• Our new ticketing site is now live! Using either this or the original site (both powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

Search results

  1. M

    Besides the cost of special track, what are some drawbacks to the old rack railways?

    I really don’t know about them past one of the books from The Railway Series. Thanks!
  2. M

    Why did some passenger cars have three axles?

    For a freight car, it makes sense to have an extra axle in the center so the floor doesn’t give way. But between stagecoaches on train tracks and actual bogey coaches, why were there six-wheel variants?
  3. M

    Which do you like better — the Hunslet Austerities, or the USATC S100s?

    No real criteria, just want to start a fun discussion.
  4. M

    Why didn’t the British steam locos use Corliss valve gear?

    My understanding is that it’s incredibly efficient and very common in stationary engines. For the record, it might’ve happened outside the UK but I kind of have to ask in one place at a time.
  5. M

    How do you pronounce "SCOA-P"

    Is it "SKOA-ap", "SCOA-a PEE" or just "S-C-O-A-P"?
  6. M

    Why don't all of the flues in a late steam locomotive have superheater tubes?

    In pictures, their boilers all seem to have large superheater tubes in the top half of the boiler and smaller, saturated tubes on the bottom. Why is that?
  7. M

    What was the benefit of Gresley's wide fireboxes?

    The impression I got from reading a million and one coffee table books as a kid was that wider boxes could burn more caloric and poorer-grade fuels. I also heard that GWR/Western region locomotives couldn't easily burn bad coal, and they all seem to have Belpaire fireboxes. So how does this work?
  8. M

    How did engineers choose how high the boiler pressure should be?

    I remember when Chris Eden-Green's YouTube channel was very young and his videos were free, and learning that the GWR 5700s has higher boiler pressure than the LMS Jinties, and were more powerful because of it. This kind of felt like you wanted the boiler pressure to be as high as possible...

Top