Drove a locomotive!

[Tinbasherdan]

Preserved railways are cancerous and I hate talking to people who work there, that elitism is true, you’re right there! Worst is when they try and explain your trade to you and you ask them what they did their time in and they tell you they’re a bloody accountant

There were a couple guys working on a dorman Diesel engine there. We had one at work so I knew a bit about them, offered to help, got the semi-polite version of F off. Wouldn’t talk to me at all. When I went back a few weeks later it was still in exactly the same state

I would have a deltic engine just to start up from time to time, awesome things

 

[brightspark]

they do them in 3 and a half inch 5 inch and 7 and a quarter gauge model steam locos

 

[Erie Fred]

Interesting one!

I'd be inclined to think that the prime mover would be set to fail (stop) in the event of signal loss..?

Engine spins alternator, diodes rectify to d.c.
D.C. buss feeds IGBT's, these re-jigger d.c. back into Variable Freq. A.C. to drive 3-phase traction motors on wheels.
Could be there is a large main D.C. contactor to shut things down, but I'll wager it's operated by a computer.

 

[Erie Fred]

steam trains had more power to them and took some stopping as well

Early wood-burning 440s had 400–500 horsepower. The last big articulated steam engines had 6000–7500 horsepower. The early boxcab diesels had 200 horsepower.

A normal consist is qty (3) 4400 hp diesels.
Australia goes big:

The Longest Train in the World

BHP Iron Ore set the longest train record between the Yandi mine and Port Hedland in Western Australia in 2011.

medium.com

 

[Dieselman 63]

There were a couple guys working on a dorman Diesel engine there. We had one at work so I knew a bit about them, offered to help, got the semi-polite version of F off. Wouldn’t talk to me at all. When I went back a few weeks later it was still in exactly the same state

I would have a deltic engine just to start up from time to time, awesome things

Another Napier engine made for a problem that didn’t really exist but so cool. The Sabre was amazing too. Where’s all that skill and knowledge gone eh.

 

[northwest]

Preserved railways are cancerous and I hate talking to people who work there, that elitism is true, you’re right there! Worst is when they try and explain your trade to you and you ask them what they did their time in and they tell you they’re a bloody accountant

Lentil weaving, cardigan wearing well you get the idea, the late, great John Stevenson had no time to waste in these people and wound them up for sport, it was fun to watch.
I see this at it's worst on the Model Engineering forums and there have been some good people hounded off them because they didn't fit in. I once made the mistake of a gentle enquiry about a hand shaper, bloody hell, I had signed a deed of covenant by the end of the brief exchange. All best avoided IMHO.

 

[Dieselman 63]

Lentil weaving, cardigan wearing well you get the idea, the late, great John Stevenson had no time to waste in these people and wound them up for sport, it was fun to watch.
I see this at it's worst on the Model Engineering forums and there have been some good people hounded off them because they didn't fit in. I once made the mistake of a gentle enquiry about a hand shaper, bloody hell, I had signed a deed of covenant by the end of the brief exchange. All best avoided IMHO.

Add to that the Myford crowd who collect every attachment and every pamphlet for the thing then never use it in anger… ‘best lathe in the world’ though, remember that

Anyway it’s Saturday here and I’m knackered - learnt so many buttons, dials with two hands, valves, switches… I feel much more competent on Microsoft Train Simulator now!!

 

[Pete.]

I have met all these types of people as my dad was heavily into steam preservation but there were also a lot of very well-balanced ordinary (and highly talented) people who weren't attention seekers and stayed in the background just doing good work. I found that the rolling stock crew were more this type and the engine driving types were the more gregarious types who also caused the most trouble.
I bet it was the same within the industry when steam was commonplace on the infrastructure.

 

[Erie Fred]

Lentil weaving, cardigan wearing well you get the idea, the late, great John Stevenson had no time to waste in these people and wound them up for sport, it was fun to watch.
I see this at it's worst on the Model Engineering forums and there have been some good people hounded off them because they didn't fit in. I once made the mistake of a gentle enquiry about a hand shaper, bloody hell, I had signed a deed of covenant by the end of the brief exchange. All best avoided IMHO.

That's a name I recall well. His repair techniques on motor armatures, he shared them freely with everyone.
I seem to remember him posting a pix of himself with his sheepdogs.

 

[optima21]

one of my friends is the real live version of this guy.

he's one of the station masters for the same railway station and also a model engineer.

 

[Tangledfeet]

And remember...All 4000 hp is being held back by a qty (1) electron thick layer of P & N junction.
My electronics engineer friend came up with that one.

Engine spins alternator, diodes rectify to d.c.
D.C. buss feeds IGBT's, these re-jigger d.c. back into Variable Freq. A.C. to drive 3-phase traction motors on wheels.
Could be there is a large main D.C. contactor to shut things down, but I'll wager it's operated by a computer.

