Railway General Knowledge.

[Peter Mugridge]

Open floor.





The Steam Railway article was discussing wheel arrangements in general, not the merits of any of the rarer designs - hence why no further details were provided.

 

[Calthrop]

Keeping to the wheel-arrangement theme -- but going to the opposite extreme from duplexes and triplexes: which was the last country to have built, and put into everyday commercial service, a batch of steam locomotives with a single pair of driving wheels? (This was surprisingly late on -- post-World War I.)

 

[theageofthetra]

By commercial service do you mean in passenger revenue service? The PRR had bizarre looking rubber tyred switcher 'tractors' which had a guide flange on each tyre and only one pair of tyres were driven- they lasted well into the 50's

I am sure they also had a bizarre 4-2-2 switcher steam loco which could negotiate very tight curves in freight yards and that could well be WW1 era.

If you mean in passenger service then I am going with China. We exported many single driving wheel types to there and due to their simplicity and the limited engineering facilities and knowledge of early 20c China they may well have been built there.

 

[Calthrop]

By commercial service do you mean in passenger revenue service? The PRR had bizarre looking rubber tyred switcher 'tractors' which had a guide flange on each tyre and only one pair of tyres were driven- they lasted well into the 50's

I am sure they also had a bizarre 4-2-2 switcher steam loco which could negotiate very tight curves in freight yards and that could well be WW1 era.

If you mean in passenger service then I am going with China. We exported many single driving wheel types to there and due to their simplicity and the limited engineering facilities and knowledge of early 20c China they may well have been built there.

Apologies for possible ambiguities. I'm thinking (should probably have been more precise) public common-carrier (including passenger) state railway undertakings; and the machines concerned were essentially conventional -- not "freakish" -- steam locos.

Re my question: the type which I'm thinking of entered service in 1931, and not in China. Should it turn out that other new single-driver classes were introduced common-carrier-wise later and elsewhere: I'll stand corrected.

 

[theageofthetra]

Also you mean conventional adhesion drivers not a single rack driver?

 

[Calthrop]

Also you mean conventional adhesion drivers not a single rack driver?

Yes, "conventional as conventional can be", honest -- absolutely no "funnies" !

 

[theageofthetra]

My only other guess would be in a relatively flat country where adhesion is less of an issue and sand causing wear on exposed moving parts would make an inside cylinder single attractive.

I'll go with Egypt as we exported all sorts there including some very innovative designs to get round the constant issue of blown sand destroying bearings.

 

[Calthrop]

My only other guess would be in a relatively flat country where adhesion is less of an issue and sand causing wear on exposed moving parts would make an inside cylinder single attractive.

I'll go with Egypt as we exported all sorts there including some very innovative designs to get round the constant issue of blown sand destroying bearings.

You've been going too far afield. The country is pretty flat -- not hyper-sandy so far as I know -- but it's in Europe.

 

[TheEdge]

Holland is flat. So Holland.

 

[Calthrop]

Holland is flat. So Holland.

A good deal further east...

 

[theageofthetra]

Poland?

 

[TheEdge]

Ukraine. Although that wasn't actually a country technically so Ukrainian SSR/USSR.

 

[Calthrop]

You're getting warm, folks. Additional, not-directly-geographical pointer: at the time that the class entered service, the country concerned had public railways on the 5ft., and 4ft.-8-and-a-half-inches, gauges; plus assorted narrow gauges. The single-wheelers were 5ft. gauge.

 

[TheEdge]

I want to say Russia given how it had a wide mix of gauges and of course 5ft gauge.

 

[Calthrop]

Warmer still, but not quite there. Hint -- between the World Wars -- Russia had lost a few bits...

 

[theageofthetra]

The bit thats now Kalingrad?

 

[TheEdge]

If we want historical accuracy for the period, East Prussia/Konigsburg

 

[Calthrop]

You're so nearly there re "Soviet East Prussia" -- but "not-totally-quite".

 

[TheEdge]

Lithuania?

 

[Calthrop]

It's become "elimination", pretty well -- go one north. (I always see the Kaliningrad thingy as a "fourth Baltic State").

 

[theageofthetra]

Latvia

 

[Calthrop]

Latvia

That's him ! Your floor.

I wanted to provide a link, but the attempt failed. If one Googles "Latvia Tk class 2-2-2T locomotive": informative item a few "hits" down, with the heading "References and acknowledgements - Locomotives". (I was a bit mistaken upthread: class introduced 1928, not '31.)

 

[theageofthetra]

Just seen a few pics of that loco- bonkers for as late as the 20's!

Ok next question. Sentinel were best know for their small vertical boilered 0-4-0 shunting locos. In conjunction with North British a 2-2-2-2 tender loco was built for a railway abroad which had a conventional boiler and two Sentinel 'steam motors' driving an axle each. Unlike most of the Sentinels it looked like a conventional locomotive other than the obvious lack of connecting rods.

It operated passenger and freight services

Which country was it built for and what was the specific reason the purchasing railway chose this design (it didn't actually perform the design brief)

 

[martinsh]

Well I know Sentinel supplied steam railcars to Egypt, so I'm going to guess that. As for the reason, something to do with the desert conditions ?

Open floor if correct - I'm off to the land of Tk 2-2-2 tanks tomorrow !

 

[theageofthetra]

Correct on both counts. The sand still found its way into the steam motors and actually made wear worse. So open floor.

 

[TheEdge]

Which UK rail "personality" has had a relatively recent (last 10 years) song named after them?

 

[Cowley]

I'm going to take a guess at Chris Green? Although I can't think of one.

 

[krus_aragon]

I found myself thinking of the title song from "Oh, Dr Beeching!", as sung by Su Pollard, but that's 20 years ago.

 

[TheEdge]

That depressing moment when I realise the song I am thinking of as being fairly recent was released on an EP in 2006.

Cowley[/i] is totally wrong, krus_aragon is a lot closer if not for the time being out...

 

[DaleCooper]

Is it something by Elvis Gresley?