The Tugboat Enthusiasts Society is developing a section of their website to illustrate displays of cutaway engines at museums and trade shows, including engines with railroad as well as marine origins:

http://tugboatenthusiastsociety.org/Pag ... ngines.htm

Those are some mighty fine examples. Think of the possibilities and the opportunities. Visit scrap yards, out back, donations, get the engines and then work with the local high schools to do the work. It would be a great partnership. A good display of engines may also attract the engine enthusiast, guys who have a passion for cars and trucks. All of this does not require big bucks, and tells a neat story.

It's interesting that when you put a steam engine boiler, valves and piston on display it looks amazingly simple, yet took enormous maintanance resoures. Diesel engines look complex yet took much less resources.

Neat idea.... I always like the "how does it work" displays.

Tom

The engine at the Golden Age of Trucking Museum ("Other Engine Builders" link at the bottom of the TES page) was a project by a class at a local school. It is the most direct possible approach, a straight line section across the center of the engine, yet it looks superb on display. Caterpillar has done exactly the same approach with some show engines, sectioned them directly across the middle of the engine, and then they will section two cylinders (inline) or four cylinders (on Vee engines) adjacent to the cut, in a variety of ways to show different features of their construction.

The cut across the engine crankcase or block is the big part of the project, it helps to have the services of a machine shop that can flat-face the cut area. After that, the sectioning of the cylinder assembly components is much simpler. I have seen some pretty nice display sectioning done on cylinder components with just a power hack saw and a little surface grinding to clean up the cuts.

One engine that would be a great display sectioned in this way would be the inclined Detroit Diesel 110 from a Budd RDC. It is unconventional and interesting to look at, it sits at a convenient viewing height because it lays nearly flat, it doesn't take too much floor space, and a partial section of a 110 engine doesn't weigh too much for typical poured concrete floors. With the big engines weight gets to be a factor. That front end of the EMD 710 weighs more than a Chevy Suburban, and concentrates the weight into a small area.

As long as there are intact examples of similar machinery preserved, displays of this type provide a valuable alternate use for equipment that is failed or worn out to the extent that it would otherwise never be operable again. Sharing knowledge is an important mission, and cutaway displays are an aid to providing that service.

PC

bump

TES has a webpage where they list large diesel engines (marine, locomotive, and industrial) on open display at museums. It is limited to large diesel engines that are located out on the floor on display where visitors can walk right up to see them. Engines inside locomotives do not get listed, nor do "automotive" engines. They also mention the fleet submarine museums and the USS Slater as providing direct access to large diesel engines.

http://www.tugboatenthusiastsociety.org ... e-list.htm

Their list is missing two such examples in North Carolina. There is a EMD 16-567B on display in the Roundhouse of the NC Transportation Museum. It is painted and has a valve cover open with a mirror to make it easier to see the what's under it. There is also a disassembled power assembly on the floor in front of the engine.

The battleship North Carolina in Wilmington, NC, has access to at least one of the engine rooms. There you will find at least one Fairbanks-Morse engine.

John B

I reported the North Carolina information to TES, and they added the listing. Thanks for sharing the information.

They also added a short article on the ALCO 251 engine to their Diesel engines pages this weekend:

http://www.tugboatenthusiastsociety.org ... CO-251.htm

This came up on another list: a view of the National Railway Museum's cutaway of possibly the most complicated diesel engine in captivity, an opposed-piston-three-times-over Napier Deltic engine (applicable to both railway and marine specialists):

http://thedelticexploitsofmrhillingdon.fotopic.net/p63077912.html

All that complication and they stuck with Lucas Electric. I wonder how difficult keeping these running was, compared to something like a EMD or Fairbanks Morse.

dave

English Electric, dude. Not Lucas. They didn't use Lucas components in EE diesels.

If you want to see how complicated a Napier Deltic diesel is, follow a rebuild of one at this website: http://www.napier-chronicles.co.uk/power_unit_1.htm. Enjoy, I did.

[BugsBunny]

Incredible, isn't it??

[/BugsBunny]

Isn't it amazing that the british went the route of ultra complex engines, while in the US the favored engine is the EMD 2 cycle that can be torn down and rebuilt in a matter of house while still in the locomotive.

For the record, let's point out that the Deltic is an anomaly akin to............ well, frankly, we don't have anything that complicated and specialized in North America, except perhaps the French/Rohr gas turbines or the UP gas-turbine electrics..... Most "successful" BR diesels (and the early BR diesel policy was akin to the PRR's: order some of everything that anyone will build....) were the ones with both good reliability (still pathetic compared to American standards--note that post-BR companies bought lots of EMDs) and ease of repair. The Deltics' plus in the latter point was that entire engine/generator sets could be swapped out rapidly to return the loco to service, and all such repair was executed at one motive power depot with a high standard of expertise--Doncaster, the ex-LNER shop that built and maintained A4 Pacifics a generation earlier.

Besides, YOU try and cram 3300 hp and 100 MPH (daily running, not potential maximum) into 99 tons...........

Sorry, my mistake. Hadn't laid eyes on one of these for several years. I take it EE used wires instead of Lucas smoke ducts to carry current? Can you imagine what Lucas might have done to further complicate maintaining thse?

That's a LOT of HP per ton.

dave