There is a concurrent Thread running here referencing building a steam turbine locomotive by NWPSWP. I did not want to co-opt his Thread.
SO I will start this Thread. I grew into model railroading in the 1950’s. There were a few steam pulled trains running around Memphis, mixed in with diesels. I was hooked by the various magazines and their ‘projects’; John Allen was hero to me ,his dioramas of steam engines and equipment were really mind blowing.
The first of the steam turbine locomotives that were familiar to me, was Pennsy’s S-1 steam turbine (6-8-6), and it was as real as its’ Lionel model was on a neighbor’s layout. It was a stunning piece of engineering and equipment.
Doing some reading on the subject; I became aware that Union Pacific had a pair of steam turbine locomotives, produced by General Electric in Erie,Pa. in 1934/38. They were supposed to pull UP’s passenger trains, and were expected to be able to do that at 125 mph. Their operatons were very problematic, and were also demonstrated on other railroads in the West GN was one. They were 2+C-C+2 wheel arrangement roughly equivalent to the (2-6-6-2) Whyte arrangement. They were fueled with ‘bunker’ oil, and could be hooked together as MU’d units, controlled by one engineer. They were accepred in 1939 by UPR but were taken out of service in 1943 with wear problems. I had also read that they had serious problems with their turbine blades, as well (?).
In 1948, the coal hauling C&ORR had produced for it, THREE steam turbine, electrics, #500#501 and #502. They were built to haul a ‘new’ streamlined train the ‘Chessie’ between Washington and Cincinnati in
The GE Turbomotives were outshopped in 1939, were tested by the UP and ended up on the GN 1942-43. The hope was the high pressure/high temperature steam cycle would produce adequate economy and power. Big letdown was that the air-cooled condensers did not work as well as hoped in the Nevada desert.
The steam turbine locomotives you mention built in the 1940s were indeed a remarkable technology of the great era of American railroads. They were all attempts to explore a fading technology and for the most part were ill concieved. The Pennsy 6-8-6 was perhaps the most straight forward design borrowing from standard railroad practice of steam design and most likely of fitting into the existing engine design and maintaince practice. The horsepower produced took advantage of the existing stationary plant and marine turbine design. Unfortunately neither of these designs lent themselves to the start/stop and variable speed characteristics of railroad locomotives. A comparrison would be the famed steamship SS UNITED STATES which produced some 43,000 marine horsepower and was to my knowledge the fastest ocean liner ever built. It still exists today although in somewhat difficult condition. This example shows what was possible with the use of the steam turbine. Pennsy found the great boiler they built for the 6-8-6 was easily exhausted by the turbine equipped locomotive - an event that thermally shocked the steel boiler designed for the piston type locomotive. The boiler was not up to that usage and suffered structural issues when pushed to capacity. A heroic locomotive none the less and one that should have been saved for the audacity that went into is creation - it was very beautiful to look at.
Lets remember what the 1940’s was like in America. Nuclear power was dawning upon the mind of the public and few Americans really percieved its deadly and dangerous nature. I can remember there was a Merchant Marine nuclear cargo ship designed and built called the SAVANAH. Nuclear power was designed into the first naval submarine and it sailed under the North Pole ice pack - USS NAUTILUS. Nuclear power plants were being designed for locations all over America and an age of unlimited power was conceived. It was
As happens, it is very easy to figure out the appeal of the various forms of steam turbine drive, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with nuclear power. Although it did turn out to have a lot to do with water rate and particularly exhaust characteristics.
The UP turbines were somewhat anomalous in that they were oil-fired at comparatively high pressure, with a relatively small mass of distilled water in a full condensing cycle to get to their (comparatively small) engine HP of 2500 per unit. These suffered from control and condenser issues, but intriguingly it appears that many, perhaps most of the problems during testing on UP were fixed during their time in wartime service ‘up north’. But after the war the economics went to diesel, and there wasn’t any place for a large cast-frame version of an FT that didn’t get as good fuel economy. Which was a pity … but then again, I don’t think GE had much of a future competing against its own venture with Alco.
The PRR 6-8-6 was an interesting locomotive, but its drive was inherently flawed in too many ways, and the solution to large exhaust plena was Just. Plain. Wrong. The updated version Westinghouse thought about was a 4-8-4 (it’s in the 1948 brochure I keep linking to) and if equipped with the right kind of clutch or transmission to allow the turbine speed to differ from wheel speed – the Bowes drive being ideal for the purpose but not easy to package where these turbines have their final drive – it might have fulfilled the promise PRR saw in it right up to the era it started popping staybolts enormously, and dangerously, en masse. However, the significant economies from its use turned out to occur at sustained reasonably high speed, which isn’t something commonly found even in much of PRR’s passenger service and wouldn’t matter to freight until the advent of TrucTrains. By then anything with a large boiler for high speed was deprecated on PRR except to be run out in
A comparrison would be the famed steamship SS UNITED STATES which produced some 43,000 marine horsepower and was to my knowledge the fastest ocean liner ever built. It still exists today although in somewhat difficult condition.
