"Cé hé sin" (michael-m-mouse)
12/19/2016 at 15:06 • Filed to: Trainlopnik, Electric steam
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"Cé hé sin" (michael-m-mouse)
12/19/2016 at 15:06 • Filed to: Trainlopnik, Electric steam | 14
| 9 |
Here’s an old steam locomotive. You know the kind of thing. External combustion so you light a fire at the back, it heats up water to make steam, the steam makes pistons go up and down, wheels go round and round and the exhaust go “puff puff”. All well and good.
Here’s another. We notice something odd. It’s got a pantograph and is running under wires. So (a) somebody’s extracting the Michael or (b) this is something odd.
(b) is the case. Why? We need to go back to Switzerland before and during WW2 when we can imagine a conversation taking place between a manager at Swiss Federal Railways and young Wolfgang from the workshop.
-well, young Wolfi, we have a problem. You know how our little steam shunters work, don’t you?
-why, yes, mein Herr. You light a fire at the back, it heats up water to make steam, the steam makes pistons go up and down, wheels go round and round and the exhaust go “puff puff”. Better still, you can pull a cord and make it go “tschu, tschu”.
-you know that coal is getting expensive, using timber would take an inordinate amount of logs and we can’t convert to oil because that’s hard to get now as well. We haven’t the time or money to find diesel or electric locos so what do you suggest?
-well, mein Herr, we have plenty of electricity because of those dams that have been built and so we already have electric traction with overhead wires. You can get electric kettles now so maybe we could make our little locos into giant kettles. We could fit heating elements to the boiler and then we could boil water electrically with no coal und Bob is Ihr Onkel. No CO2 either which those who come after us are going to get very exercised about. Bit of a nightmare from the efficiency point of view but it should work.
And it was done. An electric steam locomotive.
Learn much more about this and other oddities
!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!
jimz
> Cé hé sin
12/19/2016 at 15:20 |
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“Engineering under duress” can arrive at some novel solutions.
Reminds me, I was recently at the Henry Ford museum and saw this beast again. that’s not an illusion or perspective trick.
Roundbadge
> Cé hé sin
12/19/2016 at 15:33 |
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There were also fireless steam engines, which were fed superheated water and steam by a stationary boiler. They would operate until pressure dropped to a certain level, then return to the boiler for a refill. They were used in situations where fire would be a bad thing, like ammunition factories and papermills.
Image downloaded from the Wikipedia article.
bob and john
> Roundbadge
12/19/2016 at 16:19 |
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now THAT is something I didnt know about. huh. that is really cool
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Cé hé sin
> bob and john
12/19/2016 at 16:30 |
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gmctavish needs more space
> Cé hé sin
12/19/2016 at 17:14 |
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Well, there goes the rest of my day
Stephenson Valve Gear
> Cé hé sin
12/19/2016 at 17:32 |
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The same thing was done in 1936 on a smaller scale... O scale. A company called Steam Electric bought some O gauge live steam locomotives from Weeden, and equipped them with an electric heating element for the little boiler. Power was picked up from 3-rail O gauge track like that used by Lionel trains. They apparently didn’t work very well. You can read more about them at the bottom of this page: http://www.tcawestern.org/weeden.htm
Frank Grimes
> Roundbadge
12/19/2016 at 19:01 |
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I just realized how cool a plug in electric hybrid turbocharged gasoline steam car would be. It would weigh 10,000 lbs and be huge but still would be awesome.
Ready for an adventure!
> jimz
12/20/2016 at 16:58 |
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Big Boy?
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jimz
> Ready for an adventure!
12/20/2016 at 17:06 |
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Allegheny
http://www.steamlocomotive.com/allegheny/