The perfect express passenger locomotive?

[richard]

Oil firing and "lots of pipes" do not necessarily go together - for example the Ffestiniog Railway has used oil burning a lot, and the LNER experimented with it a bit.

For a modern 21st century steam loco, then I think a fluid fuel would be essential, whether that is gas, oil, coal-bed-methane (I think the Ffestiniog experimented with this?), or even pulverised coal.

Also, the valve gear would be computer controlled - end of story.


Richard

[60800]

It would also have aluminium frames, nanotube lined cylinders and boiler, a titanium firebox and a carbon fibre boiler casing. The cab would be small and clean with a little computer touch screen to control everything and it would have traction control so the wheels never slipped. I'd actually like to see the Japanese make that and stick it on their high speed lines

I'll return to the drawing board

[rob237]

I'm visualising the fun arising at the freshly relaid Scrooby oil throughs when excess oil scooping hits the overhead knitting, or passing HST/225 stock
Would be keen to buy the subsequent DVD...

Cheers
Robt P

[richard]

@blackout: Well many of those might not be economic! Computer controlled valve gear would be a natural modern solution to a knotty problem - every car sold today has computer controlled injection and timing.

Perhaps what you were thinking was that your loco was a 1940s what-if (minus the War and Austerity)?


Richard

[kudu]

Maybe we should ditch the coal fired locomotive idea, in favour of a computer controlled oil fired one? This would free both driver and fireman (if one is still needed) to sit in a cab (which would be fitted at either end of the loco) and work the controls from there.

Given the mileage it would probably do under wires I would propose fitting a pantograph so that the water could also be electrically heated when the opportunity arose.

Kudu

[60800]

It was more a 'if I was Robert Riddles and I needed an express passenger loco' and instead of a pantograph, how about a turbine connected to a driving axle for cab lights and extra water heating?

Kinda like a wind turbine, but the blades and shaft replaced by a driving wheel and axle.

[mr B]

dont forget the coaching stock , now with the loco requiring tho quench its thirst , the heating system for the comfort of the passenger would be of the air condisioned de-umidifed type using the recycled water for the loco

mr b

[Coboman]

I'm pondering why you didn't just post a piccie of an entire HST, but the biggest question on my mind is how the hell did the power car negotiate that curve?

Well because you said locomotive in the singular, where as technically an HST is a train. BR even gave the entire train a number in their early days.
I think its a trick of the camera making the curve look alot sharper than it is.
Jim

[Coboman]

Maybe we should ditch the coal fired locomotive idea, in favour of a computer controlled oil fired one? This would free both driver and fireman (if one is still needed) to sit in a cab (which would be fitted at either end of the loco) and work the controls from there.

Given the mileage it would probably do under wires I would propose fitting a pantograph so that the water could also be electrically heated when the opportunity arose.

Kudu

If we going to talk about perfect, I suppose we could include most efficient? I suggest as diesel/steam hybrid electric, developed mainly on the ideas of the Kitson locomotive, even though I suspect they made that loco the way it was more to overcome the lack of reliable traction equipment available at the time than to make it more efficient than a straight diesel. I have done quite alot of reasearch of using the waste heat of an internal combustion diesel engine to create steam to increase efficiency. With a power plant like that and electric traction it would be easy to include a pantograph for electrified sections, although a diesel/steam hybrid could easily better a powerstation and associated distribution on efficiency, so there would be no point. Can easily be modified to run on bio or even coal derived liquid fuel.
Jim

[Blink Bonny]

Ay up!

Kitson reied a steam / diesel hybrid in the 1930s out on the LMS system. It was a total disaster, combining the worst features of both forms of power. Needless to say, it went the way of the Dodo.

The GCR, SECR and SR all tried pulverised fuel and found the same problem - space. Pulverised coal burns like a gas and so the loco needs much more of it. In an attempt to get round this, the GC used "colloidal" fuel - Pulverised coal mixed with waste oil but the 8K loco used for the trial was short on fuel for a long trip despite having a giant, economy sized bogie tender nearly as long as the engine.

I reckon oil firing would work well but so would a mechanical stoker. I wonder what a computer controlled poppet valve gear would be like?

[richard]

re. the Kitson-Still: This was actually tried on the LNER (where Gresley kept an active interest) and even hauled revenue earning trains on the Leeds&Selby and thereabouts.

From what I've read it wasn't a failure as such, but the development virtually bankrupted Kitson's who could not afford to develop the idea further (ie. commercialise it).


It was one of the many attempts to move stationary or marine practice into railway usage. The Still cycle was widely used in marine applications. Other attempts include water tube boilers (Sentinel made that one work, but larger applications were slow or flawed) and compounding (only the Smith system really worked in the UK).

[strang steel]

Given the mileage it would probably do under wires I would propose fitting a pantograph so that the water could also be electrically heated when the opportunity arose.

Kudu

I hate to imagine what the H&S response would be to having 5000 gallons of water and 25kv electricity cables within centimetres of each other.

[60800]

Correction, 6000 gallons

Actually, the pantograph would have to be on a support coach, as a steam engine would just get too hot for it to function properly

[Coboman]

Ay up!

Kitson reied a steam / diesel hybrid in the 1930s out on the LMS system. It was a total disaster, combining the worst features of both forms of power. Needless to say, it went the way of the Dodo.

Apart from it been LNER, and the fact that it worked well and was far more efficient that straight steam, AND there are plenty of working 4 and 6 stroke hybrid steam/diesels engines now kind of puts a different light on it.

[Blink Bonny]

Ay up!

I always understood that it was a failure.

I shall have to visit our library and see what I can find out.