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Ton up Tornado

Discussion in 'Steam Traction' started by MarkinDurham, Apr 12, 2017.

  1. class8mikado

    class8mikado Part of the furniture

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    Have to concede to you Simon that at the end of the day it is Puffer nutters of an LNER bent that do provide a lot of the funding, but your feelings on what may attract funding and what may not, may be completely changed in even a decades time. Maybe in a decade or so we will both be on a P2 Hauled train into Glasgow waiting for that V4 to come on and take it up to Mallaig
     
  2. MellishR

    MellishR Resident of Nat Pres Friend

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    It seems to me that the change from conjugated valve gear to three separate sets and the change to which axle the middle cylinder drives are essentially independent. And the masses of pistons, crossheads and connecting rods are far greater than the masses of the valve gear, and therefore the main concern for balancing. If the weights on the wheels are only for balancing the rotating masses then there should be no hammer blow, and the reciprocating masses of the three drives do partially balance out, though with some wobble moments. The de Glehn layout provides very good (though not perfect) balancing of the reciprocating masses.

    All that said, there are massive forces on the frames whichever cylinder layout is adopted.
     
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  3. Courier

    Courier New Member

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    For Sugar Palm see March 1961 Railway Magazine
     
  4. R.W. Grant

    R.W. Grant New Member

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    Here are 3 names in what I assume were mechanical engineering..... Yarrow, Schlick, and Tweedy system. They worked out a balancing system for some of the largest 4 cyl. reciprocating steam engines ever built and they were acclaimed to be extremely smooth running. These were the engines of the Olympic class liners. My question if it's valid, given the disparities between railway steam power and marine steam power was the Yarrow, Schlick, and Tweedy system ever given a try on a 4 cyl. steam locomotive or was it just applicable to the large triple expansion marine engines.
     
  5. MarkinDurham

    MarkinDurham Well-Known Member

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    The thing is, a reciprocating marine engine is directly driving a balanced propeller via a crankshaft, whereas a locomotive normally drives directly onto the driving wheels. (OK, there were the Shay type locomotives which connected the pistons to the wheels indirectly, via drive trains and gears, but you have, inter alia, extra mechanical losses and potential lubrication issues there, also loading gauge constraints).
     
  6. fenman35

    fenman35 New Member

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  7. Groks212

    Groks212 Member

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    Oh no, now we're into livery froth , and still nothing to do with Tornado!:mad:

    Dave B
     
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  8. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    :Sorry:
     
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  9. Groks212

    Groks212 Member

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  10. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    Totally accept that John, just some humble livery froth on my part... :oops:
     
  11. NeilL

    NeilL Well-Known Member

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    How long do we think it will be before Tornado's tours have sections timed at more than 75. Would 7 October to Newcastle be a contender perhaps?
     
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  12. Kingston Flyer

    Kingston Flyer Member

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    I hope so, booked to be on that just before the event!
     
  13. green five

    green five Resident of Nat Pres

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    I stopped buying Steam Railway Magazine many years ago but I think I will be getting the new issue:
    [​IMG]

    Sent from my D6603 using Tapatalk
     
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  14. martin1656

    martin1656 Nat Pres stalwart Friend

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    i think the A1 trust are awaiting a new Speedometer that reads up to 130mph first, ready for use when it gets its own HST railtour set :)
     
  15. 242A1

    242A1 Well-Known Member

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    Building a true Super A3 would be more in keeping with LDP's ideas concerning what the A1 Trust should have perhaps considered building. It would have been far more powerful than the A1 and would have unified drive.

    At a number of levels the somewhat imperfect development work carried out on 4472 was very successful. The enlarged main steam pipes, increased boiler working pressure, reversion to original A1 cylinder bore size plus the addition of Double Kylchap exhaust all together added substantially to the power output that the locomotive was capable of. Each item applied in isolation would have provided a significant improvement.

    What was done can be likened to improving the performance of a car. You can improve the engine but you would be most unwise to carry this out in isolation. Without attention to the braking and suspension for example. The A3 was improved very substantially in terms of power output but this was done in isolation. Did no one think about the necessary frame development? Was this put off to a later date? Was finance an issue?

    If you wished to preserve steam as a motive power type to be appreciated out on the national network then building a Super A3 would be one way of trying to achieve that aim. The work carried out on Flying Scotsman only produced a part way to Super machine and I am not referring to the frame design here. The frame design can be refined to allow it to deal with the results of whatever thermodynamic improvements you might wish to stir into the mix. The engine would look very much like an A3 and would be an outstanding performer. But it would face the limits imposed by having only three driven axles and a little over 66 tons of adhesive weight.