Yes, makes sense now! You've actually reminded me of a podcast that I listened to a while ago; describes a 'bit flip' that impacted on the results of a Belgian election back in 2003 - and electric cars to overspeed:

Bit Flip

What do a hacked Belgian election, a falling airplane and a fleet of runaway cars all have in common? The answer just might lie in the stars.

radiolab.org

 

[Dieselman 63]

I have met all these types of people as my dad was heavily into steam preservation but there were also a lot of very well-balanced ordinary (and highly talented) people who weren't attention seekers and stayed in the background just doing good work. I found that the rolling stock crew were more this type and the engine driving types were the more gregarious types who also caused the most trouble.
I bet it was the same within the industry when steam was commonplace on the infrastructure.

That’s me! Rolling stock asset services

 

[Erie Fred]

Next weeks lesson ... "Curves"....

 

[gaz1]

you can always have your own

 

[Dieselman 63]

you can always have your own

I would rather not, the cost of running them is horrendous! Though ours are freight doing thousands of kms under arduous loads.

The other week someone did a service on a shunting locomotive and they forgot to take an oil sample from one engine (they have two) so they just sent two samples from the sump of one engine. To our surprise, a very excited email came back from the oil supplier telling us that they couldn’t believe it, both engines had the exact same oil properties!

 

[Can'tWeld]

Ooh, trains... As someone firmly on the spectrum (and I'm not talking about 80s home computers) I love anything that goes, but trains are where it all started - there was (and is) something just so awesome about them

Class 37 is a personal favorite of mine, my previous house backed on to the Preston - Manchester line and occasionally the 37-haulled inspection train would come past. The whole house would shake, massive English Electric v12 with very little in the way of silencing.

But also electrics - especially the old class 86s - these were interesting in their own right as they had a motorized tap changer on the transformer. It would take the incoming 25kv and convert it to around 1kv, the tap changer would do the job of actually varying the voltage to the traction motors. Apparently they were a handful to drive as the tap changer would take a while to respond (going from full power to "off" would take around 30 seconds) so they needed a lot of planning to drive smoothly - and if you just went straight to notch 0 it would trip the circuit breaker and the whole thing would come to a shuddering halt.
I always wondered, though, the guys that had up to that point only driven steam locos, they must have felt like they were in a spaceship getting behind the controls of an 86 - several thousand horsepower on tap in relative silence and a warm cab that wasn't exposed to the elements!

Also the Pennsylvania railroad GG1, these used a similar tap changer setup but ran on 15hz 11kv IIRC, and didn't have any rectifiers, the frequency was low enough that the motors could be fed AC directly. There's an amazing writeup of them somewhere, apparently they were absolute beasts, smelt of hot oil and ozone and were way overpowered and a nightmare to drive.

Unfortunately I never actually got round to being a train driver, so had to settle with tinkering with cars instead.

Was never much into steam trains for some reason!

 

[Erie Fred]

Also the Pennsylvania railroad GG1, these used a similar tap changer setup but ran on 15hz 11kv IIRC, and didn't have any rectifiers, the frequency was low enough that the motors could be fed AC directly. There's an amazing writeup of them somewhere, apparently they were absolute beasts, smelt of hot oil and ozone and were way overpowered and a nightmare to drive.

Yup, brushed a.c. motors (universal motor)
Double motor per axle.
There is one in the museum "SteamTown USA" in Scranton.
Never been there, but some pix of the operators console show a gage (electrical)
marked "Timing" that I would like to know what/how it worked.

 

[Can'tWeld]

gage (electrical)
marked "Timing" that I would like to know what/how it worked.

And now I also want to know what on earth that could possibly do in the context of a (quite simple) electric locomotive.

Could it be something to do with the speed of tap changer operation? I'm not sure if the GG1 used a motorized tap changer or if the power controller operated it directly.

Apparently everytime someone has talked about restoring one to preserved status for actual mainline service the idea has fallen flat, in part because the transformers all had the PCB oil drained years ago and it would basically entail winding a new transformer

Plus the bodies themselves are starting to deteriorate making the whole thing cost prohibitive since it wouldn't be allowed to run very often anyway.

Shame though, I'd love to see one one day.

 

[Erie Fred]

And now I also want to know what on earth that could possibly do in the context of a (quite simple) electric locomotive.

Could it be something to do with the speed of tap changer operation? I'm not sure if the GG1 used a motorized tap changer or if the power controller operated it directly.

Apparently everytime someone has talked about restoring one to preserved status for actual mainline service the idea has fallen flat, in part because the transformers all had the PCB oil drained years ago and it would basically entail winding a new transformer

Plus the bodies themselves are starting to deteriorate making the whole thing cost prohibitive since it wouldn't be allowed to run very often anyway.

Shame though, I'd love to see one one day.

Brush motors change the timing (racking the whole assembly) and me thinks it may have had a motorized assembly to "tune" the motor's brush rigging for optimum, on the fly.