Evil Genius at work

[Gumboots]

Hang on a minute.

So the short boiler length of the Cherepanov Mk.II could also be seen as a limiting factor for comparisons with contemporary locomotive designs on account of the fact it would run out of water fairly quickly compared to a less efficient long-boiler x-2-0.

Not necessarily. It would just require more water to be fed into it. Bit hard to get around without it. British locos of the period (1835 Adler) certainly had water tanks in the tender. I don't think the Russians were dumb enough to overlook that.

The classic example of this short boiler sort of thing is the SR Schools class from the 1930's. All Maunsell did was keep an existing firebox from a 4-6-0 and cut the boiler length down to make the new 4-4-0. The things went like the clappers, and were renowned for being free steaming even on crappy coal.

...what I am coming up with in terms pulling power at the bar is 4,165 pounds from the two cylinders on the Mk.I, multiplying that by 5 yields 20,825 lbf tractive effort...

Can't see it. That's one incredible amount of grunt for that period. It wouldn't have anywhere near the adhesive weight required to handle that. That would require at least 2 1/2 tons just on the drivewheels if you wanted to make it usable.

Edit: Aha. You shouldn't have pi in there.

So, assuming a boiler pressure of 50 p.s.i. and a driver wheel size around 3 feet and a cylinder size of ~5.7 litres or ~348 cu. in. (π x 89mm^2 x 229mm).

The usual way of doing it is just bore squared times stroke, divided by wheel diameter, multiplied by fudge factor du jour.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tractive_ ... ocomotives

For comparison, here are the specs for an 1855 Stephenson 0-4-2:

Builder: Robert Stephenson and Co. Newcastle-on-Tyne, England
Engine No: 958
Wheel arrangement: 0-4-2

Class: 1
Number in class: 4
Type: Mixed traffic
Dates in service: 1855-1877

Tractive effort: 8,900 lbs (39 587 N)
Steam pressure: 120 p.s.i. (827 kPa)

Cylinders (2): 16 in bore x 24 in stroke (406 mm x 609 mm)
Driving wheels: 5 ft 6 in diameter (1 676 mm)

Heating surface:
Firebox 85.3 sq. ft (7.82 sq. m)
Tubes: 1 060 sq. ft (92.52 sq m2)
Grate area: 13.8 sq. ft (1.26 m2)

Overall length: 21 ft 6 in (7.15 m)
Overall width: 7 ft 5 in (2.30 m)
Overall height 14 ft 2 in (4.30 m)

Weight in steam:
Engine: 26 tons 1 cwt 1 qr (26 478 kg)
Tender: 20 tons 8 cwt 0 qr (20 726 kg)
Tender capacity: 4 tons (4 064 kg) of coal and 2 000 gallons (9 100 litres) of water

So anyway getting rid of pi puts your putative 20,825 lbf back to around 6,600, which sounds more feasible.

You might want to think this through again too:

That would decrease acceleration without sacrificing too much pulling power. So, slow starting, slow running, weird fuel that was costly and inconvenient, thirsty, and probably needful of constant attention to keep the boiler from exploding, but a real beast once it got moving.

Decreasing wheel diameter would increase acceleration, not decrease it. It's basically lowering the gearing, so quicker off the line. Would reduce top speed though. Re charcoal: I don't know how good or bad it is as a fuel. Can't be worse than wood, which is what the US was using at the time. The Brits were using coke.

[Just Crazy Jim]

Hang on a minute.

So the short boiler length of the Cherepanov Mk.II could also be seen as a limiting factor for comparisons with contemporary locomotive designs on account of the fact it would run out of water fairly quickly compared to a less efficient long-boiler x-2-0.

Not necessarily. It would just require more water to be fed into it. Bit hard to get around without it. British locos of the period (1835 Adler) certainly had water tanks in the tender. I don't think the Russians were dumb enough to overlook that.

The classic example of this short boiler sort of thing is the SR Schools class from the 1930's. All Maunsell did was keep an existing firebox from a 4-6-0 and cut the boiler length down to make the new 4-4-0. The things went like the clappers, and were renowned for being free steaming even on crappy coal.

My thinking on this is related to the fact that in the reconstructions and in the period drawing, the tender is basically an open hopper with no water tank. Not even a water barrel. Bad design, true, but factual.

