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 Post subject: Re: On the subject of newbuilds
PostPosted: Thu Feb 22, 2018 11:07 pm 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 7:19 am
Posts: 6399
Location: southeastern USA
Great idea - but it does sound similar to something I have read here before.....

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 Post subject: Re: On the subject of newbuilds
PostPosted: Fri Feb 23, 2018 11:45 am 

Joined: Sat Jan 21, 2012 10:03 pm
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Location: Pennsylvania
Just a "shower-thought" I had on this topic; instead of using steel for the rods, a titanium alloy could be used to reduce their weight and also to increase the tensile strength of the rods. Titanium is often used to make the connecting rods in a car engine, so this would basically be the same thing on a larger, if slower (less RPMs) scale.


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 Post subject: Re: On the subject of newbuilds
PostPosted: Fri Feb 23, 2018 4:28 pm 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 11:54 pm
Posts: 2367
Dave wrote:
Again, you define the service before you decide on the locomotive. Building an Erie pacific without a well researched and supported plan to operate it enough to earn its keep as well as recover its capitalization is simply foamy fantasy.

Has your part of the rust belt revitalized itself with modern fabrication industry? If so, might be a good place...... once you have a project ready to be started.


It seems that people forget that steam locomotives were built extremely specific purposes. That's why, once the USRA was gone, the railroads went back to custom ordering small batches.

Albert Churella , I believe covered this aspect of steam in "From Steam to Diesel", that one of the problems of something that is so special purpose is that cannot be mass produced the way diesels could and therefore defies mass production of standardized design and economies of scale.


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 Post subject: Re: On the subject of newbuilds
PostPosted: Fri Feb 23, 2018 4:49 pm 

Joined: Sun Jan 14, 2018 6:08 am
Posts: 60
superheater wrote:
Dave wrote:
Again, you define the service before you decide on the locomotive. Building an Erie pacific without a well researched and supported plan to operate it enough to earn its keep as well as recover its capitalization is simply foamy fantasy.

Has your part of the rust belt revitalized itself with modern fabrication industry? If so, might be a good place...... once you have a project ready to be started.


It seems that people forget that steam locomotives were built extremely specific purposes. That's why, once the USRA was gone, the railroads went back to custom ordering small batches.

Albert Churella , I believe covered this aspect of steam in "From Steam to Diesel", that one of the problems of something that is so special purpose is that cannot be mass produced the way diesels could and therefore defies mass production of standardized design and economies of scale.


Which rather flies in the face of the USRA and Riddles' British Rail Standard designs. It wasn't so much steam is so specialised it had to have a square peg for the square hole but most major railroads had their own shops and chief engineers who felt their way was going to be better than their competitors. That is what lead to that appearance of specialisation.

This gets swept right out the door the moment you take away that power, which is what we've got in today's railroads as it's cheaper to nab an off the shelf engine than it would be to put one together and design it yourself. The fact its a diesel or diesel-electric is largely irrelevant.

You could see this most acutely here in the UK, where the Great Northern looked to make larger and faster engines, Johnson happily continued the Midland Railway's small engine policy.

The later Big Four all had their own ideas and designs. Then along came British Rail who basically swept the lot out and adopted designs largely influenced by the LNWR/LMS Crewe Works.

You could argue that even now, diesels are specialised. You wouldn't throw a Dash-8 on a shortline to pick up a couple of box cars after all.


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 Post subject: Re: On the subject of newbuilds
PostPosted: Fri Feb 23, 2018 5:40 pm 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 8:31 am
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Location: South Carolina
Also recall the Trains article some years back that made a convincing case that a far more economical solution to the USRA's WWI railway motive power issues would have been to build a crap-ton of USRA light 2-8-2's, instead of the array of designs they actually built. Yea, they wouldn't have been optimum for a lot of the needed uses, and double heading would have been required in many instances, but having a single standardized design for all three builders to construct and all the railways to operate and maintain would have been a huge economic and operational benefit.

