This is where it gets interesting..the three EM1's ended up yanking out a drawbar in that train..but that is in ungodly amount of tractive effort on the head end. The Missabe did haul the heaviest tonnage trains under steam,but the run was DOWNHILL. The longest train ever hauled by a SINGLE locomotive was somewhere around 300 cars by on of the Erie's Triplexes. I gotta check Guiness to make sure though...

That's not that bad of an idea. I'll ask my Robotics teacher on what he thinks.

Trust me, I not only own various editions of the Guinness Book of World Records (mostly from back when it edited by the McWirthers and was an actually useful reference book, not the trivial, flashy compendium of offbeat wackiness it has become), but also every edition of railroad reference books later published under the Guinness name and edited by John Marshall. One edition lists "Heaviest train ever hauled by a single locomotive" as probably one of 15,300 tonnes, 250 freight cars, 1.6 miles hauled at 13.5 mph by the Erie's 2-8-8-2 Matt H. Shay. HOWEVER, no date or route is given.

It's entirely possible--in fact, almost likely--that this record has been broken at some point by another massive locomotive. Australia had some standard-gauge 4-8-4+4-8-4 class AD60 Beyer-Garratts, for example..... You've got the UP "Big Boy", the UP Centennials and gas-turbine electrics (10,000 hp), and equally monstrous locomotives in places like the USSR and China....... and then we can get into electric locomotives, where the Russians managed to build some massive multiple-things-on-one-articulated-frame things (as did the Milwaukee Road)............ And, heck, all you really need to do is take any single massive AC6000CW, couple it to a 16,000-ton train at the top of a grade, and send it downhill, and you're technically breaking the record......

Back in 1982 or so, the British broke the weight record for British steam with a special run of former BR 9F 2-10-0 92203 Black Prince on a stone train. The total was still under 2,200 British tons.

Most likely ,lost to history some ( insert your massive articulated,electric, or diesel here), a yardmaster with a lot of tracks to clear, the right crew,and the right circumstances came together to to move some massive tonnage the would have set a record if there had been anybody around to take notice. Take those guys on the EM1's. Circumstances...and I would have loved to have heard those conversations between the yardmaster( " Oh #$%^&, I got to get these cars moved"), the dispatcher(" No &*%#,that yardmaster is about to plug up my railroad. Order an extra east with three 7600's so I'll have a place to put those four trains coming in"), and the roundhouse foreman("you wanna do WHAT?")

Well, I think that a geared steamer could break the record. I've been crunching some numbers for a class B climax, with a 31" (diameter) wheel size. The circumfrence comes out to 97.34 in. So, if a climax was re-geared to a 1:2 ratio, for every rotation of the flywheel, you would travel (based on my math, could someone confirm?) 194.68 in. That comes out to slightly above 16 feet. I'm no expert, so I'm not sure if that math adds up (pun intended right there). I'm not sure how to translate that into a MPH, but I can say that it would be faster than a standard climax, which has a 9:1 gear ratio.

I seem to recall that some of the very early Climax locos (or was it Shays?) had a way to shift gears and change the engines speed. For fairly obvious reasons, that was soon abandoned.

In theory, you could probably change the gear ratios etc to allow faster speed. In practice, I suspect the gears and drive shafts would become unbalanced and fly apart well before you hit 100 mph. I suppose if you were building one from scratch, and could balance everything like a race car, it might work. But the challenges would be many and difficult indeed.

No, I'm afraid my tongue-in-cheek proposal will only work on April 1st. :)

The Class A Climax did have the ability to be shifted into "low" gear. The standard gear ratio was 4.5:1, but in low gear the ratio was 9:1. This doubled the the locomotive's tractive effort, but halved its speed. I'm not sure how shifting was accomplished, but I would guess there was some sort of sliding shaft. I've seen that arrangement on traction engines.

So, do you think a special built steamer could be built similar to a climax, but tuned so it could surpass 128 mph?

I've resisted comment for the last week, but can't stand it any more. You guys are all on the wrong track, so to speak,

To beat the speed record, simply take the AC-12 or whatever it is out of the museum in Sacramento and:

1) Remove the tender, pistons, rods, and all that superfluous stuff inside the boiler. Oh, yeah, remove the smokebox door too.

2) Send the now empty tube-on-wheels up to the place where they fill the Space Shuttle boosters with solid fuel... they should be having a clearance sale on the stuff, now that the shuttle program is shut down. Install a fuse in the former smokebox end.

3) Strap a crash test dummy, or any other volunteer (J.David, did you guys save one of the dummies from the 265?) into the engineer's seat. Light fuse and let 'er rip.

If I was to try and do something like this, I would use a Heisler type design. The V-2 piston arrangement and centerline drive shaft would work pretty well. It seems like it would be the easiest one to reverse the gearing so it would run fast. Maybe a sort of "gearbox" ahead of the cylinders or some such.

If it would be possible at all, it would have to be very well engineered and balanced like a Swiss watch. The gearing would also mean it would be of no practical use, and possibly could not even get moving under its own power. It might need a push, like some of the car and motorcycles used for the same type of stunts.

I have no idea if it would even be theoretically possible, and since it would have to be purpose built, the thing would probably cost a million bucks. So I won't waste my time trying to even do any concept drawings.

I suppose it could be possible, if you throw enough money at it, but it makes restoring a b Big Boy to operation look easy by comnparision.

Did any of you see the recent episode of mythbusters where they tried to replicate the "car crushed by two semi trucks colliding head on" myth?

They used TWO rocket boosters on a sled mounted on a rail, and crashed it into a car. It destroyed the car, and the wall behind it.

Aside from being the fastest thing on rails (rail?) you'll ever see, it doesn't have much to do with trains, but it's interesting none the less.

What do the 'rules' require? I realize the rocket booster idea was tongue in cheek, but isn't there a requirement that the vehicle be reciprocating steam (not turbine), and transmitting power through the wheels, i.e. 'traction'?

What about a double acting Skinner Uniflow, geared up to the drivers? Just a wild idea-

Didn't the Germans design something along these lines ca. WWII in a V-8 configuration?

Ah, the cool German locomotive with four separate V2 steam engines on it. That thing was neat:
http://www.aqpl43.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/ ... amotor.htm

(The French locomotive on that page is pretty neat too.)

Here's some more details on gear driving arrangement the German locomotive:
http://www.trevorheath.com/livesteaming ... motive.pdf

Voith or Cyclone engines - a couple dozen under the hood, fed steam by a high tech high pressure steam generator, powering 4 traction motors on 2 trucks.

Not a lot of fun to watch. Plenty efficient and clean in practice. Might not even use water as a heat transfer fluid...........

dave