I recall reading somewhere that enough drawings were available to "replicate" a NYC Hudson. Can anyone confirm or deny ?

74471.3045@compuserve.com

> I recall reading somewhere that enough
> drawings were available to
> "replicate" a NYC Hudson. Can
> anyone confirm or deny ?

I would be surprised if there weren't. However, what is really needed are a lot of little green replicas of portraits of deceased presidents and statesmen.

lorija799@aol.com

Why would you not be surprised ?

> I would be surprised if there weren't.
> However, what is really needed are a lot of
> little green replicas of portraits of
> deceased presidents and statesmen.


74471.3045@compuserve.com

New York Central Technical and Historical Society has the drawingss, and copies are available for purchase. I know, because I have a side elevation areound here somewhere that I bought from them years ago.

The Tod Engine
todengine@woh.rr.com

The first one would be very expensive ... the next ten would be incrementally cheaper ! :o)


lamontdc@adelphia.net

Which also raises the question of why nobody has started collecting drawings and photographs of a Hudson to send to China? If the Chinese still have the infrastructure to construct and maintain steam, one would think that enough NYC fans could be found to fund sucha construction. I even have a name for the new locomotive - "The Commodore Perlman".

glueck@saturn.caps.maine.edu

I think maybe you should have a look at the A-1 trust which is trying to recreate a pacific in England, read their website news, if you read between the lines, they are running into more difficulties than they thought they would. They wanted to have the thing operational 2 years ago, and the boiler construction has yet to be started, and they are working with the shops that overhauled east german steam into the 90's

b.hume@rogers.com

As others have pointed out in similar threads the biggest problem with recreating a modern steam locomotive is that they had one-piece cast frames that included the cylinders. This is a lost technology as there has been no market for such castings for years. The firms that made them are either out of business or have moved on to other products. Recreating the frame would be a huge problem compared to making the plate steel frames used for British locomotives. The boilers would be rather easy to make in comparison.

Museum of Transportation
rdgoldfede@aol.com

Actually, producing a cast steel locomotive bed is still possible with the use of lost foam casting techniques. I worked in a foundry that made stamping dies. The pattern would come in by truck, made entirely of white styrofoam. A pattern shop would shape, glue and style styrofoam into the shape the finished casting was to take, then ship it to the foundry. Once we got it I would apply a refractory coating to the pattern, prepare it for ramming by adding styrofoam gating, cores in holes, etc. It would then be rammed in sand, and the iron would just melt the foam and take its place.

In my opinion the most diffucult part about producing the engine bed would be having the pattern made, and properly gating it to avoid cold shuts, porosity and surface problems. The other problem, of course, is finding the equipment to machine the casting.

You know if someone had a heated garage, some skill at woodworking or working with foam, and the drawings, that person could probably produce the patterns for minimal cost. Its not that difficult.

The Tod Engine
todengine@woh.rr.com

In the aircraft industry they have two casting techniques for aluminum that I am familiar with, sand casting and investment casting.

In the latter, the part is built up in wax and then covered with a slurry material. The wax is melted out of the hardened slurry (hence, lost wax process) and the empty shell is filled with molten aluminum.

I am not familiar with ferrous alloy casting at all, but I am curious as to whether the foam is actually melted out before poring in the molten steel. Seems like the foam would impeded the fluid flow, and mix with the alloy, and cause all sorts of unpleasantries.

Regardless, I know pattern makers in the Detroit area (retired) who made wood patterns for engine blocks. I think that art is still readily available and would simply be an issue of scale up. Also, did not somebody post on this board that a large pour capacity foundry was recently reopened in East St. Louis.

And finally, in the aluminum casting industry there was new software (in the development phase a couple of years ago) being used to assist in the mold/tool design, i.e. the gating and thermal properties of the tools. The idea being to eliminate the trial and error part so the tool has a better chance of producing a correct part, not only in form but in strength and quality as well, the first try. This software might be useful in mitigating the risk of a one of a kind large ferrous alloy pour.


hkading@rypn.org

The foam master could be made using a large CNC (computer numerically controlled) mill. Once you have a 3D CAD model of what you want to have made, there are a number of processes to turn it into a casting. I met one enterprising fellow that built his own mill. His business uses it to make foam masters for fiberglass builing components and sculptures. (They were making a dinosaur when I was there)

The question is, does anyone have a sand bed for something as big as a locomotive frame?