...what I am coming up with in terms pulling power at the bar is 4,165 pounds from the two cylinders on the Mk.I, multiplying that by 5 yields 20,825 lbf tractive effort...

Can't see it. That's one incredible amount of grunt for that period. It wouldn't have anywhere near the adhesive weight required to handle that. That would require at least 2 1/2 tons just on the drivewheels if you wanted to make it usable.

Edit: Aha. You shouldn't have pi in there.

So, assuming a boiler pressure of 50 p.s.i. and a driver wheel size around 3 feet and a cylinder size of ~5.7 litres or ~348 cu. in. (π x 89mm^2 x 229mm).

The usual way of doing it is just bore squared times stroke, divided by wheel diameter, multiplied by fudge factor du jour.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tractive_ ... ocomotives

For comparison, here are the specs for an 1855 Stephenson 0-4-2:

Builder: Robert Stephenson and Co. Newcastle-on-Tyne, England
Engine No: 958
Wheel arrangement: 0-4-2

Class: 1
Number in class: 4
Type: Mixed traffic
Dates in service: 1855-1877

Tractive effort: 8,900 lbs (39 587 N)
Steam pressure: 120 p.s.i. (827 kPa)

Cylinders (2): 16 in bore x 24 in stroke (406 mm x 609 mm)
Driving wheels: 5 ft 6 in diameter (1 676 mm)

Heating surface:
Firebox 85.3 sq. ft (7.82 sq. m)
Tubes: 1 060 sq. ft (92.52 sq m2)
Grate area: 13.8 sq. ft (1.26 m2)

Overall length: 21 ft 6 in (7.15 m)
Overall width: 7 ft 5 in (2.30 m)
Overall height 14 ft 2 in (4.30 m)

Weight in steam:
Engine: 26 tons 1 cwt 1 qr (26 478 kg)
Tender: 20 tons 8 cwt 0 qr (20 726 kg)
Tender capacity: 4 tons (4 064 kg) of coal and 2 000 gallons (9 100 litres) of water

So anyway getting rid of pi puts your putative 20,825 lbf back to around 6,600, which sounds more feasible.

Righto. I wondered about that, the figure seemed awfully high.

You might want to think this through again too:

That would decrease acceleration without sacrificing too much pulling power. So, slow starting, slow running, weird fuel that was costly and inconvenient, thirsty, and probably needful of constant attention to keep the boiler from exploding, but a real beast once it got moving.

Decreasing wheel diameter would increase acceleration, not decrease it. It's basically lowering the gearing, so quicker off the line. Would reduce top speed though. Re charcoal: I don't know how good or bad it is as a fuel. Can't be worse than wood, which is what the US was using at the time. The Brits were using coke.

My think here was that the friction at point of contact would be reduced, therefore tractive power would be reduced by slippage from a cold start and have to increase slowly to avoid slippage. Ergo, a lot of oumph, but little grip, so slow acceleration.

Charcoal was worse in so much as they had deforested the whole region, so charcoal was at a premium and coal was no where in the region. Charcoal was having to be brought in from about 500+ miles distance by non-steam vehicular transport (read as "ox-cart", "coolie", "magic flying yak" or a near equivalent). One has to wonder how Russia managed to become the primary continental supplier of pig iron in the 1830s with it being so coal-poor in the region where iron was being mined and smelted.

[Gumboots]

My thinking on this is related to the fact that in the reconstructions and in the period drawing, the tender is basically an open hopper with no water tank. Not even a water barrel. Bad design, true, but factual.

Must have had an extremely short range then.

Righto. I wondered about that, the figure seemed awfully high.

It's still high. Just noticed I'd had a brain fart and divided tractive effort by 4 to get required adhesive weight. It should be multiplied by 4. So even 6,600 lbf, which is near enough to 3 tons, would require a 12 ton axle load on the drivers. Which doesn't seem right for such a tiny locomotive.

My think here was that the friction at point of contact would be reduced, therefore tractive power would be reduced by slippage from a cold start and have to increase slowly to avoid slippage. Ergo, a lot of oumph, but little grip, so slow acceleration.

