Excuse me, but wouldn't ANY author on ANY subject, say the same thing?

Good to hear that Ross is writing a book. Sign me up for a copy.

On my bookshelf back home is a great book on intermodal shipping. I don't have the author's name with me, but in the forward he notes that he had been pressed by others for sometime to write that book -- then one day looked around all the graying hair at the intermodal convention and decided he had to do it.

Nick

I've been waiting for Ross's book since 1985.

Tom Hamilton

Ross: I was born a couple years after the project and am only in the past few years becoming aware of it. If this information has already been presented i apologize. But why did the ace3000 design rely on tradition valve gear and locomotive design? We are all aware of the various turbine experiments by up c&o, and n&w, so why didnt the design follow the route of the jawn henry ie traditional locomotive frame and traction motors from a supplier who is already making them and then you just put a boiler, cab, controls, turbine+generator and you are good to go? To my unwashed hands that seems the way to go so you can utilize existing manufacturing streams and not have to retool a whole industry.

A completely new technology has no benchmark against which to measure the effect of alterations. You must first create benchmarks, then experiment. Also, it is what was available to use for the project.

I'm also very interested in the book - every time I have been lucky enough to work with multiple experts on an interesting project, the constant is disagreement which depending on the individuals can lead into disolusion or creative destruction...... never boredom.

I’m sure Ross’ book will shed more light on the subject, but in the meantime, read this:

http://www.trainweb.org/tusp/ult.html

The simple answer is steam and gas turbines don't like to be played like a yo-yo.

I always wondered how turbines performed in the very dynamic environment that a railroad locomotive experiences. That's a lot different than a stationary application. Somehow the M1 tank makes a turbine work though.

I thought I recalled reading that even some highway/construction based diesel engines failed in locomotive use, due to the interesting dynamic forces they experience in a locomotive.

Hugh Odom's posted link will take you to a page that does an excellent job of describing the ACE 3000 project in some detail.

The question we'll never have the answer to is what if the world price of oil had not collapsed and an ACE 3000 prototype had been built where would it have led???

You could reasonably speculate that it would have performed sufficiently well to lead to follow on refinements that led to the class 1's switching much of their fleets back to coal powered locos, or that it did not perform well and that ended that. We'll never know.

My WAG is that it would have performed well enough that both BN and CSX would have converted those parts of their locomotive fleets dedicated to hauling unit coal rains to the ACE design.

Ross Rowland

Turbines prefer to operate at higher and steady rpm's. This is why they are preferred in marine and aviation operations.

As I recall the UP gas turbines were relatively efficient on the main line, but burned almost as much fuel moving around in the yards. Jet aircraft have a similar problem taxiing to/from the runway.

Phil Mulligan

The coldest windchill ever recorded was between -79 and -92°C. That's at most, -110.2 to -133.6°F.

Highly doubt you personally experienced the coldest windchill on this planet.

Nice try though.

JF

Much of the existing theoretical work on locomotive boilers has numerous empirically-derived constants in the formulae, which are proportional to the type of construction prevailing when the manuscripts were written, not 'best practice' modern boilers of the '40s. These were some of the things being tested via 614T, and meaningful data were obtained. Likewise, although some of the advantages of reciprocating-steam over nose-suspended diesel-electric on the track were appreciated before design of the PRR DD1, it will certainly be interesting to see precisely where a mid-'80s Flexicoil falls short of a good 4-8-4. There is more to good riding -- and track-damaging forces -- than inertial dynamic augment...

On the other hand, thermodynamic measurements were likely a hash, in between the leaking staybolts and the lack of feedwater heating. The C&O tested Snyder combustion-air preheaters, and I believe they looked at the Cunningham circulator, and neither of those devices was applied for testing despite being reasonably cheap to scale and install.

I have been interested in seeing some of the results of the testing for many years. I'm hoping there will be far more than anecdotes in the relevant section of the book!

Those videos of the 614T are incredible. We can criticize the program etc, but I think we all should be glad it happened. We'll probably never see anything like that again.

Interesting though, from a "testing" perspective something like the N&W 2156 would have been a better "research" test bed than the 614 due to smaller driver size, being a compound etc, and more close in design to ACE.

I don't know if it was a waste of coal, but the I saw one of the loaded coal movements, and it sure was a show!

I look forward to reading more about the ACE 3000 project. I have the Withuhn article and the Wardale book. I also have the stories of a departed friend for comparison. He was a mechanical engineer who taught himself steam-locomotive engineering, enough to allow him to calculate the first Form 4 for Pere Marquette 1225, and enough to gain him a consulting contract with an industrialist for preliminary design of a modern steam locomotive. My friend said the principle was not interested in attention, and never publicized his work. I hope that at this late date it no longer matters, so I'm sharing what he came up with.

My friend decided that within the railroad loading gauge the most efficient steam generator would be the double-Belpaire boiler devised by Lima for their 4-8-6 proposal. I don't believe he incorporated radical firebed designs or the extreme overfire-air supply advocated by L. Dante Porta. I don't know if those ideas were rejected, or he never got around to evaluating them. Coal handling would be conventional.

Traction would be electric, but instead of a turbine, the generator would be driven by a simple Unaflow engine, such as the EMD 567s converted to steam operation by the Skinner Engine Co. (Yes, there is such a thing.) I can't remember if it was condensing.

Running gear would be as on a modern Diesel. Probably the boiler would be on one unit, and the generator set and tank on another. Picture the ACE 3000 but with 3-axle trucks instead of drivers, and no tender. A Garratt-like arrangement might be possible, too.

This happened shortly after the ACE 3000 events. Eventually the sponsor seemed to lose interest, and my friend stopped putting work into it before laying out the whole locomotive. But I do not feel his work should pass unremarked.

Aarne H. Frobom
Haslett, Michigan

Would this actually be more efficient and less maintenance than a modern turbine setup?