    During WW2 the Germans tested a 2-8-4 with driving wheels a little over 5' in diameter against a Pacific with driving wheels around 6' 6" in diameter. The Pacific could reach higher speeds but the 2-8-4 could keep better time. This machine had a little more adhesive weight, some 3 tons, but it had 4 driven axles with which to put the power down. It was designed not as a high speed machine but as a mountain climber. Acceleration matters as does not sitting down on the job through lack of adhesion.

    So what do we really need to keep steam on the mainline and not have it restricted to selected routes to keep it well out of the way of modern traction? 60163 was evidently worked at 45% cut-off to achieve the 100 mph. The concept Super A3 would not need to be extended so far. But the eight coupled P2 would hold advantages just like the 2-8-4 did all those years ago.
     
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  16. Where's Mazeppa?

    Where's Mazeppa? Member

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    Snippets of an interview with Graeme Bunker in SR466/ "Down Main" Page 66 suggest that it may be a touch optimistic to hope that we will see this ambition realised by early/ mid-Autumn, but its probably a case of "Never say Never". The aspiration seems to be that "we'll have run a public 90 mph train by the end of 2017". The stated rider to this is "it'll be 2018 by the time we're able to give the public a long lead-in".

    My personal view about this is that the benchmark/ milestone isn't going to be the attainment of 90 mph or any particular Vmax, however headline-grabbing that may be; real progress and worthwhile progression will have been achieved when we see the architects of NR timings delivering sensible paths - particularly on the ECML but also on the WCML and GWML, that demonstrate some degree of confidence in Tornado's ability to integrate successfully with today's high speed railway. And the managers of those paths respecting that capability in the operational decisions that are taken to protect the execution of those paths.

    "Sections timed at more than 75" (per NeilL's post) neatly expresses where we really want to be, IMHO. My hope, expressed up-thread, is that we might see a year end "Peppercorn Phoenix" that ceremonialises a previous A1 achievement (60145 St Mungo 31.12.65), celebrates Tornado's outstanding exploits in the wee small hours of Tuesday 12th April, and really and truly does "ring in the new" for sensible scheduling/ pathing of steam on our principal high speed arterial routes in 2018.
     
    Last edited: Apr 23, 2017
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  17. S.A.C. Martin

    S.A.C. Martin Part of the furniture

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    Sorry if I have totally missed the point, but the aim of the A1 Trust was to "build a Peppercorn A1".

    Because there wasn't one preserved.

    Because we already have an A3.

    So with the greatest of respect...!

    I can appreciate these points in isolation to a super A3. But we don't need one, any more than we perhaps "needed" a Peppercorn A1. Both are in some respects "nice to have" - but whereas there was support to build, and there is support, to maintain the A1, a super A3? I doubt it.
     
  18. Brunswick Green 2

    Brunswick Green 2 Member

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    Just build a second boiler for Tornado to reduce down time for overhauls. Forget about a long list of possible loco's to resurrect, especially with an ever reducing list of aged enthusiasts who remember the engines from their youth.
     
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  19. 242A1

    242A1 Well-Known Member

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    In the What's Going On thread concerning the CME of 22/4 there is some discussion concerning power outputs, speed and acceleration. What you need to get up to speed quickly enough on today's railways.

    For a sufficient number of enthusiasts the Peppercorn A1 was a design of locomotive that was loved and respected. It was also missing from the ranks of preserved engines. Given enough resources you can achieve almost anything. Want or need? Well enough either wanted or felt that they needed an A1 to enable a scheme to be organised and brought to fruition.

    For LDP the new build was at one level wonderful but at another a wasted opportunity. Looking again at the numbers from the WGO thread. The Deltic, 3300 h.p. plated at 100 mph but it just cannot get there fast enough.

    So was LDP right to point out that though the A1 build was laudable enough it was not going to prove to be good enough? His proposal reverted back to the Gresley layout, it could be viewed as a Super A3. So I pointed out that this works, works very well - providing that you attend to modifying the frame design to match the power output improvements. And with steam you can get more than 3,300 hp out of a locomotive weighing a nominal 100 tons.

    Do we need one? No, the world does not need a single steam locomotive. So what do we want?

    If we want to continue to indulge in our interest, our passion we need to take appropriate actions. Or we can accept more in the way of limitations.
     
    Last edited: Apr 23, 2017
  20. 242A1

    242A1 Well-Known Member

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    Valid point. But the P2 holds out more promise for mainline steam in the longer term, so the third boiler to share between the pair would be the better way of looking at it.
     
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