The Moto Guzzi of locomotives

[Randy]

https://youtu.be/-HhQ5vvjK5o?si=JGQxOqioYJ5Ty7QU

 

[p6x]

1 hour ago, Randy said:

https://youtu.be/-HhQ5vvjK5o?si=JGQxOqioYJ5Ty7QU

 

I do not think this would necessarily qualify for being the Moto Guzzi of locomotives, depending on what meaning you want to give it.

As someone who actually loved steam, and had the opportunity to grow up when steam locomotives were still operating, while being phased out, if I had been born in the USA, I would have most likely picked the Big Boy.

Now, if we want to really give the prize for the best ever, the Moto Guzzi of steam locomotive, I would award the title to the Chapelon 242A.

André Chapelon was one of the prominent genius of the Steam locomotives.

His magnificence was illustrated by the 242 A; this is the mother lode of Steam Locomotive. So good, that the French Railways scrapped it as fast as they could, since it was better than their diesel powered locomotives.

I wish they had kept that locomotive for the museum, but as even politics were stronger than engineers. They made the best steam loco ever designed to disappear to not shadow electrical traction.

[Lucky Phil]

47 minutes ago, p6x said:

I do not think this would necessarily qualify for being the Moto Guzzi of locomotives, depending on what meaning you want to give it.

As someone who actually loved steam, and had the opportunity to grow up when steam locomotives were still operating, while being phased out, if I had been born in the USA, I would have most likely picked the Big Boy.

Now, if we want to really give the prize for the best ever, the Moto Guzzi of steam locomotive, I would award the title to the Chapelon 242A.

André Chapelon was one of the prominent genius of the Steam locomotives.

His magnificence was illustrated by the 242 A; this is the mother lode of Steam Locomotive. So good, that the French Railways scrapped it as fast as they could, since it was better than their diesel powered locomotives.

I wish they had kept that locomotive for the museum, but as even politics were stronger than engineers. They made the best steam loco ever designed to disappear to not shadow electrical traction.

How so?

Phil

[Paradiso]

It's badly designed, the electrics are dreadful, and it'll be a yoke around your neck and a drain on your wallet.  Also, the parts to repair it are unavailable and expensive.  I'm guessing here, but I could go on. 

[Lucky Phil]

I love old steam trains but as a general comment if I was running a rail network I'd choose diesel over steam every day. Thats why steam power died out.

Phil

[gstallons]

WE were discussing steam trains the other night and I told my wife , a steam locomotive EXISTS . It is alive , it breathes , it inhales , exhales , it does everything. No other form of transportation did , does or will do this . 

[p6x]

3 hours ago, Lucky Phil said:

How so?

His 242 A1 beat the fastest Diesel/Electric locomotives of the time.

If you want to read something that is going to captivate you, I recommend this book; I own an original print like the one below.

La Locomotive à Vapeur, André Chapelon   currently sold on Amazon for USD 90 dollars. It is translated into English.

Quote

Written by the great French engineer André Chapelon, the man responsible for what were the world's most efficient and, on a pound for pound basis, most powerful steam locomotives ever built. Published in 1952, in this book Chapelon reviews in detail developments in the design and construction of all the steam locomotive's major parts, and compares the merits of simple and compound expansion. He then looks, again in detail, at the major standard gauge locomotive designs worldwide of the 20th Century, including his own.

Translated from the French by George Carpenter, this edition includes various addenda updating Chapelon's work to the end of commercial steam, looks at Chapelon's unbuilt designs, and reviews the work of those who have continued to develop advanced steam locomotives.

A book nobody interested in the history of the steam locomotive in the 20th century should be without.

659 A4 format pages, over 450 B & W photos, drawings, diagrams and charts, plus 41 colour illustrations.

[p6x]

35 minutes ago, gstallons said:

WE were discussing steam trains the other night and I told my wife , a steam locomotive EXISTS . It is alive , it breathes , it inhales , exhales , it does everything. No other form of transportation did , does or will do this . 

I still remember the peculiar smell of the steam locomotives.

In the 60's, while on vacation, each day I was going to the station to witness the departure of the train from Quiberon to Auray. The locomotive was a 231 Chapelon. The engineers were seeing me every day, and one time, they got me inside the cabin, and showed me the fire....

I will never forget the experience.

At the time, I decided I was going to be a steam locomotive engineer.

[po18guy]

I only know the Guzzi of helicopters. 

 

[gstallons]

9 hours ago, p6x said:

I still remember the peculiar smell of the steam locomotives.

In the 60's, while on vacation, each day I was going to the station to witness the departure of the train from Quiberon to Auray. The locomotive was a 231 Chapelon. The engineers were seeing me every day, and one time, they got me inside the cabin, and showed me the fire....

I will never forget the experience.

At the time, I decided I was going to be a steam locomotive engineer.

Then ?

[gstallons]

Are/were the same technologies used with the Western locomotives as the European locomotives ? No , I'm not stupid either. What I am asking is , did the technology advance faster in the 1800-1900s faster in the West than Europe ?

[p6x]

2 hours ago, gstallons said:

Then ?

By the time I was in age to enter the SNCF, they had stopped training people to drive steam locomotives. I was not interested in diesel or electric locos. I still studied mechanical engineering, though.

Actually, just because we are talking about it, I attended a conference by one of the locomotive engineers, who was in the last ever promotion that formed steam locomotive engineers.

This guy was also a photography buff, and he documented all his training and steam locomotive life, until it lasted. It did not go long, since the SNCF got rid of the steam quickly. I have is dedicated book somewhere in Buenos Aires.

[p6x]

beautiful, isn't it?

 

[gstallons]

SCNF ?

[Pressureangle]

I grew up climbing on this devil, the equal of the Big Boy; arguably stronger and slower, the Lima locomotive works 'Allegheny' at the Henry Ford Museum.

Every summer there was a steam excursion from Dearborn, MI to Ft. Wayne, IN. I worked in a print shop across the street from the tracks, and over all the machinery you could hear the 2-8-4 Nickel Plate Road Lima Berkshire 765 thundering and sounding so far away we had plenty of time to shut down and run out to watch. 

Edited June 1 by Pressureangle