That's just a matter of balancing adhesive weight against tractive effort. But if the weight of the loco is known, more or less, and it can be assumed that about half would be on the driving axle, then dividing loco weight by 8 would give you the tractive effort it was capable of actually using.

So if weight of the Mk. 1 version was 2.4 tons, that means it could handle around 670 lbf. Which more or less feels sorta right for such a tiny thing. If the Mk.2 really was 5 times as powerful, which would put it up around the 3,300 lbf mark, it would have had to weigh around 12 tons to make a usable locomotive.

[Just Crazy Jim]

That's just a matter of balancing adhesive weight against tractive effort. But if the weight of the loco is known, more or less, and it can be assumed that about half would be on the driving axle, then dividing loco weight by 8 would give you the tractive effort it was capable of actually using.

So if weight of the Mk. 1 version was 2.4 tons, that means it could handle around 670 lbf. Which more or less feels sorta right for such a tiny thing. If the Mk.2 really was 5 times as powerful, which would put it up around the 3,300 lbf mark, it would have had to weigh around 12 tons to make a usable locomotive.

That's the problem with using source books that are also propaganda tools. Whether it's in praise of the Workers' Paradise or simple nationalism, mountains are made of molehills in the interest of "the cause". The more I look at this design, the more obvious that it isn't nearly as powerful as it might have been had certain factors been there - like enough weight to put all that power to use and a proper water reservoir in the tender.

It's sort of the same problem with the John Fitch locomotive. It's obviously a walking beam engine of the Watt school, but where you fit all the parts to make it work just aren't there. It may have worked at that scale, but even for its time it was a very inefficient and impractical design at a real world working scale. Still, someone thought it close enough to the real deal to wrap it in a flag and say an American invented the first rail-runner locomotive. Be that true or not.

What is certain is that the Cherepanovs made a locomotive with what they had at hand and made it work well enough for Count Demidov have one dragged on a wooden sledge from Nevyansk to Sankt Petersburg to show it to the Czar and his pals. It was probably not the full-sized thing they might have made if there was an easier means of transporting the thing, but roads being what they were in 1830s Russia, which is to say they were more mushy filth than solid, I think the Cherepanovs may not be shown in their best light by either the Mk.I or the Mk.II, since they had build stationary steam engines capable of 60 Hp with the same materials. I can imagine them being serfs under an ambitious Russian noble and being tasked with "make me look good or else" and I think that's what we see here more than a workable design. Which, if we strip away the propaganda, is more or less where we find Richard Trevithick in Pen-y-Darren circa 1804, because Lord Toffynose-Prat had made a dinner table wager that a locomotive could be made that did the tramway work.

[Just Crazy Jim]

I am losing my mind with the bogies on this Cherepanov beast. The figures I put in are right for x,y,z based on figures of the model in Blender and still the dang blasted thing gallops like a horse LOL. Mr. Gumboots, I guess I am going to have to use placeholder empties like you do to get this sorted out.

[Gumboots]

Something is up. Couple of likely suspects:

1/ Depending on where the square for the bogie was when you made it, and what you've done with it since then, its origin may not be in the centre of its geometry. If it's out, the orange dot that shows the object origin when the object is selected will not be in the centre of the square.

There's an "Object" option in the toolbar at the bottom of the 3d view window. Clicking that will bring up a menu. Select "Transform", then "Origin to geometry".

2/ Coordinate systems. Blender give you options here*. Make sure the Global option is selected just beneath where the object's X, Y and Z values show in the sidebar thingy. Also make sure Global is selected in the toolbar at the bottom of the 3d view window.

*Yes, they can be useful, but you only want Global for this stuff.

[Just Crazy Jim]

Thank you, that solved the problem. Now it's working as expected. One has to wonder what convinced the coders that a global setting should not be the default.

[Gumboots]

You're not the only evil genius around. Blender devs are evil too.

[Just Crazy Jim]

Heh. I have made a promise to myself to not publicly deride, defame or denigrate the devs of Blender.

What I shout at my monitor is a private matter.