Sure there's room for some diversity in a new-build "standard" tourist railway steamer, but you certainly wouldn't need a purpose-designed-from-scratch locomotive for every customer.

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 Post subject: Re: On the subject of newbuilds
PostPosted: Fri Feb 23, 2018 6:55 pm 

Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2005 1:25 pm
Posts: 6400
Hugh -

The thing is, a 63" drivered, large firebox 2-6-2 would probably suffice for 95% of the tourist or museum operations today. We are not talking about huge loads, but rather about a new, welded boiler locomotive, with less maintenance, that would be easier to maintain and would not require a heavy restoration of a historic engine. What would 5 examples cost? Or ten? Or.....?

I don't quite understand the idea of moving such a locomotive around to different operations. The Gramlings, Viscose #6, etc., are already doing that today.

I don't know if just one design of the USRA locomotives made sense, but probably less individual wheel arrangements. A light 2-8-2, a heavy Pacific or 4-8-2, a 2-10-2 and the 0-8-0. But of course, it didn't work out that way.

Les


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 Post subject: Re: On the subject of newbuilds
PostPosted: Fri Feb 23, 2018 9:39 pm 

Joined: Tue Jun 02, 2015 10:57 pm
Posts: 35
It is interesting that the possibility of a 2-6-2 has been brought up, because Japan had one, basically for the purposes we are talking about, their C58 class. It was 42" gauge, however (as all their railways are except the bullet train).

http://steam.fan.coocan.jp/engines/C58.htm


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 Post subject: Re: On the subject of newbuilds
PostPosted: Sat Feb 24, 2018 10:39 pm 

Joined: Mon Jan 17, 2005 9:06 pm
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Location: Thomaston & White Plains
Or that proposed CNR 2-6-2 of 1944-45, that was written up in Classic Trains not long ago. There were even plans drawn for that one. 63" drivers, vestibule cab, front end throttle, about 30,000-32,000 lbs tractive effort. Would have been quite similar to what Les is mentioning.

Howard P.

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 Post subject: Re: On the subject of newbuilds
PostPosted: Sat Feb 24, 2018 11:35 pm 

Joined: Thu Oct 24, 2013 8:30 am
Posts: 173
Howard P. what CNR 2-6-2? I don't remember. I wrote this before if there is going to be a newbuild it does have to make economical sense a 2-6-2 or a 4-6-2 is a top notch choice because of durability. Building a 19th century loco in today's world not a bad idea. I prefer a pacific I wrote about doing a Erie K1 pacific with the upgrades that I wrote earlier.

A note to Dave I never said I was going to build one I said if I could which in terms of money, and a plan and the knowledge I would.


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 Post subject: Re: On the subject of newbuilds
PostPosted: Sun Feb 25, 2018 12:00 am 

Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2005 1:25 pm
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Howard P. wrote:
Or that proposed CNR 2-6-2 of 1944-45, that was written up in Classic Trains not long ago. There were even plans drawn for that one. 63" drivers, vestibule cab, front end throttle, about 30,000-32,000 lbs tractive effort. Would have been quite similar to what Les is mentioning.

Howard P.


Howard - Too bad none were built. A really neat locomotive. Wonder if detailed engineering plans still exist?

Les


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 Post subject: Re: On the subject of newbuilds
PostPosted: Sun Feb 25, 2018 10:47 am 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 9:54 am
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Location: NJ
Didn't the Chinese have a somewhat standardized design 2-6-2, kind of a baby SY, that was designed for industrial use, (as was the SY)? Also, 63 inch drivers, using the old 1.1 times driver diameter formula, would allow for almost 70 MPH operation, assuming perfect track and counterbalancing. Kind of quick for a tourist line. The SYs had 54 inch drivers, a bit slower, but with more TE; a good tradeoff on a wet day with a heavy train.