Has anyone used CNC or 3D CAD technology to recreate pieces of railroad equipment? There are a number of cool technologies out there that are useful for custom fabrication and casting work. For small items, a Solid Object Printer (I kid you not) can turn a computer model into an plastic object that can be used as a master to manufacture complex castings. A lot of this stuff probably has a ways to go before it is useful to reproduce NYC Hudsons, but it is worth keeping an eye on.

Solid Object Printer
randy@jonespartners.com

In the lost foam casting process, the foam is melted out by the flow of iron. The iron flow is not impeded by the foam, and burns up quite completely. The foam does not create any metallurgical effects. Actually when pouring lost foam you pour as fast as you possibly can, using as many ladles as you can fit. The faster the pour the better. Pouring a large casting creates quite a pyrotechnics show.

My former employer, Ellwood Engineered Castings in Hubbard, OH could produce the engine bed. We have done up to 100 ton castings, have a new large engineered castings area and cast in grey iron and ductile. It would be up to a metallurgist to weigh the benefits of steel vs. ductile iron for the casting.



The Tod Engine
todengine@woh.rr.com

Once a casting can be formed, we start accepting orders for multiple copies, and keep knocking Hudsons out, ala' Schenectady!
This is one of the things that I wish we hobbiests had the money to do with the 1361, being rebuilt at Steamtwon. Basically, we're getting a new locomotive, so it's a bit sad that another wasn't fabricated alongside the original.
They are cheaper by the dozen, you know.


glueck@saturn.caps.maine.edu

> And finally, in the aluminum casting
> industry there was new software (in the
> development phase a couple of years ago)
> being used to assist in the mold/tool
> design, i.e. the gating and thermal
> properties of the tools. The idea being to
> eliminate the trial and error part so the
> tool has a better chance of producing a
> correct part, not only in form but in
> strength and quality as well, the first try.
> This software might be useful in mitigating
> the risk of a one of a kind large ferrous
> alloy pour.

Back in 1992 when I was in college, a few of my friends were plastic engineering majors and they used a cool program called moldflow. It ran on Silicon Graphics workstations and would should you (in different colors) how the casting would form / cool with the mold designed the way that it was. By now, I'm sure that similar software exists for the metal industry.

As for Rick's former employer, I found their webpage and attached it. It looks as though they do some neat stuff.

Ellwood Engineered Castings
jrevans@accusort.com

Rick:

Thanks for the information on Ellwood Engineered Castings- very interesting stuff. I hadn't thought of using lost foam for something this big, but it would certainly seem to be practicable, especially given the possibility of using CNC machining for the pattern.

The latest edition of "Classic Trains" has letters responding to an article they evidently ran in a previous issue (I don't have it) about candidates for a U.S. reproduction steamer. The first point someone raised is that it would be impossible to reproduce a cast engine bed. It's good to know they were wrong!

One thing I've wondered is what General Steel Castings did with the patterns for all the cast engine beds they built? Can you imagine a solid hardwood pattern the size of a locomotive bed? Most small patterns I've seen are practically pieces of woodworking art- it's a pity some of these huge patterns didn't get saved for display.

Good Steaming,
Hugh Odom

> In the lost foam casting process, the foam
> is melted out by the flow of iron. The iron
> flow is not impeded by the foam, and burns
> up quite completely. The foam does not
> create any metallurgical effects. Actually
> when pouring lost foam you pour as fast as
> you possibly can, using as many ladles as
> you can fit. The faster the pour the better.
> Pouring a large casting creates quite a
> pyrotechnics show.

> My former employer, Ellwood Engineered
> Castings in Hubbard, OH could produce the
> engine bed. We have done up to 100 ton
> castings, have a new large engineered
> castings area and cast in grey iron and
> ductile. It would be up to a metallurgist to
> weigh the benefits of steel vs. ductile iron
> for the casting.


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