The United States had steam turbines that produced 240,000 shaft horse power according to Wikipedia. On reading that statement above my first guess was at least 200, 000 shp.
It was indeed the fastest conventional passenger ship built to date. However it had four screws which were changed annually in the winter docking so that the severe erosion due to cavitation could be repaired. In simple terms, the propellers lasted one year transmitting more than 60, 000 shp per shaft.
There is a biography of the naval architect William Gibbs describing the United States called (I think) “A Man and his Ship”. It isn’t really technical but it is a good read. Gibbs apparently went down to the dock and met the ship every time it returned to New York. It helps to have offices nearby and to own the company…
There is an excellent book on turbine locomotives, both steam and gas turbine by a Swiss Author whose name escapes me right now, sadly only in German.
I think the main problem with the GE 1939 turbine electrics indicated in the above book was that they never reached anything like the fuel economy expected from the high pressure system installed. Remembering that EMD had the 201A powered E units in service and the 567 powered versions in development, it was clear to GE that there was no market for that design.
I refer you to the Wiki article on the merchant ship SAVANAH which still exists in Baltimore as an historic ship. Which ship still includes its novel for the time new unique commercial nuclear reactor. The ship was built as part of the Federal Government effort to promote nuclear power “Atoms for Peace” initiative. An entire government program was created to move nuclear power into practical everyday usage promoted by the Department of Commerce.
I am not sure of your age or education, but having lived in the 1950’s I can assure you that the public did perceive nuclar power as a likely option for everyday domestic use.
The small nuclear reactor aboard SAVANAH remains, as does the unique design of the ship - for regular replacement of the nuclear fuel supply. The reactor was contained within a cylindrical shell and represented a simplified commerical design.
“The reactor was designed to civilian standards using low-enriched uranium with less emphasis on shock resistance and compactness of design than that seen in comparable military propulsion reactors, but with considreable emphasis on safety and reliablity.”
Concerning public thought one might refer to the LIONEL copy of Pennsy’s steam turbine which was first equipped with a labeled ATOMIC electric motor in 1947.
The dangers inherent in accident and misuse of nuclear were just not widely understood by the public - even in the post Chernobyl times of today.
I assure you that not only am I a fan of the NS SAVANNAH (please have the respect to spell her name correctly henceforth) I was interested for a while in systems to provide NSSS for the SL-7s (nominally of course in their role as fast supply ships). Those of course would have been everything that the Savannah turned out not to be, assuming that all those ridiculous port authorities that made themselves obstreperously into ‘nuclear-free zones’ in those years would have let them dock. I would submit that these would not currently be in ROS with a reasonably modern power system catering for their required high shp.
A very, very, very great deal of the “public thought” regarding practical nuclear power for any ‘everyday domestic use’ was little better than science fiction, when in fact it even contained any hard science or engineering content at all. What it reminded me of most was a National Lampoon piece on an African nation that had a ‘space program’, involving whirling people around in buckets to simulate ‘space travel’ and similar cargo-cult approximations of the kind of hardware and development that would actually be required for orbital operations. Ford had a famous ‘Nucleon’ show car (one of the ugliest as well as most pathetically suspended vehicles ever made, in my opinion) which was heavily advertised as being Nuclear Powered Someday – although all there was in the car was an empty space essentially marked ‘for future reactor design, maybe’. Borst very famously developed a locomotive with an impossible fuel, done by a bunch of non-engineers, and then was essentially inveigled into patenting the concept STILL without involving any trained engineers, when it should have been kept as what it was, a classroom enterprise a bit like a ‘story problem’ in how to calculate the various elements of a nuclear cycle.
In short, it was very easy to come up with stencilling the word ATOMIC on something to ma
You might check with the SAVANNAH historic ship in Baltimore MD. According to Wikipedia - the entire ship has been remarkably preserved in all its detail - and does indeed still contain the commercial nuclear reactor it was built with.
The nuclear reactor has been kept on board to preserve the unique technological accomplishment the SAVANNAH represents. Possibly this fact is downplayed in order to keep from alarming certain aspects of the general public.
Wiki also notes that the still present nuclear reactor has be de-fueled and does not contain any radioactive material.
What went to Savannah River was the core and fuel (after initial decommissioning) followed in a couple of years by the obviously contaminated components (at least part of the primary coolant pumps, demineralization beds, etc.)
When MARAD opted for the SAFSTOR method of decommissioning it meant that the reactor pressure vessel, most of the piping, etc were NOT removed and in fact will not be messed with until 2031 at the earliest. There were some additional low-level remediation in the last decade (like the last 1650-odd gallons of coolant, Permasorbed out and components of some ancillary pumps) but not the removal of all the neutron-activated structure that DECON would have required. Naturally this means orders of magnitude less cost, even ‘net’ of the expressed concern that low-level waste storage might become politically less possible (and hence decommissioning cost higher and less anticipable for planning) in the upcoming years to 2031.
The reactor has been considered irretrievably inoperable for some time, which may have led to the belief it had in fact been removed. Most of it has not.
Here is a somewhat better reference than Wikipedia:
