Locomotive internet database

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

Hey guys, I wanted to see if any of you would be interested in helping out with a project going on right now. It's called the Locomotive Wiki, and the goal is to build a central database on all things locomotive. Anyone can edit, correct, or add information, and the more help we get the more we can grow. The site already has 308 articles with information on locomotives and railways the US and England to Japan, Australia, and Thailand. Of course, that is not nearly enough to cover all the engines of the world. So, since the community here comes from so many different countries rich in railroad history, I'm asking if anyone would be interested in helping out. You can go to any page and start editing, or you can make your own page if you know of a missing locomotive. If you need any help or want to know of projects going on on the wiki already, ask the Administrator "Starfleet Academy." Here's a link to the site's homepage: http://locomotive.wikia.com/wiki/Locomotive_Wiki
Thanks!

[Lone Cat]

Also I have yet to talk with some Thai railfans regarding to all Cab unit diesels (and no Hood units there!). many of which are tailored made (only Frichs are really standard designs)

Another stunning fact is that SRT bought a number of road diesels from Davenport locomotive works.. WITHOUT any knowledge that the manufacturer produces switchers. not road engines.
among the post-war restoration projects the SRT undertooks. Dieselization is considered urgent (and considered neccessary. SRT steamers burn firewoods (except the last five steam engines were later converted to burn (presumably No. 6) fuel oil, also bad choices for SRT). Price auction methods were used, and even the postwar devaluations of british pounds currency still has no effects to prevent American manufacturers to take contracts, but why? why GM failed to provide cheaper contracts here in Thailand but got dieselization program contracts elsewhere outside North America? for example.. Irish CIE, and Denmark. though no F units and E units appeared in Ireland, but in Denmark, similar cousins were license-made as double cab Nohab, which some units were later repainted as American famous passenger trains)

^ Davenport 500 'twin unit' diesel electric specifications. since it was written in Thai. here are translations (Note that most unit of measurements shown here is Metric system, also poor english written by local railfans has been refined here, also technical engilsh the SRT use is british railroad term. it will be americanized too)

- Category: Diesel electric locomotive
- Power: 500HP @ 1,200 RPM
- Weight: 46.664 Tonnes (tare)
48.124 Tonnes (operational)
- Axel load: 12 Tonnes
- Wheel arrangement: Bo-Bo (personally I don't know what it is except that each trucks have four wheels and a number of traction motors, dunno how many does each truck has)
- Dimensions: width 2,801.15 mm.
height 3848.10 mm.
lenght 9893.20 mm.
- Brake system: combinations of air brake and vacuum brake*
- Fuel capacity: 1,590 litres
- Max speed: 82 km/h
- Manufacturer: Davenport locomotive works, Iowa, USA **
- Estimated price: 1,164,816.56 Bahts
- Entered service: 1952

* Don't know why? (American) Air brakes and (European) vaccum brakes should work independently, why mix the two systems together??
** Thai fans simply referred to the manufacturer as just 'Davenport', not by its full name. the only 'Davenport' i known of is 'Davenport locomotive works' in the city of Davenport, Iowa.

Do you really think that the metric-gauge F-Unit is possible? and do you really want to see one?

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

Nice info Lone Cat! I had a feeling you'd like to help out after all the questions you ask. As for the metre gauge F-look alikes, I think they would do fine for the Thai State Railway. Small, versatile, and hopefully, reliable. Would you like to make a page for that class of locomotive?

[Hawk]

I'm not sure if we are allowed to link to other sites, though, because that might be heavy on bandwidth or something, so I'll wait for Hawk's approval.

That's not a problem. Link away.
Links don't hurt my bandwidth.

[Stoker]

You might want to get in touch with the railfan guys on model railroad forums. There are some serious "rivet counters" that hang out on MRR forums. These guys know their trains. Here are couple that I am a member of:

Model Railroad Forums I can be found as "Stoker" here

The Whistle Post I am Stoker here as well.

Railroad Line Stoker here too.

Trainboard I am "JBStoker" on this one.

These sites have specific areas for railfanning, but you can get in contact just posting in the general forums as well. There are more MRR sites, these are just the ones I have found that are useful to me and are generally friendly. Some MRR sites are chock-full-O hostile train nuts, my interest in MRRing is more laid back than strictly "prototypical" or "operations" oriented. I am more of a Malcom Furlow than a Tony Koester, for those of you "in the know" about the MRR world

Good luck with your project, it sounds worthwhile and interesting, hope to see you around the MRR forums.

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

Those sound great, Stoker, thanks! I'll check em out and see if anyone can help. We definitely need knowledgeable people like them!

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

Also, I feel the need to point something out: Locomotive Wiki was started by a 15 year old fan of Thomas the Tank Engine, even going as far as naming himself "HenryDuckFan" after the characters from the show. He was so misinformed about the pages he created that their errors are still in the process of being corrected. For example, the U50, the GP40X, the F45 and other second generation diesel articles are in an "edit-war" between Corbin (HenryDuckFan) and a former SP employee and experienced and reliable railroader, James S., aka C-643DH. However, I'd also like to say that Corbin is the only ill-informed person on the wiki and everyone else, including the second-head admin, know that he is wrong and we've been working hard to keep the correct information on the website. Corbin hasn't been on for two days, and he may have finally given up. With the help of real, real railroaders and enthusiasts this wiki project just may be the success I've imagined it could be.

[Gumboots]

That's a funny story you have there. The great thing about being fifteen is you always just know you are right.

[Stoker]

I just took a better look at the Wiki site and I must say that you guys have your work cut out for you to make that into something useful Altoona.
IMHO the first order of business would be to get rid of the HenryDuckClown fella.
Half of the steam engine entries have some ridiculous picture of Thomas Train characters and the entries are full of TT references!?!?



I sincerely suggest that you recruit some guys from the MRR forums, there are some hardcore train afficianados there that would probably drive this "Henry" clown off in short order.

An anectdote about the whole Thomas Trainthing: On the MRR forums you have some guys saying that TT is bringing in a lot of young guys to the MRR world, and I say baloney, it is driving them away. When I was a kid in the 70's every boy I knew had a train set, and I mean a real honest to god model railroad. Not all of them had an actual layout of course, but all boys had a train set they kept under the bed or whatnot. All of them. Trains and modeling in general were cool. Most boys dropped this stuff when they discovered cars and girls, but that is to be expected. Now if kids know anything at all about trains it is mostly through this weird TT stuff, and it is associated with toddlers and is in no way considered remotely "cool". Today, any self respecting teenage boy of normal sexual orientation would not be caught dead playing with Thomas Train, and realistic Model Railroading is not even known by this generation. This "Henry Duck " seems like a real piece of work, good luck with your project....

[Gumboots]

I wouldn't think it'd be necessary to actually get rid of him, as long as he's prepared to be a bit sensible. He did start the thing, so running him out of town seems a bit rough.

OTOH I was looking around a bit yesterday and I agree that all the TT stuff on various pages is a PITA and needs to go. Personally, I've never cared at all about Thomas and Friends. If HDF wants Thomas stuff on the site the way to do it would be as a seperate category that links to information on the real life locos, if any Thomas fans want to know what the series locos were based on.

So you'd have a page on the LNER A4, for example, that just includes information about the locomotive itself and DOES NOT MENTION THOMAS AT ALL FFS! Then in the who-cares-about-that-silly-show section you'd have a page for whatever that character is called, which among other things could mention that he was based on an A4, with a link to the A4 page. That would work.

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

Thank you both very much for your input. Oh, and I should tell you that your posts made me laugh so hard that it brought tears to my eyes But, you're both completely right, don't get me wrong. HDF, aka Corbin, definitely needs to GROW UP. All Thomas and Friends references are completely irrelevant to the actual locomotives. Let me explain this in detail how I see it. First off, the locomotives in Thomas and Friends are such an impossible misrepresentation of their prototypes that they should never be considered to be based on real trains. Example: the character Henry is said to be based off an LMS Stanier Black 5 4-6-0. Let's compare this image of a Black 5 http://www.locomotionmodels.com/content ... 00~519.jpg to Henry from Thomas and Friends http://images.wikia.com/ttte/images/5/5 ... sworth.jpg I think that should speak for itself. After a quick look at the Thomas wiki, it's quite obvious that the history of this particular character is so messed up that noone really knows except maybe Rev. W Awdry. In fact, Corbin didn't even know what locomotive Henry was based off, leading him to say "This engine is the basis for Herny from Thomas and Friends" on two separate articles. And this isn't the only time an engine has no prototype or deviates from the prototype. Take a look at James the 2-6-0 http://images.wikia.com/ttte/images/2/20/Jamespromo.PNG and his "prototype" http://images.wikia.com/ttte/images/f/f ... totype.jpg Again, words can't describe how obviously wrong any claim is that James is based on this locomotive. There is more than one way in which Thomas gets it wrong when it comes to prototype locomotives, though. When it comes to individual personalities, it makes no sense whatsoever. For example, the K4s briefly got a Thomas version in one episode of the CGI series. The best example would be Hank, http://images.wikia.com/ttte/images/2/2a/Hank.jpg the K4s. The problem with him being a K4s is his extremely racist Southern accent. For those foreignors out there, a K4s is the Pennsylvania Railroad's best Pacific class 4-6-2, which operated no farther south than northern Virginia, nowhere near the "Deep South" which Hank's character suggests. The point of all this is that Thomas is far too different from any real life locomotives to be included in this wiki. Despite Corbin's rules which include #18, something along the lines of "This is not a Thomas wiki!", various pages include the problematic references. Thankfully, though, Corbin has not been on for the past few days. Because of this, corrections have not been reverted and new users have not been banned. That's another point to bring up: Corbin has banned people who have told him he's wrong. All 3 active users besides Corbin, being C-643DH, Starfleet Academy, and I have been banned or were the subject of an attempt at banning. In fact, C-643DH, James IRL, was banned twice and Corbin still tries to get rid of him. The only reason he hasn't been banned permanently, and me too for that matter, is because Starfleet Academy, Gavin IRL, is a "beauracrat" who can give himself his admin rights back and unban others. If not for him, I'd have given up long ago. Back to the Thomas subject, though, the largest problem with that is how Corbin originally advertised the site over the past few years. He must have stressed the Thomas articles or something, maybe he went to a Thomas forum, but whatever he did raked in the youngsters. Now we're stuck with little kids like Alex and Kerry who can't do anymore than copy/paste from Wikipedia and spam Thomas pictures and copyrighted images. It's to the point where I'm almost afraid to post for help on those forums, Stoker, because I tried to get help from Trains Magazine's forum and it ended like this: http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/741/t/219922.aspx While I don'tagree with the bogus virus warnings, everyone else is completely right. I'm going to go and ask for help on the first two sites and see what happens. I'll be AltoonaRailfan on them, Stoker.

[Stoker]

Wow, that was some response on Trains, Altoona. On the upside, that site (the MR portion) is one of the more hostile ones that I have found, which I referred to earlier. I am not sure why, but the crowd there is not very nice- at all. I posted a trackplan idea there a few months back just looking to get some input and these guys just attacked me like jackals, because my plan included "non-prototypical" loops on the ends, so that trains can be run continuously. I had never heard of making a layout without being able to at least make a loop until I re-entered this hobby after ~35 years a few months back. The "trend" that is pushed on MR and MRH is the "Operations" layout, the "best" of which consist of yard-like tracks with switches and NO WAY to turn around or run the train- you know, like hit the throttle and kick back with a cold beverage while it makes a loop. I tried to explain this concept to my wife and when she finally got what I was talking about she busted out laughing. I understand the "Operations" guys who want to run trains on a schedule and such, but these guys who want to just go back and forth with a switcher loco trading cars on the sidings, it is like playing RRT3 without all of the stuff that makes RRT3 interesting.

All that being said, I think you might have better luck at the sites I linked. Model Railroad forums and TheWhistle Post are both great places, although TWP does not have much activity. You might want to try Trainboard, they have a large railfan community there, with their own section. I like that site, but it is "the" N scale hangout. I am building in O scale using HO 16.5 mm track, which is known as "On30" - i.e. O scale (1:48) on HO track (1:87scale x 4' 81/2"=16.5 mm track= 31 inches in O scale). There were a lot of 30" gauge lines- mostly logging or mining operations, but I am in the crowd fudging up a bit and modeling 3' narrow gauge which saw a lot more use. Major parts of the D&RG and other RRs in the Rockies used 3' gauge because it was so much less work to cut grades and make fills. Compared to standard gauge it was about half the volume required to do cuts and fills.

What is the protocol on those Wiki's? Can the administrator be changed if say, the original guy leaves the site for X amount of time? It sounds like the best stategy would be to have the maximum amount of people adding to and correcting the entries, eventually HDF will get tired of changing the entries back to a toddler level loco Wiki. Good Luck!

[arop]

You could try this homesite: "Steam locomotive information". It has pictures and gives information about all existing steam locomotives all around the world. (Anyone can contribute to that site)

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

@Arop: I've known about that site for a while and really enjoy it!
@Stoker: It looks like my post on MRR Forums has not been approved, but I definitely can't blame them. For one, it's amodel railroad site, and second, the content is extremely shady.

IMPORTANT: We can shut off the flow of false information now! All you have to do, even if you don't plan on staying with the wiki, is to vote Corbin out of adminship at this link: http://locomotive.wikia.com/wiki/User_b ... ter_future
Simply vote "Support" in bold, and help end this headache and salvage the project.

[Stoker]

The folks running that site may indeed be wary of a first post that has an agenda like that. You might have to ease your way into those sites with an intro message, etc. Whether or not you will find people who will actually be a part of that Wiki is debatable, but it is worth a shot. If nothing else, I bet you can glean some useful loco information by posing questions on there.

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

I was thinking that. I'll take it slower on Trainline, but I may not have that much time. The most important thing we can do now is vote to kick Corbin out of a position of power on that link, and voting time may be restricted to one week. I've asked Gavin to extend the timeframe for the new members that may be joining. But please hurry and vote before time runs out in case it can't be extended! The link is in my above post.

[Gumboots]

Mate, why don't the sane ones just rip the database (I assume any admin can take a db backup) then start a proper wiki with the existing content? It's obvious the HDF is in full-on dummy spitting mode. I've seen posts like his before when a destructive control freak starts getting public opposition. He's going to be a permanent nuisance anyway as long as he isn't banned, so do you need the aggrevation?

TBH I'm not comfortable about voting since I've never had anything to do with the site. Roping in odd bods from all over the internet to leverage an internal war is not something that I'm all that keen on. My 2c is that if the existing community can't come to a resolution, the people who can't stand it should start their own place.

[Gumboots]

You could try this homesite: "Steam locomotive information". It has pictures and gives information about all existing steam locomotives all around the world. (Anyone can contribute to that site)

Hadn't seen that one before. It's a bit patchy for info. Take this example: NRZ No. 507(240)

The Beyer-Peacock production records are available online. This one was originally a Rhodesian Railways 14th Class. Stats for it aren't "Unknown" at all. According to the CME of that company at the time, this loco cost 10,684 pounds Sterling and had these stats:

Empty Weight: 96.5 tons
Weight on Drivers: 80.8 tons
Driver Diameter: 48 inches
Tractive Effort: 39,168 lbs @ 85% BP
Boiler Pressure: 180 psi
Cylinders: 4 (like almost every Garratt) with 16 inch bore and 24 inch stroke
Fuel: Coal

So there ya go.

Their pages on the AD60 are pretty skimpy too. All the information they list as unknown is readily available. It has been on Wikipedia for years, and if there is any doubt about dimensions you can still get the original Beyer-Peacock plans from the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, UK.

[Altoona+BeachCreek]

Now that the voting is over, it has been sent to to Wikia Community staff. Not one person voted to keep Corbin in his position of power. I've taken this is an opportune time to rid the site of ALL mentioning and references of Thomas and friends. I've deleted all "prototype" info and pictures from the locomotive's pages. This will help immensely with the site's image.

[Gumboots]

Given his behaviour (I've been keeping an eye on the discussions, just for popcorn value) I'd be surprised if even his own mother would vote to give him power.

Hopefully the Wikia Powers That Be will deign to deliver you from evil.