[Just Crazy Jim]

Never fails that when you want to find something about a weirdo locomotive, Google shows you all the loco locos that ever were except the one you want. All I have is a text-only newspaper article from 1904 on microfilm at the public library about an electric locomotive converted to gasoline. Either a General Electric CE-1 or some manner of Baldwin-Westinghouse Electric. Since it's running on Washington, Baltimore and Annapolis rails, I'm guessing it was a GE CE-1. All I know for sure is that it was converted to gasoline using an internal combustion engine by Carter Motor Car Co., Hyattsville, MD. And what microfilm does to images is beyond unforgivable, I can't make out anything in the gritty black and white blob accompanying the article. Maybe it's a photo of the locomotive in question or maybe it's a picture of Farmer Brown's prize cow.

Anyway, this is what I've got so far (sorry for the dark blue livery, that was a mistake):

Edit: Now with LIGHTS! Including a red rear-facing light. All thanks to Gumboots' genius.

[Just Crazy Jim]

Still not sure what the original looked like. I'm down to three likely suspects:

Something like Baltimore & Ohio No. 10 by General Electric

Something like whatever this toy train was based on:

Something like this Baldwin-Westinghouse Electric used by Compañía Minera de Peñoles in Mexico:

Although, to be honest, with the very little I am able to find, it could be a beast like this:

Anyway - I've gone with the CE-1 for my model, but I'd love to know what the real thing looked like. Now I just have to settle on a livery colour that does not consume all detail.

[Just Crazy Jim]

Next project, a Maintenance of the Way caboose...

[Gumboots]

Wotcha going to do with it?

[Just Crazy Jim]

I was thinking I might submit it to you as an alternative for one of your Cabeeses :D

[Gumboots]

I have enough problems already. But you can just package it up as an alternative and people can use it if they like it better.

[Just Crazy Jim]

Following up on a dinner conversation about "future rail", I located two nice concept videos for hydrogen-powered locomotives:

Hydron

Coradia iLint

Other than those two, most of what my work with Google turned up links to Deviant art with strange designs for everything from an off-rail personal steam locomotive to zombie apocalypse horrors. There were also some links to concept art for steam locomotives and rolling stock in the game Assassin's Creed. You'd think the search term "concept locomotive" might churn up more things that are actual concept locomotives, but alas, no. The magic of the Interwebs.

[Gumboots]

The second one is the more interesting, since the first appears to be just a student's concept at the moment.

However, Coradia's use of fuel cells is not as efficient as they are claiming. The main problem is that you have to make the hydrogen in the first place, and doing that requires a lot of energy. The amount of usable energy you get out of the process (ie: the energy contained in the actual hydrogen) is only around 1/4 of the energy you have to put in to make the hydrogen. The other 3/4 is wasted.

This mean that it's actually far more efficient to just run a normal electric train straight from the grid. I understand that Coradia are proposing the iLint (terrible name) for areas that don't have the require infrastructure for normal electric trains. That makes sense, but it's still not a particularly efficient solution in terms of overall energy use.

The other catch of course is the claim of no emissions. That depends very much on how you make all the energy that is required to produce the hydrogen. If the hydrogen production process is low or no emissions all the way through, then you can claim the train is cleaner than the diesel alternative. If the hydrogen production process isn't that clean, then you may not be able to claim any real advantage in terms of emissions.

And I agree that most of the concept trains on the web are utter rubbish. They're the sort of thing you just know will look stupid once the year in question actually arrives, a common problem when people get carried away with trying to be futuristic.

[Just Crazy Jim]

I reckon that if you did the long formula on solar (taking into account all the coal burnt in China to power the manufacture of panels and the water pollution (etc) munging up rare earth metals and the carbon footprint of refining them), it's likely not as polluting as burning coal, but not as squeaky clean as the pundits like to give out. Still, once you've got it, a solar panel isn't generating the additionally daily carbon output from being used. So there's likely a gain of some sort. So, maybe if you generated hydrogen via PV-panels or wind, you'd be in the green. But, in my lifetime, I've heard and seen various attempts to utilize hydrogen for everything from automobiles, to city buses, to trains and planes. There are a few hydrogen-fueled vehicles in the Washington DC motor pool, but other than that, not much has come of it.

It all puts me in mind of the Emperor's New Clothes. A few years ago, the politicos of West Virginia (a state which seems incapable of NOT thinking about coal and a state whose politicians are all to a man owned by coal companies to one degree or another) bandied about the term "carbon-free coal", like some how putting "carbon-free" in front of a physical substance that is predominantly carbon would magically stop the carbon from being in it. When it became apparent that no one was buying the lie, they gave up on it and went over to the denial camp on the topic of climate change.

