Who likes steam locomitives??

[Lady Fitzgerald]

A collection of web sites about steam locomotives, trolly cars, etc. at The Railfan Network
They claim over 1,000,000 images for railfans by railfans.

Thanks for the link! Got it bookmarked now.

 

[maxie]

A nice collection in the Link below .. Check out the Enthusiasts Info Link

Downpatrick & County Down Railway

 

[C-11]

My brother-in-law has liked trains all of his life and can be found watching one every day here.
Railroad Webcams, Railcams & Live Train Videos

 

[Wenda]

A nice little (??) Aussie (NSW) loco, a couple of weeks ago.

Built in the 1920s.

I have ridden the footplate of this more than once. Magic!!


Wenda.

 

[JimJoe]

A collection of web sites about steam locomotives, trolly cars, etc. at The Railfan Network
They claim over 1,000,000 images for railfans by railfans.

Thanks for the link! Got it bookmarked now.

You're welcome. A number of groups that rebuild, and run excursions with, steam locomotives have sites there to.

 

[DreadStarX]

My god, I finally found my people! Internet/Tech Savvy people who LIKE trains. *Dies*

I grew up watching Burlington Northern Sante Fe Trains cross. Not quite "Locomotives" but I live in Wenatchee Valley, which has one of the last Great Northern Railway Steam Engines parked in it. As a small child I dreamed about buying it, and operating a scenic route of the Wenatchee Valley with it.

Since that will most likely never happened, I started into Model Trains, and it was my passion for many years. I collected many old steam engines and I plan on recreating the old railways from maps and what not. I posted it before, I'm not sure Lady Fitzgerald saw it, but here it is again;

I absolutely love trains, and will forever love them.


I'm glad to have found some lovely people to discuss with. My all time favorite is "Big Boy" if anyone knows who that is

Model Version of it; A whoppin' 4-8-8-4 Setup, its hauled the longest load for Locomotives, I believe it was a total of 5 miles of nothing but cars and a Caboose. My mom remembers my grandfather & his father speaking about waiting for one of these babies to roll by. Took several hours of sitting.


- Dread

Edit:

Should I create a new topic for the Model Railroad version of this topic? If so, I'm going to do it.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Thanks for those photos, especially Big Boy.

As for five mile long trains, they existed but, due to the limit to how much weight the couplers could pull, they had to add locomotives in the middle of trains long enough to exceed the pulling capacity of the couplers. The longest trains I've ever seen (and haven't seen in years) had only five diesels up front and five in the middle (often, one or more of the middle ones didn't have cabs). Also, the longer the train, the less air pressure for the brakes gets to the rear cars. Lose enough pressure, and the brakes will start to lock.

Pulling up a steep grade also stressed the couplers more as well as the locomotives so pusher locomotives were used to get them up the hill instead putting them in the middle because they then didn't have to break the train, making it easier to add and remove the extra locomotives. I still see them being used to pull trains up the San Gorgonio pass near Palm Springs (roughly parallel to I-10). Sometimes they return the pushers to the bottom of the grade by hitching them on to the end of a eastbound train although I have seen a string of locomotives only heading down all by themselves. You can tell by the heat waves coming off the locomotives hitched to the end of a train if they are actually working or just going along for the ride.

 

[Chilidawg]

Dreadstar: I'm another fan of all things railroad. I believe that there's one of those articulated locomotives in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn. I spent most of a pleasant afternoon with the exhibit host talking railroads, and hand-set printing, of all things.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

A nice little (??) Aussie (NSW) loco, a couple of weeks ago.

Built in the 1920s.

I have ridden the footplate of this more than once. Magic!!


Wenda.

Have you been here Wenda great stuff and just amazing how they got these things up and down the mountains.
Zig Zag Railway - Blue Mountains Premier Tourist Attraction

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Thanks for those photos, especially Big Boy.

As for five mile long trains, they existed but, due to the limit to how much weight the couplers could pull, they had to add locomotives in the middle of trains long enough to exceed the pulling capacity of the couplers. The longest trains I've ever seen (and haven't seen in years) had only five diesels up front and five in the middle (often, one or more of the middle ones didn't have cabs). Also, the longer the train, the less air pressure for the brakes gets to the rear cars. Lose enough pressure, and the brakes will start to lock.

Pulling up a steep grade also stressed the couplers more as well as the locomotives so pusher locomotives were used to get them up the hill instead putting them in the middle because they then didn't have to break the train, making it easier to add and remove the extra locomotives. I still see them being used to pull trains up the San Gorgonio pass near Palm Springs (roughly parallel to I-10). Sometimes they return the pushers to the bottom of the grade by hitching them on to the end of a eastbound train although I have seen a string of locomotives only heading down all by themselves. You can tell by the heat waves coming off the locomotives hitched to the end of a train if they are actually working or just going along for the ride.

Lady Fitz you like them big??



Jump in the recliner chair cos you will need it

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I looked it up and the longest on record was 4.56 miles long with 8 diesel-electric locomotives. I didn't watch the entire video but the first engines were in a group of two, suggesting there were either two or three more groups of two or two groups of three farther back (that particular route uses either six or eight locomotives in a train).

 

[LMiller7]

I am one of those old enough to remember when steam locomotives were still in regular use. I still remember seeing and hearing them up until the early 1960's.