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 Post subject: Re: On the subject of newbuilds
PostPosted: Sun Feb 25, 2018 2:03 pm 

Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2005 1:25 pm
Posts: 6400
Elliott -

I was always a bit surprised that Chinese 2-8-2's were offered to U.S. tourist/museum railroads, but no 2-6-2's. Must have been a reason for that.


Les


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 Post subject: Re: On the subject of newbuilds
PostPosted: Sun Feb 25, 2018 3:37 pm 

Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2004 1:51 pm
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Location: Somewhere east of Prescott, AZ along the old Santa Fe "Prescott & Eastern"
Les Beckman wrote:
I don't quite understand the idea of moving such a locomotive around to different operations. The Gramlings, Viscose #6, etc., are already doing that today.

Never underestimate the marketing value of "something new/temporary/different."

I'm just going to make up some wild and crazy examples:

Imagine one of the Grand Canyon Ry.'s steamers (when they had more than one in operation) on the Verde Canyon RR for a month.

Imagine Wilmington & Western 4-4-0 98 going up to Strasburg for a bit of rebuild, and then spending a month on trains there in non-prime season. Would you drop everything to go shoot a 4-4-0 on the the Strasburg again? Or they got permission to run some other loco in the repair queue in service for some shakedown runs--like a 2-8-2T Minaret? How about if the Middletown & Hummelstown found the money to both have their 91 repaired at Strasburg and borrow Strasburg's 89 for a season--assuming Strasburg had a half-dozen or more steamers in reserve (like some UK lines do) and could spare her?

Imagine if the WMSR could easily lease another beefy 2-8-0, or even a hauler like a Russian Decapod, to tide things over until 1309 gets repaired?

"Only railfans care about that stuff"? But what if it gave a line a chance to market steam as a more-frequent basis (see WMSR's "Mountain Thunder" marketing)?


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 Post subject: Re: On the subject of newbuilds
PostPosted: Sun Feb 25, 2018 3:47 pm 

Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2005 1:25 pm
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Mr. Mitchell -

Actually this was done at least once. The Indiana Transportation Museum (ITM) had their Nickel Plate 2-8-2 #587 repaired at the Monticello Railway Museum some years ago. I believe that part of that "deal" was MRM using the 587 on some of their trains. I don't recall the details, nor whether it worked out okay for the folks at Monticello or not. Maybe someone from MRM can comment.

Les


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 Post subject: Re: On the subject of newbuilds
PostPosted: Sun Feb 25, 2018 11:30 pm 

Joined: Mon Jan 02, 2012 8:47 pm
Posts: 486
Alexander D. Mitchell IV wrote:
Les Beckman wrote:
I don't quite understand the idea of moving such a locomotive around to different operations. The Gramlings, Viscose #6, etc., are already doing that today.

Never underestimate the marketing value of "something new/temporary/different."

I'm just going to make up some wild and crazy examples:

Imagine one of the Grand Canyon Ry.'s steamers (when they had more than one in operation) on the Verde Canyon RR for a month.

Imagine Wilmington & Western 4-4-0 98 going up to Strasburg for a bit of rebuild, and then spending a month on trains there in non-prime season. Would you drop everything to go shoot a 4-4-0 on the the Strasburg again? Or they got permission to run some other loco in the repair queue in service for some shakedown runs--like a 2-8-2T Minaret? How about if the Middletown & Hummelstown found the money to both have their 91 repaired at Strasburg and borrow Strasburg's 89 for a season--assuming Strasburg had a half-dozen or more steamers in reserve (like some UK lines do) and could spare her?

Imagine if the WMSR could easily lease another beefy 2-8-0, or even a hauler like a Russian Decapod, to tide things over until 1309 gets repaired?

"Only railfans care about that stuff"? But what if it gave a line a chance to market steam as a more-frequent basis (see WMSR's "Mountain Thunder" marketing)?


I could be off the mark here, but isn't/wasn't that the whole point of the Age of Steam Roundhouse? Didn't JJJ plan to lease out his engines once enough were restored?

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