Site worth looking at

Great site.

I found the steam-turbine-electric locos quite interesting not realising that these had even existed.

Except for experiments I can't see why anyone would want to waste power in such a way?

Pete

Agreed

I can't help but wonder that if (a) a cleaner MPD environment less like that of convertional steam sheds and more like that of a diesel depot, with less dirt to affect delicate moving parts and (b) WW2 hadn't intervened, would Stanier's turbine loco have had a greater impact on LMS motive power thinking and led to further construction of stablemates for 6202?

David Belcher

Pete wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

...

I would imagine that they were looking towards reducing the power loss caused by all the moving parts involved in making a steam engine go, that is the power transmition. The joints on coupling rods, valve gear, the cylinders themseves all take power to make them move, power which could otherwise be usefully employed actually shifting the engine.

Turning a turbine takes less power and if the remaining power is transmitted via electrical cables to electrical motors rather than steam pipes, valve gear and the like less is lost hence in theory teh same bioler could produce more power to drive the engine.

Just a thought.

I think some time not that far away when the oil does start to run out we will see some kind of solid fuel fired steam turbine electric.

There is no real need to do a lot of prototyping - the technology is pretty well established, it is just a case of making it all fit in a UK loading guage CoCo + possibly some kind of tender or tank is pulverised fuel., and then getting approval to run the thing.

All this assumes that we still have any freight left on the railway in

-- Nick

Now that makes sense though I don't know enough to add up all the links in the chain.

On the other side there must be loss due to bearings in the electric motor, loss of energy through heat, unused radiated electromagnetic forces and reduction in power due to resistance along the circuit.

The question for me would be 'why not simply take direct force from the turbine instead of pushing it through yet another system (generator, circuit, controller and then electric motor..) - Unless of course a turbine requires certain unhindered speeds to be efficient...

Showing my ignorance really.

Pete

A different fuel but you could be describing a nuclear sub on wheels!

It might be the case in future that the heavy loads that are possible by lorry today might not be possible if we relied on non-petrol forms of haulage. It might even spell an up turn in the railways for hauling goods around the country as the non-petrol motors needed to pull such weights are not feasible by road.

Personally I just think there will be far less to haul around as plasticated consumer goods (virtually everything) would no longer be produced in such quantaties and it would make sense to localise production of foods and growable materials.

The worst is we might all have to go back to using wind up model tin trains again... until the tin runs out that is...

Gloom and doom...

Pete

We've already got them running now but the places where putting up the wires (between the turbine hall and the loco) would cost too much can use diesels running on veggy oil.

Because it only works one way. So you'd have to either have two turbines (one for forward, one for reverse), or some kind of changeable gear to switch direction.

There probably are efficiency benefits from being able to run it at a constant speed too - most large engines prefer being run at a constant speed, and I expect a turbine will have an optimal speed.

James Moody