A couple of times during the early 1980's I had the privilege of riding the "Royal Hudson" between Vancouver and Squamish B.C Canada. For a time it was the only steam locomotive in North America providing regular scheduled service on main line track. It had a number of open cars which provided a great view and when you went through a tunnel, of which there were several, you were exposed to the smoke from the locomotive. As a young man at the time it was all part of the fun. Unfortunately the locomotive has now been relegated to static display.

Royal Hudson - Unofficial Homepage

 

[Phone Man]

I looked it up and the longest on record was 4.56 miles long with 8 diesel-electric locomotives. I didn't watch the entire video but the first engines were in a group of two, suggesting there were either two or three more groups of two or two groups of three farther back (that particular route uses either six or eight locomotives in a train).

The biggest problem with those long trains was the couplers were not strong enough to pull the entire train so they added additional engines in the middle and at the end to take the strain off the first coupler.

Jim

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I looked it up and the longest on record was 4.56 miles long with 8 diesel-electric locomotives. I didn't watch the entire video but the first engines were in a group of two, suggesting there were either two or three more groups of two or two groups of three farther back (that particular route uses either six or eight locomotives in a train).

The biggest problem with those long trains was the couplers were not strong enough to pull the entire train so they added additional engines in the middle and at the end to take the strain off the first coupler.

Jim

I mentioned that earlier. Also, the weight of cars at the back of the train could derail cars closer to the front when in a curve. Back in the mid seventies, during the (contrived) natural gas shortage, the power company I worked for had to use heavy oil to run the generating units. The company didn't have anything to properly maneuver the railroad tank cars on the siding at one of our power plants so I was loaned from my warehouse to the warehouse there and was on call at night to use the 10 ton Pettibone Carrylift we normally used to load and unload power poles to push the tank cars into position for pumping out to the emergency storage tanks the steam units were running off (the gas turbines were idled). Our siding had a curve in it at the end by the main line. When pushing a string of empty cars up to the end of the siding, as soon as the cars went into that curve, it felt like someone had jammed on the brakes. By the time the power plant got its own machine designed for moving the cars, we had pretty much destroyed that forklift (the engine and tranny, had to be overhauled and the tires and the huge fork frame had to be replaced).

Edit: I found a site with pictures of a Pettibone pretty much identical to the one we had. Scroll down to see them all.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

I looked it up and the longest on record was 4.56 miles long with 8 diesel-electric locomotives. I didn't watch the entire video but the first engines were in a group of two, suggesting there were either two or three more groups of two or two groups of three farther back (that particular route uses either six or eight locomotives in a train).

The biggest problem with those long trains was the couplers were not strong enough to pull the entire train so they added additional engines in the middle and at the end to take the strain off the first coupler.

Jim

Absolutely I can confer that after working on British Rail like I mentioned before those coupling units are the weakest point and have seen them fail even under reasonably small loads too. Those Western Australian iron ore jobs are something to behold though.

 

[Lava King]

The Union Pacific steam locomotives pass through this area on occasion. I made some videos, this is my favorite.

 

[DreadStarX]

I wish I could watch those videos. I'm currently in school, which blocks YouTube. I'll have to watch them when i get my new phone.

If I remember correctly, the Big Boy didn't need any assistance helpers. It could haul all of it just fine. Recently we had a Steam Locomotive come by where I live, but it was disassembled on flat cars. Another place i used to live was Wilson Creek, which is about a 30 minute drive from where I live now. It has a Great Northern Caboose in it. You can actually go in it, and see what it was like.

Wenatchee also has an early Burlington Northern caboose as well.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

If you have time to spare this is the real deal they don't come better than tis legend

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

...If I remember correctly, the Big Boy didn't need any assistance helpers. It could haul all of it just fine...

If it didn't need any helpers, it would have been limited to train length by the weight rating of the couplers. I've driven parallel to the stretch of the line it once ran on where the I-80 runs between Evanstan, WY and Salt Lake City, UT. The tracks ran out of Ogden, UT and come parallel to the 80 somewhere around where the Park City, UT turnoff is and runs through the same canyon as the 80 until a little ways west of Evanston then actually run through Evanston. It's a fairly steep grade with lots of curves per mile (the curves were probably more of a length killer than the grade). Even today's trains running through that canyon are fairly short.

Evanston was once a major stop for steam locomotives to take on coal and water and had a turntable and roundhouse for maintenance. The turntable and roundhouse are still there and the turntable still works. I got to ride on it a year ago this past summer. The unrestored part of the roundhouse was opened up to the public that day so I got to explore it even though my back was killing me that day). The City of Evanston is slowly converting parts of the roundhouse to City offices to consolidate all City office space in to one building and possibly, someday, will include commercial space (work slowed dramatically when the Recession caught up to Evanston). The old machine shop has been cleaned up and converted to a reception hall that actually draws in income. Some dates are booked over a year in advance. Both building restoration/conversions retained as much of the original architecture as possible. Another building on the site is a small museum. Once Evanston recovers from the Recession, they plan on doing more restoration work. I'm amazed by what such a small town with no major supporting industry has been able to do.

 

[madcratebuilder]

A nice little (??) Aussie (NSW) loco, a couple of weeks ago.

Built in the 1920s.

I have ridden the footplate of this more than once. Magic!!


Wenda.

That's sweet!