Great Footage of GNR Stirling Single in motion.

"Berang" (berang) 05/28/2019 at 22:18 • Filed to: None

5

12

This peculiar locomotive hasn’t been run in decades, and (good) footage of it in action is really hard to find. The “single” in its name comes from the single driving axle, which is fitted with 8 foot driving wheels. That means that at 60mph, the engine is turning just over 200rpm.

Stirling was one of the last engineers dedicated to the single driving axle, instead of adding a second driven axle (and therefore doubling the wheels putting power to the rails) , he reasoned it was more efficient to gain adhesion by simply making the single set of driven wheels as large as possible (larger circumference, larger contact patch). He had disdain for locomotives with multiple drive axles, because the connecting rods and counter-weighting needed to make them work were inefficient in his opinion (he still built them anyway, for low speed freight use).  

This seems sort of ridiculous - but with the technology available at the time, it was a better bet to put huge forces on slow moving, heavy parts to move the train fast, rather than move smaller parts faster to get the same speed.

Anyway - look at how slow that wheel is turning. I would guess they’re probably not doing better than about 40mph, but you can see how slowly the mechanism goes for the distance covered (over 25 feet per revolution of the driving wheel).

ttyymmnn > Berang 05/28/2019 at 22:40

2

Sir Topham Hatt would be pleased.

Ash78, voting early and often > Berang 05/28/2019 at 23:01

1

Welcome to the Cotswolds, we got lots of trains

Learn to chuff like an animal, in the Cotswolds every day

You gotta pay a modest fee, no one rides for free. If you want a round-trip pass, well you can’t just buy it from me.

/GNR

WilliamsSW > ttyymmnn 05/28/2019 at 23:05

2

Emily!

ttyymmnn > WilliamsSW 05/28/2019 at 23:09

2

Sure enough. My oldest had a crap load of those trains (the original wooden ones) and knew them all by name. I recognized that one, but couldn’t put a name with it. Should have asked him!

WilliamsSW > ttyymmnn 05/28/2019 at 23:14

1

Yeah there is a wooden Emily about 3 feet in front of me right now...

ttyymmnn > WilliamsSW 05/28/2019 at 23:19

1

Those new plastic trains suck. And I don’t care for the show much now that they went all CG and with people who move. I liked the simplicity of the old show, as if you were looking at a storybook. The original Rev. Awdry stories are still available in print . I’ve got a number of loose books, but they’ve also been collected into a single volume. The drawings are wonderful. Stories are pretty short, too.

ttyymmnn > WilliamsSW 05/28/2019 at 23:22

0

Just realized I posted the plastic version. Here’s the original wooden one.

Boys haven’t played with these in years, but we have kept them all, with the track, and the DVDs of the old TV show, in the event that we ever have grandkids who might like to play with them.

WilliamsSW > ttyymmnn 05/28/2019 at 23:45

0

We have a mixture of different sizes, but my wife (and son) prefer the smaller wooden engines. The Emily we have isn’t as nice as your last photo (they seem to be switching to less paint) but we do have a nice Thomas and Percy.

I  prefer the older shows too - especially with George Carlin, Ringo Starr, etc narrating. 

ttyymmnn > WilliamsSW 05/28/2019 at 23:54

0

I imagine you’ve seen this. There’s a whole series of them. For after the kids go to bed.

kanadanmajava1 > Berang 05/29/2019 at 05:58

0

This locomotive is a new for me. Based on the name I thought that it was powered by a Stirling engine but it has a regular steam engine. A pparently Stirling engine was invented by the father (Robert) of this locomotive ’s designer (Patrick) .

Berang > kanadanmajava1 05/29/2019 at 22:27

0

Interesting connection I was unaware of.

kanadanmajava1 > Berang 05/30/2019 at 09:29

0

Another weird thing is that Rober Stirling married Jane Rankine (naturally Patrick’s mother) . I couldn’t figure out if she was related to another famous Scottish engineer William ( John Macquorn) Rankine. He was born one year after the mentioned marriage . He is the m an behind Rankine scale (l ike Kelvin scale but uses Fahrenheit as the base unit) and Rankine cycle ( an important process function to for steam turbines etc) .