Yeah I don’t know how common it was, BUT I know I’ve seen references to changing the type of valves during a service, which may mean a large amount of alteration to frame as well, I really don’t know. In terms of castable steel/iron quality, the materials we have today are certainly much more predictably consistent batch to batch but really not that much better overall and we’re talking tenths if not hundredths of a percentage point variations in alloying materials between batches even back then. We can just design them faster, have the master/plug milled out using CNC and have the casting made much faster. Parts designed then wouldn’t be able to be made thinner or much different from how they were designed then. By the late 30s and early 40s metallurgy was also certainly to the level that the giant castings were of very good quality. Able to be manufactured with the machinery available certainly but what the tolerances those guys could achieve on those machines was nothing to sneeze at. While we have certainly made strides simulating these sorts of problems and a lot of the computation is nowadays a lot more straightforward due to the wonders of modern computers, really thoroughly understanding the interactions of the entire mechanism and how the valve-train dynamics influence their function and mechanical strength is certainly not a trivial or easy problem even with modern computers.Īs to the “old stuff” being designed to be very forgiving to manufacture, I beg to differ. The whole mechanism driving it has to provide very good, accurate timing with a variable cut-off over a wide range of speed conditions. The problem also goes beyond just the valve geometry itself. Changing from one valve type to another would likely mean substantial changes to the cylinder blocks, basically requiring whole new castings to be made with all the work, time and cost that involves. The valve placement dictate the mechanics and is a highly integrated part of the cylinder block castings, which themselves are probably the most complex and costly parts of the whole locomotive aside from the boiler. It was also extremely rare for it to be done in the past as far as I’m aware. I don’t think there’s a way back once the choice has been made for one type of valve type over another, at least for this project. Posted in Crowd Funding, Transportation Hacks Tagged big, Boiler, engineering, epic, railfan, railroad, steam engine, steam trains, trains Post navigation Speaking of Pennsylvania and steam, a trip to Scranton is a must for anyone interested in the age of rail. If the T1 replica can reach the 140 MPH storied of the originals, it will smash the current record of 126 MPH held by a British train, the A4 Mallard, which would be exciting indeed. While not original hardware, these changes should make the train more reliable, and bring the world record for the fastest steam locomotive within reach. Some changes are planned for the locomotive including a change to fuel oil from coal and replacing the poppet valves prone to failure with camshaft-driven rotary valves. This puts the train at approximately 40% complete. Armed only with the original blueprints and a lot of passion, this team has already finished construction of the boiler and nose of the Class T1 replica which is no small feat. It takes real dedication to build a 428-ton device from scratch, but these rail aficionados seem to have it in spades. With that in mind, a group of Pennsylvania train fans are bringing the alleged fastest steam train back from extinction. There’s no denying that while railroads have switched to diesel and electric as their primary power sources, there’s a certain allure to the age of steam.
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