Me, I'm more worried about what's happening to the ground water as a result of acid mine runoff. I have a well on the property, but the filth in it is about as far from potable water as the stuff I flush down the pipes after a heavy meal of three bean chili with extra jalapeños. The man from the Dept. of Agriculture field office said it would probably be a thousand years or more before the water in that well was drinkable. Makes growing a kitchen garden a good deal less easy if you have to test the water for pH before you water the plants.

[Gumboots]

I reckon that if you did the long formula on solar (taking into account all the coal burnt in China to power the manufacture of panels and the water pollution (etc) munging up rare earth metals and the carbon footprint of refining them), it's likely not as polluting as burning coal, but not as squeaky clean as the pundits like to give out. Still, once you've got it, a solar panel isn't generating the additionally daily carbon output from being used. So there's likely a gain of some sort. So, maybe if you generated hydrogen via PV-panels or wind, you'd be in the green. But, in my lifetime, I've heard and seen various attempts to utilize hydrogen for everything from automobiles, to city buses, to trains and planes. There are a few hydrogen-fueled vehicles in the Washing DC motor pool, but other than that, not much has come of it.

Yup. There have been studies done on emissions from the complete solar production chain, and the same for most other forms of non-conventional power generation. The short version is that it's getting more efficient all the time (although there must be physical limits somewhere) and these days the solar panels start being a net gain after a couple of years. In fact it's been calculated that even all the older ones used up until now have resulted in a net gain. So it's not perfect (nothing is) but it's still better.

It all puts me in mind of the Emperor's New Clothes. A few years ago, the politicos of West Virginia (a state which seems incapable of NOT thinking about coal and a state whose politicians are all to a man owned by coal companies to one degree or another) bandied about the term "carbon-free coal", like some how putting "carbon-free" in front of a physical substance that is predominantly carbon would magically stop the carbon from being in it. When it became apparent that no one was buying the lie, they gave up on it and went over to the denial camp on the topic of climate change.

The problem with "clean coal" is that these days thermal coal is already not competitive on cost, despite often being subsidised, and adding CCS systems on top of it will only (massively) increase its cost. So really it's a non-starter purely in economic terms, which is of course why some people like to talk about it but will assiduously avoid putting their own money into it.

This is assuming they could even get CCS to work at a relevant scale, which AFAIK is far from proven, and without considering the other issues (particulates, mercury, etc). I'm originally from a coal town myself, and have nothing personal against the industry as such. It's just becoming less and less viable, for a range of reasons. Gas has basically taken over what is left of thermal coal's market. Gas plants do the same job, are cheaper to build and cheaper to run, and produce far less pollution. Utilities are retiring coal plants as fast as they can, and have no interest in building new ones.

Me, I'm more worried about what's happening to the ground water as a result of acid mine runoff. I have a well on the property, but the filth in it is about as far from potable water as the stuff I flush down the pipes after a heavy meal of three bean chili with extra jalapeños. The man from the Dept. of Agriculture field office said it would probably be a thousand years or more before the water in that well was drinkable. Makes growing a kitchen garden a good deal less easy if you have to test the water for pH before you water the plants.

That's a real bummer. I'm lucky enough to have clean water where I am.

[Just Crazy Jim]

Saw a weird car on a rail fan site and started snooping around. Turns out they were liquid natural gas tankers. I never even knew there were LNG tankers...

Also turns out that Canadian National ran feasibility tests in 2012-2013 for LNG as a fuel source for locos.

Natural gas could be cheaper, cleaner way to run a railroad

Ricardo helps Canadian National railroad assess the benefits of natural gas traction

Burlington Northern also ran tests along the same line 1988-1996.

More importantly, there are serious efforts by GE to develop both hybrid LNG/Diesel and pure LNG locos that are economically attractive to US rail companies. GE Transportation NextFuel™ Natural Gas Retrofit Kit with Dual Fuel Technology

How successful any of it will be, I can't guess. I know the LNG auto is a flop, but the benefits of it for rail are more striking... still, who knows?