. No problem with the printer because it is a H-P same as this new computer and it was able to take it right in but my scanner’s CD-ROM to install the driver did not include XP so I had to download a new driver for the scanner [A visioneer, 5800], and I did that but some where I’m still not getting it all together because I can’t make it perform yet…Frustrating…Haven’t tried the video cam or mic. yet…I simply am not fluid enough with XP yet to make it work well for me…and I haven’t read any instructions on XP yet so maybe I can glean some info there when I try that…
XP tip of the day (maybe)[banghead]
I’m not sure how windows 95 and on up worked but with XP when I drop a program cd into the reader/burner XP opens a wizard window that does all the rest to load said softwear. It even locates the hardwear if its plugged in and on.
I have occasionaly gotten a pop up that will tell me that the softwear I’m trying to load is dos based which is uncompatable with XP but in some cases XP can change the softwear to conform with XP (something like “run like” )
[bow] instructions good [bow]
Sooblue
Sooblue…yes, I understand what you are saying…and i’ll eventually get it accomplished but it can get so frustrating at times…The last unit was run by Windows 98se. I did have one in the past that used Windows 95, which I think worked better that the 98se.
XP is supposed to have capabilities to install programs, etc…better than in the past.
In the conversation in posts back a few…about balance on steam engine wheels…It is my understanding that static balance was achieved very well…[with heavier spots cast into the wheels to offset the weight of the journal and rod assys…but dynamic balance was a different situation…Rod weight on the very outside of the wheels centerline and their counterbalance located roughly centerline of the wheel thickness and when that situation was rotated the one weight that was outside of the wheel circle caused dynamic inbalance…It wanted to cause wheel wobble. That’s my way of reading it anyway.
Yes, Modelcar, it sure did. The roundhouse would correct that by adding weights similar to what is done with auto tires. Much easier with the car. And the engine crews could tell who had done the balancing, too. It had to be done each time the locomotive got a new set of shoes (wheel rims).
Yes…good comparison. When wheel weights are installed on both sides of the [auto], wheel rim the dynamic balance was accomplished a lot closer than in comparison to installing all the required weights on one side of the rim. One may not know just where in the rim width the weight was really required to effect a prefect balance but sharing equal amounts of it to both sides went a long way to dynamic balance. At least in using a bubble balancer to set up the required weights.
At least on a car you can (theoretically!) achieve dynamic balance as Modelcar described – trouble is, on a steam engine, you have those whacking great rods whirling around out there. To get full dynamic balance, you’d either have to have the same weight revolving in the same plane, less weight farther out (and compensating weight on the inside) or a lot more weight closer to the plane of the wheel (and compensating weight on the inside). Needless to say, options one and two don’t work… at least for more than one revolution! – and option three has some very real limitations. Still, they did pretty darn well, all things considered.
Watching a big steam engine at speed has always amazed me… you really can’t get much better in terms of mechanical magic.
I’d like to see a bubble balancer being used for, say, an 84" driver! That would be fun!
…I totally agree…watching the mechanical gear whirl around and back and forth and the rotation of the wheels and cams and levers timing valves…and to think all this was dreamed up more than a century ago…Wow…!! Also to keep those heavy parts from flying off…Pretty great accomplishment.
Doyle McCormak says that a steam locomotive is a machine attempting mechanical suicide using the centrifugal disintagration method.
…Yes and the faster it goes it looks like it would do it quicker…! I just can’t imagine how the bearings and journals holding heavy side rods stand the loading when an engine is at speed. What a tremendous amount of energy trying to effect it to fly apart.
And yet hold together they did[8D], mile after mile after thousands of miles. One of the really great triumphs of Man the Builder[:)]. A great testament to the men who designed them, who built them, and who ran them. Other than sailing ships (I don’t mean yachts), I can’t think of anything else quite on that plane.
…And just think of the oiling system on some of the units…Done manually with an oversized oil can. Something as important as journal bearings to keep all that heavy stuff rotating and not freeze up and fail…was at the mercy of being lubed by someone remembering to do it…Not automatically…!
Once in a while the main rod would come off a 4-6-0 and come up through the cab. Ten-wheelers with the firebox dropped between the middle and rear drive axels were very prone to this. The rod that did this was the one between the 2nd and 3rd axel and sometimes it would be a bearing failure and at other times the rod would simply break. Eventually this got fixed, but it was bearing related.